Buy Business Laptops with Confidence
Read our buyer’s guide, with advice and recommendations for purchasing professional laptops.
Find the Best Business Laptops for Your Workforce
Empower employees and IT teams with powerful business laptops that deliver the security, performance, manageability, and stability they need to stay productive and connected and keep business running.
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Choose a Business Laptop That Makes Users and IT Happy
From the sales floor to the field to home and the office, today’s workforce is increasingly mobile. Keeping your employees productive, connected, and secure requires business laptops with features that best serve each worker’s unique needs no matter where they work.
With myriad laptop form factors—including 2-in-1 laptops, mobile workstations, ultraportable laptops, and Chromebooks—and configurable options for each, how do you choose the right device?
To help make your laptop discovery and decision-making less daunting, we’ve curated guidance on the top features to consider—no matter the form factor—so you can give your employees the best possible experience for their work environment and equip your IT team with the tools they need to drive business forward.
What Features Matter Most When Choosing a Business Laptop?
Power for Today’s Business Demands
Business laptops need to provide consistent performance throughout the workday, so your employees can deliver their best work. To get the most from your business laptops, from multitasking to videoconferencing to processing large data sets, look for devices with the latest business-class processors, such as Intel® Core™ processors, that are built to adapt to today’s work demands and ready to scale for future needs.
Robust Security Features at Each Layer
Traditional software-based security solutions are no longer enough for business today. Sophisticated attackers find vulnerabilities beyond software alone, taking advantage of physical exploits at the hardware level. The devices used by your remote and hybrid employees are prime targets. Plus, if your employees connect to public or guest networks while working remotely, the risks to your system and data safety only increase. Mitigate your security risks by seeking out laptops with integrated hardware-based security technology that helps protect and defend against modern threats up and down the stack: hardware, BIOS/firmware, hypervisor, virtual machines (VMs), operating systems (OSs), and applications.
Memory Capacity That Matches User Workloads
A system’s primary, short-term memory is provided by its random access memory (RAM). The amount of RAM your employees will need depends on what they will be doing on the device. OSs, web browsers, and professional applications tend to consume the most RAM. Choose a memory capacity that slightly exceeds user needs today to help ensure laptop performance won’t be negatively impacted in the future.
Storage to Meet User Needs and IT Budgets
Storage provides a system’s long-term memory. It’s where applications, the OS, and other important files are stored. Storage can be a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid-state drive (SSD).
Solid-state drives are often the more popular choice for business laptops because they are incredibly fast while also being more power efficient than HDDs. The speed of SSDs can also accelerate other tasks, such as logging onto the laptop, waiting for apps or services to start up, or conducting storage-intensive tasks. SSDs are all digital and have no moving parts, which means they can better withstand laptops being dropped or bumped—an important factor to consider for a device that is portable by design.
Long-Lasting Laptops Need the Best Battery Life
For employees constantly on the go, the battery life of their business laptop is critical. The latest laptops, such as those built on Intel vPro®, an Intel® Evo™ Edition powered by Intel® Core™ Ultra processors, provide quick charging options and longer battery life to keep up with the way mobile professionals work.
Many variables affect how long a laptop lasts between charges. Typically, the higher performing the system, the more power it will demand, accelerating the drawdown of the battery. Other factors that affect battery life include display resolution and brightness level and the number of concurrent applications being used.
Laptop Size and Weight Depends on Employee Uses
What’s the best size and weight for a business laptop? The answer depends on how your employees use their devices. For example, if your employee travels to see customers, small and thin may be best. For those who spend their whole day at a desk, a bigger screen size may be most important.
No matter which choice you make, it comes with a trade-off. Choose smaller, and you sacrifice screen size. Opt for higher performance, and you likely increase the weight. Systems with 13-inch to 14-inch screens commonly offer the best balance between usability and portability, typically coming in under four pounds. Screens of 15 to 16 inches are most popular, but typically weigh closer to five pounds or more. Finding that right mix of mobility, screen size, and performance starts with your employees.
Fast, Reliable Connectivity
Keeping employees connected to customer information, corporate networks, resources, and each other is crucial for business. Look for laptops with reliable connectivity options like USB, HDMI, Ethernet, and Thunderbolt™ 4 ports.
Professional laptops equipped with the latest Wi-Fi 6E standards can help ensure quality connectivity in locations with hundreds or thousands of connected devices working with time-sensitive, high-bandwidth applications. For example, laptops on the Intel vPro® platform with integrated Wi-Fi 6E enabled provide nearly 3x faster speeds1 and responsive performance. They also support next-generation WPA3 Wi-Fi security features2 and more-stable connections, especially in dense environments. For collaboration, Intel® Wi-Fi 6/6E (Gig+) are the best technologies for videoconferencing.3
Easy Access for IT Support
Now that most employees are no longer located where IT operates, ensuring easy access to worker devices is more important than ever before. When IT can see exactly what’s happening, unpredictable PC problems can be resolved before they become bigger issues. Choose devices that can be accessed and repaired even if they are not on a VPN or if their OS is down, helping to avoid significant employee downtime and loss of productivity. For example, look for systems with remote management capabilities like Intel® Active Management Technology (Intel® AMT).
Which Type of Laptop Suits Your Employees Best?
