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Top 25 Best HD Wallpapers for Laptops

Tom Gerencer

July 28, 2020

Variety may be the spice of life, but when it comes to desktop backgrounds (i.e. laptop wallpapers), some of them simply look out-of-focus on today’s high-res screens. That’s why you need good options for the best HD wallpapers for laptops. But don’t go astray in the online jungle and download a virus.

We’ve done the tedious work to find you the best wallpapers on the web, from cute wallpapers to free ones to HP wallpapers and more. After all, your computer screen is your workplace, but it’s not carved in stone. There’s no need to get stuck looking at something you can’t stand day after day, so take a scroll through the 25 top picks below.

25 best laptop wallpapers

Our list includes adorable wallpapers, nature, tech, abstract art, and more. Below, you’ll find nature scenes worthy of Ansel Adams and digitized art like something from The Matrix, plus paintings, imaginary worlds, and almost anything you can imagine.

1. Night sky ocean wallpaper

This is one of our favourite free laptop wallpapers because it rings all the bells. The captivating image of a sailboat in a sea of night is inspirational. It’s also dark enough to keep things easy on the eyes and make the icons on your desktop pop. Download it safely from the respected Pixabay site.

2. Autumn country road

Find your nature zone with this autumn road in crisp fall colours. This HD laptop background is 3456 x 2304px so it’ll look amazing on any size screen. Taken on the Canon EOS 600D, it’s free to use and download. Grab it from the safe and excellent Pexels site, where you can find lots more, too.

3. Digital honeycomb laptop wallpaper

If you’re into tech and you’re not afraid who knows it, check out this pleasantly dark, techie hex-pattern wallpaper. Its digital honey aesthetic is buzzworthy, though it’s a little on the low side for HD wallpapers for laptops with a 1366 x 768px resolution. Download it with no worries from WallpapersCraft.

4. Misty forest background

.lazyload-placeholder { display: none; } Misty Forest Background

Choose your own screen resolution with this idyllic forest scene. It comes in everything from 960 x 600px up to 2160 x 1440px. This one will put you in a cool, relaxing forest that’s dim enough to let you see the other items on your desktop. Download from the well-regarded WallpapersWide.com site, which has thousands of other cool options.

5. Fiery kiss

This HD laptop wallpaper shows a fantasy-themed warrior blowing a fiery kiss in a red-hot field of flame. Ideal for the gamer’s laptop, this one stays dim while heating up your field of view. Download it from WallpaperCave.com at 1366 x 768px resolution, which should be enough for most screens.

6. Ace of spades

Feeling lucky? Risk-takers, gamblers, and hard-edged types will love this pack-of-cards themed laptop screen background. It’s got the ace of spades front and centre in a pleasantly gritty design that puts the hole card up your sleeve. Download it for free from pixelstalk.net.

7. Lakeshore sunset laptop wallpaper

Deep down, we all long to get away to a glass-calm lake house where the days are sunny and long and the evenings are cool and friendly. Even when you’re busy working, no one said you can’t dream. Download this gorgeous sunset islands scene in shades of orange for free from Pixabay.

8. Subdued HP logo on textured black

Hunting HP laptop wallpapers that strut your brand love? WallpaperPlay has dozens, and this dark, low-key grid with stylized HP logo is a true fan-favourite. At 1920 x 1080px, it’s crisp enough for most screens. Its lack of glitzy highlights will go easy on your retinas, too.

9. Ultra high-res bridge and trees

Like something out of Middle Earth, this stunning nature photo of a bridge in Gablenz, Germany will teleport you to your happy place. Its unheard-of 6010 x 4005px resolution would look good on the Jumbotron at Wrigley Field. Taken on a Nikon D750, this one’s from Pexels. Scroll down on their page for dozens of other stunning HD wallpapers for laptops.

10. Digital landscape

Tech lovers will bask in this field of textured, dark, electric balls on a patterned field. The nodes are connected by electric blue lines in the darkness, like something the Aztecs would have made if they’d known about silicon chips. Download this free laptop wallpaper from WallpapersCraft at 1366 x 768px resolution.

11. Your name HD laptop wallpaper with shooting star

When you know, you know. For young lovers, this digital wallpaper lets you add your sweetheart’s name to an otherworldly scene up in the clouds. Two adventurers lean in toward each other in a new sunrise, while neon shooting stars blaze overhead. Download it free from WallpaperMemory at 1366 x 768px.

12. Here’s looking at you, dog

Dog lovers know nothing makes you happy like a friendly pooch. This one on a field of white will make you laugh when work gets tough. Its white background could make it a little tricky on the eyes after a while, but you can also balance that by using dark mode in your preferred apps. Download this background for free from Pexels in stunning HD at 3704 x 2469px.

13. Misty mountain hop

If lodgepole pine and morning mist are your thing, you’ve found the holy grail of laptop wallpapers. This image from Banff, Canada depicts a Western mountainside caught in a field of fog. Pleasantly dark, it’ll let your icons stand out handsomely. The resolution is a staggering 5060 x 3163px, and 31,141 downloads can’t be wrong. Further down the page on Unsplash you’ll find dozens of other stunning nature backgrounds.

14. No two snowflakes

Cool off with this chilly macro winter scene as light refracts through crystal snowflakes. A bit bright for long viewing, it might clash a little with your icons. Download it (and other HD wallpapers for laptops) free from Pixabay at up to 3847 x 2164px. Brr.

15. Alien butterfly on black leaves

Sometimes you just want to go somewhere else. This totally alien flight of fancy shows a dragon-tailed butterfly in gentle reds, perched on a spread of black leaves. Its resolution of 1366 x 768px is enough for most of today’s laptop screens. Download it for free from WallpapersCraft.

