These days, if you don’t need the full power of a gaming desktop or the portability of a laptop, you have a better option that’s the best of both worlds: an affordable mini PC that still packs a lot of performance. One example is the Acemagic AM08Pro, which has a Ryzen 9 processor for tons of processing power and responsiveness. Right now, this mini PC is on sale for $449 on Amazon — an exclusive deal for Prime members, but you can still score it if you don’t have Prime by signing up for a 30-day free trial. It’s worth considering for the savings! This gaming-ready mini PC features an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX CPU and a fantastic 32GB of DDR5 RAM. Should you feel the need for even more oomph, you can later upgrade it yourself to 64GB of total RAM. It also has 512GB of SSD storage, which can also be upgraded to a max of 2TB. It’s powerful enough out of the box, but also has lots of future potential. This mini PC also comes with AMD Radeon 680M graphics, which might be integrated but remains enough for moderate gaming. It’s certainly enough to power a triple 4K60 setup, connected via two HDMI 2.0 ports and one USB-C with DisplayPort 1.4 support. (That USB-C port can also power a single 8K60 display, if you prefer that.) Gamers will also enjoy the integrated RGB lighting that gives this mini PC a bit of personality. There are also three performance modes to pick from that will adjust power consumption based on your needs. Frankly, this mini PC configuration is a beast for just $449, so take advantage of it while you can if you want a powerful home office workstation without shelling out a ton of cash. Save $100 on this powerhouse mini PC with impressive gutsBuy now at Amazon Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros A gaming laptop for $800 Lots of ports Good build quality for the price range Cons Entry-level GPU Slow CPU performance Very low battery life Our Verdict The Lenovo LOQ15 has better build quality than the average gaming laptop in this price range, but its performance is still on the low side. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today The Lenovo LOQ 15 with AMD Ryzen 5 hardware is a budget gaming laptop through and through. For $799 or less, this 15-inch machine can play the latest games at low settings. But, while Lenovo has delivered a reasonable package here, there’s no getting around this machine’s low-end GPU and CPU. This machine can do the job, and that’s admirable. Lenovo delivered decent build quality and lots of ports. But the CPU and GPU here are about the bare minimum of what’s acceptable in a gaming laptop at the end of 2024 and the battery life is unusually low. Further reading: Best gaming laptops 2024: What to look for and highest-rated models Lenovo LOQ 15: Specs The Lenovo LOQ 15ARP9 is a 15.6-inch gaming laptop with an AMD CPU. Lenovo offers several different models of this machine. The Lenovo LOQ we reviewed is the $799 model with a four-core AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS CPU, 12 GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU with 6 GB of VRAM, and a 512 GB SSD. Model number: 15ARP9 CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS Memory: 12 GB DDR5 RAM Graphics/GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB Display: 15.6-inch 1920×1080 IPS display with 144Hz refresh rate Storage: 512 GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD Webcam: 720p webcam Connectivity: 1x USB Type-C (USB 3.2), 3x USB Type-A (USB 3.2), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x combo audio jack 1x Ethernet, 1x DC power in Networking: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 Biometrics: None Battery capacity: 60 Watt-hours Dimensions: 0.94 x 14.17 x 10.19 inches Weight: 5.39 pounds MSRP: $799 as tested It’s hard to argue with a 15-inch gaming laptop for $799 that can play the latest games, even if it is at low detail settings. And it’s especially hard to argue with this machine when Lenovo has put an unusual amount of effort into the build quality. Lenovo LOQ 15: Design and build quality IDG / Chris Hoffman The Lenovo LOQ 15 is a 15.6-inch gaming laptop that uses a lot of grays and blacks. It doesn’t have the “gamer aesthetic” found on many gaming laptops. The only visible signs it’s a gaming laptop are the “LOQ” logo on the lid and the fact that it’s rather chunky compared to the average thin-and-light laptop. The Lenovo LOQ 15 uses a lot of plastic in its chassis, which is no surprise for a bargain-priced gaming laptop. At 5.39 pounds, it’s also a little on the heavy side for a gaming laptop of this size. Lenovo has done a great job with the build quality here, plastic and weight aside. It’s solid and well put together with no weird flexing. The hinge feels good, and it’s easy to open the laptop with one hand. It’s unusually good for the price range. There is a good amount of bloatware preinstalled here — lots of pop-up messages out of the box, including from McAfee. You can uninstall this stuff, of course. Lenovo LOQ 15: Keyboard and trackpad IDG / Chris Hoffman The Lenovo LOQ 15 has a full-size keyboard complete with a number pad at the right side. The keyboard offers a white backlight. This laptop’s keyboard is spacious and feels reasonable to type on. It’s not mushy, but there is a bit of a “soft” feel when you bottom out each key. The activation isn’t as crisp as it would be on a high-end ThinkPad or a mechanical keyboard, for example. But again, this is an $800 gaming laptop, so we’re not expecting the very best feel from the keys here. They’re pretty good and I had no problem playing PC games with this keyboard. The trackpad is a good size — on the larger side, but it doesn’t feel too large. While it’s plastic like the rest of the laptop, it feels nice and smooth and very response, with a click-down action that also feels great. This is a great trackpad for the price point. Lenovo LOQ 15: Display and speakers IDG / Chris Hoffman The Lenovo LOQ 15 has a 15.6-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1920×1080 and a refresh rate of 144 Hz. The biggest problem with the display is its low maximum brightness. At 300 nits, this is a dim display and I had to crank it way up to enjoy playing games on it. The display looks okay aside from that — but, naturally, just okay. You won’t find the vivid colors of an OLED here nor will you find the more accurate color reproduction of a more expensive IPS panel. Still, it’s not bad. 1920×1080 makes sense as a resolution to play games on given this machine’s hardware. And 144 Hz is a reasonable refresh rate, too. (For the record, this isn’t a touch screen). The speakers aren’t great. Firing up Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I aimed to give the speakers a longer test drive than I managed — but I quickly had to plug in headphones for better audio quality. The speakers are on the quiet side, too. They’ll be okay for listening to a YouTube video or online meeting, but you’ll want to plug in a good pair of headphones or external speakers for gaming. Still, this is to be expected for a budget gaming laptop in this price range. Lenovo LOQ 15: Webcam, microphone, biometrics IDG / Chris Hoffman The Lenovo LOQ 15 includes a 720p front-facing camera. Let’s be honest here: This is a 720p webcam on an $800 gaming laptop. We know this isn’t going to be the best webcam for online meetings. The picture it produces is a little low-resolution, sure — it’s a 720p webcam. Still, as far as 720p webcams in $800 gaming laptops go, it’s fine. You’ll be able to use it in an online meeting now and then. Lenovo includes a physical webcam shutter switch on the right side of the laptop, which is great to see — and also the kind of feature you don’t necessarily expect to see on a budget gaming laptop. The built-in microphone is surprisingly good. It doesn’t have the absolute best audio quality. But it produces very clear audio. Using it for voice chat while playing some Diablo IV, my companions were happy with its clarity. Unfortunately, this laptop doesn’t offer any