10 Best Laptops For Crafting In 2023 (Experts Review)

1. Razer Blade 15

The Razer Blade 15’s unibody aluminum construction provides a rigid and durable frame. The chassis is made of aluminum, which feels sturdy and has a slight heft that makes it easy to balance on your lap. Despite its slim profile, this laptop has a screen with little flex when typing, playing games, or doing crafting work.

This crafting laptop has a display that is 15.6 inches wide, with a thin bezel that provides a full-screen experience and supports 100% of the sRGB color spectrum. The display is custom calibrated, which results in vibrant and accurate colors. The laptop also features a refresh rate of up to 300Hz, with a 3ms response time.

This laptop’s display offers a brightness of 357 cd/m2, with 336 cd/m2 in the center. While this laptop is suitable for most tasks and even allows you to do crafting work outdoors, the relatively low brightness may be an issue for users who frequently work in dark environments. The contrast ratio of the panel, at 69%, is also excellent, with 73% in AdobeRGB.

The Razer Blade 15 features a 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-10875H 10th generation eight-core and sixteen threads processor that provides more than enough performance for any task, with up to 5. 1GHz Max Turbo Boost. It also has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super Max-Q graphics chip with 512GB of SSD storage and 16GB of RAM.

The most demanding games like Grand Theft Auto V, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Red Dead Redemption 2 on the test hit more than 60 frames per second with ray tracing turned off and everything else at maximum settings. Even when ray tracing was enabled, the laptop could still achieve 50 frames per second (fps), more than playable. The frame rate of these games doesn’t hit the industry standard of 60 fps but is still very acceptable.

The PCMark 10 score of 5,227 serves to illustrate the performance level of Razer Blade. It’s a powerful machine for doing more than just playing games—it’s great for tasks like crafting, photo and video editing, and even straight-up spreadsheet work.

The Razer Blade 15 is equipped with many helpful ports, including two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, one Thunderbolt 3 port, an HDMI 2.0 port, and an SD card reader. The laptop’s 80Wh battery delivers decent performance (about 7 hours off a single charge) for everyday workday tasks, such as Chrome, Spotify, and some Affinity Photo.

2. Dell G5 15

Dell has changed the design of its G5 15 to make it look sleeker and more modern. The centered Dell logo on the lid changes color depending on the angle at which it is viewed, while the blue keyboard font and touchpad trim complement each other. The cold, black aluminum deck provides a high-quality feel for the price. Dell has made significant progress in reducing the size of its display bezels.

The G5 15 has several ports, allowing you to connect to an external monitor, docking station, or peripheral with ease while charging your other devices. However, some ports (including the power jack) are on the back edge, which can be inconvenient to some users. The laptop features one SD-card slot, two USB 3.1 ports, a USB-C port, an HDMI 2.0 input, and a headphone jack. It has one USB 3.1 port and an Ethernet jack on the back.

The G5 15 features a 1080p, 15.6-inch display that delivers sharp images and vibrant colors, a marked improvement over the previous model’s disappointing panel. The standard 60-Hz display will suffice for most people, but some crafters may prefer the 144-Hz option, which shows fast-moving objects more clearly.

The display on the G5 15 covers 154% of the sRGB color gamut, making it almost three times more vivid than on last year’s model. The display offers a luminance level of 270 nits, within the range of the 271-nit average for mainstream gaming laptops.

The G5 15 offers a comfortable, spacious island-style keyboard in a laptop of this price and size. Even though the keyboard has a full-sized numerical pad on the right-hand side, all keys are evenly spaced, easy to press, and large enough to accommodate fingers easily.

There’s nothing showy or fancy about these keys, which are as flat and black as the ones on most XPS laptops. Although we prefer keys that have 1.5mm of travel, the G5 15 offers 1.7mm of travel, which is above our minimum threshold for a comfortable typing experience.

The G5 15 has an Intel Core i7-9750h CPU and 16GB of RAM, enabling it to run most tasks efficiently. You aren’t likely to encounter any lagging while performing complex activities such as running 20 Google Chrome windows while playing four 1080p YouTube videos or working on a crafts project.

