According to research firm Current Analysis, laptop computers first outsold desktop PCs in the United States 20 years ago. They’ve dominated sales since 2008. Last year, notebook shipments outnumbered desktops by 2.6 to 1, according to Statista. Portability, durability, and desktop-class capability are all hallmarks if the form today, making it likely your next high-powered computer will be a laptop.
One question remains: When you’re in the market for a new PC, which laptop brand should you choose?
Each year, we survey thousands of readers to find out. We ask about ease-of-use, reliability, tech support, and even more granular questions about, for example, display quality and even how much users like their laptop touch screens. This year, for the second time, we ask respondents to rate their laptop’s operating system, since the OS drives so much of the initial choice as well as the post-purchase computing experience. You may be surprised to see what your fellow readers chose.
Be sure to check out our Business Choice Awards to see this year’s highly recommended laptop brands for work. If you’re looking for tablet survey results, those will appear in a few weeks.
The Top Laptop Brands for 2024
For the better part of two decades, Apple has handily claimed the win in our laptop satisfaction survey, with a few instances of disruption from MSI in recent years. This year, a new brand steps up into the top spot.
LG is our 2025 Readers’ Choice champion with some record-breaking scores. MSI manages to increase its overall satisfaction score from last year‘s winning figure, but it still can’t keep up with LG’s results—the South Korean laptop manufacturer vaults from fourth to first place, perhaps due to the release of the Gram Pro line of ultralight laptops.
(Note: Click the down, left, and right arrows in our interactive charts to view various elements of our survey results.)
The only category in which LG appears but doesn’t win is value—MSI and Acer are on top there. (And MSI ties LG for likelihood to recommend.) But everywhere else LG appears, it wins, with every score at 9.1 or higher on a scale up to 10. In fact, LG scores an almost-perfect 9.8 when respondents rate their satisfaction with their laptops’ size and weight. That’s about as close to perfect as we ever see in Readers’ Choice surveys. And LG’s scores for reliability and display quality are not much lower.
MSI and Apple tie for second place in overall satisfaction at an excellent 9.1, with Asus in fourth at 8.5. MSI has additional top scores to trumpet, like cost (sharing an 8.6 with Acer), repairs, and gaming (more on that below).
Apple claims several high ratings, but most tie or trail LG and MSI. This year, the only area where Apple triumphs is tech support.
Other vendors with specific standout ratings include Asus and Dell (tied for first place in ease of setup) and Microsoft (with its Surface laptops winning for the best touch screens).
To see which laptops currently lead in our lab-testing, read The Best Laptops for 2025.
2-in-1 Laptop Brands
Hybrid laptops—2-in-1s that can also serve as tablets thanks to rotating or detachable displays—may not be runaway favorites; only 16.6% of our survey respondents say they own one. But these touch-screen systems are marvels of versatility. And it turns out our Editors’ Choice brand for best overall 2-in-1 is also, once again, the Readers’ Choice: Lenovo, which invented the flip-and-fold convertible design with its Yoga line.
Lenovo’s win is a narrow one—with Dell nipping at its heels—but its hybrid laptops top the chart in overall satisfaction. Lenovo also ties with Microsoft for reliability and likelihood to recommend.
Indeed, Microsoft fares better than its bronze medal in overall satisfaction might indicate, with high scores for ease of use, battery life, size and weight, touch screen, and display quality. The last few results likely reflect the popularity of Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablets and detachable tablet-plus-keyboard combos.
For our in-depth reviews and top picks, read The Best 2-in-1 Laptops for 2025.
Gaming Laptop Brands
Thanks to speedy mobile GPUs and solid-state drives, gaming on a PC is no longer just the domain of bulky desktop towers with high-end graphics cards. Survey respondents peg five top laptop brands for gaming. It’s not a shock to see MSI in the lead, considering how well the company has performed in years past. MSI ties with Asus in overall satisfaction but racks up more wins in the additional categories, including overall likelihood to recommend, a key tiebreaker when we consider results.
MSI ties with Asus for first place in gaming laptop reliability, with Asus taking a narrow win for display quality. Otherwise, MSI leads in every column, with excellent numbers for ease of use and, the most important factor in this table, quality of gameplay.
Recommended by Our Editors
Lenovo manages a decent overall satisfaction score for its gaming laptops; its mass-market rivals Dell and HP’s numbers also have decent scores. They just happen to trail the rest. And that’s not where a gamer wants to be.
For more, read The Best Gaming Laptops for 2025.
Laptop Operating Systems
For the second year, our survey asks about laptop operating systems. Predictably, the majority (79%) of our survey respondents use Microsoft Windows; 14% are on Apple’s macOS, and 4% are running Google’s ChromeOS. Last year, macOS emerged victorious.
But we have an underdog taking the title this year, despite only 3% of respondents putting it to use. Linux nails the highest score for overall satisfaction and takes the Readers’ Choice award.
Chalk that up to some very happy high-tech users, so comfortable with the command-line interface they rate Linux’s ease of use above ChromeOS’. Linux doesn’t rack up a lot of other top scores—it’s in a tie with macOS for the best security and best included software and utilities, reflecting popular bundles or Linux distros. (We didn’t ask about the individual distros readers prefer—we’ll be sure to add that to the survey next time, though we’re betting on Ubuntu.) But the numbers don’t lie: The relatively small number of Linux users feel more satisfaction with their OS choice than legions of macOS and Windows users.
That said, Apple’s macOS excels in most other categories including a higher recommendation rating. Apple’s desktop platform leads in reliability, ease of use, ease of updates, and overall software and app quality.
For our expert’s take, read Which OS Is Best: Windows, macOS, Linux, or ChromeOS?
The PCMag Readers’ Choice survey for Laptops was in the field from November 11, 2024, to February 3, 2025. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read the survey methodology.
PCMag Readers’ Choice: How Our Surveys Help You Find the Best Products
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About Eric Griffith
Senior Editor, Features
