Laptop Tablet Hybrid Best Buy
For many laptop shoppers, portability is king, and there's nothing more portable than a tablet. With touch screens and support for a pen or stylus, the most popular laptops today often do double duty as tablets. There are two ways to achieve this: Convertible 2-in-1 designs that rotate between notebook and slate modes with 360-degree hinges, or detachable models that let you remove the keyboard entirely to become a standalone tablet. You have a keyboard and touchpad when you need it, or can go all touch screen when that's more convenient.
laptop tablet hybrid best buy
The convertible laptop can transform from laptop to tablet and back again, with most systems featuring a hinge design that allows for rotating the keyboard portion through 360 degrees, out of the way back behind the screen. This type of 2-in-1 is the best choice if you're planning on using the keyboard a lot, as you're guaranteed to always have it with you. (Typing the Great American Novel or even an ordinary business report on the hard, flat surface of a virtual onscreen keyboard is an experience you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.)
In a convertible machine, the battery and motherboard are usually located in the base (as in a traditional laptop), so it's balanced for use on a lap or a tabletop. The stable bottom lid of the clamshell is also a better typing platform than the sometimes-flimsy panel of a detachable keyboard case. There's also more room for batteries in a laptop form factor (the bottom half never goes away), which results in improved battery life.
Windows 10 and Windows 11-based slate tablets (and their detachable counterparts) tend to weigh less than 2 pounds on their own, and adding the keyboard case or dock can double the system's total weight. A tablet with a well-designed keyboard dock attached is functionally indistinguishable from a clamshell laptop, and some detachable docks contain extra battery cells that can greatly extend the amount of time you're able to work off-plug. Simpler keyboard cases usually lack niceties such as extra battery cells or USB ports, and most will be noticeably physically flexible. But if a keyboard is just an occasional need for you, chances are you won't mind that much.
The benefit of the keyboard case is that it is thinner and lighter overall than the usual lower half of a laptop or convertible. Detachable-hybrid tablets, however, tend to be top-heavy, because all of the system's components and batteries, and hence their weight, are necessarily localized in the screen. You'll want to examine your usage patterns to determine whether holding the PC in your hands and interacting with the touch screen is really right for you.
The rest of the specs (screen size, storage space, the processor used, and so on) for convertibles and detachable hybrids generally follow the same lines as more standard laptops and Windows 10 tablets, which means you'll have to pay more if you want additional speed, fancier features, or a thinner, flashier design.
Below are the top convertibles and detachable hybrids we've tested in recent months. We refresh the list often to include the newest products, so check back frequently. Don't need the unique transformational capabilities you get from a 2-in-1? Check out our reviews of the best overall laptops, the top business notebooks, and our favorite ultraportables.
The best 2-in-1 laptops can transform, flip, and flex into several bendable positions, including tablet and tent mode. Championed by Microsoft, these transfiguring laptops stood the test of time as primary devices that blend the utility of a laptop and the convenience of a tablet.
The Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 is the best 2-in-1 laptop you can get. When we reviewed the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360, shocked by its approximate 12-hour runtime and amazingly thin-and-light form factor. On top of that, for those who love watching Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max (or any other streaming app) on their laptops, they'll appreciate the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360's colorful, bright and vivid display.
The Spectre x360 14 is the best 2-in-1 laptop ever. Newly released for 2022, highlights of this laptop include a stunning design, a bright and vivid 3000 x 2000-pixel OLED display, impressive 10+ hour battery life, and fast overall performance.
We recommend buying the Spectre x360 14 over the Envy 13 if you have the money, especially if you need the flexible design. In fact, the Spectre x360 14 is one of the best laptops if you want a convertible notebook, period.
If you don't have the best impression of Acer, let the Chromebook Spin 713 change that for you. This Chromebook has almost everything you could ask for in a laptop and it costs only $699. You get a bright and colorful 13.5-inch touchscreen display, exceptional battery life of nearly 11 hours, and quick performance thanks to its 11th Gen Core i5 processor.
Without departing drastically from its iconic look, the Pro 8 makes subtle improvements to the Surface Pro as a tablet and a laptop. Upgrades include a larger display and a more comfortable to use design, along with a much-needed internal upgrade. That includes an 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor and up to 32GB of RAM, components that bring some of the new features of Windows 11 to bear.
