Best 15-inch laptops 2024

The best 15-inch laptops are the ideal candidates for those seeking a great blend of performance and portability. Especially as more and more of these mid-sized machines seem to be locked in a space-race-like dash to provide thinner chassis and more powerful components to you — the consumer.

It’s rare to come across a manufacturer that doesn’t deliver a 15-inch laptop in at least one of its line-ups. In fact, 15-16 inch laptops are the most popular size of laptop thanks to their best-of-both-worlds approach when competing against teeny-weeny 13-inch ultrabooks and more gargantuan 17-18 inch desktop replacements.

There are a number of 15-inch laptops that fall on our best laptops and best gaming laptops page. Unfortunately, even with Intel's latest 14-inch Gen chipset, there aren't too many 15-inch laptops coming through, but we're your eye in the sky keeping you abreast of the situation.

Our selection of 15-inch laptops spans all brands, uses, and price ranges. Whether you intend to spend and little or a lot — there’s something here for you. Make sure you’re picking up a device you can rely on for years to come with our selection of the best 15-inch laptops in 2024.

Curated by

Curated by

Rami Tabari

Rami has been swimming in laptops for most of his adult life, which is wild to think about, but excellent for you, those of which that need a new rig in their life. Rami knows that a good 15-inch laptop is a balance between portability and performance. The days of carrying a bag of bricks on our back are long over, so bigger can be better. Rami knows which are the best 15-inch laptops to choose, whether you're going big or going home.

Quick list

The best 15-inch laptops you can buy today

The following text are vignettes highlighting each of the best 15-inch laptops currently available. We have exhaustive testing for each 15-inch laptop, and while we will guide you in this buying process, you can look at the facts and numbers to judge for yourself.

Best overall

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Budget laptops are not bad laptops. Bad laptops are bad laptops. A laptop's price won't certify its quality, there are as many incredible $500 laptops out there, as there are awful $5,000 laptops. Set your expectations fairly and you'll be amazed at the kind of machine you can get at a more than reasonable price.

One such machine is the Asus Vivobook S 15 OLED, a sub-$1000 laptop that combines a mighty 12th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, Intel Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a dazzling 15.6-inch FHD (1920x1080 OLED display. The result? A more than capable machine for 90% of most people's computing needs.

What it lacks in premium features, the Vivobook S 15 OLED more than makes up for with its incredible value. How many people do you know who own a MacBook just to browse the net or watch Netflix on? It's the equivalent of buying a Ferrari for a pensioner. No matter what's under the hood, they're not clearing 30 anytime soon. Don't pay extra for features you'll never make use of, pay for the features you want and need. Of which, outside of gaming, the Vivobook S 15 OLED likely has them all.

See our full Asus Vivobook S 15 OLED review.

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Best MacBook

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Whether you're looking at a lightweight MacBook Air or a powerful MacBook Pro, Apple make some of the best laptops you can lay your hands on. The 15-inch MacBook Air holds true to that claim, delivering exceptional M3 performance at a price that won't break the bank.

It's slim on ports, but big on everything else including an incredible Liquid Retina Display, a fantastic typing experience, and a seriously impressive battery life of just over 15 hours! Let's not forget how remarkably thin this machine is as well, coming in at 0.45 inches thick. That's taking portability to the next level.

See our full MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review.

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Best 2-in-1

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Last year’s Galaxy Book Pro 360 was a welcome surprise after a rocky few years for Samsung’s laptops, and while the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360’s long-winded, verbose name is a mouthful, just about everything else about this laptop is brilliant.

Samsung fixed two of our complaints from last year with a brighter display and stronger hinges while keeping the rest of the experience at the same high level. The new 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1260P processor is more than enough power for this paper-thin 2-in-1, and with nearly 12 hours of battery life, it should easily get you through a full day.

The 15.6-inch display in a 3.1-pound laptop remains remarkable while delivering a 2-in-1 form factor that makes it a dream laptop for traveling. Not only that, but it more than doubles the Geekbench performance of its predecessor, meaning that unless you have incredibly demanding needs, this vanishingly thin laptop has more power than you will likely ever need. 

If portability isn’t a priority for you, there are certainly more powerful 15-inch laptops out there, but if you need to lug your laptop around with you, the versatility, size, and performance of this laptop are hard to beat. 

