Ultrabook Showdown: HP Omnibook X, Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 4, and Acer Swift Go 16

HP OmniBook X review: 16-hour Snapdragon X power

HP has been busy in recent months, paring down its PC sub-brands to just Omni (consumer), Omen (gaming), Elite, and Pro (business), and launching new laptops based around Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite platform. In keeping with the new naming scheme, the HP OmniBook X we're looking at here is a high-end consumer laptop for $1,199. Can this Arm-based OmniBook X knock one of the x86 devices off of our Premium Laptops page? We'll have to benchmark it and try out its AI-focused features to find out. But (spoiler alert) its 16-hour battery life result in our testing is certainly impressive - if not quite the next-level longevity that Qualcomm was promising in the lead-up to the launch of its latest Windows on Arm platform. Previous efforts to get Windows software, which is typically written for x86 (Intel and AMD) architectures, running on Arm chips have been hit or miss at best, with many popular apps and programs running in emulation (making them slower while also consuming more battery life), and many other programs refusing to run at all. For an operating system like Windows where people have grown to expect software to mostly just work, that's a pretty big problem. But with the launch of the Snapdragon X Elite and the Microsoft Copilot+ push, things are very different this time around, with many mainstream apps and programs getting native Arm versions. Personally, nearly everything I attempted to run on the OmniBook X just worked as I would have expected from a typical Intel or AMD laptop, with the exception of HWinfo, which we typically use for testing. One of my favorite games at the moment, Dome Keeper, was playable (running in emulation, not that the average user would know that) but choppy in scenes with fast motion. This is a pixel art game that's generally not very demanding, so I was a bit surprised that the game felt sluggish. Of course, HP isn't marketing the OmniBook as a gaming laptop, and I do expect gaming performance to get better as Qualcomm releases additional driver updates. But at least for the foreseeable future, you should expect some programs (and games in particular) to exhibit unpredictable performance - and for some software to occasionally just not work. If that's not something you want to deal with, especially considering the high price of the OmniBook and other Snapdragon X Elite devices, you may want to stick with an Intel or AMD laptop for this cycle and see what Windows on Arm looks like in a year or two. The OmniBook X is a new design from HP, but it clearly takes cues from the company's previous high-end Dragonfly laptops, with its simple but refined rounded and tapered edges, above-average keyboard feel, and high-resolution (5MP) webcam with a physical privacy shutter. The design basics (and the physical laptop itself) all feel solid, and the chassis is svelte at 0.57 inches thick. But at 2.97 pounds, it's not the lightest 14-incher around. Lenovo's X1 Carbon is 2.42 pounds, and my personal AMD-powered Asus Zenbook 14 OLED weighs 2.82 pounds. So while the OmniBook X feels solid and dense, there are lighter ultraportable options out there. HP delivers a decent selection of ports for an ultraportable laptop, with a 5Gbps USB-A port (under a drop-jaw hinge) on the right edge, alongside a 3.5mm audio jack. The left edge houses two USB-C ports, one 40Gbps (USB4), and one 10GBps. It would be nice if both ports offered the same bandwidth, but both at least support power delivery, so you don't have to worry about which one you use to charge. In its marketing materials, HP calls out the laptop's redesigned hinge for its "optimal thermal ventilation." But those who prefer a full 180 degrees will find the hinge sub-optimal, as the screen only tilts back as far as can be seen in the image above. The company has done some smart and visually interesting things with the keyboard, adding screen capture, calculator, and a customizable button to the function row, alongside a pale blue power button. But we'll discuss the keyboard and touchpad in more detail shortly. Overall, while it does give off MacBook Air vibes in silver (it's also available in white), HP's latest laptop feels like something I'd be comfortable and confident in using as my daily (portable) computing device - even if the commuter in me does wish it were about a half-pound lighter. We tested the HP OmniBook X against the Surface Laptop 13, also a Snapdragon X-based portable, along with the 13-inch M3 MacBook Air. And to see how these laptops compare to a recent Intel-based