Buying Guide: Best 2-in-1 laptops: top 5 hybrid laptops reviewed

This article has recently been updated.

Microsoft's Windows 8 didn't just shake up the company's entire software empire, but the mobile computing industry to boot. Given the dualistic nature of the new Windows, laptop and tablet makers responded in kind with devices commonly known as 2-in-1 laptops, or hybrid laptops.

These are devices that are able to serve as both a laptop and a tablet, either in a detachable design that sees the touchscreen doubling as a tablet, or a convertible approach in which the notebook's hinge rotates 360 degrees for a similar effect. In the past, neither have been all that successful in providing both experiences in equal measure, but that's slowly changing.

Considering their similarity to Ultrabooks in terms of build quality, thinness and lightness, 2-in-1 laptops are generally priced in the same range: between $700 (about £450, AU$800) and $2,000 (around £1,169, AU$2,131). These are sleek, powerful devices that look good and serve multiple use cases to varying degrees of success. With that, here are the best 2-in-1 laptops that we've reviewed thus far.

This is not only Microsoft's most striking and versatile device to date, but the most convincing poster child for the hybrid category yet. And this ringing endorsement comes from a long-time skeptic of such devices.

That said, the Surface Pro 3 (starting at $799, £639, AU$979) is hamstrung by flaws that cannot be ignored. Namely, the battery life might be in line with most Ultrabooks, but isn't close to what Apple's leading laptop and top tablet. And the Type Cover billed as an accessory doesn't help Microsoft's cause – it's quite pricey to boot.

At any rate, this version of the tablet comes in cheaper than the most affordable iPad Air and 13-inch MacBook Air combined, even with the Type Cover, and that's the point. On paper, this slate is more powerful than either Apple device, not to mention most other comparably priced laptops and tablets. The Surface Pro 3 might not be perfect, but it's far and wide the brightest shining example of a potential tablet takeover.

With the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro (starting at $1,099, £999, AU$1,599), we can now confirm that 3,200 x 1,800 pixels is delicious indeed. On top of the winning Yoga form factor, we loved the solid performance, backlit keyboard, and the snappy SSD, creating mobile device-like response times.

However, in our experience, a Haswell-based ultrabook this thin should run twice as long as the Yoga 2 Pro does on a full charge; we got about five hours in our testing. Even with cloud services like Google Drive, a 128GB SSD is hard to recommend for even your grandparents.

Drawbacks considered, the Yoga 2 Pro is a winner of a laptop, pure and simple. At the $1,000 price point, you could put the Yoga 2 Pro in just about anyone's hands and make them quite pleased.

The Asus Transformer Book TX300 (starting at $1,499, about £878, AU$1,649) is encased in brushed aluminium, giving it a quality sleek finish, enabling it to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the MacBook Air in the looks department.

However, it has a hidden trick up its sleeve. The screen unclips from the keyboard base to turn this 13-inch laptop into a 13-inch tablet, for playing games, surfing the web or watching movies.

Along with 4GB of RAM, the chip inside is an Ivy Bridge Intel Core i7 3517U 3rd Generation model. The 4th Generation, nicknamed Clover Trail, which came out in early 2013, boasts better speeds and dramatically improved battery life.

The 11.6-inch Lenovo Yoga 11S (starting at around $799, £599, AU$1,299) laptop is a flexible machine that can fold over from a typical laptop stance to a stand position, to a position with the keyboard behind the screen, ready for delivering presentations.

It comes with HDMI, SD card and USB ports, and boasts a surprisingly impressive Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for storage. The screen is sharp and bright, though not full HD, and works well with Windows 8. It's also nicely light and small for portability. You can easily use the Yoga 11S as you would any other laptop, replete with a full QWERTY keyboard.

This Dell tablet for business users is only lacking in a couple of minor areas. Its 2MP front camera is only suitable for Skype calls, and the 8mp rear camera produces dark shots. Plus, the audio is pretty weak.

But that's it in terms of flaws. The Dell Venue is extremely versatile. It features an impressive Full HD panel and enough CPU power to get almost any job done.

The second battery pack available in the Venue's optional, luxury keyboard adds enough battery life to get you through the day, and at £449 (about $747, AU$808) the Venue 11 Pro is tremendously valuable.

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Buying Guide: Best laptops 2014: which notebook should you buy?

Update: We've revised our buying guides, namely our best Chromebooks list with the addition of the Toshiba Chromebook 2. Scroll on down to click through and see the changes!

With Windows 8.1 here and Windows 9 on the way, Ultrabooks taking off in popularity and laptop-tablet hybrids seeing more releases, choosing the right laptop is even more confusing than ever. (Not to mention the upcoming holiday season!)

