If you’re shopping for a laptop in 2026, the options can feel overwhelming. It’s hard to know whether you’re making the right choice when you’re being bombarded by confusing spec sheets and price tiering, even from the most reliable laptop brands. Ultimately, most consumers are looking for a laptop powerful enough to get all their work done and durable enough to survive a busy lifestyle. In other words, you’re looking for something that’s built to last.

But how can you tell a high-quality laptop that will last you through the next several years and hopefully beyond from one that will break on you as soon as the warranty expires? One way to assess the potential longevity of a clamshell computer is to examine the materials used in its chassis. If the exterior is made of cheap plastic that creaks and bends in your hands, the odds are greater that it’s not built for the long haul.

On the other hand, some laptops are finished in aluminum, magnesium alloy, or even carbon fiber. These materials can be more durable and more expensive, too, which helps give you a sense of how much effort a company puts into building products that use them. While chassis materials should never be used as the sole indicator of quality, they can often give you a good sense of it. So, here are the materials to look for if the lifespan of your laptop is paramount, and why the construction of your clamshell computer isn’t the sole indicator of quality.

Metal builds often (though not always) indicate that a laptop is built to last. Metals like aluminum and magnesium alloys are more expensive than plastic and require specialized processes for mass production. They’re also far more durable than a more affordable material, such as plastic. For instance, one way Apple makes its MacBook laptops feel like luxury goods is by encasing them in aluminum. Other brands have their own fits and finishes, such as the so-called plasma ceramic aluminum that ASUS uses on newer high-end laptops. If you’re at a computer shop, have a look at multiple laptops across different price points. You’re likely to see a much larger proportion of plastic builds at the low end of the market, with more metals introduced as you move to the high end.

But budget laptops are starting to use metal, too. Apple recently launched the pocketbook-friendly MacBook Neo, which is powered by the A18 Pro chip. There are plenty of laptops with better features than the MacBook, which are more suited for grandma to check her email than for a power user to get serious work done. But its chassis is made of aluminum, just like its more expensive and powerful siblings, the MacBook Air and Pro. However, whereas those more expensive laptops use CNC-milled aluminum, the Neo uses a new, cheaper process. We have yet to see whether the Neo will prove its longevity, but even if it’s physically sturdy, it might still not be built to last. The A18 Pro chip it runs on is capable now, but it will only become less capable over time as software grows more demanding. In a decade, the original MacBook Neo might remain physically undamaged but functionally useless.

While it is true that materials such as aluminum and ceramic generally correlate with a laptop’s overall quality, there are plenty of exceptions. Plastic laptop builds do not always indicate poor build quality. For instance, many high-end Windows gaming laptops have plastic chassis, and they are among the most performant devices on the market.

If you’re choosing a gaming laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5000-series mobile graphics card, a top-of-the-line AMD or Intel gaming processor, and a high refresh rate display, you might consider a device such as the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 18. This is certainly no budget laptop. It costs an eye-watering $4,200, and it is more powerful than most full-size desktop gaming PCs. Nonetheless, its top-tier components come encased in a plastic chassis. Does that mean an avid gamer should avoid it in favor of a MacBook Neo? Of course not. The MacBook has, but a small fraction of the ASUS laptop’s gaming capabilities, and the Scar 18 will still be a powerhouse many years down the line, thanks to its cutting-edge spec sheet.

The bottom line is that you should use a laptop’s chassis material as one data point among many when determining its longevity. You should also look for other indicators of quality, such as frame reinforcements, high-quality hinges on the lid, whether the lid flexes, and whether or not it overheats during normal use. Simply being made of plastic is not always a warning sign, and a well-made plastic laptop can last for many years. However, if a laptop lacks too many of these built-in features, that’s when you should begin to worry about whether it’s built to last.