portable, we tossed in Asus' Zenbook 14 OLED, outfitted with a Core Ultra 7 155H CPU and a higher-resolution 2880 x 1800 display. In Geekbench 6, the HP OmniBook X was competitive, but not a top performer. Its single-core score of 2,333 is actually the worst showing here, while its multi-score showing of 13,200 was better than all its competitors, save for the Surface Laptop (also a Snapdragon X device), which managed 14,426. On our file copy test, the OmniBook X transferred our 25GB of test files at 892.54 MBps. That's not exactly slow, but again it's the slowest result here, with the Asus Zenbook 14 being about a third faster. With Handbrake, we have computers transcode a 4K video to 1080p. And we use the Arm-specific versions of Handbrake for the Arm-based laptops and the traditional x86 version of the program for Intel and AMD laptops. Here the OmniBook landed in second place, at 5 minutes and 46 seconds, behind the 5:10 showing of Microsoft's Snapdragon-based Surface Laptop. The Intel Core Ultra-based Asus Zenbook wasn't massively behind the HP, though, at 6:17. To measure long-term performance, we run 20 loops of the Arm version of the Cinebench 2024 CPU test and observe how the scores change, with less change suggesting more stable thermal performance. After taking a big dip after the first run, dropping from 649 to 358, the OmniBook recovered a bit on the third run (551), then stayed in the mid-to-high 600s for the rest of our test runs. Usually, we'd use HWinfo to check speeds and temperatures during this test, but that software isn't working on Arm as of this writing. The 14-inch, 2240 x 1400 touch display on the HP OmniBook looks pretty good, helped in some ways by the glass that covers its touch panel. But looking over some photos of a recent trip to Scotland, and comparing them to how they look on my own Asus Zenbook OLED (an AMD-based model), the color and contrast were noticeably better on the Zenbook, beginning out a level of detail that wasn't apparent on the OmniBook, even though it has a higher-resolution screen than my Zenbook (1920 x 1200). Despite not being OLED, the OmniBook's screen does quite well in terms of its color, reproducing 80.2 percent of the DCI-P3 color space, which is only just bested here by the OLED screen on the Zenbook 14 (81.7 percent). But in terms of measured brightness, at 283.2 nits, it was the dimmest of this bunch. The Surface Laptop was the brightest, at an impressive 567.8 nits, but its color reproduction was also the worst. Both the Zenbook OLED and the MacBook Air arguably provide the best balance of color and brightness of these competing machines. While the OmniBook X's key travel is predictably shallow for a thin and light laptop, the keyboard on the laptop is still quite good. The keys feel reasonably snappy, with space between them so you can orient your fingers by feel. And the three levels of backlighting gets bright enough that I could easily see even in our brightly lit office. The company has also tweaked the top function row to include the usual media controls, along with launch keys for the calculator, snipping tool, and a customizable key. I also like that the power button in the upper-right is blue, breaking up the gray and silver look while making it easier to find. There are also tiny amber indicator lights on the volume and mic keys to let you know when you're muted - a small but genuinely useful design choice. The roomy touchpad doesn't sport any fancy haptic feedback, instead opting for a physical click that generally worked well for me. The only issue I had with the cursor controls was occasionally when attempting to click and drag one folder into another. It's unclear whether this is a driver issue with Snapdragon laptops or something specifically to do with HP's touchpad - it didn't occur every time. The screen also supports touch input, so if you're so inclined, you can also use the even roomier 14-inch panel to move files around. The OmniBook's downward-firing speakers sit near the front edge of the laptop and deliver a noticeably better audio experience if the laptop is sitting a couple of feet in front of you than if your head is hunched in front of the screen. I know this because as I was using the laptop on my coffee table, looking down at the screen and keyboard, I first thought the speakers sounded a bit mid-heavy and muffled. But as soon as I leaned back to watch the video for IAMX's latest single, "Neurosymphony," my perception of the audio improved dramatically. All that said, even with the laptop on a desk a couple of feet in front of you, the OmniBook's speakers are good but not great. Both Apple's MacBooks and HP's own Dragonfly G4 that I tested