No, That TikTok Video Won't Help You Get Free Software
TikTok users are being warned to look out for videos—likely deepfakes—showing them how to activate Windows and Microsoft Office, or to enable premium features in apps such as Spotify or CapCut.
The similarity of the videos suggests that they were likely created through automation, said Trend Micro, which uncovered the campaign, while the voice issuing instructions also appears to be AI-generated.
This makes the videos particularly dangerous, as it allows for extremely large-scale operations, as well as the ability to target different categories of users with different tactics.
The videos instruct users to pull up the Run program on Windows and then execute a PowerShell command that, they're told, will activate the software or extra features for free.
In reality, though, the command downloads a malicious script that distributes the Vidar and StealC information-stealing malware. Vidar can then take screenshots of the victim's desktop and steal credentials, credit cards, and cryptocurrency wallets, while StealC can also harvest a broad range of sensitive information.
"In this campaign, attackers are using TikTok videos to verbally instruct users into executing malicious commands on their own systems. The social engineering occurs within the video itself, rather than through detectable code or scripts", Trend Micro warned.
"There is no malicious code present on the platform for security solutions to analyze or block. All actionable content is delivered visually and aurally. Threat actors do this to attempt to evade existing detection mechanisms, making it harder for defenders to detect and disrupt these campaigns."
The researchers found a number of accounts posting the videos, including @gitallowed, @zane.houghton, @allaivo2, @sysglow.wow, @alexfixpc, and @digitaldreams771. One video reached more than half a million views, with over 20,000 likes and more than 100 comments.
"The vast user base and algorithmic reach of social media platforms provide an ideal delivery mechanism for threat actors", said Trend Micro threats analyst Junestherry Dela Cruz.
"For attackers, this means broad distribution without the logistical burden of maintaining an infrastructure. The use of AI-generated content also elevates these kinds of attacks from isolated incidents to a highly scalable operation, as these videos can be rapidly produced and tailored to target different user segments."
The popularity of TikTok means that scams are rife, with fake giveaways, fake celebrity and influencer accounts, romance scams and more. The company regularly takes down scam accounts and warns users, asking them to report any scams that they find. It has taken down the accounts reported by Trend Micro.
"Users should be encouraged to scrutinize unsolicited technical instructions, verify the legitimacy of video sources, and report suspicious content, whether on social media, messaging apps, or email", Trend Micro warned. "After all, if an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is."
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Best Cheap Laptop: Budget Computers for Every Use
You don't need to overspend to get a capable laptop, and that includes both Windows models and Apple MacBooks. It's possible to find a decent laptop for less than $1,000 -- sometimes much less. With years and years of experience, I've reviewed enough budget laptops to know a good one when I see one. A good budget laptop is one that avoids the common budget laptop pitfalls of using outdated tech that leads to weak performance and a design that is cheap, clunky, boring or all three. A good budget laptop serves up modern components inside a sleek chassis that's well put together. Keep reading to see my current favorites. What's the best cheap laptop overall? My favorite budget laptop is Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air. When Apple updated it with its latest M4 processor earlier this year, it also dropped the price by $100. In this era of tariffs and high prices, that's a much appreciated move. Even better, you can almost always find the 13-inch Air discounted at Amazon, between $799 and $849, making it an even better value for its streamlined, stylish and sturdy design; excellent display; strong performance and lengthy battery life. (And while it's true that you can still get the older M1 MacBook that was first released in 2020 for $599 at Walmart, I think the extra $200 or so that you'll spend on the current M4 model is a wiser investment.) For an ultraportable Windows machine that rivals the MacBook Air in design and battery life, check out the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7. Built with an Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X CPU, it's the first Copilot Plus PC we've reviewed. And we came away impressed, particularly with the battery life. Windows laptops have trailed MacBooks in battery life ever since Apple released its Arm-based M1 processor nearly four years ago. The Surface Laptop 7 didn't just close the gap in battery life between a Windows laptop at a MacBook but surpassed it. It starts at $1,000 but can frequently be found for less. Even less is the Acer Aspire 14 AI, which features the latest AI chip from Intel and is the cheapest Copilot Plus PC we've reviewed at just $700 at Costco. It offers great overall performance for the price and all-day battery life. Using my decades of experience testing and reviewing laptops, I've compiled a roundup of the best budget laptops below. For more, check out my recommendations for best Asus laptop, best Dell laptop, best HP laptop and best Lenovo laptop. Gamers on tight budgets should peep my list of best cheap gaming laptops, and Apple fans can also find a few budget options among my picks for best MacBook. Lastly, budget laptop shoppers should consider a Chromebook -- especially if much of what you do is on the web -- and check out my list of best Chromebooks. Best cheap laptops of 2025 HP 14-inch Chromebook Get a Chromebook for as low as $139 at Best Buy. See at Best Buy Other laptops we've tested HP OmniBook X Flip 14: This two-in-one laptop offers style, value and configuration options abound, including a 3K OLED display for only an extra $100. Microsoft Surface Laptop (13-inch): It's compact, solidly built and great for travel, but the 13.8-inch version is the better choice as your daily driver. Dell 14 Plus: Skip the two-in-one and opt for the clamshell laptop I tested, when it goes on sale. Acer Swift Go 16 (2025): Built around a beautiful 16-inch OLED screen, the latest Swift Go 16 improves on its predecessors without significant price inflation. Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1: This big-screen, mini-LED convertible laptop certainly has some positives, but there are a few too many negatives to give this Plus a full-throated recommendation. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition: It's a great business laptop, but it can get pricey fast with upgrades. Acer Swift 14 AI: This midrange Copilot Plus PC offers incredible battery life but is missing one key feature. Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 Gen 10: It's ultrastylish and ultracompact but maybe don't hide the camera behind the display next time? Acer Chromebook Plus 516: The 16-inch display provides plenty of room to work but Acer has a similar model that offers more for less. HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2025): Parts of the HP Pavilion Plus 14 are great but there's one poor-quality feature that totally ruins the experience. M4 MacBook Air (15-inch, 2025): The smaller Air is the perfect student laptop, but once you're out of school you should graduate to the larger, but still highly portable, 15-inch model. Acer Swift 16 AI: It's thin. It's light. It's long-running. And it boasts a big, bright 16-inch OLED display. So, what's holding this Copilot Plus PC back from being more than just a big-screen productivity machine? Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i: It's thin and light for its size but a short runtime and a few design miscues make this a low-cost laptop to skip. How we test budget laptops The review process for laptops consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aesthetics, ergonomics and features with respect to price. A final review verdict is a combination of objective and subjective judgments. We test all laptops with a core set of benchmarks, including Primate Labs Geekbench 5 and 6, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10, a variety of 3DMark benchmarks (whichever can run on the laptop), UL Procyon Photo and Video (where supported), and our own battery life test. If a laptop is intended for gaming, we'll also run benchmarks from Guardians of the Galaxy, The Rift Breaker (CPU and GPU) and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Budget laptops tend to have components that don't lend themselves to more advanced content creation -- such as a discrete GPU with sufficient memory -- so we don't typically run graphics-intensive performance tests on this class of laptops. For the hands-on, the reviewer uses it for their work during the review period, evaluating how well the design, features (such as the screen, camera and speakers) and manufacturer-supplied software operate as a cohesive whole. With budget laptops, especially, we concentrate on how well they work given their cost and where the manufacturer has made tradeoffs to reach the price. The list of benchmarking software and comparison criteria we use changes over time as the devices we test evolves. You can find a more detailed description of our test methodology on our How We Test Computers page. Factors to consider when choosing a cheap laptop There are a ton of models for less than $1,000 on the market at any given moment, and a large fraction of those are less than $500. As long as you manage your expectations regarding options and specs, you can still get quite a bit from a budget laptop model, including good battery life and a reasonably lightweight laptop body. (If you're replacing an old Windows laptop that's not up to running Windows anymore, consider turning it into a Chromebook.) Price If the statistics Intel and PC manufacturers hurl at us are correct, you'll be holding onto this laptop for at least three years so don't skimp if you can afford to stretch your budget a little to better specs. Even better, think about a laptop with a replaceable battery (if you can find one), upgradable memory (although memory is usually soldered to the motherboard), graphics card and storage, or all of the above. If you do, trawl the user reviews and comments for people's experiences with upgrading a particular model. Sometimes they require proprietary parts or require accessing hard-to-access locations in the system. For a cheap gaming laptop, you'll still have to break the $500 ceiling to support most games. The least expensive budget laptops suitable for a solid gaming performance experience -- those with moderately powerful discrete graphics processors -- will run you closer to $700. Here are our recommendations if you're looking for the best gaming laptop under $1,000. If you like to live on the bleeding edge, cloud gaming services such as Nvidia GeForce Now and Microsoft Xbox Game Pass Ultimate's Cloud Gaming will let you play games on laptops with specs that hit the under-$500 mark. A bright spot is you don't have to settle for a traditional clamshell laptop with a fixed display and keyboard. You can also get a convertible laptop (aka, a two-in-one), which has a screen that flips around to turn the screen into a tablet, to position it for comfortable streaming or to do a presentation. You can also try to make your current laptop last a little longer. If you need something to tide you over for a few months, dig into possible places to buy refurbished machines and explore nonprofit or educational discounts if you're eligible. Windows, Mac or Chromebook You won't find cheap laptop prices for a MacBook or any other Apple laptop. At best you can get the current entry-level model of the MacBook Air for $999. On sale, you may be able to get it for less than that but it will never reach truly "budget" territory. Even an iPad will run you more than $500 once you buy the optional keyboard (although it might work out to less if you look for sales on the tablet or keyboard), which is above our budget here. A base-model iPad with an inexpensive Bluetooth keyboard and a cheap stand for the iPad might suffice. It's easier to find inexpensive Chromebooks than cheap Windows laptops, making them one of the most popular budget laptops on the market, although we're also seeing a lot more Chromebooks in the $500-to-$1,000 range and more Windows laptops in the $500 range. Those Windows systems are frequently repurposed Chromebook configurations that really aren't up to running Windows comfortably. Google's ChromeOS isn't nearly as power-hungry as Windows, so you can get by with a lower-end processor, slower storage and less screen resolution or RAM; just a few of the components that make a laptop expensive. The flip side is Chrome and Google apps are more of a memory hog than you'd expect, and if you go too low with the processor or skimp on memory, the system will still feel slow. While Chromebooks can run ChromeOS-specific and Android apps, some people need the full Windows OS to run heftier applications, such as video-editing suites. With that comes a need for a faster processor with more cores, more memory -- 8GB RAM is the bare minimum, although 16GB is preferable -- and more storage for applications and the operating system itself. ChromeOS is also a much different experience than Windows; make sure the applications you need have a Chrome app, Android app or Linux app before making the leap. Since Chromebooks are cloud-first devices, you don't need a lot of storage built-in. That also means if you spend most of your time roaming the web, writing, streaming video or playing Android games, they're a good fit. If you hope to play Android games, make sure you get a touchscreen Chromebook. Size Remember to consider whether having a lighter, thinner laptop or a touchscreen laptop with a good battery life will be important to you in the future. Size is primarily determined by the screen, which in turn factors into battery size, laptop thickness and weight. Ultraportable laptops, generally 13 inches or smaller, are a rarity below $700. It turns out, making things smaller doesn't always equate to cheaper. Generally, you'll find budget laptops at 14-, 15.6- and 17.3-inch sizes. Also, because of their low prices, 11.6-inch Chromebooks are attractive. We don't recommend that size for any but the youngest students. In the budget price range, you have to watch out for screen terminology when it comes to specs: An "HD" screen may not always be a truly high-definition screen. HD, which has a resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, is called "Full HD" so marketers can refer to lesser-resolution displays (1,280x720 pixels) as HD. In Chromebooks, HD usually refers to a screen with a resolution of 1,366x768 pixels. On the upside, the boom in 14-inch laptops trickles down to this price range, which allows for more FHD options in that size. A frequent complaint we see is about "washed-out" looking displays with poor viewing angles. Unfortunately, that's one of the trade-offs: A lot of these use TN (twisted nematic) screen technology, which is cheap but meh. Look for IPS (in-plane switching) LCDs which are better for off-angle viewing, brightness and color. Processor, memory and storage A lot of Windows laptops in this range use AMD Athlon and lower-end A series or Intel Celeron and Pentium processors to hit the lower prices. We don't recommend going with an Athlon instead of a Ryzen or a Celeron/Pentium instead of a Core: Windows is too heavy for them, and in conjunction with the 4GB memory a lot of them have, you may find them abysmally slow at best. SSDs can make a big difference in how fast Windows performance feels compared with a spinning hard disk, although thankfully old hard disks have become a lot rarer. Not all SSDs are equally speedy and cheaper laptops typically have slower drives. If you need to go with a smaller drive -- they tend to max out at 256GB in this price range -- you can always add an external drive or two (or five, for some of us) at some point down the road or use cloud storage to bolster a small internal drive. For memory, we highly recommend 16GB of RAM (8GB absolute minimum). RAM is where the operating system stores all the data for currently running applications, and it can fill up fast (for example, right now Chrome is taking up 7GB of my memory). After that, it starts swapping between RAM and SSD, which is a bit slower. A lot of sub-$500 laptops have 4GB or 8GB, which in conjunction with a slower disk can make for a frustratingly slow Windows laptop experience. Also, many laptops now have the memory soldered onto the motherboard. Most manufacturers disclose this, but if the RAM type is LPDDR, it is soldered on and can't be upgraded. Some PC makers will solder memory on and also leave an empty internal slot for adding a stick of RAM. You may need to contact the laptop manufacturer or find the laptop's full specs online to confirm.
