Spurred on by slimmer display bezels and a move away from the traditional 16:9 aspect ratio, the trend toward 14-inch laptops threatens the popularity of 13-inch and 15-inch laptops. The folks at Laptop Mag say “Bring it on.” So long as they have thin display bezels, 14-inch laptops can be the size of a traditional 13-inch laptop, offering the portability needed when going to work or going on long business trips. If you want a portable laptop but aren’t certain you need a 14-inch display, see our best Ultrabooks page. Some of the systems on this list are great for school but we have a separate best college laptops list that will meet every need. For now, the category with the most 14-inch laptops is business. If those on this list don’t work for you (perhaps you need more power), our best business laptops page has a range of options. CES 2023 is in full swing, and the biggest laptop brands are showing off their latest notebooks with next-gen specs. Speaking of, you’ll want to check out the world’s thinnest laptop: the LG Gram Ultraslim. Keep an eye out for the biggest laptops coming out in 2023 making their way onto this list. From the powerful Huawei MateBook X Pro and HP Spectre x360 14 to the brilliant budget Asus Chromebook Flip C434, check out the list below.
The best 14-inch laptops in 2023
No matter what your configuration, the MacBook Pro 14 is in a class of its own. The laptop retains its stunning good looks, powerful speakers, high-resolution camera, and comfortable keyboard. But the real stars of this story are the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, which bring even more power and efficiency to the table. True to its word, the M2 Pro and Max MacBooks consistently outperform their predecessors as well as the Intel-powered competition. And if that wasn’t enough Apple is finally addressing the gaming issue, teaming with Capcom to make its case with a port of Resident Evil Village that played just as well as if it were PC or console. If you’re looking to upgrade on any of the components, you’ll definitely pay a pretty penny for the privilege. But for the Mac faithful (and curious Windows shoppers) that want to work, play, create and everything in between, you’ll be hard pressed to find something better than the MacBook Pro 14 M2 Pro or Max. See our full M2 Pro MacBook Pro review. The Huawei MateBook X Pro is one of the best 14-inch laptops you can buy today — providing convenience that the Dell XPS 13 Plus omits and standing up to the M2 MacBook Air with a gorgeous display, 12th Gen Intel power, fantastic touchpad and keyboard, and a seriously sleek design. Sure, the battery life is a little lacking and the 720p webcam is pretty poor, but it overwhelmingly nails the essentials of an ultra-productive ultraportable with 12th Gen Intel power, a stunning touchscreen display, an ergonomic keyboard, a brilliantly spacious trackpad, and better speakers than you could ever imagine in a laptop this small — all enclosed in sleek, sexy chassis. It even blows the M2 MacBook Air and Dell XPS 13 Plus out of the water in performance, with a jaw-dropping Geekbench 5.4 multi-core score of 11,142. Unfortunately, there is no direct availability (or support) in the U.S., but those in the U.K. and Europe can get their hands on it. If you can, you should, as it’s one of the best laptops you can get. See our full Huawei Matebook X Pro (2022) review The Spectre x360 14 is the best 14-inch laptop on the market for everyday consumers. We reviewed the 2021 model, but it’s now made even better with 12th Gen Intel CPUs. The 13.5-inch model builds upon its predecessors but adds useful new features including a 3:2 aspect ratio display and 21th Gen Intel CPUs with Iris Xe graphics. Highlights of this laptop include a stunning design, bright and vivid 1920 x 1280-pixel IPS and 3K2K OLED display options, epic 12+ hour battery life, and fast overall performance. Add to that a generously sized touchpad that is silky to the touch as well as a comfortable (albeit shallow) keyboard, excellent security options (fingerprint sensor and facial recognition) and a good selection of ports, and well, it’s easy to see why we like this laptop so much. Not only is it the best 14-inch laptop, but the Spectre x360 14 is the best laptop if you want a convertible notebook, period. Sure, it has a few faults, but those are easily forgotten once you get this beauty in your hands. See our HP Spectre x360 14 review The refreshed Acer Swift 5 comes with a new 12th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU that outperforms its rivals. It also has a sharp, alluring and bright 2.5K display. As a cherry on top, it has a refined, sophisticated design scheme and a lightweight chassis — I mean, what’s not to love? The last-gen Swift 5, packed with an 11th Gen Intel CPU, blew us out of the water with its 13-hour battery life, stellar performance, attractive design, and palatable price tag. Now, the current-gen Swift 5 is $200 more, but the minor price hike is worth it. It’s got a faster SSD, zippier performance, impressive video transcoding, breakneck file-transfer speeds — and it still manages to be lightweight and pleasing to the eye with an attractive dark-green-and-gold color scheme. See our full Acer Swift 5 (2022) review Asus is no stranger to the favored 14-inch form factor, so it’s no surprise that the Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip OLED is a delight to use. Sure, this 2-in-1 laptop boasts a flexible, eye-catching design and a choice between an all-AMD or Intel configuration with promising processing power (on paper), but the spotlight shines brightest on its price: around $679/£649. Talk about being competitive. This is a budget laptop, through and through, but it’s the classiest one at that. At its most basic configuration, with an AMD Ryzen 5 CPU, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB SSD, it’s a 14-inch, 2-in-1 laptop that’s hard to beat at