If you just want a great laptop to do everyday laptop tasks, you should get an ultrabook. By definition, ultrabooks are powerful, thin-and-light laptops with long battery life, which means many of them are good—but not all of them are worth buying. After testing hundreds of laptops over the past eight years and testing 22 ultrabooks so far in 2022, we’ve found that the HP Spectre x360 13.5″ with 16 GB of memory is the best Windows ultrabook for most people.
Recommended configuration
| Processor: | Intel Core i5-1235U | Screen: | 13.5-inch 1920×1280 touch |
| Memory: | 16 GB | Weight: | 3.01 pounds |
| Storage: | 512 GB SSD | Tested battery life: | 14 hours |
The HP Spectre x360 13.5″ has exceptional battery life combined with fast performance, a spacious screen, a quality keyboard and trackpad, and the best webcam we tested this year. It also has a 360-degree hinge that allows you to flip the touch display all the way around to use the device as a tablet (or in any intermediate position), and it comes with an active stylus. We recommend upgrading to the configuration with 16 GB of memory, and if the white backlight on silver keys bothers you, swap to the blue or black model instead. The Spectre x360 isn’t as light or as compact as some of our other picks, but at 3 pounds, it’s still portable enough. It does ship with an excessive amount of bloatware, but that’s easy enough to uninstall when the laptop first arrives.
Recommended configuration
| Processor: | Intel Core i7-1255U | Screen: | 13.3-inch 1920×1080 touch |
| Memory: | 16 GB | Weight: | 2.56 pounds |
| Storage: | 512 GB SSD | Tested battery life: | 11.5 hours |
If our top pick is unavailable, the next best option is the Samsung Galaxy Book2 360. Like the Spectre x360, the Galaxy Book2 360 offers fast performance, a reliable keyboard and trackpad, and a 360-degree hinge that allows you to use the laptop in various positions. It’s also notably lighter and more compact than our top pick. But its smaller, shorter display isn’t as suited for productivity as the Spectre x360’s 3:2 aspect ratio screen, its battery doesn’t last as long, and its webcam isn’t great.
We recommend the Galaxy Book2 360 with a Core i7-1255U and 16 GB of memory, but if you’re working with a limited budget and you see the Core i5 model with 8 GB of RAM on sale for cheaper than our budget pick, go for it. The only reason the lower-specced model isn’t our budget pick is that it regularly costs more.
Recommended configuration
| Processor: | Intel Core i5-1240P | Screen: | 14-inch 2880×1800 OLED non-touch |
| Memory: | 8 GB | Weight: | 3.06 pounds |
| Storage: | 256 GB SSD | Tested battery life: | 10.5 hours |
If you want a great ultrabook but don’t have a thousand dollars to spend, we recommend the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED. The Zenbook 14 won’t perform as well for as many years as the Spectre x360, and it’s not upgradable. Compared with our top pick, its webcam is lower quality, its battery life is about four hours shorter, and it lacks a touchscreen. But the Zenbook 14 is still portable and powerful enough to use for a full day of work or classes. Unlike many cheap ultrabooks, the Zenbook 14 is sturdy, equipped with a fingerprint reader, and bundled with a USB-C charger. Its touchpad can also double as a number pad, which is a fun bonus.
Recommended configuration
| Processor: | Intel Core i5-1240P | Screen: | 13.5-inch 2256×1504 non-touch |
| Memory: | 8 GB or 16 GB | Weight: | 2.9 pounds |
| Storage: | 256 GB SSD | Tested battery life: | 9 hours |
Most ultrabooks are not designed to be repairable or upgradable, but if you want a more sustainable option, we recommend the Framework Laptop. It’s really easy to repair and upgrade, which means you can make the laptop last longer without replacing the whole thing, theoretically saving you money and creating less e-waste over the years. But this promise depends on Framework continuing to exist and supply parts. If the company goes under, then the Framework Laptop is just like any other laptop when it wears out—you’ll have to replace the whole thing. So far the company is off to a great start, having launched with 11th-gen Intel processors in 2021 and followed through with mainboard upgrades for 12th-gen processors in 2022.
The Framework is an excellent laptop—it’s sturdy, surprisingly thin and light for how modular its design is, and it has a reliable keyboard and trackpad and a bright and spacious display. Compared with our top pick, the Framework Laptop has hours-less battery life—though you can replace the battery in a few years when it wears out, unlike our other picks—and its webcam isn’t quite as flattering. We recommend adding another 8 GB of memory to the base model of the Framework Laptop. If you want the full experience of putting your laptop together, you can choose from a wider variety of parts with the DIY Edition.
| Processor: | Intel Core i5-1235U | Screen: | 14-inch 1920×1200 non-touch |
| Memory: | 16 GB | Weight: | 2.5 pounds |
| Storage: | 512 GB SSD | Tested battery life: | 13 hours |
The 14-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 is the best laptop we’ve tested in the past few years—and it costs several hundred dollars more than most people should pay for an ultrabook. But spending more gets you a lighter laptop with a stellar keyboard, larger screen, and more useful array of ports, including two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and an HDMI port. It comes with a fingerprint reader and a handy webcam cover, too, and its battery lasts nearly as long as the HP Spectre x360’s.
