The Lightest Laptops: Which To Buy?

Charles Lindbergh knew a thing or two about traveling light. When preparing The Spirit of St. Louis for his transatlantic flight in 1927, the pilot jettisoned everything from his parachute and radio to the traditional leather seat. (He used a wicker chair.) He even designed special lightweight boots.

You probably delegate worries about your plane’s range and fuel capacity to the airline, but odds are you hate carrying any excess ballast in your carry-on. That’s why laptop vendors strive to trim every ounce from their designs and why we at PCMag pay so much attention to the results—starting with this guide to the lightest laptops you can buy.

HOW WE DEFINE “LIGHT”

What defines a lightweight laptop? Most would agree that the upper limit is 3 pounds, possibly stretching to 4 for a system with a big 15.6-inch screen (although the 15.6-inch featherweight champion, the Acer Swift 5, is a remarkable 2.2 pounds). Neither of those figures counts the computer’s AC adapter, an often-overlooked bit of baggage that can be anything from a compact shirt-pocket gadget to an ungainly brick.

For manufacturers, crafting an ultralight laptop is all about compromise. A smaller battery pack saves weight, but it doesn’t last as long as a large one—a risky move in a market where many buyers expect to get through a full workday plus a Netflix movie in the evening. Exotic chassis materials such as carbon fiber and magnesium alloys weigh less than vanilla notebooks’ plastic and aluminum, but they also increase the cost. A touch screen is convenient, but its glass overlay adds a few grams.