Laptop

With the 2018 EliteBooks, HP has put a focus on premium-features such as a Unibody-design and higher-quality displays – which of course also raises the costs. To bridge the gap compared with its older EliteBooks, HP has released a refresh of its older EliteBook 840 G4, which brings the newest CPUs to the older design.

Reliance Jio, the largest cellular network provider in India, is teaming up with Qualcomm for an inexpensive Snapdragon-powered Windows 10 laptop with integrated LTE. No word yet on the exact SoC planned or if the notebook would be based on an existing design from a major manufacturer. The idea is similar in concept to Intel eSIM which has garnered a very slow adoption rate.

The refreshed X407/X507 ultrabooks are some of the slimmest models out there, featuring CPUs up to gen 7 Core i7-7500U coupled with up to 8 GB DDR4 RAM, Nvidia's GeForce MX110 GPUs, storage combos made of a 256 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD, Nanoedge IPS FHD displays with thin bezels, and fingerprint sensors compatible with Windows Hello.

Sales of desktop PCs and laptops are continuing their downward trend into the new year according to Gartner. While EMEA is seeing a slight uptick, the sharper declines in other regions worldwide paint a more pessimistic picture. This latest quarter marks the fourteenth in a row of slowing PC sales. Note that the data does not include iPads or Android tablets.

The flagship Huawei MateBook X may soon be accompanied by a mainstream Honor laptop offering. It's possible that Huawei wants to expand its product portfolio in an attempt to keep Xiaomi at bay. Beyond the April 19th announcement date, however, there is no word yet on the specifications of the supposed Honor MagicBook or what regions it will be available in.

HP has unveiled its latest Chromebook offering with the Chromebook x2. It is the first Chromebook to be offered in a detachable form factor and is powered by the Intel 7th generation Core m3 processor that can be paired with up to 8 GB LPDDR3 RAM. HP compares the Chromebook x2 to the iPad Pro and shows how the former is a better value for money in most aspects.

With the promise of all-day battery life, always-on LTE, and smartphone-like standby and resume, the first Windows 10 on ARM devices are here. Windows 10 on ARM may be great feat of engineering, but it does come with limitations unique to it, impacting what one can and cannot get out of an ARM-powered PC. Windows 10 on ARM is still in its infancy and, in its current manifestation, is better worth skipping for future refinements.

Market intelligence provider IDC has released a report detailing the state of the worldwide traditional PC market for the first quarter of 2018 (1Q18). According to the data, both Dell and HP have seen increases in market share in comparison to the first quarter of 2017 (1Q17). However, the total of global PC shipments for the quarter has experienced a flat year-on-year growth.

Exklim has launched a kickstarter campaign for their ultra-portable take on external GPU's. Equipped with a GTX 1050 MXM card and running solely on power provided by the Thunderbolt 3 connection removes the need for additional power supplies and makes this a solution that can really be tucked into a laptop bag. The eX Core is still in the kickstarter stage and the marketing material leans towards promising more than the device might be capable of, but nevertheless it is an interesting product that is worth keeping an eye on.

AMD has released OEM-specific variants of RX 500 GPUs for both desktop and mobile. Dubbed the RX 500X, this is a simple re-badging exercise for OEMs help in advertising new systems. The RX 500X series are exactly the same as their corresponding base parts but OEMs can tune their clock speeds for thermal and power reasons.

The refreshed G75 Titan gaming laptops are the only MSI series to pack the high-end i9 hexa-core mobility CPUs. The rather bulky chassis feature large intakes/exhausts and gamers can choose among several configurations that can include the more affordable i7 hexa-core CPUs coupled with 16/32 GB of DDR4-2666 RAM, GTX 1070/1080 GPUs, and a choice between FHD 3 ms TN or 4K 17.3-inch panels.

The Pavilion Power series is now the more aptly-named Pavilion Gaming series to tackle on the newly announced mainstream Dell G gaming series. Currently, SKUs are limited to a single 15.6-inch chassis but with a very wide range of CPU, GPU and display options up to the Core i7-8750H with Optane memory and GTX 1060 Max-Q graphics for $1020 USD.

The inexpensive FX504 gaming notebook comes equipped with a Coffee Lake-H CPU and GTX 1050 GPU for a starting price of only $700 USD. The system is intended to complement the recently revealed mainstream Zephyrus GM501 and enthusiast ROG G703 that are also shipping with Intel 8th gen Core ix CPUs.

A new desktop thin client and two new notebook thin clients from Fujitsu offer compact computing for businesses who use a centralized access server to protect company data and improve security. These thin clients run low-powered hardware but offer fast networking connections. The operating systems supported are eLux RP6 or Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.

The Fermi microarchitecture was first released 8 years ago, and was used in the 400, 500, 600 series on desktop and mobile, as well as the 700 and 800 series mobile cards. Nvidia has now stopped support for these GPUs, with a full list of affected cards in the article.

If Microsoft is serious about keeping its Windows 10 on ARM dreams alive, it needs to bring support for 64-bit x86-based apps to the platform as soon as possible. A new SDK set to be introduced next month could help make this happen sooner rather than later.

The Taiwanese manufacturer is promising a battery life of up to 17 hours with the new Swift 1 SF114-32. Its starting price in Europe is at 450 Euros to be competitive against other budget offerings shipping with Celeron CPUs. The model is yet to be available in North America where the latest SKU is carrying only the Pentium N4200.

