Ranking: Best business laptops reviewed by Notebookcheck

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 was one of the best business notebooks of 2025. The recently tested variant of the X1 Carbon Gen 13 with Intel Arrow Lake U is not quite as good as the original version with Intel Lunar Lake, but it still has many of the advantages of this premium business flagship. The biggest advantage of the Arrow Lake variant: 5G is available as an option, and you can also buy this model with up to 64 GB of RAM.

One of the great constants in the laptop world is Lenovo's ThinkPad T series. T-ThinkPads have been around since 2000. The latest 14-inch model goes by the name of ThinkPad T14 Gen 6. Lenovo offers this model with a choice of processors; Notebookcheck tested the version with Intel Lunar Lake. In our testing, in addition to the typical qualities of a ThinkPad T-series notebook, the system's real-world battery life of over 19 hours was what truly impressed us, and what might sway the customer in spite of compromises like soldered-in RAM. If upgradability is more important, the T14 is still available with AMD CPUs, as well as Intel Arrow Lake. Socketed SO-DIMM RAM comes standard in both cases.

Completely different on the outside, but the same on the inside: Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Gen 10 Aura Edition is a close relative of the X1 Carbon G13 that swaps the black carbon fiber casing for a full-aluminum one. As a 2-in-1 ThinkPad, it has all the convertible features, such as a touchscreen and stylus, as well as the usual flip-down screen.

The 2025 model benefits greatly from Intel Lunar Lake, as the new Core Ultra 200V CPUs deliver significantly better efficiency and longer battery life than possible before. The X1 2-in-1 puts more on the scales than the X1 Carbon, but its casing won't require you to wipe it down as often, so it does have something going for it. The high quality comes at a price: This Aura Edition machine is the most expensive ThinkPad on the market, apart from Lenovo's ThinkPad P-series workstation laptops.

2025 was not a smooth ride for Intel, but the US chip manufacturer can at least claim to have launched one outstanding product: Lunar Lake. These power-efficient CPUs are very much suitable for business laptops.

Case in point, Lenovo's Intel Lunar Lake-powered ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 delivers over 20 hours of real-world battery life. In addition, the compact and high-quality business laptop has a great feature set while remaining quiet and cool - this is an excellent office companion.

HP has given its EliteBook laptops for business customers plenty of updates in 2025. The result is a new name and a new design for all models, including the EliteBook 8 Flip G1i 13. This is the successor to the EliteBook x360 830, a compact 13-inch convertible laptop for business use.

The new EliteBook shines with its integrated pen, comfortable input devices and good performance, although this comes at the expense of thermals.

With its ExpertBook Ultra asus wants to get involved in the business market. It is a premium model for the business customer sector, with a slim and extremely light design and the 2026 Intel Panther Lake CPUs. We don't find any real weaknesses in this Asus ExpertBook, especially the performance and battery life are impressive. A slight minus point: the matt OLED screen offers slightly less brilliance than comparable, reflective models.

It doesn't get any bigger. The ThinkPad T16 Gen 4 is the latest version of the largest model in the Lenovo ThinkPad T series. Its large 16-inch display and numpad, as well as a significantly larger battery, should make people who work a lot with numbers happy. The AMD version we tested offers a great mix of performance and efficiency, paired with good maintainability and pleasant input devices - all in all, this is a successful work device.

The little ThinkPad was re-launched by Lenovo not so long ago. The ThinkPad X13 G6 is available with both Intel and AMD CPUs; we tested the AMD version. Overall, it performs well in terms of performance, battery life, noise emissions and thermals. The test unit's keyboard and hinges left us underwhelmed. As a result, the X13 only received a "Good" final rating instead of a "Very good" one.

In recent years, HP's EliteBook 840 and EliteBook 845 were among the most popular business laptops. They got a new name recently: HP EliteBook 8 G1 14. This model is available in both an Intel (G1i) and an AMD (G1a) flavor, the latter discussed here. HP offers it with the latest Zen 5-based CPUs as well as older Zen 4 processors; as our testing of the 8 G1a 14 AD3E9ET model showed, older Zen 4-architecture processors provide good performance and efficiency here, as well as a way to cut costs. New name or not, this is an excellent business laptop without any major weaknesses.

HP's 2025 EliteBooks can be had with both AMD and Intel CPUs. The EliteBook 8 G1a is based on AMD Ryzen processors, specifically, Zen 5-architecture Krackan Point chips. This EliteBook is a marvel of a work device, offering a large display and a full-size keyboard with numeric keypad. Its metal casing is very sturdy, the input devices are comfortable and the cooling, quiet. It is a pity, however, that there are no display resolution options higher than WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200) available.