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Best Laptop for College Students: Top Laptops for School in 2025
The summer has passed its midpoint. August is two weeks away, which means the next school year will be here before you know it. If you need a new laptop for school, then it's time to start looking. Whether you want a MacBook or Windows laptop, there are some great options right now. Apple's latest M4 MaBook Air has been selling for a steady $849 at Amazon, which is $150 less than Apple's price for it. I've also got some Windows recommendations that offer great designs and, in some cases, battery life that's even better than the battery life of the long-running MacBook Air. What's the best laptop for college students? Apple's new M4 MacBook Air offers better performance at a lower price inside the same thin-and-light design, making it an easy pick as our go-to recommendation for college students. It starts at $999, which is $100 less than what Apple charged for the previous M3 model. And students can always save $100 on it with Apple's educational discount if you can't find it on sale at Amazon. Before you buy your own laptop for school, it's worth checking if your college offers free or discounted laptops for students. For students on tighter budgets, I still recommend the original MacBook Air M1. It's available as a Walmart exclusive for only $599. It should also get you through four years of school, but I think the extra money is worth it for the updated design, slightly larger display, higher-resolution webcam and better performance of the newer M4 model. The M4 Air is also available in 13- and 15-inch sizes, so you can choose between greater mobility or more workspace. A Windows rival to the MacBook Air has arrived with Microsoft's first Copilot Plus PC. Based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X CPU, the Surface Laptop 7 offers strong application and AI performance and outstanding battery life. It's the first Windows laptop we've tested with a longer runtime than the Air's. At $2,000, the Surface Laptop 7 model I reviewed may be beyond the reach of student budgets, but the line starts at a more approachable $1,000 and should still offer ample performance for most students and the same lengthy runtime of the system I tested. I love the overall design of the Surface Laptop 7, but the Asus Zenbook A14 is arguably better suited for campus life with its ultralight design and an even longer runtime than that of the Surface Laptop 7. With so many resources and so much of your course curriculum available online, it's next to impossible to get through college without a laptop. There is no shortage of laptops for sale, which makes it difficult to zero in on one that will fit your needs and budget. That's where my laptop colleagues and I come in. We've done research and testing to find the best laptop for college students in 2025. Whether you are looking for a MacBook, a Windows laptop or a Chromebook for school, we've rounded up several college laptop picks that will serve most students well. Best laptops for students in 2025 Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 The Surface Laptop 7 model I reviewed rings in at $2,000, which is beyond the reach of most student budgets. The line starts at $1,000, which makes it a bit more accessible. Students will like its polished design and class-leading battery life. Our test model ran for nearly 20 hours on a single charge, and you can expect a similar runtime from the entry-level unit. Why we like it I like it for its polished design and class-leading battery life. The Surface Laptop 7 ran for nearly 20 hours in testing -- that's the longest of any 13- or 14-inch laptop I've ever tested -- including the M4 MacBook Air. The Surface Laptop 7 competes with the MacBook Air in performance and battery life and supplies a similarly sleek and solid build. Who it's best for People who love the look and long battery life of the MacBook Air but want a Windows laptop. I wish there were an OLED display option, and you'll need to do a compatibility check for your mission-critical applications before embracing the Arm-based Surface Laptop 7, but if you can get past those hurdles, then you'll get a well-built, good-looking and long-running Windows ultraportable. You don't necessarily need to spend the roughly $2,000 that our test system costs; one of the lower-priced configurations that starts at $900 should meet the needs of most people. Who shouldn't get it Anyone worried about potential Windows-on-Arm compatibility issues should skip Qualcomm-based laptops and pick out an Intel or AMD model. The Surface Laptop 7 is also not the pick if you want an OLED display on your next laptop. For more, check out my other favorite Windows laptops. See at Amazon MacBook Air M1 This model has been surpassed, but not replaced, by the newer M4 model. Now, the M1 Air is available at Walmart for $649, which is a hefty $350 less than its original price. It's also $350 less than the new M4 MacBook Air. Why we like it The M1 MacBook Air was released in November 2020. It offered a huge leap in performance from the previous Intel-based MacBook Air. Fast-forward nearly four-and-a-half years, however, and you arrive at the M4 MacBook Air that Apple launched earlier this year. We tested it and unsurprisingly found the M4 Air's performance was significantly better than that of the M1 Air. Even if you don't think you need the added performance, the newer processor means the M4 model will have a longer useful lifespan. But at just $649, the M1 MacBook Air at Walmart costs significantly less than the $999 M4 Air at Apple. Who it's best for It's a great pick for students and other budget shoppers looking for a speedy and stylish do-it-all laptop. It's thin, light and built like a tank. It has a slightly smaller display than the current M4 Air and offers only two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, but for most people that's enough. And even though it's been surpassed by newer generations, the original M1 Air is still powerful enough for general use and a great buy at its discounted price. Who shouldn't get it Buyers whose budgets extend to $1,000 should skip the older M1 model and opt instead of the latest M4 Air. See at Walmart Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 Like other gaming laptop makers, Acer has two lines: a budget-friendly Nitro series and midrange and premium models that carry the Predator label. Oddly enough, it's under the latter you'll find our budget gaming pick: the Helios Neo 16. Why we like it It's strikingly similar to the Acer's own Nitro 16 but with slightly better build quality and graphics performance. The only place it really faltered was its speakers, which put out disappointingly flat audio with nonexistent bass. Who it's best for It's a great pick for gamers on student budgets. It's getting harder to find the Predator Helios Neo 16 I reviewed with RTX 4050 graphics, but a model with a RTX 4060 isn't a bad deal at its $1,400 price at Amazon. Who shouldn't get it Gamers with more than $1,000 or so to spend can get a better design, higher-resolution display and a newer GPU than what the Predator Helios Neo 16 supplies. See at Amazon Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 10 Featured Deal. See at Lenovo Most recent addition The Acer Aspire 14 AI is the newest laptop on the list. It's the cheapest Copilot Plus PC I've reviewed and one of the best budget laptops for its sturdy design, competitive performance and long battery life. And unlike with other Copilot Plus PCs based on Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X series processors, you don't have to worry about any potential Windows-on-Arm compatibility issues with the Intel-based Aspire 14 AI. It's a great budget pick for students. Factors to consider There's a multitude of laptops on the market that would be a fit for students, and almost all of those models are available in multiple configurations to match your performance needs and budget restraints. