Last year, Google trotted out a new “Chromebook Plus” label, ensuring Chromebooks meet specific hardware requirements so that they have a certain threshold of quality and—importantly—a starting price of $400. It’s been fairly successful. Chromebooks from companies like Acer and Lenovo perform well for the money—functional, affordable hardware that does the job.
Acer’s Chromebook Plus 514 (model CB514-4H/T) is yet another laptop that achieves this goal. This specific model name doesn’t roll off the tongue, but it indicates that this is the Intel-powered model not to be confused with the AMD-powered Chromebook Plus 514 (CB514-3H/T) the company launched last fall. It’s a bit confusing, and it doesn’t help that there’s also the similarly named Acer Chromebook Plus 515, which is close in price but has a larger screen and a slightly different processor.
Photograph: Daniel Thorp-Lancaster
Despite slight differences in port selection and screen ratio between the Intel and AMD variants of the Chromebook Plus 514, expect them to perform largely the same. The grunt work for this machine is handled by a capable 13th-gen Intel Core i3-N305 processor, which is on par with other Chromebook Plus models and a nice bump over Chromebooks of years past. Combined with the 8 GB of RAM and a 512-GB solid state drive on the CB514-4HT-359X configuration Acer sent me for this review, you have a pretty speedy machine for school and work. This model is just $350 at Costco, and weirdly, the 128-GB model is more expensive at Amazon for $380.
Chrome OS is designed to be lightweight, and the Core i3-N305 processor subsequently tears through most tasks with ease. My daily ritual of writing in Google Docs while watching YouTube videos with several other tabs open never felt sluggish or unresponsive. Battery life has held up, getting me through eight-hour workdays, usually with an hour or two of battery life to spare.
Despite pulling from the cloud, Google Photos edits feel very responsive. I had a lot of fun using the built-in editor to tweak my (many) cat photos, and video edits felt nearly instantaneous. Just keep in mind this relies heavily on the speed of your internet connection to pull photos and videos down from your cloud storage, so your experience may vary.
I’ve never found myself drawn to using touch on laptops, but the 14-inch touch panel on the Chromebook Plus 514 grew on me. Chrome OS lends itself to touch, and the smooth matte display feels great to use under your fingertips (plus it doesn’t leave fingerprints). In my week of testing, I constantly found myself reaching out to get a better selection when editing photos in the Google Photos app or when I wanted to more precisely scroll through YouTube.
My one disappointment is that this isn’t a convertible laptop. The ability to swing the screen around to turn it into a quasi-tablet would make using touch more comfortable (and fun), so the clamshell design is a bit limiting. On the bright side, the hinge allows the back of the display to extend downward a bit when opened, propping it up on your table or lap for a more comfortable angle.
Conceptually, it’s very close to what Lenovo did last year with the Yoga Book 9i, complete with shorthand gestures that help you pull up a virtual keyboard or touchpad, expand the screen to fill both displays or “flick” content from one screen to the other. This is all fairly easy to get the hang of. For the most part, working with the Zenbook Duo is no different than working with two monitors on a standard PC.
Many prior dual-screen laptops suffered on the performance front, and while the Duo didn’t set any records, it’s perfectly capable across a wide spectrum of benchmarks. Business apps load and run quickly, and graphical capabilities are acceptable despite the lack of a discrete graphics processor. Even AI-oriented performance was reasonably good (again, considering there’s no GPU to boost it). If there’s a downside, it’s battery life. I got just 6 hours and 48 minutes of YouTube run time with one screen active, and that fell to 5 hours and 13 minutes with both live. Neither score is all that great.
The muscle behind this is an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU with 32 GB of RAM and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive. The port selection is fine, if a bit limited, featuring two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB-A port, and a full-size HDMI output jack.
The Zenbook Duo is fairly compact given its design, at 25 mm thick with or without the keyboard sandwiched in the middle. The complete package weighs 3.5 pounds, or 2.8 pounds without the keyboard. That’s a bit on the heavy side, which is to be expected, but less than some traditional 14-inch laptops I’ve tested in the past couple of years.
While the dual-screen concept continues to improve, it’s not without some lingering growing pains. I encountered occasional hiccups where the screens didn’t reorient from portrait to landscape automatically. And the unit had the same problem with third-party chargers that I encountered with Asus’ Zenbook 14 OLED, dropping out of plugged-in mode and switching to battery power and back, almost randomly.
