The State of Laptops in 2024: From AI Integration to Gaming Powerhouses

Over One Month Later, Copilot+ Laptops Are Still a Mess

I've had my hands on a Copilot+ laptop for about a little over a month now, and I still can't get over how overblown that name is. This was Microsoft's chance to compete with Apple's M-series chips and the Apple Intelligence features announced at WWDC, and yet, AI is arguably less present here than it was on the Windows 10 desktop I built in 2016. It's probably for the best that the company delayed Recall, its headlining Copilot+ AI feature, after security concerns. But now, the PC line that should have been Windows' Apple silicon moment has flown relatively under the radar. It's a shame for Qualcomm, too, which used Copilot+ for its latest foray into laptop processors. Unlike Apple, Microsoft isn't going in-house for its move to ARM chips, so now it has a partner with a lot of fancy new M-series-style ARM tech to show off and no AI apps to show it off in. While Copilot+ was never meant to be exclusive to Qualcomm, ARM processors were supposed to get its features first. Now, the processors are here, but the features are still mostly missing. That leaves me with a well-made laptop with an OLED screen, long-battery life, but some compatibility issues. It's not a bad experience, but my time with the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x could have been so much more. Copilot is barely here I'd normally start off a review talking about design or performance, but this laptop was supposed to be different, so I'd like to start by addressing the disappointment that is, or at least once was, this laptop's big selling point. Right now, when I open my Copilot+ laptop, I see a lock screen that says "A new AI era begins," under which I'm encouraged to "Shop Copilot+ PCs." Clearly, the marketing department missed the memo about the Recall delay. Currently, there are three uses for AI in Copilot+ PCs, none of which are new and all of which are very limited. The first is Cocreator in Paint, where you can ask the bot to generate an AI reinterpretation of whatever it is you're drawing. It's supposed to be a neat way to allow artists of any skill level to ideate quickly, but the two-headed turtles and multi-legged superheroes I got when I tried it shows the feature still has a ways to go. There's nothing here that you wouldn't find in competing features from companies like Samsung. Then there's Live Captions. They're a nice accessibility feature, and while they're not new to Windows machines, having a Copilot+ PC introduces a way to get them with translations. They're marketed for video calls, but I found them a bit slow to update for immediate conversations, sometimes taking five to 10 seconds to show new text. Unfortunately, pre-recorded video is tough, too, as you'll need to constantly pause your video so it doesn't get too far ahead of the captions. Caption translations also differed greatly from the official subtitles on the videos I tested with, and there's currently no way for captions to differentiate between speakers. You're likely better off just using the Live Captions built into Chrome, which support translation regardless of your hardware. Finally, there's Windows Studio Effects, which can blur your background or add minor lighting or eye contact adjustments. It comes with some Snapchat style filters, too, but none of the changes stood out to my fiancé when I tried video calling him. I'll agree that I had to do A/B testing before I noticed any changes myself, so I'm likely to forget these options are even here, especially since most of them are already built into my most used video calling apps. Eye contact AI is the standout here, since competing options require certain GPUs, but it means little if the person I'm calling can't tell the difference. If I sound harsh here, it's because none of these options live up to the name Copilot. When I hear "Copilot," I imagine asking my computer to change my resolution or swap my background to a new color all from one text box. Right now, all pressing the dedicated Copilot button on my Copilot+ laptop does is take me to a website to talk to a chatbot -- the same website you can access on any internet-connected device. I can ask the chatbot for advice, sure, but it can't directly interact with my machine. That's nothing compared to the earlier version of Copilot that was installed on my Windows 10 PC until a recent update (which suspiciously came out after I started this review) took it away. That version of Copilot could actually open Windows setting pages for me, but just like the Copilot shortcut on my Copilot+ laptop, it now just takes me to a much more generic and much less useful web app. It's clear that Microsoft is dialing back Copilot integration while it works to fix Recall, but the result is that Copilot+ feels a lot more like Copilot-. It can do a few things my post-update Windows 10 machine can't, but these use cases fail to live up to what the old version of Copilot was capable of. Why get a Copilot+ PC? So why get a Copilot+ PC, if not for Copilot? The same reason you'd get any ARM-powered laptop: battery life. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, despite not living up to its AI promises, is a great laptop for students and office workers, and a big part of that is the Snapdragon X Elite chip it comes with. Snapdragon comes from the mobile world, where battery life is king, and you can see Qualcomm's expertise shine through here. The company promises "multiday battery life," and in my testing, I was able to get 17 hours of continual use before it powered down. That was while watching a 24-hour stream at a consistent 50% brightness with all battery saving features turned off, which means anyone who primarily uses their computer as a way to access the internet should be happy here. With some proper adjustments, you should be able to get through more than two full workdays without charging. Even with more intense tasks like gaming, I achieved a good few hours of play. Specifically, I ran Shadow of the Tomb Raider in fullscreen for three hours, which is on par with what you can get from a Steam Deck and enough for a full session. This was in max performance mode, to improve gameplay, so running a less demanding game with the balanced preset would stretch the laptop's hours even further. The Snapdragon X Elite has compatibility issues Even taking their strong battery life into account and ignoring Microsoft's bungled AI launch, the ARM chips powering Copilot+ PCs aren't quite the M-series killers they've been made out to be, at least not without any apps to show off their neural engines. When I tested my laptop's Snapdragon X Elite with Geekbench 6, a synthetic benchmark that simulates multiple kinds of use cases, I got a score of 2,279 on single-core tasks and 12,913 on multi-core tasks, which is well behind the 3,110/15,287 that Geekbench recorded for last year's MacBook Pro running a basic M3 chip. That's not encouraging, especially because the Snapdragon X Elite is Qualcomm's best laptop chip while the base M3 is Apple's most basic laptop option in this current generation. (There is an M4 chip, but it's limited to iPads right now.) Another synthetic performance test, Cinebench R23, countered this, actually putting the Snapdragon X Elite slightly ahead. Here, it earned 9,882 points while rendering a complex scene, versus the 9,326 points earned by the base M3 chip. But that only tells part of the story. In general, my testing showed that performance was fine but not standout for a thin and light laptop. What really stood out to me was compatibility. I wanted to run another two tests on this laptop, PCMark and 3DMark, but neither were fully compatible with it. That's thanks to the Snapdragon X Elite's ARM architecture, and it's going to be an issue for any early adopters. Most Windows apps expect users to be running a chip with an x86 architecture, meaning a chip from Intel or AMD. Because Snapdragon chips don't use x86 technology, some apps instead have to use emulation to run on them. It's an issue Apple ran into when it swapped to ARM, but the MacBook maker has since grown an evolved ecosystem of apps that fully support the new architecture, while Windows on ARM is clearly still not quite there. Taking my testing out of synthetic benchmarks and into the real world, I could not get apps including Baldur's Gate 3 or Destiny 2 to work, with the former crashing whenever I started gameplay and the second refusing to boot up since it couldn't install its anti-cheat engine. Even games that did run, like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, faced frequent crashes and needed regular driver updates. It wasn't a convenient experience, and for most people, I would say the battery life gain isn't worth it yet. If you do want to game with what you can manage to boot up, you'll get minimal performance, although that's to be expected given the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x isn't sold as a gaming laptop. I got an average 32 fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider with low graphics at 1080p, while the more modest Total War: Warhammer II gave me 46.8 fps with low settings at 1080p. Red Dead Redemption 2 slid between 7 to 22 fps on low settings at 1080p, which is below what I would consider playable. As a productivity laptop, none of this is too surprising, with game incompatibility being more of a canary in the coal mine for other apps here. High profile apps like the Adobe Creative Cloud work great on the Snapdragon X Elite, but expect to run into problems any time you want to go off the beaten path. How is the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x as a regular laptop? I feel bad for Lenovo, because as much as I've slammed this laptop in my review, the issue has little to do with the laptop itself and more to do with Microsoft. As a machine, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is great. It's barely over half an inch thick. It weighs just under three pounds. Its matte blue exterior looks premium. The 3K OLED screen is bright and vivid, with little glare and generous viewing angles. The 1080p webcam is Windows Hello-ready, and doesn't have a notch that cuts into the screen. Sound is also just about as bassy and high-fidelity as you could expect from a laptop of this size, with some tinniness but clear and distinct vocals. And the keyboard, like almost all Lenovo keyboards, cups your hands thanks to concave keycaps shaped to your fingertips. About the only place where this laptop falters is in the port selection, as you just get one USB-C port on either side of the device. Should you buy the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x? Whether this laptop is worth it to you depends on whether you're buying it as a Copilot+ PC, or as a long-lasting thin and light performer. If you're trying to get in on the next generation of AI, you're better off waiting. Copilot+ may have technically launched, but its biggest features have been taken back to the drawing board, and you'll get little use out of this laptop's neural processing unit until some unannounced date in the future. If, instead, you want a great Lenovo daily driver, the Yoga Slim 7x is a good pick. It's easy to slip into a bag, it looks great, and it's comfortable to use. Performance is also good enough for a laptop of this size, but there is one caveat: Qualcomm chips still don't have perfect compatibility with your existing programs. If you use big name apps and don't do a lot of gaming, that shouldn't be a problem, but if you want some piece of mind, you might be better off with a standard Lenovo Yoga Slim 7, which comes with a tried-and-true AMD chip. You'll lose some screen resolution, but a lot of what makes the 7x great can be found there as well. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x starts at $1,199 for a model with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which is identical to what I tested. RAM can be upgraded to 32GB for $69 more, while storage can go up to 1TB for $45 more.

Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge Review

The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is one of the first laptops certified as "Copilot+ Ready" to hit the market. Essentially, this just means the laptop is ready for on-device AI workloads, and is strapped with a fancy new Snapdragon X Elite processor to help it get there. And while there are AI PCs on the way with AMD 'Strix Point' and later Intel 'Lunar Lake' processors, the Snapdragon X Elite chips were the first to be ready for the new Copilot+ program. But, as with any Windows PC running on ARM, there are some serious growing pains. Beyond the chip that powers the thing, the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is a beautiful laptop. It's razor thin, has an absolutely stunning AMOLED display, and a full-sized keyboard. This really could have gone down as one of the best laptops on the market, but the urge to be one of the first Copilot+ PCs holds it back from greatness. Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge - Design and Features The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is an extremely thin laptop. Measuring just 0.48 inches thick, this is easily the thinnest 16-inch laptop I've ever used. However, even as thin as it is, it still has a wealth of ports, including a USB-A, microSD and a headphone jack. The Galaxy Book 4 Edge is also very light, weighing just 3.4lb, making it easy to carry on any commute. The aluminum chassis is also robust for how thin it is. I didn't experience any flex on the screen, and even when pressing down extra hard on the keyboard, it doesn't crack, creak or give at all. It's honestly incredible how durable this laptop feels with how thin it is. However, a 16-inch laptop being so thin and so light is going to have some compromises. For the Galaxy Book 4 Edge, it has to be the speakers. The tinny and quiet speakers are mounted on the bottom of the laptop - always a bad sign - and produce sound with absolutely no low-end. That means if you want to listen to music or watch a movie on the admittedly gorgeous display, you're going to get sound that's reminiscent of a cheap smartphone from 2015. Luckily, the AMOLED display makes up for this a bit. The model Samsung sent over for review has a 16-inch 120Hz AMOLED display at 2,880 x 1600. The display is rated at 500 nits of brightness, and can hit 120% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, making for a bright and vibrant picture. It really is a shame that the speakers are so bad, because this display is awesome for watching movies or playing games - you'll just want to wear headphones if you do it. The keyboard is also incredible. Samsung uses the extra real estate of a 16-inch display to include a full-sized keyboard, complete with a numpad. That's hard to find these days, especially since so many laptop manufacturers favor a slimmer aesthetic over these niche keys. But if you're doing a lot of spreadsheet work, they're a godsend, and make working a lot easier. On the top right corner of the keyboard, you'll find the power button and fingerprint reader. Logging into Windows with my fingerprint is extremely quick and accurate, and I haven't really had to rely on entering my PIN in the two weeks I've spent with the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge. I would have liked the fingerprint reader to be a bit bigger, but that would likely have cut into the numpad a bit. Replacing the right Ctrl button is the new Copilot+ key, which is a thing now on AI PCs. Pushing this button brings up the Copilot chat window. Love it or hate it, this is now a mainstay. However, with how close it is to the period key, I constantly found myself hitting it by accident, bringing up the robot when I was just trying to do some work. Having a key that brings up a whole application that you can accidentally hit when typing is such a pain, but that's on Microsoft, not Samsung. The touchpad is generally as good as Windows touchpads can get, but it is extremely large. That's ordinarily a good thing, but the palm rejection isn't the greatest. More than a few times when writing on the Galaxy Book Edge, I've accidentally clicked out of a window, or highlighted a word, due to my palm accidentally grazing the pad. When I'm not actively writing, though, it's smooth and accurate, and gestures work like a charm. I just wish it would leave me alone when I'm just trying to get some work done. Because the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is using what is essentially a mobile chip, the laptop has a fanless cooler design. But despite this, the Book 4 Edge doesn't get too hot when I'm working on it, making it a comfortable little work laptop. Plus, it's quiet, and you don't have to put up with fan noise when you're trying to concentrate. Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge - Performance The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is equipped with the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100, one of the new NPU-equipped CPUs at the center of the new Copilot+ "AI PC" craze. This processor is pretty fast for an ultra-portable chip, but it's built on ARM (Advanced RISC Machine), which introduces some problems in Windows 11. Most Windows 11 apps have been built with x86 and x64 processors in mind. In the past, that meant most Windows apps just wouldn't run on an ARM chip. Compatibility is a lot better now, thanks to Windows Prism, a translation layer that essentially emulates an x86 processor when you're using an ARM chip. It works surprisingly well, but performance takes a sizable hit, especially when you're trying to do things like play PC games. The issues with emulation are reflected in the benchmarks. The Snapdragon X Elite has a pretty capable GPU for its class, but it still only manages 2,126 points in 3DMark Time Spy. The Asus ROG Ally X scores 3,346 points. Given the Ally X is also using integrated graphics, and a much older chipset, that's an extreme margin. That's not to mention that games like Forza Horizon 5 won't even run on the Samsung Galaxy 4 Edge, despite coming with the Xbox app preinstalled. Even the games that will run don't provide a great experience, with the laptop getting an average of only 34 fps in HItman 3. To be fair, though, the Galaxy Book 4 Edge isn't really a gaming laptop anyways, and is primarily built for office work and light AI. It does manage a respectable score of 6,799 points in the new Procyon Office benchmark, which is quite high for a laptop of this class. I've been using this laptop as my main work device for a couple of weeks, and I can say that it holds up when doing office work. Even when I have 50 tabs open, the Galaxy Book 4 Edge keeps up with me, thanks to the 16GB of RAM on the device. I also noticed no difference in performance when working on battery power. Most Windows laptops will get a sizable performance boost when they're plugged in, but the Galaxy Book 4 Edge is an office workhorse regardless of where your charger is. Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge - Battery Life Despite its issues, the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge has phenomenal battery life, and can last multiple days without charging if you're not pushing it super hard. In my time with this laptop, the only time I had a situation where I went to turn it on and was faced with a "charge me now" screen was when I turned it on after running a battery test on it. To be clear, the benchmark we usually use to test battery life - the PCMark10 battery life test - would not run on this ARM-based laptop. However, I ran the Procyon Office battery test, and the laptop clocked an impressive 14 hours and 13 minutes of battery life. That is almost two full work days back-to-back before dying out. The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is absolutely a laptop you can take with you to the office and not worry too much if you forget to pack a charger. Hell, it'll even survive a transcontinental flight before the battery saver warning pops up. Combined with the gorgeous screen and luxurious chassis, this is an incredible laptop to travel with. Is an AI PC Worth It? For all the fanfare these new-fangled AI PCs have received, it's still not super clear why they're necessary. The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is by all means a good laptop, but the AI features the laptop is sold on are little more than a gimmick. And not a very good one. As mentioned earlier, you can hit the little Copilot key and bring up the Copilot AI, but you can do that on any Windows computer by just hitting Win+C. You'd think that the laptop specially designed for this would make this a smoother affair, but it's just as fluid anywhere else - it's not even run locally on the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge. There's a heaping of other little AI features, too. For instance, in paint, you can generate images from a text prompt, or even turn a little doodle into a more complete (I guess?) image. That's neat and all, and good for a few minutes of entertainment, but it's not something I'm going to use a week, month, or year from now. Laptops sporting NPUs aren't exactly new, either. Apple's Macbooks have featured an NPU since 2020's M1 chip, which helped with AI workloads to be sure, but the bigger win has been battery life and productivity performance. And that's true for the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge, too. No matter how many little AI toys Samsung packs in the box, none of them compare to the battery life the laptop offers when doing the same boring work you do on your existing laptop. There's little reason, then, to upgrade to an AI PC just for the virtue of having an AI PC. The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is just another Ultrabook. And because of the app compatibility woes that the ARM chip brings, it's not even great at being an Ultrabook - and we've had those for years now.

