Bigger doesn’t mean better (unless you’re thinking about performance). Just like hot hatch car lovers, there’ll always be a group of people who will appreciate the beauties of mini laptops.
Despite its fun-size, it doesn’t mean mini laptops will come with flimsy quality and minimal hardware specs. A good mini laptop can perform on par. If not, even better than an average sized laptop, besides having quite a few advantages from its unique features.
Read also: Best Laptops in Malaysia 2023
List of Best Mini Laptops in Malaysia 2023
Table of Contents
Why It’s Our Top Pick
Among the masses of mini laptops in the market, the Dell XPS 13 (9310) wins our hearts. From its lightweight design, stunning display to the ready-to-go performance, this is an all-rounder notebook that is worthy of every penny you spent. It features the latest 11th-generation Intel processor and graphics card to boost your productivity.
Feature:
Lending an elegant touch to the Dell XPS 13 is its rock-solid chassis which is made from machine-milled aluminium to offer a durable case. The finish for the sidewalls is scratch-resistant so as to prevent damage from repeated plugging and unplugging of devices. You can easily carry this mini laptop by hand or in a backpack as it is merely 1.20kg and 14.8mm thick.
Despite the small 13.4-inch size, the stunning FHD+ display is ideal for all types of work and of course for gaming as well. You can observe every crucial moment of your gameplay in detail, bringing you closer to the virtual world. The HDR content’s superior dynamic range with Dolby Vision delivers brighter white and darker black, showing vivid and high colour accuracy images.
Performance:
You’ll get an Intel Core i5-1135G7 in the Dell XPS 13, which is a powerful and energy-efficient processor. This quad-core processor can flawlessly handle daily home and office computing tasks as well as run intensive programs such as Photoshop and video editing software. The base variant comes with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD, which you can upgrade to 16GB and 1TB at a cost.
If you are just interested in playing video games as a hobby, the Intel Iris Xe Graphics should be decent enough to fulfil your gaming desire. It can run less taxing games like Rocket League, Roblox and Minecraft well with acceptable heat dissipation and fan noise. Additionally, the Dell XPS 13 is equipped with GORE Thermal Insulation to help keep components cool.
The battery life is quite incredible as Dell claims that this laptop can last up to 14 hours. With this number, you don’t need to worry about always having to find a power supply.
Specs:
- Year: 2020
- CPU: Intel Core i5-1135G7
- GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 512GB SSD
- Display: 13.4-inch, 1920x1200 pixels (FHD+), non-touch, anti-glare
- Weight: 1.2kg
- Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports, 1x MicroSD-card slot, 1x headset port
- Dimensions: 295.7 (W) x 198.7 (D) x 14.8 (H) mm
Cheap doesn’t always mean bad quality and the ASUS BR1100is real proof of cheap but golden. Priced just below 2 grand, this mini laptop is affordable for the majority, featuring an ultimate rugged design and ready-to-go performance.
Features:
The Asus Laptop BR110’s 11.6-inch anti-glare display ensures you’re getting a crystal-clear view by reducing reflection even under sunlight. Certified with TUV Rheinland low blue-light emissions, it also minimises eye strains and protects your eyes from potential harm.
For connectivity wise, the ASUS BR1100CK features ample I/O ports including USB ports, an HDMI 1.4 port and an RJ45 Ethernet port. All four exterior edges and corners of the laptop are protected by a tough rubber bumper. This helps to reduce the impact of direct physical shocks to keep the key components safe.
Performance:
Onto the specs; this mini laptop packs an Intel Celeron N4500 processor and integrated Intel UHD Graphics, both which are sufficient enough to handle your daily tasks. Multitasking and apps switching are also quite straightforward on the mini laptop as it’s equipped with 4GB DDR4 RAM and 128GB eMMC storage. However, always keep minimum apps running in the background to ensure a smooth computing experience.
With the latest Wi-Fi 6 technology, you can enjoy ultrafast and stable internet for streaming, web-browsing and attending online meetings. And finally, the ASUS BR1100 should last up to 10 hours on a single charge which means you don’t always have to be tethered to the wall.
Specs:
- Year: 2021
- CPU: Intel Celeron N4500
- GPU: Intel UHD Graphics
- RAM: 4GB
- Storage: 128GB eMMC
- Display: 11.6-inch, 1366x768 pixels (HD), TN, anti-glare, LED-backlit
- Weight: 1.26kg
- Ports: 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x USB 2.0 Type-A, 1x HDMI 1.4, 1x RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet, 1x 3.5mm combo audio jack
- Dimensions: 294.6 x 204.9 x 19.9 mm
Overview
Microsoft’s Surface Laptop series is among their best, offering powerful performance, a bright, vivid screen, and one of the most comfortable keyboards on the market. The newest model in this line, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 provides you with the style and speed you need to power through projects and assignments.
Details
- Slim, sleek design
- Serious multitasking power with AMD Ryzen processor
- Windows Hello facial recognition
- Dolby Atmos 4 sound system
- Surface signature 3:2 aspect ratio for a more comfortable viewing experience
Who is this for?
