Thunderbolt has become an increasingly common feature in laptops over the last few years. Since the introduction of Thunderbolt 3, which uses the familiar USB Type-C connector, many more laptops have adopted this feature. And with Thunderbolt 4, the experience has been standardized so all Thunderbolt laptops offer the best speeds promised in Thunderbolt 3.

Thunderbolt is a proprietary connection interface developed by Intel and is popular due to its very high data rates compared to normal USB. With Thunderbolt 4, it becomes possible to connect lots of USB peripherals at their full speed, use external displays, Thunderbolt docking stations, or even connect external GPUs using enclosures like the Razer Core X. It's an interface that makes laptops far more versatile. Because of that, most premium laptops now have it.

As such, we've rounded up the best laptops with Thunderbolt 4 ports in case you're looking to expand your setup now or in the future. Because this is Intel proprietary technology, most of these have Intel processors, but there are a few exceptions.

Best overall: Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro

In the past couple of years, Samsung has made some fantastic Windows laptops, and for 2023, it's gotten better than ever with the new Galaxy Book 3 Pro series. Coming with new displays, a new design, and more powerful specs, this is the laptop to get right now.

Starting things off, the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro is powered by 13th-generation Intel Core processors, specifically a Core i7-1360P, with 12 cores, 16 threads, and boost speeds up to 5GHz. You'll get fantastic performance for all kinds of day-to-day tasks with this processor. Not only that, but the laptop comes with 16GB of RAM and up to a 1TB SSD, so you have enough memory for multitasking and plenty of space for files.

Samsung is well-known for its great displays, and it's brought that in full force to the Galaxy Book 3 Pro. Whether you choose the 14-inch or 16-inch model, you get a beautiful Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with a super-sharp 2880 x 1800 resolution, making for a phenomenal viewing experience. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio, so it's great for productivity, too, and the 120Hz refresh rate makes everything appear much smoother on screen. And of course, there are the usual benefits of OLED, like true blacks, vibrant colors, and fast pixel response times.

The webcam above that display supports 1080p resolution, but there's no Windows Hello facial recognition, and you have to use a fingerprint reader instead. The camera does support some useful features using Samsung's Studio Mode, though.

Samsung also made significant changes to the design this time around. Most notably, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro series is made of aluminum, which means the laptops feel a lot more rigid and more premium in exchange for being heavier. The 14-inch Galaxy Book 3 Pro weighs 2.58 pounds, while the 16-inch variant goes up to 3.4 pounds. These are still quite portable for their size, though, and at 11.3mm and 12.5mm of thickness for each size, respectively, they don't feel bulky at all.

Of course, the laptop supports Thunderbolt 4, with two ports available, but you also get a USB Type-A port, HDMI, a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader, so connectivity is great overall.

You can buy your Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro below if this all sounds good to you.

Best convertible: HP Spectre x360 13.5

If you want a premium laptop that you can also use as a tablet, the HP Spectre x360 13.5 is one of the very best options right now. It's a fantastic combination of versatility and portability with a beautiful design that stands out from the crowd.

Let's start with the specs, as we often do. The HP Spectre x360 13.5 is powered by 12th-generation Intel processors, specifically going up to an Intel Core i7-1255U. That's a 15W processor with 10 cores and 12 threads, plus boost speeds up to 4.7GHz, which already delivers plenty of performance. Like other recent Intel processors, Iris Xe Graphics is also built-in for handling some light GPU workloads. This isn't the latest hardware from Intel anymore, but it doesn't miss out on much compared to its successors. Additionally, you can configure the Spectre x360 13.5 with up to 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD for storage, so this is a top-tier experience all around.

The display is easily one of the highlights of the Spectre x360 13.5. HP is using a 3:2 aspect ratio for the display, something we see a lot in Microsoft's Surface devices, and it's even taller than 16:10. The base configuration is a Full HD+ (1920 x 1280) panel, which is already good, but you can upgrade to an absolutely stunning OLED display in "3K2K" (3000 x 2000) resolution. That makes this an incredibly sharp screen, but also one that gives you very high contrast ratios, vivid colors, and pure blacks. The Full HD+ model also allows you to get a privacy screen to protect sensitive information from people around you.