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of options, we're here to help with advice on what to consider when shopping for a school laptop. Price The search for a new laptop for most people starts with price, particularly for cash-strapped college students. To end up with a laptop that will last you at least through four years of school, I would advise against choosing a bargain-basement, entry-level model. Additionally, you could get away with spending less upfront in past years with an eye toward upgrading memory and storage in the future. Laptop makers are increasingly moving away from making components easily upgradeable, so it's best to get as many laptop capabilities as you can afford from the start. Generally speaking, the more you spend, the better the laptop. That could mean better components for faster performance, a nicer display, sturdier build quality, a smaller or lighter design from higher-end materials or even a more comfortable keyboard. Right now, the sweet spot for a reliable laptop that can handle average school tasks is between $700 and $800. For art and STEM students who need to run demanding graphics or STEM apps (or those looking for a bit of gaming, after your homework is done, of course), you'll need to spend about $1,000 or a bit more. The key is to look for discounts on models in all price ranges so you can get more laptop capability for less. Size If you plan on taking your laptop to class each day, then you'll want a lighter and thinner laptop. I recommend a model with a 13- or 14-inch display for most students. Larger 15- and 16-inch models provide more screen real estate for getting work done and juggling multiple windows, but you'll probably get tired of dragging it across campus. Specs If you are targeting a 14-inch laptop for school, then the basic display resolution of 1,920x1,200 should suffice for creating crisp text and images. The sharpness of the picture will improve as you go up in resolution, but you don't need a 4K display for such a small screen. If your budget allows, look for an OLED display with a 2240x1400, 2560x1600 or 2880x1800. Not only will the increased pixel count improve the picture, but the superior contrast ratio and color performance of an OLED will be evident compared with that of an IPS LED display. For internals, Intel and AMD are the main CPU makers for Windows laptops, with Qualcomm as a new third option with its Arm-based Snapdragon X processors. Both Intel and AMD offer a staggering selection of mobile processors. Making things trickier, both manufacturers have chips designed for different laptop styles, like power-saving chips for ultraportables or faster processors for gaming laptops. Their naming conventions will let you know what type is used. You can head to Intel's or AMD's sites for explanations so you get the performance you want. Generally speaking, the faster the processor speed and the more cores it has, the better the performance will be. Apple makes its own chips for MacBooks, which makes things slightly more straightforward. The entry-level MacBook Air uses an M1 chip, and the latest Air models feature M3 chips. Battery life is paramount for a student laptop, and it has less to do with the number of CPU cores and more to do with CPU architecture, Arm versus x86. Apple's Arm-based MacBooks and the first Arm-based Copilot Plus PCs we've tested offer better battery life than laptops based on x86 processors from Intel and AMD. If you plan to study art and your course of study will involve using graphics-intensive creative apps, then you will need a Windows laptop with a dedicated Nvidia GPU or a more powerful MacBook Pro. The same can be said for STEM students who will be using powerful scientific apps as well as any student who might want to play PC games on their laptop. Costs increase quickly, however, when you jump from integrated graphics to an Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU or from a MacBook Air to a MacBook Pro. For memory, I highly recommend 16GB of RAM, with 8GB being the absolute bare minimum. RAM is where the operating system stores all the data for currently running applications, and it can fill up fast. After that, it starts swapping between RAM and SSD, which is slower. I suggest at least 16GB of RAM for a Windows laptop, but most students should be fine with the standard 8GB that Apple offers on its baseline MacBook Air. Plus, Apple charges a hefty sum for 16GB. For storage, get at least a 256GB SSD and 512GB SSD if you can. If you need to go with a smaller drive, you can always add an external drive down the road or use cloud storage to bolster a small internal drive. The one exception is gaming laptops: I don't recommend going with less than a 512GB SSD unless you really like uninstalling games every time you want to play a new one. Operating system Choosing an operating system is part personal preference and part budget. For the most part, Microsoft Windows and Apple's MacOS do the same things (except for gaming, where Windows is the winner), but they do them differently. Unless there's an OS-specific application you need, go with the one you feel most comfortable using. If you're not sure which that is, head to an Apple store or a local electronics store and test them out. Or ask friends or family to let you test theirs for a bit. If you have an iPhone or iPad and like it, chances are you'll like MacOS too. When it comes to price and variety (and PC gaming), Windows laptops win. If you want MacOS, you're getting a MacBook. Apple's MacBooks regularly top our best lists, they are costly although the original M1 MacBook Air is still available for just $649. Windows laptops can be found for as little as a couple of hundred dollars and come in all manner of sizes and designs. Granted, we'd be hard-pressed to find a $200 laptop we'd give a full-throated recommendation to, especially if you need it to last you through four years of school. If you are on a tight budget, consider a Chromebook. ChromeOS is a different experience than Windows; more streamlined and easier to use. It's limited, in that basically everything runs through the Chrome browser. Just make sure that your school or coursework doesn't require you to use apps that run only on a Windows or Mac machine. How to get the best laptop for high school students There is plenty of overlap between what makes a good laptop for college and a good laptop for high school. Without college-level coursework and with other PCs perhaps in the house, high school students may be able to use a Chromebook for all of their school needs and requirements. High schoolers may be able to look at a laptop purchase as a shorter-term investment: buy an inexpensive, lower-end model to get you to graduation, at which point summer job earnings or a grad gift from a