Not only can the Surface Laptop Studio be transformed into a digital drawing board, but it does so without compromising the standard laptop mode. This flexibility, along with excellent performance and long battery life, makes the Surface Laptop Studio a compelling option for creative professionals. Add in a fantastic keyboard/touchpad combo, powerful speakers, and a 1080p webcam, and the Surface Laptop Studio finds its place as one of the best 2-in-1 laptops.
HP's EliteBook x360 1040 G7 is among the best business laptops money can buy. This stunning laptop has a gorgeous chassis that flaunts a flexible hinge, allowing the x360 1040 G7 to convert from a laptop into a tablet.
You first need to decide what type of 2-in-1 laptop is right for you. If you want a primary computing device for home and work, you should probably go with a laptop that can convert into a tablet, or what we call a bendback 2-in-1. These include the HP Spectre x360 13, Dell XPS 13 and Lenovo Yoga C940.
If you want something more portable or just need a nice display for content viewing, consider buying a tablet that converts into a tablet via a detachable keyboard. In this category are the Microsoft Surface devices and Apple's iPad Pro. Tablets are also great for artists or designers because they typically support a stylus input and aren't as unwieldy as convertible laptops.
Once you've made a choice between tablet or laptop, decide how much power you need. When it comes to specs, we recommend buying a laptop with an 11th Gen Intel U-series or H-series Core i5 CPU, at least 8GB of RAM (16GB is great) and a minimum of 256GB of storage. AMD is coming in hot with its Ryzen 5000 chips, so keep an eye out for those.
And if you're only thinking of a hybrid device as a detachable tablet and a laptop, here are five other uses for a two-in-one that you might not have considered. These are the best two-in-one laptops 2023 has to offer.
The Surface Pro continues to hit all the right notes if you're looking for a do-it-all Windows tablet that doubles as a Windows laptop. Microsoft recently updated it for the Surface Pro 9, but little has changed beyond a processor upgrade from 11th-gen Intel Core processors to 12th-gen chips as well as an option for a Microsoft SQ 3 processor with 5G wireless. If you were contemplating a Pro 8, it's still around but now with a lower price, and we recommend it for most people instead of the Surface Pro 9.
Gaming laptops with 16-inch screens are common enough. What's unusual is finding one with a 360-degree hinge to become a foldable two-in-one that can be a laptop, a tablet and a couple of things in between. Add another level of ingenuity and you've got the ability to plug in a more-powerful external GPU for even better performance. It's expensive, to be sure, but the unique design and features as well as solid performance make it stand out.
The review process for laptops, desktops, tablets and other computer-like devices consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our expert reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aesthetics, ergonomics and features. A final review verdict is a combination of both those objective and subjective judgments.
All offer responsive performance, allowing them to boot quickly, wake even faster and remain snappy to use no matter how many browser tabs you have open. Our favorite is the Lenovo Yoga 7i 16-inch, but we're also big fans of the super-affordable Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i with its impressive performance for the price. Read on for all our picks the best 2-in-1 laptops you can buy in 2022.
This model has a vibrant big-screen 2K display that can produce sharp text and detailed images, without sapping too much battery life. The display is rated at 400-nits brightness, making it not as bright as the MacBook Air M2 (2022) but bright enough for use in most environments. While the display is great, the physical size and weight of this laptop make it awkward to use as a tablet. Another major strength is its port selection, which includes a pair of Thunderbolt 4/USB Type-C ports for high-speed data transfers to external drives, and gives you the option of using external displays up to 4K resolution if you need even more screen to work with.
Whether you're typing up documents or responding to messages and emails, the display on this HP Spectre x360 delivers, with a massive 3K+ resolution that looks stunning. When you're not typing, the touchscreen is intuitive and reacts well to all kinds of inputs, making it a nuanced laptop for all sorts of tasks. While the Spectre x360 can flip around to use in tablet mode, the size and weight of this model will make it hard to hold in one hand for any length of time. The laptop has four Bang & Olufson speakers, and it has a 5MP webcam with backlight adjustment. 041b061a72