Dell XPS 14 9440 Review: The New Standard in Gorgeous Design

Key Takeaways The Dell XPS 14 9440 is a powerful and sleek laptop that offers impressive performance and a gorgeous OLED screen. The Intel Core i7 processor and optional NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 GPU can handle most games released in recent years at 1080p on high settings. The sound quality is also impressive, with loud and clear audio from the upward-facing speakers. The XPS 14 is a great choice for those looking for a beautiful yet competent laptop, but be prepared to deal with fan noise and potentially shorter battery life. The latest XPS laptops show how far Dell's design prowess has come over the past two decades. They also show how the company's priorities have changed, with this new iteration offering few ports and capacitive buttons. But make no mistake, 2024's Dell XPS 14 9440 is a beast of thin and light, one as powerful as it is beautiful. For most people willing to spend this much money on a laptop, it's unlikely to disappoint. Dell XPS 14 9440 9/ 10 A high-end thin-and-light laptop offering a stunning design, Intel Core Ultra performance, NVIDIA RTX graphics, an optional OLED panel, and Copilot built-in. ProsStandout designGorgeous OLED displayExcellent stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos soundPlenty of processing and graphical powerVersatile USB-C ports ConsFan noise stands out compared to newer ARM Copilot+ PCsBattery life also takes a hit from the Intel processor and NVIDIA RTX graphicsA tad heavy $1500 at Dell$1956 at Amazon$2000 at Best Buy How We Test and Review Products Price and Availability The XPS 14 starts at $1500. Your money gets you 16GB of RAM, 512GB of internal NVMe storage, and a 14.5-inch FHD+ non-touch display. Bumping up to 64GB of RAM adds $1000. 4TB of storage costs slightly less, at an additional $700. If you want a 3.2K OLED touchscreen, that's an extra $300. With 1TB of storage, 23GB of RAM, an NVIDIA card, and the 3.2K display, my review unit comes to around $2500. There are two color options: platinum and graphite. I got my hands on the platinum model. Specifications Operating System Windows 11 CPU Intel Core Ultra 7 155H GPU Intel Arc, NVIDIA RTX 4050 RAM 16GB - 64GB Storage 512GB - 4TB Battery 6-Cell, 69.5Whr Display (Size, Resolution) 14.5-inch 1920x1080, 3200x2000 Colors Platinum, Graphite Ports 3 USB-C Thunderbolt 4 with Power Delivery and DisplayPort, 1 headphone jack Network Intel® Killer Wi-Fi 6E 1675 (AX211), 2x2, 802.11ax, Bluetooth Dimensions Height: 0.71 in. (18.0 mm), Width: 12.6 in. (320.0 mm), Depth: 8.5 in. (216.0 mm) Weight 3.7lb, 3.8lb Brand Dell Model XPS 14 9440 Card Reader MicroSDXC Display type LCD, OLED Webcam 2.1MP Expand Don't Let the Exterior Fool You The laptop's exterior will look familiar to anyone who has ever used or seen a Dell XPS machine. I last owned one around a decade ago, and taking the laptop out of the box, the laptop felt almost disappointing. It's a thin, aluminum laptop with a Dell logo on top. I've owned this before. That feeling changed the moment I lifted the screen. This is a stunning design. The interior is a bright gray that looks almost white. It's plastic, but thanks to a layer of glass, you don't feel it. The keyboard keys are shallow but have a satisfying amount of travel. I found them comfortable to type on, though admittedly, I'm easy to please. I do much of my typing these days on a virtual keyboard. The large touchpad is invisible, masking its size. Moving your finger underneath the spacebar works as you would expect, and pressing down results in a click. I find the touchpad a pleasure to use. Gliding fingers up and down to scroll web pages makes web browsing satisfying, or at least as satisfying as it can be on a horizontal display. This is another area where using a foldable phone for both work and play has reshaped my expectations. There's a row of function keys above the keyboard. These are capacitive touch buttons visible only due to a backlight. They are also behind a panel of glass and feel the same as using their touchpad. The XPS 14 weighs 3.7 lbs and comes in at 18mm thick. While the styling along the side gives the appearance of a tapered design, the thickness is actually pretty consistent throughout, with the laptop rounding out at the corners. It's actually a tad heavier than I would like, as someone accustomed to using smaller laptops. Yet even compared to other 14-inch laptops, the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED is a full pound lighter. Powerful Enough for Work and Play Close The Dell XPS 14 comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor. It's not lacking in power, but as an x86 chip, you do hear fan noise whenever you put the PC through its paces. The base model pairs this processor with Intel Arc graphics, but you can opt for an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 GPU instead. The model I reviewed came with 32GB of RAM and NVIDIA's GPU, which makes it a powerful machine. I don't have any modern enough games in my Steam library to really stress test what the laptop is capable of, but I was able to play Tell Me Why with maxed-out graphic settings. Some quick YouTube research shows that this graphic card can handle most games released in recent years at 1080p on pretty high settings and still manage around 60 fps. Still, that doesn't mean I would recommend this as a gaming machine. The fans fire up shortly after turning on the game and get pretty loud. But if you want to use this for gaming, you absolutely can. Buyers who stick to the base model will have their options limited to more casual fare. Older games will run fine, and you can get by with some heavier titles if you turn settings down, but you'd be better off getting a cheaper laptop with dedicated graphics than the entry-level XPS if gaming is what you're after. A Copilot PC Without the + While this may not have a Qualcomm Snapdragon ARM processor, this is still a Copilot PC. There is a dedicated Copilot button to the right of the space bar. I'm very skeptical of so-called AI, so I don't go out of my way to use any of the large language models. In spite of my line of work, I haven't used ChatGPT or asked Gemini any questions. Despite all of that, I did hit this Copilot button a few times, and I used Copilot to help me write this review. This degree of accessibility does make a difference. I don't have to go to a specific website or launch a certain app, nor do I need to go out of my way to create an account. I hit the key, enter my question into the chat box (or use my voice), and look at the results that appear in the sidebar. All of my usual qualms about AI remain. The information it provides needs to be verified. I had to create a Windows account to sign into the laptop, so I'm under no illusions of privacy. Using Windows 11 in general disavows me of that notion and is my biggest issue with the laptop. I'd love to see this machine running Linux. Copilot doesn't add nearly enough to make me want to stick with Windows. A Screen You'll Want to Watch The OLED screen on the 3.2K model is gorgeous and a true highlight. The high resolution means that if you're not using the FHD+ model, you will probably want to take a moment to adjust the scaling to get windows and text to be the size that feels comfortable to you. But after that initial setup, the extra pixels are a delight and worth the battery life hit. A higher-quality display puts less strain on the eyes, so it's an investment in good health for people whose jobs require staring at one all day. At this amount of money, if you're buying this computer as your work-from-home machine, there's a good chance you won't exclusively use it for work. If you decide to stream