Photograph: Asus
My biggest complaint however is design-related. Unlike the Yoga Book 9i, the Duo’s screens aren’t flush with each other when the screen is opened flat. Instead, one sits more than a centimeter behind the other, creating a staggered, stairstep effect. This displeases the OCD side of my brain, which insists that side-by-side screens be aligned on the same plane.
That said, having two screens does change the game when it comes to mobile productivity, even if they are a little cattywampus. I’m used to working on dual screens in my daily life when I’m desk-bound, but when I’m on the road and have to shift to working directly off a single laptop display, my productivity vanishes.
The Duo has a price tag of $1,700—and that’s for the fully loaded configuration. That’s not exactly cheap, but it’s far less expensive than most other dual-screen laptops and even competitive with many that have a single display. Ultimately, I’m hard-pressed to find a reason not to recommend this device if you’re at all like me, finding that a single, small screen fences you in and slows you down.
Chromebook users are set to get a single central hub to download apps and games for their devices, meaning they won’t have to worry about where to find the various diverse applications they might want.
Whatever app you might want to download – whether it’s Android, Linux, or a Progressive Web App (PWA – think of these as websites turned into apps) – you’ll be able to get it from the App Mall.
As Chrome Unboxed reports, the App Mall in ChromeOS will let users explore apps outside Google’s Play Store, allowing them to get deeper into customizing their laptops and doing more on their Chromebooks.
A common complaint many people have when it comes to switching to ChromeOS is that they’re often constrained to the Play Store, and hunting for apps outside of that can feel like a taxing experience.
So, the idea with the App Mall is that whatever you want in terms of all the above-mentioned software, you’ll be able to get it in one convenient location. So, this is pretty exciting news! And more people may be tempted over to ChromeOS given this easy way of accessing a lot more apps.
The App Mall is currently available to preview, and you can try it out by enabling the flag “chrome://flags/#cros-mall” in the Canary channel of ChromeOS 126. The App Mall icon will then be added to the app launcher.
Chrome Unboxed dropped a video on YouTube showing off the new app hub and it works pretty much as you’d expect. Once you find the app you want it’ll show you screenshots, and reviews, and let you pick which source to download the app from. It seems like currently in preview you can only download Android apps, but obviously, that’ll change as development progresses toward an official release.
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May 8, 1997: Apple launches the PowerBook 2400c laptop, a 4.4-pound “subnotebook” that’s the MacBook Air of its day.
The PowerBook 2400c predicts the rise of speedy, lightweight notebooks, while also paying tribute to Apple’s past. Its design echoes the original PowerBook 100. Even years later, it remains a cult favorite among many Mac users.
Today, a 4.4-pound laptop doesn’t sound particularly impressive. The modern MacBook Air weighs less than 3 pounds, making the PowerBook 2400c seem chunky by comparison. However, it came in at about half the weight of most laptops in the late 1990s. That made it an impressive engineering feat from Apple.
Despite its thin profile, the PowerBook 2400c proved surprisingly powerful. Manufactured by Apple’s old rival IBM, it came with PCI-based architecture with a 180 MHz PowerPC 603e processor and 256KB of Level 2 cache. This allowed it to run the standard business applications of the time almost as well as Apple’s more-powerful PowerBook 3400c.
And that software looked good on the computer’s 800×600, 10.4-inch active matrix TFT display. The graphics were a step above what many laptops offered at the time.
The PowerBook 2400c also boasted a 1.3GB IDE hard drive and 16MB of RAM (expandable to 48MB). The laptop’s lithium-ion battery delivered two to four hours of use between charges.
The PowerBook 2400c came with a decent array of ports, too, including one Apple Desktop Bus, one serial port, one audio out, one audio in and one HD1–30 SCSI connection, along with the onboard Mini–15 display connector.
It also packed two Type I/II PC Card slots and the option for a double-high Type III PC card for added expandability.
Later, when other Apple laptops of the era became outdated, this level of expandability gave users access to everything from USB and FireWire to Ethernet and wireless networking.
