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What is the best general purpose laptops around $2000 that is not a mac?

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Jan 30, 2023

Last
Updated

8 Options Considered

Best general purpose laptops around $2000 that is not a mac	Price	CPU	Storage
63 Dell XPS 13	$999	8th-generation Intel quad-core i5-8250U or i7-8550U processor	128GB/256GB/1TB SSD
-- Dell XPS 15	$1499	Intel Core i3-7100H / Intel Core i5-7300HQ / Intel Core i7-7700HQ	500GB HDD + 32GB Flash / 1TB HDD + 32GB Flash / 256/512GB/1TB PCIe SSD
-- Lenovo Thinkpad T480s	$1,429.00	-	-
-- Microsoft Surface Book 2 (15-inch)	$2394	8th Generation Intel Core i7	-
-- Razer Blade Pro	$3999	Intel Core i7-6700HQ	Up to 2TB SSD

Dell XPS 13

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

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

Specs

CPU:8th-generation Intel quad-core i5-8250U or i7-8550U processor

Storage:128GB/256GB/1TB SSD

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

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

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

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

Not a great choice for people who use their laptops to game as well

The Dell's integrated graphics are very poor for gaming and you won't be able to play graphics intensive games on it at all. A latest-generation AAA game will run at about 20 FPS with lowest settings. While a less graphics-intensive game such as Dota 2 for example will run at 30 FPS with lowest settings. 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

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

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 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

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 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

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

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 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 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

Dell XPS 15

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. Both screens have wide viewing angles. Although slight color change can be noticed when viewed from extreme angles, it isn’t even noticeable in everyday usage. With over 340 nit output for brightness, they are viable choices for outdoor usage. See More

Top Con

Mushy keyboard

Despite the 15" real estate, Dell didn't take advantage and introduce a more comfortable keyboard. See More

Capuccino 's Experience

It's a entry-level Laptop that offers the same build quality as a Macbook, but it offers more performance than your standard Macbook. It's cheaper , and it soars high when used productively. I recommend it for developers and creators, whatever your level of expertise is. See More

Specs

CPU:Intel Core i3-7100H / Intel Core i5-7300HQ / Intel Core i7-7700HQ

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

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

Weight:2kg (4.44 lbs)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like its 13" cousin, the XPS 13, the XPS 15 has the same awkwardly located webcam in the lower left corner. Low webcams are not flattering for video conversations. See More

Lenovo Thinkpad T480s

Microsoft Surface Book 2 (15-inch)

Top Pro

One of the best performances found on a 15-inch laptop

Equiped with an Intel Core i7-8650U CPU, 8GB (or 16GB) of RAM and an SSD that goes up to 1TB, the Surface Book 2 certainly packs a punch. It handles multitasking perfectly; you can open dozens of Chrome tags, stream video, and draw using the built-in software without experiencing any lag even once. As far as benchmarks go, on the Geekbench 4 overall performance benchmark, the Surface Book 2 got a score of 12,505, better than the 15-inch laptop average (11,004) coming third after the Dell XPS 15 (13,911) and the MacBook Pro (15,170). See More

Top Con

No Thunderbolt port

For a laptop aimed at creative professionals, the missing Thunderbolt 3 port is surprising considering the fact that Thunderbolt 3 is used to connect a laptop to peripherals such as external GPUs or power-dual 4K displays. See More

Specs

CPU:8th Generation Intel Core i7

GPU:Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

Screen size:15"

Memory:8GB / 16GB

Top Pro

Great display for creative professionals

This laptop's display is bright and vivid, making it perfect for people who do a lot of drawing, design, or video editing work. The display offers an excellent coverage of 131% of the sRGB colour gamut (the average for this price range is 101%). The colour coverage and the bright display which measures an average of 417 nits really makes colours truly pop out and offers lifelike pictures. See More

Top Con

The pen must be bought separately

If you want to use the Surface Book for drawing then you will probably have to buy the Surface Pen which unfortunately does not come bundled with the laptop (it costs an additional $99). See More

Top Pro

Great tying experience

Even though the keyboard is rather shallow (just 1.2mm of travel), the typing experience is excellent. Keys have a great amount of feedback when clicking and you rarely (if ever) bottom out when typing. See More

Top Con

Disappointing audio performance

The audio that comes out of the speakers is quite average. It's enough to fill a small room but that's it. See More

Top Pro

The battery easily lasts a full work day on a single charge

The Surface Book 2 lasts on average 12 hours on a single charge. This should be more than enough to get anyone to the end of their workday on a single charge. See More

Top Pro

Gaming performance on-par with gaming laptops

The 15-inch version of the Surface Book 2 comes with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU. This is a powerful, VR-ready card that handles intensive gaming tasks. As for real-world performance, Hitman (1920 x 1080, ultra) runs at 71.9 frames per second, Grand Theft Auto V runs at 45 fps. It should also be mentioned that you need to be using the dock in order to do graphic-intensive tasks since that's where the GPU is located; using the laptop in tablet-mode will yield poor results in this regard. See More

Top Pro

The hinge is quite stable as far as 2-in-1 laptops go

The new fulcrum hinge that Microsoft used for the Surface Book 2 is much more stable than the one found on the previous Surface Book or even other 2-in-1 laptops for that matter. See More

Razer Blade Pro

Top Pro

Great build quality

The chassis is made from aluminium and is very solid, giving the feel of a premium laptop. See More

Top Con

May need some time to getting used to the position of the touchpad

The touchpad is located on the right side of the keyboard, and can take some time to get used to. See More