last year get much louder while delivering at least the same quality of sound, if not better. Of course, with Quacomm's dramatic claims about unplugged longevity, we were curious to see how the OmniBook and other Snapdragon X laptops would do on our battery life test. Our battery benchmark consists of web browsing, video streaming, and OpenGL graphics tests at 150 nits of screen brightness. And HP's laptop certainly didn't disappoint here, lasting 16 hours and 18 minutes. That's more than an hour longer than Apple's M3 MacBook Air, and anything else here. Note, though, that the Asus Zenbook we reviewed has a higher-resolution 2880 x 1800 screen, and it's OLED, which tends to use more power. Our colleagues at Laptop Mag tested another model with a 1920 x 1200 screen (and the same Core Ultra 7 CPU as our Zenbook), and it lasted 15 hours and 52 minutes on the same battery test - just 26 minutes shy of the Snapdragon X-powered OmniBook. So in short, the OmniBook's battery life is very impressive, easily crossing the 16 hour mark on our test. But if you choose the right models, both Apple and Intel can deliver laptops that last almost as long. One area where the Snapdragon X seems to be undoubtedly better than competing Intel and AMD laptops is in webcam performance. In part, that's because these high-end Arm-based laptops have tended to feature higher-end cameras. But it's also because the Quaclcomm chips have a dedicated image signal processor, while x86 chips do not. Specifically, our HP OmniBook X sports a 5MP webcam, akin to previous-gen Intel-based HP Dragonfly laptops. But the sensor specs tell only part of the story. In general, thanks to the hardware and Qualcomm's years of expertise powering front-facing phone cameras, colors, detail, and the overall field of view just looks better on HP's laptop than pretty much any Windows-based laptop I've tested previously. That's all well and good, but considering that many office meeting apps limit the resolution of your window to 1080p or less, it's a question how much this matters for most people, unless you happen to be using your webcam to shoot stills or video for professional or pro-sumer purposes. Personally, as someone who owns a 4K webcam and regularly dials into meetings that I frequently have to run myself, I'm fine with a solid 1080p camera - but that clearly isn't the case for everyone. This is somewhat anecdotal, but signing in via Windows Hello also seemed faster and more reliable than with many Windows laptops I've used in the past. One thing I don't expect to see in the taskbar of a $1,200 laptop is trialware, and yet the McAfee logo lives on the home screen of the laptop out of the box, hawking its antivirus and firewall trials, while also trying to get you to install other apps. This is something I've grown to expect from sub-$1,000 laptops, but it never feels good when you spend a serious amount of money, only to have a company shovel software at you that you most likely don't need. HP also includes its own apps. MyHP links you to support, as well as audio and video controls. Most of these settings can of course be managed from within Windows, but HP's Poly suite gives you added features like "AI Noise Removal / Reduction," background blur / removal, auto framing and, so HP says, better handling of multiple cameras. Many of these features will be duplicated in some form in most modern video conferencing apps and through Windows Studio Effects, but for those unlikely to dig into settings before a call, HP at least gives you the option of tweaking things ahead of time, I guess. The company also sticks its beta AI Companion on the taskbar. From the demos I saw of it, it's mostly a front-end for a large language model / chatbot that could be accessed directly on the web. But unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any real-world experience with it, as it forced me to create an account and receive an authorization via email to use the app. But I never got the authorization code to my Gmail account, despite trying multiple accounts and checking my Spam folders. Of course, as a Copilot+ PC, the OmniBook X also ships with Microsoft's exclusive (at least for now) AI-focused features, such as they are. Cocreator is an addition to Paint that attempts to combine a text prompt and your own attempts at drawing to create the kind of image you're after. Studio Effects add background blur and other effects to your webcam. And Live Captions With Translation extends the existing Live Captions feature (which adds captioning to basically any audio playing on the device) to provide live translations between languages. How useful the above features will be to you will of course in