YouTube or Netflix, there's a chance this may become your favorite way to watch videos. The image here will more than likely be better than your TV. It may even be on par with your phone. For a long time, I resisted the idea of cramming high-resolution panels into phones and laptops. Give me extra processing power and battery life, thank you very much. That has changed. Those extra pixels make reading on a screen much more pleasant and fundamentally change the look of photos. Personally, I don't need NVIDIA graphics or 32GB of RAM, but I'd pay the extra $300 for the 4K screen. Wait, Listen to This When you're watching YouTube, it's not only the video quality that stands out. It's the sound. Having never used last year's XPS, I can't tell you whether the speakers have improved. What I can tell you is that they're loud enough that I'd consider a Bluetooth speaker a nice-to-have but not a necessity to enjoy cuddling up with a partner and watching a movie. This sound comes from two upward-facing speakers flanking the keyboard. That means there's nothing to muffle the audio unless you're doing something demanding enough for the fans to kick in. As for those fans, well, we'll come back to those. A Webcam That's Fine, Just Fine The laptop comes with a 2.1MP webcam, which provides you with a 1080p picture. It's okay, as far as laptops go, but as someone accustomed to working from my phone, it's underwhelming. Even budget phones these days come with 32MP selfie cams. Nonetheless, if your only use for this webcam is being a small face on someone else's screen during a Zoom call, it will work fine. The camera does come with certain luxuries as part of the Windows Studio Effects included with Windows 11, such as automatic framing to follow your face as you move around. You also get background blurring. While I wouldn't want to use "standard" blur during a call for how unnaturally crisp it looks, "portrait" blur is plenty usable. One feature that weirds me out is "eye contact," which shifts your on-screen eyes upward to give the impression that you're looking up at the webcam rather than down at the screen. Enough Battery Life, But Not Much More Battery life is one of those things that can and does change over time. Using the laptop for a couple of hours with little more than several tabs open in Microsoft Edge, I saw battery life drop by around 10% an hour. This is enough to get me through a workday, which is the least I would hope for when dropping this much dough. I didn't do anything particularly heavy to punish the battery life, nor did I go out of my way to extend it, either. If you're playing a game or watching videos, expect less. I'm sure you could get more if you dim the brightness and use the battery-saver mode. When I closed the laptop in the evening and opened it up again the following morning, I found it had lost around 10% overnight. Keep in mind that battery life is one advantage the FHD+ model has over the 3.2K OLED version. Dell advertises 21+ hours with the FHD+ version, though I imagine that number is still rather optimistic. You can refill the battery using the included 100w charger, which is a nice inclusion that can also top up your phone, tablet, or any other USB-C device. You can plug it into any of the laptop's included USB-C ports. On that note, let's talk ports. All The USB-C Ports You Need, and Little Else Close You get five ports. One is a headphone jack, and another is a microSD card reader. The latter is nice for expanding the storage available on your machine since the card sits almost flush against the side of the laptop. However, this is unfortunate for photographers and videographers working with full-size SD cards and hoping to pop them quickly into their laptop. The other three ports happen to be USB Type C. That means you have a decent number of ports to work with if you connect to an external monitor via a USB-C cable, plug in a USB-C external SSD, or transfer files to a USB-C flash drive. More realistically, you'll need a dock or dongle at some point. Fortunately for you, a USB-C to USB-A and HDMI adapter comes included in the box. You don't have to go out and buy a new dongle, but you will need to remember to bring it with you. If you regularly plug HDMI or Ethernet cables into your machine, this probably won't be the laptop for you. That said, such ports have not been what the XPS line is about, at least not for a long time. All three USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort 2.1 and Power Delivery. That means each port is equally capable of doing anything you need a USB-C port to do. It doesn't matter where you plug in the charging cable, which I love. Should You Buy the Dell XPS 14 9440? The Dell XPS 14 9440 is one of the sexiest laptops you can buy. If you're looking for a traditional Intel-powered x86 machine, you'll probably like what you get. This is a nice machine to drop on your desk in the office, at a meeting, or during a presentation. It fits a professional setting and looks nice as a personal computer, albeit a pricey one. Fan noise is a bummer for those of us who are no longer accustomed to it, and while the battery life is good enough, I'd like it if it lasted a tad longer and would appreciate it if the machine weighed a bit less. These are relatively minor complaints, though, for a machine that gets so much right and looks this good doing it. Dell XPS 14 9440 9/ 10 A high-end thin-and-light laptop offering a stunning design, Intel Core Ultra performance, NVIDIA RTX graphics, an optional OLED panel, and Copilot built-in. $1500 at Dell$1956 at Amazon$2000 at Best Buy

MSI Titan 18 HX review: "truly lives up to its name"

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy. The clue's in the name - the MSI Titan 18 HX is an absolute beast, but it's one very few will need or afford. MSI has thrown everything at its latest flagship and this is as good as it gets in 2024, a real snapshot of peak gaming laptop performance as it stands today. Of course, to take a look at that picture you'll need to fork over well over $5,000. With its 4K Mini LED display, desktop-like stature, and more creator-inspired features, though, this is more than a gaming laptop. It's a pinnacle rig for wealthy gamers or those looking for an all-in-one media creation suite. It's the best gaming laptop I've tested so far from a sheer performance standpoint, but it's certainly not going to be for everyone. Of course, an 18-inch powerhouse is always going to be big. The MSI Titan 18 HX measures in at 3.17 x 40.38 x 30.48cm and weighs 3.59kg. That's right in the middle of other 18-inch machines; it's heavier than the Razer Blade 18 and Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (both 3.1kg) but keeps things light compared to the Alienware M18 (4.23kg). It is, however, significantly thicker than the M18 at 3.17cm vs 2.66cm, making for a more unwieldy device overall. Add the extra length from the additional cooling shelf at the back (translating to between 1cm and 2cm larger footprint compared to Asus and Razer's 18-inch models), and the MSI Titan is living up to its moniker. I don't expect many to be actually lugging this machine around, though. Most 18-inch gaming laptops are designed to sit on a desk and stay there, with the option to close up that clamshell and relocate every now and then. If you're considering taking this big-screen experience on the go regularly, though, I'd have to point you towards a slightly smaller model. As it stands, these dimensions won't fit into a regular laptop backpack and after carrying it in a modified sling pouch for about 15 minutes I can confidently recommend nobody does the same. The overall aesthetic keeps things simple and subdued, though. A matte black lid with silver accents running across an industrially-styled cooling shelf (think that anti-slip metal flooring you'll find on fairground rides) ensures a low profile - broken only by an RGB lit MSI logo in the centre of the lid. The solid construction and lack of any real flex in the lid means this looks and feels like a luxury design, though it's not quite as slick as Razer's classic CNC milled brick nor as RGB-friendly as Asus's blaze of glory. There's a little flex to the main keyboard, but only when explicitly feeling for it - everyday typing is immune. The whole device is solid, though, with no creaking or rattling, and a sturdy, dependable feel. Inside, I was initially met with a surprise. No trackpad? Of course, there is a pad here - it's just fully haptic-based with no cutout from the main deck. That means it's only visible via RGB lighting when the laptop is switched on, otherwise settling flush with the rest of the glass surface. What seemed cool at first, though, quickly became annoying. With no border to the trackpad itself I was constantly straying off to the side of the main deck during testing, a frustrating