HP has been putting some of the best webcams on its laptops, and the Spectre x360 13.5 has a 5MP sensor that supports 1080p video, along with features like auto framing and lighting correction. It supports Windows Hello facial recognition, too.

One of the coolest things about the Spectre x360 is its design. Aside from the more classic Natural Silver color, it uses a dual-tone look that's fairly different from everything else. The Nightfall Black variant combines black surfaces and bronze-colored accents, while Nocturne Blue combines dark blue surfaces with a lighter shade of blue for the edges. It also uses a cut-off corner design near the hinge, giving it more of a unique identity while also making a Thunderbolt port more reachable from either side (or the back) of the laptop.

The other ports include an additional Thunderbolt connection, USB Type-A, a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader. It's a solid setup, and having two Thunderbolt ports means you can easily connect even more peripherals or even an external GPU while also using an external monitor. This way, you can have a truly premium machine that also doubles as a gaming PC when you need it. This is one of the very best laptops you can buy today, and Thunderbolt 4 makes it that much better.

Best gaming laptop: Razer Blade 16

One of the great things about Thunderbolt 4 is that you can turn almost any laptop into a gaming laptop using an external GPU, but that's an expensive investment. If you just want a great gaming laptop out of the box while still having Thunderbolt 4 for other peripherals, the Razer Blade 16 is for you.

This is Razer's most powerful laptop yet, starting with a 13th-generation Intel Core i9-13950HX, a 55W processor with an incredible 24 cores and 32 threads, something that was unheard of for laptops until this year. Not only that, it comes with up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU that uses a massive 175W of power for peak loads. This machine can run all the games you want at very high settings, and Razer even includes a CPU overclocking tool to get even more performance. You also get up to 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD, though you can upgrade these things later.

The Blade 16 is also Razer's first laptop to feature a 16-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio (instead of 16:9), which means it's not only great for gaming but for productivity, too. But gaming is the focus, and the base model already has an excellent IPS panel with Quad HD+ (2560 x 1600) resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate. If you do care more about content creation, the top-tier configurations include a dual-mode mini-LED display, which can switch between 4K resolution at 60Hz or Full HD resolution at 240Hz — a world-first for a laptop.

Razer is one of the few companies that care about webcams in its gaming laptops, and the Razer Blade 16 includes a 1080p webcam that should deliver solid video quality. It also supports Windows Hello facial recognition, which is even rarer for gaming laptops.

As a result of a major increase in power, the Razer Blade 16 is a bit bulkier than its predecessors. Still, it measures under 22mm thick and weighs 5.4 pounds, which is not the worst we've seen for laptops with this kind of power. The laptop also looks sleek with its flat all-black chassis, accented only by the green Razer logo on the lid and the RGB keyboard.

Regarding Thunderbolt 4 connectivity, the Razer Blade 16 only has one port, with the other USB Type-C port using a standard USB connection with 100W Power Delivery. However, you get a lot more here, such as three USB Type-A ports, HDMI 2.1, a headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader. That's very useful for importing images from a camera, for example, and the setup as a whole is fantastic.

The Razer Blade 16 is a very expensive laptop (starts at $2,699 MSRP), and the configurations available at launch only come with top-tier Nvidia GPUs, so they're even pricier. But you can't get anything quite like it right now.

Best 17-inch laptop with Thunderbolt 4: LG gram 17

The LG gram lineup has always been popular for its surprisingly portable laptops that still deliver great experiences, and the LG gram 17 is one of the best examples of that. For 2023, LG has done something different with this laptop, adding Nvidia graphics that make it a bit heavier, but it's still a very portable machine, and it's even more powerful now.

For starters, the 2023 model of the LG gram 17 has the obvious upgrade to Intel's 13th-gen processors, specifically a Core i7-1360P, with 12 cores, 16 threads, and boost speeds up to 5GHz. But the real highlight here is the addition of Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics. This isn't the most powerful GPU out there, but it's enough to boost content creation tasks like video editing, making the experience that much faster. It even allows for some light gaming. The laptop can also be configured with up to 32GB RAM and a 2TB SSD, so you get a top-tier experience all around.