grandparent could lead you to your next laptop for college and beyond. How we test laptops for students The review process for laptops consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aesthetics, ergonomics and features with respect to price. A final review verdict is a combination of both objective and subjective judgments. We test all laptops with a core set of benchmarks, including Primate Labs Geekbench 5 and 6, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10, a variety of 3DMark benchmarks (whichever can run on the laptop), UL Procyon Photo and Video (where supported) and our own battery life test. If a laptop is intended for gaming, we also run benchmarks from Guardians of the Galaxy, The Rift Breaker (CPU and GPU) and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. For the hands-on test, the reviewer uses it for their work during the review period, evaluating how well the design, features (such as the screen, camera and speakers) and manufacturer-supplied software operate as a cohesive whole. We also place importance on how well they work given their cost and where the manufacturer has potentially made upgrades or tradeoffs for its price. We also weigh the laptop to see how its heft compares to other similarly sized laptops, which is especially important for students who will be toting their laptop to and from school each day. We also pay attention to the build quality to assess how sturdy or flimsy a laptop is, which is another important consideration for students who will rely on a laptop day and and day out for at least four years. The list of benchmarking software and comparison criteria we use changes over time as the devices we test evolve. You can find a more detailed description of our test methodology on our How We Test Computers page. Other student laptops we tested HP OmniBook X Flip 14: This two-in-one laptop offers style, value and configuration options abound, including a 3K OLED display for only an extra $100. Microsoft Surface Laptop (13-inch): It's compact, solidly built and great for travel, but the 13.8-inch version is the better choice as your daily driver. Dell 14 Plus: Skip the two-in-one and opt for the clamshell laptop I tested, when it goes on sale. Acer Swift Go 16 (2025): Built around a beautiful 16-inch OLED screen, the latest Swift Go 16 improves on its predecessors without significant price inflation. Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1: This big-screen, mini-LED convertible laptop certainly has some positives, but there are a few too many negatives to give this Plus a full-throated recommendation. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition: It's a great business laptop, but it can get pricey fast with upgrades. Acer Swift 14 AI: This midrange Copilot Plus PC offers incredible battery life but is missing one key feature. Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 Gen 10: It's ultrastylish and ultracompact, but maybe don't hide the camera behind the display next time? Acer Chromebook Plus 516: The 16-inch display provides plenty of room to work but Acer has a similar model that offers more for less. HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14: Similarly priced systems offer better performance and longer battery life, but HP's flagship convertible laptop boasts an unrivaled design and awesome OLED panel. HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2025): Parts of the HP Pavilion Plus 14 are great, but there's one poor-quality feature that totally ruins the experience. M4 MacBook Air (15-Inch, 2025): The smaller Air is the perfect student laptop, but once you're out of school you should graduate to the larger, but still highly portable, 15-inch model. Acer Swift 16 AI: It's thin. It's light. It's long-running. And it boasts a big, bright 16-inch OLED display. So, what's holding this Copilot Plus PC back from being more than just a big-screen productivity machine? HP Pavilion Aero 13: When it comes to runtime, Snapdragon X laptops and the MacBook Air run laps around it. Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i: It's thin and light for its size, but a short runtime and a few design miscues make this a low-cost laptop to skip. Acer Swift Go 14 AI: This Snapdragon X-powered laptop can run all day, but its overall look might put you to sleep. Acer Swift 14 AI: It's a long-lasting if basic Copilot Plus PC, but do we really need an AI indicator light on the touchpad? Asus Zenbook S 14: Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 processors show improvement from the first generation, but Apple's and Qualcomm's ARM-based chips still lead the way. HP OmniBook X 14: The latest Copilot Plus PC runs for more hours than there are in a day. Laptop FAQs How to get the best deal on laptops as a student? The good news for college students on tight budgets is you can get a nice-looking, lightweight laptop with excellent battery life that will last you through four years of college for less than $1,000. In the $700 to $800 range, you'll even find models with premium design touches like thin-display bezels and aluminum or magnesium bodies. Above $1,000 is where you'll find premium laptops and two-in-one convertible models that act as both laptops and tablets. If you're looking for the fastest performance, the best battery life, the slimmest, lightest designs and top-notch display quality with an adequate screen size, expect to spend at least $1,000. Dell, HP, Lenovo and other manufacturers are constantly rotating discounts across their laptop lines, so it pays to monitor pricing -- we do it for you with our constantly updated best laptop deals -- and wait for a deal to land on the model you want. Apple rarely if ever offers discounts itself, but you can find good discounts on MacBook at Amazon, Best Buy and elsewhere -- keep an eye on our best MacBook deals for the best prices. Is Mac or Windows better for college students? Deciding between MacOS and Windows laptops for many people will come down to personal preference and budget. Apple's base model laptop, the M1 MacBook Air, starts at $999 but is regularly discounted to $750. For a newer M2 MacBook, be prepared to spend $1,000 or more. For the money, you're getting great hardware top to bottom, inside and out. Apple has moved to using its own processors, which resulted in across-the-board performance improvements compared to older Intel-based models. That great hardware comes at a price. Also, you're limited to just Apple laptops. With Windows and Chromebooks (more on these below), you get an amazing variety of devices at a wide range of prices. Software between the two is plentiful, so unless you need to run something that's only available on one platform or the other, you should be fine to go with either. Gaming is definitely an advantage for a Windows laptop. MacOS is considered to be easier and safer to use than Windows, especially for people who want their computers to get out of the way so they can get their schoolwork done. Over the years, Microsoft has done its best to follow suit and try to remove any barriers with Windows 11. Also, while Macs might have a reputation for being safer, with the popularity of the iPhone and iPad helping to drive Mac sales, they've become bigger targets for malware. Are Chromebooks worth it for students? Yes, they are, but they're not for everyone. Google's ChromeOS has come a long way in the 10-plus years since it