Gadgets

These 5 laptops are among the best I’ve used through the years

Published

11 months ago

March 28, 2025

Empowerment

These 5 laptops are among the best I’ve used through the years

Summary

The PC industry has given rise to some absolutely iconic laptops throughout the years.

Over the years, I’ve used a number of notebook PCs – some models are iconic, while others simply provide me with a sense of nostalgia.

Here are some of the very best laptop PCs that I’ve had the pleasure of using in years past.

My first foray into the world of laptop computing arrived in the form of an entry-level Asus model circa 2009 — the PC shipped with Windows 7, had a 15-inch display, and was a hilariously chunky piece of kit by today’s standards.

My Asus was oversized and underpowered, to be sure, but it was also a game-changing product for me at the time. No longer was I shackled to the dedicated desktop PC tucked away in my den. Suddenly, I could watch YouTube videos, work on my homework, and play flash games from the comfort of my couch.

In the years since, I’ve had the privilege of using several laptop PCs on a regular basis. Looking back, some of the models I’ve used are what I’d consider to be iconic. Others, while less innovative, continue to fill me with nostalgia to this day. Here are five notebooks in particular that I look back upon with fond memories.

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1 Apple MacBook Pro (2015)

The jack of all trades

Pocket-lint / Apple

2015 Apple MacBook Pro

Apple’s 2015 MacBook Pro is a home run in every sense of the word, with its big selection of ports, its high-resolution Retina Display, and its haptic trackpad.

For its time, the MacBook Pro (2015) was about as close to perfection as a laptop could feasibly hope to be. It was packed with useful ports, it had a crisp and pixel-dense Retina Display, and it came with the same incredible haptic trackpad that Apple first debuted in its 12-inch MacBook that same year.

While not the thinnest or lightest computer on the block, the 2015 MacBook Pro was a hearty and performant machine. It got me through four years of undergraduate studies, and it served as my first introduction to the macOS operating system.

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2 Sony VAIO Pro 13 Touch (2013)

My very first Ultrabook

Pocket-lint / Sony

VAIO Pro 13 Touch

The VAIO Pro 13 Touch is a Sony-made thin-and-light Ultrabook that shipped with the touch-friendly Windows 8 operating system, and features a slick carbon fiber frame.

Back in the early 2010s, Intel outlined an all-new class of thin-and-light laptops, which the company referred to as Ultrabooks. These PCs were certified under specific qualifications relating to form factor, boot speed, and, naturally, they had the prerequisite of being powered by an Intel Core processor.

My first experience using an Ultrabook came in the form of the Sony Vaio Pro 13 Touch. At the time, Sony was still a notable player in the laptop industry, and its Vaio computers were always some of my favorites. The Pro 13 Touch was shockingly thin and light, owing to the use of carbon fiber for its frame, and, as its name suggests, it came with a touch-enabled display.