Tech· 4 products
Best laptops for work in 2026
Six shortlisted machines compared on real battery endurance, keyboard quality, repairability and total three-year cost.
9.2
Top pick
Apple MacBook Pro 14
from $1,599
Best VPN services
Ownership, jurisdiction, audited no-logs claims and measured speed loss — privacy claims checked, not repeated.
Research in progressPublished rankings appear only after testing is complete.
When you buy through links on THRYV we may earn a commission. This never affects our testing or rankings. How this works.
Our picks
Nothing published until testing is finished.
VPN marketing is unusually detached from what a VPN does. We treat the privacy claim as the primary specification: who owns the provider, which jurisdiction it answers to, whether the no-logs policy has been independently audited, and what the audit actually covered. Speed is measured second, on a fixed route set.
What we score, and why
Written down before any product is considered.
- Corporate ownership and operating jurisdiction
- Independent audit scope, date and publisher
- Logging policy read against the privacy policy, not the homepage
- Measured throughput loss across several regions
- Leak testing: DNS, IPv6 and kill-switch behaviour
- Renewal pricing rather than first-term promotional price
How we will decide
- 01
Criteria before candidates
We write down what would make a product the right pick — and how each criterion is measured — before we look at what is on sale.
- 02
Documented specifications only
Anything we state about a product comes from our own testing or from the manufacturer's published documentation, linked on the page.
- 03
Real-world testing
Where a category can be tested, we test it over weeks rather than an unboxing session, and we publish the conditions we tested under.
- 04
Pricing checked, not quoted
We do not print a price we have not verified, and we do not treat an RRP as evidence of a discount.
- 05
Commercial relationships disclosed
Affiliate links, if present, are labelled on the page. No partner can buy a placement, a rank or a verdict.
The full process is documented in our review methodology and testing process.
Related Tech coverage
Tech
One connector, many rules: how to read USB-C charging specs
The port is standard. The cable, the charger and what the two negotiate between them are not — which is why a laptop can charge slowly from a perfectly good plug.
Tech
How long a phone really gets security updates
Support length has quietly become the most consequential specification on a phone — and the one most likely to be missing from the product page.
Tech
How to judge a laptop spec sheet without being sold to
Four numbers decide how a machine feels after a year. Most of the others exist to differentiate models that are otherwise identical.
Other guides in this desk
The THRYV Brief
The market in 5 minutes, weekday mornings
Plain-English analysis, the sources behind it, and what it changes for you. Free, and you can unsubscribe any time.
Free. Unsubscribe any time. We never sell your email address.
Advertisement · Newsletter sponsorship600×120
This position is available to a single sponsor per edition, is labelled in the email and on this page, and does not influence what the Brief covers.