The G5 15 gaming laptop endured for 7 hours on our battery test. This involves regular web surfing over Wi-Fi at 160 nits. A few other laptops with similar specs came in below that number, but most didn’t last quite as long.

At last, I would say this laptop delivers strong performance whether you’re doing crafting projects or gaming, thanks to its 9th Gen Intel CPU and GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. The laptop’s redesigned chassis feels premium and looks attractive. If you’re looking for a modern laptop with long battery life and plenty of storage, this could be the one for you.

3. Apple MacBook Air

The MacBook Air uses the same keyboard as the Magic Keyboard in previous models. It is a comfortable keyboard to work on, despite being flat instead of curved. MacBook Air is the best budget laptop with excellent performance and build quality.

The new model offers no technological advances over last year’s version. The MacBook Air features a 13.3-inch retina display with LED backlighting, Apple’s high-resolution IPS technology, and a native resolution of 2,560 x 1,600. It has a pixel density of 227 per inch, the standard for sharp image quality in high-definition displays. The MacBook Air 2020’s display features True Tone technology, automatically adjusting its color temperature.

The port includes two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a headphone jack on both sides. Thunderbolt 3 ports currently support charging and power an external monitor or transfer data at speeds up to 40 Gb/s. We’re glad that Apple’s decision to rely on its M1 chip rather than Intel hasn’t meant the loss of these high-speed ports.

Big Sur boots up quickly because of the M1 chip, and it feels fast and responsive during use. The design of the OS is impressive. A streamlined interface with bright, high-contrast colors displays content in a way that renders the MacBook Air’s screen readable even in direct sunlight.

We have found early performance to be quite good, even while running Chrome with 25 tabs open and editing photos in the background. We didn’t notice any significant slowdowns while switching between tasks. Even when we added a video call to the mix, performance remained crisp and responsive, with only some fan noise to let us know things were heating up.

While the entry-level version of macOS feels very responsive for crafters or common uses, users will find the MacBook Air lags behind more powerful (and expensive) models when using more intensive apps.

The 256GB storage capacity of the new MacBook Air model is an improvement over the 128GB offered by earlier models. This is a welcome change for anyone who takes a lot of photos or videos; such users will appreciate not having to rely as much on external hard drives or iCloud.

Apple’s MacBook Air offers the best battery life in any previous MacBook Air. It can run for up to 9 hours on a single charge, surfing the web wirelessly, or for up to 8 hours while playing video.

4. Dell XPS 15

Dell XPS 15 has an UltraSharp 4K Ultra HD display that offers a resolution of 3840 x 2160 with over 8 million pixels, allowing for precision detail at a near-zero zoom level. With over 6 million more pixels than Full HD, you can see fine details in your images. And with up to 3 million extra pixels than the Macbook Pro 13 inch model, you can do crafting work or editing images in photoshop with accuracy without worrying about jagged lines or fuzziness.

The XPS 15’s display covers 100% of the Adobe RGB and 100% of the sRGB color spaces, which means it can show a wider range of colors than most laptops. This means that if you’re working on a project that involves lots of different colors, the XPS 15 is a great choice.

With over 16 million colors, the XPS 15’s display can also show very subtle color differences so that you can be precise in your crafting work. The anti-reflective screen combined with the InfinityEdge display also means that you’ll be able to work in all sorts of lighting conditions and that you won’t have any problems seeing what’s on the screen.

The touchpad on the XPS 15 is also huge, making it easy to move your cursor around the screen when you’re crafting. And if you need to use the keyboard, you’ll find that the keys are backlit, making them easy to see in any lighting conditions. 

The XPS 13 laptop includes 8th Gen Intel Core i5 processors and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card so that you can work efficiently on your most intensive tasks.

It has 16 gigabytes of memory with a bandwidth of 2666 megahertz, 1.2 times as fast as 2133 megahertz. Faster memory means that you can work on more complex projects without your laptop slowing down. Storage of up to 512GB M.2 2280 PCIe solid-state drives ensures you have plenty of room for your applications and a fast means of accessing them.