… but no CD-ROM or built-in floppy drive
As with any lightweight laptop, however, Apple made some compromises. To achieve the PowerBook 2400c’s thin form factor, Apple ditched the CD-ROM drive and internal floppy drive. However, the laptop came with an external floppy.
Nonetheless, the level of expandability made the PowerBook 2400c a computer that lived well beyond a few years. It came preloaded with the popular Mac OS 8, but with the correct modifications, it could run anything from System 7 to 2002’s Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar. Apple’s first thin laptop was particularly well-liked in Japan, where people favored lightweight laptops long before Western consumers did.
Steve Jobs kills the PowerBook 2400c
Sadly, this thin and light laptop didn’t survive the wrath of Steve Jobs. When he returned to Apple in 1997 and subsequently assumed full control (he took over as interim CEO just two months after the PowerBook 2400c was released), he began scrapping projects to streamline Apple’s offerings.
It was hard not to shed a tear when MediaWorkstation disappeared, taking its wild six-screen a-X2P workstation laptop with it.
The company’s workstation laptop promised to be an incredible, and ridiculous, powerhouse, with two AMD EPYC Genoa Zen 4 CPUs, two full-size GPUs, up to 3TB DDR5 RAM, one M.2 NVMe boost SSD, and five storage drives.
But if you still have a yearning to own a laptop with half a dozen screens attached to it, then we have good news.
Choice of screen resolutions
Acme Portable’s Megapac L3, the successor to the company’s FlexPAC III, is available to buy and while it only – only! – comes with three 24-inch displays, it can be combined with the company’s ML3 triple display accessory, for a grand total of six screens.
If you’re noticing similarities between this system and the discontinued a-X2P beast, it’s because MediaWorkstation was once a reseller for Acme Portable and had been looking to push the limits of what could be achieved with the platform.
The Megapac L3’s 3x 23.8-inch displays come in a choice of resolutions – UHD (3840×2160) with up to 800 nits brightness, Full HD (1920×1080) with up to 1000 nits, or WUXGA (1920×1200) with 1000 nits, all featuring an optional touchscreen.
It’s powered by a single/dual Intel Xeon, Intel Core, AMD Ryzen or AMD EPYC CPU, with up to 1TB DDR4 RAM and up to 150TB storage. There are seven expansion slots, and it comes with an 850W auto-switching power supply, although there are 1000W or 1200W PSU’s available.
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The dimensions for the three screen Megapac L3 are 16.39-inches high, 22.96-inches wide and 11.98-inches deep, with a weight of 52.82 lbs. It comes with a 105-key keyboard with an integrated touchpad, padded rolling transit case, and can be customized to military specifications.
There’s no pricing available on the website, but if you want the Megapac L3, with three or six screens, you can contact them with your requirements.
Lenovo has taken the wraps off its sleek, lightweight, and power-packed ThinkPad P1 Gen 7.
The new laptop supports up to a Core Ultra 9 185H CPU and users can choose between integrated Intel Arc graphics, Nvidia RTX 1000/2000/3000 Ada Generation GPUs, or an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060/4070 GPU, allowing it to handle most AI processing needs.
The ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is the first mobile workstation to come with LPDDR5x LPCAMM2 memory, with a capacity of up to 64GB. It can accommodate 2 x PCIe 4×4 M.2 2280 SSDs for up to 8TB storage.
Crafted from premium aluminum, the laptop comes with a 16-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, and narrow bezels providing a 91.7% screen-to-body ratio. Lenovo offers a choice of three displays – FHD+ IPS, QHD+ IPS, and UHD+ OLED Touch.
Connectivity comes in the form of Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3, and the laptop sports 2 x Thunderbolt 4 ports, 1 x USB-C (10Gbps), 1 x USB-A (5Gbps), an SD Express 7.0 card reader, HDMI 2.1, and an audio jack.
The new device features a liquid metal thermal design (in select configurations) which Lenovo says “enhances cooling performance and long-term reliability, catering to critical workflows when complex tasks require maximum performance for extended periods.”
Battery life is always important in laptops, and the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 has a 90Whr customer replaceable unit.
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“Lenovo’s latest ThinkPad P series mobile workstations are taking a significant step forward by featuring cutting-edge Intel Core Ultra processors equipped with a dedicated neural processing engine,’ said Roger Chandler, Vice President and General Manager, Enthusiast PC and Workstation Segment, Intel.
