We've recently overhauled our best 15-inch laptops guide, replacing many of the older models with fresh additions as well as newcomers like the MacBook Air 15-inch that recently launched at WWDC 2023. We're also in the process of testing new releases this month, a few of which should make it on this list as well. Stay tuned.
Michelle Rae Uy, Reviews and Buying Guides Editor, Computing
The best 15-inch laptops are versatile devices that combine both portability and power. In the world of portables, these 15-inch notebooks are still the sweet spot, and they should be at the top of your list of options if you need something that's easy to travel with yet more than capable of tackling heavier workloads.
Despite 16-inch and 14-inch laptops slowly taking over their space, top 15-inch laptops are still the best laptops for students, creatives, and office use. The best 17-inch laptops are just too big and heavy to carry around, and 13-inch laptops are a bit too small to work on comfortably and fit more capable components.
15-inch laptops, on the other hand, have the right amount of chassis space to fit in powerful internals, a bigger display, and a bigger battery as well as enough room for good airflow so those components aren't throttling when performing demanding tasks. That's while keeping things fairly light, compact, and therefore, commute-friendly.
Over the years, we've tested a huge amount of 15-inch laptops, and we can help you find the ideal model for you, whether you need something for work or for play. And with CES 2023 in full swing, launching promising new laptops like the LG Gram Ultraslim that comes with an incredible 15.6-inch OLED display, we'll have more options for you in the coming weeks.
With one of our picks of the best 15-inch laptops, you’ll find a notebook that will satisfy all your computing needs. Be sure to take advantage of the best laptop deals we've included on this list as well so you can get the best price available.
The best 15-inch laptops 2024
If you ask the majority of us in the Computing channel at TechRadar, we'd tell you that we do not see the need for a larger MacBook Air as it kind of beats the purpose of the line in the first place. Factor in the fact that the 15-inch that Apple rolled out is essentially just a larger MacBook Air 13-inch, complete with the same internal specs as its smaller sister, and it feels like straight up pandering.
However, it's hard to deny that in its own right, the MacBook Air 15-inch (2023) is a great laptop. It has a stunning design, a brilliant screen, and classic Apple, has the best speaker setup you'll find in a laptop. Anyone hoping for a screen real estate upgrade in their notebook will be overjoyed, especially since it really isn't all that much thicker or heavier than the 13-inch.
On test, we have noticed that the MacBook Air 15-inch (2023) appears to have been consciously designed to offer the same level of performance as the 13-inch model. It performed really well, with macOS Ventura feeling fast and responsive, and apps such as Apple TV+, Chrome and Photoshop opening quickly and without any slowdown. We also found Apple's promise of up to 15 hours of wireless web browsing and 18 hours of video playback to be roughly accurate.
Factor in the fact that it's pretty fairly priced, and we've got our new best 15-inch laptop in 2023.
Read our full Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (2023) review
Having tested the 14-inch model of the Aspire 5 line, we can tell you for sure that this is a solid pick if you're looking for a capable 15-inch laptop at an affordable entry-level price. There are compromises here, to be sure, like the built-in webcam that's limited to 720p and the feeble speakers. But there are more things it does right for the price.
We found the 1080p screen to be bright, clear and sporting good viewing angles, with a matte finish that minimizes glare and reflection. And while connectivity is a bit of a mixed bag, you do get Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and an Ethernet port, which makes it a valid laptop for professionals as well - just not the content creation ones, despite Acer's claims.
Not that it doesn't deliver in terms of performance. It still provides respectable performance for a laptop in this price range, scoring 1,417 for single-core performance and 4,440 for multi-core in our benchmarks. Based on its performance during our time with it, it certainly makes for a perfectly respectable ‘office laptop’ and a fantastic student notebook, even if it doesn't exactly blow you away.
Read our full Acer Aspire 5 (2022) review
There are good indicators that Dell, just like Apple, is entering its funk era - and we don't mean the music genre. Dell seems be hitting some sort of ceiling in terms of innovation - case in point, the Dell XPS13 2-in-1 that went from being one of the most gorgeous 13-inch laptop to a plain detachable that serves its purpose.