Battery life on the XPS 15 is also quite good, lasting up to 11 hours and 30 minutes of video playback at a relatively bright 250 to 260 nits on a single charge. This means you can work on a project all day long and not have to worry about your battery running out.

5. Microsoft Surface Book 2

The Microsoft Surface Book 2 is a versatile laptop perfect for crafters. The 15-inch HD touchscreen display on the Surface Book 2 maintains the same high quality previously seen in Microsoft’s Surface hardware. It features excellent color accuracy, high contrast, and wide viewing angles. It has a 4K (3240 x 2160 resolution) display and retains the 3:2 aspect ratio, making it great for writing, crafting, and reading.

Beneath the display is a hinge that extends around the base of the Surface Book 2 and has a gap when closed. The hinge, which functions identically to the original Surface Book’s hinge, allows you to remove its display and use it as a tablet.

Typing comfortably on the Surface Book 2 is a joy with a good amount of key travel, and the spacing between keys is generous. The touchpad is also large and responds smoothly to gestures.

The ports are the same as the other Surface laptops except for a USB-C port. However, unfortunately, Microsoft has not included Thunderbolt 3 ports in the Surface Book 2, so you can’t use external graphics processing units or other high-speed peripherals. Microsoft’s decision to leave DisplayPort out of the Surface Book 2 is frustrating, especially when it comes with only a single USB-C port, but you can at least charge the laptop with its USB-C port.

The Surface Book 2 has two USB 3.1 Type-A ports, a 1x SD card reader, and a Surface Connector for connecting to power and peripherals. When you connect the Surface Connector to a power supply while connecting to a USB-C port for power, the connector takes over charging duties. The connector can also use the Surface Dock, which gives you two more USB 3.1 Type-A ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and an audio output port.

The Surface Book 2 also supports the Surface Pen. The Pen has 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and a fine point. The Pen attaches to the Surface Book 2 magnetically and is automatically detected and paired when the device is turned on.

Microsoft has now used Intel Quad Core i7 Processor with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage and dedicated graphics for improved performance in CPU-intensive tasks, such as gaming and video editing.

6. Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon

The system was designed with a matte-black finish to blend in with its surroundings. With enlarged, bolded logos and more conspicuous branding on the deck and lid, the Surface Laptop appeals to shoppers looking for a product that’s both attractive and unobtrusive.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon comes with an optional infrared camera that uses facial recognition via Windows Hello to unlock the PC. An optional IR camera would have provided a hands-free experience. It wakes the laptop when you’re nearby, locks it when you’re not, and puts it to sleep when you look away.

The right side of the X1 Carbon has a USB 3.2 Type-A port, a headphone jack, and a Kensington lock slot. The device’s backside has two Thunderbolt™ 4 ports, another USB 3.2 Type-A connector, and an HDMI 2.0 port.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1’s 14-inch screen is paired with a 16:10 aspect ratio, so you get a slightly taller and narrower canvas to work with than you would on most standard 16:9 panels. This display is excellent for crating who like to use their laptops while standing up, as it gives them more vertical screen real estate to work with. The X1 Carbon’s matte display is bright enough to view both indoors and outdoors,

The X1 Carbon continues to deliver a high standard of keyboard quality. The keys feel like they sink below the chassis, providing a “magical” feeling with each keystroke.

Lenovo says the touchpad has been widened by 10 percent, but I will need more precise measurement tools to verify this. Then again, any extra real estate helps when the 4.3 x 2.4-inch touchpad is smaller than those on just about every other business laptop.

The X1 Carbon Gen 9 runs on an Intel 11th Gen Core i7-1165G7 CPU, which can be combined with up to 16GB of RAM (a maximum of 32GB is supported). On regular workload wasn’t much of a challenge for this speedy business laptop, which quickly loaded 20 tabs in Microsoft Edge, including two pairs of YouTube and Twitch streams.