The display hasn't changed much, so you're getting a 17-inch panel with a 16:10 aspect ratio, and it comes in Quad HD+ (2560 x 1600) resolution. This large canvas with a high resolution makes for a great screen to work on, and the 99% coverage of DCI-P3 makes it suitable for creative professionals. Above the display, there's also a 1080p webcam with Windows Hello facial recognition, which is always great to see.

As we said at the top, LG gram laptops are known for being portable, and despite adding Nvidia graphics, the gram 17 still comes in at 3.2 pounds. Sure, that may not be exactly light, but for a 17-inch laptop with a discrete GPU, it's very impressive. It's because the laptop's chassis is made from magnesium, which allows it to be very light, and it's also decently thin, at 17.78mm.

LG also supplies a decent range of ports here, with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI, a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader. That covers all the basics and then some, and it's hard to complain about a selection like this.

All in all, the LG gram 17 is looking to be a fantastic laptop, and you can read our review of the 2022 model if you'd like to learn a bit more about it.

Best tablet: Surface Pro 9

It took Microsoft a long time to embrace Thunderbolt, but it finally happened with the Surface Pro 8. Now, we have the Surface Pro 9, which builds on its predecessor to make for an even better device while keeping what made it great.

The Surface Pro 9 comes packing 12th-generation Intel Core processors, which are no longer the latest and greatest from Intel, but 13th-generation models aren't a huge upgrade, so you're not missing out. You can go up to a Core i7-1255U for consumer models, and that's a 15W processor with 10 cores, 12 threads, and boost speeds up to 4.7GHz, which already gets you plenty of performance for day-to-day tasks. What's more, it can be configured with up to 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, so you have a very high-end laptop in a tablet form factor.

One of the best things about the Surface Pro 9 continues to be its display. It's a 13/inch panel in the signature 3:2 aspect ratio, with a resolution of 2880 x 1920 pixels. That's a very sharp screen, and on top of that, it has a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, making everything on the screen appear much smoother. This is still a somewhat uncommon feature outside gaming laptops, and it's great to see.

Webcams are also great on the Surface Pro family, and here, you get a 5MP front-facing camera with support for 1080p video, along with Windows Hello facial recognition. What's more, since this is a tablet, there's also a 10MP camera on the back that can record 4K video.

The design of the Surface Pro 9 is mostly unchanged from its predecessor in terms of dimensions. It's a tablet, so it's fairly portable, coming in at 1.94 pounds and measuring just 9.4mm in thickness, but of course, you may need to consider the keyboard and Surface Slim Pen 2 if you want the complete experience, and that will add to the size and weight. One thing the Surface Pro 9 does is add color options for the first time on a Surface Pro. You can get it in either Forest or Green — both of which are beautiful in their own right — in addition to the existing Graphite and Platinum models.

The Surface Pro 9 is a great device if you love Thunderbolt 4, partly because that's all you get. There are two Thunderbolt 4 ports on this tablet, along with a Surface Connect port for charging, but that's about it. A docking station or hub is pretty much required if you have any wired peripherals that don't use USB-C yet, though that makes some sense for a tablet. It's worth noting that the 5G model of the Surface Pro 9 doesn't support Thunderbolt.

Best business laptop with Thunderbolt 4: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10

Lenovo makes some of the most well-known business laptops in the world under the ThinkPad brand, and it's no surprise. These laptops carry a classic look that makes them instantly recognizable, but still professional, in addition to having features like an old-school pointing stick. Out of the ThinkPad family, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the most well-known, and the latest iteration is better than ever.

Starting with the internals, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon carries 12th-generation Intel Core processors, up to an Intel Core i7-1280P, which is a 14-core, 20-thread processor capable of boosting up to 4.8GHz and featuring Iris Xe graphics. That gives you plenty of performance for day-to-day use, and you can add up to 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD for storage to round it out, making this a laptop that can give you fantastic performance for years to come. You also get plenty of flexibility with your configuration, so you can choose the processor, RAM, and storage mostly independently of each other.