The Dell XPS 15 (2023) seems unfazed by this, however, keeping that beautiful and tough chassis, gorgeous display, and amazing keyboard and touchpad we all know and love. Thank goodness. Although, if we're being really honest, its battery life should be getting better not worse.
Performance-wise, it should churn out consistently high performance that essentially makes it a great gaming laptop, even offering ray-tracing capabilities - as long as you have one of the higher configurations that is. It also performed smoothly with no slowdown or struggle to speak of when we did our usual productivity and creative work. Throughout all this, its cooling performance kept up, preventing the laptop from overheating.
Read our full Dell XPS 15 (2023) review
The HP Victus 15 is another great example of how if you want a superb budget gaming laptop, 15-inches is the way to go. For a relatively low price, the HP Victus 15 offers good gaming performance and can handle modern games at medium settings and 1080p resolution.
While it's not the most powerful gaming laptop out there. In our review, we found it did a good job with online competitive games thanks to its speedy 144Hz display – though more graphically-demanding games may chug. Just bear in mind that it's battery life is paltry, only lasting a little over four hours during our battery tests. You might want to stay close to an outlet.
At this price though, it's an ideal first gaming laptop, and the solid build quality means kids and teenagers can hammer away at the keys without fear. If you want something with a bit more power, check out the Razer Blade 15 below.
Read our full HP Victus 15 review
Expensive though it may be – as is usual with the Razer Blade line – 2022’s installment of the Razer Blade 15 is staggeringly powerful, more than capable of annihilating any PC game you throw at it. That's while inheriting its predecessor's thin and compact form factor, gorgeous finish, impressive speakers, comfortable keyboard, and so on.
12th-Gen Intel CPUs and DDR5 RAM means this new model is at the very cutting edge of laptop hardware. In our benchmarks, it comes out a whopping 62% ahead of its predecessor in multi-core performance in Cinebench R23 and outpaced its predecessor by a huge margin in our 3DMark tests. The downside is all that power in a slim form factor also means that this laptop runs pretty hot so be sure to give it all the cooling help it needs. Keep it plugged as well, as it lasted a measly two hours 49 minutes in our PCMark 10 battery life test.
This makes it an excellent candidate for creative professionals as well, especially with a design that keeps things classy and a trackpad that’s among the best we’ve tested on a gaming laptop. If you’ve got deep pockets and you like to keep things stylish, this is the best 15-inch laptop for the gamer in you.
Read our full Razer Blade 15 (2022) review
According to Lenovo, the Legion S7 is ‘the world’s lightest RTX laptop’ – and while we're not entirely convinced that's correct (the ROG Flow Z13 from Asus is lighter, for example, though it is a tablet/laptop hybrid), at just 1.9kg, the Legion S7 certainly feels impressively light, especially when compared to other gaming laptops.
Not only does it have some great specs, including up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, which will play games at medium to high settings, but the build quality is excellent as well. On test, it couldn't quite manage to hit 60+ fps on ultra in the latest games, but we found that making some adjustments such as lowering texture detail to medium helps it hit that 60fps mark. And its general CPU performance is strong, tackling general tasks from web browsing to video calls smoothly with no UI delay.
The only thing that might disappoint here is its heat management. The thinner chassis clearly doesn’t allow for thermal performance on the same level as its chunkier siblings. Still, for a 15-inch laptop, this offers a brilliant mix of value and performance, and the stylish design means you can use this in a professional environment as well, making it equally good for work as well as play.
Read the full Lenovo Legion S7 review
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 is about as big a name in gaming laptops as you can get, so we knew that the latest model was going to be good – we just didn't realize it'd be this good. As one of the best gaming laptops we've ever tested, it's a no-brainer that this is one of the best 15-inch laptops you're going to find anywhere.