The X1 Carbon comes with Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, sufficient for running photo and video editing apps, but gaming should be avoided. On the Geekbench 5.4 overall performance test, which measures a system’s ability to handle multiple compute tasks at once, the Lenovo X1 Carbon scored 5,365.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon comes with a Full HD+ display, making it easy to work for longer periods before recharging. The laptop endured for 15 hours and 39 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, in which we continuously surf the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits.

7. Acer Aspire 5

The Acer Aspire 5 top cover is aluminum, making it durable, nice-looking, and professional.

If you are looking for a laptop with a full-size backlit keyboard in this price range, you should consider this model. The keyboard is a full-size model with a number pad, and the backlit keyboard allows for easy typing in low-light environments.

This laptop includes a backlit keyboard, making it a good choice if you want a cheap laptop while still wanting a backlit keyboard. Other similarly priced laptops do not offer this attribute.

The Acer Aspire 5 features an 11th generation Intel i5 quad-core processor. Most Ultrabooks use this CPU since it is an energy-efficient quad-core chip yet powerful enough for most everyday computing tasks.

The new generation of CPU brings over 17-22% improvement in performance compared to the last generation. This is a massive gain! The 4-core, 8-thread CPU has a base clock speed of 2.40 GHz and can go up to 4.20 GHz when needed.

Thanks to the Intel Iris Xe Graphics included with this computer, its CPU is powerful enough for daily computing chores and can even handle basic/medium gaming. Although an excellent notebook for browsing, streaming video, and word processing, Notebook A cannot handle most 3D games. ​The 11th-generation Intel Core i5 chip has higher single and dual-core speeds than the Ryzen 5 4600U. It also outperforms the 10th-generation Intel Core i7-10710U CPU.

The Acer Aspire 5 15.6-inch laptop computer with an 11th Gen Intel i5 processor contains two slots for memory, which can hold a total of 8GB of RAM. The notebook has one RAM slot. It is filled by the 4GB of memory installed at the factory; you cannot upgrade this RAM. However, you can upgrade the other slot with another 4GB module.

Acer also includes a bracket for installing an SSD and cables that link the SSD to your system’s motherboard. Install your SSD into the empty bay and connect it to your system’s motherboard.

8. Microsoft Surface 3

The Surface Laptop 3 is well designed, with a sleek chassis that is perfectly symmetrical. It has no visible grills, so the speakers are hidden in the keyboard deck. Microsoft has placed one USB Type-A port and another USB Type-C port on the left side, along with a headphone jack. The right side features a Surface Connect port for charging.

The 201 PPI of the Microsoft Surface 3 display is lower than the 267 PPI of the Surface Pro 7 and the 260 PPI of the Surface Book 2, but that difference shouldn’t be noticeable in daily use. The 15-inch display in this laptop is essentially identical to that on the 13-inch model but with slightly smaller screen size.

The Surface Laptop 3 is compatible with the Surface Pen; however, the display does not open to 180 degrees, and there is no dedicated slot for the pen in transit. You can use the pen to sign a document, make a quick note, or perform other tasks where the onscreen keyboard is less appropriate. The Surface Dial works across your Windows 10 device screens and with apps that support it.

In terms of color accuracy, the screen is slightly below that of the Surface Laptop 2 (99 percent sRGB and 81 percent AdobeRGB), but its coverage of most color ranges is still better than that of most laptops. Peak brightness is just under 400 nits when the backlight is at full 100 percent intensity; setting the backlight to zero results in a very dim 3.8 nits.

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 13.5 has a more comfortable keyboard and more spacious trackpad than its predecessor. Although key travel is average for a laptop, the keys are slightly easier to depress, and typing feels softer than prior models. The keyboard has three-stage backlighting that’s visible in most models. The lighter color of the sandstone model makes the keys harder to see because the lighting isn’t as bright.

