The 5 best laptops on the market this year

Editor's note: Every week The Week's editors survey product reviews and articles in websites, newspapers, and magazines, to find cool and useful new items we think you'll like. We're now making it easier to purchase these selections through affiliate partnerships with certain retailers. The Week may get a share of the revenue from these purchases.

1. Dell Chromebook 13 ($429)

Budget-friendly Chrome­books, which use Google's Chrome OS for web browsing, word processing, and media streaming, can handle most folks' work needs. Dell's 13-incher is pricier than most, but "easily the most powerful, capable, and beautiful," says Chris Welch at The Verge. Buy it at Dell.

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2. Lenovo Flex 4 ($749)

Lenovo pioneered rotating laptop-tablet hybrids, and the Flex 4 is the sub–$700 laptop best suited for media junkies. The roomy hard drive stores 1TB, the battery lasts 11 hours, and the 15-inch touchscreen can rotate 360 degrees at the hinge. Buy it at Amazon.

3. Acer Aspire E15 ($550)

The Aspire "checks about as many boxes as you could expect" from an affordable device running Windows 10, says Jeff Dunn at Tech Insider. It has a backlit keyboard, plenty of ports, an up-to-date Intel Core i5 CPU, a "healthy" 8GB of RAM, and even a dedicated graphics processor. Buy it at Amazon.

4. Hewlett-Packard Spectre 13.3 ($1,643)

The world's thinnest notebook is pricey — but "just look at it," says Dana Wollman at Engadget.com. This 2.45-lb Windows machine is only 10.4 mm thick. And for another $80, you can get the speedy Intel Core i7 processor, which "just creams the MacBook." Buy it at Amazon.

5. Apple MacBook ($1,300)

The latest MacBook — non–Pro edition — is "the new gold standard" for ultraportable computers, says Brooke Crothers at Forbes. The 2-lb laptop is less powerful than others at this price, but it's 25 percent faster than last year's model, and its Retina display is unrivaled. Buy it at Apple.