large part depend on how and why you use your laptop. But we generally haven't found these Copilot+ features all that useful or exciting. And of course the primary exclusive feature to the Windows on Arm, the screen-capturing Recall, has seemingly been indefinitely delayed due to privacy concerns and the resulting backlash. Getting inside the HP OmniBook X is just a matter of removing four Torx screws (two longer ones on the top edge and two shorter ones on the bottom), and then prying off the clips around the edge of the metal bottom panel. But don't expect to be able to upgrade much, as is typically the case with slim laptops. The 2280 SSD can be swapped out (once you remove a metal shielding cage). And you could, at some point, replace the Wi-Fi card, but the 6E model that's here is good enough for almost anyone, and it's unclear if drivers for other, faster cards will be readily available for this new Arm-based platform. HP sells the HP OmniBook X in one core configuration, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 CPU, integrated Adreno graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 2240 x 1400 touch display. Our silver model with 1TB of storage lists at $1,199 (HP was selling it for $1,149 on sale when I wrote this). But if you want the "Ceramic White" color, it costs $10 more. And if you can live with 512GB of storage, that knocks $100 off the price. There is no 2TB option or the ability to get more RAM. Almost all of my reservations about the OmniBook X have nothing to do with the hardware and everything to do with its underlying platform. In opting into the Snapdragon X Elite ecosystem, particularly this early, you should expect to at least occasionally run into programs that don't work or won't work as well as you might expect. And if you happen to regularly run programs that don't yet have native Arm versions (including most of Adobe's apps, save for Photoshop and Lightroom), you're probably going to experience much shorter battery life than we saw in our browser-based test. And there are traditional x86-based laptops that last nearly as long on a charge as the Omnibook, without the complications and limitations that still exist with Windows on Arm. As much as I like the Omnibook X's hardware and battery life, I'm not convinced that most people should jump on the Snapdragon X Elite bandwagon just yet. Considering all of that, plus the perhaps interesting but mostly unnecessary exclusive features that ship with these Copilot+ PC devices, you may want to at least hold off to see how AMD's AI 300 and Intel's Lunar Lake have to offer when it comes to battery life and AI-focused features and performance. But purely considering its hardware design and 16-plus-hour battery life in our testing, the HP OmniBook X is an excellent laptop with a good keyboard. It should get you through a workday without having to reach for the charger, and the vast majority of programs I use on a daily basis just work. That's much more than I have been able to say about any previous Arm-based PC.

Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 review: failing to stand out | Digital Trends

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us? Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 MSRP $1,580.00 Score Details "The Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 isn't fast enough or long-lasting enough." Pros Solid build Attractive aesthetic Innovative Magic Bay Good productivity performance Very good IPS display Cons Disappointing battery life Unusual chipset options Magic Bay accessories aren't sold a la carte Too expensive If you're going to make a 13-inch laptop today, you'll want to ensure it's fast, has great battery life, and equips an excellent display. That's particularly true if you're asking premium dollars, as Lenovo is with the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4. Contents Specs and configurationsDesignKeyboard and touchpadConnectivity, expandability, and webcamPerformanceBattery lifeDisplay and audioA 13-inch laptop that fails to stand outShow 3 more items With competition from a new class of Microsoft Copilot+ PCs, that's become even more vital. Those laptops are fast, have great battery life, and are even a bit less expensive. All things considered, the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 isn't a very strong alternative. Specs and configurations Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 Dimensions 11.53 inches x 8.07 inches x 0.51 inches Weight 2.71 pounds Processor Intel Core Ultra 5 125H Intel Core Ultra 9 185H Graphics Intel Arc RAM 8GB 16GB 32GB Display 13.5-inch 16:10 2.8K (2880 x 1800) IPS, 120Hz Storage 512GB SSD 1TB SSD Touch Yes Ports 