The Best Notebooks and Notepads

Upgrading from a cheap notebook to a high-quality one usually costs just a couple more cents per page (or about $2 to $5 overall), and you’re worth it.

Ink actually comes through to the other side of the paper, or even the next sheet.

After interviewing experts, researching over 100 notebooks, and writing zealously in 34 of them side by side over several weeks, we have picks in a number of sizes and styles, priced from about $2 to $20. Any of these notebooks will provide an appreciably better writing experience than what you can get from a generic, off-the-shelf-at-Walgreens notebook.

We mention price per page when it’s notable, but our picks average 7¢ per page (at the time of publication). We also mention paper weight or thickness when that spec is important, but most of these high-quality pages are 80 to 90 grams per square meter (gsm); thicker isn’t always better, but all of the paper in our picks felt substantial and satisfying for us to write on. And most of the notebooks we tested had 7 mm lined ruling (close to college rule), but we note the exceptions below.

You don’t have to run a business to benefit from a business laptop. They’re easier to repair and upgrade than other laptops, and they’re built with sturdy materials that hold up well to travel and frequent use. We’ve tested dozens of business laptops over the years, and the Dell Latitude 5430 is the best option for most people: It has plenty of ports, it offers all-day battery life, and it comes with a comfortable, reliable keyboard and trackpad. But if you don’t care about being able to upgrade or fix your laptop yourself, a good ultrabook is usually cheaper.

The Dell Latitude 5430 includes everything we like to see in a business laptop. It performs well at basic tasks from browsing the web to building Excel pivot tables, it has a wide range of ports, and it lasts more than an entire workday on its battery. The 14-inch 1080p screen looks nice enough to work on all day, and we liked using the laptop’s keyboard and trackpad. It’s also easy to repair and upgrade, so you can use it for years and years to come, even if parts fail or break. It’s a bit bulky, so if you’re prioritizing weight over repairability, check out our upgrade pick.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 11 has a great screen, fast processor options, nice keyboard, and a long 11-hour battery life that makes it the best of all worlds for a Windows laptop. It costs about $200 more than our top pick, and upgrades to the screen could make it pricier, but Lenovo’s top-quality hardware and reliability are hard to beat. Aside from the laptop’s processor and RAM, most other components are easy to repair.

The Framework Laptop 13 is the most repairable option in this guide, because Framework itself is built around creating laptops that can be easily upgraded and repaired. The Framework Laptop 13 is fast and has a great processor and screen, and it’s similar in build quality to laptops from major manufacturers. It does have some potential pitfalls: If Framework goes under and parts are no longer available, your laptop isn’t nearly as upgradable or repairable anymore.