When it comes to business laptops, one size does not fit all. Ultraportable laptops, 2-in-1s, mobile workstations, and Chromebooks all differ in key features and strengths. Finding the perfect laptop starts with understanding your employees and their needs and preferences.
Standard Laptops
Give employees all the basic tools, features, and capabilities of a reliable work laptop. They will stay productive, protected, and connected whether working on the road or at home.
Ultraportable Laptops
Deliver thin, light laptops with premium power to your mobility-minded workers. Employees who amass the most miles will appreciate the responsiveness, long battery life, and connectivity they get from ultraportable laptops.
Shop CDW ultraportable laptops
2-in-1 Laptops
Offer these ultra-versatile devices to your sales or retail employees. With the performance of a laptop and the mobility of a tablet, 2-in-1s are perfect for swiveling the screen around to present, working the floor to record customer information, or doing work at a standing desk.
Mobile Workstations
Equip your engineers, content creators, and financial analysts with powerful mobile workstations. They will appreciate the power, larger screens, and full keyboards they need for their design, analytics, and other high-performance applications, whether used in the office or on the go.
Chromebooks
Enable employees to take advantage of long battery life, fast access to online applications, and smooth multitasking offered by Chromebooks. With everything managed from the cloud, they are also thin and light, ideal for education and mobile business use.
Give Business a Boost with Business Laptops on the Intel vPro® Enterprise
Powerful performance, multilayered security protections out of the box, comprehensive remote manageability features, and an unparalleled user experience.
See how both IT teams and employees can thrive with laptops on the built-for-business Intel vPro® platform.
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Resources for IT Pros
Access guides, case studies, and articles on IT strategy, remote management, PC stability, digital security, and PC performance.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Business laptops are created to meet the needs of today’s mobile, hybrid, or fully remote workforce. These workers often require more-powerful processors that can handle workloads and specialized applications that consumers typically don’t use. Many remote employees are often part of nationally or internationally dispersed teams without dedicated, on-site IT staff. As such, it’s imperative that IT can remotely access company laptops and repair issues via built-in manageability features. Because employees are often working with sensitive business or client data, more-robust security features are also needed. Modern cyberattacks continue to evade software-only security measures, requiring a more comprehensive defense solution, rooted in hardware, that secures devices at all levels.
Legal and Disclaimers4 5
Product and Performance Information
Nearly 3X Faster: 802.11ax 2x2 160 MHz enables 2402 Mbps maximum theoretical data rates, ~3X (2.8X) faster than standard 802.11ac 2x2 80 MHz (867 Mbps) as documented in IEEE 802.11 wireless standard specifications, and require the use of similarly configured 802.11ax wireless network routers.
WPA3 Wi-Fi Security Features: The Wi-Fi Alliance industry consortium will certify Wi-Fi 6 products for compliance with the IEEE 802.11ax standard, and will require WPA3 security certification as a pre-requisite to ensure the latest in Wi-Fi security features. WPA3 Simplified Passwords: WPA3 uses Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) to replace the Pre-Shared Key (PSK) exchange protocol used by WPA2. SAE more securely handles initial key exchange and uses forward secrecy, which makes it more resistant to offline decryption attacks and provides stronger password-based authentication. WPA3 Enhanced Protection: Additional network protection comes from the equivalent of 192-bit cryptographic strength across an 802.11ax network and is superior to the 128-bit AES encryption utilized with WPA2.
Wi-Fi 6/6E products are based on IEEE 802.11ax, and Wi-Fi 5 products are based on the IEEE 802.11ac standard specifications. Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 5 use the legacy 5 GHz spectrum vs. the new, larger 6 GHz Wi-Fi spectrum, which is exclusively available to new Wi-Fi 6E products. Wi-Fi 6E products operate in Wi-Fi 6 mode when used in the legacy 5 GHz spectrum. Intel over-the-air (OTA) Wi-Fi testing of a standard 20/40 MHz IT network deployment in a multiclient environment, with seven active notebooks generating network traffic and one notebook engaging in a Skype videoconference and showed a >60% latency reduction with Wi-Fi 6 vs. Wi-Fi 5 technology, which translates to a relatively much higher quality Wi-Fi 6 videoconferencing experience. All eight notebooks were Dell XPS 13 (10th Gen Intel® Core™ CPU) with Killer™ AX1650 card and 21.90 driver. A 9th Callee notebook wired to a Skype server was a Dell G7 15 7588 with Killer™ E2400 10/100/1000 Ethernet, Driver 9.0.0.42. Notebooks were all configured with the Windows 10 19H1 64-bit operating system. The enterprise access points were Wi-Fi 5: Cisco 3800, FW: 8.10.128.91 and Wi-Fi 6: Cisco 9130, FW: 8.10.128.91. Wi-Fi 6/6E performance benefits require use of a Wi-Fi 6/6E commercial AP based on the IEEE 802.11ax wireless standard specification. Test data represents best case results in a controlled local network to show the relative Wi-Fi 6/6E vs. Wi-Fi 5 technology differences.
Performance varies by use, configuration, and other factors. Learn more at www.Intel.com/PerformanceIndex. Performance results are based on testing as of dates shown in configurations and may not reflect all publicly available updates. See backup for configuration details. No product or component can be absolutely secure.
Thunderbolt is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Thunderbolt and the Thunderbolt logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.