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Looking for a New Laptop? Check Out These 5 Options

Top Rated Laptops

Laptops are now keeping up with traditional desktop computers. 2018 was a great year for mobile computing, and quad-core laptops nowadays are becoming cheaper and easier to find. Not only that, laptops these days also have great graphics for gaming and designing, they are more portable, have better battery life and some are even hybrids (meaning it is both a laptop that can be a tablet).

However, let’s be honest here: we do not want an expensive laptop for simple work like Excel or PowerPoint presentations. A simple tablet could be used for that.

This is a laptop buying guide; we have outlined some of the top-rated laptops that are currently available that are all great for multitasking and have received excellent reviews.

Huawei MateBook X Pro

It might surprise you that Huawei is now manufacturing laptops. Huawei is a Chinese telecommunications company headquartered in Shenzen, China. A Huawei laptop is a rare sight because most of their products are phones, routers and mobile hotspots. The Matebook X Pro makes your money worth it because it has the same quality as a Huawei mobile phone.

Matebook X Pro is durable, holds a full day of battery life, has a great processor (eighth generation Intel i7/i5) and it has the NVIDIA GeForce MX150, which is a perfect graphics card for gaming, video editing and entertainment. This top-rated laptop also comes with a pop-up webcam and a one-touch power button. It's sold for $1,499.99.

Pros:

  • Great design
  • Fantastic battery life
  • It’s a great all-around laptop

Cons:

  • No SD card slot
  • Item is limited in certain countries

MSI GS65 Stealth

MSI keeps proving that they are one of the best in the gaming industry. The GS65 is a must-have for gamers on the go. Unlike other gaming laptops, the GS65 is a 15-inch laptop with an ultra-thin bezel. The best features of GS65 include its VR readiness (thanks to NVIDIA GTX 1060). It also has enhanced audio, RGB customization, eighth generation Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM and a great cooling system.

The design is also in a league of its own, as the GS65 is only 0.69 inches thick! If you are a gamer and love to bring your laptop around with you, do not hesitate to buy this top-rated laptop. This is sold for $1,749.

Pros:

  • Excellent design and performance
  • Portable
  • Excellent thermal system

Cons:

  • Heats up quickly

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Sixth Gen)

Lenovo continues its tradition of manufacturing a simple, albeit pricey and powerful business laptops. The Lenovo Thinkpad has a 14-inch display with a variety of ports including a pair of thunderbolt connectors. Battery life and durability is not a problem with Lenovo laptops, especially their ThinkPad models. Unlike other regular laptops, ThinkPad has a small track pointer as its mouse. The processor is the latest eighth generation quad-Core Intel Kaby Lake-R, which is perfect for business tasks. It's sold for $1,860.

Pros:

  • Light and easy to carry around
  • Decent battery life

Cons:

  • A bit pricey

Microsoft Surface Book 2

The Microsoft Surface 2 is a great upgrade from its predecessor. The Surface 2 is not your typical two-in-one laptop. It has the latest eighth generation Intel Core i7 processor and basic gaming NVIDIA 1060. However, once it is disconnected from its keyboard, the Surface 2 Pro loses its gaming power and becomes a tablet. The tablet mode can be used with a Microsoft Pen Stylus (sold separately) for simple designs or drawings.

What makes the Surface 2 unique is its support for augmented reality (AR), as finding a laptop or a hybrid laptop that offers this feature is rare. The price, however, varies depending on its storage and RAM (8 gigabytes to 16 gigabytes and 256 gigabytes to 1 terabyte), but with its powerful specs, great design and battery life, the Surface 2 Pro is a must-have. This is sold for $1,966.

Pros:

  • Can be used as a tablet
  • Portable
  • Direct support from Microsoft

Cons:

  • No HDMI
  • A bit pricey

Samsung Chromebook Pro

Are you looking for a great, reliable laptop with a stylus for less than a $1,000? Then the Samsung Chromebook Pro is a perfect choice for you. This laptop may not offer the best graphics or processor, but thanks to the updated Chrome OS, it gets the job done.

The Samsung Chromebook Pro offers a simple design, decent battery life, lag-free performance and a built-in stylus. The best feature of this hybrid laptop is that it can turn into a tablet by flipping it sideways and it has a vast variety of apps that can be downloaded on Google Play. The downside of this hybrid laptop is that it only offers a limited hard-drive size (16GB), but it can be expanded with a micro SD card. It's sold for $593.

Pros:

  • Built-in pen
  • Has an SD card slot
  • Has a huge selection of apps

Cons:

  • Small hard drive and RAM