The display comes in a few variants, but no matter which one you choose, you’re getting a 16:10 aspect ratio, and that taller screen gives you more surface area than a 16:9 display, which is great for reading, browsing the web, and writing. The base configuration is a Full HD+ (1920 x 1200) display, and you can upgrade it to add a touchscreen or a Privacy Guard to hide the contents of your screen from potential snooping. But there are some more interesting upgrade options, too, including a 2.2K IPS display if you just need a little extra sharpness or a 2.8K OLED panel, which is incredibly sharp and has the benefits of OLED, including true blacks and vivid colors. If resolution is your priority, you can skip all of that and get the Ultra HD+ (3840 x 2400) panel, complete with HDR support. Again, this is independent of the rest of the specs, so you can save money on the processor and RAM but still get the right display for you.

Lenovo has also (thankfully) kept with the times, and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 now comes with a 1080p webcam in most configurations. From there, you can upgrade to add Windows Hello support, plus Computer Vision, which makes it so that the laptop can detect when you approach it or walk away from it, and wake up or lock itself accordingly.

On the other hand, the design of the latest ThinkPad X1 Carbon is as classic as it gets, with the black surfaces and red accents making for a decidedly business-style look. Some users may find the old-school design of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon a bit boring, but it’s a perfect fit for working environments where you don't want anything too flashy. Plus, it's modern where it matters -- it starts at just 2.48 pounds in weight and measures 15.36mm in thickness, so it's easy to carry anywhere.

Ports and connectivity are also a highlight for the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI, and a combo audio jack. Business laptops tend to have great connectivity options, and Thunderbolt makes this an even sweeter deal. For your office setup, you can use a Thunderbolt dock to connect multiple displays and peripherals with just one port. Many business laptops also offer cellular connectivity, and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is no exception. You can choose between 4G LTE or 5G support, with the latter being more future-proof, but also more expensive. Cellular connectivity is great if you need to work away from your home or office Wi-Fi, so you can avoid insecure public networks. Of course, you can skip cellular support entirely if you don't need it.

If you want to configure the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 to your liking, you can use the link below. It's worth noting that Lenovo has already announced the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11, but it isn't available to buy yet, and it's not a major upgrade, so you may still want to get this one.

Best laptop for creators: MacBook Pro 16-inch

Apple's MacBook Pro has always been a popular lineup of products among content creators, but with the introduction of Apple Silicon, they have truly become some of the best laptops you can buy — assuming you don't want Windows, of course. The 14-inch and 16-inch models are essentially identical, but we'll focus on the larger one because of that bigger screen.

The MacBook Pro is very unique compared to other devices in terms of its specs. It's powered by the Apple M2 Pro or M2 Max, featuring up to 12 CPU cores and 39 GPU cores that deliver outstanding performance while being incredibly efficient. The battery life on these laptops compared to competitors in the Windows space is something you need to see to truly believe. On top of that, you can configure the MacBook Pro with up to a massive 96GB of unified memory (RAM), which is built into the chip itself, meaning it can be used by both the GPU and CPU at will. Finally, up to 8TB of SSD storage round out a very powerful machine, albeit an expensive one.

The display on the MacBook Pro 16-inch is equally phenomenal. It's a 16.2-inch panel (measured diagonally), and the aspect ratio is slightly taller than 16:10. The total resolution is 3024 x 1964, which makes for an incredibly sharp screen at this size, and seeing as this is the only configuration available, you're always going to get a fantastic experience. On top of that, Apple calls this a Liquid Retina XDR display, which means it supports ProMotion with up to a 120Hz refresh and also that it's backlit by mini-LED technology. This delivers up to 1,600 nits of peak brightness (and 1000 nits full-screen sustained brightness) and a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, equivalent to an OLED display. This really is a fantastic panel.

The only blemish on it is the notch at the top, which houses the front-facing webcam. But at least this notch makes way for a 1080p webcam, which is backed by the image signal processor in the Apple M1 chips to deliver better quality video. Unfortunately, the notch doesn't include sensors for Face ID, though you can still use Touch ID to sign into the laptop.

