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What are the best lightweight laptops for traveling and development?

8

Options
Considered

19

User
Recs.

Mar 18, 2023

Last
Updated

6 Options Considered

Best lightweight laptops for traveling and development	Price	Weight	RAM
-- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon	$1789	2.49 lbs / 1.13 kg	8GB/16GB LPDDR3 1866Mhz
-- Dell XPS 13	$999	2.7 lbs	8 GB/16GB
-- Dell XPS 15	$1499	2kg (4.44 lbs)	8 / 16 / 32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz
-- MacBook	$1,299	2.03 lbs	8GB
-- Apple MacBook Pro	$1,299	3.02lbs	8/16GB

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

Top Pro

Very portable

At around 2lbs this is a very light laptop. Especially when you compare it to other Thinkpads. It's light enough to carry in one hand and when it's carried in a backpack it's easy to forget that you are carrying a laptop because of how light it is. See More

Top Con

RAM is soldered to the motherboard

Travelohlic's Experience

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is a good-to-go choice for me due to its lightweight and durable design, long battery life, and reliable performance. Its comfortable keyboard and high-quality display also make it a good option for productivity on the go from blogging and freelancing purpose. See More

Specs

Weight:2.49 lbs / 1.13 kg

RAM:8GB/16GB LPDDR3 1866Mhz

GPU:Intel HD 620 Graphics

Storage:512GB/1TB SSD

Top Pro

Excellent typing experience

Like most Thinkpads, the X1 Carbon has an excellent keyboard as well. The keys have about 1.8mm of travel and provide great tactile feedback. Their gently curved keys also make it very easy to target without looking at them. The keyboard also has optional backlighting which can be turned on or off with a simple key press. See More

Top Con

Can get Hot on demanding load

's Experience

It's extremely light especially for a 14-inch laptop at 2.4 pounds See More

Top Pro

Excellent display

The X1 Carbon comes in two different versions. With a 1080p or a 1440p display, with the latter being $70 more. Both displays are excellent. The image is sharp and the colors are very noticeable. Although, understandably, the 1440p display has images that are a bit sharper than its 1080p counterpart. According to colorimeter tests, both versions of the display can produce 104 and 103 percent of the sRGB color gamut, respectively. That's very impressive when compared to the average for 14" displays (83%). The 1080p screen is noticeably brighter than the 1440p screen (292nits vs 257nits) and the colors generally start fading only at about 45 degrees viewing angle. See More

Top Con

Missing an Ethernet port

The X1 Carbon is missing an Ethernet port, so people who prefer having that option as well are forced to use Wifi only. See More

ShojiVR's Experience

less than a kilogram, you can bring laptop anywhere without worry about being too heavy. See More

Top Pro

Great battery life

The battery supports over 10 hours of light activity like web browsing, watching videos and editing documents. This can be doubled to 20 hours by swapping in the extended, 6-cell battery, which can be hot swapped without turning off the laptop since it also has an internal 4-cell battery. See More

Top Con

Extended dual battery adds weight

6-cell extended battery adds 0.4 pounds to take this ultrabook's weight far above that of the ultrabook standard (<3 pounds). See More

Top Pro

Great speakers

The X1 Carbon has bottom-mounted speakers which provide excellent audio output. The sound is loud enough to fill a large room and there's clear separation of sound coming from the speakers, making them great for any sorts of recreational activity involving audio be it listening to music, watching movies or playing videogames. See More

Top Pro

Great build quality

The Carbon X1 is a very light and durable laptop. It has the characteristic raven-black finishing of other Thinkpads on top of a carbon-fiber reinforced chassis. The carbon fiber increases the overall durability of the laptop, making it a great fit for people who travel a lot since it can withstand a lot of physical damages. See More

Top Pro

Built-in support for Amazon Alexa

The 2018 model of the X1 Carbon has far-field microphones built-in to work with Amazon Alexa. This will allow you to give commands to Alexa from across the room. See More

Dell XPS 13

Top Pro

Great Linux support

You can configure the XPS 13 to come with Linux out of the box. Even if you pick the Windows version, the XPS 13 has Linux drivers for all of its features and most users have reported that the whole process of installing a Linux distribution on a Dell XPS 13 is very simple. See More

