5 Of The Best-Reviewed Laptops Available At Costco, Ranked
Costco might not be the first place you think of when it comes to buying a new laptop, but the bulk superstore sells several models, and some of them are actually pretty good. It also occasionally has some really good deals on its tech products, but it can be hard to get all the information you need while standing in that giant aircraft hanger they call a store. This is doubly true regarding something as complex as a computer. There are a lot of factors to take into account when purchasing a laptop. Obviously, the machine's specifications are important. Still, you also have to consider more nuanced factors such as battery life, noise, and the quality of the warranty — the kinds of things that you probably aren't going to find on that little slip of paper Costco uses to post product descriptions.
Different people have different needs when it comes to computers. Some might be looking for an affordable machine to perform basic productivity tasks, while others might need a graphics powerhouse for games, video editing, or graphic design. I've been professionally reviewing tech for years and found that one of the simplest ways to find the right product for you is to compare the specs on the highest-rated units and then decide which of them is most suited to your individual needs. This methodology will be explained in depth at the end of the article. With that in mind, here are the five best-reviewed laptops available at Costco.
5. MacBook Air 13.3-inch
There are plenty of options for Apple users available at Costco, and one of the highest-rated is the 13.3-inch MacBook Air. This computer has a 4.8 out of five on Costco's website, with over 2,500 reviews. This model is powered by Apple's first-generation proprietary M1 chip, which is an 8-core CPU with a 3.20 GHz clock speed and an integrated 7-core GPU. According to Apple's press release when the chip first launched in 2020, the "M1 delivers up to 3.5x faster CPU performance, up to 6x faster GPU performance, and up to 15x faster machine learning, all while enabling battery life up to 2x longer than previous-generation Macs."
It has some other nice features aside from the M1 as well. MacBook Air laptops get their name from their incredibly thin profile and lightweight, making them ideal for students and commuters who need to carry their laptops around all day. The 13.3-inch screen includes Apple's vibrant Retina display, which has a higher definition per square inch than standard HD and comes in a P3 wide color. Apple also promises 18 hours of battery life on a single charge.
The biggest downside to the laptop is that it only contains 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. This is fine for basic workloads like using word processors and surfing the web, but you shouldn't expect to be able to perform heavy tasks like 4K video editing and AAA gaming.
4. LG Gram 17-inch Intel EVO Touchscreen
Those who need a computer with a bit more power might consider the LG Gram 17-inch Intel EVOTouchscreen. This laptop currently has a 4.9 out of five on Costco's website and has an Intel Core i7-1360p. This processor has a 5.00GHz clock speed with 12 cores and 16 threads, making it excellent for single-core and multi-core workloads. It also has Intel's integrated Iris Xe Graphics.
The massive 17-inch display is an IPS touchscreen with 2560 x 1600 resolution and 350 Nits of brightness. That means the laptop is quite large, so you are trading portability for screen real estate. The computer also comes with Windows 11, a built-in FHD webcam, dual microphones, WiFi 6, and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity for the fastest wireless connections currently available.
On top of all that, the LG Gram has 32GB of memory and 2TB of SSD storage. This means that it should be able to handle large and complex tasks easily and that there is plenty of room for large files like games and videos. The larger drawbacks are the higher price and the fact that Intel's integrated graphics may struggle to keep up with heavier visual workloads compared to computers with a dedicated GPU.
3. MacBook Pro 14-inch
If you want a Mac laptop but need something a little more powerful than the MacBook Air, you probably want to get yourself a Pro. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is the first of the three highest-rated laptops from Costco to receive a perfect five out of five review score. It's a little bit thicker than the Air, but that's because it has a lot more under the hood. To start, it's powered by Apple's brand new M3 Pro chip, which has a 12-core CPU and an 18-core GPU. This chip is built on a 3nm architecture with a 4.05 clock speed. Apple claims that the "M3 has an 8-core CPU, with four performance cores and four efficiency cores, that is up to 35 percent faster than M1 for CPU performance."
The 14-inch display is engineered with Apple's Liquid Retina XDR technology. This means it delivers what Apple calls "Extreme Dynamic Range with high contrast and high brightness." It essentially makes blacks darker, lights brighter, and colors more vivid.
This laptop also has a bit more memory than the Air at 18GB, four times the storage at 1TB, and promises the same 18 hours of battery life. There's no denying that it's a powerful computer. Of course, none of that comes cheap. It's the most expensive laptop on the list by a significant margin.
2. LG Gram Style 16-inch Intel EVO
The next laptop to receive a perfect five out of five on Costco's website is the LG Gram Style 16-inch Intel EVO. This computer has a 13th-generation Intel Core i7-1360p that runs visuals on integrated Iris Xe graphics, just like the 17-inch variant. Still, it also comes with a few extra bonuses that make it very attractive.
The 16-inch LG Gram comes with a 3K (3200 x 2000) OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 400Nit brightness. This is an ever-so-slightly smaller screen than the 17-inch, but it has much better visuals. OLED pixels can turn all the way off, giving them a much more impressive contrast ratio than normal LED screens. So the LG Gram Style 16-Inch EVO's display is sharper, brighter, and boasts darker blacks, giving it a significantly higher image quality overall.
Its feature set includes WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity, a high-resolution webcam with dual mics, and a haptic hidden touchpad. It has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. This isn't quite as impressive as the specs in the 17-inch, but it should be more than adequate for the average user. It also happens to be a few hundred dollars cheaper at MSRP.
1. Lenovo LOQ 15.6-inch Gaming Laptop
Finally, we have the only true gaming laptop to receive a five out of five from Costco: the Lenovo LOQ 15.6-inch. The computer operates using a 13th-generation Intell i5-13420H. This CPU is less powerful than the i7s used by the LG laptops, but the Lenovo is the only computer on this list to have its own dedicated graphics card, which makes a big difference when it comes to gaming. The LOQ comes equipped with an NVIDIA RTX 2050. This is far from the most powerful GPU on the market, with only 4GB of GDDR6 VRAM, but it's still nothing to sniff at. It has about the same relative performance as a GTX 1650, a Radeon RX 6400, or an Arc A380, making it perfectly capable of playing a vast majority of current video games on medium settings. It performs much better than the integrated graphics chips used by the other laptops on this list, and dedicated graphics are also traditionally better for tasks like video editing and graphic design.
The Lenovo only has a 1080p display, though it does have a 144Hz refresh rate, making it an excellent candidate for FPS games that require high frame rates. It comes with 16GB of DDR5 RAM, 512GB NVMe storage, WiFi 6, and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. That might seem like kind of a mixed bag, but it's also worth noting that the Lenovo LOQ is the cheapest laptop on this list by a considerable margin.
Methodology
In order to determine which of the laptops were the highest rated, I went to the 'Laptops & Notebook Computers' section of the Costco website, selected the option to filter the results by products that received four-star ratings or higher, and then sorted the result by Ratings (High to Low). I then chose the five highest-rated products on this page and compared their specifications to determine what tasks each of these computers would be best suited to and which buyers would be interested in them.
I've been building and modifying computers for eight years and have been professionally reviewing tech for four years. This experience has helped me attain a level of understanding that contributed to the advice given in this article.