Favorite Thin and Light Laptop Chassis?

Agree with the Microsoft Surface laptops are very good. Another equally good option is the HP Spectre x360 line. Both are excellent.

Surface and Lenovo Slim. I’ve used a Slim for more than 10 years as a BYOD for work. The slim disappears into my bags.

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Lenovo Slim. I’ve used a Slim for more than 10 years as a BYOD for work. The slim disappears into my bags.

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What's your opinion on the display? I'm not looking for something that blows me away, but 1920x1200 makes me a bit nervous.

I have had a Alienware X14 R2 about a month. It really light. Running a 13 gen 10 core I7 with 16GB ram and NVIDa 4050 Geforce.

I had a Surface but like the dell better. Longer battery life and performance is better IMO.

OTD price from Dell was $1300

If your heart is set on thin and light, the 13" Dell XPS checks most the boxes you list, as does the Lenovo X1 Carbon, but the m.2 replacement capability is largely disappearing from the form factor. Also, the fans are going to run more than you might like because they do need to dissipate the heat that they can't simply spread; however, battery life will be there with the newer processors. With more recent thin and light offerings, processors now include more efficiency cores and fewer performance cores, but with smaller chip geometries and threading improvements, you'll still get the same or better performance.

[Personally, I run a 16" MacBook Pro M3 Max with ridiculous specs. It also came with a ridiculous price. It's pretty thin, but it isn't what I would call light. The reason I do this is because I can run macOS with two simultaneous VMs (Windows 11 Pro for ARM and Ubuntu for ARM) without breaking a sweat.]

Which brings me to this: I was surprised by Windows 11 on ARM. Intel is in for a real fight. I haven't found any real compatibility problems with applications. Microsoft's "Prism" is their equivalent of what Rosetta was for macOS. It allows you to run x86/x64 code without recompiling.

ARM is going to make significant inroads. The right move for Microsoft is to run on anything, since they're slowly ceding the desktop market to mobile devices.

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For the Surface Laptop users, are any of you on one of the later versions that use a Qualcomm processor? I'm mildly, albeit abstractly, concerned about having to fight with compatibility.

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I have the Snapdragon Elite processor. No compatibility issues at work or for using school applications.

I've never noticed anything negative about the display, but my model is way, way, way, out of production (I think I bought it 7 years ago.) It's nice and bright, and I got discrete graphics (940MX, which is depressingly slower than integrated Ryzen graphics today.) I mostly use it for Office apps at work, and 4X or RPG type stuff at the hotel. The only FPS exception was the original Shadow of Mordor. Played like a dream. The screen size is 13.3, and the resolution seems appropriate.

For me, the quickest way to make me hate a laptop is a shitty keyboard, and I'm perfectly fine with the one I have. The keyboard backlight is handy on overnight flights.

The one thing I immediately found a workaround for was the f@*% power brick. It was kinda like some of the older Mac bricks, where the bulk of it was at the plug, so I bought a $2 3 prong extender cable.

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Microsoft Surface laptops are very good

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I've bought 4 of them in the last 6 years (none of them for me). 3/4 are holding up great. The 4th had a hinge break fairly early. It was the 15" model, and the user has some fairly wild children at home that are partially to blame.
The hinges on the others do feel a bit "loose" compared to what I would expect. I believe they're all in the "3" generation of Surface Laptos. The magnetic connector is kind of nice, but I charge it via USB C the majority of the time. I think it's just 1 USB C and 1 USB A port or was for a while

The XPS 13" current or 1-model old generation) is what I replaced the last one with. Single USB-C on either side of the device for charging and accessories. Comes with a couple dongles.

I have a couple Lenovo T14 out there, one of which I actually use from time to time. It is a plastic shell, but I think the keyboard is my favorite of all of them. It has a "solid" feel to it that just feels like it would take a fall better than an aluminum chassis. Doesn't have an ethernet port (has an odd custom connector for one but then also has a couple USB-c. Shouldn't be an issure with the price of docks/dongles and the intended use). I think maybe technically the T-series thinkpads aren't marketed as "thin and light" but the x1 series is


I don't do anything that makes me appreciate resolutions more than the fac tthat they're all pretty legible, and I very much sacrifice screen brightness for battery life, so I would give terrible reviews for that.


Laptops are something I truly hate buying, but I keep 10-15 of them in production. I generally buy 2-4 at a time and keep 1-2 spares around but wind up buying when it's too late. We do sort of have "tiers" of laptops in my clinic (the doctors have somewhat more premium ones ($1000ish) and the nurses have whatever I find a decent deal at at the time, usually in the $500ish range. I'm seeing more and more 1gen old T14 and P14 Lenovo pop up on Slickdeals and refub'd on Amazon for around $750 and think the chassis for it is probably the sweet spot for longevity as we are fairly rough on devices (in/out of patient rooms, typing on laps quite often. They get set down and knocked around an unfortunate amount of time in the course of a regular work day). I have seen decent deals on the mini Lenovo Thinkpad x1 as well, but I did not take the plunge (14" screen was preferred in the last round of buying) .



If I were buying one for me today:
None of these have made me want to put my m1 Macbook Air with 8gb RAM and 256GB drive down yet. The reason I got it in the first place was that dictation (voice to text) was head and shoulders above what was out there on other OS. I have not re-evaluated this in about 4 years now. To beat it on Windows was possible, but it required software that was roughly the cost of the laptop. So I bought the laptop. I'm still not a "mac person" and really don't think they even merit consideration with the exception of the very basic Mac Mini ($500) and Macbook Air ($1000 but frequently closer to $800). They're a shock to convert to, and I still use Windows keyboard shortcuts a lot (and vice versa). I believe I've read that there's a Snapdragon-hearted XPS out there that more or less beats the current Macs in every meaningful test (both practical and benchmark, including battery life), so the ARM-revolution is taking hold and making its way into the Dell (13" only) and Surface laptops. I have not seen it come across in Lenovo yet but don't follow super close.


If I were to rank them:
1) XPS 13"
2) MS Surface Laptop 13" (the 15" adds screen, feels wobbly, and the keyboard doesn't grow with you)
3) Lenovo T14 (though arguably you could leave it off the list altogether, but it's the chassis that when I find in the $750-range with decent-ish specs, I'm going for every time for our use case. They are light, feel good, and seem to be quite durable though our time with them has been short. Our history with other Thinkpads is much longer and very positive)

That's a great deal for $1200