Top Con

No upgrades

Ram is soldered on the board. See More

Specs

GPU:Intel UHD Graphics 620

Storage:128GB/256GB/1TB SSD

Top Pro

Plenty of RAM for all programming needs

Building software typically takes more resources than running the final product. Having a lot of RAM helps building big complex applications faster. See More

Top Con

The battery does not last as long as advertised

The laptop never performs to the promised 11-15 hours, average usage is around 7-8 hours. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight and portable

It's weight is only 2.7 lbs, making it very portable. See More

Top Con

Trackpad hardware (touch/feel/operation) is noticeably worse if coming from MacBook/MBP

Part of this is the hardware, and part seems to be the drivers. It's very unforgiving when accidentally brushing the trackpad with a different finger. Certain actions like double-clicks (tapping with two fingers) and scrolling (with two fingers) doesn't work reliably. This is true with other windows based laptops too. Not an issue if you spend a lot of time in a terminal/shell. See More

Top Pro

Great build quality

The body has a slick and elegant design. It's a mix of aluminum, carbon fiber and magnesium which hardly ever flexes even when held with one hand. See More

Top Con

The touchscreen reflects light making it hard to see unless the lighting on the display is properly set

The screen for the touch-screen model is glossy instead of matte (non-touch screen). For what is a Linux notebook this does not make a lot of sense since most Linux users are the more tech savy who program. A glossy screen is more for multimedia, something Linux is not really known for excelling in. See More

Top Pro

One of the best Windows trackpads available

The Dell's trackpad is one of the best Windows trackpads available. It has smooth and precise tracking and even supports three-finger gestures similar to the Macbook's. See More

Top Con

13" is too small for many kinds of development

At these sizes, it is inches which start to matter, not only pixels. See More

Top Pro

Stunning display

Before buying you can choose between the 4K UHD- or full HD-resolution touch displays or a full HD non-touch one. However, Linux compatibility for super high resolution displays can be spotty at times, so you might be better off sticking with the full HD if you plan on running Linux. Display quality is very good as far as viewing angles, brightness and color reproduction go. It also has a very small bevel so the screen goes more or less edge-to-edge. It also has an output of 400 nit, putting it in the "really bright" category as far as displays go. As for color reproduction, XPS 13's display produces an impressive 107.2 percent of the sRGB color gamut. See More

Top Con

Spongy keyboard

The keyboard feels a bit spongy and does not have a lot of travel to the keys. When bottoming out there is no feel of completion. See More

Top Pro

Uses an SSD for faster operations on disk

Using an SSD greatly increases performance for every I/O operation, especially compared to laptops that use an HDD. The laptop will boot faster, programs that need to read and write to disk will run faster and scripts will compile much faster than on an HDD. See More

Top Con

The battery wears out quickly

After some use, the battery continues to fall at an alarming rate, to only 5-6 hours after a couple of months. See More

Top Pro

Non-glossy

The build is non-glossy, so no fingerprint markings all over the thing. See More

Top Con

Webcam located in an odd place

Due to the narrow bezel of the infinity display, Dell moved the webcam to the bottom left corner. This results in an odd viewing angle and the webcam getting blocked while typing. See More

Top Pro

Great online customer service

Dell's customer service is one of the best in the industry. Especially the online customer service website. There you will find frequently asked questions which usually solve 90% of issues, if that's not enough, there's a live chat with a customer service representative, who are usually very helpful and very understanding about every issue that may arise. See More

Top Con

Phone support is very slow

Customers have reported waiting for up to 15 minutes to get connected to someone who will be able to help solve their issue. See More

Top Pro

Decent speakers

The Dell XPS 13 has above average speakers for a laptop, they get very loud but at max volume tend to distort the music a little too much. See More

Top Pro

Latest generation hardware

The XPS 13 was recently updated with all the latest generation hardware which means that it won't become outdated any time soon. See More

Top Pro

Great keyboard

The keyboard is high quality, feels great to type on and isn't too mushy or too shallow. Even though there's nothing very special about the keyboard, it's as good of a keyboard as you could want. See More

