Best MacBook Air alternatives for 2020

If you're a Windows person and want a balance of portability, power and price, it's hard to find a better laptop than the XPS 13. Starting at $1,000, this lightweight laptop is attractive, easy to use, incomparably slim and offers a ton of configuration (and price) flexibility. For 2020, Dell put in a taller 13.4-inch display giving you a little more room to see your spreadsheets, but still managed to make the body overall smaller. That said, that taller display also improves users' web browsing and streaming experiences on this Dell laptop. Dell also makes a 15-inch version, which starts at $1,000. Read our Dell XPS 13 (2020) review.

Refreshed toward the end of 2019, the HP's premium two-in-one looks like its predecessor right up until you see them next to each other and realize just how much smaller the newer x360 is. It's also running a 10th-gen Intel Core i7 that handily outperforms the last-gen model running a similar configuration with an Intel eighth-gen CPU. It also has a battery that kept it running for more than 10 hours in our tests. Read our HP Spectre x360 13 (late 2019) review.

The Surface Laptop 3 nails almost everything you want in a mainstream, portable laptop. It's thin and light, has a fantastic trackpad and keyboard combo and, thanks to a processor upgrade, offers a notable power boost over 2018's Surface Laptop 2. And it has a touch screen. The price can get high depending on the configuration, but like the rest here, it does start around $1,000. Read our Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 13.5-inch review.

Regularly available for less than $750, this thin, 3-pound convertible is a solid choice for anyone who needs a laptop for office or schoolwork. The all-metal chassis gives it a premium look and feel and it has a comfortable keyboard and responsive, smooth precision touchpad. Though it's light on extra features compared to its premium linemate, the C940, it does have one of Lenovo's sliding shutters for its webcam that gives you privacy when you want it. And it has a long battery life to boot. Read our Lenovo Yoga C740 (14-inch) review.

Featuring AMD's Ryzen 4000 series mobile processors, the Swift 3 is a remarkable bargain for anyone in need of a low-cost, lightweight laptop for work or school. This 14-inch laptop weighs only 2.7 pounds (1.2 kg), costs around $600 and has processor performance that bests laptops twice its price. As you might expect, a couple of corners were cut to keep the price down, but if price, performance and weight are your main concerns, this will have you covered.  Read our Acer Swift 3 (14-inch, 2020) review.

The Asus Chromebook Flip C436 is not your ordinary Chromebook. It's not even an ordinary premium Chromebook. Starting at $800, the ultraportable two-in-one looks and feels as good as top Windows 10 laptops like the 2020 Dell XPS 13 or Apple's latest MacBook Air. It's also one of the first Chromebooks to be co-engineered with Intel as part of its Project Athena program, which means it meets certain requirements that make it speedier than others. Read our Asus Chromebook Flip C436FA review.