We went hands-on with more than a dozen laptops at this year’s CES, and these are our absolute favorites across nine categories from Asus, Alienware, Dell, Lenovo, and more.
Now that the 57th CES has all but wrapped up in Las Vegas, we return to the age-old practice of throwing everything we saw into the figurative Thunderdome. Which laptops came out on the tippy top among everything? You’ll have to visit our broader Best of CES 2024 list for that, but for a taste of our top picks and even more, we also developed a list of our favorite laptops.
This year, we’ve seen Intel and AMD power the first-ever laptops with onboard local AI processing silicon inside. We also got hands-on with some intriguing dual-screen and even dual-interface 2-in-1 laptops, to name a few. These are the nine best laptops of CES 2024.Best Ultraportable LaptopDell XPS 14
We see iterative updates to the XPS line each year across its various sizes, but few generational jumps are as transformative as this. New 14- and 16-inch sizes have joined the lineup (in addition to the existing 13-inch model), but even that rare occurrence is secondary to the entirely refreshed design. The Dell XPS 14 adopts the styling of the XPS 13 Plus, meaning an invisible seamless touchpad, a flush end-to-end keyboard, and an LED function row. It looks incredibly slick, and on top of that, Intel’s new Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” processors and their onboard neural processing units are powering these systems, ready to tackle local AI tasks.—Matthew Buzzi, Senior AnalystBest Content Creation LaptopAsus Zenbook Duo (2024)
The Duo series itself is not new, but this format looks like the best yet. Past Duo efforts have utilized either two differently sized screens, or one big folding display, but this 2024 model features twin 14-inch OLED screens and a built-in kickstand for maximum versatility. You can set them stacked vertically, flip it side-by-side like a book, or cover the bottom panel with a detachable keyboard to use it like a traditional laptop. The 3K OLED screens look flashy with a 120Hz refresh rate, opening this system to a wide range of users. Furthermore, the Intel Core Ultra processors—all the way up to an Ultra 9 chip here—back up the idea that you can get serious work done on this innovative machine.—Matthew Buzzi, Senior AnalystBest Gaming LaptopAlienware m16 R2
We gave the Alienware m16 four stars last year, and the m16 R2 promises to build on its strengths.