“Designed to enhance AI PC capabilities on laptops, this technology also improves performance, power efficiency and enables superior collaboration experiences, allowing users to be creative for longer periods without the need for constant charging.”
ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 will be available from June 2024, with prices starting at $2,619.
Ah, the Huawei MateBook lineup. It’s long been the go-to series for those on the hunt for a clean-looking, respectable laptop, with a decent spec list to boot, and this year’s model, the 2024 edition, certainly doesn’t disappoint in that domain.
It’s actually quite an extraordinary unit right from the get-go, as it’s available in a huge number of different specifications. In fact, there are five total, ranging all the way from the Core i5-12450H, complete with 8GB of DRAM, and 512GB of storage, all the way to the model I have here, featuring the Core i9-13900H and amping up to 16GB of DDR5 and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD.
On the surface, the build quality is fairly decent, particularly for the price. You get a nice sleek aluminum finish, complete with a full-size keyboard, healthy-sized trackpad, and a beautiful screen that lacks much in the way of a bezel. There are a ton of ports on board, and the branding is subtle and refined. It’s very much an XPS imitator in a lot of ways, just at a considerably lower price.
(Image credit: Future)
Where that refinement ends, however, occurs when you start actually using the thing. Sadly, the keyboard just isn’t up to spec. It feels spongy to the touch and lacks any form of satisfying tactile feedback compared to other options available at this price point or above. It’s without a doubt. Its one saving grace is that it is rather quiet because of that. The trackpad alongside that, is large and works just fine, but again, nothing particularly to write home about.
As for performance, well it’s certainly there. In day-to-day tasks and light office work, the Huawei MateBook does exceedingly well. It’s quick, smooth, and paired with that IPS panel, makes for a pleasant experience. If you do need to do anything more complex, involving any form of GPU however, you’re going to be quite disappointed, as Intel Iris is quite limited in what it is capable of, in comparison to something like a dedicated GPU from Nvidia or AMD.
Still, if you can look past that, and its clumsy software (more on that later), the Huawei MateBook D 16 2024 makes for a tempting offer, particularly at its £1200 / €1300 price point.
Huawei MateBook D 16: Price and availability
(Image credit: Future)
How much does it cost? Starting at £500 / €600
When is it out? Available now
Where can you get it? Available in the UK and the EU
The Huawei MateBook D 16 2024 is available now in the UK and the EU, starting at £500 / €600 (around $650). For that investment you get yourself a 16-inch screen with a 1920×1200 IPS display, 12th Gen Intel Core i5-12450H CPU, 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and a 512GB SSD.
The review unit I have in for testing is available for £1200 / €1300. This upgrades you to 16GB of LPDDR4X memory, alongside a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, and a CPU upgrade to the Intel Core i9-13900H, taking you from 8 cores and 12 threads to 14 cores and 20 threads instead.
Bear in mind that thanks to the US government’s ban on Huawei products, you can’t buy this at retailers in America – though importing is always an option, and given the low entry price, it could be a good way to snag a great-value laptop if you’re in the US.
Huawei MateBook D 16: Specs
(Image credit: Future)
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Huawei MateBook D 16
Header Cell – Column 0
Base configuration
Midrange configuration
Review (Max) configuration
Price
£500 / €600
£700 / €800
£1200 / €1300
CPU
Intel Core i5-12450H
Intel Core i5-13420H
Intel Core i9-13900H
GPU
Intel UHD Graphics for 12th-gen
Intel UHD Graphics for 13th-gen
Intel Iris XE Graphics
Memory
8GB LPDDR4x
16GB LPDDR4x
16GB LPDDR4x
Storage
512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD
1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD
4TB PCIe 4.0 SSD
Display
16-inch FHD+ (1920×1200) IPS, 300-nits
16-inch FHD+ (1920×1200) IPS, 300-nits
16-inch FHD+ (1920×1200) IPS, 300-nits
Huawei MateBook D 16: Design
(Image credit: Future)
Fantastic materials throughout
Good looking styling
Solid I/O Options
Huawei is without a doubt trying to target that XPS market with its MateBook Vision line. One glance at its exterior, and you’ll notice the similarities between the two. The MateBook has an exceedingly slim form factor, measuring just 17mm in height, and coming in at an impressive 1.72 kg to pack it all together. Huawei has gone for a smooth aluminum finish across the MateBook, giving it an impressively svelte look.