3 x USB-C with Thunderbolt 4 1 x 3.5mm audio jack 1 x Magic Bay pogo pin Wireless Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 Optional 4G LTE Webcam 1080p with infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello Operating system Windows 11 Battery 74 watt-hour Price $1,580+ The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 has one of the stranger configurations that I can remember. Its base model costs $1,580 for an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H chipset, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 13.5-inch 2.8K IPS display (the only option). For $432 more, you can upgrade all the way to an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, which is a curious alternative. The Core Ultra 9 185H is a much more power-hungry chipset that you won't often find in a 13-inch laptop. If you choose the Core Ultra 9, you can also configure 32GB of RAM -- also likely overkill for this class of machine. That will cost you $2,220 with a 1TB SSD. The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 isn't an inexpensive laptop, but it's competitively priced. The Intel-based Dell XPS 13 starts at $1,299 for a Core Ultra 7 155H, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a FHD+ (1920 by 1200) IPS display. As you start ramping up the XPS 13's configuration, you'll spend around the same money. The MacBook Air M3, though, starts at a much lower $1,099 for 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a 13.6-inch 2560-by-1664 IPS display, and it's not quite as expensive at the high end unless you opt for a 2TB SSD. Design The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 is a well-made little laptop. It's all-aluminum and feels incredibly solid, with no bending, flexing or twisting in the lid, keyboard deck, or chassis. It's easily the equal of the Dell XPS 13 and even slightly more rigid than the MacBook Air M3, which has a slightly bendable lid. It has a truly premium feel, and that extends to the hinge that allows smoothly opening the lid with one hand. The biggest advantage of a 13-inch laptop is its portability, and here the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 also does well. It has extremely thin display bezels, maybe thinner than even the XPS 13, while having a larger display. It's slightly narrower and only a tiny bit deeper, while being thinner at 0.51 inches versus 0.58 inches. The Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED is thinner at 0.46 inches, but it's also wider and deeper even with a smaller display. The MacBook Air M3 is the thinnest of all at 0.44 inches, but it's also larger with a slightly larger display and bezels. The Zenbook is lighter at 2.2 pounds, with the others coming in at around 2.7 pounds. Lenovo also did a great job with the aesthetic. The overall color scheme is a dark gray, with a little splash of chrome in the logos on the lid. The keyboard is closely matched, giving everything a cohesive look. And then the lid is two-tone, which adds a bit of flair. It's just enough to make the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 stand out a bit from its peers, but it's not enough to be garish. The XPS 13 is more conservative on the outside while being ultramodern (and controversial) on the inside, and the MacBook Air M3 has Apple's usual fastidious design that exudes excellence. Keyboard and touchpad The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 has Lenovo's latest non-ThinkPad keyboard, with sculpted keycaps that seem a bit smaller than I remember and with an impression of more spacing overall. The switches are light and snappy, and I found myself quickly getting up to speed. It's a different feel than Apple's Magic Keyboard, but I imagine many people will like it just as much. It's easily more comfortable than the zero-lattice keyboard on the XPS 13. My review unit had a mechanical keyboard that's OK. It's large enough and precise, but the button clicks are sharp and too loud. You can configure a haptic touchpad, which if it's like the one on the Lenovo ThinkPad Z13, will be a lot more competitive with the haptic touchpads on some other recent premium laptops. It's a free switch in Lenovo's configurator, and I can think of no good reason to go with the mechanical version. Connectivity, expandability, and webcam Standard connectivity is quite limited, with just Thunderbolt 4 ports and no legacy connections. The primary advantage over the XPS 13 is that there's one more Thunderbolt 4 port for charging. The MacBook Air M3 also has just two Thunderbolt 4 ports, but it also has the MagSafe 3 connection for charging. The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 is unusual in that it has