Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, 2015) You Might Also Like Dell XPS 13 (2015) We live in a world where smartphones are ubiquitous, tablets are commonplace, and even smartwatches are a thing that people talk about on the regular. But throughout all of these advances, the humble laptop has persevered, and for good reason. When it comes time to actually get something done, whether that's editing photos, writing a lot of emails, composing documents, or staying in touch with colleagues and family, the laptop is often the ideal device for the job. That isn't to say there haven't been advancements in the world of laptops or notebook computers. Anymore, we don’t have to deal with inch-plus-thick clunkers that weighed upwards of 7 pounds and lasted less than two hours away from an outlet. The modern laptop is lightweight, sleek, efficient, easily portable, and powerful enough to get most any computing task done. It's getting harder to buy a bad laptop, but what separates a good laptop from a great one is how it balances power, efficiency, portability, and comfort.

It should have a fantastic keyboard and trackpad — after all, those are the two biggest reasons you'd choose a laptop over a smartphone or tablet. Its display should be easy on the eyes, bright, and sharp enough that you aren't distracted by jagged edges and visible pixels. It should be powerful enough for most anything short of intensive video editing and advanced gaming. Belize Outdoor Furniture World MarketIt should be easy to carry around from place to place, and it should be able to last all day without needing to be plugged in. There are a lot of laptops that have some of those qualities, but if you're looking for a laptop that hits enough of those marks, the obvious choice turns out to be the right one. Shot on location at WeWork. Also available on YouTube. The 13-inch MacBook Air is the laptop that hits the right balance between power, portability, battery life, and comfort.

It's super sleek, so it can fit in nearly any bag, is light enough that it won't cause back issues from carrying it around all the time, and even the base model is powerful enough for the everyday tasks you might demand from a laptop (though many people would benefit from upgrading to 8GB of RAM). None of this should really be a surprise — the MacBook Air has been the high-water mark for laptops for years and has been the choice of many professional and casual laptop users. Its screen isn't the highest resolution you can buy, but it's still bright and hits a good balance between size and usable screen real estate. Apple sells computers with better displays — the displays on the new MacBook and the MacBook Pro with Retina Display easily outclass the MacBook Air's screen — but they are either heavier, less powerful, or not as battery efficient as the Air. Deciding between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro is not easy. A solid case could be made either way: the Retina Display on the Pro is a compelling option, plus the Pro is slightly more powerful.

But it's heavier and more expensive than the Air. A comparably equipped MacBook Pro in terms of RAM and SSD storage (8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) will cost $200 more than the equivalent MacBook Air. If you're investing in a computer for the long haul, for example, something you're going to use for more than four years, the Pro could be worth that extra cost, as its higher-end display makes it slightly more future-proof. But for most people, the Air just barely edges it out thanks to its lower cost, lighter weight, and better battery life. The Air's keyboard and trackpad are great, balancing comfort and accuracy better than any other. It can last over 10 hours away from an outlet, making it possible to leave your power plug at home and still get through a full day of work. And its all-aluminum chassis can take knocks and still keep going — if you've ever seen someone using a MacBook Air that's a few years old, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. As with any Apple computer, the MacBook Air runs OS X.

But if you need a Windows computer, or you're just not a huge fan of the Macintosh operating system, you'll want to check out our next pick. Dell's XPS 13 is the closest you can get to a MacBook Air experience in the Windows world. It has a similar metal chassis, is thin and sleek, doesn't weigh a ton, and has a great keyboard to type on. The Dell's display is actually better than the Air's, whether you choose the standard non-touch version or spring for the higher-resolution touchscreen model. The XPS 13 puts a 13-inch screen in a computer that has a smaller footprint than the MacBook Air, making it even more portable. It's no gaming machine, but even the lowest configurations have enough power for multitasking, browsing the web, working in Office, or watching high-definition video. Right now, the XPS 13 runs Windows 8.1, but it will be upgradable to Windows 10 for free later this year. Windows 10 will bring a number of improvements over Windows 8.1, and it should make for an excellent operating system.