recurrence only made more frequent by the fact that this is a slightly smaller pad than you'll usually find on an 18-inch model. The vast majority of users are likely going to be plugging a separate gaming mouse in, but it's still finicky for quicker everyday use. Underneath, you'll find a set of fairly high-rise rubber stilts used to keep plenty of space for airflow around the large number of vents. This is also where you'll find a small blue accent running through the aesthetic, repeated towards the rear of the device as well. My unit came with some slight wear around one of the screws connecting the bottom panel. While it's true that this is not a box-fresh device, and has likely been shipped around the country before heading my way, this could be a point of weakness during future use, especially if you're opening up the rig regularly. This is a tricked out rig. Under the hood, you'll find an RTX 4090 GPU running at its full 175W TDP, an Intel 14th generation i9-14900HX blazing through 24 cores and 32 threads, an overkill 128GB RAM, and split 2TB SSDs forming 4TB total storage. In theory, you can expand up to four memory slots. That's an insane spec, one that the vast majority of players wouldn't need to touch with a $5K barge pole, but if you're going big with your next investment this is certainly where you'll need to be looking. Those kinds of specs mean the Titan 18 HX is going to be able to handle pretty much any computing task you could throw at it - and with a 4K Mini LED display that also includes content creation. The 120Hz panel does suffer for speed in favor of clarity and resolution, but it still offers up a gorgeous display. Gamers will benefit from extraordinary detail (though you're dropping a little motion accuracy to get there, compared to machines using 165Hz or 240Hz panels) while creators will be able to view images in full resolution with excellent color reproduction. Local dimming means HDR content absolutely shines, with fantastic contrast ratios and a brightness that will put the OLED on the Razer Blade 16 to shame. Unfortunately, you're out of luck if you do want to sacrifice that high-resolution quality for extra speed. The MSI Titan 18 HX only ships with this top-shelf display. There's another flagship favorite here as well, one that I've only seen on the best Alienware laptops in the past, a full mechanical keyboard from Cherry and SteelSeries. The switches underneath offer a tactile feel with a satisfying clack and energetic movement. However, the actuation bump used in here does make repeat presses a little harder - spamming 'E' was a little slower on this deck than a regular chiclet style keyboard during my testing. I also noticed some ping running around the main deck when typing, usually the result of echo-y switches in a board that hasn't been through the same sound dampening processes you'll find in the best gaming keyboards these days. I came to this deck from gaming laptops with reduced layouts, so I was initially struggling to place my hands correctly when starting each session. Each key does feel a little more separated on this model, which could also explain some of the inaccuracy I felt - though this would be rectified with time and muscle memory. 18-inch gaming laptops want to completely replace your desktop, often without the need for an external hub or dock. That means you can expect a good range of ports, and the MSI Titan 18 HX delivers. The left panel houses the SD card reader and two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports with a third situated on the right side. Joining it are two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 options with one offering power delivery. I was pleased to find a few ports to the rear of the machine. This placement does wonders for cable management, keeping the sides of the machine free from a tangle of wires when placed on a desk. MSI, however, has limited these rear ports to connections you'll only need to set and forget; power, HDMI 2.1, and Ethernet. Everything else remains flexible at the sides, even if that does mean a little sprawling. Personally, I prefer to keep everything to the back (Alienware generally keeps most of its connections hidden) - but if you're constantly switching peripherals this is a more versatile arrangement. The Alienware M18 offers a similar array, though with older Gen 1 USB-A ports, but adds a Mini DisplayPort into the mix. However, the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is far behind here, only offering two USB-A connections and a single Thunderbolt 4 option among its two USB-C ports. It's worth noting that the original Razer Blade 18 posted a single Thunderbolt 4 as well, though the 2024 version packs Thunderbolt 5 for the first time. In the real world, that means you'll be able to run three 4K 144Hz monitors off a single port on the Blade 18, with the MSI Titan being limited to two. It also makes for more powerful charging - though neither of these machines are going to realistically be relying on USB-C power for much of their lives. I've never felt the need to run the MSI Titan 18 HX off a single Thunderbolt cable alone when it's set up in full glory on my desk top. All that power needs some serious cooling, and that's where MSI's vapor chamber comes in. The system uses two fans with four exhausts and those aforementioned stilts to keep everything running smoothly. I never noticed temperatures creeping to uncomfortable levels during my testing, and both CPU and GPU performance never suggested any kind of thermal throttling. The fans themselves can certainly rev, though. It's by no means as deafening as something like the Alienware machines of yore, but you'll still need a gaming headset when playing at full whack. And MSI can go to full whack. The Titan 18 HX features the brand's Overboost Ultra tech - a fancy way of saying you can set the performance to max and keep everything running off the dedicated GPU. All of this is done in MSI Center, a refreshingly non-gamer vibing piece of software that houses all your performance stats and AI offerings. I'm not a massive fan of this suite - it seems to hide certain features under different user scenarios, some of which feel at odds with the functions they hide. It meant I was regularly digging through unintuitive menus during my testing, simply to swap between fan states. You'll find the AI Engine housed here, though, a mode that allows the system to automatically apply certain performance settings and allocate more resource towards certain processes during individual tasks. There are four scenarios currently recognized by the laptop itself, meetings, work, gaming, and entertainment. This is a minor feature in the grand scheme of things, but it's a set-and-forget function that can come in particularly handy when running through different tasks regularly. It's often the quieter features that you don't have to notice that make the best rigs. For all my MSI Center frustrations, I was menu-free when swapping between writing and gaming - and that's not something I could have said last year. It's another nod to the holistic approach the Titan is taking, aiming squarely at a small (but willing-to-pay) market of professionals looking for a content creation and gaming desktop replacement. That target means the Titan also houses a solid FHD webcam, bright and detailed enough for work calls by not quite broadcast-worthy, and a responsive microphone system. The 'desktop replacement' part of that market also means that the battery is just awful. MSI never really expected this to be a portable machine, so it's understandable that I was only able to draw about an hour of work across Google Chrome and a few image editing programs out of a full charge. Judging this laptop based on its battery life would be like judging an F1 car on its subwoofer, though - it's just not designed to use it. Nobody's questioning whether or not the MSI Titan 18 HX can perform. With guts like this, someone would have seriously messed up if framerates weren't through the roof. It's no surprise, then, that this is - on the whole - the most powerful rig I've tested to date. That glory was previously awarded to the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (both the 2023 and 2024 versions), but the Titan has just nudged the edge in here. It didn't hit the top of the pack in every test, sometimes the Alienware M18 or Scar 18 would sneak ahead, but it outperformed both models far more often than not. The first test I always run is 3D Mark's suite of graphical benchmarks. Time Spy is the go-to for a QHD benchmark, testing the system's GPU, CPU, and RAM across a synthetic process to reveal a final score. RTX 4090 GPUs have averaged a score of around 17,000 here in my testing to date. The MSI Titan 18 HX hit 20,491 - beating the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18's 