arrived, and Chromebooks -- laptops that run on ChromeOS -- are great for students who do most of their work in a web browser or using mobile apps. They are secure, simple and, more often than not, a bargain. What they can't do is natively run Windows or Mac software. With their low cost and ease of use, Chromebooks are a natural fit for students, but be sure your school or particular course of study doesn't have certain software requirements that make a laptop with either Windows or MacOS a requisite. Is Dell or HP better for college students? One isn't necessarily better than the other, and each has at least one laptop that's a good fit for students. We like HP's Pavilion 14 Plus is great for providing a solid, all-metal design and OLED display for less than $1,000. Dell's Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 is another good $1,000 laptop with a sturdy, all-aluminum enclosure that also provides incredible, all-day battery life thanks to its Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor. What is the best laptop for school work and gaming? You can play games on any laptop. What games you play and what content you create -- and the speed at which you do them -- varies greatly depending on the components inside the laptop. For casual browser-based games or using streaming game services like Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming, you don't need a powerful gaming laptop. Similarly, if you're trimming video clips, cropping photos or live-streaming video from your webcam, you can get by with a modestly priced laptop or Chromebook with integrated graphics. For anything more demanding, you'll need to invest more money in discrete graphics like Nvidia's RTX 30- or 40-series GPUs. Increased system memory of 16GB or more, having a speedy SSD of at least 512GB for storage and a faster processor such as an Intel Core Ultra 7 or AMD Ryzen 7 will all help you get things moving faster too. The other piece you'll want to consider is the display. For gaming, look for screens with a high refresh rate of 120Hz or faster so games look smoother while playing. For art students and content creators, look for displays that cover at least 100% sRGB color space or, better yet, 100% DCI-P3.
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Best Windows Laptop for 2025
You'll find a number of Copilot Plus PCs among my favorite Windows PCs. Two have an Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X series processor and deliver strong application and AI performance along with exceedingly long battery life. I love the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 for its slick and sturdy design and awesome haptic touchpad. The Asus Zenbook A14 is a winner for its ultralight yet rigid enclosure and the OLED display it supplies for the price. Again, both are well-rounded performers with jaw-dropping run times. And with laptop prices on the rise, the Intel-based Acer Aspire 14 AI is a great budget option. The best Windows laptops come in all shapes and sizes If you aren't ready to take the plunge with a Snapdragon X series processor and worry about potential Windows-on-Arm compatibility issues, then we have Intel- and AMD-based favorites, from budget models and two-in-one convertibles to high-powered gaming laptops. With decades of experience testing and reviewing laptops, our experts conduct performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET labs and perform extensive hands-on tests to assess the design, features and performance of each laptop we review. You'll find a good number of recommendations here but we also have more specific picks in different categories, starting with the best overall laptop, the best gaming laptop, best cheap gaming laptop, best laptop for college students and best two-in-one laptop. If you narrowed it to a specific brand, check out our picks for the best Asus laptop, best Dell laptop, best HP laptop and best Lenovo laptop. Beyond Windows, we have recommendations for the best MacBook and best Chromebook. Most recent additions The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is the latest addition to the list. With its trim design, excellent build quality and high-res OLED display, it's our pick for best business laptop. The Acer Aspire 14 AI is the next-newest laptop on the list. It's the cheapest Copilot Plus PC I've reviewed and one of the best budget laptops for its sturdy design, competitive performance and long battery life. And unlike with other Copilot Plus PCs based on Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X series processors, you don't have to worry about any potential Windows-on-Arm compatibility issues with the Intel-based Aspire 14 AI. The Aspire 14 AI knocked Acer's own Aspire Go 14 off the list. The Go 14 costs hundreds less, but the newer Aspire 14 AI is the better value. It offers greater performance, much longer battery life, more storage and a far superior display. If you have only $300 to spend on a laptop, you're better off skipping Windows and buying a Chromebook. We have picks for best Chromebooks too. Other laptops we've tested HP OmniBook X Flip 16: While it has a handful of appealing features, this midrange 16-inch convertible ends up being a clumsy assemblage of disparate parts. Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition: It offers a cheap path to an OLED ultraportable, but is a ThinkPad a ThinkPad without the little red nub in the middle of the keyboard? HP OmniBook X Flip 14: This two-in-one laptop offers style, value and configuration options abound, including a 3K OLED display for only an extra $100. Microsoft Surface Laptop (13-inch): It's compact, solidly built and great for travel, but the 13.8-inch version is the better choice as your daily driver. Dell 14 Plus: Skip the two-in-one and opt for the clamshell laptop I tested when it goes on sale. Acer Swift Go 16 (2025): Built around a beautiful 16-inch OLED screen, the latest Swift Go 16 improves on its predecessors without significant price inflation. Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1: This big-screen, mini-LED convertible laptop certainly has some positives, but there are a few too many negatives to give this Plus a full-throated recommendation. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition: It's a great business laptop, but it can get pricey fast with upgrades. Acer Swift 14 AI: This midrange Copilot Plus PC offers incredible battery life but it's missing one key feature. HP EliteBook X G1a: X does not mark the spot for this business laptop when the Ultra version costs roughly the same and supplies a far better display inside a slimmer, more compact design. Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 Gen 10: It's ultrastylish and ultracompact, but maybe don't hide the camera behind the display next time? Acer Chromebook Plus 516: The 16-inch display provides plenty of room to work but Acer has a similar model that offers more for less. How we test laptops The review process for laptops consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aesthetics, ergonomics and features with respect to price. A final review verdict is a combination of both objective and subjective judgments. We test all laptops with a core set of benchmarks, including Primate Labs Geekbench 5 and 6, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10, a variety of 3DMark benchmarks (whichever can run on the laptop), UL Procyon Photo and Video (where supported), and our own battery life test. If a laptop is intended for gaming, we'll also run benchmarks from Guardians of the Galaxy, The Rift Breaker (CPU and GPU) and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. For the hands-on, the reviewer uses it for their work during the review period, evaluating how well the design, features (such as the screen, camera and speakers) and manufacturer-supplied software operate as a cohesive whole. We also place importance on how well they work given their cost and where the manufacturer has potentially made upgrades or tradeoffs for its price. The list of benchmarking software and comparison criteria we use changes over time as the devices we test evolve. You can find a more detailed description of our test methodology on our How We Test Computers page. Factors to consider There are a ton of laptops on the market at any given moment, and almost all of those models are available in multiple configurations to match your performance and budget needs. If you're feeling overwhelmed with options when looking for a new Windows laptop, it's understandable. To help simplify things for you, here are the main things you should consider when you start looking. Price The search for a new Windows laptop for most people starts with price. If the statistics chipmaker Intel and PC manufacturers hurl at us are correct, you'll be holding onto your next laptop for at least three years. If you can afford to stretch your budget a little to get better specs, do it, which holds whether you're spending $500 or more than $1,000. In the past, you could get away with spending less upfront with an eye toward upgrading memory and storage in the future. Laptop makers are increasingly moving away from making components easily upgradable, so again, it's best to get as much laptop capability as you can afford from the start. Generally speaking, the more you spend, the better the laptop. That could mean better components for faster performance, a nicer display, sturdier build quality, a smaller or lighter design from higher-end materials or even a more comfortable keyboard. All of these things add to the cost of a laptop. I'd love to say $500 will get you a powerful gaming laptop, for example, but that's not the case. Right now, the sweet spot for a reliable laptop that can handle average work, home office or school tasks is between $700 and $800 and a reasonable model for creative work or gaming is upward of about $1,000. The key is to look for discounts on models in all price ranges so you can get more laptop capability for less. Operating system Choosing an operating system is part personal preference and part budget. For the most part, Microsoft Windows and Apple's MacOS do the same things (except for gaming, where Windows is the winner), but they do them differently. Unless there's an OS-specific application you need, go with the one you feel most comfortable using. If you're not sure which that is, head to an Apple store or a local electronics store and test them out. Or ask friends or family to let you test theirs for a bit. If you have an iPhone or iPad and like it, chances are you'll like MacOS too. When it comes to price and variety (and PC gaming), Windows laptops win. If you want MacOS, you're getting a MacBook. Apple's MacBooks regularly top our best lists, but the least expensive one is the M1 MacBook Air for $999. It is regularly discounted to $750 or $800, but if you want a cheaper MacBook, you'll have to consider older refurbished ones. Windows laptops can be found for as little as a couple of hundred dollars and come in all manner of sizes and designs. Granted, we'd be hard-pressed to find a $200 laptop we'd give a full-throated recommendation to, but if you need a laptop for online shopping, email and word processing, they exist. If you are on a tight budget, consider a Chromebook. ChromeOS is a different experience than Windows. Make sure the applications you need have a Chrome, Android or Linux app before making the leap. If you spend most of your time roaming the web, writing, streaming video or using cloud-gaming services, they're a good fit. Size Remember to consider whether having a lighter, thinner laptop or a touchscreen laptop with a good battery life will be important to you in the future. Laptop size is primarily determined by screen size, which factors into battery size, laptop thickness, weight and price. Keep in mind other physics-related characteristics, such as an ultrathin laptop isn't necessarily lighter than a thick one, you can't expect a wide array of connections on a small or ultrathin model and so on. Screen When it comes to deciding on a screen, there are a myriad number of considerations: how much you need to display (which is surprisingly more about resolution than screen size), what types of content you'll be looking at and whether or not you'll be using it for gaming or creative work. You really want to optimize pixel density, which is the number of pixels per inch the screen can display. Although other factors contribute to sharpness, a higher pixel density usually means sharper rendering of text and interface elements. (You can easily calculate the pixel density of any screen at DPI Calculator if you don't feel like doing the math, and you can also find out what math you need to do there.) We recommend a dot pitch of at least 100 pixels per inch as a rule of thumb. Because of the way Windows and MacOS scale for the display, you're frequently better off with a higher resolution than you'd think. You can always make things bigger on a high-resolution screen, but you can never make them smaller -- to fit more content in the view -- on a low-resolution screen. This is why a 4K, 14-inch screen may sound like unnecessary overkill, but may not be if you need to view a wide spreadsheet, for example. If you need a laptop with relatively accurate color, that displays the most colors possible or that supports HDR, you can't simply trust the specs. This is because manufacturers usually fail to provide the necessary context to understand what the specs they quote mean. You can find a ton of detail about considerations for different types of screen uses in our monitor buying guides for general-purpose monitors, creators, gamers and HDR viewing. Processor The processor, aka the CPU, is the brains of a laptop. Intel and AMD are the main CPU makers for Windows laptops, with Qualcomm as a new third option with its Arm-based Snapdragon X processors. Both Intel and AMD offer a staggering selection of mobile processors. Making things trickier, both manufacturers have chips designed for different laptop styles, like power-saving chips for ultraportables or faster processors for gaming laptops. Their naming conventions will let you know what type is used. You can head to Intel's or AMD's sites for explanations so you get the performance you want. Generally speaking, the faster the processor speed and the more cores it has, the better the performance will be. Apple makes its own chips for MacBooks, which makes things slightly more straightforward. Like Intel and AMD, you'll still want to pay attention to the naming conventions to know what kind of performance to expect. Apple uses its M-series chipsets in Macs. The entry-level MacBook Air uses an M1 chip with an eight-core CPU and seven-core GPU. The current models have M2-series silicon that starts with an