Lenovo's Magic Bay solution, which uses a set of pogo pins in the reverse notch that holds the webcam to add one of several accessories. Those include the Magic Bay Light (included with my review unit), Magic Bay LTE for 4G connectivity, Magic Bay 4K webcam, and Magic Bay Studio that adds speakers to a 4K webcam. I tested the Magic Bay Light and, when used with Lenovo's Smart Meeting app, provided intense lighting that seems more than sufficient for any possible environment. The Magic Bay expandability is an interesting feature for sure. The biggest problem is that it's almost impossible to choose a specific Magic Bay accessory. You can't buy them separately, but rather they're included with specific models. However, you can't currently select a model when configuring the machine. So, it would take a lot of work to actually buy the ThinkBook with a specific accessory. Lenovo needs to fix that. The integrated webcam is a 1080p version with an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition. The Intel Meteor Lake chipset includes a neural processing unit (NPU) that's not fast enough for Microsoft's new Copilot+ features but does support the standard Microsoft Studio Effects. That utility adds AI hardware assist for things like background blurring. Performance In a strange twist, Lenovo is offering two chipsets for the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4. My review unit came with the 28-watt Intel Core Ultra 5 125H with 14 cores (four Performance, eight Efficient, and two Low Power Efficient) and 18 threads, running at up to 4.5GHz. That's less common than the Core Ultra 7 155H with two extra cores and threads, but not a bad choice for a 13-inch laptop. The other option, though, is the 45-watt Core Ultra 9 185H with 16 cores (six Performance, eight Efficient, and two Low Power Efficient) and 22 cores running at up to 5.1GHz. That chipset requires a lot more power to run at full performance, and it gets hotter. It's a questionable choice for a 13-inch laptop. Simply put, most people are going to buy the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 primarily for productivity tasks. For these users, the laptop was a decent performer in our benchmarks but it lagged behind several other 13-inch machines in most of our benchmarks. Interestingly, it did much better in the PCMark 10 Complete benchmark that runs through a more real-world workflow. It wasn't impressive in 3DMark, so gaming isn't really an option here. Overall, if you're looking for a laptop that will be fast enough for web browsing, email, office apps, and media consumption, then ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 will be a great option. If your needs are more demanding, however, you might find it a bit limiting. Upgrading to the Core Ultra 9 185H is a dubious proposition in that it might not provide that much more performance but will certainly run hotter and louder. Geekbench 6 (single/multi) Handbrake (seconds) Cinebench R23 (single/multi) PCMark 10 Complete Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 (Core Ultra 5 125H) Bal: 2,120 / 6,966 Perf: 2,144 / 7,871 Bal: 197 Perf: 190 Bal: 1,602 / 5,113 Perf: 1,549 / 5,306 6,344 Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED (Core Ultra 7 155U) Bal: N/A Perf: N/A Bal: 131 Perf: 119 Bal: 1,770 / 7,171 Perf: 1,786 / 8,532 5,957 HP Envy x360 14 2024 (Core Ultra 7 155U) Bal: 1,515 / 7,710 Perf: 1,713 / 7,710 Bal: 139 Perf: 120 Bal: 1,713 / 6,751 Perf: 1,766 / 8,146 5,750 Dell XPS 13 (Core Ultra 7 155H) Bal: 1,469 / 10,774 Bal: 1,666 / 10,446 Bal: 83 Perf: 82 Bal: 1,649 / 9,311 Perf: 1,606 / 12,005 5,928 Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 2024 (Core Ultra 7 155H) Bal: 1,681 / 11,331 Perf: 1,635 / 11,274 Bal: 72 Perf: 70 Bal: 1,629 / 13,153 Perf: 1,676 / 14,529 6,688 Asus Zenbook 14 Q425 (Core Ultra 7 155H) Bal: 1,693 / 10,983 Perf: 1,728 / 11,473 Bal: 94 Perf: 82 Bal: 1,653 / 9,156 Perf: 1,635 / 12,130 6,316 Battery life The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 has a rather large battery for a 13-inch laptop, at 74 watt-hours. By comparison, the XPS 13 has just 55 watt-hours and the MacBook Air M3 52.6 watt-hours. The ThinkBook also has a 2.8K IPS display that should burn less power than an OLED panel, but won't be as efficient as the FHD+ panels you'll find in some alternatives. In our benchmarks, the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 wasn't terribly impressive. It lasted for just 6.25 hours in our web browsing test and 12.3 hours in our video looping test. The XPS 13 with an IPS display made it to 14 hours of web browsing, and the MacBook Air M3 with a high-res IPS panel lasted for 19 hours of both web browsing