The newly announced HP ZBook Studio x360 G5 is a creator and designer focused convertible that packs workstation class Intel Xeon and Nvidia Quadro hardware into a flexible device. It features a screen that meets 100% of the AdobeRGB color standard and a pen with 4000 levels of sensitivity. HP claims it is the most powerful convertible notebook in the world, placing it ahead of the Microsoft Surface Book 2 and new Dell XPS 15 9575

Among HP's refreshed ZBook line of portable workstations is the ZBook 15V, which HP is aiming squarely at a broader consumer market. The workstation, which starts at USD $950, can be specced with up to an Intel Core i7-8750H or Xeon E-2176M CPU and quite a few other powerful components.

The heavily customizable EVO15-S gaming laptops are getting refreshed with Intel's latest hexacore CPUs, new 4K screens and GTX 1070 Max-Q GPUs to reduce the Chassis profile even more. Users can add up to 32 GB of DDR4-2666 and up to 1 TB of NVMe SSD storage combiend with up to 2 TB HDDs. Prices start at ~US$1,600.

Kingston Technology has released a new SSD to its extensive product line-up. The A1000 is a PCIe NVMe solid state drive that is available with three different storage capacities: 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB. The A1000 is an entry-level solution in an M.2-2280 form factor, with prices starting at US$119.60 for the 240 GB variant, US$218.40 for the 480 GB model, and US$403 for the 960 GB version.

Samsung's lesser-known Odyssey gaming series is getting an overhaul. The completely new design is aiming at the thin-and-light market with its unique outer lid, keyboard design, and vapor chamber cooler to stand out from the crowd. The system will be available later this month in South Korea.

It's a big day for Intel with new laptops coming in from every direction seemingly all at once. We've compiled a list of everything announced to keep track of it all and we expect more to be come throughout the rest of the month. Here is the first wave of Coffee Lake-H notebooks.

Dell has announced refreshes to its Alienware 15 and 17 gaming notebooks. Dubbed the 15R4 and the 17R5, these notebooks come with all the hexa-core overclockable goodness of Intel's new 'Coffee Lake-H' CPUs in a premium finish. The new Alienwares feature a multitude of customization options, including GPU choices from AMD and NVIDIA and debut a new TactX keyboard with support for n-key rollover. Dell also introduced an updated Alienware Command Center software to offer more granular control over the CPU and GPU. Also on the anvil is a new rewards program. Both the Alienware notebooks are available for purchase starting this month.

Dell has announced a new G-series of budget-friendly gaming laptops which offer a more affordable alternative to their premium Alienware line-up. This move helps to separate their gaming laptops from the Inspiron notebooks, even though the G5 looks distinctly like the previous Inspiron 15 7000.

The Dell XPS 15 9570 is certainly one of the highly anticipated refreshes both fans and reviewers were eager to catch hold of. In the wake of the 'Coffee Lake-H' launch, Dell has unveiled what could be its most ambitious XPS 15 yet. Sporting CPU options up to the Core i9-8950HK and GPU options up to the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, the XPS 15 9570 has everything a multimedia enthusiast would require and more. Prices start from US$999 for the Core i5-8300H variant with expected availability sometime in May 2018.

The latest 15.6-inch Nitro 5 laptops from Acer will integrate CPUs up to Intel's hexa-core i7-8850H coupled with as much as 32 GB of DDR4-2666 RAM and 512 NVMe SSD storage. All refreshed models will also include Nvidia's GTX 1050 Ti GPUs, an FHD IPS display and support for Intel's Optane memory. Availability is slated for May.

Asus is expanding its Zephyrus family with a new member equipped with the latest Intel Coffee Lake-H Core i7-8750H CPU. The processor upgrade is not surprising, but the fact that the updated design is backtracking on some defining characteristics of the original Zephyrus is unexpected. It also introduces manual graphics switching for the first time in the family.

The Intel Core i9 for mobile has arrived and it brings native Optane support to gaming laptops for the first time. Asus has internally refreshed its powerful 17.3-inch gaming notebook to take advantage of the faster Turbo Boost, faster DDR4-2666 RAM, and Optane memory options. The chassis and core hardware features remain identical.

The bezels of the brand-new design are just 4.9 mm thick on three sides for a high 82 percent screen-to-body ratio. MSI is promising the thinnest bezels ever on a 15.6-inch gaming notebook for a final chassis size close to that of a 14-inch notebook. Of course, 8th gen Core i7 options will come standard.

All the new updates on the second generation model will be the 144 Hz/7 ms and 4K UHD Pantone-certified display options, USB 3.1 Type-A instead of USB 3.0, a faster UHS-II SD reader for up to 300 MB/s, a slightly thinner 1.8 cm profile, Dolby Atmos audio software, ambient light sensor, a sleeker "AERO" logo, and finally a hexa-core Core i7-8750H to top it all off.

The Core i7-8750H offers the biggest leap in performance that the 45 W HQ-Series has seen in years. Its CineBench R15 Multi-Thread score of 1168 points is just 15 percent slower than a stock Core i7-8700K. Actual performance, however, will be highly dependent on the overarching cooling solution as we are able to record a score as low as 966 points on a pre-production MSI GS65 sample.

The Aorus X9 in particular will receive the unlocked Core i9-8950H CPU, GTX 1080 GPU, and 144 Hz IPS display option with G-Sync for $3900 USD. Gone is the dual GTX 1070 SLI option in favor of a redesigned cooling solution fit for a single GPU. The 13.9-inch Aorus x3 will be the only one left out of 8th gen Coffee Lake-H bandwagon.

The new Samsung Notebook 5 and Notebook 3 come with 7th and 8th generation Intel Core i7 (quad-core models only) processor options, a dual storage system, as well as up to NVIDIA GeForce MX150 graphics options. Both notebooks are expected to hit South Korea later this month, and other markets will follow in Q2 2018.