

Even business laptops no longer include swappable external batteries. Good battery life: We prefer at least eight hours of battery life-enough for a full 9-to-5 day or a coast-to-coast flight plus time spent waiting at the airport.Thunderbolt 4 is optional, as are additional display outputs like DisplayPort or VGA. Every laptop we’ve considered for this guide offers at least one USB-C port (which you can use to link external monitors, charge the laptop, and connect USB-C accessories), a USB-A port, and an HDMI port not every system we’ve tested has an included SD or microSD card reader or an Ethernet jack, but we definitely prefer to have those. A wide range of ports: We prefer systems with a mix of old and new ports for maximum flexibility.Higher-resolution, 4K screens are sometimes available on these laptops, but such screens eat into battery life without adding much functional benefit for most people. Most business laptops have 1080p screens that keep text and images sharp, with lots of room to fit more information, and use IPS panels (rather than TN panels) to improve color accuracy and viewing angles a handful have taller screens with a 1920×1280 resolution, which are just as sharp but provide more vertical pixels.


We prefer Microsoft Precision Touchpads because they’re accurate and compatible with Windows 11’s multitouch trackpad gestures. A great trackpad or pointing device: Though business laptops should be sturdy, most wouldn’t be able to survive anyone throwing them at a wall because of trackpad frustrations.

