Laptop

Cheap displays, low RAM and storage, and older generation CPUs or GPUs are common tricks that manufacturers like to use. Uninformed buyers may think they're getting a good deal, but the sly cut corners can sometimes be steep.

ASUS continues to tease the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, a foldable laptop that the company unveiled in January at CES 2022. Now, the company has finally provided a fixed launch date for the 17-inch laptop, which provides a 12.5-inch panel when folded. The ASUS Zenbook 17 OLED also offers an Intel Core i7-1250U and Thunderbolt 4 ports, among other features.

Manchester United, one of the best-known soccer franchises worldwide, has unveiled Qualcomm as one of its latest partners. The collaboration will apparently involve consultations to improve wireless connectivity within the team's historical Old Trafford headquarters, as well as a lot more Snapdragon logos to be seen around that stadium and its squad's branding going forward.

The model is one of the first 16-inch convertibles to include discrete Intel Arc graphics whereas the Dell Inspiron 7620 2-in-1 ships with the GeForce MX550 instead.

The Asus TUF F15 is a mid-range QHD gaming laptop with a well-rounded configuration: A Core i7-12650H, a GeForce RTX 3070 laptop GPU, 16 GB of RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. The matte QHD display covers the DCI-P3 color space almost completely. The E-cores of the Alder Lake CPU can be turned off.

A quite capable configuration of the relatively new Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 with one of AMD's latest Ryzen 6000 CPUs has received a notable discount that almost drops its price below the crucial US$1,000 threshold.

Apple has now added the first Touch Bar Mac — the 2016 Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch — to its vintage product list. The 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro is joined by seven other Mac computers and two 9.7-inch iPad Pros. Products in Apple's vintage list are typically ineligible for official servicing, but customers still get an additional couple of years subject to parts availability.

The good-looking Asus TUF Dash F15 has now received its first noteworthy discount on Amazon, which makes the 15-inch gaming laptop a good deal for mobile gamers who are looking for a light but still capable mid-range machine with a decent CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 and Thunderbolt 4 connectivity.

The AMD Ryzen 5 6600U is the latest Zen 3+ “Rembrandt” mobile processor to make its way onto the PassMark test site, with a single sample displaying good enough results to keep up with the more-powerful Intel Core i7-1260P. Along with beefed-up TDP and clock rates, the Ryzen 5 6600U can also brag of having an RDNA2-powered iGPU.

It may be equipped with the latest fancy 12th gen CPUs from Intel, but the wrapping is starting show its age.

The Arc A770M, a flagship mobile Intel GPU card, managed to score above 10k points in TimeSpy, per tipster @_rogame. This puts it ahead of the GeForce RTX 3060 mobile. As with the A380, however, driver support could paint a different picture when it comes to in-game performance.

Lenovo's affordable gaming laptop from the IdeaPad series offers a lot of bang for the buck in the US$500 price range as it is equipped with an admirably performing Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 and a Core i5-11300H quad-core processor from Intel's Tiger Lake family of mobile CPUs.

Dell's Inspiron 15 5515 is a simple office notebook that fulfills its intended purpose, but also leaves quite a bit to be desired. It scores with good battery runtimes under testing, but does not fully utilize the potential of the AMD Ryzen 7 CPU.

Numbers don't lie. We're disappointed that most laptop makers thus far haven't been implementing the Core i7-1260P to its full potential. The situation is bad enough that even the Core i5-1240P is running consistently faster in multi-threaded workloads than many Core i7-1260P laptops at the moment.

The Lenovo V17 G2 is an entry-level 17-inch office laptop that is also targeted toward multimedia content with its Nvidia graphics. However, our test shows that the GeForce MX350 doesn't make sense in this laptop class and that the more affordable model with the Intel Core i5 and Intel iGPU is the better choice.

Windows on ARM has been around for years. But it hasn't managed to break through into the mainstream yet due to the lack of fast processors and poor software compatibility. Whilst the CPU issue still lingers, the software situation has been greatly improved with Windows 11, as the Asus ExpertBook B3 Detachable shows.

The feature makes it easy to search and insert GIFs and emoticons when messaging. There's no longer an excuse to *not* reply with GIFs now.