With these powerful specs and being an all-aluminum laptop, the MacBook Pro is a bit heavy, starting at 4.7 pounds. Still, it's fairly thin, measuring 16.8mm, and it looks slick with its balanced design, which means it has the same thickness all throughout the chassis. It looks exactly as you'd expect a MacBook to look, coming in Silver or Space Grey colorways, and while some may find that boring, it can fit nicely in any workspace, which might be more important.

As for ports, the MacBook Pro 16-inch includes three Thunderbolt 4 connections, but there's a bit of a caveat here. Because it's based on Apple Silicon, you can't use the Thunderbolt port to connect an external GPU. Otherwise, though, you have plenty of options — four external displays are supported with the M2 Max processors or two with the M2 Pro — plus you have the same bandwidth you'd expect for other high-speed Thunderbolt peripherals like storage. Aside from the Thunderbolt ports, the MacBook Pro comes with an HDMI port, a headphone jack with support for high-impedance headphones, a full-size SD card reader, and a MagSafe charging connector, which supports fast charging and keeps your laptop safe in case you trip on the cable while it's charging.

It's not a perfect machine, and it's a very expensive one, but if you need a laptop for content creation without compromising mobility, the latest MacBook Pro is for you. Whether you choose the 16-inch or 14-inch model doesn't make a huge difference aside from the screen size and portability, and both are going to be among the best laptops with Thunderbolt 4.

Best budget laptop: Acer Aspire 5

Thunderbolt 4 is something of a premium feature in most laptops, so you're usually going to be looking at some hefty prices if you want it. The Acer Aspire 5 bucks that trend and is one of the most affordable laptops you can get with Thunderbolt 4 support, though obviously, it's not going to match the most premium laptops out there in every way.

In terms of performance, the Acer Aspire 5 comes with 12th-generation Intel Core processors, specifically the Core i5-1235U - there are more powerful versions, but we're focusing on what can be considered a budget choice here. That's still a 10-core, 12-thread processor capable of boosting up to 4.4GHz on its performance cores, plus it has Iris Xe graphics, so you're already getting a great experience, even at this lower price. This model also includes 8GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage, which is very good for a laptop in this price range.

The display is fairly basic, but it'll get the job done. It's a 15.6-inch Full HD panel, and it comes in the typical 16:9 aspect ratio, so it's nothing that will blow you away, but it's solid. Above that, there's a standard HD webcam, which is more acceptable in an affordable laptop. It would have been nice to see 1080p, but when some premium laptops still have 720p cameras, this can get a pass, being as cheap as it is. Windows Hello facial recognition is not supported, which is also fairly typical for cheap laptops like this.

The rest of the design is fairly basic, being a standard clamshell laptop. It doesn't look overly unique, but that's to be expected with a budget-oriented machine. At 17.78mm of thickness and 3.9 pounds, it's not the slimmest device out there, but considering it's a 15-inch laptop, it's still fairly portable and certainly a machine you can take almost anywhere.

Of course, the highlight here is that the laptop has a Thunderbolt 4 port, and it's indeed just one. Still, you can use a dock to increase the number of ports your laptop has, connect multiple displays, or even an external GPU. If you want to get a relatively affordable premium laptop that can still handle some games, this is one way to do it, assuming you can save up for an external GPU later on. Otherwise, you get a wide range of ports, including three USB Type-A connections, HDMI, RJ45 Ethernet, and a headphone jack. This is actually a very good setup, even if you don't rely on Thunderbolt that much.

Overall, this isn't the best laptop out there, but if you want a more affordable option and Thunderbolt 4 support is important to you, this is certainly a solid choice.

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That's it for the best laptops you can buy with Thunderbolt 4 support. There are definitely a lot of choices here, and thus there's something for everyone. The HP Spectre x360 13.5 is our best overall pick because of its very compact design, fantastic display options and other configurations, plus a fairly unique aesthetic with its interior materials. However, other options may suit your fancy a bit better.

Like we mentioned at the start, most of the laptops here are running Intel processors. If you're more of an AMD fan and you don't care about Thunderbolt, check out the best AMD Ryzen laptops you can buy today.