eight-core CPU and 10-core GPU and goes up to the M2 Max with a 12-core CPU and a 38-core GPU. Again, generally speaking, the more cores it has, the better the performance. Battery life has less to do with the number of cores and more to do with CPU architecture, Arm versus x86. Apple's Arm-based MacBooks and the first Arm-based Copilot Plus PCs we've tested offer better battery life than laptops based on x86 processors from Intel and AMD. Graphics The graphics processor handles all the work of driving the screen and generating what gets displayed, as well as speeding up a lot of graphics-related (and increasingly, AI-related) operations. For Windows laptops, there are two types of GPUs: integrated or discrete. As the names imply, an iGPU is part of the CPU package, while a dGPU is a separate chip with dedicated memory (VRAM) that it communicates with directly, making it faster than sharing memory with the CPU. Because the iGPU splits space, memory and power with the CPU, it's constrained by the limits of those. It allows for smaller, lighter laptops, but doesn't perform nearly as well as a dGPU. There are some games and creative software that won't run unless they detect a dGPU or sufficient VRAM. Most productivity software, video streaming, web browsing and other nonspecialized apps will run fine on an iGPU. For more power-hungry graphics needs, like video editing, gaming and streaming, design and so on, you'll need a dGPU; there are only two real companies that make them, Nvidia and AMD, with Intel offering some based on the Xe-branded (or the older UHD Graphics branding) iGPU technology in its CPUs. Memory For memory, we highly recommend 16GB of RAM (8GB absolute minimum). RAM is where the operating system stores all the data for currently running applications, and it can fill up fast. After that, it starts swapping between RAM and SSD, which is slower. A lot of sub-$500 laptops have 4GB or 8GB, which in conjunction with a slower disk can make for a frustratingly slow Windows laptop experience. Also, many laptops now have the memory soldered onto the motherboard. Most manufacturers disclose this, but if the RAM type is LPDDR, assume it's soldered and can't be upgraded. Some PC makers will solder memory on and also leave an empty internal slot for adding a stick of RAM. You may need to contact the laptop manufacturer or find the laptop's full specs online to confirm. Check the web for user experiences, because the slot may still be hard to get to, it may require nonstandard or hard-to-get memory or other pitfalls. Storage You'll still find cheaper hard drives in budget laptops and larger hard drives in gaming laptops, but faster solid-state drives have all but replaced hard drives in laptops. They can make a big difference in performance. Not all SSDs are equally speedy, and cheaper laptops typically have slower drives. If the laptop only has 4GB or 8GB of RAM, it may end up swapping to that drive and the system may slow down quickly while you're working. Get what you can afford, and if you need to go with a smaller drive, you can always add an external drive or two down the road or use cloud storage to bolster a small internal drive. The one exception is gaming laptops: We don't recommend going with less than a 512GB SSD unless you really like uninstalling games every time you want to play a new game. Laptop FAQs Which is better: MacOS or Windows? Deciding between MacOS and Windows laptops will come down to personal preference and budget for most people. Apple's base model laptop, the M1 MacBook Air, starts at $999. You can sometimes find it discounted or you can get educational pricing from Apple and other retailers. In general, it'll be at least $1,000 for a new MacBook, and the prices just go up from there. For the money, you're getting great hardware top to bottom, inside and out. Apple recently moved to using its own processors, which resulted in across-the-board performance improvements compared to older Intel-based models. The company's most powerful laptop, the 16-inch MacBook Pro, still hasn't been updated to Apple silicon. Again, that great hardware comes at a price. Also, you're limited to just Apple laptops. With Windows and Chromebooks (more on these below), you get an amazing variety of devices at a wide range of prices. Software between the two is plentiful, so unless you need to run something that's available only on one platform or the other, you should be fine to go with either. Gaming is an advantage for a Windows laptop. MacOS is also considered to be easier and safer to use than Windows, especially for people who want their computers to get out of the way so they can get things done. Over the years, Microsoft has done its best to follow suit and, with Windows 11 here, it's trying to remove any barriers. Also, while Macs might have a reputation for being safer, with the popularity of the iPhone and iPad helping to drive Mac sales, they've become bigger targets for malware. What brands make the best Windows laptops? The biggest two brands by market share are Lenovo and HP. Each offers a wide variety of models, from thin-and-light ultraportables to larger, more powerful models for gaming content creation. Lenovo's ThinkPads have long been a favorite among business laptops, and its Yoga models are usually highly rated two-in-one laptops. Dell is third behind Lenovo and HP and is in the midst of a major rebranding effort. Familiar names like Inspiron and XPS are going away in favor of a simplified structure where its laptop will be labeled as Dell, Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max. Dell's Alienware line of gaming laptops will continue. HP is also shaking up its laptop lines. It has shuttered its Pavilion, Envy and Spectre brands in favor of OmniBook consumer models and EliteBook business models. Its Omen brand will continue as the home for its gaming laptops. I liked the first OmniBook laptop I reviewed and look forward to testing more. Asus and Acer round out the top five among Windows laptops manufacturers, with Asus making many of our favorite gaming and content-creation laptops and Acer dominating the budget space. How much RAM do I need in a Windows laptop? RAM is where the operating system stores all the data for currently running applications, and it can fill up fast. After that, it starts swapping between RAM and the slower storage drive. We recommend at least 16GB of RAM unless you are buying a budget laptop for the most basic of tasks. And for mainstream laptops, 32GB of RAM is becoming more common. Buy as much RAM as you can afford up front because most laptops these days do not provide a way to add more memory after purchase. What is the ideal screen size for a Windows laptop? For most people, a 14-inch display offers the best balance between portability and productivity. With today's taller 16:10 aspect ratio, a 14-inch display is appreciably larger than the 13.3-inch, 16:9 display on older laptops. A 14-inch, 16:10 display provides enough screen space while still keeping the weight around 3 pounds. Only choose a 16-inch display if you are looking for a true desktop replacement and will use the laptop primarily at home. And if you need a laptop for constant travel, an ultraportable with a 13-inch, 16:10 display is a good fit, but there are also 14-inch laptops that weigh less than 3 pounds so don't feel as if you need to sacrifice screen size for a lighter travel weight.