16. Paint rings HP laptop wallpaper

Here’s a sepia-toned work of art in lines and circles, with the HP logo in unobtrusive evidence at the bottom right. It’s got a 1280 x 800px resolution that’s just a bit low for a big 4K screen. Download it free from WallpaperCave, then enjoy the dim, dark artistry that feels more like old cloth or paper than a lit-up screen.

17. Beautiful painting background

We all want to feel inspired. This painting of a young girl with butterfly aspirations is enough to make you forget you’re sitting with bad posture at a keyboard. This one’s by artist Touka Kirishima, and it downloads free from WallpaperMemory with a resolution of 1366 x 768px.

Need a laptop for your wallpaper? There’s a good reason HP’s full line of laptops gets such sky-high ratings from today’s top tech reviewers, including Chromebooks, mobile workstations, and so much more.

18. Blue lake city

Want to get away from everything to somewhere more natural where you can breathe? This drone pic by photographer Nikita Kachanovsky shows an otherworldly forest with a blue pond cutting through the midst of it. It’s been downloaded for free 20,461 times and has a stunning 4048 x 3032px resolution. Grab it (and zillions of other HD wallpapers for laptops) from Unsplash, free.

19. Caribbean reef ripple HD laptop wallpaper

.lazyload-placeholder { display: none; } Caribbean Reef Ripple HD Laptop Wallpaper

We all want to escape to somewhere with abundant pineapple and mango, where we can dig our toes into the white sand and soak up the sun. Maybe next year. For now, get a little of the feeling with this gorgeous, dancing light on gemlike water. Download free from Pixabay in a variety of HD resolutions.

20. Emerald forest stream

This one just makes you want to be there, in the picture with your shoes off and your pants rolled up. Old-growth trees drink thirstily from a deep green creek captured by photographer Ian Turnell. There’s a free download from Pexels, with ample 3504 x 2336px resolution. Downloaded 248,000 times!

21. Cactus snake

Say a big hello to this prickly little guy. This is one of those cute wallpapers for laptops that keeps you guessing. Is this real? Was it digitally created? And what’s he thinking? 1366 x 768px resolution. Download it license-free from WallpapersCraft.

22. Just wow

Here’s a stunning scene with an angelic waterfall cascading from mossy cliffs under a purple sky. It looks made up, but it's a time-lapse of a real, live place at 2200 x 1331px on Pexels. Downloaded over half a million times, this one is sure to stay on your laptop for a month of Sundays.

23. The Dark Knight

Who doesn’t love a Batman laptop wallpaper? The Dark Knight soars over a Batman-logo-shaped hole amid the crumbling, gothic city. Get it from EcoPetit.com at a full HD 1920 x 1080px. If superheroes aren’t your style, browse their site for thousands of other great art and photo HD wallpapers for laptops.

24. Pier 17 tubes ultra HD laptop wallpaper

When photographer Carlos Nakazato was browsing on Pier 17 in New York, he saw this bench made from tubes. He thought it looked interesting, so he took a picture to use it as laptop wallpaper. He shared it on Unsplash and encourages you to make it your own. Resolution is a whopping 6000 x 4000px.

25. Corsica sunset

The rockbound coast of Corsica dazzles beneath an inviting sunset. Photographer Lars Nissen snapped this image, available for download from Pixabay in everything from tiny SD all the way up to a 5856 x 3904px size you could print out and use for actual wallpaper.

Best sites for desktop wallpapers

Just want to browse the best wallpapers for laptops on your own? Check out these top sites for the best digital desktop backgrounds on the web:

Unsplash: A wallpaper site with National Geographic-level photos, all downloadable and all free.
Pexels: Beautiful wallpapers from one of the world’s top stock photo sites.
Wallpapers Wide: Stunning artwork and beautiful photos alike.
Wallhaven: Breathtaking free laptop wallpapers of fantasy images that look more real than reality.
DeviantArt Wallpaper: Shockingly real fantasy and science fiction art wallpapers. These are paid backgrounds, but they’re worth it.

What to look for in HD wallpapers

What features should an HD laptop wallpaper have? First and foremost, it should fit your screen. Many of the great images above come in a wide range of sizes, but generally you should look for at least 1366 x 768px (HD) or 1920 x 1080px (Full HD).

Choose something dark enough so it doesn’t hurt your eyes or hide your desktop icons, but inspiring enough so it doesn’t get old. Finally, find a site that offers lots of free HD wallpapers, because you’re bound to want to change things up a bit as time goes by.

How to change your laptop wallpaper

It’s easy to change your laptop background. For Windows 10, you’ve probably already got several backgrounds you can choose from right on your computer. No download needed. Here’s how to change yours:

Press the Windows key
Click Settings (shaped like a gear)
Click Personalization
Under Choose your picture, select one of the pics you see or click Browse
Choose the image you like best

Conclusion

There’s your list of the 25 best HD wallpapers for laptops, including cute ones, HP backgrounds, and more. Didn’t find a wallpaper you liked above? Each of the sites we linked to has thousands of other offerings. Scroll up a bit to see how to change your laptop wallpaper, and enjoy.

About the Author

Tom Gerencer is a contributing writer for HP® Tech Takes. Tom is an ASJA journalist, career expert at Zety.com, and a regular contributor to Boys' Life and Scouting magazines. His work is featured in Costco Connection, FastCompany, and many more.

Disclosure: Our site may get a share of revenue from the sale of the products featured on this page.

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