The 5 Best Laptops for Kali Linux Reviewed

When it comes to programs for penetration testing and digital forensics, there are few better than Kali Linux.

Of course, this software is pretty intense on your laptop, so it’s important that you have a good laptop that’s able to handle the software.

There are a bunch of great laptops on the market that are more than capable of running Kali Linux, but not all of them are the best. So how do you choose the best option for you?

With this article, we’ve tried to save you hours of painstaking research by compiling together our picks for the best laptops for Kali Linux.

We’ve also written a handy buyer’s guide to help you to make your decision even easier.

Best Laptops for Kali Linux

1. Apple Macbook Pro

Everyone knows Apple- reliability is part of the selling point of Apple products, and the Apple Macbook Pro is a fantastic laptop that anyone with the budget for it should consider.

This laptop features a unique design, consisting of a 15 inch full HD display screen that even comes with retina display.

The laptop comes with a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 processor and this can go up to 4.5 GHz turbo boost. As far as RAM is concerned, the laptop has a whopping 16GB!

It’s even better in terms of storage too, with a 256 GB SSD and 2 TB of extra storage if you upgrade. If you need to upgrade later down the line it’s also possible to upgrade the RAM to 32 GB.

The battery life is also pretty decent, with 10 hours of battery life when it isn’t plugged in. This is essential for when you are running Kali Linux as it eats up a lot of battery power.

It also has a handy touch bar that will allow you to access your applications with ease. It comes with an APPLE T2 chip too for even more security, and a fingerprint scanner so you can make sure that nobody sees your laptop contents without your permission.

Of course the biggest downside of this laptop is that it’s incredibly expensive, but this is hardly an issue if you have the budget for it.

2. Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop

Acer is a great brand when it comes to high quality laptops that have a lot of power behind them.

This laptop is designed to be a gaming laptop primarily which means that it has some pretty powerful specifications that would be more than suitable for running a AAA game if you wanted to.

The laptop comes with an Intel i7-8750H CPU which can run Kali Linux lke a charm. This is also a six core processor that runs pretty fast.

The laptop features 16 GB of RAM too. It’s fairly small for a gaming laptop, with a screen measuring only 15.6 inches and this is HD too. The storage is around 256 GB for an SSD, but you can also add an extra HDD or SSD storage too.

Gaming laptops are known for having pretty poor battery life, so color us surprised when we found out that this particular laptop sports 7 hours of battery life. This is by no means exemplary but it’s pretty decent, all things considered.

It’s also got a pretty decent graphics card and a cooling system to take advantage of.

3. Acer Aspire E 15

If you’re looking for a laptop on a budget, then the Acer Aspire E 15 is a pretty strong choice.

This laptop features a good display, and a great performance especially for running Kali Linux smoothly.

The laptop looks pretty attractive with a brushed metal exterior. It’s pretty good for pentesting too, with 8 GB of RAM. That’s not even all there is to love about this laptop, as it also offers 256 GB of SSD space and an Intel i7-8550U Processor.

This is pretty powerful, especially for such an affordable offering.

The laptop also boasts a pretty decent battery life of around 15 hours, though it should be noted that this may be reduced if you are running Kali Linux! It’s pretty easy to set up too. Perhaps the biggest issue with this laptop though is that it’s pretty bulky.

It’s going to be a little trickier to carry this around for long periods of time because the laptop is large and it’s pretty heavy too.

4. Lenovo Ideapad Y700

The Lenovo Ideapad is yet another great option if you are on a slightly lower budget.

With a large screen and decent power, it’s pretty ideal for running Kali Linux.

The laptop comes with three different screen size options – 17.3 inches, 15.6 inches and 14 inches.

As you may imagine, the 17 inch model is pretty heavy due to the large screen size, but if you’re staying stationary while you’re working then this shouldn’t be much of an issue.

The screen has a full HD display with beautiful colors. The storage isn’t too bad either, with a 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD.

The machine operates fairly fast, so you don’t need to worry about excessive loading times when you use it. It’s decent for gaming too, due to the high quality graphics card and 4GB VRAM. The trackpad isn’t ideal though, so you might be better off using a mouse with this laptop.

5. ASUS VivoBook M580VD-EB76

This laptop from ASUS is a great choice if you’re looking to run Kali Linux.

It’s pretty affordable and looks sleek, with a body made entirely of aluminum. This also makes it pretty durable!

The laptop features a 15.6 inch full HD TN panel that looks pretty decent. It also has 256GB SATA 3 M.2 SSD storage. It runs fairly quickly too thanks to the Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor and 16GB DDR4 RAM.

It has a GTX 1050 4GB graphics card that operates fairly quickly too, so you could probably play video games on this laptop without many problems. The laptop has very loud speakers too, so it’s ideal if you want to blare some music while you work.

If you;re looking to connect an external memory device or a speaker to this laptop you won’t have any problems doing so as there is an abundance of ports positioned on the side of the laptop.

It also weighs fairly little so if you want a portable machine then this is a good choice for you. Of course, the display isn’t ideal but this is a reasonable tradeoff for everything else that the laptop offers.

Laptops for Kali Linux: A Buyer’s Guide

So now that you’ve seen some of the best laptops for Kali Linux that the market has to offer, you may be wondering what things you should look out for when it comes to buying a laptop for this software.