The Core i5-1235U offers similar CPU performance as the Core i5-1135G7 while consuming less power, but graphics performance has taken a hit.

Gigabyte has announced new G5 and G7 gaming laptops, both in three configurations with Intel Alder Lake and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. Equipped with high refresh rate displays, the Gigabyte G5 and G7 feature up to the Core i5-12500H and an RTX 3060, among other components.

An unknown AMD Ryzen 6000 series processor, likely the Ryzen 3 6400 or Ryzen 3 6300, has been benchmarked on Geekbench. In the CPU benchmark, it scored 1,321 and 4,261 in the single and multi-core tests. Its RDNA2 iGPU pushed its OpenCL benchmark score to 13,755.

Huawei has revealed the latest version of the MateBook X Pro in China, which starts at CNY 8,999 (~US$1,330) with an Intel Core i5-1240P processor. Also available with a Core i7-1260P and a unique skin-soothing metallic body option, the MateBook Pro X 2022 can cost up to CNY 12,999 (~US$1,922) for the fully configured option.

For years, the premier class of ThinkPad laptops was exclusively equipped with Intel CPUs. With our newest review device, this is over: The Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 is the first high-end ThinkPad with AMD CPUs.

Frugal 1080p gamers who are still looking for a suitable 15-inch gaming laptop in the sub-US$800 price range might want to consider a current deal on the quite popular and budget-friendly RTX 3050 Ti configuration of the Dell G15.

A new type of Best Buy store has launched in North Carolina to offer consumers a "new" and possibly much more 2022 way to shop. The space, while nearly a tenth of the size of the average store associated with the chain, is rated to offer in-person consultations as well as a range of the latest or most popular products, in a way that might better adapt to the trend of consumers to shop and order online instead.

ORICO is a USB hub and storage accessory OEM that has just launched a new line of portable SSDs. Its MTQ-40G flagships have Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 ports with an up to 40 gigabit per second (Gbps) data-transmission rate, and are up to 2TB in capacity. However, they also stand out due to "durable" multi-colored exteriors styled after one of Piet Mondrian's most famous paintings.

ASUS has started selling the ROG Flow X16 in Europe, where it starts at €2,499. Paired with AMD Ryzen 6000 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs, the ROG Flow X16 also has a Mini LED display that peaks at 1,000 nits in a convertible design. The ROG Flow X16 nearly hits €4,000 in some configurations, though.

The AMD Ryzen 5 6600H processor has finally made its way onto PassMark where it has produced synthetic benchmark results that put it into close-quarter confrontation with the Intel Core i5-12600H. However, while the Alder Lake part has to make do with Iris XE Graphics (80 EUs), the Rembrandt chip can boast of having an RDNA2-powered Radeon 660M iGPU.

The Ryzen 6000-powered Legion 5 Pro has landed on Lenovo's US website for the first time. As if to mark this event, the OEM has announced an inaugural Legion Tower 5i giveaway for its Community website. It has a Tiger Lake processor with 12GB of RTX 3060 graphics.

The new Dell XPS 13 Plus is equipped with a fast CPU, but our review revealed some problems and questionable design decisions. This means the laptop is not as good as it could be and Dell might be losing touch with its competitors.

Mounting two external displays onto your laptop sounds pretty cool on paper, but it can be a huge hassle in practice. The FOPO monitor extender is bogged down by its own awkward build and extensive cable requirements.

Dell and Canonical continue to collaborate on bringing Ubuntu to the XPS series. The XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition is now the first laptop certified for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, which builds on the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS that Dell already ships with the XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS will begin shipping with the XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition from next month onwards.

Honor has refreshed the MagicBook 14 2022 with AMD Ryzen 6000 APUs. While Honor already offers the MagicBook 14 2022 with Intel Alder Lake and NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, AMD-powered models have RDNA 2-based graphics up their sleeves. The MagicBook 14 2022 starts at a lower price with AMD Ryzen APUs too.

Acer's Swift X 16: The 1.8 kg light, 16-inch laptop reveals good performance benchmarks for gaming and occasional content creation in our review thanks to RTX 3050. The display (95% sRGB) is also suitable, but the competition is strong.