Powered by the latest AMD Ryzen 9 processor and Nvidia RTX 3070 GPU, this laptop can handle just about anything you can throw at it and display it in crisp 1440p at 240Hz refresh rate. It crushed in our benchmarks for both graphics and CPU performance, coming out ahead of the Asus TUF Dash F15 and the Gigabyte Aorus 17G.
It's not a budget laptop, though; this is premium gaming kit. And that fact is even harder to swallow considering that it doesn't have a built-in webcam and only has a TKL keyboard. But it's at least more affordable than a lot of other, less powerful gaming laptops we've seen out there.
Read our full Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 review
Gigabyte has a solid track record in putting out gaming laptops that are durable and deliver good performance for the asking price. And the Gigabyte G5 doesn't fall from that tree, even throwing in a bit of portability in there for your benefit. Don't get us wrong; it still looks like the gaming laptops of old, but if you're too embarrassed to lug that kind of notebook around, at least this one is rather stylish and won't give you a back strain.
Most importantly, we found the the performance pretty hard to beat at this price point - even when you've got 2022's model with the RTX 3000 graphics. It may not delight you with 4K gaming, but it did deliver handle the most demanding games without dropping to abysmal framerates at 1080p, which is more than enough for most gamers, while keeping calm and collected during the most intense moments.
Just bear in mind that it has struggled with CPU-intensive workloads like real-time strategy games and video editing. We found it able to handle some lower-level creative work like music music or very basic home video editing, but that's about it.
Read our full Gigabyte G5 review
How to choose the best 15-inch laptop for you
Is 15 inches a good size for a laptop?
Absolutely, since it has a good mix of functional display real estate as well as a decent amount of portability.
Now, even the best 15-inch laptop isn't going to match the portability of the best 13-inch laptops, but it will come close, and most bags use 15 inches as their guide when designing the laptop sleeves in a lot of backpacks.
Also, 15-inch laptops have a decent amount of usable screen space and at 15 inches, multitasking with different windows definitely becomes an option. 4K screens are also somewhat more relevant on a 15-inch laptop since the display is big enough that the pixel density is actually much more noticeable.
Are 15-inch laptops good for gaming?
Some of the best gaming laptops are 15-inch models, like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15, so we would definitely say yes. While bigger laptops are going to give you bigger keyboards and displays, a 15-inch laptop is still going to be big enough that the action on the screen will be clear and enjoyable.
Also, because the displays are smaller, features like extremely fast refresh rates and response times that would normally cost a lot more on a gaming monitor are available for pretty cheap on a gaming laptop.
How we test the laptops in this guide
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There are two primary target audiences for the best RTX 3070 laptops: gamers and creatives, and we take two similar approaches to testing them out for their respective audiences.
For the core internal hardware, we run standard tests that stress the CPU and GPU with any hardware controls set to balanced for a consistent baseline across the various laptop manufacturers, including GeekBench 5, CineBench, PCMark 10, 3DMark, and Blender.
We also measure the frame rate of some PC gaming benchmarks, like Total War: Three Kingdoms and Metro: Exodus, to see how well the CPU and GPU work together to quickly render complex 3D scenes, which is just as important for a creative workstation as it is for gaming.
For gaming laptops specifically, we also spend a lot of time gaming on them (strictly for work purposes, we swear), and getting a feel for the actual experience a potential buyer can expect from the laptop. In the case of the best Nvidia laptops, this also means testing game performance with and without Nvidia DLSS enabled.
For creative workstations, there are several other benchmarking tools that we use, including encoding a 4K video in Handbrake and applying different filters and effects in different Adobe apps like Photoshop and After Effects to simulate its intended real-world use.
We also measure a laptop's battery life, since laptops are meant to be mobile devices to some degree, and if a laptop's battery dies out after three or four hours away from an outlet, that's an important thing to know, especially when even laptops running powerful hardware like a discrete Nvidia GPU are able to get seven or eight hours of battery life nowadays.
Finally, we compare all this with a laptop's MSRP and judge whether the price matches its performance. There are some very powerful laptops out there with great performance, but if they cost twice what their only slightly less powerful competitor does, then we make sure to let you know that.
