Laptops will be much better in 2024

I know this because I have been reviewing laptops for over a decade, and I work with a team of smart people who have been reviewing them for just as long or longer

In short, we are fortunate to have a front-row seat to the ever-expanding carnival of curiosities that is portable PC design From sliding screens and 360-degree rotatable speakers to LED lids and keyboard-deck touchscreens, we've seen all sorts of interesting laptops over the years

Yet, with all this innovation and progress, we still see laptop makers shipping products with fundamentally unsatisfactory designs Whether it is a power cable that is too short or a lid that is painfully difficult to open, there are many very simple problems with modern laptops that seem easy to fix or avoid

Tom's Guide's computing team knows the highs and lows of laptop design But this is more than a good-natured whining contest: my colleagues' hard-won, frustrating laptop review experiences will hopefully help you know what to look for, and hopefully what to avoid, when buying a new laptop

I remember last year trying to listen to cutscenes from "Resident Evil 4" on an Acer Predator Helios 300 SpatialLabs Edition Please, manufacturers, for the sake of my shattered hearing, can you make your laptops quieter?

Excuse me for sounding like Nic Cage's The Wicker Man, but Not a fan Not a fan Now I can finally say that fan noise on my laptop sucks I've tested some of the best gaming laptops over the past 12 months, and with the exception of the very good (and pleasantly quiet) ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024), anything less nearly burst my eardrums

When I begin testing a gaming laptop, I usually put Windows 11 into performance mode as is At its most obnoxious, the fan noise becomes a constant irritation that I do my best to ignore And at its worst It can completely destroy the immersive experience

Now, I know that some people don't like this way of thinking But please give me a moment

I am a hobby photographer and general content creator From my college days until I started working on my own YouTube channel, the camera has been synonymous with a full-size SD card slot

Just having a compatible slot on my laptop (like the M3 Pro MacBook Pro I use every day) makes viewing all my captures quick and easy However, there is nothing more cringe-worthy than seeing this slot cut in half and a MicroSD card slot provided instead At that point, you need to buy one with an adapter for the camera, which you lose within the first two seconds of unpacking It's back to dongle chaos

And I'm well aware that flash MicroSD slots are an effective way to increase onboard storage on laptops But finding one like this is rare anymore, and this whole storage expansion solution has been deprecated So, I ask you, laptop makers Please don't do anything stupid; please don't add a MicroSD card slot; please don't add a full-size card slot; please don't add a full-size card slot Full size is the only way forward for any content creator

Laptops are a convenient way to do computing on the go What is not convenient is when it is difficult to open Most laptops have a lip on the lid for easy lifting Laptops without a lip on the lid stand out (pun intended) because this feature is everywhere However, such laptops still exist and frustrate me every time

The biggest offer is the Dell XPS laptop Don't get me wrong, the XPS laptop is one of my favorites I use the 2022 and 2023 versions of the XPS 15 OLED every day in my office But as I mentioned in my review, the XPS laptops (even the 2024 model) don't have a lip on the lid, which makes them a pain to open The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) that I recently reviewed also does not have a lip, proving that this is not just a Dell XPS issue

As I mentioned, many modern laptops have a lip on the lid, so this concern of mine is not something I have to deal with often Hopefully, the time will come when all laptops (or at least the ones I am testing) will have a lip on the lid

If you do number crunching all day or use a lot of spreadsheets, you might make good use of a laptop with a full-size keyboard and a number pad However, I prefer to work without a keyboard The reason is that a keyboard without a numeric keypad tends to be more centered

When I have to work on a laptop with a desktop at home, I want the experience to be as close as possible to how my desk is set up Why are so many laptops this way, when no one has their keyboard off to the left or right of the monitor?

Fortunately, there are many excellent laptops that have no numeric keypad, a centered keyboard, and keys that are not cramped For example, my trusty ThinkPad (pictured above) is configured this way, and is one of the reasons I chose a ThinkPad over other business laptops Recently, however, I had the opportunity to try out the Razer Blade 16 (2024), and in addition to being a powerful gaming laptop, I actually like working with it because of its centered keyboard with a reasonable amount of travel

If you need to sit down and work with a lot of numbers, you'll be staring at a monitor at your desk, not at a laptop screen You can buy an external numeric keypad later, but if you choose a laptop with a built-in numeric keypad, there is no going back

It's hard to pick one thing that annoys me most about modern laptops, but one complaint that seems surprisingly easy to remedy is poor port placement

Here's an example: the Lenovo Slim 7 I recently reviewed is impressive in many ways, but there are a few decisions in its design that really annoy me Specifically, the laptop can only charge from the port on the left side, but the power cable is so short (just under 6 feet) that if there is no outlet on the left side, I have to move myself and the laptop into an awkward position so that I can fully extend and plug in the cable

This puts me in a very awkward and dangerous situation with this $1,000 review unit with the cables pinned across the table I avoid this at home because it is a hassle, but on the road, even if my laptop is dying and I need to get some work done ASAP, I may not be able to charge my laptop

So, while the laptop itself is great, this small decision is causing me undue frustration Especially when it seems like a problem that could easily be solved if such a product were more thoroughly tested in a real-world situation

Of course, I understand that port placement is heavily influenced by the contents and layout of the laptop I can sympathize with laptop manufacturers who struggle to design thin and light laptops that their customers want, but pack in enough high-quality components and enough batteries to give them great performance on the go

Because of these concerns, one can sympathize with laptop manufacturers who cannot squeeze in all ports or are forced to compromise port placement However, if they design notebooks that allow USB-C charging, but only have the USB-C port on one side (as Lenovo did earlier), why not provide users with an extra-long charging cable to compensate for the inability to charge from both sides?

It may seem like a minor annoyance, but the risk of a laptop dying in the middle of a big job, or at the hands of a poor coffee shop customer who accidentally brushes against a pinned power cable over the counter and crashes his expensive laptop to the floor It would not seem so trivial when one is deciding between taking the risk of dying by the

So, if you're buying a new laptop, my advice is to make sure the power cable is at least 6 feet long if possible (10-12 feet would be sufficient in most situations) and look for a unit that has charging ports on both sides

This is usually only available on laptops with USB-C charging, so if you buy a rugged gaming laptop (which requires an equally rugged power brick for charging), you will have more trouble However, many gaming laptops (especially the big boys) have power ports on the back, like the Alienware m18 pictured above This is much more convenient than having the power port on the right or left side, since you don't have to change the angle of the laptop to accommodate a nearby power outlet

Of course, these are just a few of the headaches we deal with when reviewing laptops What are your biggest pet peeves about recent laptop designs? Let us know in the comments below