Laptop

The Acer Aspire E 15 is an Amazon bestseller, and with good reason. The updated version of the notebook—with an i5-8520U, MX150, and 256 GB SSD is currently going for under MSRP.

AMD’s press conference earlier today contained a number of interesting new AMD-powered devices. One that stood out was the refreshed Huawei MateBook D with Ryzen APU and Vega graphics.

Red and Green in one consumer laptop without any tricks or eGPU docks. The Asus X570ZD laptop will be the first to incorporate a Ryzen 7 2700U APU with integrated Vega 10 graphics and a dedicated GeForce GTX 1050 GPU for more demanding tasks like gaming. AMD is promising the graphics switching technology to be seamless not unlike the current implementation of Nvidia Optimus on Intel-powered laptops. Prices, SKUs, and availability are all still under wraps for now.

Take a picture of yourself using any laptop outdoors for a chance to win a brand new Max-Q laptop. Max-Q technology was designed for thin-and-light gaming notebooks that can also be used on-the-go like an Ultrabook. Only four winners will be announced on July 30th with specific Max-Q models from Acer, Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte.

The Acer Predator Helios 500 is a powerful gaming laptop with an overclockable Intel i9-8950HK processor and the choice between a 144 Hz Gsync display or a color accurate 4K panel. Acer uses metal blades in their 3D fan design, which they claim improves cooling.

USB Type-C Gen. 2 is still rather uncommon on notebooks. The single-chip controller solution from Cypress should make it less expensive for both Intel and AMD to integrate multiple USB Type-C Gen. 2 ports onto laptops while allowing for 100 W power delivery and better fail-safe mechanisms.

If you are searching for a 15-inch hexa-core laptop but maybe budget is not that generous, MSI has you covered with the GF63 series which should be launched soon. This sub-US$1000 model integrates the Intel i7-8750H six-core CPU coupled with 8 or 16 GB of RAM, and can pack a 256 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD storage combo. Users can also choose between the GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti GPUs.

It was a long time coming: Laptop pioneer Toshiba wants to sell its laptop business and it has found a buyer. Sharp, a subsidiary of the huge ODM Foxconn, will buy the business for a comparably low price.

The lightweight laptop is exactly as thin as the ZenBook 3 UX490UA but with improved cooling and a unique hinge setup. Asus is promising better ergonomics and external GPU (eGPU) support via its integrated Thunderbolt 3 ports. The system launches in one week for $1200 USD.

For now, the top configuration of the XPS 15 9570 with a non-touch full HD display available in the US via Dell.com sports an Intel Core i7-8750H processor. However, Frank Azor has just confirmed that more setups will be available later this month, including one that features the i9-8950HK processor out of the box.

The VivoBook is Asus’s general consumer-focused product line, with the S-series sitting in the crossroad of trade-offs between portability, battery life, and performance, making it a good general-purpose notebook.

The Asus ZenBook Pro 15 UX580 is a sleek and sexy looking premium notebook that packs an Intel i9-8950HK and Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti. The UX580 includes a touchscreen trackpad with functionality similar to Apple's Touchbar and the ability to drag desktop windows onto it like a secondary display.

30% more performance, 20% longer battery life and 20% faster Gigabit LTE speeds are the main features compared to the existing Snapdragon 835 SoC.

The Sabre series is back with updated features and even Intel Optane support. The chassis design, however, is looking to be identical to last year's model with the only changes being exclusively internal. Gigabyte says it will be the first gaming laptop to ship with Core i7+ CPUs meaning that users can configure with Optane memory to boost HDD transfer rates.

"Wonder Woman" and "Asus" come together like peanut butter and jelly. The titular actress was appointed to brand ambassador for Asus PCs early this year and Asus is leveraging that fact again for Computex 2018. The move will hopefully boost Asus' public image to ultimately sell more PCs worldwide.

The 14-inch PS42 ships with Intel U-class CPUs and a GeForce MX150 GPU in an aluminum chassis very similar to that of the 15.6-inch GS65. The design could potentially lead to a proper successor for the old GS43 Shadow since the two Prestige and Gaming G Series families almost always share chassis designs. The PS42 will ship in Europe by the end of next month.