biometrics. There’s no fingerprint reader or IR camera for Windows Hello sign-in. These are convenient ways to quickly sign into Windows. But it makes sense that Lenovo would omit these components to keep the cost down. Lenovo LOQ 15: Connectivity                                                     IDG / Chris Hoffman The Lenovo LOQ 15 offers a good selection of ports. On the left side, there are no ports — instead, Lenovo places many of this machine’s ports on the back of the laptop. That’s where I like to see them to keep the cables out of the way. On the back of the laptop, you’ll find a DC power in port, two USB Type-A ports, one HDMI 2.1 out port, and an Ethernet jack. On the right side of the laptop, you’ll find a third USB Type-A port along with a USB Type-C port and a combo audio jack — plus a physical webcam shutter switch. It’s a good collection of ports, complete with an Ethernet jack, which is something you don’t see on many gaming laptops. It’s worth noting that all the USB ports are USB 3.2 — no USB4 speeds here. And, with just one USB Type-C port, this machine is weighted toward the older USB Type-A standard — not a problem for many gamers, to be sure. This laptop features Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 hardware. It’s no surprise that this machine doesn’t feature Wi-Fi 7 support, but it would be nice to at least see it support Wi-Fi 6E. Lenovo LOQ 15: Performance The Lenovo LOQ 15 combines an AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS CPU with 12 GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU. There are two variants of the GeForce RTX 3050 GPU, and this machine has one with 6 GB of VRAM — an important upgrade over the lower-end 4 GB variant. Still, there’s no getting around it: This is budget hardware. It’s an entry-level GPU along with just 12 GB of system RAM — many gaming laptops now start at 16 GB. The AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS CPU here only has four cores, too. It’s budget hardware at a budget price. In real-world gaming, it performed alright. I fired up the demanding new Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and found it was playable (at low settings). That’s confirmation that this machine can get the job done. Also, the cooling seems to work well. I love that the fans blow hot air out of the back of the laptop instead of the sides. The keyboard stays reasonably cool to the touch. And the fans, while audible, aren’t particularly loud — especially by the standards of a budget gaming laptop. Anecdotes aside, we ran the Lenovo LOQ 15 through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs. IDG / Chris Hoffman First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With an overall PCMark 10 score of 6,059, this machine is in the back of the pack as far as gaming laptops go. The Acer Nitro V 15 costs $50 more than this machine and offers a little extra performance. IDG / Chris Hoffman Next, we run Cinebench R20. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage. The Lenovo LOQ 15’s AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS CPU only has four cores, so it’s no surprise to see it in the back of the pack here, too. A score of 2,763 is low. It’s worth noting that this is multithreaded performance, and this score is not representative of real game performance. IDG / Chris Hoffman We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load. The Lenovo LOQ 15 took 1,934 seconds to complete the encode process — that’s over 32 minutes. Once again, this is a slow result on a heavily multithreaded benchmark due to the CPU’s low core count. IDG / Chris Hoffman Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This is a gaming laptop, so these gaming-focused benchmarks will tell us more about how the laptop will perform in PC games. First, we run 3Dmark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance. With a 3DMark Time Spy score of 5,511, the Lenovo LOQ 15 is on the slow side when it comes to graphical performance — though certainly faster than the average laptop with integrated graphics. The main issue here is that entry-level Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU. After that, we run the benchmarks built into some games. First, we use the built-in benchmark in Shadow of the Tomb Raider to test all the gaming laptops we review. It’s an older game, but it’s a great way to compare graphical performance across different PCs. IDG / Chris Hoffman The Lenovo LOQ 15 delivered an average of 76 FPS with our standard Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark settings — with the highest settings at 1080p resolution. No surprise again — it’s a lower score due to that RTX 3050 GPU. Finally, we run the built-in benchmark in Metro Exodus. This is a more demanding game, and we set the benchmark to 1080p resolution at the Extreme detail setting. IDG / Chris Hoffman The Lenovo LOQ 15 scored 23 FPS in this benchmark. Once again, this score is low — and that entry-level Nvidia GPU is likely the main cause. While 23 FPS isn’t an ideal playable frame rate for this game, you will of course be able to lower graphical settings and achieve a playable experience in this game. Overall, the Lenovo LOQ 15 delivers low-end gaming performance. With its entry-level Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU and four-core AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS CPU, this isn’t a particularly fast gaming laptop. Still, the performance here is faster than you’ll see with integrated graphics, and it can play games. For $800, that’s something. Lenovo LOQ 15: Battery life The Lenovo LOG 15 has a 60 Watt-hour battery. Gaming laptops generally aren’t known for their long battery life, and this is a fairly small battery for such a larger laptop. That makes sense, as a larger battery costs more and Lenovo is on price and gaming performance here — not long battery life. IDG / Chris Hoffman To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat in the Movies & TV app on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks, which meant cranking this machine’s brightness way up. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this. The Lenovo LOQ lasted 196 minutes — that’s a bit over three hours — before suspending itself in our standard battery test. That’s on the low end even for a gaming laptop. Here’s why: The AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS chip here does not include any integrated graphics. That means what, while on battery, the machine is always using the power-hungry Nvidia GeForce 3050 GPU. Combined with a battery that’s on the small side, this results in poor battery life. This machine just doesn’t prioritize battery life. If that’s important to you, look elsewhere — and ensure your machine of choice has an integrated GPU. Lenovo LOQ 15: Conclusion The Lenovo LOQ 15’s benchmarks tell a clear story: This isn’t a particularly fast gaming laptop. On the other hand, it’s only $799 — and the build quality is unusually good for the price range. It’s hard to argue with a 15-inch gaming laptop for $799 that can play the latest games, even if it is at low detail settings. And it’s especially hard to argue with this machine when Lenovo has put an unusual amount of effort into the build quality. Still, I would encourage you to spend a bit more on a gaming laptop if you could. PCWorld’s favorite gaming laptop under $1,000 is currently the Acer Nitro V 16. It costs a bit more, but it delivers much better performance. I also recommend keeping an eye on gaming laptop deals. You can get a faster gaming laptop for about $800 if you shop the laptop sales — and we’ve got a great regularly-updated guide to laptop sales here at PCWorld. On the other hand, you might find this laptop on sale, too. Perhaps it’s hundreds of dollars off while you’re reading this! Now that would be an exciting deal. If you’re wondering whether this machine can do the job, the answer is yes. It may be an especially good value if the price drops further and you don’t have particularly demanding gaming needs. Read...

