Picking the right laptop in early 2026 has gotten genuinely complicated, not because there are too many good options, but because a handful of them are doing things that weren't supposed to be possible at their price points. A $599 Apple laptop and an ultralight machine running Cyberpunk 2077 without a dedicated GPU are both real products you can buy right now, and both deserve more attention than they're getting.
Coming to you from Matthew Moniz, this sharp video walks through the five best laptops Moniz has tested in Q1 2026, and the list has some genuinely surprising entries. The one that leads the whole conversation is the MacBook Neo, Apple's $599 laptop that reportedly sent shockwaves through the PC industry. The Asus CFO publicly called it a shock to the market, and based on what Moniz describes, that reaction makes sense. The A18 Pro chip inside shares the same Everest performance core architecture as the M4, and in single-core performance, which is what determines how fast a laptop actually feels in daily use, it outpaces the M1. There are real limitations: 8 GB of RAM with no upgrade path, no keyboard backlighting, and no Thunderbolt. But as a first Mac, a family computer, or a classroom machine, nothing else at this price comes close.
The second major highlight is the Lenovo Yoga 7A, a two-in-one starting around $1,200 that includes a Wacom-powered pen in the box. The display is a 2.8K OLED running at 120 Hz with 100% DCI-P3 coverage and a Delta E under one, which means color inaccuracy is literally imperceptible to the human eye. Moniz is upfront about the CPU situation: the Ryzen AI 7445 inside is actually a step down from last year's chip in raw multi-core performance, trading power for efficiency. That tradeoff shows up in battery life and fan noise in a good way, and for someone who sketches, watches content, or needs an all-day machine, the display and pen experience make a strong case.
Then there's the Acer Swift X 14, which houses Intel's Arc B390 integrated GPU and reportedly runs Cyberpunk 2077 just under 60 fps at medium settings in a 3.4 lb, 16-inch OLED machine priced at $1,549 for the 16 GB configuration. Intel claims the B390 matches an RTX 4050 in performance, and Moniz says the benchmark results back that up. The speakers are bad and the display doesn't hit the peak brightness of competitors, but the battery life, haptic touchpad, and price make it one of the most competitive Panther Lake laptops available right now.
The remaining two picks in the video are where things get even more interesting. One is a sub-2.2 lb Lenovo with that same Arc B390 GPU, a P-OLED display over 1,000 nits, and a 75 Wh battery. The other is the Asus ZenBook A14 running Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite, which Moniz hasn't fully reviewed yet but is calling one to watch. The ARM compatibility picture on Windows has shifted significantly, with Chrome, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and VS Code all running natively. Both of these machines come with caveats and context that are worth hearing directly from Moniz before drawing conclusions. Check out the video above for the full breakdown from Moniz.
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