20,132 position but just missing the 2024 model's 20,666 score. Fire Strike is an easier run, giving 1080p performance more space especially in a 4K-designed 18-inch rig like this. As expected, the MSI Titan 18 HX posted the highest score I've seen here yet, with a 36,083 final figure dominating over the 2023 and 2024 Strix Scar 18's 34,507 and 33,092 respective results. Real-world testing in-game revealed the MSI Titan 18 HX's prowess in older games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Total War: Three Kingdoms, where the system just managed to close out the winnings across my full 18-inch comparison suite. While the former is a relatively Nvidia-friendly title, and generally the easiest to run of all the benchmarked games, Total War can still be a slog despite its age. However, the Titan did fall on Returnal. I repeated these tests frequently, using the same parameters I always set up for laptop benchmarks, and couldn't get anywhere near other machine's results. Whether this is an issue software-side, or an interaction with another function within the MSI's ecosystem remains, but it doesn't feel like a faithful representation of the power on offer here. Unfortunately, The Talos Principle 2 is a benchmark I've only just started using and so I don't have data for the Alienware M18 or either Strix Scar model. Instead, you'll find the next best thing, a Razer Blade 16 recently tested with an RTX 4090 GPU, and an Alienware M16 R2 with an RTX 4070 for pricing scale. We've come a long way since gaming laptops first started to consider 4K resolutions. It certainly wasn't within reach back then, but it might just be now. This is the first time I've comfortably played faster titles in UHD resolution without any graphical tweaks and not been stuck under 60fps. High settings are more than runnable here, with three-figure 4K framerates on Shadow of the Tomb Raider and a comfortable 60+fps in more demanding titles as well. Bumping things up to ultra settings did land me underneath that 60fps threshold, but with the help of DLSS 3 I was able to bench 68fps in The Talos Principle 3 at 4K Ultra. It might take a few workarounds, but speedy 4K gaming is a real possibility here - and that's not something I've written about a gaming laptop before. The MSI Titan 18 HX is true feat. An overpowered juggernaut as pricey as it is powerful, this is a specialized piece of kit no doubt. It's just not going to make sense for the vast majority of players, though. I don't know of too many people looking to drop a cool $5K on a gaming laptop these days - but there's one crowd that's going to go nuts for this tech. Content creators with a penchant for high-end gaming should be going all out here - this is as good as it's going to get and if you've got the cash I can't think of a better place to put it. For the rest of us, the MSI Titan 18 HX's price point only solidifies just how good of a deal the Alienware M18 is. Of course, you're going to be dropping some frames, picking up some older ports, and that screen won't get you nearly as far, but for performance value the M18 remains my favorite 18-inch model on the market. I used the MSI Titan 18 HX for all work and play over the course of three weeks, using the machine standalone and connected to a monitor via a dock. During that time I benchmarked across synthetic tests Geekbench 6, PC Mark 10, 3D Mark's Time Spy, Fire Strike, and Steel Nomad, and Cinebench R24. I also took real-world benchmarks from Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Returnal, and The Talos Principle 2 in FHD, QHD+, and UHD+ resolutions and varying graphical settings. I also used the laptop for everyday play across Octopath Traveler, Fall Guys, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. For more information on how we test gaming laptops, check out the full GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

Alienware M18 R2 review: mothership-scale power and proportions | Stuff

Alienware went all-in on 16 and 18in screens for its gaming laptops in 2023, before Intel had dropped its 14th-gen Core mobile CPUs - so you can't blame Dell's gaming arm for taking the mid-life refresh route, rather than completely overhaul its desktop replacement for a second time in as many years. And given how well received the Alienware M18 was, this R2 variant shouldn't have to work too hard to impress. This laptop isn't out to claim the outright performance crown, with an entry-level, $1900/£1849 spec that sounds oddly sensible for a brand obsessed with little grey spacemen. Tick a few options boxes and things get much more otherworldly, with the version tested here setting you back $3300/£3500, complete with RTX 4090 graphics and Core i9 processor. Underpowered this ain't. However much money you throw at it, though, you're still limited to an IPS screen. With rivals now making the jump to mini-LED, has the M18 R2 done enough to justify the update? Compared to Alienware's older, more ostentatious efforts the M18 R2 looks awfully restrained - but there are still some telltale signs this machine means business. A light-up alien head logo and stylised '18' graphic embossed on the anodised aluminium lid for one; the RGB-illuminated 'thermal shelf' at the rear, the other. This is where you'll find the bulk of the M18's connections - twin Thunderbolt 4-ready USB-Cs, HDMI and mini DisplayPort video outputs, a single USB-A, and a proprietary power port - which helps keep cable management clean. There's also an SD card reader here, but it was fiddly to reach when copying photos off my digital camera. Moving it to the left side instead of the Ethernet port would've made more sense, if the motherboard layout allowed for it. You also get another USB-C, two USB-As and a 3.5mm combo jack on the left side, with one final USB-C on the right. It's a sensible arrangement that keeps most cables far away from your gaming mouse. Almost all the remaining space is used for cooling ventilation, with the majority blown out the rear. One fan does vent out towards your mouse hand, though, which can get toasty after even a brief gaming session. A fingerprint reader would've been nice, but a Windows Hello-ready 1080p webcam is the next best thing. Tapered edges disguise this laptop's dimensions, but there's no ignoring it when you pick the thing up; at 3.9kg you won't want to be lugging it around with you on the daily. And that's before you factor in the sizeable power brick. It also takes up a considerable amount of desk space - but what else did you expect from an 18in laptop? There's no faulting the build quality, with minimal chassis flex and a sturdy screen hinge that doesn't wobble. I also like how well the Dark Metallic Moon colour - a matte gunmetal grey - hides fingerprint smudges. With space hardly at a premium, the Alienware M18 R2 gets both a full-size QWERTY keyboard and number pad. The laptop uses regular scissor-style keys that I found comfortable for typing, with a decent amount of travel and reasonable tactile feedback, plus just the tiniest bit of key wobble. The per-key RGB backlighting is easily customised through Alienware's Command Centre software. Coverage is pretty even and the lights get bright enough to see during daylight hours. If you don't mind splashing an extra $50/£50, you can upgrade the M18 R2 to Cherry MX low-profile mechanical key switches, complete with Copilot key for waking Microsoft's AI assistant. My review unit didn't have it, so I can't truly say whether it's worth the additional outlay, but having tried similar switches on other laptops in the past, I don't think I'd hesitate to tick that particular options box. The touchpad wasn't quite as smooth or friction-free as some I've used lately, and isn't exactly huge either. Still, it doesn't get in the way when using the WASD keys for gaming, and is sensitive enough to span the huge screen in a single swipe. You're still going to want a proper mouse for gaming, though. The Alienware M18 R2's display options depend on where you live. US shoppers can option a Full HD display with rapid 480Hz refresh rate, or a QHD, 165Hz screen; other territories (including mine) only get the latter. Both versions have Nvidia G-sync, but don't support HDR content, and use IPS LCD panels. IPS tech feels behind the times compared to mini-LED (which I've seen on a few big screen laptops now) and OLED (which currently tops out at 16in for gaming laptops). The M18 simply can't compete on contrast, and it doesn't get super bright either. A peak 300 nits is below the class average, though an anti-glare panel coating does help cut out light reflections. I didn't have to draw the blinds to get any work done, only when playing particularly dark games. The 2560×1600 resolution looks reasonably sharp stretched across 18in, at least from a typical viewing distance. I also think it's a sensible choice