Where the XPS 13 falls short of the Air is with its trackpad and battery life. The trackpad is large but can be unpredictable, and scrolling is not nearly as smooth. While the Air can last 10 hours or more on battery, the XPS 13 will struggle to hit the eight-hour mark. But neither of those are deal breakers — the trackpad is about as good as you can get from a Windows computer and the battery life is fine, just not great. Most people will be very happy with the XPS 13's combination of portability, performance, keyboard, and display. (Affiliate links are automatically generated by our partner, Skimlinks. For more information, see our ethics policy.)I remember the day the laptop arrived by UPS. I was working in a summer office and had a view of a beautiful lake out my front window. The box looked inconspicuous. Inside, I found one of those slightly-out-of-date Windows models, a bit chunky and heavy like it was a year or two old. The packaging looked odd -- no colored brochures and stickers, no warranty notices -- just some crunched up newspaper and a card that listed a few of the apps and version numbers.

I took the system out of the box and powered it up. Instead of Windows, the system was running a special version of Linux with about two dozen pre-loaded apps. On the desktop wallpaper, the Grim Reaper held his scythe as a thinly-veiled encouragement about how to use the system. A company I won’t mention had sent me the laptop as a way to show how “ethical hacking” works in the real world. There were password generators and tools for sniffing out and breaking into Wi-Fi networks. I knew the laptop and pre-loaded apps were perfectly legal; what I could do with the laptop was totally up to me. Over the past 14 years, I’ve interviewed countless security experts and heard about some of the craziest hacks possible. A few of the most memorable include the guy who redirected a GPS signal being sent to a car (ironically, he happened to work at a government lab) and another who could spoof an NFC signal from a smartphone during a financial transaction. I've also heard about a few drone hacks.

All of them were conducted in a safe, controlled environment with no possibility of actual harm. Recently, news reports about an ethical hacker named Chris Roberts claim he is under investigation by the FBI for an alleged hack on a commercial airplane, suggesting he tapped into the on-board entertainment system and made the plane climb and move sideways. He now claims he did no such thing, and maybe the whole incident was a joke or conducted in a virtual environment. At the very least, his tweets seem to poke fun at even the possibility of hacking into a real airplane in flight. I know all about the technical definition of ethical hacking. It is when a company pays a security expert to hack into its own systems, which is perfectly legal. It’s a way to test out their security infrastructure and see if it is impenetrable (something that is rarely true). I also know the term “hacking” has lost its original meaning, dating back to those movies starring Robert Redford that made it seem like a data center was some mythical, dark place in a basement with gleaming red lights and not a dull row of HP servers in a brightly-lit wing of a corporate office.

You can now “hack” your microwave or “hack” travel. You can “hack” your sewing machine. Those are not bad things. In fact, the word “hack” is an extremely positive word, something you do to make the world a better place. Yet, I wonder about the “ethics” of ethical hacking. Imagine that United Airlines really did pay someone to try and hack into the computer systems on an airplane in flight. Not so ethical anymore. Would an airline ever want someone to break into the flight controls of a real passenger jet? Would they really pay somemone to do that? Or, maybe it is an automaker that wants to find out if someone can tap into the accelerator of a car someone just purchased. (We know DARPA has proven this is possible.) My issue is with the phrase “ethical hacking” and not with controlled tests meant to find out whether a system can be hacked. There are too many young and impressionable coders who may be drawn to the idea of hacking as a way to prove something can be done or to reveal the holes in a security system.

Do we really think DARPA hacked into an Impala being driven on public roads by a private citizen? My concern is that people will misunderstand the phrase “ethical hacking” and think it gives them a license to hijack computer systems in an uncontrolled way and commit a crime. Ever since that laptop came in a few years ago, I’ve wondered if it really makes sense. The tools are all legit. The laptop makes it much easier to perform security tests. But why the desktop wallpaper? What was the company really trying to promote? What ethos were they encouraging? Does making the tools for “ethical hacking” much easier to obtain mean that a company could be held liable when someone uses those tools for a real crime? For me, the real issue is whether “nefarious hacking” and “ethical hacking” are roughly the same thing. The person doing the hacking might be ethical; the hack they are doing without the consent of the target in question is not all that ethical. This article is published as part of the IDG Contributor Network.