A press release from Dell Technologies has shown that the Texas-based company has enjoyed strong results for the first financial quarter of fiscal year 2019. Total net revenue stood at US$21.4 billion, which is a considerable increase over the US$18 billion revenue earned for the first quarter of the previous fiscal year.

MSI decided to announce its high-end 17-inch GT75 Titan 8RG and mid-high GE73 Raider RGB right before Computex 2018, and the two models will be on display in Taipei. The GE73 Raider RGB comes with Intel Core i7 hexa-core CPUs and GTX 1070 GPUs, while the GT75 Titan 8RG sports the more expensive i9 hexa-cores and desktop-grade GTX 1080 GPUs. l

As previously rumored, Asus now has a proper competitor to the MSI GS65 with its ROG GL504 series. The 15.6-inch laptop offers 144 Hz IPS panels, 3 ms gray-to-gray response times, and quad-antenna ROG RangeBoost technology for the first time in a laptop that promises 30 percent wider WiFi coverage than dual-antenna configurations. The GL504 launches next quarter for 1550 Euros.

The Killer xTend software turns Killer Wireless equipped computers into wireless extenders via hotspot or mesh networking. The host computer can extend the network via either wireless or LAN, and Killer's traffic prioritisation and optimisation is in effect for the host and any connected devices.

These two unconfirmed quad-core APUs could potentially be part of AMD's high-performance Ryzen series for gaming laptops. If true, laptop gamers may finally have a proper alternative to the ubiquitous i7-6700HQ, i5-7300HQ, i7-7700HQ, and i7-8750H CPUs that power essentially all the latest gaming notebooks in the market today. With Computex right around the corner, we're crossing our fingers for a proper announcement.

The mainstream 14-inch SKU will serve as the AMD alternative to the existing Intel MagicBook with Core i5-8250U CPUs and GeForce MX150 graphics. Chinese retailers are already detailing the "Sharp Dragon" Ryzen configuration albeit without an official price for now. Unfortunately, don't expect the MagicBook to launch globally anytime soon. The Vega 8 should offer a similar graphics experience as the GeForce 940MX.

Qualcomm is said to be working on a new "Snapdragon 1000" ARM-based chip that it is targeting for Windows 10 machines by either late 2018 or 2019. What will set this chip apart is that it is being specially designed for Windows 10 on ARM PCs with a higher TDP for true notebook-class performance.

Using the 7 nm manufacturing process, the new ARM Cortex-A76 CPU will bring "laptop-class" performance to handheld devices. The new CPU features a totally new architecture that delivers 35% increased performance, 40% improved power efficiency and 4 times increased machine learning workloads for the upcoming "always connected" Windows on ARM PCs.

Despite swiftly killing off its Chrome OS-based Yoga Book early last year, Lenovo may have been silently working on a brand new Yoga Book 2 all along. The "YOGA BOOK Pen2" could suggest a brand new stylus for a yet-to-be-announced Yoga Book successor. The original Yoga Book launched two years ago as an attractively thin 10.1-inch Windows convertible with a proof-of-concept touch keyboard.

Dell could very well join in the Windows 10 on ARM bandwagon alongside new devices Asus, HP, and Lenovo if word on the street is to be believed. Dell was earlier skeptical of Windows 10 on ARM and adopted a wait and watch approach. That could change now and in fact, Dell could be one of the first to realize Microsoft's 'ultimate mobile device' dream.

One of the ROG gaming laptops that will get the slim display bezels this year is the GL504 model which has not yet been officially announced, but it is very close to launch since it is up for pre-order at a Polish e-tailer. The specs include everything gamers need right now, from15.6-inch IPS screens with 144 Hz refresh rates and hexa-core CPUs, to GTX 1070 GPUs and NVMe + SSHDs. storage combos.