Cheap laptops, like Chromebooks, are more powerful and capable than ever, while high-end devices are often perfectly good replacements for your desktop computer, able to cope with more intensive programs.

Those after a fast boot up time and a lightweight machine to carry might drool over an Ultrabook.

Serious gamers will want a machine tailored to their graphical and processing needs, while those after flexibility might fancy a convertible laptop-tablet hybrid.

It might seem overwhelming at first – and it can be what with all of the choices – but we're here to help. Believe us when we say that there is a perfect laptop out there for you. With this guide, you'll find not only that, but which is the absolute best.

Back in the day, there were simply laptops for leisure and those for labor. Today, there are several options for both sides of the fence, some of which jumping back and forth over it. Let's start with the basics:

Ultrabooks

These laptops are essentially devices that must meet certain standards of thinness, lightness, power and size established by processor-maker Intel in an effort to help Windows-loyal notebook vendors compete with Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air a few years ago.

The result has been some seriously premium machines that have lately been enough to rival Apple's best. Think of laptops under an inch thin with long battery life and crisp screens, like the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plusor Acer Aspire S7. And lately, folks have been squeezing dedicated GPUs into the form factor, like the Acer Aspire S3.

Workstations

Designed almost solely for work, hence the name, these usually beefy laptops have one thing in mind: productivity. Vendors generally equip these units with professional-grade GPUs, like the Nvidia Quadro series or AMD FirePro line.

Other characteristics of workstations include a wider variety of ports and easier access to internals than most consumer-grade notebooks. Not to mention more legacy inputs, like trackpoint cursors, and hardware-level security options, like fingerprint scanners. Examples include the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbonand HP ZBook 14.

Chromebooks

These laptops run on an all-new operating system created by Google and called Chrome OS. As the name implies, Chromebooks rely almost solely on Google's homebrewed browser, Chrome. This means that everything from creating word documents to listening to music to printing and beyond is handled with the Chrome browser.

The result is a system that can run with super low-end hardware, which lends Chromebooks to best serve the budget market and education sector. Of course, Chromebooks are best in areas with wireless Internet access, but Google has vastly boosted their offline functionality over the years. Check out the Dell Chromebook 11 and Toshiba Chromebook for a better idea.

2-in-1 laptops (or hybrid laptops)

If you find yourself jumping back and forth between your laptop and tablet, then perhaps the hybrid was made for you. Enabled by Microsoft's dual-purpose Windows 8, these devices either come as tablets than become more like laptops with accessories, or as laptops that can detach from their keyboards and become tablets in a pinch.

Of course, the idea is to provide one device that successfully serve both use cases, rather than have homes and businesses overwhelmed with gadgets for every scenario. The category has fought an uphill battle toward mainstream acceptance, but by far the most shining example of its potential is Microsoft's own Surface Pro 3.

Gaming laptops

You'll always know a gaming notebook when you see one: hulking size, pulsating lights, garish paint jobs and whirring fans. But with thin-and-light (and stylish) products like the Razer Blade or MSI GS60 Ghost Pro, even that paradigm is starting to shift.

Generally speaking, gaming laptops are equipped with the latest mobile GPUs from Nvidia and AMD in order to play the latest games close to how well they run on their more sedentary counterparts. (In some cases, they're enough to outright replace the desktop.) Look at the Origin EON17-S and Alienware 17 for more perspective.

General use laptops

Notebooks of this sort are tough to categorize. They still adhere to the standards established decades ago of what a laptop is, only vastly refined. Given how the market has siloed itself into several distinct categories at this point, this variety of laptops is generally considered "budget" or "mid-range".

Ranging in screen sizes from 11 to 17 inches, there usually aren't many stand-out characteristics with these mostly-plastic clamshells. These laptops are easy to peg as jacks of all trades: readily able to handle all of your daily tasks, but suffer in more extreme or specifically demanding scenarios.

We're so glad you asked! Below you'll find what we think are the absolute best laptops in a number of categories, always up-to-date.

The most premium computing experiences around with the price tags to match

Ultrabooks tend to be made with design in mind, so they come in more expensive than most mid-range home laptops. They tend to start from around $999 (about £584, AU$1,063) in the lower end, going to nearly $2,000 (around £1,169, AU$2,129) at the very high end. You're likely to ultimately spend between $899 and $1,500 for a newer model, though you can get some older models for even lower prices.

Google's Chrome-packed computers make for an unbeatable budget buy

Chromebooks focus on what computing has been all about since the late '90s, the web browser, through Google's Chrome operating system. What should you look out for in a Chromebook? The majority of these Google laptops use either the same or similar low-power components. This is largely what is behind the unquestionable affordability of these mobile rigs – most of which start under $300 (about £175, AU$319).