Top Pro

Toggleable and customizable keyboard backlighting

Users can turn on or off the backlighting of the keyboard as well as adjust the brightness. See More

Dell XPS 15

Top Pro

Very well-rounded laptop

The cheapest configuration is a great choice for general non-intensive use - things like internet browsing, watching movies and similar tasks. Whereas the more expensive configurations are gradually more capable of intensive tasks, like video editing or gaming. It’s not as good as a specialized computer built for a specific purpose, like a video editing laptop with an enormous RAM size or a gaming laptop with a superior graphics card, but it’s a very well-rounded, reliable laptop. See More

Top Con

Awkward webcam location

The webcam is located under the screen instead of on top. It means that your face will be shown from a lower angle which can seem a bit weird. It also means that your fingers can partially obstruct the webcam while you’re typing. See More

Specs

Weight:2kg (4.44 lbs)

RAM:8 / 16 / 32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz

GPU:Intel HD Graphics 630 / NVIDIA GTX 1050 with 4GB GDDR5

Storage:500GB HDD + 32GB Flash / 1TB HDD + 32GB Flash / 256/512GB/1TB PCIe SSD

Top Pro

Good battery life if you pick the 1080p display

Models with the 1080p screen last about 10 hours with general usage. Naturally, if more intensive tasks are involved, the battery will be drained faster. See More

Top Con

Palmrest collects sweat

The palm rest is made from carbon fiber which attracts fingerprints and sweat. After some time it gets kind of unpleasant to touch and needs to be cleaned. See More

Top Pro

Solid keyboard and trackpad

The keyboard and trackpad are reliable and solid all-around. The keyboard is responsive but is not super “clicky”, rather a bit soft. It has a white backlight on black keys that illuminates them at night. The touchpad is rather large while having no buttons. Despite this, the XPS 15 can reliably distinguish between the left and right clicks which are done on the trackpad itself. See More

Top Con

Some ghosting in games

The display is not intended for gaming purposes so it can produce an effect called “ghosting”. Ghosting is when the pixels are not able to change their colors fast enough, so the color of the preceding frame can still be slightly seen on the next frame. This causes a blurring effect. Note that it only happens on high framerates coupled with fast objects. See More

Top Pro

Slick design

The whole design is quite stylish. The aluminium chassis provides a very clean look while the black carbon fiber palm rest with an almost borderless display cements it as a visually modern laptop. All of this is made with a premium build quality. See More

Top Con

9560 model's GPU has compatibility issues on Linux

The new 9560 model has some trouble accepting its GTX 1050 Ti video card while running a Linux operating system. Fortunately, the integrated Intel graphics card is capable enough to substitute it. The manufacturers are probably aware of the issue and will, most likely, release an update for it. See More

Top Pro

Operates well on a Linux system

All essential things, like network connectivity, ports and sound, work right “out-of-the-box” with a Linux operating system. There is a compatibility issue on the new 9560 model with its graphics card but the laptop is still very usable with its integrated Intel graphics card. See More

Top Con

Audible coil whine

Coil whine can be heard when it’s generally quiet and the fans are not running. Audible when the laptop is connected to the power supply. The manufacturers have acknowledged it as a problem and, if possible, will push out an update which should eliminate it. Until then, it’s still a gripe. See More

Top Pro

Amazing display

Two display choices are available for the XPS 15, an Ultra HD touchscreen or a Full HD non-touch screen. Both screens have a very wide array of colors as they cover approximately 100% of sRGB color space. The viewing angle is around 170 degrees. However, at 45 degrees, slight color change can be noticed. With around 350 nit output for brightness, it’s a viable choice for outdoor usage. All of this makes it an amazing display. See More

Top Con

Noisy fans

The laptop is very quiet during idle and light usage but when there is some workload, the fans get quite loud and distracting. See More

Top Pro

Can run most modern games

Being an excellent all-rounder, it can be used as a gaming laptop for games that are not exceptionally demanding, like Overwatch or Dota 2. Unless you’re using the cheapest model, you can expect a reasonable 60 frames per second for almost all modern games, provided that you’re willing to lower the game’s settings. See More

