The old MacBook Air was hamstrung by a slow, dual-core processor. The two big improvements the M1 brings are in battery life and performance. In addition to the M1 chip, you can configure up to 16GB of RAM and up to a 2TB SSD. Despite not increasing the price of the laptop, this M1 chip brings a few major advantages to the MacBook Air, making it the perfect laptop for college students. Like the latest MacBook Pro and Mac Mini, the MacBook Air now runs on Apple’s own silicon, the M1 chip.
It might not look any different, but the most recent MacBook Air is a huge departure from the Macs of recent years. Who it’s for: College students and Apple fans. Why you should buy this: It’s the best laptop for college students and the best MacBook for 2021. Read our in-depth Dell XPS 13 review Apple MacBook Air M1 Riley Young/Digital Trends We recently reviewed very competitive rivals like the HP Spectre x360 14 and Razer Book 13, but still found the XPS 13 to be the best option. It all adds up to what is undoubtedly the best laptop you can buy.
The upcoming 2021 update even provides an option for an OLED 4K screen.
The XPS 13 starts out with a Core i3-1115G4, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD), and a Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) display and can be configured with a faster Core i7-1185G7, up to 32GB of RAM, up to 2TB of storage, and the OLED display. It’s just as powerful and long-lasting as before, not sacrificing function over form. That update of the Dell XPS 13 also received a larger keyboard and touchpad, making use of every possible surface of the device. The result is a larger screen without needing a larger overall laptop, another trend that many other laptops have come to copy. The latest XPS 13 made the screen larger using a 16:10 aspect ratio, all while shrinking the bottom bezel. In its newest iteration, which was updated in 2020, Dell’s taken things even further. It started the race to thinner bezels back in 2015, which has now spread to every gadget that has a screen.
No laptop in the past few years has been more influential than the XPS 13. Who it’s for: Almost everyone unless you have a specific need such as gaming or video editing. Why you should buy this: It’s the best overall laptop you can buy in 2021. Our pick for the best overall laptop, the Dell XPS 13, is the option we recommend to most people, but something from the list below should suit your needs. But to earn the crown for “best laptop” in 2021, it needs to have it all: Gorgeous design, killer performance, a productive keyboard, long-lasting battery life, and much more.Įach of the laptops below has been vetted thoroughly, whether it’s an affordable Chromebook or a decked-out gaming laptop. We’ve tested and reviewed well over 400 laptops over the years, searching for the best of the best.