These machines excel in pixel-pushing performance with panache

Focused on real-time, 3D image rendering for the latest games, these laptops almost always come with a premium attached. If you want (at least something close to) the PC gaming experience with the flexibility to move around the house, the asking price generally starts at $1,300 (about £760, AU$1,384) at the low end and maxes out at around $3,000 (around £1,753, AU$ 3,194).

Business up front, party in the back – the mullets of the computing world

Otherwise known as hybrid laptops, these devices generally sit in the same price range as Ultrabooks, given their mission to serve as two devices in one. That generally gets you a Windows 8 touchscreen device that either flips around its hinge to become a tablet or detaches from its included keyboard accessory (which hopefully doubles as an extra battery).

The tech you need to help you land the career you want

Whether you're a freshman in liberals arts or an MBA looking to rock the business world, you need a laptop that will best enable you for the perfect price. While some will naturally be more expensive than others, these are the clamshells best suited for your field of study and, ultimately, your budget.

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New Intel Core M CPU will supercharge future tablets and laptops

Intel Core M unveiled at IFA 2014

Intel's senior vice president and GM of personal computing, Kirk Skaugen, has launched its next generation of processors, coined the Core M.

The new processor range will focus on three mobile segments (convertibles, ultra portables, tablets), delivering what Intel says, is the most energy-efficient processor in the company's history at 4.5W (based on SPEC CPU2006 intel estimates for performance and core power.

Interestingly, most of the demonstrations during the keynote were referring to laptop, convertibles and tablets with keyboards, with few tablets on their own.

The Core M uses a 14nm manufacturing process and offers 50% more CPU performance as well as 40% faster graphics performance compared to last year's Core i5-4302Y.

Other advantages include significantly lower power consumption and consequently power dissipation; that translates into a fanless design - which reduces the size and weight of the devices and improves reliability - as well as much better battery life.

The Core M platform will also include support for high-quality audio, Wi-Di 5.0, second generation 802.11ac with wireless docking WiGiG coming in the (near) future.

Intel expects manufacturers to come out with tablet products less than 9mm thin; that about the thickness of the Apple iPad 2. More than 20 OEM products based on the Core M processor are expected to hit the shelves just in time for Christmas.

One of the highlights of the keynote was the Llama Mountain reference device that is a 7.2mm tablet that's only 670 grams, thanks to a motherboard package half the size.

Three SKUs will be available at launch: The Intel Core M-5Y10, the 5Y10a, both clocked at up to 2GHz and the M-5Y70, clocked at up to 2.6GHz; the latter also supports vPro, making it a good fit for business users.

Intel also announced that it will provide with a $280 (about £180, AU$300) software bundle for SMEs called Small Business Program Partners Software Bundle for selected products.

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IFA 2014: Acer lifts lid on convertible Aspire R 13 and R 14 Series Windows 8.1 laptops

The Aspire R13: flexible in all the right places

Acer has used the IFA 2014 expo in Berlin to unveil a pair of convertible Windows 8.1 laptops toting more positions than a Yoga manual.

First up, the Aspire Aspire R 13 features a 13.3-inch, Gorilla Glass 3-equipped display that rests on what Acer calls an Ezel Aero Hinge, which allows it to rotate 180 degrees and into six different positions.

We've seen similar hinges before on Acer products, including the Star Trek-like Aspire R7. You'll be able to choose between a full-HD (1920 x 1080) or HD (1366 x 768) display, along with a choice of Intel Core i5 or i7 processors for maximum grunt.

Other specs include up to a 1TB SSD with RAID-0 support backed up by 8GB of RAM, and an optional Active Stylus Pen with palm rejection for doodling and capturing screen content. It measures 25.4mm thick and weighs just over 3lbs.

The Apsire R 13 Series launches in the US in October starting $899 (around £546, or AUS$967), heading to European shores in November starting at €899.

Continuing the theme of flexible hinges, the new Aspire R 14 features a 360-degree dual-torque hinge design that allows it to transform into four different modes.

Like the Aspire R 13, it'll be available with a choice of Intel Core processors (i3, i5 or i7), up to 12GB of RAM and integrated NVidia GeForce 820M graphics, which is bound to capture the attention of gamers looking to frag on the move.

The Aspire R 14 comes with a HD display (1366 x 768) that features Zero Air gap technology, and once again it's available with an Active Stylus Pen.

The Aspire R 14 Series is due to reach US shores in October starting $599 (around £364, or AUS$644), and will land in Europe in mid-October, starting €499 (around US$656, £398, AUS$704).

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