and video. With the advent of Microsoft's new Copilot+ PC initiative with Windows on Arm laptops running Qualcomm's very efficient Snapdragon X Elite chipsets, laptops like the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 are even less impressive. Especially for typical productivity workflows, the Qualcomm machines will offer hours more battery life. And the MacBook Air M3 retains its spot at the top. Display and audio Most premium laptops today offer an OLED display option, but the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 bucks that trend. It has one panel, a 2.8K (2880 by 1800) IPS running at 120Hz. Given the laptop's longevity, that's not a bad compromise. An OLED display would get even worse battery life. Subjectivity, the display was plenty sharp and very bright, and it has accurate colors and enough contrast to be great for productivity work. My colorimeter measured brightness at 563 nits, which is excellent. Contrast came in at 1,340:1, which is very good for IPS (but well under a display like the XPS 13 OLED at 16,500:1). Color accuracy was excellent at a Delta-E of 0.90 (less than 1.0 is indistinguishable to the human eye). The only glaring weakness, at least compared to OLED, was color gamut support at 99% of sRGB, 73% of AdobeRGB, and 73% of DCI-P3. Those are average for IPS, although many competing laptops are better, and well under the 100%, 95%, and 100%, respectively, that OLED usually produces. Once again, these are good enough results for a productivity user, but creators and media consumers won't love this display. Audio duties are performed by four speakers: two tweeters and two woofers. The system was loud enough and very clear, with good mids, highs, and even some bass. I'd rate audio as very good and better than that on the XPS 13 and MacBook Air M3. A 13-inch laptop that fails to stand out The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 ticks some of the important boxes. It's very well-built, attractive, and has a great keyboard with an optional haptic touchpad. It's highly portable, and its Magic Bay setup is unique. But it's not terribly fast, it doesn't have great battery life, and its display is good but not great. If it were less expensive, then it would be easier to recommend. But if you're spending more than $1,500 for a laptop, you shouldn't have to accept so many compromises.

Acer Swift Go 16 Review: I Refuse To Call It An "AI Machine"

Acer’s newly released Swift Go 16 is part of the first wave of AI PCs. It’s powered by the new Intel Core Ultra chip with AI capabilities; its built-in Intel Arc GPU makes use of AI-accelerated graphics performance; the keyboard sports a dedicated AI Copilot key; the mics use AI noise reduction; the webcam features AI-enabled Temporal Noise Reduction, and a host, more of AI, features inside that carryout tasks you’d typically need a third-party AI model for. The Swift Go 16 retails at $900 and sports an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor, 32GB RAM, and 1 TB SSD. It offers a 16-inch multi-touch IPS display and Intel Arc graphics. This is the only configuration Acer's latest budget laptop is currently available. The Swift Go 16 is best for folks who need productivity. The laptop prides itself on its thin and light form factor. The average weight for non-gaming 16-inch laptops is usually between 4 to 5 lbs. Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro is 4.7 lbs, and Lenovo’s IdeaPad 5i Pro is considered lightweight at 4.1 lbs. At 3.7 lbs, the Swift Go 16 is very easy to lug around. We praised Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold 16, which measures around an inch thick, for its compact and slim design, but the Swift Go 16 tops that with a 0.7-inch total thickness. It’s impressive that it maintains this form factor while sporting a well-made, sturdy build. As expected from a 16-inch laptop, it also sports a humongous keyboard that handles your numeric keypad needs. There’s also a full-function row, backlighting, and a dedicated Copilot key to the right side of the space bar. The key can be triggered to pull up Copilot, the AI companion announced at the end of last year and Microsoft has been touting recently. Upon enabling it, it displays a few prompts as suggestions on what you could ask it and a field at the bottom to type in questions. I wasn’t too thrilled about the keyboard. It is incredibly shallow and features insufficient travel to respond with reassuring, satisfactory feedback. I barely got through my two-week-long testing period on its keyboard, and I wished I had a dedicated keyboard connected every time I was engaged in a writing task on it. The trackpad gave me no glaring issues, enough