The Best Laptop for Writers
“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write,” Martin Luther once said. Of course, back in the 1500’s he didn’t have a laptop.
Nowadays, a laptop is indispensable, whether you’re a blogger, a student, a scriptwriter, or an aspiring author.
It lets you materialize your thoughts into something you can touch and see. Every writer has different goals and, therefore, different computer requirements.
Well, my team has put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard in this case, and compiled a list of the best laptops you can find. Check them out!
What Are the Best Laptops for Writers?
The best laptop for writers doesn’t need to be the most powerful.
It needs to be reliable in terms of battery life and functional for everyday use. The keyboard should feel just right and the screen display should be easy to read.
My team has selected the top three laptops for writers and has provided an overview of some other great selections below.
The three laptops highlighted as the best here combine some of the best all-around qualities, ranging from battery life to keyboard, portability, and screen features. Let’s jump in.
Overview
Being the best laptop for serious writers, this is the laptop that Greg uses. It has the best keyboard, screen, and battery length.
The only trade-off is portability, but this isn’t an issue if you plan to park yourself at a coffee shop for hours while writing.
Buying one at Amazon makes sense because it can be financed over 48 months using Affirm (no credit card or credit check).
Highlights
- Backlit Keyboard: It has the perfect combination of lightness on the downstroke touch and a satisfying click at the bottom.
- 16GB Unified Memory: Perfect for having several tasks open at the same time, especially if you use Google Chrome.
- Processor: 12-core M2 Pro processor with a 19-core GPU provides amazing computing and processing power.
- Battery Life: Up to 21 hours which is a brilliant battery life capacity.
- Storage: 512 GB SSD, which is probably more storage capacity than you’ll ever need as a writer.
- Screen Size and Resolution: 16-inch (3456 x 2234) Liquid XDR Retina display.
- Ports: A trio of Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C Ports).
- Operating System: macOS
Pricing
In terms of pricing, the Macbook Pro is one of the more expensive models on our list. However, with the insane quality, excellent features, and raw computing power, it’s worth every penny.
It’s available on Amazon and Best Buy with optional upgrade features at an extra cost, not that you’ll need to upgrade.
The basic loadout features of the Macbook Pro make it an absolute beast.
Our Take
If you’re looking for the absolute best laptop for writers, put your faith in the Macbook Pro.
It’s a premium laptop with long battery life, a comfortable backlit keyboard, a fast processor, and a top-notch screen resolution.
This Apple laptop is everything a writer needs and more.
Overview
For those on a tight budget, you can’t go wrong with the Acer Aspire 5 Slim Laptop.
It provides excellent features, including long battery life, powerful processing power, and a comfortable keyboard.
The Acer’s premium slim design and portable, lightweight build make it an excellent choice for budget-conscious writers.
Highlights
- Battery Life: Comes with a solid battery life of up to 9.5 hours.
- Backlit keyboard: Great for working at night or in low-light settings.
- Processor: Packs an 11th Generation Intel Core i3 processor with impressive processing speed.
- Screen: 15.6″ Full HD display with 82.58% screen-to-body ratio, which means you get much greater screen space and a very narrow bezel.
- RAM: 8 to 20GB of high-band-width RAM, allowing you to run multiple tasks and apps smoothly and simultaneously.
- Storage: 256GB to 1TB SSD storage, which translates into fast bootup, reliable capacity, and quick data transfer.
Pricing
The Acer Aspire 5 Slim Laptop is the best budget laptop on this list.
You can find it on Amazon with upgradeable features, depending on the storage and memory capacities you prefer.
Our Take
The Acer Aspire 5 Slim is the perfect budget laptop for writers who want the most features at a reasonable price.
It has long-lasting battery life, a comfortable and satisfying keyboard, and a thin-bezel screen display.
Overview
If you’re looking for a 2-in-1 laptop that doubles as a tablet, the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 is the best in this category.
With its detachable backlit keyboard, responsive touch screen, and fast processing speed, the Surface Pro 8 is perfect for writers.
You can easily switch between tablet and laptop modes, making it suitable for any work environment. Just remove the screen, and you’re left with a tablet and an external keyboard in your hands.
Being one of the lightest laptops on this list, the Surface Pro 8 exceeds expectations in terms of portability.
Highlights
- Kickstand: Iconic built-in Kickstand allows you to work anywhere.
- Keyboard: The detachable backlit keyboard with the large glass trackpad lets you switch between laptop and tablet modes.
- Screen: Responsive 13″ touch screen with 2880×1920 native resolution.
- Pen-Compatible: Goes smoothly with the Surface Slim Pen 2 for a natural pen-on-paper feel.
- Intel Evo Platform: The first Surface laptop built on the Intel Core Evo Platform, bringing performance, graphics, and battery life all in one lightweight laptop/tablet.
- Storage and Memory: 256GB storage capacity with 16GB of memory.
