The best lightweight laptops offer a brilliant balance of portability and processing power. Recent advancements in computing power and battery life make these slimline devices much more practical than they used to be.
This particular category of laptops has grown rapidly, meaning it can be pretty hard to choose the perfect lightweight laptop for your needs. That’s where we come in. We’ve included a range of laptops that have impressed our reviewers, with our current top pick being the ASUS ProArt PX13.
In addition to performance, we’ve considered the design and value for money of each laptop, and have made sure to include options at a wide range of price points to accommodate everyone from students on a budget to hybrid workers. If you are studying, our list of the best laptops for students should be your next port of call, and if you're a graphic design pro you'll want the best laptops for graphic design.
Quick list
If you're looking for a quick breakdown of the best options available, then we've compiled this quick list for you that gives you a quick-fire breakdown of your options with links to jump down to read more below.
Lightweight (obviously) and absolutely rammed with cutting-edge features, the ASUS ProArt PX13 is the laptop to beat right now if you're looking for something portable. It benefits from an Nvidia GPU, and you even get a stylus thrown in the box too. Read more below
The ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED is the full package for hybrid workers, offering superb performance that makes it capable of intensive editing work, as well as a wonderful screen, all of which is wrapped up in an extremely portable and light design. Read more below
The MacBook Air M3 is a wonderful pick for those that need a do-it-all laptop, with excellent specs from battery life to performance, all packed in a super-skinny shell. It's pricey, but at least until the M4 it's pretty future-proofed Read more below
Offering best-in-class versatility, Dell's XPS 13 2-in-1 is a perfect choice for those who want a powerful lightweight laptop that can do it all. Offering dual tablet and laptop use, and some powerful specs to boot, it's a top pick. Read more below
If a large screen is near the very top of your wish list in a lightweight laptop then the Asus Zenbook S 16 has to be in contention with its 16-inch display, sleek design, and capable specs. Read more below
Offering excellent bang-for-buck value, the Lenovo Pad P12 is a great 2-in-1 Android device with an optional detachable keyboard. This new version also has a paperlike matte display that's fantastic for drawing and writing on with a stylus. Read more below
A superb pick for businesses, the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra offers great battery life, a bright AMOLED screen and impressive performance across a range of tasks. All this comes in a sleek package, weighing 1.86kg – heavier than others on this list, but still light. Read more below
Somewhat unbelievably, the Huawei Matebook X Pro (2024) comes in at just under a kilogram of weight, which seems wild considering it's got some spectacular specs and features within its small frame and tiny weight. A great pick for business particularly. Read more below
A superb bit of gaming kit for those who like to pay on the go, the ASUS ROG Flow Z13 is an ingenious bit of tech that can offer excellent gaming performance in a relatively lightweight chassis. Read more below
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Not only is the ASUS ProArt PX13 lightweight and portable, tipping the scales at just 1.38kg, but it's also somehow absolutely stuffed with features. Gone are the days where we had to choose one or the other – now, a lightweight laptop can come packing an AMD processor powering the latest AI features, as well as a powerful Nvidia GPU. Not bad – and to sweeten the deal for creatives, ASUS even throws a stylus into the box, too.
The laptop performed capably in our battery of benchmark tests, achieving scores comparable to laptops that are significantly more expensive (not to mention larger). Ryzen's chip means the ProArt PX13 flies at pretty much any creative task you deign to give it. The rich OLED screen is a pleasure to use even for long periods – though one thing to be aware of is that the battery life isn't the best. It clocked in just over three and a half hours in our tests, so you'll need a charger for a full day of work.
The ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED is our top choice for the best lightweight laptops on the market this year. It's not just one of the smallest and lightest laptops I've ever used, but also hugely impressive when it comes to performance. It's on par with bulkier and heavier rivals (such as the Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Air), and the super-sharp 2.8K screen feels much bigger than it is and is a joy to look at and work on.
Extreme thinness comes at a price, though, so video-editing and 3D work will be best left to bigger bricks, but for portability and all-around performance, the Zenbook S 13 OLED is just about unbeatable right now.
Screen: 13.6-inch (diagonal) 2,880 x 1,864 pixels LED-backlit display with IPS technology
Storage: 256GB – 2TB SSD
Weight: 1.51kg
Reasons to buy
+
Plenty of power
+
Enormous battery life
+
Thin and light
Reasons to avoid
-
Pricey
-
Limited screen connection
-
No Thunderbolt 4
The Apple MacBook Air (M3, 2024) is a fantastic thin and light laptop, building on much of what we loved about the M2, 2022 model, and comes in both 13-inch or 15-inch sizes depending on your preferences.