its $680 price point. What’s more, it’s hard not to admire its simplistic yet premium-looking design. But the more powerful it gets under the hood, the more value it loses. Its keyboard and touchpad aren’t up to scratch to contend with premium-built laptops, and its 14-inch OLED display doesn’t shine like that of a high-end 14-inch laptop. Keep this cheap, however, and you’re getting a convincing deal. See our full Asus Vivobook S 14 Flip OLED review Lenovo made several welcome changes to the 9th Gen edition of its flagship business model. On top of fast performance from 11th Gen Intel CPUs, you get epic battery life, powerful quad speakers, a new 14-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, and plenty of ports, all in an impossibly lightweight chassis (2.5 pounds). But it’s still those classic ThinkPad features — a durable design (with MIL-STD-810G strength), best-in-class keyboard and stealthy black/red aesthetics — that carry the X1 Carbon to greatness. Yes, we wish the ThinkPad X1 Carbon hadn’t ditched the SD card reader in the previous, and top configurations can get very expensive, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a better overall business machine. See our full Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 (Gen 9) review Acer Chromebook Spin 713 are among the best Chromebooks on the market due to its 11-hour battery life. We prefer that laptops last at least 8 hours to endure an entire day at school or work, but the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 exceeds our 8-hour minimum. The Acer Chromebook Spin 713 won a spot on the best Chromebooks list for its colorful and bright display, speedy performance and versatile form factor. And, get this, it won’t cost you more than $700 to snag this Chromebook. For high school and college students seeking an inexpensive, portable and durable laptop, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 is certainly one of the best Chromebooks they could choose for their everyday device. Read our full review of the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 Meet the Alienware x14 R1, first of its name. This slim stunner marks Alienware’s first entry into the 14-inch space and, as usual, it’s doing things in grand fashion. At 0.57-inches, it’s one of the thinnest gaming laptops on the market. And while it’s absolutely adorable, it’s packing enough high-end specs to please most gamers including a 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake processor and an Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU. Plus, it’s got plenty of pick up thanks to a ridiculously fast SSD. We expected a more vivid display and better battery life, but the Alienware x14 R1 is a great choice for entry and mid-tier gamers. See our full Alienware x14 R1 review The successor to the excellent Yoga C940, the Lenovo Yoga 9i takes a proven formula and refines it. Subtle design improvements, long battery life (11:15) and refreshed 11th Gen Intel processors make the Yoga 9i a worthy successor to one of last year’s top 2-in-1 laptops. As you’d expect from a Yoga-series laptop, the Yoga 9i has a premium, ultra-portable chassis and a unique hinge that doubles as a rotating soundbar speaker. As a 2-in-1, that hinge can rotate 360-degrees to convert the Yoga 9i into a tablet or be placed in tent mode so you can watch movies without a keyboard in the way. When it comes to viewing content, the Yoga 9i’s 1080p (4K is available) display is crisp, vibrant and bright. For all the basics it gets right, my favorite things about the Yoga 9i are its extra features, which include a webcam cover (no more need to buy tape), a slot for the improved Active Pen and a fingerprint sensor. Unfortunately, there is no IR camera. The Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 is the latest iteration, and it’s also a fantastic option. See our Lenovo Yoga 9i review The EliteBook 840 G7 is one classy-looking 14-inch business notebook. But it’s more than just looks. It offers 9 hours and 23 minutes of battery life, an awesome keyboard, and, when you need it, a SureView privacy display to keep strangers from checking out your screen. There are also plenty of ports so you can ditch the dongles and top-firing speakers sound surprisingly good. Yes, the webcam isn’t the best, but that’s nothing an external solution can’t fix. Cheaper than most premium business laptops, the EliteBook 840 G5 comes with a 10th Intel Core i7 CPU, up to 64GB of RAM and up to a 1TB SSD. See our full HP EliteBook 840 G7 review If you’re looking for a great all-around laptop that’ll get you through the day, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon may be the notebook for you. For just $1,189, the IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon features powerful performance combined with a gorgeous 14-inch OLED display, Dolby Atmos speakers, and a comfortable keyboard. The only real flaw this machine has is its below-average battery life, but even that discrepancy is negligible. It still lasted close to 10 hours on a charge. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is a stellar laptop for the price and is a worthy purchase users will be delighted with. See our full Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon review The HP Envy 14 (2021) is the perfect laptop for many people. It has a powerful Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q GPU packed into a sleek aluminum chassis. Not to mention the vivid 14-inch, 1080p 16:10 display and more than 9 hours of battery life. The $1,249 price tag is too expensive for the components you get, especially when the SSD is lagging behind the average, and the speakers aren’t the best. Moreover, you can get better battery life from the Lenovo Yoga 9i and even more storage, but you would be paying a little extra and losing out on the discrete GPU. See our full HP Envy 14 review Asus’s latest Zenbook Pro 14 Duo features the world’s first 14.5-inch, 2.8K 120Hz OLED laptop display. Like its larger 15-inch variant, this is a beautifully built, wow-factor laptop for content creators that will grab everyone’s attention wherever you choose to set up shop for the day. However, you better be near an outlet if you plan to use both displays and get in a full day’s work. That said, packed with an Intel 12th Gen Core i7 CPU, Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti GPU, two gorgeous displays, and potent speakers, the Zenbook Pro Duo 14 has a lot going for it. The Pro Duo 14 also smartly comes with an excellent, highly accurate stylus that is a joy to use. However, there is the crowded keyboard, and thumb-sized touchpad to contend with, which will be a turn-off for some. Overall, it’s a perky performer which could make it perfect for on-the-go content creators who will put that stylus to good use. See our full Asus ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED review The Acer Swift 3 is an ultra-thin, sleek, silver, peppy performer meant to make your college-bound students transition to the next level of their education and life much smoother. At just 2.6 pounds, and less than an inch thick, the Swift 3 is lighter and smaller than most. Also, it’s an actual computer where you can get some serious work done thanks to its 11th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. With a 14-inch IPS FHD display, the Swift 3 is a fantastic choice. The Acer Swift 3 (2020, AMD) is also an excellent option, and it comes at a cheaper price than its Intel variation. Check out our Acer Swift 3 (2020, AMD) review for a better look. See our full Acer Swift 3 review Looking for a truly no-compromise laptop? You’d be hard-pressed to find a better option than the Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1. It does the miraculous by combining a high-resolution display that is both bright and vivid with long battery life — it’s a feat we very rarely see. Digging into the specifics, the Latitude has a 14-inch, 2560 x 1600-pixel 16:10 display and gets more than 15 hours of battery life. Those stats are just astounding. It endures for a full day despite having a powerful Intel Core i7-1185G7 CPU under the hood alongside 16GB of RAM and Iris Xe graphics. Business users will appreciate the extra security features including the fingerprint sensor and IR camera for facial recognition. The laptop is sturdy, having withstood military-grade durability tests, and has great sound quality. See our Dell Latitude 9420 2-in-1 review Microsoft has struck the right 2-in-1 balance. Instead of having a detachable lid like the Surface Book it replaces, or an attachable keyboard like the Surface Pro 8, the Surface Laptop Studio employs a unique hinge that allows the display to be pulled forward and positioned into different modes. Not only can the Surface Laptop Studio be transformed into a digital drawing board, but it does so without compromising the standard laptop mode. This flexibility, along with excellent performance and long battery life, makes the Surface Laptop Studio a compelling option for creative professionals. Add in a fantastic keyboard/touchpad combo, powerful speakers, and a 1080p webcam, and the Surface Laptop Studio finds its place as one of the best 2-in-1 laptops. See our full Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio review While the 9th Gen model now takes the cake, the 8th Gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon is still among the best around. On top of delivering fast performance, you get long battery life (on the 1080p model) and two gorgeous, 14-inch, 1080p and 4K display options, all in an impossibly lightweight chassis (2.4 pounds). But it’s still those classic ThinkPad features — a durable design (with MIL-STD-810G strength), best-in-class keyboard and stealthy black/red aesthetics — that carry the X1 Carbon to greatness. Yes, we wish the ThinkPad X1 Carbon had thinner bezels and hadn’t ditched the SD card reader, and top configurations can get very expensive, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a better overall business machine. See our full Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 (8th Gen) review There are no two ways around it: the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition is a cool laptop. The visual language is unlike anything else you’ll see in 2022, the ergonomic usability is fantastic and the power under the hood is enough to tackle even more intensive workloads. An aesthetic fit for anyone enamored with space exploration, it boasts a 16:10 OLED touchscreen display with a 2.8K resolution, 12th Gen Intel power, DDR5 RAM and all the premium touches you expect from an upmarket Asus system. It’s a great system and if you like the space aesthetic, it’s worth the money. But don’t forget that you can get (most of) the same package for a cheaper price in the standard ZenBook 14X OLED. See our full Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition review
How we test laptops
We put 14-inch laptops through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers and heat management. In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and sRGB color gamut of the laptop’s display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 5.0 and 3DMark professional graphics tests. To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Dirt 3 benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution. Gaming laptops go through an entire library of games at high settings to see how their discrete GPUs keep up. We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 10 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is considered a good result whereas gaming laptops and workstations that can stay powered for longer than 5 hours deserve praise. These tests are complemented with extensive hands-on testing from our reviewers who critique everything from the laptop’s materials to the feel of its touchpad.