CES doesn’t just introduce the world to a new generation of consumer electronics, but new PC hardware as well. CES 2025 should be the opportunity for both Intel and AMD to launch new mobile processors for 2025 laptops, with possibly Qualcomm discussing new PC CPUs, too. Intel is a virtual lock to launch its Core H- and -HX series of Arrow Lake mobile processors for gaming laptops at January’s CES show in Las Vegas, both from its own statements and LG’s announcement of its new “Arrow Lake” laptops. The momentum has clearly swung to AMD, however, which has announced a launch date of January 6, 2025 for new PC and graphics products. Here, we’re expecting AMD to announce both new desktop processors — including new iterations of its fantastic Ryzen 9000X3D gaming processors — but also “Strix Halo” chips with ultra-powerful integrated graphics aimed at the mobile gaming market. Could we even see additional CPUs for handhelds, too? It’s likely. Qualcomm’s crystal ball is a bit murkier, but remember: Qualcomm has already announced its next-generation Oryon CPU cores for smartphones. Eventually, we expect them to debut inside of a PC processor, too. Further reading: The next generation of PC graphics will kick off at CES 2025 Intel’s mobile Arrow Lake debuts Anyone who’s followed the laptop market knows that Intel still commands a decided advantage over AMD in terms of the number of devices available, especially in gaming. This isn’t likely to change within 2025. In fact, you can make the argument that Intel’s decision to prioritize low power over high performance with its Arrow Lake desktop processors — which contributed to a steep drop in Intel desktop market share in 2024 — might be viewed more favorably in notebooks which can benefit from longer battery life. That argument makes more sense backing up a Core H-series part, which isn’t as desperate for performance as a Core HX chip is. Intel Regardless, leaks have already suggested that these new Core Ultra (Arrow Lake) mobile chips will feature five new models, from the Core Ultra 5 225H on up to the Core Ultra 9 285H, with a total of 6 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and a pair of the new Low Power Efficiency cores, with no hyperthreading. The same leaker suggests that Intel’s Core HX series could lead with a 24-core 285X flagship (8 P-cores, 16 E-cores, with no dedicated low-power efficiency cores) on down to the 235HX. It’s also suggested that these new HX chips will use older Xe GPUs for integrated graphics, in part because they’re traditionally paired with discrete GPUs. Moore’s Law is Dead, which has an iffy reputation among leakers, has suggested (via Notebookcheck.net) that Arrow Lake will be 14 percent faster than the 13th-gen Raptor Lake architecture using the Cinebench benchmark, but with power consumption that is surprisingly about the same. Last year saw Intel’s Core HX go up against the Core Ultra as a two-pronged approach to productivity and gaming performance. Expect Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake to do the same in 20525.Mark Hachman / IDG What does seem to be the case, however, is that Intel’s Lunar Lake chips won’t be going away. So 2025’s notebook lineup will likely include productivity laptops that run on Intel’s Lunar Lake, with the Arrow Lake architecture taking over on the gaming and performance front. Unfortunately, they’ll all be using similar Core Ultra branding, so you’ll need to pay attention. AMD’s cavalcade of CPUs As someone who touches more notebooks than desktops, AMD’s Strix Halo definitely interests me. Whether intentionally or not, AMD has made an effort to keep up with its competition in the low-power notebook space, but still finds itself atop the heap in terms of performance. And there’s definitely something to be said for that, as a number of customers simply prefer buying the fastest processor available for gaming and otherwise. Officially, AMD’s Strix Point should be named the Ryzen AI Max, complementing the low-power Ryzen AI 300 family with a Ryzen AI Max 395+ processor. A leaker (Golden Pig Upgrade Pack — where do these leakers come up with these names?) suggests via Tom’s Hardware that we could see AMD announce three processors: the 16-core Ryzen AI Max+ 395, the 12-core Ryzen AI Max 390, and the 8-core Ryzen AI Max 385. Strix Halo is said to include a pair of Zen 5 CCDs with a LPDDR5X memory interface, too. It’s tie for AMD’s Strix Point to give way to Strix Halo.MSI The question, as Tom’s suggests, will be whether AMD attaches a large GPU — the AI Max+ 395 is said to have an RDNA 3.5-based GPU with 2560 stream processors, which would massively outperform an ordinary Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 or “Strix Point” processor. The question is whether PC makers will also attach a discrete GPU, or simply let the APU’s graphics horsepower carry the load. But that may come at a cost, with power climbing to 120W to 130W all by itself. The limited launch of the single AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D also points to more to come on the desktop front. The 9800X3D chip obliterated the competition — but it was a single chip! That’s led to suggestions that AMD has a 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X3D and a 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D chip waiting to be announced by AMD at CES, as a loose-lipped Asus executive indicated. If nothing else, that should help alleviate AMD’s supply crunch, which has squeezed supplies of the chip since launch. CPUs are typically considered part of one of two categories: desktop, and mobile. But the mobile definition has expanded to include both laptops as well as handheld gaming PCs. In the latter category, as in consoles, AMD has dominated. But Intel is expected to make a push into the category with Lunar Lake at CES. AMD, meanwhile, is expected to respond with the Ryzen Z2, the sequel to the Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme chip for handheld PCs. Handheld PCs are the nw battleground for mobile CPUs.PCWelt/Asus/Amazon AMD’s Z1 and Z1 Extreme, launched in 2023, are based on the Zen 4 architecture; the Z1 included six primary cores and 12 threads, with 4 RDNA 3 graphics units. The Extreme variant increased the number of cores from six to eight, but tripled the RDNA 3 units to a total of twelve. Details on the upcoming chips are a little skimpy, but we could see the Z2 Extreme, the “vanilla” Z2, and the Z2G or Z2 Go. The Extreme is said to boast eight CPU cores (3 Zen 5, 5 Zen5c) with 12 CUs based on the Strix Point and RDNA 3.5 GPU architecture. The “vanilla” Z2 could also use eight cores and 12 CUs, based on AMD’s Hawk Point graphics, while the “G” variant could be built around the older Ryzen 6000 and an RDNA 2 GPU. Again, while the features are all speculation and rumor, it does seem likely that AMD has something up its sleeve for the handheld PC market at CES. Could we see more AM4 and AM5 boards and chipsets announced at CES? That’s possible, too. Either way, AMD should have a lot to talk about in just a few days. A Qualcomm conundrum While both AMD and Qualcomm will host press events on Jan. 6, Qualcomm has its fingers in enough pies to avoid needing to make a PC announcement at CES. Instead, I’m expecting to hear more information (and spin) about Arm’s litigation against Qualcomm, which was largely settled over the holidays in favor of Qualcomm. I interpreted that to mean that little has changed, and that Qualcomm can continue to sell Snapdragon processors without issue. But I’d expect a formal clarification on that from Qualcomm chief executive Cristiano Amon from a CES podium. Qualcomm spent the fall showing off its Snapdragon 8 Elite platform, but for smartphones.Anyron Copeman / Foundry In October, Qualcomm launched an updated, second-generation Oryon CPU core as part of its Snapdragon 8 Elite platform for handheld PCs. Snapdragon 8 Elite reportedly consumes 44 percent less power while offering 45 percent more multi-core performance versus the previous Snapdragon 8 core, Qualcomm says. Eventually, I’d expect, it will be the foundation for the next Snapdragon X Elite platform. I don’t think this happens at CES 2025, however. It’s more likely this takes place at Computex this summer, when Qualcomm has typically launched processors for new computing platforms. In the meantime, Qualcomm has done an admirable job working with developers and solving compatibility problems with the Windows on Arm platform, and this type of announcement seems likely for CES. We could also see a wave of new laptops powered by Qualcomm’s more affordable Snapdragon X Plus chips, which were announced earlier this fall. Nevertheless, this looks to be the busiest CES in some time, especially because Nvidia and AMD are expected to launch new GPUs, too. The PCWorld team is headed to Las Vegas this weekend to cover all the news as it happens. The holidays are over; the chip wars are heating up once again. Make sure to bookmark PCWorld’s CES hub to keep up! Read...