Specs

CPU:Intel Core i7-6700HQ

Storage:Up to 2TB SSD

Weight:7.8 lbs / 3.5kg

Top Pro

Customizable RGB keyboard backlight

The keyboard’s RGB backlight can display 16.8 million colors on each key and the touchpad border. The included Synapse software lets you program the lights with different patterns and color profiles and is shareable to other Razer devices. See More

Top Con

No 802.11ac support

The wireless network card does not support 802.11ac, a wireless standard with significant improvements over the previous 802.11n standard. See More

Top Pro

One of the best displays on the market

The Razer Blade Pro has easily one of the best touchscreen displays that can be found in any laptop. The colors look accurate and vivid, as it covers 185% of the sRGB color gamut. Brightness goes beyond the industry average and can provide a very bright picture. The screen also supports NVIDIA G-Sync that helps eliminate screen tearing and smooths out movement. See More

Top Pro

Built to be portable

At 22mm thin, this is the thinnest laptop that has the NVIDIA GeForce 1080 and one of the thinnest gaming laptops overall. See More

Top Pro

Uses an actual mechanical keyboard

Razer uses ultra-low profile mechanical switches in the Blade Pro, which replicate full-sized mechanical keyboards. While it certainly makes the familiar, though noisy, clicking noise and is stiffer than a Chiclet keyboard, the travel is still too shallow compared to a regular mechanical keyboard. See More

Top Pro

Great gaming performance

While from the outside Blade Pro looks like an ordinary 17 inch laptop, it packs serious gaming laptop performance. It is because Razer has equipped this laptop with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 and one of the fastest mobile processors you can buy today. It can run almost any modern game in 4K resolution in high or maximum settings at upwards of 30 FPS. See More

System76 Oryx Pro

Top Pro

Very customizable

Before buying the System76 Oryx Pro from the System76 website, you get to customize almost every aspect of the laptop as far as specs go. The price depends on what you choose to put inside your laptop and prices vary from $1475 for the basic version to $7000 for a laptop with a 17.3" Matte IPS Display, a GTX 1070, 6th Gen i7 CPU, 64GB RAM, and two SSDs of 5TB and 4TB respectively. See More

Top Con

Customer service could be much better

System76's technical support is pretty bad. When there's a problem that should be solved by them, they usually resort to sending replacement parts instead or blaming third-parties (even if those third-parties are not at fault) of something that they should be fixing. See More

Specs

Storage:Dependent on display size 15″: 1× M.2, 1× 2.5″ 7mm height drive. Up to 5 TB total 17″: 2× M.2, 1× 2.5″ 7mm height drive. Up to 6 TB total

Weight: Dependent on display size 15″: 4.37 lbs (1.98 kg) 17″: 6.61 lbs (2.99 kg) Base weight. Varies on configuration

Battery:Dependent on Display 15″: Embedded 4 Cells Polymer battery pack– 55Wh 17″: Embedded 4 cells Polymer battery pack 66Wh

Memory:Up to 32 GB dual-channel DDR4 @ 2666 MHz

Top Pro

Good speakers

One of the bonuses of having a larger body is that you get to use good speakers instead of some small ones stuck underneath the laptop. They are also angled toward the user and the sound is crisp and loud enough, even though it lacks some bass. See More

Top Con

No 4K option

It lacks the option to have a 4K display. While not a deal breaker, it's a shame that a laptop with a display as good as Oryx Pro's does not have a 4K option which would also be a great plus for gamers. See More

Top Pro

Amazing overall performance

The default 6th generation i7 Processor coupled with the 16GB of RAM (even better with the versions with 32GB and 64GB) make for an absolutely amazing machine. It has a dedicated SSD for the OS only which massively increases startup time and for anything else you can choose up to two SSDs or HDDs of varying sizes. The Oryx Pro is perfectly capable of doing some heavy-lifting including 4K video editing and gaming at highest settings without a hitch. See More

Top Con

Very heavy and bulky

Weighing at 5.5lbs for the 15.6" version it's relatively heavy and it's one inch thicker than the XPS 13. But the extra space is not put to waste, considering how it has an Ethernet port, SD card slot, 2 Mini DisplayPrts, HDMI port, 2 USB 3.1 Type-C ports, 3 USB 3.0 Type-A ports and headphone and mic jacks. The GTX 1070 version also includes a headphone amplifier. However, the power brick that comes with the charger is ridiculously large at 2lbs which understandably adds to the weight of the laptop since most of the time you have to carry both with you. See More

Top Pro

Good for gaming

The Oryx Pro is probably the best laptop with Linux support out of the box that is great for gaming as well. This is mostly because of the NVIDIA graphics cards. It comes by default with the GTX 1060 but for $289 more, you can add a GTX 1070 instead. The default 8GB of RAM is good for gaming but the 16GB RAM is ideal. See More

Top Pro

Great Linux support

All System76 laptops come with Linux out of the box. The Oryx Pro comes with either Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or Ubuntu 16.10. But that does not mean that other Linux distributions are not supported, quite the contrary. Most Linux distros should work without any major problems with the Oryx pro and most (if not all) drivers are available. See More

Top Pro

Good display

Has a 1080p matte display with an optional IPS matte display version. With great colors and brightness and almost no eye strain even when it's used for extended periods. See More

Top Pro

Good keyboard

The keyboard is very nice, it's not amazing by any means but quite comfortable to work with. The keys are pretty thick, thicker than what you may find in laptops today and with a nice springiness to them. The keyboard also supports multicolor backlighting. See More

Microsoft Surface Book 2 (13-inch)

Specs

CPU:8th generation Intel Core i7

Storage:256GB SSD

Screen size:13"

Asus Zenbook 3 Deluxe UX490UA

Specs

CPU:8th generation Intel Core i7

Storage:512GB SSD

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