We’ve written this buyer’s guide to help you to know exactly what you should be looking for when buying a laptop.

Processor

First and foremost, when buying a laptop for Kali Linux it is important to make sure that you have a good processor.

Ideally when you are looking for a new laptop you should be aiming for a processor that’s multi core or dual core if you are going to be running Kali Linux.

In truth, every CPU can work with the Kali Linux program, but for the best possible efficiency you should be looking for an Intel i5 or i7 processor.

You should be avoiding going for an i3 processor if possible, because your laptop is likely to run at snail’s pace which really isn’t fun for anyone.

RAM

RAM is another important aspect to consider when you are buying a laptop to run Kali Linux.

At an absolute minimum you will need 2GB of RAM to run the program. Any lower and the program just isn’t going to run. However, if you want better efficiency you should really be looking for more RAM than this, like 4GB or 8GB of RAM.

You will also need to consider what else you are going to be using the laptop for, as different things are going to require different specifications.

Battery

The last thing that you want is a laptop that will last less than 5 minutes on battery before it dies off.

The whole point of a laptop is that it’s portable and you don’t need to have it plugged in all the time, so if your laptop has terrible battery life and it has to be plugged in all the time then you may as well get a desktop as the whole functionality of the laptop is pointless.

In an ideal world you should be looking for a laptop with a minimum battery life of around 6 to 7 hours in total. Even better if the battery life is longer.

It takes a lot of work for your laptop to run Kali Linux so you really should be looking for something for a larger battery life because the program will eat at your battery life.

Graphics Card

You aren’t looking for a laptop for gaming, right?

If you are, then a powerful graphics card will be necessary. If you’re just buying the laptop for running Kali Linux then you really don’t need to go all out on the graphics card.

With that being said, you should at least try to make sure that you have a decent graphics card. For instance, you could opt for an Nvidia Graphics card that will be efficient for Kali Linux and they are much easier to use.

They also have automatic updates for the drivers which can be pretty handy.

Design

This may not seem like a big thing to think about when buying a laptop, but for some it can be pretty important.

You should be checking that the laptop is fairly slim so that you can carry it easier, and they usually tend to look more attractive too.

Storage

When you first install Kali Linux, it will take up 20 gigabytes of storage.

Sure this isn’t a massive amount of storage but it’s still important that you have a decent storage capacity that can handle whatever things that you need to save. For instance if you’re penetrating testing you are going to need a lot more extra space.

So ideally you should be looking for something that’s above 128GB of space. You may even wish to get 1TB of storage space.

Weight

Laptops need to be portable, so it’s a good idea to get one that’s fairly lightweight.

This may not be important to you if your laptop is going to be remaining stationary most of the time, but if your laptop is going to be carried around with you a lot then it’s certainly worth thinking about the portability of the laptop.

Operating System

The choice of operating system for a laptop is a very subjective decision.

For many years, Mac fans have fought against Windows fans, and so on, for which operating system is the best. You can use Kali Linux on a range of operating systems, so here are the main things that you need to know about the key operating systems on the market right now.

First of all you have the Windows operating system. This is a great choice for Kali Linux and it’s pretty versatile.

This operating system runs on the vast majority of operating systems out there, and you usually find that Windows operating systems tend to cost less money too.

There are also a bunch of other fun features on Windows such as Cortana and some are even compatible with stylus controls!

MacOS is another decent choice. This operating system is mostly exclusive to Apple products, and so it can be pretty expensive. The interface is pretty different from a Windows system though, so if you aren’t used to MacOS it can be a little difficult to adjust.

You can use them for things like ApplePay too and you can even take calls and texts on a MacOS laptop.

ChromeOS is probably the most affordable of the options out there. The operating system is somewhat similar to Windows as far as the interface is concerned, and you can use other android apps on them.

Affordability

It’s always important to consider the cost of a laptop before you think about buying it.

After all, you want a decent product but you don’t want to break the bank either, right?

Often the best thing to do in this situation is to consider exactly what you need for your laptop.

What are the things that you simply must have in a laptop for Kali Linux, and also for your own personal preferences? From there, you can then narrow down what things you would like to have but are not necessary for you.

This will help you to be able to stick to a budget that suits your wallet.

Durability

Laptops can cost a lot of money, especially ones that are designed with great specifications that can run Kali Linux.

Naturally, when you spend so much money you want a product that is going to last.

You don’t want something that’s going to fall apart after less than a month of use. Of course, if you don’t have the laptop it can be difficult to know how durable it’s going to be.

In this case, check other reviews for the product online. A lot of reviews will cover the durability of the laptop, and if you find that a laptop is often getting negative reviews in the durability department then you know to stay away from it.

Touchpad and Keyboard

This may seem like a relatively minor thing to consider but if you are going to be using the laptop to type then you will need to think about how useable the laptop is in that department.

If the keys are too far away from eachother then any work is going to take you an age to do. Make sure that the laptop provides lots of key travel, and you should also check that the touchpad is up to scratch too.

This is completely irrelevant if you’re using a mouse, but a jumpy touchpad is a nightmare to use and so it’s best to be avoided. Again, you can check online reviews to see how the laptop fares in this department.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible to run Kali Linux on Windows 10?

Yes, you can run Kali Linux on Windows 10, although you need to run it through a program called virtual box. For instructions on how to do this, watch this video:

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