You will have to fork over a lot of money to get a great laptop. It's not certain. There are a lot of good laptops available. It can be hard to find the right laptop for your needs, but we have put together a list of some of the best deals available right now.

We will give you more clarity during your shopping journey by sharing each discounted model's best features and drawbacks. If you need to do more research, you can check out our guides to the best laptops on the market.

Best Laptop 2022: Apple MacBook Air M1
The 2020 version of the MacBook Air is the best laptop you can buy.
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Macbook Air (M2 model)

We think the newest MacBook Air with Apple's M2 processor is the best laptop for most people because of its all-day battery life and other features. The new MacBook is powerful enough that it can handle demanding photo and video editing applications, as well as light gaming. Thanks to Apple's new M2 chip, it's faster and has a better camera than the M1 model. Features like MagSafe charging and Touch ID remain, even though it is lighter and portable.

There is one area in which Apple's M1 model is better than the others. The base M2 MacBook Air is slower than the previous model because it is stored in a single chip. The included display notch on both the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros makes it more difficult to use the menu bar.

MacBook Air (M1 model)

The base MacBook Air with the M1 chip is the best cheap laptop for most people. Everything you need is offered by it. It's faster than most Windows laptops at this price point, and handles demanding photo and video editing apps like Adobe Premiere with care, especially compared to its Intel- powered predecessors. All that power doesn't affect battery life. We played Shadow of the Tomb Raider and it lasted between eight and ten hours.

The laptop has many nice features, including a comfortable keyboard and an excellent trackpad. If a high-resolutionWebcam is important to you, you may want to buy one separately. Due to the limitations of the M1 chip, you can only use one display at a time and port selection is limited.

Best Laptops 2020: Apple MacBook Air (late 2020)

13-inch MacBook Pro (M2 model)

At the moment, the MacBook Pro lineup consists of the newer 14- and 16-inch models, as well as the 13-inch MacBook Pro that just received a revision with the M2 processor.

Similar to the M2 MacBook Air, the new MacBook Pro is geared towards more demanding use cases. It has an M2 processor, which is more powerful than the M2 Air, but still has an excellent fan and good performance. One of its more impressive features is the ability to use it for up to 18 hours on a single charge. The laptop still suffers from the same outdated design from 2016 as well as a mediocre 720pWebcam. There is no MagSafe charging and you only get a couple of ports.

The MacBook Pro 13 2022 open on a transparent stand. The screen displays a pink and purple desktop background.

14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro (M1 Pro models)

If you want to spend more money for faster performance, you can upgrade to an M1 Max processor from the new MacBook Pros. There's a lot of ports to choose from, including multiple Thunderbolt 4 ports and a MagSafe power connection. The laptops we have tested have some of the longest- lasting batteries we have ever tested.

Best Laptop 2022: ThinkPad X1 Nano
Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Nano is a great laptop for business travelers because it is so lightweight.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano

The lightest version of the ThinkPad is the X1 Nano, and it still has great performance in a light package. It is ideal for business travel due to its exceptional build quality and security features. We liked the 16:10 display and the physical privacy shutter, but we wish there were more ports and the battery life was not as good. The company is selling something right now.

Best Laptop 2022: Lenovo Yoga 9i
Lenovo’s Yoga 9i is an excellent multimedia entertainment laptop.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Lenovo Yoga 9i

The Yoga 9i is our favorite laptop. The speakers on the convertible are the best we have ever heard for a laptop this large. A built-in stylus and a battery life that will last all day are some of the perks that come with it. It comes with a lot of bloatware that can be difficult to uninstall, and we found the screen to be small and dim.

A lot of configurations of the Yoga 9i are being taken off. You can buy the model equipped right now.

Best Cheap Laptop 2022: HP Pavilion Aero 13
HP’s Pavilion Aero 13 is a great budget-friendly Windows laptop.
Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge

LG Gram 15

LG Gram 15

$799.99-38% off

One of our top picks for the best lightweight laptop in 2022. It is easy to carry and has a backlit keyboard.

HP Pavilion Aero 13

Do you need a budget friendly laptop? The Pavilion Aero 13 is a great choice. It is lighter, thinner, and more portable than HP's Envy x360 13 and still has good performance. It has a more vertically-spacious 16:10 screen that is bright for a laptop in this price range. It has a better battery life than HP's Envy x360 13, but it does come with a lot of bloatware, and its speakers aren't very good.

You can buy a laptop with 16 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage for less than the price of a similar one from HP. The model we tested was more powerful than the one this model comes with.

The HP Pavilion Aero 13 open on a red picnic table with a playground in the background. The screen displays a black desktop background with a multicolored cloud in the center.

The Acer Aspire 5 half open from above.
The Acer Aspire 5 features an excellent backlit keyboard.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Acer Aspire 5

The budget-friendly laptop that's worth considering is the ACER ASPIRE 5. The 15.6-inch laptop doesn't offer Thunderbolt support, but it does have a wide port selection that includes oneUSB 3.1 Type-C Gen1, twoUSB 3.1 Gen1, oneUSB 2.0, oneHDMI 2.0, and a power port. The affordable laptop has a sound quality that punches above its weight class, a backlit keyboard that is comfortable to use, and an affordable price.

There are tradeoffs. The battery life of the Intel model we tested was only around five hours. The sheer width of the laptop makes it difficult to carry in a backpack. If you only need a laptop for work, that's fine.