- CPU: Intel Core i7, one of Intel’s fastest processing models.
- Battery Life: Up to 16 hours, which is impressive considering the powerful processor built into this tiny laptop.
- Lightweight: Weighing just under 2 lbs., the Microsoft Surface Laptop is a super-portable laptop for writers.
Pricing
The Microsoft Surface Laptop can be found on Amazon and Best Buy.
It comes at a great price tag, considering you’re essentially buying a laptop and a tablet for the price of one.
Our take
The Microsoft Surface Pro 8 packs a massive processor, a comfortable keyboard, and excellent battery life into one tiny device.
It’s the best laptop for writers who want a lightweight, portable laptop that can double as a tablet.
Truly, a powerful laptop for writers on the go.
Overview
Who says gaming laptops can’t be used for writing tasks?
If you write in the morning and game at night, the Lenovo Legion 5 is perfect for you.
The Legion 5 boasts insane processing speed, beautiful graphics, and a highly-responsive keyboard.
Its features go beyond the typical writing laptop, making it perfect for gaming, photo editing, watching movies, video editing, and of course, writing projects.
Highlights
- Processor: Most gaming laptops require high computing power. The Legion 5 does not disappoint with its AMD Ryzen 7 5800H beast of a processor and dynamic CPU/GPU power distribution.
- Graphics: With its NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card, the Legion boasts ultra-realistic graphics, perfect for creators, gamers, and writers.
- Keyboard: The signature Legion TrueStrike keyboard revolutionizes your writing experience with smooth buttons, dedicated media keys, a number pad, large arrow keys, and a one-piece trackpad.
- Screen: Large 15.6″ FHD screen featuring the graphical pyrotechnics of Dolby Vision and accurate RBG colors.
- Battery Life: Decent battery life (around 3 hours) when used for gaming, but it can last significantly longer if you’re only writing.
- Memory: Up to 32GB RAM, allowing you to run multiple tasks and tabs simultaneously.
- Storage: Up to 2TB SSD for lightning-quick bootup, fast data transfer, and more-than-sufficient storage space.
- Operating System: Perfect for Windows users.
Pricing
The Lenovo Legion 5 is available with several upgradable features on Amazon and Best Buy.
It’s a bit higher on the price spectrum, but definitely worth it.
Our Take
The best laptop for writers who want to game is the Legion 5, hands down.
You can go from Microsoft Word or Google Docs to Elden Ring and back in a matter of seconds.
The Legion 5 boasts impressive computing power, insane graphics, crisp laptop screen resolution, and a responsive and accurate trackpad.
Gaming writers assemble; this is the one for you.
Overview
When you’re a writer, inspiration can hit at any time. You could be at home, at a coffee shop, or even on the road.
Having a portable, light laptop allows you to translate your ideas into words in seconds.
The Google Pixelbook Go is the best laptop on this list in terms of portability. As the name cleverly suggests, it’s as light as a book and has excellent battery life, so you can just grab it and go.
It’s not too fancy, with an Intel Core i5 processor and Intel HD graphics card, but for writers on the go, you don’t really need more than that.
Highlights
- Battery Life: Lasts up to 12 hours. If you’re in a rush, charging the Pixelbook Go for just 20 minutes will give you about 2 hours’ worth of battery power, so it’s perfect for long writing sessions.
- Portability: Very lightweight (about 2 lbs.), making it easy to take with you anywhere you go.
- Memory and Storage: 8GB RAM with 128GB storage capacity, upgradeable at purchase.
- Screen: 13.3″ screen with 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution
- Processor: 8th Gen Intel Core i5 Processor
- Operating System: Chrome OS
- Keyboard: Responsive, backlit keyboard that is comfortable to use in low-light conditions. Its patented Hush Keys technology ensures minimal noise when typing.
- Graphics: Intel HD graphics
Pricing
The Google Pixelbook Go is on the lower end of the price spectrum since it focuses more on portability than having fancy, expensive features.
You can find it on Amazon with optional upgrades at an additional cost.
Our take
If all you care about is productivity, battery life, and portability, the Pixelbook Go is perfect for you.
Its Intel Core processor, Chrome OS, and HD screen display help you get the most writing done without all the fancy bells and whistles.
Couple that with perfect screen size and ultra-quiet keys, and you’ve got the best laptop for writers on the go.
Overview
For Apple lovers who think the Macbook Pro is a bit out of their budget range, the Apple Macbook Air is a close second. It has the same sleek design, impeccable processing power, and crisp graphics and screen resolution.
The battery life is just as good as the Pro’s, with up to 18 hours of nonstop writing with one charge. It’s ultra-portable and extremely light, weighing just under 3 lbs. and with a thickness of just 0.44″.
highlights
- Processor: Features the iconic M2 chip, which is lightning-fast, almost 15 times faster than its Intel-based counterpart. You can choose between 8 and 10-core GPUs.