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A new year, a new gaming laptop. If your machine is lagging behind and unable to play the latest games at anything higher than potato settings, now is the time to upgrade! Why? Because this HP Victus 16 is on sale for $850 at Best Buy right now, an absolutely amazing $550 off its original $1,400 MSRP. And this isn’t your typical laptop, either. It’s packed with powerful specs. This HP Victus 16 runs on a modern AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor, which may not be the latest one but is still capable enough to handle almost anything you throw its way, from your regular workload to AAA PC gaming. The laptop features 16GB of DDR5 RAM as well, which is enough to multitask all your day-to-day apps and browser tabs. But the best part is that this HP laptop comes with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. That’s an exceptional graphics card to get in an $850 laptop as you normally have to spend several hundred dollars over $1,000 for one like that. And with its 16.1-inch 1080p IPS display, you’ll have a great time enjoying the upgraded graphics, plus the 144Hz refresh rate will make for smooth visuals and frame rates. Don’t miss out! Get yourself this powerhouse HP gaming laptop for a mere $850 at Best Buy! This deal won’t stick around for long. Save $550 on this crazy laptop with an RTX 4070 GPUBuy now at Best Buy Read...

Electronics manufacturers love to tout “world’s first” in their marketing. Take LG’s newest OLED monitor, for example. It isn’t the first display with 5K resolution, nor the first that can bend from flat to curved. (That one goes to the Corsair Xeneon Flex.) But it is the first monitor that’s both 5K2K (what?) and bendable, so bully for LG, I suppose. The LG UltraGear 45GX990A is a 45-inch OLED display with a 21:9 aspect ratio and an impressive 5120×2160 resolution. That’s indeed a little wider than your standard 4K screen, stretching out the usual 16:9 ratio into the semi-standard “ultrawide” form factor, with a huge upgrade in both physical size and usable resolution versus the more typical 3440×1440 configuration. Like the previously mentioned Corsair OLED, it can bend between a flat display and a 900R curve at will. If you don’t need this feature, the slightly less fancy 45GX950A model has the same size and resolution in a fixed 800R curve that doesn’t flex. LG says that both of these monitors use the company’s latest WOLED panels. (I assume LG would like you to pronounce that “whoa-led.”) That means more brightness, “true blacks,” and Dual Mode, which we saw last year in a design that could switch between 4K/240Hz and 1080p/480Hz for the most demanding of gamers. LG didn’t say exactly what speeds these new monitors are working at, though they can quickly switch between various presets. Since the response time is 0.03ms, I assume 240Hz is the minimum once again. The press release didn’t include detailed specs, though highlights include USB-C connections with 90 watts of Power Delivery and compatibility with both Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync. LG’s existing 39-inch OLED monitor will get an upgraded model (christened the 39GX90SA) with the same 21:9 aspect ratio. It also features USB-C and a WebOS onboard app system, making it a lot like LG’s smart TV line. But there’s no mention of a WOLED upgrade for this smaller design. Prices and release dates were, as with most CES announcements, absent. That said, LG monitors tend to be very expensive at launch and get big discounts quickly, so I’d wait for a Black Friday-type sale later in 2025 if I were trying to hunt one down at less-than-retail price. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Fabric cover converts into stand that supports landscape and portrait orientation USB-C ports deliver up to 65 watts of USB Power Delivery Touchscreen feels responsive in general use Passive stylus is included Cons Touchscreen latency is noticeable when using the stylus Color performance doesn’t stand out Sticks to 60Hz refresh rate, doesn’t have Adaptive Sync Our Verdict The Viewsonic TD1656-2K is a portable touchscreen monitor with a sharp image and included passive stylus, but it’s better in Excel than your favorite photo editor. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Viewsonic TD1656-2K Retailer Price $349.99 View Deal Viewsonic $349.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket I don’t know about you, but I always prefer my computer to have a touchscreen. While I don’t constantly reach up and touch the monitor, there are situations where it’s a handy alternative to using the mouse. The ViewSonic TD1656-2K tries to fill that role, offering a portable touchscreen monitor compatible with both Windows and MacOS. ViewSonic TD1656-2K specs and features The ViewSonic TD1656-2K’s display panel specifications aren’t unusual for a 16-inch portable monitor. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio, a native resolution of 2560×1600, and an IPS LCD display panel with a refresh rate of 60Hz. There’s no adaptive sync and HDR is not supported. Display size: 16-inch 16:10 widescreen Native resolution: 2560×1600 Panel type: IPS LCD 8-bit Refresh rate: 60Hz Adaptive sync: None HDR: No Ports: 2x USB-C with DisplayPort Alternate Mode and up to 65 watts Power Delivery VESA mount: No Speakers: 2x 2-watt speakers Price: $349.99 MSRP Dig into the details though, and the display’s purpose stands out. It has a capacitive 10-point multi-touch screen, which you can manipulate with your fingers or with the passive stylus that is included in the box. The monitor also has two USB-C ports, both of which support video input and up to 65W of Power Delivery in both directions. The TD1656-2K lists support for both Windows 11 and Mac. I spent most of my time with it connected to a PC laptop but also connected it to a Mac Mini to confirm that the touchscreen functioned (it did). Further reading: See our roundup of the best portable monitors to learn about competing products. ViewSonic TD1656-2K design The ViewSonic TD1656-2K’s design is familiar from the front, with slim bezels on three sides and a slightly thicker chin on the bottom. Around the back you’ll find an expanse of silver metal. The shade of silver used by ViewSonic is arguably a bit too light to follow current trends (gunmetal and black shades seem in vogue right now), but it looks professional. A fabric-covered display stand and cover ships with the monitor. Like the display itself, it looks professional but not trendy. It’s a semi-rigid cover that provides good protection from scratches or moderate falls. It doesn’t fully enclose the monitor, however, so it may still allow objects to wedge in between the case and the display. When it comes time to use the monitor, you’ll have to fold the display stand into a desired position and attach the monitor to the stand magnetically. I found it a bit confusing at first, as it’s not immediately clear how the display should fold, and the manual offered no help. Once I was comfortable using it, however, I discovered the stand works well. It supports several different viewing angles, from nearly upright to significantly reclined, and can also be used in portrait orientation, which is not common for any portable monitor stand. Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry ViewSonic TD1656-2K connectivity The ViewSonic TD1656-2K relies on two versatile USB-C ports. Both support DisplayPort, which means either can be used to connect a PC to the portable monitor. The USB-C ports also support up to 65 watts of Power Delivery in both directions. This is an uncommon feature for a portable monitor, as most only support enough Power Delivery to power the monitor itself. It opens up some new connection options. When using the TD1656-2K with a laptop, for instance, you can connect USB-C power to the monitor and then connect the monitor to the laptop to charge the laptop while it inputs video to the monitor. That’s not possible with many portable monitors, since their Power Delivery is limited. ViewSonic TD1656-2K features Touch is, of course, the ViewSonic TD1656-2K’s headline feature. It has a 10-point capacitive touchscreen layered beneath a smooth, glossy panel. The touchscreen felt responsive and showed no issues with mistaken or missed inputs. I found the touchscreen especially useful with multi-touch gestures, like Windows’ five-finger pinch to close all apps. The monitor also ships with a passive stylus. The stylus is stubby, and the tip is curved with a plastic protector that prevents it from scratching the display’s surface. Even so, I found it comfortable to hold and use. It doesn’t need power, so it’s light and never needs to be charged. The ViewSonic TD1656-2K’s pair of 2-watt speakers can fill a small office with sound and audio quality, though modest, is clear and mostly avoids distortion. While the touchscreen does work well in general use, it’s not perfect for creative work. The passive stylus felt comfortable in my hand, but touch input includes some latency. Though not readily noticeable when using touch to navigate apps with your fingertips, it’s obvious when using the stylus to draw in Affinity Photo, Photoshop, Paint, and similar apps. There are also no buttons or extra features. It’s a simple, passive stylus, and that’s it. Even so, the stylus is fine for less demanding users. I prefer to use a touchscreen, when it’s available, for some photo touchups. The ViewSonic TD1656-2K felt like a good fit for my occasional editing needs. If you’re an aspiring or professional digital artist, however, the latency could be frustrating.  Matthew Smith / Foundry The on-screen menu is controlled with the power button and volume buttons on the monitor’s right flank. The text is small, but the controls are easy to use. That, however, is in part because of the lack of options. Users can adjust brightness, contrast, volume, the audio mode, and that’s about it. Speaking of audio, the monitor has a pair of 2-watt speakers that perform better than most. Maximum volume is high enough to fill a small office with sound and audio quality, though modest, is clear and mostly avoids distortion. There’s no bass, so the speakers are a bad choice for entertainment, but they work for listening to a podcast or having chill tunes on in the background. That’s more than can be said for most portable monitors. ViewSonic TD1656-2K SDR performance The ViewSonic TD1656-2K’s $349.99 MSRP is towards the upper end of pricing for portable monitors, but most of the added cost goes towards the touchscreen and USB-C connectivity with up to 65 watts of Power Delivery. The display panel itself is a 16-inch IPS display with a 16:10 aspect ratio and resolution of 2560×1600. Matthew Smith / Foundry ViewSonic comes out swinging with a maximum brightness of 381 nits. That’s much higher than typical for a portable monitor, and it helps the display remain usable in a wide variety of situations, including rooms with bright lighting that can’t be dimmed or turned off (like, say, a corporate bullpen). The display is glossy though, so glare can still be an issue. Matthew Smith / Foundry Contrast is also a strength for the TD1656-2K, though it depends on your perspective. Most portable monitors have a similar IPS display panel. Compared to such peers, the TD1656-2K’s measured contrast ratio of 1620:1 is better than average and provides an attractive image. However, as the ViewSonic VX1655-4K-OLED shows, OLED portable monitors are in a different league. They provide a more immersive image with better depth and shadow detail in dark scenes. To be fair to the TD1656-2K, however, only a few portable OLED touchscreens exist, and they’re very expensive (around $500).    Matthew Smith / Foundry Color gamut unfortunately proves a problem for the TD1656-2K. It delivers just 99 percent of sRGB and 76 percent of DCI-P3. These are low figures, coming ahead of only the Azorpa A1 Gamut, a budget portable monitor that’s often sold for less than $150. The TD1656-2K’s modest color gamut means it literally displays fewer colors overall, and that results in a less alluring look. It’s not really a problem if you’re in Excel or browsing Threads, of course, but more obvious if you want to edit photos or watch YouTube. Matthew Smith / Foundry Color accuracy works more to Viewsonic’s favor. While the TD1656-2K’s color accuracy is not the best we’ve tested, it’s certainly more than enough to deliver a lifelike, realistic image. The TD1656-2K also did well enough in gamma and color temperature. It achieved a gamma curve of 2.3, which is slightly off our target of 2.2. This means the image appears a tad darker than it should, but not by much. Color temperature came in at 6400K, off the target of 6500K, which means the image is ever-so-slightly warmer than ideal. Sharpness is a strength. The TD1656-2K’s resolution of 2560×1600, which works out to around 189 pixels per inch (PPI). That’s better than a 27-inch 4K monitor, which provides 163 PPI, and competitive with most high-end Windows laptops. The monitor looks sharp even when viewing small, high-contrast text. The ViewSonic TD1656-2K’s overall image quality is fine but has caveats. It’s not competitive with most portable monitors sold in the same price bracket, though it makes up for that by including a touchscreen ViewSonic TD1656-2K HDR performance HDR is not supported on the ViewSonic TD1656-2K. While that might seem a bit disappointing, it’s for the best, as portable monitors have limitations that make them a bad fit for HDR. It mostly comes down to brightness. Higher brightness means higher power draw, which isn’t a great fit for a portable monitor’s use case. ViewSonic TD1656-2K motion performance Motion performance isn’t a priority for the ViewSonic TD1656-2K, either. It has a refresh rate of 60Hz and does not support Adaptive Sync for smooth frame pacing. That makes the monitor a bad choice for fast-paced games, as significant motion blur can detract from the action, and you’ll need to use V-Sync to avoid unsightly frame tearing. While I understand the TD1656-2K is not meant for gaming, I find the lack of a higher refresh rate a bit frustrating. A portable touchscreen monitor is arguably an ideal use case for a 120Hz refresh rate, as it will help the display look and feel more responsive. Sticking with 60Hz is a minor disappointment forgiven only by the fact most other portable touchscreens make the same choice (though a few companies, like Uscreen, offer both). Should you buy the ViewSonic TD1656-2K? Buying the TD1656-2K nets you a bright display, a responsive touchscreen, an acceptable stylus, and a semi-rigid fabric cover that doubles as a stand and supports use in both landscape and portrait orientation. The monitor also includes two USB-C ports with up to 65 watts of Power Delivery, which provides extra flexibility in how the monitor is connected. The monitor’s color performance disappoints, however, and its motion performance is a poor fit for gaming.  Ultimately, the ViewSonic TD1656-2K is a portable touchscreen monitor that’s better in a corporate bullpen than a home office or studio. Read...