(Image credit: Future)
All other branding is fairly subdued as well. There’s a Huawei logo on the back embossed in a mirror finish, and a smaller logo situated in the center of the bottom most screen bezel. Speaking of screens, the MateBook D 16, features a 16-inch 1920×1200 FHD+ IPS display, complete with a peak brightness of 300 nits. It’s crisp and clean thanks to that 142 pixel density, and actually has some pretty stellar stats to back it up as well, not least of all including a 1200:1 contrast ratio, and 100% sRGB compatibility, all thanks to that IPS display at its heart.
Over my time testing the MateBook, its color accuracy never wavered on that front. Combine that with the slim bezel, and not particularly obtrusive inbuilt webcam (which I’ll say now, is as good as you’d expect for a tiny 720p unit), and the screen itself is a genuinely decent experience all around.
(Image credit: Future)
Then we get onto the keyboard, and well, it’s a bit underwhelming, to say the least. Spongey is the word. It lacks any real tactile feedback, and although is well-illuminated thanks to some decent white LED backlighting, it just feels horrendous to use. It’s functional, sure, but it lacks the premium feel we’re starting to see in a lot of laptop keyboards at this price point. And that’s not dedicated mechanical keyboards I’m talking about here either.
Likewise, the trackpad is fine, it’s suitably large enough and clicks well on the bottom left and right sides, but again, isn’t exactly anything to write home about. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing when it comes to trackpads.
(Image credit: Future)
For ports, there’s not a huge amount here, but the bases are covered. You get one USB Type C, one USB 3.2 Type A, one USB 2.0 Type A, a HDMI, and a 3.5mm 4 pole combi jack. It’s not a huge array of ports by any measure, you’ll probably need a decent USB dock if you’re looking to use the MateBook in a more advanced setup, but it’s enough for on the fly.
Audio is enough bugbear for sure. You get down-firing speakers on the MateBook, which are fine. Volume is great, however due to a lack of bass and lower end of the mids, you’re going to find most audio is generally quite tinny, and sharp on the hearing in comparison to something more sophisticated found in the likes of a Dell XPS or Asus ROG Zephyrus.
Huawei MateBook D 16: Performance
(Image credit: Future)
Decent productivity performance
Gaming is non-existent
On to performance, and it’s fair to say that the Huawei MateBook D 16, is certainly lacking in this area. If you’re looking to do any form of gaming or creative professional work, you’re far better off looking elsewhere. That lack of a dedicated GPU, even with Intel’s Iris graphics backing it up in my review model, sadly isn’t enough to produce any concrete performance boosts compared to some alternative devices at around these price points.
In fact, you’d be far better off sacrificing the glitz and glam of the professional design and opting for one of the better gaming laptops instead at around this price, if that’s what you’re looking for.
(Image credit: Future)
At its heart, the CPU inside my review unit is actually fairly decent for a lightweight mobile processor. The Intel Core i9-13900H comes with a total of 14 cores. Six performance cores (these are the full-fat, processors, complete with hyperthreading that prioritizes high load tasks, such as rendering, and managing large data sets), and eight Efficient-cores (designed to really manage background tasks and low power operations, such as word processor, or Discord, or Slack as an example). That gives you 20 threads to play with, and generally, it does fairly well in our benchmark tests.
In GeekBench 6.2.1, it scored an impressive 12,568 points in its multi-core test, putting it just behind a Ryzen 5 7600X, full-size desktop processor. What’s more impressive was the single-core however, which racked up an index of just 2,605, that’s not far off an Intel Core i5-14600K desktop processor, or AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D either. Combine that with a healthy chunk of DDR4 RAM, courtesy of the 16GB of LPDDR4X and this ain’t half bad at Photoshop work either.
(Image credit: Future)
Another moderately impressive area, particularly given the price is that SSD too. A quick run through CrystalDiskMark saw sequential reads top out at 4,905 MB/s and read at 3,952 MB/s making it an impressively zippy drive.
