The EE Pocket-lint Awards shortlist has been announced celebrating the best products and devices across 20 categories spanning smartphones and tablets, to cars and smartwatches.
The Best Laptop award focuses on devices that offer performance, practicality and portability.
The shortlisted nominees for Best Laptop 2022 are:
Acer Swift 5 (2022)Apple MacBook Air M2 (2022)Apple MacBook Pro M2 (2022)Dell XPS 13 PlusLenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro XLG Gram 16 (2022)
You can click on each of the titles above to read our full reviews on each nomination, which should give you some idea as to why they have been nominated, or you can read our short verdicts about all six nominees below.
Acer Swift 5 (2022)
The Acer Swift 5 is a stylish little laptop with luxurious details. Its unique finish with brushed gold accents makes it stand out from the crowd, while stellar performance makes it a practical choice, too.
We loved the typing experience and were impressed with the quality of the webcam, both of which make it particularly suited to professional work. The connectivity is also excellent, making it nice and easy to hook up for a desk setup or presentation when required.
Apple MacBook Air M2 (2022)
It should be no surprise to see the Macbook Air making our shortlist, it’s a longstanding favourite and has only been improved for 2022 with the addition of Apple’s second-generation silicon.
It’s not just the performance that has seen improvements, though. The 2022 MacBook Air boasts a lighter and more refined design that cements its status as a premium pick. As usual, there’s a fantastic keyboard, a gorgeous screen and excellent battery life, it’s an excellent all-rounder.
Apple MacBook Pro M2 (2022)
The MacBook Pro also got a performance upgrade this year, with a jump to Apple’s M2 processor. It’s a familiar chassis, but that’s not a bad thing, especially if you’re a fan of the Touch Bar, which has been phased out on other models.
It has speedy performance, excellent battery life, a lovely display and a practical chassis. It might not be quite as exciting as the redesigned MacBook Air, but for a lot of people, it’s the right choice.
Dell XPS 13 Plus
The Dell XPS 13 Plus is the most dramatic design change we’ve seen for the series to date. It’s a gorgeous, futuristic laptop with a tiny chassis and a design like no other.
The most striking change is the invisible trackpad, which is seamlessly integrated into the palm rest and works excellently with some impressive haptic feedback. There’s also a zero-lattice keyboard that makes use of every millimetre of available space and is great to type on. Add to this a capacitive touch function row, and you’ve one very unique ultrabook on your hands.
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro X
Its name might be a bit of a mouthful, but the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro X has a lot to offer. It’s a wonderfully built machine and it’s got enough horsepower to handle serious content creation, all while remaining slim and lightweight.
The onboard RTX 3050 graphics card means that it’ll handle a bit of gaming on the side, and a 120Hz IPS display adds to its gaming prowess. It’s not the smallest chassis around, but given the power on offer, it’s impressively slim.
LG Gram 16 (2022)
The LG Gram 16 is a spacious, comfortable laptop that won’t weigh you down. Despite being a pretty huge laptop, it weighs next to nothing and is extremely slim. There’s plenty of performance on offer, too.
If you want to keep your backpack light, without compromising on screen real estate, connectivity, or power – the LG Gram could well be the tool for the job. It’s definitely not the flashiest laptop around, but what it lacks in style, it makes up for in practicality.
How the Pocket-lint Awards judging works
The winner for the Best Laptop category is decided by the Pocket-lint team, along with a panel of expert judges from publications across the industry. Following the scoring process, the Best Laptop winner for 2022 will be announced at an in-person event on 30 November 2022 in Central London, along with the winners from the other 19 categories.
A Product of the Year winner will also be announced, chosen from the winners of the 20 categories and a winner of the EE Superfast Award will also be revealed at the event. We will be announcing the results on the Pocket-lint Twitter handle as they unfold on the night so keep an eye out there.