While laptops haven’t exactly been advancing by leaps and bounds over the last few years, the industry has finally gotten interesting again. As we close out 2024 and head into 2025, I’ve got news for you if you’re in the market for a new laptop: a lot has changed, and lots more changes are yet to come. Here are the new things you need to know to make an informed laptop buying decision this year. Further reading: The best laptops we’ve tested Buying last year’s laptops isn’t a good-value move anymore Chris Hoffman / IDG I used to recommend buying last year’s laptop models on clearance because hardware hasn’t really improved much year over year. Sure, maybe that new laptop is a bit better… but only marginally. Wouldn’t you rather get last year’s almost-as-good model for 50 percent off? The calculus has now changed. You may still be able to find clearance laptops from 2024 or 2023 at a good price if you keep an eye on the best laptop sales, but you may want to think twice before buying them. The latest CPUs — I’m talking Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake), AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite — all have some big upgrades, including improved battery life, lower power consumption, standard Wi-Fi 7 support, and NPUs for AI features that’ll hopefully become more interesting in 2025. Combine all that with other trending laptop improvements, like the explosion in popularity of beautiful OLED displays, and it may finally be worth splurging on a current-gen laptop. The latest laptop processors deliver seriously long battery life Chris Hoffman / IDG The laptop processor battery life wars are finally being waged. Intel talked a good game with those first-generation “Core Ultra” Meteor Lake processors, but they didn’t exactly deliver those big efficiency gains in our benchmarks and day-to-day testing. Things are different now, though. Intel Lunar Lake-powered PCs are finally delivering the serious battery life improvements that Intel has been promising. Meanwhile, you can find Arm-powered Windows laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus chips that have super-long battery life, too. (But thanks to Lunar Lake, you don’t have to turn to those Arm-powered laptops for serious battery life.) Related: These laptops have the longest battery life we’ve tested While AMD’s latest Ryzen AI 300-series processors don’t hit the same battery life numbers, they have pretty good efficiency while delivering better multithreaded performance over Lunar Lake CPUs. PCWorld’s Mark Hachman ran UL’s Procyon Office benchmarks, which launches applications like Microsoft Word and Excel and tests how long those applications last in real-world usage scenarios. Here are the battery numbers he saw in this more representative test: Intel Lunar Lake: 17 hours, 7 minutes Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite: 16 hours, 20 minutes AMD Ryzen AI 300: 10 hours, 42 minutes Intel Meteor Lake: 10 hours, 35 minutes If battery life is important to you in a laptop — in other words, you aren’t prioritizing maximum performance for gaming or creative work — then you’ll want to look at laptops with these newer processors. Gaming laptops are sticking with older processors Chris Hoffman / IDG If you want these cutting-edge battery life metrics, you won’t find them in gaming laptops — even in the newer 2025 models. These long-lasting CPUs are mainly designed for power efficiency and AI performance with NPUs, which don’t quite matter in a gaming laptop. Unsurprisingly, most gaming laptops are sticking with Intel Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs — announced in 2023 — for maximum performance. Plus, as we head into 2025, Nvidia’s latest mobile options are still the GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs launched in 2023. So, when it comes to gaming laptops, not a lot has changed. I recommend either keeping an eye open for a good deal on a slightly older gaming laptop or waiting a bit longer for some new hardware. Nvidia’s GPUs are due for an update, and there’s a lot of speculation that Nvidia may announce new GPUs at CES 2025. Wi-Fi 7 is going to be the new standard In 2025, there’s almost no excuse for a laptop not to support Wi-Fi 7. Intel’s Lunar Lake, AMD’s Ryzen AI 300, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X processors all include Wi-Fi 7 hardware as standard. If this is your first time hearing about it, learn more about why Wi-Fi 7 is important. Even if you haven’t upgraded to a Wi-Fi 7 router yet, it’s time to start getting Wi-Fi 7 hardware so you can eventually step it up — and what better way than to start with a compatible laptop? Then, when your router does kick the bucket, you can snag a replacement with Wi-Fi 7. This is a big improvement from 2024, by the way. Intel’s Meteor Lake processors didn’t include Wi-Fi 7 hardware as standard, and you sometimes had to pay extra for that as an upgrade. Unfortunately, Wi-Fi 7 still doesn’t come standard on gaming laptops. As mentioned above, most gaming laptops are stuck with Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs for maximum performance, and those generally don’t have Wi-Fi 7. You can still get Wi-Fi 7 support on a gaming laptop if it’s important to you, but you have to go out of your way to look for it. Cutting-edge “Copilot+ PCs” are the ones with NPUs for AI tasks When Copilot+ PCs launched in late summer 2024, they were all Arm-based laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus processors. That’s now changed: You can get Copilot+ PCs with Intel Lunar Lake or AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processors, too. If you do get a Copilot+ PC, you’re getting more than just a Copilot key on the keyboard. You’re getting extra AI features in Windows that rely on newer hardware that only exists in Copilot+ PCs. At launch, those AI features weren’t very interesting. But Microsoft is working on adding more AI features to Windows and still doing its best to bring back the controversial Windows Recall feature (the one that takes periodic screenshots of your PC’s screen and allows you to search your activity history with simple typed prompts). These Copilot+ PCs also include a Copilot Runtime that Windows applications can tap into. All of this AI goodness is powered by the neural processing unit (NPU) in these PCs. To be branded a Copilot+ PC, a computer needs an NPU capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS). (Not sure what an NPU is? Check out our explainer on NPUs and AI chips.) Laptops are getting more RAM and storage There’s a happy story happening across the entire consumer electronics industry right now, from laptops to phones: more RAM and more storage are becoming standard. It’s all thanks to the explosion of AI, but the rising tide lifts all boats. Laptops and other devices need lots of RAM to keep AI models in memory, so devices with low amounts of RAM aren’t cutting it anymore. Related: How much RAM do you need in a laptop? Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC requirements demand a minimum of 16GB of RAM along with 256GB of storage. While not every laptop is a Copilot+ PC yet, the big focus on AI means base-model laptops might have enough RAM and storage that you can buy them without paying for potentially pricey RAM and storage upgrades. Related: How much SSD space do you need in a laptop? Arm-powered laptops have decent (but not perfect) software compatibility Mark Hachman / IDG You don’t have to buy an Arm-powered Windows laptop for fantastic battery life, but you might still want one anyway. If you are interested in something like Microsoft’s latest Surface Laptop or Surface Pro, you should know that software compatibility — which was already pretty good at release — has only improved since then. Most Windows desktop apps work just fine on Arm laptops thanks to the Prism compatibility layer, and some apps that weren’t compatible at release — like Google Drive and some VPN apps — now work on Arm laptops. Many Adobe apps now work on these PCs, too, though not all of them. Some older printers may also not work. Long story short, an Arm laptop may be great for you and you may not run into any software compatibility issues, but know that the risk is still there. Intel is betting that these potential app headaches (along with the efficiency improvements of Lunar Lake) will make you skip over Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered systems for Lunar Lake PCs instead, which can run traditional x86 software without any emulation. That said, most typical laptop users should get by just fine with an Arm laptop. If you end up getting one, make sure you buy from a store with a good return policy just in case it doesn’t meet your needs. Laptop hardware launches coming in 2025 While Nvidia hasn’t announced anything official yet, rumors say that they’ll announce GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs at CES 2025 in January. If this includes new mobile GPUs, that will give gamers a reason to upgrade — or at least provide a reason to buy a newer laptop if you’re in the market for a new portable gaming PC! Intel has some new processors, too: Panther Lake will be the successor to Lunar Lake, and Intel says it plans to release this new hardware in the second half of 2025. There’s some talk about Panther Lake having more cores than Lunar Lake (that would be nice), but nothing official yet. AMD is rumored to be working on “Strix Halo” hardware aimed at high performance, but the company hasn’t announced anything official yet. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for CES 2025 in January, where the company will likely make some relevant announcements. Qualcomm is also promising less expensive Snapdragon X Plus-powered Arm laptops. The company is aiming for a $700 to $900 price point with new Snapdragon X Plus-powered chips focused on power efficiency. But Qualcomm isn’t just chasing lower prices. The company looks like it’s working on “Snapdragon X Gen 2” hardware, too, according to a leak from Dell. These processors may launch in mid-2025, if rumors are true. Expect power efficiency and performance upgrades. In 2025, the laptop market is heating up and becoming exciting again. I just wish there was more new hardware coming for gaming laptops! Read...