It's faster, utilizing clever Dynamic Caching technology to optimize the GPU performance, making it a stellar performer when faced with almost any task – at this point, we're not surprised when it comes to Apple Silicon, but it's still leagues ahead of what many thin and light laptops can offer.
Best of all, the MacBook Air (M2, 2022)'s battery life is amazing, lasting 15 hours comfortably during our tests (though Apple claims up to 18 hours is possible). So, you can work on this throughout the day without worrying about being plugged into a power source.
It's not worth upgrading from the M2 to the M3, if you already have one; the gap between the two models isn't really worth it for the price difference, which is conversely a pretty huge jump. However, if you're currently using an M1 (or older) Macbook Air, the M3 is the best bet for a future-proofed laptop. It's worth checking out both the M1 and the M2 if the M3 model is too pricey for your budget. Find out more in our full MacBook Air (M3, 2024) review.
The Dell XPS 13 9315 is an excellent choice for anyone who wants a powerful and portable laptop that can do it all. It's thin and light enough to easily carry around, and with enough power to handle even most tasks, it’s ideal for students, business professionals and creatives alike.
This machine is ideal for those who can’t choose between a traditional laptop or a tablet. The keyboard is fully detachable, so if you want to use it in tablet mode, then the impressive 13-inch touchscreen display just pulls away. It also comes with a stylus, so is brilliant for taking notes, and creating digital art or graphic design. For more, read our Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 review.
With a 16-inch display, the Asus Zenbook S 16 gives you more display real estate than many of the other options on this list without adding too much weight. It only weighs 1.5kg, and also packs in AMD's Ryzen AI processor, enabling it to offer a raft of next-generation AI features and compete with the big boys. The design is sleek, with beautiful looks that help sell this as a premium machine.
The Asus Zenbook S 16 performed well in our Geekbench and Cinebench tests. It's not the best choice for graphics-intensive tasks like 3D modelling, but for general creative tasks it does excellently. We also found that it did particularly well for exporting video, so this may be one to consider for video editors. It's only really let down by the battery life, which is okay, but we found we wouldn't get through a day's work without needing a charge.
If you want something that's both super light and affordable, then the Lenovo Tab P12 is a great choice. It can be had with an optional detachable keyboard, so it's incredibly easy to carry around, and as it's an Android rather than Microsoft Windows device, it's much cheaper than most laptops.
This is a new version of a tablet that's a few years old. In something of a surprise move, Lenovo updated its Tab P12 model with a rather lovely paper-like matte display. This makes it one of the best lightweight 2-in-1 laptops for drawing, doodling and note-taking with a stylus.
Elsewhere, the specs are the same as they were before. It also boasts a huge 10,200mAh battery that will easily last all day with heavy use and multiple days with lighter use. You could even go away for a few days and not worry about bringing a charger. Power-wise,. it lags behind many of the other options on this list, but it's also significantly cheaper.
The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra is our choice for the best lightweight laptop for business. It's a little weightier than others on this list, but at 1.86kg still definitely qualifies as light. And on the inside, it's sporting powerful Intel and Nvidia chips, meaning it puts in the kind of high performance that business users are looking for.
In our performance tests, the Galaxy Book 4 Ultra stood up to most PCs, though lost out to the M3 MacBook Air in both the single- and multi-core Cinebench tests. However, thanks to that Nvidia GPU, it completely pasted the MacBook when it came to graphical tests.
The AMOLED screen looks great and offers highly customisable colour space settings. It provides a good deal of brightness too (we measured 393 nits). Also, the battery is capable of lasting up to 13 hours of constant use. While that's not the absolute best in class, it's plenty for a working day.
Slipping in just under the 1kg mark at 980g, the Huawei Matebook X Pro has been refreshed for 2024, and now comes sporting cutting-edge features like an AI-boosted Intel Core Ultra processor. It also features a sprightly-looking 14.2-inch OLED display which sports a somewhat unusual 3:2 aspect ratio. Still, more vertical real estate is hardly a bad thing.
The Huawei Matebook X Pro performed brilliantly in our benchmark tests – realistically, it's going to be absolutely fine for all but the most demanding of tasks involving advanced 3D rendering. Of course, the cuts had to come somewhere to keep the weight so low, and the selection of ports is pretty limited. Three USB-C ports and that's your lot. They are at least Thunderbolt 4, so you get plenty of speed, but you might want to consider a USB dock if you have a few peripherals.