Top Con

Battery doesn’t hold long with the Ultra HD screen

If you’re choosing the configuration with an Ultra HD screen, expect a very short battery life of around 6 hours for general usage. With more intensive tasks it's even less than that. See More

Top Pro

Optional password-free-sign-in via a fingerprint reader

For an additional $25 it’s possible to enjoy a password-free-sign-in by having a fingerprint reader. It will keep your laptop safe while still providing convenient access to it. See More

MacBook

Top Pro

macOS is developer-friendly

macOS is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's a certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on macOS. There's a large selection of great development tools available for macOS. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing macOS and iOS software, for free. You can also install Homebrew, an extremely useful package manager. See More

Top Con

Connecting more than one thing requires a hub

The laptop comes with a single USB-C port that's used for charging as well as any other peripherals or external storage devices. Connecting more than one thing at a time requires using a USB hub. See More

Ray's Experience

Powerful enough for most dev work, and lightweight enough to carry it anywhere. See More

Specs

Weight:2.03 lbs

GPU:Intel HD Graphics 5300

Storage:256GB / 512GB PCIe SSD

Top Pro

Decent battery life

The battery lasts around 7h30m of continuous web browsing which is about average for this class of laptops. Where this laptop's battery truly shines though is under heavy stress where it manages to last an impressive 2h35m under a total stress test (maxed out brightness and processor usage - circumstances that you are likely never going to encounter in the real world). See More

Top Con

Terrible keyboard

new butterfly keyboard is a challenge to use, and very damage prone, key get stuck or stop working for no reason... See More

Top Pro

Amazing display

Everything about the display is very good - from its high resolution (2304x1440) to the brightness (325 nitts), uniform brightness distribution (90%), and high contrast ratio (1000:1) with over 95% of the sRGB spectrum. Overall, a great display which will come in handy for people who work with visual arts. See More

Top Con

Terrible keyboard

new butterfly keyboard is a challenge to use, and very damage prone, key get stuck or stop working for no reason... See More

Top Pro

Excellent trackpad

The MacBook has a large 4.4 x 2.7-inch Force Touch trackpad with a Taptic Engine that delivers haptic feedback whenever the user taps on it to give them the impression that they are actually clicking on it. It also supports gestures and multi-finger swiping. The accuracy is almost perfect and there's virtually no lag or stutter when using the trackpad. See More

Top Con

Not very powerful

With an Intel Core M processor, the Macbook isn't a serious development laptop. While it will get the job done for lighter tasks, it will struggle with heavier jobs. See More

Top Pro

Very good speakers

The speakers, found above the keyboard produce loud and clear sound with minimal to no distortion whatsoever. They can be used for both listening to music and watching movies with no problem at all. See More

Top Con

Non-free software

Apple doesn't release the source code for most of their software & firmware. This makes it significantly more difficult to customize, automate tasks, and verify security. See More

Top Pro

Completely silent operation

Thanks to the Core M processor (which doesn't require a fan) and the SSD storage, there are no moving parts the in MacBook. It will operate in complete silence. See More

Top Con

It's a bit hard to get used to the keyboard

The keys are pretty shallow, with a travel length of just 0.5mm. They still provide good feedback and the writing experience itself is not bad, but it's just a bit hard getting used to, especially if you are coming from a laptop that's not a MacBook. See More

Top Pro

Extremely portable

The laptop weighs just 2 pounds and is 13.1 mm thin. It's one of the thinnest and lightest laptops on the market and it's extremely portable and easy to carry around. See More

Top Con

Terrible keyboard

new butterfly keyboard is a challenge to use, and very damage prone, key get stuck or stop working for no reason... See More

Top Pro

Available in 4 colors

The laptop is available in space gray, gold, silver and rose gold (pink) finishes. See More

Top Con

Very expensive (official) repairs

Fixing any problem with a Macbook through the official means is a very expensive investment. Usually, any problem that happens means replacing most of the laptop for 80% of the price, even if the problem can be solved by replacing a 5$ transistor or a 15$ chip or even bypassing with a 1$ wire. See More