The graphics card hype train left the station weeks before CES 2025 kicks off in early January, with the launch of Intel’s $249 Arc B580 – the GPU we’ve begged for since the pandemic. But make no mistake: Intel decided to launch its second-gen Arc in December because CES is shaping up to be an absolute banger for graphics card releases. Nvidia is already teasing an RTX 50-series announcement at CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote, while the rumor mill claims AMD’s new Radeon cards will also make an appearance at the show. Yes, friends, after a disappointing few years for graphics cards, the next generation of gaming goodness should be unveiled at CES 2025 and Nvidia, AMD, and Intel look ready to brawl. Let’s dig in. What we expect from Nvidia at CES 2025: GeForce RTX 50-series reveal Let’s start with Nvidia’s hotly anticipated GeForce RTX 50-series, because the company is already actively, not-so-slyly teasing it. Then again, who misses the opportunity to hype your next-gen GPU in the debut trailer for Witcher 4? New GeForce cards are a given; the only question is which exact models we’ll see announced at the Nvidia keynote. But what’ll be powering them? Specs for the GeForce RTX 5090, 5080, and 5070 leaked months ago. (Hit that link for full details.) Normally, we wouldn’t give much credence to ancient rumors, but they’ve remained consistent ever since, and the timing makes sense given that the “Blackwell” GPUs were reportedly delayed by manufacturing issues. The RTX 5090 looks to be the most beastly of the bunch (no surprise there), allegedly providing huge buffs to the 4090’s CUDA count, memory capacity and bandwidth (32GB over a 512-bit bus!), and power draw – leaks say this monster of a GPU could draw 600 watts, a humongous 150W increase over its predecessor. And if you thought the RTX 4090’s $1,599 price point was high, prepare to be shocked; I expect the 5090 to cost an astronomical sum given its clear excellence in machine learning tasks if the leaked specs prove true. Button up. Nvidia is building hype for its new cards with social promotions and a massive “GeForce LAN 50” global LAN party.Nvidia Details are still largely murky about the RTX 5070 (perhaps it won’t be announced at CES?) but the RTX 5080 looks like much less of an upgrade. Rumors put its CUDA core count at 10,752, a mere 10 percent increase over the existing 4080. Memory configuration remains the same, aside from a switch from GDDR6 to GDDR7, while the total graphics power is expected to increase from 320W in the 4070 to 400W in the 5070. Keep in mind that the Blackwell architecture that powers the RTX 50-series will include technological differences from the 40-series’ Ada Lovelace architecture, so comparing raw CUDA counts isn’t really apples-to-apples. Nvidia often tinkers with the bones of its GPU architectures to improve performance in various ways (the RTX 40-series packed a new dedicated Optical Flow Accelerator to enable DLSS 3 Frame Generation, along with a new Shader Execution Reordering function to accelerate traditional rendering, for example). The biggest wildcard here? Software. Nvidia pumps out software features at a frenetic pace, releasing not only DLSS 3 Frame Generation but also DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction during the RTX 4090’s lifespan, along with helpful tools like RTX Video Super Resolution. With Nvidia reigning at the top of the stock market due to the current AI frenzy, I’d be shocked if the company doesn’t announce some new AI-powered tricks at CES 2025. What to expect from AMD at CES: Hello, Radeon and Radeon-powered handhelds? AMD Compared to Nvidia, AMD has been relatively tight-lipped about its CES plans aside from announcing a keynote on Monday, January 6, mere hours before Nvidia’s own. AMD computing and graphics chief Jack Huynh teased “our next generation of innovation across gaming, AI PC, and commercial” in reference to the keynote on X, however, so rumors of next-gen Radeon GPUs may prove true. But what sort of graphics cards does AMD have up its sleeves for the Radeon RX 8000-series (or whatever it’ll be called)? Don’t hold your breath for an RTX 5090 competitor. In September, Huynh said that trying to compete for “King of the hill” hasn’t historically worked out for Radeon. “I want to build the best products at the right system price point. So, think about price point-wise; we’ll have leadership.” The company hopes to drive higher adoption in mainstream price points to convince developers to focus on Radeon products. Gaming and AI are both very hot categories right now, and while AMD has footholds in both territories, Nvidia dominates. Currently rumors are swirling around alleged Radeon RX 8800 XT specs, which if true, means that AMD will continue to battle in all but the tippity-top of the of the GPU grunt charts. If the leaked specs are truly leaked and not simply “made up,” the card could see a big boost in both ray tracing performance and energy efficiency. But big-iron GPUs aren’t the only potential game in town. AMD’s Radeon-infused Ryzen Z1 processors power most of the current crop of gaming handhelds, from the Steam Deck to the Asus ROG Ally. The landing page for the company’s keynote says demo areas will include “AMD Ryzen and Radeon gaming from handhelds to laptops.” Sure, that could simply mean showing off the existing AMD-powered handheld portfolio. But we still haven’t seen any handhelds packing the significantly more powerful Ryzen Z2 chip, and AMD said we can expect to see those early in 2025. Valve did just update its branding guidelines to include a new “Powered by SteamOS” badge for third-party hardware, and we’re already seeing leaks of a second-gen Lenovo Legion handheld. (The first was powered by AMD.) Is CES going to be the big Z2 blitz? Fingers crossed. What to expect from Intel at CES: Arc B570 and Lunar Lake handhelds Intel just unwrapped the fantastic $249 Arc B580 in December. Expect to see the company showing off its second-gen Arc graphics cards at the show – not just partner models of the B580, but also the cheaper $129 Arc B570. That GPU was announced alongside the B580, but won’t hit the streets until January 16. Intel and its partners will no doubt be putting a spotlight on their designs in their booths. Intel I’d also expect to see at least one gaming handheld powered by Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 “Lunar Lake” laptop chip, which includes the same Xe 2 graphics cores as Arc. MSI’s Claw was the first Intel-powered gaming handheld at CES last year, and the new Lunar Lake-powered Claw AI Plus series is already being shown off, with a scheduled release date of January 15. So that’s a lock for MSI’s booth at CES. The only question is whether any other handheld vendors will take the plunge alongside MSI. I’ll be on the ground at CES 2025 with a bunch of my PCWorld buds, ready to bring you the latest news as it happens and interviews with the people making all this swell new PC hardware. The show officially runs January 7 to 10, but the big keynotes happen on Monday, January 6, with other information usually trickling out the weekend beforehand to get ahead of the deluge. Stay tuned here on PCWorld and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and TikTok so you don’t miss a thing! Hit subscribe on our Full Nerd channel too so you’ll catch our delirious thoughts in podcast form, live from Las Vegas. Read...

