In keeping with tradition on these traditional days, in addition to the best news and information, we at MC are saying goodbye to the year with a series of special articles that will have a little bit of everything from consumer electronics to content that, if you’re a regular reader, will sound familiar: our best of the year according to MC, or what’s the same, the best of the year in technology matters according to those of us who make up the site’s editorial team.

We’ll start, as always, with one of the kingpins of MC, like laptops, which is a key piece if it exists in any self-respecting computing experience. Which are best laptops of 2023 by our opinion? You will see it right now, but keep this in mind: these articles consist of informal opinions that take the best as what we liked the most, even if someone may think otherwise. Our intention with these specials is to inform and entertain without complicating things.

The best laptops of 2023, according to MC

As usual, our only criteria for making this list is to select models released this year. A task that can be seen as simple or complicated depending on one’s point of view, as we do not all share the same tastes and preferences.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold (2023)

• Type: hybrid – convertible
• High end
• Main Features: Folding screen
• Price: from $2,499
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If Samsung paved the way for folding devices in smartphones with the Galaxy Fold, Lenovo did so with laptops using the same format, a “book” design that folds and unfolds in half thanks to a special hinge and a flexible screen that was the industry’s first foldable notebook. The versatility of its form factor also allows it to be used as a tablet or in transitional modes such as being held as if it were a book with independent left and right pages.

The big renovation arrived this year with a much bigger model in every way. And not a little, because its screen extends from the initial 13 inches to 16.3 inches the diagonal on which the new version 2023 is mounted. Its panel is a Flexible and touchable OLED, with a native resolution of 2024 x 2560 pixels and a maximum brightness increased to 600 nits for easier outdoor use. It supports 100% DCI-P3 color gamut.

The carbon fiber chassis has also been refreshed for the occasion, making it 25% thinner and with noticeably smaller screen bezels. Lenovo promises a hinge mechanism with tremendous durability thanks to its multi-element torsional construction, which should withstand folding and unfolding under warranty.

Its hardware base has also been updated to Intel 12Gen processors with 1TB of internal storage with M.2 to PCIe 4 SSDs and up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM. Its connectivity is very complete with 5G networks (optional), Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, Thunderbolt 4 and USB Type-C ports. It has three speakers, four microphones, a 5MP IR webcam and a fingerprint sensor.

It contains a 48Wh battery that supports 65W fast charging and offers a battery life of up to 10 hours. Lenovo sells (as an option) a Bluetooth keyboard with TrackPoint and a haptic touchpad that can be placed above the bottom of the screen, and a Wacom AES-compatible stylus. It comes pre-installed with Windows 11 and it’s not cheap, but it’s the best folding PC in the business in my opinion.

ASUS Zenbook OLED 15

• Type: Ultra Portable
• High end
• Featured Feature: Performance and Portability
• Price: from 1,299 euros
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ASUS Zenbook OLED 15 is a typical ultraportable computer that combines performance, high portability and is even able to run a wide range of games thanks to the APU Ryzen 7 7735U that it implements, of course with trimmed graphics in many cases and with the need to pull FSR. When we remove relatively recent triple-A video games and other GPU-intensive applications, we’re talking about a device that can handle any task.

In addition to the APU, which lays the foundations of a powerful device in its category, the ultraportable has an aluminum chassis with the kind of finish I like: sober and not too prominent, but elegant, which is helped by its color. dark. On the other hand, the screen, whose hinge supports 180-degree opening, can be adjusted to a large number of working heights, and one does not know when to turn on the device to get to work.

ASUS Zenbook OLED 15 also has MIL-STD-810H certification for military-grade durabilitywhich gives it a very important extra point as equipment that can be carried around a lot, because logically the chance of an accident increases the less time the ultraportable is spent.

The screen is another very important aspect of laptops and luckily the one on the ASUS Zenbook OLED 15 is of good quality as it is of the OLED type, supporting a native resolution of 2880×1620 pixels and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. With this introductory letter, we stand before a team that offers a visual experience in line with what is expected of a product of the given category.

In short, the ASUS Zenbook OLED 15 is the perfect device for those looking for a Ultra portable for professional production, easy to carry and also capable of supporting entertainment at leisure, although more demanding games will require a lot of reduction in graphics quality, setting the resolution to 1080p and enabling FSR to get a decent experience.