Top Con

Premium price for not-so-premium hardware

Macbooks are one of the most expensive computers for the hardware they have. Mac is the most expensive UX to buy, as the price has low relationship to how good the hardware is and, instead, is related to how the whole experience from opening the box, to the physical shop, to the cloud and sync services they have. See More

Top Con

Too fragile, compared to the competitors

Can barely handle liquid, breaks easily with bumping and, at a premium price, has the largest probability of something just breaking without apparent reason. See More

Top Con

Terrible keyboard

new butterfly keyboard is a challenge to use, and very damage prone, key get stuck or stop working for no reason... See More

Apple MacBook Pro

Top Pro

The default macOS is relatively developer friendly since it's a Unix

OSX is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on OS X. There's a large selection of great development tools available for OSX. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing OSX and iOS software, for free. See More

Top Con

Hard to repair or upgrade the hardware

The battery and other components are glued in, and the battery blocks access to other parts. The battery will wear out eventually, and the fact that it's glued in means that you cannot easily repair or upgrade a MacBook Pro. See More

Specs

GPU:Apple M1 8 core

Ports:2/4 Thunderbolt 3 Ports, Headphone jack

Top Pro

Plenty of RAM for multitasking

The MacBook Pro has up to 16 GB of RAM. That much RAM is perfect for running IDEs, emulators, and virtual machines. See More

Top Con

The keyboard has a unique feel and some people may need some time to get used to it

The keyboard on the MacBook is unique and some people may not like the way the keys feel to press or not having physical function keys. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

The MacBook Pro offers great performance both for day-to-day stuff and more niche graphic-related activities. The latest model also has had an update in hardware specs where both the CPU and GPU have been upgraded to their respective latest generations. The 16GB to 32GB help with performance as well and the SSD speeds are unmatched in the laptop market which also helps with general performance. See More

Top Con

Glossy screen

Apple has deleted the matte-screen option from its lineup, an unfortunate decision that reduces the usability of the computers and means you get less work done. You won't realize how much time you spend moving your head around to get reflections off whatever you're trying to see until you switch to a matte screen. Those "deep blacks" and "rich colors" that you were supposed to get from a glossy screen are not present since they're buried behind a sheen of reflection under all lighting conditions. See More

Top Pro

Good customer support

Apple offers support over the phone worldwide, provides support in Apple retail stores and authorized resellers and has community forums where users can help users. See More

Top Con

No real Delete key

Apple's particular ignorance about this is just baffling, and they've had a lot of opportunity to fix it. But their laptops (and small Bluetooth keyboards) still have no Delete key. They only have a Backspace key that's mislabeled "delete." This is annoying for every use, but particularly for programmers; we tend to delete things from the middle of lines and refactor code. The best keyboard-remapping utility (KeyRemap4MacBook, now called Karabiner) was disabled by an OS update a couple of versions ago and had to be rewritten entirely. It's still not fully functional, but can be used to convert another key (I use F12) into Delete. But Apple could have addressed this problem (which other vendors never suffered from) by simply making the now-defunct Eject key into Delete. They inexplicably didn't. See More

Top Pro

Can run up to 3 external monitors and output 4K

With 2 Thunderbolt (DisplayPort) plugs and 1 HDMI, MBP can run up to 3 external monitors and output 4K over HDMI. See More

Top Con

RAM maxes at 16GB

Most pundits thought that a 32GB upgrade was in the offing for the 2016 refresh, but no still 16GB. See More

Top Pro

Very portable

The latest MacBook Pro has a trimmed down design compared to predecessors. It's 0.61 inches (15.5 mm) thick and weighs 4.02 pounds. It's even thinner than MacBook Air. See More

Top Con

Requires the use of proprietary firmware

The source code of the firmware isn't available for users to audit or modify. See More

Top Pro

The OS is exceptionally easy to use

Macbooks are famous for working out of the box. The default operating system (macOS) is also exceptionally easy to use even for people who have never used it before. Most people will not need to customize or change anything since all the apps work perfectly as it is. The people who like to customize things and tinker with their systems will also find it pretty easy to do, considering the fact that macOS is a Unix and allows varying degrees of control to users. See More