With a lightweight and compact form factor, along with its comfortable typing experience, the Surface Laptop 4 is the perfect laptop for someone constantly on the go.
It packs quite a bit of power but lacks a number of ports needed to be a true portable powerhouse. Instead, it serves its role as a great laptop for writers on the road.
The compact, thin and ultralight ASUS ZenBook 13 is an ideal companion throughout your school life. It ticks all the needs of a student - solid performance, amazing battery life, and also a budget price tag.
Feature:
With only 13.9mm thin, the ASUS ZenBook 13 is the world’s thinnest 13-inch laptop to feature a whole set of I/O ports. You get two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-A port, an HDMI 2.1 port and also a memory card reader slot.
Designed in edge-to-edge, the keyboard is large enough for a comfortable typing experience. You’ll also get an ASUS NumberPad 2.0 that integrates a full-size LED-illuminated numeric keypad into the touchpad for easy data entry.
Onto the screen, the ASUS ZenBook 13 comes with a 13.3-inch FHD display with anti-glare. The slim bezel design creates an 88% screen-to-body ratio, providing a more immersive viewing experience. Additionally, this laptop has a precision-engineered ErgoLift hinge to lift the rear of the laptop slightly and tilt the keyboard to the optimum typing angle.
Performance:
Getting your homework and assignments done will be effortless thanks to the Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor. This quad-core processor is great in performance while also being energy-efficient. You’d also get an amazing battery life of up to 22 hours. A bonus is that there’s a fast-charge feature to restore the battery to a 60% charge level in less than an hour.
The ASUS ZenBook 13 equips an Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD. This graphics card should be capable of handling all your tasks and software, provided you are not a hardcore gamer nor a professional video editor. For post-purchase upgrade, you can push the RAM and SSD storage to a maximum of 32GB and 1TB respectively.
Specs:
- Year: 2020
- CPU: Intel Core i5-1135G7
- GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 512GB SSD
- Display: 13.3-inch, 1920x1080 pixels (FHD), IPS with antiglare, LED
- Weight: 1.11kg
- Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 3, 1x USB-A, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x Micro SD card reader
- Dimensions: 304.0 (W) x 203.0 (D) x 13.9 (H) mm
If the main usage on your mini laptop is for taking notes and sketching in tablet mode, with some typing in laptop mode, the Acer Spin 3 is the best for you. It has a large responsive touch screen and a stylus pen to make things greater, letting you work in detail thanks to the high resolution.
Feature:
The Acer Spin 3 is a 2-in-1 touchscreen laptop for productivity on the go. Its 13.3-inch WQXGA display has high pixel density and can support resolution up to 2560x1600, bringing images to life.
Coming with a touch screen, this laptop is one of the best in its price range. You can slide across the widescreen smoothly without any delayed feel. Writing and sketching on the screen becomes easier thanks to the built-in Acer Active Stylus.
On hardware, you’ll not run out of ports as the Acer Spin 3 comes with two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports. You’ll also get a memory card reader slot for photo transfer and an HDMI port for video input/output.
Not forgetting; the built-in speakers delivers loud and crisp sounds but might not be up to an audiophile standard.
Performance:
Specification wise, the Acer Spin 3 equips an 11th generation Intel Core i5 processor with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD. Rest assure you can run your basic computing tasks without any hassle. This combination also allows you to boot, multitask and switch apps seamlessly, delivering solid performance for every scenario whenever you need it.
The Intel Iris Xe Graphics can handle casual games on medium settings despite being an entry-level graphic card. You can expect it to run popular titles like GTA V and Witcher 3 smoothly without any screen freeze and graphic distortion. Besides gaming, the graphics card can handle some demanding software like Photoshop and Illustrator decently.
Specs:
- Year: 2021
- CPU: Intel Core i5-1135G7
- GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 512GB SSD
- Display: 13.3-inch, 2560x1600 pixel, WQXGA, IPS LCD
- Weight: 1.50kg
- Ports: 2x USB-C, 2x USB 3.2, 1x HDMI, 1x 3.5mm stereo jack
- Dimensions: 302.0 (W) x 222.5 (D) x 15.90 (H) mm
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The Apple MacBook Pro 13” is an ideal mini laptop for office work with obvious reasons. It has a small, lightweight design, solid performance, and superior battery life. With those in mind, it’ll be your best working companion no matter if you are working in an office or attending meetings.
Feature:
Apple does a great job in the display to provide the best visual experience to their users. The MacBook Pro comes with a 13.3-inch LED-backlit display with IPS technology, delivering vivid images in high colour accuracy. It can support up to 2560x1600 native resolutions at 227 pixels per inch with support for millions of colours.
Another highlight is the backlit Magic keyboard offered in the MacBook Pro 13”. The 4 arrow keys are in an inverted-T arrangement, allowing you to locate them easily without accidentally pressing other keys. Each keystroke on the Magic keyboard is responsive for a tactile feedback, improving your typing experience.
Performance:
Tailored for Apple’s M1 chip, the MacBook Pro13” runs on macOS Big Sur out of the box. Suffice to say that it is one of the snappier updates so far, with the boot-up time almost instantaneous.