See our full Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 review.

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Best gaming

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The Crosshair 15 does a good job of balancing its design elements without making overt references to its source material. On top of that, the laptop is an absolute beast, boasting fantastic gaming performance, a staggeringly vivid display and solid battery life. It’s not perfect, thanks to a dimmer-than-average display, thick bezels, and some small keys, but beyond that, it’s a solid gaming laptop overall.

If you need something that won't break the bank and fulfills that solid 15-inch space, we absolutely recommend the Crosshair 15. 

See our full MSI Crosshair 15 R6E review.

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Best budget gaming

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At a glance the MSI Katana 15 looks like any other mid to high-range gaming laptop, its keyboard is adorned with RGB, its chunky chassis screams "there's power inside," and there's a reasonable amount of ports to suit all your gaming peripherals.

On paper, everything checks out too. A beastly 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor resides alongside 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and a mighty Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. Everything's coming up Milhouse with this one. Nothing here seems out of the ordinary, that is, until you catch sight of this machines price tag — and pull a double take hard enough to break the sound barrier.

All of this for a price below $2,000? Not bad at all. All of this for a price way lower than $2,000? Hot damn.

The picture I've painted here sounds a little too good to be true, and in all fairness, it is. The MSI Katana 15 is not a picture of perfection, it has a lackluster display and a dire battery life to name it's two most prominent flaws. But if all you're concerned about is getting the most bang for your buck? Look no further.

See our full MSI Katana 15 review.

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Best OLED

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Dell's XPS laptops have been some of the best you can buy for some time, and its latest lineup refresh is keeping that legacy strong. Whether it's video or photo editing, grafting through a days work, soaking up the latest entertainment, or even gaming on some of the higher configurations, the XPS 15 (9530)  is a 3.5K laptop that has a lot going for it in terms of overall and graphical performance.

That power radiates from the XPS' solid internals that feature a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a sizable 1TB of rapid SSD storage. The sum of which is a powerful notebook that can just about do it all. If you're looking for a catch-all computer then Dell's machine should be front and center when it comes to your shortlist.

See our full Dell XPS 15 (9530) review.

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How we test laptops

When we bring a laptop into our laboratory, our goal is to see how it would work if you brought it into your home or office. While we use a number of industry-standard benchmarks such as Geekbench and 3DMark, we focus heavily on real-world tests that we have developed in-house.

To test endurance, the Laptop Mag Battery test surfs the web at 150 nits of brightness until the system runs out of juice. To judge pure processing power, we use a giant spreadsheet macro that matches 65,000 names with their addresses, a video transcoder that converts a 4K video to 1080p and the Geekbench 4 synthetic test. We measure graphics prowess with both 3DMark Ice Storm / Fire Strike and a series of actual game titles.

We use a colorimeter to measure screen brightness and color gamut while other instruments help us determine a laptop's key travel and ambient heat. See how we test laptops for more details on our benchmarking procedures.

Choosing the right laptop

You can spend a lot of time delving into specs, but here are the key components to think about. If you just want really good mainstream performance, go for a Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a 1080p screen.

• Screen Resolution: Unfortunately, 66 percent of consumer laptops and 51 percent of business systems have low-res screens. If at all possible, get a display with a 1920 x 1080 (aka 1080p, or full HD) or higher resolution.
• CPU: An Intel Core i5 provides good mainstream performance. Some budget systems will come with Core i3, Celeron or Pentium CPUs, which are good for basic tasks, but not heavy multitasking. Get a Core i7 or a quad core processor (serial number ends in HQ or HK) for gaming or high-end productivity tasks such as video editing and 3D modeling.
• RAM: 8GB is ideal for most users. 4GB is acceptable for budget systems. Secondary laptops and Chromebooks may have less.
• Storage: Unless you're a gamer or a power user, 256GB of internal storage is probably enough. If at all possible, get an SSD (solid-state drive) rather than a hard drive, because it's going to make your computer a lot faster.
• Graphics Chip: Gamers and creative professionals need to do some research and figure out which discrete GPU is good enough to run their favorite software. Everyone else will be happy with the built-in Intel HD Graphics that come with the CPU.

If you want to learn more about buying a laptop, check out our full laptop buying guide. Gamers should read our gaming laptop buying guide and list of best gaming laptops.