Top Con

Limited ports

The old adage form follows function seems to have been reversed. The laptop is elegant and thin, but missing PORTS and RAM. Once you add dongles or hubs it becomes unwieldy. Sure USB C may be the way of the future, but not right now. And again, if you are using VMs in your development, RAM is king and Apple took the decision to keep the laptop thin and max RAM (soldered in) at 16 Gb. The SSD is proprietary and welded in, again, you buy the 256Gb model and decide you want 1TB you are either SSD on USB C or trading in for a hideously more expensive model. See More

Top Pro

OSX/macOS and most software apps have great HiDPI support

Top Con

Screen anti-reflective coating issues

Top Pro

Both the hardware and software are designed in-house

Both the operating system and the hardware are designed by Apple and are made to be as compatible as possible from the get-go. Any drawback that the hardware might have compared to competitors, is made up by the great compatibility between the hardware and OS. Furthermore, because Apple controls the hardware that goes inside their laptops, they can be sure that every OS release will be fully compatible even with their older hardware, ensuring software compatibility for many years after the laptop is released. See More

Top Con

You need dongles or a dock to connect USB-A devices

There are no USB-A ports, so you'll need a dongle or a dock to use things like webcams. See More

Top Pro

Fantastic display

The MacBook Pro has a sharp, color accurate 2560 x 1600 IPS display. It's bright at 500 nits, has great viewing angles (viewable at up to 178 degrees) and capable of displaying 87.3% of sRGB color gamut. See More

Top Con

You can't upgrade the internal RAM

RAM is soldered in, so you can't upgrade it. See More

Top Pro

One of the best SSDs that can be found on a laptop

With read speeds at 3.1Gbps and write speeds at around 4.7Gbps, the SSD used in the MacBook Pro is the best in the market by far. This doesn't just mean opening/saving files is quicker, but it also has a pretty huge impact on general application performance. See More

Top Con

No Ethernet or FireWire ports

An adapter is required to transfer data over FireWire or connect to the Internet using an Ethernet cable. See More

Top Pro

Amazing build quality

The MacBook Pro has an all-aluminum body that looks great and is sturdy enough that worries of accidentally damaging are mostly alleviated. It has a robust lid, well-spaced back-lit keyboard with speakers on each side of the keyboard and an excellent button-less trackpad. See More

Top Con

Keyboard issues

The membrane can wear out rather quickly, which causes keys to become more and more unresponsive. See More

Top Pro

Good stability

Top Con

No official Linux support

The 2016 hardware has zero Linux compatibility due to new standards used by Apple. Until drivers are released for Linux, which there has been no news of, the 2016 Macbooks cannot be used for Linux at all. See More

Top Pro

New OSX updates run on older models for quite a long time

Top Con

It's expensive

Compared to other ultrabooks such as the Dell XPS 13, the MacBook Pro is very expensive. For the latest (as of July 2017) MacBook Pro and Dell XPS 13 with dual-core i5 Processor, 8GB RAM, 256 SSD, the prices are $1.1k for the Dell XPS 13 and $1.5k for the MacBook Pro. See More

Top Pro

Radeon graphics, which enables basic gamedev

Radeon is not exactly ideal for gamedev, but is certainly a viable option (unlike some of the competition with onboard Intel). See More

Top Con

It's missing the ESC key

There is no physical function or escape keys as they have been replaced by a touchscreen, so for example, if you're a big Vim user and don't want to change your habits, the MacBook might be a poor choice. See More

Top Pro

Good battery life

The battery drains in about 9 hours of typical use. See More

Top Pro

Great keyboard

The 2017 Macbook uses the second generation of the "butterfly" keyboards first introduced in 2015. They feel different to use than most laptop keyboards as they are very shallow, but most people report really enjoying the keyboard after getting used to it. See More

Top Pro

One of the best trackpads around

The Macbooks are renowned for having the best trackpad out of any laptop. It has full gesture support, you can configure in the software how much pressure you want before it physically clicks and the finger tracking is perfect. See More

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