Dell XPS Plus (2023)

• Type: Ultra Portable
• High end
• Featured Feature: Design and Linux
• Price: from 1500 euros
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As always happens in this product category, I’m so clear about what I’m interested in that, apart from a specific whim, I end up going to the same thing: the team light and powerful, designed primarily for portability, as I otherwise prefer a desktop computer that gives me much more. Now, as for carrying the junk on your back…

I find the Dell XPS Plus to be spectacular. It is a revision of the model introduced last year and it fulfills the two basic requirements I ask of it: it is powerful and very light. In fact, it’s the most popular ultraportable on the market after Apple; and it’s as powerful as you want with nuances: i5 or 17 13th generation, from 8 to 32 GB LPDDR5 RAM, from 512 to 2 TB NVMe SSD…

The nuance, more than nuance, is that it’s not a gaming laptop, which I don’t care about either. This and this version are a little short on ports. But I can manage it with the adapter and spectacular design What it has for what it’s worth, including its basic 13.4″ FHD+ screen and FHD at 60Hz, because that’s enough for me.

Yes, I can do it with the basic screen: I have a lot of touch options and UHD+ in such a fair format that if I want more, I can plug it into an external monitor… and that saves me money. Like me I would save buying with Ubuntuinstead of Windows (between 90 and 160 euros depending on the version of the system, mind you; I would get it with Ubuntu even if I wanted it with Windows… I get one of them and the matter is solved).

In short, Dell It’s a bit overpriced, but…

ASUS ROG Strix Scar 16 (2023)

• Type: gaming
• High end
• Featured Feature: Performance
• Price: from 3,099 euros
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The truth is that 2023 has been a very busy year when it comes to laptops. The big brands have launched very important ones, so it is very difficult to choose just one model as the best of them all. However, it is quite clear to me that of all the ASUS ROG STRIX Scar 16 2023 that I have had the good fortune to analyze, it was I liked that one the most generally speaking.

It is true that this is a high-end laptop, and that its price is not within everyone’s reach, but in exchange it offers one of the best designs that I’ve seen in a laptop of its class, it has excellent build quality, a mini LED screen that ranks among the best available today, and a set of high-end components that allow you to enjoy excellent performance in any situation.

Its processor is an Intel Core i9-13980HX with 8 P cores, 16 E cores and 32 threads, it has 32 GB of DDR5 and it has a GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile graphics card with 16 GB of graphics memory, which means that it makes rendering faster. rays and that it is compatible with NVIDIA DLSS 3.5. It is so powerful that it can even handle Cyberpunk 2077 with path tracking enabled in 1600p, as it reaches an average of 78 FPS in balanced mode thanks to DLSS 3.5. Yes, it’s impressive for a laptop.

Recommended for those looking for a very powerful laptop with premium design and build quality. which excels in every way without being overly large or heavy (it has a 16-inch screen and weighs 2.6 kilograms, reasonable considering all it offers). It is also available in configurations with GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile, which have a lower starting price, but the performance is also lower.

Lenovo Yoga Book 9i Gen 8

• Type: convertible
• High end
• Selected function: Screen
• Price: from 2,199.01 euros
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Breaking the form factor is both an act of innovation and rebellion. Unfortunately, the most innovative designs are usually not liked by the general public, who prefer to opt for more conventional designs. And this is of course logical, if we have a limited budget to get the equipment we need for our daily life, the most logical and sensible thing is to opt for a formula that we know works, rather than risking our budget on a gimmick. you have “Better to know evil” as they say. However, if it weren’t for the companies that dare to take risks on mobile phones, they would still have a physical keyboard.

I was lucky enough to test out this Lenovo Yoga Book 9i Gen 8 last summer at a tech company event where they showed us some of the most exciting back-to-school launches. Some of them seemed interesting to me and I liked others a lot, but I was undoubtedly most interested in this convertible, in which we find a 13.3-inch PureSight OLED screen in the place usually occupied by a laptop screen, while in the space normally dedicated to the keyboard we find another 13.3-inch PureSight OLED screen. I’ll leave it up to you to imagine the vast number of ways this dual-screen format can be used.