- Display: 13.6″ Liquid Retina display supporting 1 billion colors, 500 nits of brightness, and True Color Technology. The screen size and resolution are just right.
- Keyboard: Magic Keyboard with Touch ID (fingerprint reader) allows you to work faster and get things done with just the touch of a finger.
- Battery: Up to 18 hours
- Portable: Weighing about 2.7 lbs. and with a thickness of 0.44 in., the Macbook Air is as portable as it gets.
- Memory: Goes up to 24GB of unified memory for the smoothest multitasking experience possible.
- Ports: Two USB type C ports (thunderbolt ports).
Pricing
Although it’s a few hundred dollars cheaper than the Pro, the Air is still on the higher end of the price spectrum. However, it’s a premium writing laptop that’s worth every penny.
You can find it on Amazon and Best Buy.
Our Take
The MacBook Air is one of the best laptops for writers who love Apple but can’t afford the Pro.
It has incomparable processing speed, a hyper-realistic graphic display, and an extremely reliable battery. It’s like the Apple Macbook Air was built with writers in mind.
Overview
For a writer, the keyboard is arguably the most important feature. The best laptop for writers has a keyboard that just feels right, almost like a glove.
That laptop is the Dell XPS 13.
It features a large, responsive keyboard that gives just enough feedback clicks with each touch to satisfy any writer. Just below the keyboard, you’ll find a carbon fiber palm rest that is as strong as aluminum but feels lighter to the touch.
By using this, you’ll never want to move your hand away.
Highlights
- Display: 13.4-inch OLED 3.5K Infinity Edge Touch, 400-Nit Display. The stunning resolution with a 1500:1 contrast ratio allows you to enjoy the brightest brights and darkest darks.
- Graphics: Intel Iris Xe graphics for a smooth, seamless writing experience.
- Processor: The 11th Generation Intel Core i7 processor, coupled with the Intel Iris Graphics card, is perfect for web-based writing platforms.
- Storage: 512GB SSD capacity
- Memory: 16GB Memory
- Touch Screen: The anti-reflective touch screen is easy on the eyes thanks to the integrated blue light filter, making it ideal for long hours of writing.
- Keyboard: Large keyboard with fingerprint reader and a light, carbon-fiber palm rest. The touchpad and keycaps are 17% and 9% larger than average, respectively, making them perfect for writing.
Pricing
The Dell XPS 13 is a bit expensive, but justifiably so. After all, it’s a touchscreen laptop with this kind of computing power and an advanced resolution.
You’ll find it has tons of great reviews on Amazon and Best Buy.
Our Take
With a keyboard this comfortable and reliable, the XPS 13 is the perfect Windows laptop for writing.
It has just the right amount of springiness and deep key travel you want in a keyboard. The white backlight is pretty handy at night as well.
Thanks to its blue light filter, it’s one of the best laptops for writers and novelists who spend hours staring at a computer screen.
Overview
If you don’t need that much processing power, just a small, portable laptop for writing, this Lenovo Chromebook is great for you.
It’s a 2-in-1 Chromebook that comes with a detachable keyboard for when entering tablet mode. With its 10.1″ screen, it’s the smallest model on our list, almost the size of a writing pad.
It’s one of the best laptops for writers whose main concern is screen size.
Highlights
- Battery: Up to 10 hours with one charge.
- Screen: A small, 10.5″ FHD screen with a crystal clear resolution of 1920 x 1200. Its 10-point multi-touch touchscreen is also USI pen compatible.
- Weight: Ultra-light, weighing just under 1 lb.
- CPU: MediaTek Helio P60T with 2 GHz speed, which should suit most of your writing needs.
Pricing
The Lenovo IdeaPad Duet Chromebook, being a simple and highly portable laptop, offers a cost-effective option as it lacks some of the more advanced features found in other models on our list. Despite this, it is still highly functional and capable of fulfilling basic computing needs.
You can find it on Amazon and Best Buy at a great price.
Our Take
If you’re looking for the tiniest laptop out there for writers, the Lenovo Chromebook is as small as it gets.
Its processor and storage features aren’t the greatest, but it’s more than enough for a small 2-in-1 laptop. It’ll help you jot down your thoughts anywhere, anytime.
Conclusion
As a writer, you don’t need the biggest or most powerful laptop. You just need a reliable laptop with excellent battery life, a comfy keyboard, and a great screen display.
There are so many options to consider in buying the best laptop for writers, but the ones on our list cover just about every writer’s needs.
Pick one, start typing, and before you know it, your words will come to life!
Gregory S. McNeal
Along with being a successful entrepreneur, I am a tenured Professor of Law and Public Policy at Pepperdine University. I teach courses related to technology, law, and policy, and serve as a faculty member with the Palmer Center for Entrepreneurship.
Disclosure
Material Connection: Some of the links in posts on this site are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, my company will receive an affiliate commission. This disclosure is required by the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