Getting into gaming, however, was another matter. I ran a total of five benchmarks on the Huawei MateBook D 16, to gauge how it performed here. In Borderlands 3, it scored just 10.27 fps at 1920×1200, on the Ultra preset, far from playable. Total War: Warhammer III, netted a more palatable 33.9 fps, but with one major caveat the graphical preset was set to “Low”. Any higher than that, even “medium” would result in the game immediately crashing, due to a lack of memory.
Similarly, I also ran it through a couple of 3D Mark tests. With Wildlife Extreme scoring 13,731, and Solar Bay (the mobile ray tracing test) not being available, as again, no dedicated GPU, means no dedicated ray tracing sadly.
Huawei MateBook D 16: Battery life
(Image credit: Future)
Intel Evo efficiency is unmatched
Charges fast
Battery life during my time testing the Huawei MateBook D 16 was generally very good. I easily got a solid seven to eight hours out of it, with mixed-use, before needing to recharge. Doing everything from very light casual gaming to watching YouTube, and responding to emails and work.
If you do decide to game, you’ll likely not see more than 1-2 hours of use out of it, as it doesn’t have a massive battery, but as there is no dedicated graphics card here, the CPU is doing a lot of the heavy lifting and is limited somewhat in that regard. You’ll likely want to plug it in too, if you can in that situation, as the power plans won’t give you full turbo speeds that you’ll really want to take advantage of.
That said, it does charge quickly as well, thanks to an included 65W adapter.
Should you buy a Huawei MateBook D 16?
(Image credit: Future)
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Also consider
Huawei MateBook D 16: Report card
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Value
The Huawei MateBook is surprisingly well-kitted out, at least on the CPU and SSD front. However it does lack a GPU, and some of the build quality could be better.
4 / 5
Design
That keyboard is not quite as fun as we were hoping, and could seriously use an upgrade. Otherwise, the D’s clean design does lend itself well to a professional environment.
3.5 / 5
Performance
Hopefully, light productivity work and a bit of Photoshop is all you’re looking for in this laptop, otherwise, you might be disappointed, as gaming and rendering are duds.
3 / 5
Battery Life
All-round battery life is solid, and it charges quickly too. Just make sure it’s plugged in if you do decide to game for longer than five minutes.
4 / 5
Total
The MateBook D 16 is remarkably average, and it shows. It looks great and the spec on paper seems solid, but it’s one too many hiccups away from being a perfect pick.
3.625 / 5
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained – regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it’s on our radar.
Dell‘s latest flash sale ran for just 72 hours so there wasn’t much time to pick up one of the great laptop deals on offer. But don’t worry if you missed out. I’ve just looked through the manufacturer’s current batch of deals and found four laptops that are just as good (or even better) as we saw in the flash sale.
The highlight is this Dell Inspiron 15 for $429.99 (was $649.99), which is near-identical to the best laptop deal from the previous flash sale. All that’s changed is a swap from Windows 11 Pro to Windows 10 Home for an extra saving of $20. We’ll take that, given the difference in operating system doesn’t make a huge difference overall.
You still get a powerful all-around laptop that’s great value for money. It boasts an Intel i5 processor, 16GB of RAM and a large 512GB SSD to ensure fast load times, boot times and excellent overall performance for everyday computing needs.
Elsewhere there are cheaper options such as this basic Dell Inspiron 15 for $279.99 (was $449.99) that’s ideal for light tasks and general work, including web browsing, word processing, sending emails, and making video calls. Or, if you want a real performance powerhouse, then don’t miss this Dell XPS 13 for $799 (was $1,099) that’s in the clearance section so stock will be limited.
Today’s 4 best laptop deals at Dell
Unlike the flash sale, it’s unclear how long these offers will be available so be sure to pick one up while you can as they are some of the best laptop deals available now. Before you hit that buy button, though, you should check out all the latest Dell coupon codes for ways to save even more money at the manufacturer’s official store.
Last fall, Qualcomm revealed a major upgrade for its laptop chips with the And while we’re still waiting for those processors to make their way into retail devices, today Qualcomm is expanding the line with the Snapdragon X Plus, which I had a chance to test out ahead of its arrival on gadgets later this year.
Similar to the X Elite, the X Plus is based on the same 4nm process and Arm-based as its sibling. The difference is that the new chip is meant to be used in slightly more affordable mainstream laptops, and as such it only has 10 CPU cores (vs 12 for the X Elite) and reduced clock speeds (3.4Ghz vs 3.8Ghz for the X Elite). This positioning is a lot like what Qualcomm’s rivals have been doing for a while, with the X Elite serving as the flagship chip (like Intel’s Core Ultra 9 series) and the X Plus sitting just below that (which would be equivalent to the Core Ultra 7 line).