It seems like every new laptop lately is a “Windows Copilot+ PC.” With Intel’s Lunar Lake and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 CPUs, AI-infused Copilot+ PCs have finally expanded into traditional x86 laptop territory. They aren’t limited to just Arm-powered laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite hardware anymore. That’s good news for everyone. Along with speedy neural processing units (NPU) that are capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS), Copilot+ PCs must have at least 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. If that’s the new baseline for Windows PCs, that’s awesome. It will benefit you even if you don’t care about AI. So, your next laptop might just be a Copilot+ PC. But if you ask me, Copilot+ PCs still leave a lot to be desired. While those min specs are great, there’s more to a great laptop experience than hardware. If Microsoft wants people to truly care about Copilot+ PCs, there are some serious improvements that need to happen sooner than later. Related: PC makers say tomorrow’s AI PCs need to just keep it simple Windows needs to integrate AI better Chris Hoffman / IDG Copilot+ PCs should feel more revolutionary than they currently do. At launch, we got a collection of small little features in apps like Paint and Photos, some webcam effects, and a few other goodies. It’s just not a transformative AI experience the way those Copilot+ PC ads promised. When I hear about transformative AI integration in Windows, I imagine Windows rewriting text in any application, or summarizing anything that’s on the screen, or noticing that I’m performing a repetitive task and offering to automate it for me. What if Windows AI truly understood what you were doing on your PC and could help you get those things done? That would be interesting, but it isn’t happening on Copilot+ PCs. Privacy and choice need to be a priority Microsoft’s Windows Recall feature was supposed to be the impressive new thing that sold everyone on the power of AI PCs, and it was the centerpiece of Microsoft’s original Copilot+ PC announcement back in May 2024. Recall takes screenshots of your PC activity every five seconds, then lets you search through it all using plain-language AI queries. Of course, it was immediately controversial. While Microsoft insisted it was private and secure, there was severe backlash over privacy concerns — so severe, in fact, that the company backed down, pulled the feature, and promised to make changes to address criticism. As we reach the end of 2024, Recall continues to see delay after delay. For people to trust Copilot+ PCs, privacy, control, and user choice needs to be at the forefront. Recall was actually designed in a more private way than the controversy implied — for example, those snapshots are stored entirely on your computer and nothing is ever shared with Microsoft. But concerns are still concerns, and it’s clear that Microsoft didn’t take those concerns seriously when originally designing Recall. Future Copilot+ PC features need to be designed in a way that garners user trust from day one, without repeated delays while the company scrambles to rework features after the fact. It’s just a bad look. Copilot needs to work offline (somehow) Chris Hoffman / IDG The name “Copilot+ PC” implies that you’ll be able to do more with Microsoft’s Copilot AI chatbot assistant on such PCs. Unfortunately, that isn’t true at all. While these PCs do have a Copilot key on the keyboard, that key also exists on many non-Copilot+ PCs, too. You don’t actually get any bonus Copilot features. Want Copilot AI features in Microsoft Word and other Office apps? You won’t get it with a Copilot+ PC. Instead, you need to shell out for a Copilot Pro subscription. Not the clearest naming scheme! To deliver on the promise of the name, Microsoft should make Copilot work offline in some form, perhaps on Copilot+ PCs to provide speedy AI answers even without an internet connection — and without sending any data to Microsoft, which would be a big boon for businesses that want to maintain control over internal data. Ideally, Copilot should still be able to access Microsoft’s cloud servers for more information when necessary. But all of this really just points to an even bigger problem: Copilot itself might need a big rethink. In my experience, the new Copilot is more focused on friendly chatter than real productivity. I don’t want my laptop to be my friend — I want it to be a productivity tool! AI image features need to work offline, too The generative image features on Copilot+ PCs are a little sad. For example, Cocreator in Paint can “upgrade” something you draw, and you can also generate images in Photos. But that’s… it? On a Copilot+ PC, these features use the system’s NPU to perform AI image generation. But they require you sign in with a Microsoft account, and they send your generated image to Microsoft’s servers for safety checks before showing them to you. In other words, you have to be connected to the internet — they don’t work offline. What’s the point of using the system’s NPU to do image generation locally if it doesn’t work offline, requires a Microsoft account, and sends the image to Microsoft’s servers? You might as well just use cloud-based AI image solutions that do all the work on a cloud server somewhere. Image generation models need to catch up Chris Hoffman / IDG The argument for using cloud-based AI image tools is especially strong because the image generation models on Copilot+ PCs just aren’t great. Yes, they technically work… but they’re far behind the latest AI image generation models you can find elsewhere. Cloud-powered models like OpenAI’s DALL-E 3, which is used by Copilot and Microsoft Designer, generate much higher-quality images. Copilot+ PCs need to be more competitive with the latest cloud-powered AI image models that can be used on any device, even phones. Otherwise, what’s the point? AI features should support NPUs and GPUs Gaming PCs are being left out of the Copilot+ PC push. That’s a shame because a powerful GPU isn’t just for gaming — it’s also the best way to run local AI models with the fastest possible performance. Indeed, while NPUs are getting all the hype, GPUs are still the fastest way to run many local AI applications that do the work on your own PC. NPUs are useful for AI tasks because they provide better performance than a CPU and less energy usage than a GPU. And with Copilot+ PCs being all about long battery life and power efficiency, it’s clear why NPUs are in the spotlight. But what about when battery life and power efficiency aren’t so important? GPUs are still the best for that, and that means gaming laptops shouldn’t be overlooked for AI tasks. When designing Copilot+ PCs and Windows AI features, Microsoft has ignored GPUs — if your computer doesn’t have an NPU, it simply can’t use those AI features. That’s a mistake. Related: The best gaming laptops that perform well Desktop PCs and gaming laptops should also be Copilot+ PCs Orva Studio / Unsplash Copilot+ PCs are currently limited to thin-and-light laptops. Do you have a desktop? Too bad. It can’t yet be a Copilot+ PC. Do you want a gaming laptop with a powerful CPU like Intel’s Raptor Lake refresh? Also too bad. That can’t be a Copilot+ PC either. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite hardware is only for laptops, and the company canceled its planned Snapdragon mini PC. Intel’s Arrow Lake Core Ultra desktop chips include an NPU that’s too slow for Copilot+ PC features, and AMD’s Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs don’t have an NPU at all. Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm need to release processors for other form factors, not just the thin-and-light laptops that are in vogue. Of course, this will likely happen in time: Qualcomm has said it plans to release its Snapdragon X processors for PC desktops, and Intel and AMD will surely bring faster NPUs to desktops in the future, too. Apps need to use that Copilot runtime Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC specification isn’t just about getting new AI features built into Windows. It’s about establishing an entirely new type of app that requires AI-related hardware and a minimum hardware level for developers to target. When Microsoft first announced Copilot+ PCs, it also announced the Windows Copilot Runtime, which is a collection of AI models that are built directly into Windows. Windows applications can take advantage of these AI models… but only if you’re on a qualified Copilot+ PC. Some companies have told me about how their Windows applications can take advantage of NPUs for AI tasks, but I’ve yet to hear about a single application that uses the Windows Copilot Runtime for AI. If the industry wants to sell Copilot+ PCs for their unique features, Windows app devs will need to ship apps that take advantage of that Copilot Runtime. That’s a tall order, though. Most AI applications are being built in a cross-platform way using cloud-based AI processing so they can run on any platform, whether a Windows PC or a Chromebook or an Android phone. Microsoft will have to convince app developers to build AI features that work only on a certain subset of Windows 11 PCs — and without proper incentives, it’s unlikely for any to take them up on that. Bonus: The prices need to come down IDG One final but obvious point: Copilot+ PCs need to come down in price to achieve widespread adoption — and they do need to achieve widespread adoption if app developers are going to take them seriously enough to develop specialized software for them. If Copilot+ PCs stay as high-end niche products used only by PC enthusiasts, then they’re going to be easy to ignore. They won’t get the software they need to be interesting, and Microsoft won’t be moved to release interesting Windows features that only a few can use. Right now, we’re nearing the end of 2024 and it’s still hard to get a Copilot+ PC for much less than $1,000. You may be able to save a couple hundred bucks if you catch a Qualcomm Snapdragon X laptop on sale, otherwise you’re out of luck. That’s no surprise, though, as those laptops just came out (and Intel Lunar Lake and AMD Ryzen AI 300-powered laptops just started to trickle out at the end of 2024). We’re going to need to see the price come way down in the future so that people will happily buy Copilot+ PCs instead of getting last year’s laptops at half the price. A premium pricing strategy is a good way for hardware manufacturers to make money on their hardware, but a bad way to build an application platform. Fortunately, we’ve seen some first moves on this, like Qualcomm talking about a cheaper Snapdragon X Plus chip that’ll pave the way for $700 Copilot+ laptops. And, of course, if prices do drop, that’ll be good for everyone. Whether the AI features are useful or not, I look forward to more affordable laptops with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage as the minimum! Further reading: The best laptop deals (updated daily) Read...