The best 15-inch laptops you can buy: Expert tested

The best 15-inch laptop in 2024 is the M3 Apple MacBook Air. Portable, powerful, and with a long-lasting battery, the MacBook Air M3 is a versatile workhorse you can throw in a bag and take anywhere you go. The M3's 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU are armed to take on almost anything you throw at it, and the entire package weighs just 2.7 pounds.

The best 15-inch laptop for you depends on what you want to get out of it. Laptops packed with powerful gaming hardware, like the Razer Blade 15, come with some high-end hardware, but the price inevitably goes up. In that case, it's only worth paying for a gaming laptop if you intend on using it for serious gaming. 

More well-rounded machines like the Dell XPS 15 or the MacBook Air M3 are better suited for users looking for a "jack of all trades" machine. 

We use a combination of methods to test laptops here at ZDNET. First, we acquire data from benchmarking software to analyze a system's metrics under the hood, and compare those to advertised numbers. Then, we spend an extended amount of time with the laptop (usually a week or two) using it the same way a normal consumer would in order to analyze its portability, form factor, and how well the battery actually holds up, among others. For an extensive breakdown, check out our comprehensive laptop testing methodology.

• Benchmarking: First, we run a series of tests to put the computer's hardware through the wringer in order to see what it's capable of. Cinebench is one of the most commonly-used hardware testing suites, which tests the laptop's rendering performance on single and multiple CPU cores. PCMark 10 is another powerful program that covers a wide variety of tasks performed in the workplace, and there are many others that we use in tandem to gather as much data as we can. Some components we run tests on include:

• Processor: The "brain" of the laptop, and one of the most important factors that determines performance. The four biggest manufacturers that make most of the CPUs found in laptops today are Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Apple (in their own machines only). This is tested in benchmarking software.

• The display: The size of the display (measured diagonally from corner to corner) is also what dictates the laptop's overall size, and play a big role in the laptop's cost. Brightness is measured in "nits", and color spectrums are tested in benchmarking software.

• The graphics processor (GPU): Whether it's integrated into the CPU or a dedicated graphics card, how well the machine handles graphics is a key factor when it comes to demanding visual tasks like video editing, rendering, and of course, gaming. We test the GPU with a combination of benchmarking software, gaming, and media playback. 

• Physical form factor: Finally, the laptop's overall appearance and physical form factor encompasses its weight, thickness, how the keyboard and trackpad feel, and whether or not it has a display that can be folded back to form a tablet. We carry the laptop around for at least a week and note how well it commutes.

• Battery testing: We test a unit's battery in a few ways. A handful of benchmarking programs have their own battery testing components, but we also will just let the laptop run for as long as it can under a medium load. We ensure screensavers and hibernation mode are turned off, set the display's brightness and audio at 50%, load up a livestream on YouTube in Chrome, and wait 'til the end.

• The human element:  As we mentioned earlier, metrics and system data is important, but numbers alone don't give you the full picture. This is where we weave in our personal experience with the device and tap into the practical use cases that consumers actually care about. 

Also: The best laptop docking stations you can buy: Expert tested  

Ultimately, our goal is to break down the capabilities of each and every laptop we test into digestible terms that real people can find useful. There is a lot of noise and confusion when it comes to navigating the laptop and computer consumer market, so we hope to bring an intuitive element to the whole process by leveraging our team's decades of experience. 

All 15-inch laptops run the gamut from high-end gaming machines to budget devices, so it's important to consider which of the most common factors you value most when picking out a new machine. First and foremost on the list, though, is to determine what exactly you want to get out of it. 

• Ideal use case: Consider what you actually envision doing with your new laptop. Are you a gamer? Is this a machine for work? Manufacturers go to great lengths to differentiate their products by highlighting a specific consumer demographic. Knowing how you're going to use the laptop will go a long way into deciding which device is the best one for you. 
• Display: The Dell XPS 15 and the Asus Vivobook Pro 15 have the best displays with gorgeous OLED screens (though you can opt for less expensive ones). 
• Battery life: The best battery life on this list goes to M3 Apple MacBook Air, although the Acer Aspire Go 15 also has impressive battery life due to its relatively modest suite of hardware.  
• Portability: 15-inch laptops are a good middle ground between smaller, ultra-portable 13- and 14-inch machines (which tend to be thicker) and larger 16- and 17-inch laptops (which tend to be thinner). When looking at weight, the M3 MacBook Air is both the thinnest and the lightest on this list. 
• Price: The Acer Aspire Go 15 is the cheapest laptop on this list, at just $300. On the other end, the Razer Blade 15 is a pricey machine at nearly $2,500. The other three laptops on the list are essentially around the same price. 

You would think that one inch wouldn't make all that much of a difference when it comes to the size of a laptop, but when you're talking about motherboards, processors, and complex circuitry that are all fractions of a millimeter, an entire inch has a lot to do with design. 

The reality is that "larger laptops" (16 inches and above) tend to be thinner, as there's more surface area for their internal parts to occupy. Smaller laptops (14 inches and below) tend to be thicker, as their reduced size leaves less room for hardware. The happy medium in all this is the 15-inch laptop, which, when designed correctly, results in a thin and light laptop. 

Also: One of the best productivity laptops I've tested is not made by Dell or Apple

The M3 MacBook Air and Dell XPS 15 are perfect examples of thoughtful, expert designs that result in portable yet powerful computers. 

While every computing platform has its loyal supporters, most people use a particular operating system because of key applications running on it, employer preferences, or budgetary constraints. Windows, which ranges from budget to premium, and Apple's MacOS, which is exclusive to premium devices, cover a broad spectrum. Chrome OS is primarily limited to mid-range devices.

Also: Microsoft's Surface Pro and Laptop are the ultimate 'AI PCs', and I'm worried for Apple

All Windows devices listed here meet the requirements for Windows 11. If you purchase a device with Windows 10 installed, you can upgrade to Windows 11. Note that after October 14, 2025, Windows 10 support will end, and there will be no further security patches or feature updates.

15-inch laptops are by no means uncommon, but there are perhaps more flashy flagship models that come with 16-inch displays. That said, quite a few alternative 15-inch machines deserve to be mentioned here, even though they didn't earn a spot on the official list.