You’ll get a superior battery life on the MacBook Pro 13” too, recording up to 17 hours of wireless web or 20 hours of Apple TV app movie playback. However, we feel that the two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports are lacking and will be a more evident inconvenience when you’ll need to your laptop with multiple devices connected.
Specs:
- Year: 2021
- CPU: Apple M1 Chip with 8-core CPU
- GPU: Apple M1 Chip with 8-core GPU
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 256GB SSD
- Display: 13.3-inch, 2560x1600 pixels, IPS, Retina display with True Tone
- Weight: 1.40kg
- Ports: 2x Thunderbolt/ USB 4, 1x 3.5mm headphone jack
- Dimensions: 304.1 (W) x 212.4 (D) x 15.6 (H) mm
Overview
With a heavy focus on its ‘business’ aesthetic, the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Nano Gen 2 is a function over form machine that prioritises productivity. Whether it’s in its performance, battery life, or even just utilitarian look, the Thinkpad X1 Nano is a great laptop for professionals.
Details
- Powered by up to 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 vPro® processors and up to 32GB of memory
- Two USB-C Thunderbolt™ 4 ports
- 13" Dolby Vision™ 2K display with 100% sRGB, the 2160 x 1350 resolution
- ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 2 weighs from just 0.97kg
- Privacy shutter to physically close the webcam
- ThinkPad laptops are tested against 12 military-grade standards and more than 200 quality checks to ensure they run in extreme conditions
Who is this for?
With a powerful Intel 12th gen core processor and weighing less than a kilogram, the Thinkpad X1 Gen 2 would be a great business laptop for professionals on the go. Additionally, the two Thunderbolt 4 ports allow you to connect a variety of hardware to the device, further upping its performance.
Its one glaring weakness comes down to its exorbitant price, but you’d be hard pressed to find anything like this one on the market for cheaper.
Overview
The ROG Flow X13 is one of the thinnest and smallest gaming laptops we’ve ever seen, making it perfect for travelling gamers who like to pack light. Even so, there are some drawbacks to the device, mainly its rather short battery life, though this is offset by its USB-C capability as well as the fast charging feature.
Details
- 13” display with a 360-degree hinge
- AMD Ryzen 9 processor with an RTX 3050 Ti graphics card
- Up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage
- XG Mobile compatible, an external graphics card with an RTX 3080 GPU inside
- Fine-tuned cooling system with redesigned thermal module and thermal grizzly liquid metal
- 100W USB-C charging port, fast charging capabilities with 50% in 30 minutes
Who is this for?
Gamers who often travel but still want a capable gaming companion should definitely consider the Asus ROG Flow X13 for its discreet yet capable graphics card, its powerful Ryzen 9 processor, as well as its ability to connect to the XG Mobile, Asus’ external graphics card module.
We can fully understand why some of you might want a mini laptop that is portable for working purposes while also capable of handling your favourite games during your free time. In case you need a recommendation, the small but powerful Razer Blade Stealth 13 is a beast for gaming.
Feature:
Designed primarily for gaming, the Razer Blade Stealth 13 comes with a 1.3-inch Full HD Matte Display with a 4.9 mm slim side bezel design. You can enjoy every detail in your gameplay on the high refresh rate screen which supports up to 120Hz. It’s also packed with a single-zone RGB backlit keyboard, illuminating in dim conditions to ease your typing experience.
Performance:
As a gaming laptop, the Razer Blade Stealth 13 equips the latest 11th-generation Intel Core i7 quad-core processor and a discrete NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q. With this powerful configuration, you won’t have any sluggish moments even when running heavier games and video rendering tasks.
After some minor tweaks to the graphic settings, you can enjoy the most popular AAA games at playable FPS. Not to forget; the 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD make multitasking and loading apps so much faster and smoother.
The 10-hour battery life is quite impressive given that this is a gaming laptop. Whenever the battery level is low, you can quickly charge it with a compact 100W USB-C power adapter. We are also glad that the Razer Blade Stealth 13 comes with ample USB ports.
Specs:
- Year: 2020
- CPU: Intel Core i7-1165G7
- GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q
- RAM: 16GB
- Storage: 512GB SSD
- Display: 13.3-inch, FHD Matte 120Hz
- Weight: 1.41kg
- Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports, 2x USB-A 3.1, 1x 3.5mm combo jack
- Dimensions: 304.6 (W) x 210.0 (D) x 15.3 (H) mm
How Many Inches is a Small Laptop?
Well, there is no exact definition for what is a mini laptop. But if you ask us, a mini laptop must have a compact design with a screen size under 14.0-inch. They don’t have to have the most high-performing processors that ultrabooks have, so our list will contain budget options too.
- The touch screen feature is not a must but a great bonus to have.
- Portability on a laptop matters, so its weight should be under 1.5kg. But under 2.0kg is acceptable as well.
- Similar to a normal laptop, a mini laptop must have a traditional clamshell design that can be closed fully for protection and not an open tablet design by default.
- Under the hood, a fully functioning processor, graphics card, and memory are the basic requirements.
- We also expect a mini laptop to have a standard keyboard and trackpad, plus wireless internet connectivity.
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