Alongside the Mi 8 reveal, Xiaomi also showed off a limited edition Mi 8 Explorer Edition. The Mi 8 Explorer Edition features an in-display fingerprint sensor and a transparent back that reveals the innards. The Mi 8 Explorer Edition is limited to China as of now and will be available only in defined quantities.

The refreshed Omen 15 gaming laptops gets a slightly smaller chassis and, consequently, thinner bezels on the display. users will be able to choose 4K@60 Hz and even Nvidia G-Sync enabled ones. CPU support was extended to Intel's hexa-core models, while the Max-Q GPUs get upgraded to the GTX 1070 variant.

Qualcomm is working on an exclusive SoC for upcoming Windows 10 on ARM devices. Entries for a new Snapdragon chip were found on Geekbench and all clues point it to be a performance-based variant of the Snapdragon 845 adapted for the extra thermal headroom in notebooks and 2-in-1s.

Samsung has issued a press release to announce its new range of small outline dual in-line memory modules (SoDIMMs). The modules are based on 10 nm-class process technology and offer 32 GB of double data rate 4 (DDR4) memory. Future high-end gaming-oriented laptop releases are the target devices for the new modules.

Using Power banks is normal in the world of smartphones, but in the laptop-space they are not seen that often. One of the reasons is that only a few battery packs have enough power to charge a laptop. Hoping to profit from accessory sales, the PC manufacturer Lenovo has now released a power bank made explicitly for its ThinkPad and IdeaPad laptops.

Gamers in the market for a new gaming laptop can purchase a budget Intel 8th gen system with the Core i5-8300H and get nearly the same CPU performance as a pricier Intel 7th gen system with the Core i7-7700HQ. The i5-8300H introduces Hyper-Threading to the series whereas the older i5-7300HQ was limited to only half the threads for measurably slower CPU performance.

HP has released reports for the fiscal 2018 second quarter results, and it seems to have been a good financial quarter overall for the California-based company. Net revenue was US$14 billion and GAAP net earnings stood at US$1.1 billion. HP’s results topped a Wall Street prediction of US$13.57 billion for net revenue.

Two new CPUs belonging to AMD 'Raven Ridge' Ryzen family were recently spotted online and on the Asus Crosshair VII Hero motherboard CPU list. Named the Athlon 200GE and the Athlon Pro 200GE, these are dual core CPUs with a base frequency of 3.2 GHz and a TDP rated at 35W.

USB is about to get more complicated in the next couple of years. Now that USB 3.1 Gen. 2 is almost four years old, a Californian company is ready to introduce the world to USB 3.2 and has even demonstrated how fast the new standard will be through video. If all goes well, USB 3.2 could provide similar transfer rates as Thunderbolt 2 or twice that of USB 3.1 Gen. 2.

Sometimes delays can be benefic for laptops, since at least some of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835-powered Windows 10 portables that were expected to arrive this year will use the faster Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor instead, which also has a noticeably faster frequency than when used in smartphones.

Laptops, smartphones, and convertibles are slowly eating into the shrinking tablet market. The biggest bright spot is perhaps the convertible notebook market with the only positive compound annual growth rate of 8.8 percent until 2022. Sales of traditional laptops aren't as steep as previous years due in part to the increasing sales of gaming PCs and inexpensive Chromebooks.

Chromebooks could soon get a substantial performance boost, as the Chrome OS developers are planning to support Intel's Kaby Lake-G CPUs that come with the dedicated AMD Radeon RX Vega M GPU. The first Chromebook that would include such specs is codenamed "Kidd" and it was discovered mentioned in the Chromium code commit repository.

The new Acer Swift 5 15.6-inch is a larger version of the Swift 5 which uses magnesium alloys to keep the weight under 1 kg. This is an impressive feat for a laptop of this size and it puts the Swift 5 15.6-inch in competition with the LG Gram 15 in features, build, and hardware.

During the Next@Acer event today, Acer announced new 14 and 15.6-inch versions of the Acer Swift 3. The smaller model is available in Stellar Blue, Sakura Pink, Lava Red, or Sparkly Silver while the larger model comes in gold or Sparkly Silver.