for laptop gaming. The RTX 4090 can manage playable frame rates at 4K in a lot of titles, but ray tracing can still cause it grief when pushing that many pixels; here I was able to crank pretty much every game to the highest settings and get close to - or exceed - the 165Hz refresh rate. Viewing angles are merely OK, so you've really got to sit directly in front of the screen to avoid washed out colours. Colour accuracy isn't all that great either, with a slightly warm tone and very saturated hues. Things improve after calibration, but it's still a long way off the pop and impact of the best gaming laptop screens. That'll be a blow if you're just getting into PC gaming, but if the Alienware M18 R2 is replacing an ageing desktop rig, you'll probably be plugging it straight into an external monitor anyway, so shouldn't see the screen as a dealbreaker. The side-firing speakers are clear and loud enough for kicking back with a movie or streaming show, or casual gaming. Even for a laptop there's not much in the way of bass, but don't distort when you max out the volume slider. I still reached for my headphones before launching any competitive games, though. An entry-level Alienware M18 R2 has an Intel Core i7-14650HX CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics. My review unit lands more towards the top end of the scale, with a Core i9-14900HX processor, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD and RTX 4090 GPU. If you've got unlimited funds, you can step up further with 64GB of RAM and a whopping 8TB of RAID 0 SSD storage. Whatever spec you go for, you're getting liquid metal thermal compound on both the CPU and graphics core, plus a revised vapor chamber cooling system from the original M18. That makes this latest Alienware very effective at taming temperatures, with no performance dip after an hour of sustained benchmarking. And while the four internal fans do get very noisy, they don't spin at an irritating pitch. With headphones on you simply won't notice them. Any 18in laptop needs to be able to rub shoulders with desktop PCs on performance, and the Alienware duly delivers. The 24-core Intel CPU demolishes 2D benchmarks, scoring 9710 in Cinebench R20 to put it ahead of any gaming laptop reviewed here at Stuff this year. A 4K video encode using Handbrake saw similar results, besting the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 and its more mobile-focused Intel Core Ultra 9 185H. Only thicker 18in rivals with even more cooling stand a chance of besting it in a drag race. That said, the gap between it and models using older 13th-gen Intel CPUs isn't colossal. Gaming is a given, with the RTX 4090 GPU handed 175W of the laptop's total 270W power budget. At the laptop's native 2560×1600 resolution, Call of Duty Modern Warfare III averaged an impressive 155fps fully maxed, while Grand Theft Auto 5 nudged 130fps. Expect triple digits in just about every recent title - Diablo VI, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands - unless it involved ray tracing. I stuck to 1080p for Cyberpunk 2077, but Nvidia's DLSS upscaling tech ensured it comfortably stayed north of 60fps the entire time. It's only battery life where the Alienware M18 R2 falters. Even for a desktop replacement laptop, it won't last long away from the mains. I saw between four and five hours of video playback at 50% brightness, and simply leaving the machine idle to download Xbox Game Pass titles saw it drained in less time than that. Attempt to game on the go and you'll be lucky to see an hour of use. The 16in gaming laptops I've tried this year manage considerably longer for desktop duties, so may be a better choice if you need an all-purpose machine. The M18 R2 is a desktop replacement in every sense of the world. In top spec guise it has the 2D and gaming performance to rival pre-build tower PCs, and there are enough ports here to plug in almost every peripheral you could name. Alienware's styling is as on point as ever, and the base price isn't too outlandish if you're prepared to make some sacrifices. A merely OK screen isn't so much of a dealbreaker if you play on an external monitor, too. I can't ignore that rivals such as the Acer Predator Helios 18 offer mini-LED panels for similar cash, though. The M18 R2 is also an especially heavy laptop, with pretty average battery life. There are more suitable options for gaming on the go, even if you demand a big screen.

HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 review: A business laptop that aims high, but falls short in one critical metric

What should entrepreneurs and IT leaders look for in a good workstation laptop for their team members? Do price, security, and specs matter most, or should other factors, like display quality and battery life, be top priorities? These questions were at the top of my mind while testing the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11. It's a 14-inch workstation laptop designed to give business users desktop-level performance in a portable laptop form factor. On paper, it looks like a powerful laptop featuring an Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU and Nvidia graphics. However, when you dig deeper, benchmark results reveal a few critical drawbacks that could make or break an employee's experience using the ZBook. No matter what industry you're working in, a great laptop is vital for success. Is the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 that laptop? There are a few things you should know before deciding. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 has a plethora of configurations with different CPUs, GPUs, displays, and RAM and storage amounts. The base model costs $2,090 and includes an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U CPU, Intel integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, a 14-inch WUXGA Anti-Glare display, and Windows 11 Pro. There are eight CPU options, including the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U, Core Ultra 5 125H, Core Ultra 5 135U, Core Ultra 5 135H, Core Ultra 7 155U, Core Ultra 7 155H, Core Ultra 7 165U, and Core Ultra 7 165H. You can choose between Intel integrated graphics and an NVIDIA RTX A500 laptop GPU. RAM goes up to 64GB, and storage maxes out at 2TB. Additional upgrades include a backlit keyboard, NFC support, an Active SmartCard reader, and an IR webcam. It's worth noting that since this is a business workstation laptop, HP designed the pricing with bulk pricing for businesses in mind. So, if you are considering buying the ZBook independently, you will likely have to pay that $2,000+ full price unless you wait for a sale. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 has the polished, no-frills design language befitting a business laptop. It's a workstation and looks the part with its steel gray aluminum chassis and thin, matte black plastic bezels. The keyboard features dark gray plastic keycaps with thin white lettering. It has a full function row with pre-assigned media keys for shortcuts like volume and screen brightness. Be careful reaching for the "delete" key in the top right corner, though. The tiny power button is nestled between the "delete" and "end" keys and has no special texture to differentiate it. There's also a built-in fingerprint reader and options for an Active SmartCard reader and IR webcam for businesses concerned about security. The keyboard deck also has a dedicated Copilot key, which can come in handy for anyone who wants to use Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant. It's worth noting that the ZBook is not a 2-in-1, but you can add a touchscreen display for an additional upgrade fee. Our review unit does not include a touchscreen display. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 has a variety of ports that should be plenty for most users' needs. A headphone jack and a USB Type-A port are on the right side. On the left is an HDMI port, a USB Type-A port, and two USB Type-C ports (one for charging). For an additional cost, you can also get an Active SmartCard reader on the left side of the ZBook. That was all the ports I needed, but if you have many accessories you want to plug in, you can always expand your port selection with a USB Type-C hub or a docking station. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11's display was one of my favorite features due to the anti-glare coating. Sure, the 14-inch WUXGA 2560X1600 LED display isn't OLED, but the anti-glare coating made a world of difference in my experience. After all, few things are more frustrating when using your laptop than a bunch of reflections distracting you from the show or movie you're trying to watch. The ZBook also scored well on our display benchmark tests. It reproduced 112% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and averaged 531 nits of brightness, higher than the scores from the HP EliteBook Ultra. The MacBook Pro M3 (14-inch) lagged behind the ZBook on the DCI-P3 benchmark but narrowly outscored it in our brightness test with an average of 558 nits. In my daily use, I found the ZBook's display vibrant and responsive. Everything from scrolling to gaming on it is smooth, clear, and colorful. As expected, the anti-glare display was great for watching shows and movies. I could watch Survivor without having to crank up the brightness to wash out background reflections. You'll find the anti-glare coating a lifesaver if you often travel or work outside or in a brightly lit office. I found the keyboard and touchpad on the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 a joy to use. The keyboard has a satisfying amount of key travel and tactile feedback, which makes for a supreme typing experience. On the Monkeytype typing test, I scored 94 words per minute with 99 percent accuracy on the ZBook. That's just above my laptop average of 90 words per minute with 97 percent accuracy. The touchpad is also responsive and features the right amount of travel and tactile feedback. It's also a good size, not too narrow but not too big. The texture is smooth, and mouse movement never feels laggy or sluggish. I liked watching shows and movies on the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11, but I was disappointed by the speakers. They're bottom-firing, meaning they can easily get muffled if you have the ZBook on your lap or a soft surface like a desk mat or sofa. I had to turn up the volume to around 75 to hear the dialogue in Survivor. Volume in games was better, but neither of the games I played included spoken dialogue. Khalid's summer hit "Heatstroke" also sounded reasonably good, coming through plenty loud at around 50 percent of max volume. The mids came through loudest, with lows and highs about even with each other. The ZBook's speakers struggled more with "Free If We Want It" by Nothing But Thieves. I noticed a vibrating background noise coming from the speakers now and then that blurred out some of the highs and mids, especially in Conor Mason's vocal solo in the song's intro. The speaker quality is fine for casual watching and listening, but you may want to connect headphones for high-quality audio. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 scored fairly well on our graphics tests. It's not a gaming laptop, but it can manage casual gaming. The ZBook scored 6,793 on the 3DMark Fire Strike graphics benchmark and averaged 31 frames per second in Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm. That's noticeably higher than the HP EliteBook Ultra's scores (5,334 and 20 fps, respectively). Graphics is also one category where the ZBook's Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU has a significant advantage over the EliteBook's Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite CPU since Qualcomm's chips have compatibility issues with many games. However, the MacBook Pro far outscored both HP laptops in Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm, averaging 51 frames per second. I spent a few hours playing Enshrouded and Death's Door on the ZBook and found both games fully playable. I ran Death's Door at full native resolution (2560x1600), averaging 39 frames per second. That's not a lot, but the performance was smooth. Similarly, Enshrouded ran at full native resolution at an average of 30 fps in the "Balanced" graphics preset. I immediately noticed how bright and colorful the graphics were in both games. The ZBook's DCI-P3 color gamut score (112 percent) isn't especially high, but the anti-glare display coating helps accentuate colors by keeping reflections out of the picture. Overall, I had a good gaming experience on the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11. Heat is the only significant drawback. The keyboard deck got noticeably hot while running games, which became uncomfortable after half an hour or so. Unfortunately, the right side of the keyboard deck around the WASD keys warmed up the most during gaming, so your best bet might be connecting a Bluetooth controller rather than using the built-in keyboard and a mouse. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 managed decent scores on our performance tests, but failed to keep up with the competition. The ZBook scored 2,271 on the Geekbench 6 single-core test and 12,340 on the Geekbench 6 multi-core test. While it outscored the MacBook Pro M3 on the multi-core test, the MacBook scored almost 1,000 points higher on the single-core test. The HP EliteBook outscored the ZBook in both benchmarks. Similarly, the ZBook lagged in the HandBrake video transcoding test. It took nearly seven minutes to export a 4K video into 1080p. The HP EliteBook was just 11 seconds faster on the same test, but the MacBook Pro M3 completed it in just five minutes and 38 seconds. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 performs fairly well overall, but I was expecting better considering its price and processor. The ZBook's performance scores are strong enough to handle everyday tasks like word processing and web browsing without trouble, but it may struggle to keep up with more demanding tasks like video editing. That's disappointing, considering the ZBook is marketed as a workstation, meaning it aims to deliver desktop-level performance in a laptop form factor. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 trailed its rivals in our performance benchmarks but was thoroughly trounced on our battery test. The ZBook lasted a mere five hours and 52 minutes, hardly enough to get through half a workday. In stark contrast, the HP EliteBook Ultra lasted just over 16 hours, and the MacBook Pro M3 survived for an incredible 17 hours and 16 minutes. Both times are over 10 hours longer than the ZBook's time! The competition isn't even close here. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 has two webcam configurations: a standard dual array microphone camera and an infrared (IR) camera. Our review unit includes the IR camera, which allows you to use facial recognition to sign in with Windows Hello. The webcam video quality isn't the worst I've seen, but it's not the best, either. It's a bit grainy, but the mic quality is clear and loud. This webcam would be fine for most users' video conferencing needs, but if you're looking for crisp 4K image quality, you would be better off investing in an external webcam. The ZBook puts the "fire" in Firefly 14. I noticed it running hot more often than not during the days I spent testing it. I expected it to get a bit warm while gaming, but the keyboard deck was noticeably hot while doing some basic web browsing with just a handful of tabs open. It warmed up while charging but didn't cool down much after I unplugged it. Our thermal tests reflected these high temperatures. The center of the keyboard deck averaged 98 degrees, the underside averaged 87, and the peak temperature we recorded was a whopping 100 degrees. That's on par with the temperatures I experienced in my hands-on testing. The spread of all that heat is noticeably uneven. The lower left side of the keyboard deck remained comfortably cool, while the upper right corner stayed uncomfortably hot during seemingly any task. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 includes a one-year limited warranty, which you can extend or upgrade through an HP Care Pack protection plan. The ZBook comes with Windows 11 Pro and has a few standard apps preloaded, including Microsoft Edge, the Microsoft Store, Spotify, Xbox, myHP, and HP Wolf Security. The myHP app is where you can view your device and warranty info and adjust system settings, such as battery performance profiles. The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 offers a vibrant, anti-glare display and solid performance scores but struggles significantly with heat and battery life. For most users, the ZBook's price does not match the performance it offers, making rival laptops like the MacBook Pro M3 a better deal. However, if you're a business owner, you may be able to take advantage of bulk order pricing to get the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G11 down to a price that matches its performance scores. The ZBook has merits, like a stellar typing experience, surprisingly strong graphics performance, and a wealth of customization options, particularly for security features. Depending on what you're looking for in a business laptop, those strengths could make the ZBook the perfect match. However, it's important to be aware of the ZBook's poor battery life and thermal behavior, which are significant trade-offs. The ZBook is a mid-range business workstation laptop that aims high but falls short of perfection. See our guide to the best business laptops for top-rated alternatives to compare it to some rivals.