Graphics: Up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU
RAM: Up to 16GB
Screen: Up to 13.4-inch QHD+ 2560 x 1600 touch screen
Storage: Up to 1TB SSD
Weight: 1.18kg
Reasons to buy
+
Makes gaming tablets a reality
+
Fantastic build and features
+
Super versatile and portable
Reasons to avoid
-
ROG XG Mobile connection feels fragile
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Expensive for the specs
Okay, so we're kind of cheating by including the Asus ROG Flow Z13. Without its keyboard folio, it's just 1.2kg, but with it, the weight bumps up to 1.53kg. So it's not quite as light and portable as some of the others included in this list.
That said, it's an excellent piece of kit for gamers on-the-go. So much so that it even ranks among the best gaming laptops we've tested, despite its lightweight nature.
It does, however, suffer from slightly weaker performance than some of its competition. Still, with the ROG Flow Z13, Asus is taking the 2-in-1 form factor in gaming to new heights. It's superbly built, and on-test we were impressed by the quality, though we wished it was a little more ergonomic. Read our full Asus ROG Flow Z13 review for more details.
Dell Precision 5470 The Dell Precision 5470 is its smallest mobile workstation, which sets it apart from the competition. It offers top-quality build and incredible battery life, all packed into a slim 14-inch design – though it's not as good for graphics-intensive tasks. Read our 4.5-star review
Acer Swift AI As the name implies, this laptop has gone all-in on AI features. This means not only do you get Copilot+, but also Recall, Cocreator and Live Captions. It's a lot crammed into a lightweight laptop, but for AI enthusiasts, it might be just the thing. Read our 3.5-star review
ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) This has what we reckon is downright the best display on any laptop right now – a gorgeous OLED screen that's brilliant, bright and sharp. It puts in a good shift performance-wise too, and benefits from an AI Boost NPU. Read our 4.5-star review
FAQs
What's the best lightweight laptop?
The best lightweight laptop for you is going to depend on a variety of factors. If you're a student and are just looking for something cheap and easy to use that you can stash away between home, lectures and the library, you'll be perfectly happy with the Surface Laptop Go 2 or the Acer Swift 3, which are cost-effective and capable machines.
If you're looking for something powerful and highly capable, you're looking at the Dell XPS 13 or the MacBook Air (M3, 2024), which come with much higher price tags to account for the greater capabilities.
Ultimately, your best bet is to identify what needs you have in a new laptop, whether it's value, performance and speed, storage, design or even software, and use resources like our buying guides to help you make the most informed decision you can.
Can lightweight laptops be powerful?
The short answer is yes, absolutely. However, it can sometimes come at a cost. Take, for example, the MacBook Air (M3, 2024), which is one of our favourite laptops on this list. While the M3 chip makes for a powerful MacBook Air model and its tiny frame houses an incredibly impressive component set, it can't fit fans, so it can become very hot after sustained use - and the value for money doesn't quite add up when you consider how similar it is to the M2.
Your experience with a powerful laptop is always going to be better with a larger, heavier machine, but if you need something more portable, we're confident some of our top picks can take you there.
What's the benefit of a lightweight laptop?
Lightweight laptops are supremely portable and great for running small to medium-sized tasks when you're away from your desk. If you frequently move between home and your office, school or local café, it's likely you'd be able to appreciate a smaller, easier to carry machine.
With technology advancements allowing for ever-smaller but still powerful machines, lightweight laptops have become an increasingly viable option for students, businesses and creatives alike to help support more flexible and varied work and life.
How do we test
In terms of performance, testing a lightweight laptop is the same as any other. CPU, GPU and storage performance are all in the mix. That said, expectations are different with thinner and lighter laptops.
They tend to use low voltage CPUs for starters. But if there's any component that has to be compromised for smaller form factors, it's the graphics chip. Some thin and light laptops do have dedicated graphics. But even then, it typically won't be the most powerful Nvidia or AMD mobile GPU, they simply aren't compatible with the limited thermal capacity of the smallest laptops.
Storage, however, is different, even the thinnest and lightest laptops are typically compatible with fast NVMe SSDs. Those core specs aside, we assess screen quality, features including connectivity, ergonomics including keyboard and track pack, and build quality. Last but not least, we test for battery life under multiple scenarios from light use to video playback.
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Josephine Watson (@JosieWatson) is an experienced tech journalist with experience writing on a variety of topics from pop culture to gaming and even the energy industry. She is the Managing Editor of Lifestyle on CreativeBloq's sister site, TechRadar, overseeing the Lifestyle vertical (Cameras, Home and Wellness) and How-To's, where she can be found writing across multiple channels including computing, software, homes and gaming.