Qualcomm
However, one thing that hasn’t changed is that just like the X Elite, the X Plus’ Hexagon NPU puts out the same 45 TOPS of machine learning performance. This is particularly notable as Microsoft that laptops would require at least 40 TOPS in order to run various elements of its Copilot AI service on-device. Qualcomm is also making some big claims regarding power efficiency, with the X Plus chip said to deliver 37 percent faster CPU performance compared to an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H when both chips are running at the same wattage. And when put up against other Arm-based chips, Qualcomm says the X Plus is 10 percent faster than Apple’s M3 processor in multi-threaded CPU tasks.
Photo by Sam Rutherford
Unfortunately, the X Plus is not expected to show up in retail devices until sometime in the second half of 2024. That said, at a hands-on event, I was able to run a few benchmarks on some early Qualcomm-built reference devices. And to my pleasant surprise, the X Plus performed as expected with multi-core scores in Geekbench of 12,905 and multi-thread performance in Cinebench 2024 of 852. (Note: Because the processor has not been released yet, there’s an error in Cinebench that results in the chip’s GPU incorrectly being listed as from the X Elite instead of the X Plus.)
This is a promising showing for Qualcomm’s second and less expensive chip featuring its Oryon architecture. Though as always, the real test will come when the X Plus starts showing up in proper retail hardware. That’s because even if it boasts impressive benchmark figures, these processors will still need to play nicely with Windows, which has not had nearly as smooth a transition to Arm-based silicon as Apple’s macOS.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
But with renewed support for Windows on Snapdragon PCs and Qualcomm recently working with major players like Google to bring “” in Chrome for devices running its laptop chips, things may be smoother this time.
A beefy graphics card paired with the lovely 14-inch screen size at an affordable price? That’s the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, and when you add extras like an OLED display and battery life impressive for a gaming laptop, it’s hard for me to not fall in love with this thing.
The G14 is the smallest model in the Zephyrus line, so it’s extremely portable. You can outfit it with an Nvidia RTX 4060 or 4070 graphics card, depending on whether you want to save some cash or max it out. It feels as comfortable to use as the Macbook Air M1 (2020) that I use for work, but it comes with luxury features that make playing games—and even watching movies—a top-tier experience.
Work-Life Balance
The Zephyrus G14 isn’t built to be a powerhouse—consider a laptop like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 for that—but what power it does have is well allocated. The Zephyrus is powered by AMD’s Ryzen R9 8945HS, a powerful processor, paired with the RTX 4060 laptop graphics card—it tackles most games with ease and can even run some of the heaviest AAA titles reasonably well.
Both Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077 managed to maintain a respectable 50 to 60 frames per second on medium graphics settings at the laptop’s full 2,880 X 1,800 resolution. Starfield dipped to around 40 fps in areas like New Atlantis that have famously struggled to get very high frame rates. But this is still reasonably high given that Starfield is capped at 30 fps on the Xbox.
Photograph: Eric Ravenscraft
When adjusting the display to 1,080p, I could crank the graphics settings in Cyberpunk and Starfield up to high while maintaining roughly the same 50 to 60 fps. By staying on medium, I got over 60 fps in both games. I prefer the latter approach since smoother gameplay feels better for me than extra foliage detail, but there’s flexibility here to tailor the experience to your desires.
Like most gaming laptops, you won’t spend much time playing on this machine away from a charger. However, the G14 still impressed by getting nearly two hours of gameplay while running games like Cyberpunk. Overwatch 2 lasted closer to an hour and a half, which makes sense, given that in faster-paced competitive games, I tend to lean on getting at least 90 fps for a smooth experience.
When using the laptop for more typical work or casual use, I got closer to 11 hours of battery life, impressive among any Windows laptop. I could easily use the Zephyrus G14 as my daily driver and feel comfortable getting an entire day’s worth of work done on a single charge.
May 8, 1997: Apple launches the PowerBook 2400c laptop, a 4.4-pound “subnotebook” that’s the MacBook Air of its day.