The Intel Core i5-1035G7 model is slightly faster than the Core i5-1035G4 found in the Surface Pro 7. The G7 offers a base clock speed of 1.20 GHz, faster than the 1.10 GHz in the G4. The G7’s graphics processing unit has 64 execution units compared to 48 in the G4. Microsoft offers two options for RAM—8GB and 16GB. However, if you want 16GB, you’ll need to purchase the more expensive Core i7 model.

Surface Laptop 3 performed slightly worse than a similarly configured 15-inch model on some tasks. The larger laptop has more room for heat to dissipate, allowing it to run at maximum performance for more extended periods. On some tasks performed with multitasking, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 achieved better performance than Core i5 laptops equipped with discrete graphics cards.

9. Acer Spin 3

The Spin 3’s chassis has a silver finish similar to the Swift 3, but the main portion appears to be made from ABS plastic rather than magnesium. Compared to previous versions, this new model is thinner and weighs less. The laptop’s hinges offer a firm resistance when opening and closing the device, allowing it to be converted into a tent, stand, or tablet mode.

The port selection is excellent, and the addition of Thunderbolt 3 will be helpful for many aspiring professionals, students and crafters. The laptop’s Thunderbolt 3 port lets you connect to several different docking stations; replacements for the standard barrel adapter include a USB-C charging cable. The Spin 3 provides two USB 3.2 ports for additional peripherals and a microSD card reader for inserting removable storage. It also comes with an HDMI port for plugging into an external monitor or HDTV. And a 3.5mm audio jack for headsets.

The Acer SPIN 3, with an Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor and 8GB of RAM, had no trouble keeping up with my daily workload of more than 25 Google Chrome tabs, even while four of them were playing 1080p YouTube videos.

The Acer Spin 3 scored 3,700 on the Geekbench 5.0 performance test, slightly higher than the 3,607 average mainstream laptop score. The Acer Spin 3 outperformed the Asus VivoBook S15 (Intel Core i5-10210U and 8GB of RAM), which scored 3,560 in the Geekbench 5.0 overall performance test.

The Spin 3 has a 48Wh battery, enabling it to operate between five and six hours full charge when performing regular productivity tasks or crafting projects. I measured 5 hours and 55 minutes of battery life on the laptop after running PCMark 10’s Modern Office battery rundown. The battery maintains a charge of about 98% when not in use, and it can be fully charged in less than an hour.

10. Lenovo Flex 14

The Flex 14 laptop has a convertible design (laptop and tablet mode) with a 360-degree hinge. It is also lightweight and well designed without sacrificing the number of connectivity options. The model comes with a 1x USB 3.0 port, 1x HDMI Port, 2x USB 2.0 ports, and 1x memory card reader. The laptop has a backlit keyboard with good travel and a built-in webcam privacy shutter. It even comes with a stylus for convenience.

The Flex 14 is equipped with a 14-inch, 1920×1080 pixel HD touch screen display. Its brightness of 273.1 nits and contrast ratio of 713:1 are comparatively poor. To be considered a good display, we believe that a monitor should have at least 300 nits and a contrast ratio of 1,000:1.

Equipped with a Ryzen 5 3500U processor, the Flex 14 makes multitasking and multimedia creation easy. The laptop’s quad-core CPU runs at 2.1 GHz, with an intel turbo boost technology of up to 3.7 GHz, and supports simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) with two threads per core.

The system’s AMD Ryzen processor, PCIe NVMe SSD, and dual-channel RAM contributed to a snappy experience with no delays when switching between applications and loading new web pages. The laptop scored well in PCMark benchmark tests.

The processor is powerful enough to run many of the games listed in the database smoothly, especially those that are a bit older or less demanding than more recent AAA titles such as Starcraft 2, Call of Duty, or Grand Theft Auto. Many games will run smoothly at HD resolution (1366×768) and medium details, while others will allow higher settings and resolutions.

The Flex 14 is an excellent choice for those who wish to use it as a tablet and laptop. The Flex 14 offers up to eight hours of battery life when in laptop mode and three hours in tablet mode. It uses a travel-friendly charging brick and has an impressive touch screen that can be used with either hand. It is also perfect for resource-orientated work.