It’s been a great year for laptop releases, with some really unique designs coming to the market, along with significant performance bumps across the board.
It’s always a difficult choice when it comes to picking a favourite, and this year that’s more true than ever. We saw boundary-pushing models with folding displays, clever convertible designs and increasingly high-end Chromebooks all making great impressions.
In the end, though, there can be only one winner in the EE Pocket-lint Awards 2022, and it’s easy to see how this blend of beauty, portability and practicality made our top spot.
Laptop of the year: Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022)
squirrel_widget_12853060
The M2-powered MacBook Air is a laptop that gets just about everything right, and this makes it a great choice for the majority of people. It has an industry-leading design, combined with performance and battery life that’s up there with the best of the best.
What’s more, it comes at a reasonable cost and has a slim and lightweight design that won’t weigh you down when you’re on the go. No matter your needs, there’s a very good chance that the MacBook Air can handle it with ease.
With slimmer bezels on the display, the 2022 model looks much more modern, while the chassis benefits from a 20 per cent reduction in volume. However, don’t think that this size reduction equates to lower performance, the M2 silicon provides up to 18 per cent faster processing, along with up to 35 per cent faster graphics, it’s a tiny powerhouse.
Read the Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review
Highly Commended: Dell XPS 13 Plus
squirrel_widget_12863320
It might not have quite made our top spot, but the Dell XPS 13 Plus was one of the most exciting laptop releases of the year. Dell threw the rulebook out the window with its bold redesign, and the result is a gorgeous, futuristic ultraportable that’s sure to turn heads.
As with all XPS 13 models, you get plenty of power, a compact portable chassis and a lovely near-bezel-free display. This time though, there’s an invisible trackpad with some next-generation haptic feedback, and it’s a delight to use.
The keyboard is also striking, with spacious keys and a zero-lattice design, it extends the entire width of the chassis to provide a no-compromise typing experience on what would normally be a cramped chassis. There’s an innovative backlit touch-panel design for the function row and media controls, too. If you want a machine that looks like it came from the future, this is the model for you.
Read the Dell XPS 13 Plus review
The best of the rest
Of course, these aren’t the only outstanding laptops of the year. The competition was strong from the rest of the pack, too. The Acer Swift 5 impressed us with its luxurious details and brilliant performance. The MacBook Pro M2 showed us how Apple’s latest silicon can flex its muscles with the right cooling. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro X blurred the lines between performance ultrabook and lightweight gaming machine. And finally, the LG Gram 16 gave us the ultimate in practicality, with a massive display, great power and an astonishingly light chassis.
What are the Pocket-lint Awards?
The EE Pocket-lint Awards take place annually to celebrate the best of tech from the previous 12 months. Products need to be fully reviewed by the Pocket-lint team to be considered for the Awards, with judging taking place towards the end of the year. Through a process of longlisting and shortlisting, the panel of expert judges scores the devices to result in the overall winner and a Highly Commended runner-up.
The Pocket-lint Awards was run for the 19th time in 2022.