HEAD TO HEAD
Ultrabooks
Matebook 13 $1,599, WWW.HUAWEI.COM
Huawei has been biding its time to take on the best Ultrabooks. But now, their time in the limelight is here. Like the Huawei MateBook X Pro before it, the Huawei Matebook 13 packs a ton of powerful hardware into a gorgeous shell, all while offering it at a price that’s more than reasonable. Those discrete graphics are also worth a mention – the Huawei Matebook 13 may be one of the tiniest laptops out there to come with an MX150 GPU. It’s not hard to see why the Huawei Matebook 13 is the best Ultrabook right now.
XPS 13 $2,038, WWW.DELL.COM
The Dell XPS 13 has been king of the Ultrabooks for years, and while it’s been unseated by the Huawei MateBook 13, it remains one of the Ultrabooks to beat. This time around, Dell has moved the webcam from the bottom of the display back to the top, fixing one of the biggest flaws that held back the XPS 13 for years. Add the updated internal components to the mix, and the Dell XPS 13 still makes the best Ultrabooks list – even in the face of tough competition.
Matebook X Pro (2018) $2,448, WWW.HUAWEI.COM
Sometimes an Ultrabook arrives that totally changes everything. When the 2018 model of the Huawei MateBook X Pro hit the scene, it did just that. This beautiful Ultrabook brings high-end components into an elegantly designed package that puts even the MacBook Pro to shame. It really is one of the best Ultrabooks on the market, despite its 2019 successor’s attempts to best it with an Intel Whiskey Lake processor. It’s still the 2018 model that’s captured our computing cores.
The best Ultrabooks are more than just status symbols. They’re the ideal grab and go machines, which means that you can edit your photos, render your videos and power through your work, no matter if you’re on a train, at a café, or in between classes.
Ever so light and compact, they now pack more power than ever before, coming equipped with the best processors and SSDs out there. They truly are powerful little devices that can help you breeze through projects like no one’s business.
And, frequently, that power is paired with a pretty extraordinary battery life that may last you an entire work day on one full charge.
Spectre x360 $1,999, WWW.HP.COM
If an arresting Ultrabook housing 2-in-1 functionality and a ton of power satisfies what you’re looking for, it’s hard to find a better laptop than the HP Spectre x360. This slim and light Ultrabook isn’t just filled with the latest Intel Whiskey Lake processors and plenty of RAM. It also might just be the most exquisite laptop you can buy today. The HP Spectre x360 won’t just get you through your workload, but will also make you smart and stylish in the process.
Surface Laptop 2 $1,270, WWW.MICROSOFT.COM
The original Microsoft Surface Laptop was a great Ultrabook, but had relatively weak internals and Windows 10 S. Fortunately, Microsoft rolled out the Surface Laptop 2 in late 2018, offering quad-core processors and the full-fat version of Windows 10. It’s through these fundamental improvements that the Surface Laptop 2 is able to bring the purest Windows 10 experience to a laptop – and with the newer Laptop 3 machines just released, while brilliant, it’s made pricing on the Laptop 2 so very appealing.
Yoga C930 $2,799, WWW.LENOVO.COM
The Lenovo Yoga C930 has quite a few of the makings of the best Ultrabook – from an absurd 14.5 hours of battery life and dual Thunderbolt-enabled USB-C ports to internal components that will easily handle those daily productivity tasks. That’s without even considering it’s a 2-in-1 that offers form versatility so you can squeeze in some light gaming and moviewatching once you’re done working. It has a few cherries on top as well, specifically the integrated selfcharging stylus and the fab speaker system.