Photograph: Christopher Null
Asus
Zenbook S 16 (UM5606)
Lastly, I’ll point you in the direction of the Asus Zenbook S 16. I’ve always appreciated this laptop for its stunning design. That all-white aesthetic, oversized trackpad, and those thin bezels make it stand out. There’s also the fact that it’s only 0.48 inches thick, which is very close to as thin as the MacBook Air. My only problem with this laptop has been that the pricing refused to drop throughout much of last year. It was hard to justify at over $1,500, regardless of how polished it felt. These days, the price is hovering around or under $1,000, making it much easier to swallow. What you get is an absolutely stacked laptop, with more memory and twice the storage as the MacBook Air. The OLED display is also gorgeous. It’s high-resolution at 2880 x 1800 and has a 120-Hz refresh rate. It doesn’t get much more high-end than that.
Buy one of those three laptops, and you’ll find very little to complain about. But not everyone has $1,000 or more to spend on a laptop. And even though a good discount will never raise a decent into the category of the three laptops listed above, you’ll likely be surprised by just how good laptops have become that falls under $800.
Cheap Laptops That Are Actually Good
Everyone has a different idea of “cheap,” but conventionally, these are laptops that land below $750 or so. This is where Windows laptops really shine these days, as they often offer great specs for less money. And in case you haven’t been paying attention, the latest silicon from Qualcomm and Intel have dramatically improved battery life, and can now play in the same ballpark as Apple. The best deal of them all has to be the HP OmniBook 5. For just $500, this little laptop offers a Snapdragon X processor, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage. It even has an OLED screen! It’d be a bit harder to recommend at the full retail price of $800 (if only because the resolution of the screen is just 1920 x 1200), it’s an unbeatable deal at $500.
The Dell 14 Plus is one step up from there, with a current starting price of $650. The specs are comparable, as is the battery life and performance. You’ll get a bit more graphics thanks to the switch to Intel, but they otherwise feel similar in quality. The major upgrade you get with the Dell 14 Plus is the display, which is higher-resolution at 2560 x 1600. It’s not OLED like the OmniBook 5, but the sharper screen results in an overall better experience that’s worth the $150 in my book.
Speaking of better displays, that’s where the MacBook Neo really shines. This is Apple’s new entry-level device, which starts at $599. It has the best display on a laptop you can buy at this price, and gets you the macOS experience at an unprecedented price. Apple prioritized its front-of-screen experience to give it a premium feel, whether that’s in the display, the build quality, or even the keyboard. The 8 GB of RAM is a major drawback, as is the slower ports and SSD performance. As I said above, the MacBook Air is the better choice for most remote workers. But for students, travelers, or anyone whose use of a laptop is a bit more minimal, the MacBook Neo is the most premium-feeling laptop you can buy at this price.
