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Which laptop brand to buy in 2025
In our unique survey, we ask more than 18,000 Which? members and members of the public to tell us whether they're happy with their laptop and if they've experienced problems, so you can see which brands are worth your money.
Toshiba laptops were the least reliable in our survey, with more that a fifth developing some sort of fault within six years of purchase. The most common problems on Toshiba laptops were related to the battery and SSD/hard drive failure. Toshiba no longer sells laptops in the UK, however.
Read on to find out which laptop brands you can rely on.
Whatever your budget, our lab tests reveal which models are worth your money and which aren't. See our expert pick of the best laptops
Best laptop brands
In the table below, we've locked up our full results, as this is reserved for Which? members. But we can tell you that there is a big difference in what laptop owners say about the top-scoring brand vs those that appear lower down in our table. Our customer satisfaction score is based on overall satisfaction and whether respondents would recommend the brand to a friend.
Which? members can log in now to view the brands in the table below. Not yet a member? Join Which? today to access our laptop brand research and all of our online reviews - including laptops, phones, headphones and electric cars.
| Brand | Customer Score | Faulty in first six years | Proportion of products repaired/replaced | Proportion of Best Buys | Average Which? test score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sign up to reveal Get instant access to this and all our scores and recommendations. Unlock tableFirst month £5, then £11.99 per month, cancel at any time Already a member? Log in | 85% | 9% | 4% | 100% | 91% |
| 78% | 9% | 3% | 70% | 78% | |
| 73% | 10% | 2% | 66% | 81% | |
| 72% | 17% | 8% | 50% | 76% | |
| 70% | 17% | 5% | 2% | 66% | |
| 70% | 22% | 16% | n/a | n/a | |
| 69% | 4% | 4% | 0% | 75% | |
| 69% | 16% | 6% | 10% | 66% | |
| 68% | 14% | 5% | 9% | 64% | |
| 68% | 16% | 6% | 8% | 68% | |
| 58% | 29% | 8% | n/a | n/a |
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The leading brand is streets ahead of the rest when it comes to overall satisfaction and is only bested by one other company when it comes to six-year reliability. All the models from this company we've tested as of July 2024 are Best Buys, showing the performance in the lab is matched by customers' real-world experiences.
Meanwhile, the brand at the very bottom of the list has not only the worst customer satisfaction score, but also is only mediocre when it comes to the reliability of its products after six years, with 29% developing a fault in this time.
We have data on the following brands (if you're a Which? member, log in and click the links to see our full laptop reviews for that particular brand): Acer laptops, Apple MacBook laptops, Asus laptops, Dell laptops, HP laptops, Huawei laptops, Google laptops, Lenovo laptops, LG laptops, Microsoft Surface laptops and Samsung laptops.
Best laptop brand table notes:
- The customer score, proportion faulty and proportion repaired or replaced are based on a survey of 18,067 Which? members and the general public who answered questions about their tech products, including 10,243 laptops in March and April 2024. n/a indicates that there are no models from this brand published on Which.co.uk.
- The customer score is based on the respondents' likelihood to recommend the brand to family and friends, and whether they would choose the same brand again given the chance.
- The proportion faulty and proportion repaired or replaced are based on products bought in the past six years.
- Sample sizes: Apple (2,072), HP (2,043), Dell (1,473), Lenovo (1,422), Acer (1,226), Asus (883), Samsung (350), Microsoft (326), Google (83), Toshiba (65), Huawei (56).
Common laptop problems
Battery problems
The majority of faults reported in our survey were to do with the battery life getting worse over a short period of time, with a quarter of all problems reported being to do with the battery. Batteries chemically deteriorate over time and this should be expected, however a sudden drop-off in battery performance is not something you should expect in the first few years of laptop ownership.
This was the most common fault for every brand. Unfortunately it’s not something you can do much about when making a buying choice, as almost all batteries are tricky to replace because you’d need a local repair shop to carry out a battery replacement for you. There are some exceptions that have easily replaceable batteries, such as laptops from Framework.
You can keep your battery in better condition for longer by not keeping it 100% charged all the time. Some laptops will have a setting that prevents the device from being charged more than 80%, which will help the battery stay in good condition for longer. It also helps to not completely run the battery down, and if you’re not going to use the laptop for a few days, leave it unplugged so it’s not sitting there constantly charging.
Crashing and freezes
You won’t be surprised to hear that another common problem faced by laptop owners is their device frequently crashing. 16% of all problems reported here are laptops freezing and crashing. This can be caused by all manner of things from corrupted files and software to damaged hardware.
If you’ve suddenly started seeing more crashes, it’s worth thinking about anything you’ve done recently – such as installing a new program – and uninstall it to see if that helps. Another very useful option is to reset the operating system; Windows, MacOS and ChromeOS all have functions for this and will often sort out any lingering issues.
Laptop running slowly
Sluggish laptops made up one in 10 of all faults reported. Similar to freezing and crashing, it’s worth trying to diagnose the problem first before taking the nuclear option of resetting it. Use our easy-to-follow guide on how to speed up a laptop or computer.
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How we calculate the best and worst laptop brands
Which? has a wealth of information on Britain's favourite brands. Every year we ask Which? members to tell us about the tech they own – from how likely they would be to recommend a brand, to how reliable the products are once they get them home.
This year, 18,067 Which? members and the public told us about more than 61,000 individual products, including 10,243 laptops.
- We calculate our customer score based on whether customers would recommend each brand and their level of satisfaction.
- We also calculate which brand developed the most faults, which is based on how many faults each brand developed up to six years old.
- Our most reliable brand and reliability star ratings are based on how many products developed a fault, how quickly these faults occurred, and how much they impacted day-to-day usage of the product.
Our surveys, combined with our extensive lab tests, mean we can recommend the best laptops to buy.