real estate, and a firm, stable feel. The Swift Go 16's port selection is excellent for a productivity-focused laptop. I was happy to see a Kensington lock slot, which has almost become extinct on notebooks. There’s also a MicroSD card reader, a 3.5mm jack, two Type-A ports, two Type-C ports, and an HDMI slot. The Swift Go 16 handles itself quite efficiently in terms of overall performance. It sports the new Intel Core Ultra H-Series processor, the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, to be specific, Intel Arc graphics, 32GB RAM, and 1 TB SSD. It scored 2342 on the Geekbench 6.0 single-core test and 12956 on multi-core. Those impressive figures top the Dell XPS 14, Lenovo ThinkBook X1 Fold, and the Lenovo Slim 7i. Don't expect this machine to fulfill your gaming needs. The Predator series already does that. The Swift Go 16 is strictly a productivity laptop. With built-in Intel Arc graphics on this laptop, it’s doubtful a gamer would opt for it anyway unless you're using streaming services like GeForce Now or Xbox Cloud Gaming, which works well, given you have a decent internet connection. I liked the Copilot features but wouldn't buy this machine only for those. Essentially, the Copilot key triggers a chatbot. However, some of its capabilities extend beyond your typical chatbot. You can use it to change your wallpaper, troubleshoot audio issues, or tweak user settings. I found this part helpful in saving me the time and effort it sometimes takes to rummage around in Settings trying to find something. It was also helpful in situations where I knew where to go, but asking a chatbot to do it for me was much quicker. For instance, I said, “Turn Bluetooth on†to it, and it complied. I followed that with “turn it off†and understood the context. Its ability to have some memory and understand context also impressed me. I was also able to understand and ignore all of my typos. Responses were accurate, but some of them had unusually long loading times. I once asked it what the capital of Greece is, and it took 17 seconds to answer that. Image generation requires you to sign in to your Microsoft account, and Copilot takes around 8 seconds just to tell you that. Once you're signed in, it's another 10ish seconds for the image to come up. The initial 8 seconds can probably be ignored because you'll have to be signed in to chat with Copilot anyway. Microsoft blocks your access to it when you reach your chat limit, which would happen as soon as you hit five prompts. But again, I found the chatbot faster in getting things done for me (in Settings, etc.) than looking things up.  The 16-inch display is a WUXGA (1920 x 1200) IPS panel with a 60Hz refresh rate. The absence of a premium OLED screen and a higher 120Hz refresh rate means it’s not the most suitable for enjoying your intense titles. It also accepts touch input, but I didn’t use that; navigating via the screen on this monstrous machine wasn’t practical. The 350-nit display performed perfectly well on my office desk, illuminated by an enormous window. I set it to 40% during my entire testing period, which was more than sufficient. I had a decent time watching YouTube and Netflix on the Swift Go 16, but I don’t expect it to offer the kind of contrast and vibrance OLEDs do. The blacks could have been blacker and the whites whiter, but overall, there was fair clarity, richness, and detail, which is always a win for a non-OLED. The 1440p QHD webcam claims to sport AI-enabled TNR or Temporal Noise Reduction. I didn’t feel a perceptible difference in visual noise. I compared it to the Lenovo Slim 7i’s camera without any AI intervention, and they performed quite similarly. The webcam isn’t poor quality; it doesn’t live up to its fancy AI-infused hype. The mic also uses AI noise reduction. According to my friend, the hum of my tower fan right next to me was significantly quiet. I’m unsure if an advanced AI algorithm was behind this, but I shouldn’t care as long as I’m content with the results. I wouldn’t have been as underwhelmed about the battery life on the Swift Go 16 if Acer hadn’t excessively hyped it and made it one of the USPs of the machine. I got around 10 hours out of it, which I would typically be satisfied with on a big, beefy machine like this that I'd probably use on my desk anyway. But with a promised 20-hour life and numerous promises about the laptop being an on-the-go companion, the vast difference between what was promised and what was offered was almost shameful. The 10 hours average how long the laptop lasted every time I used it on a full charge in my almost two-week testing period. The most outrageous thing is that the battery scores don't include excessively battery-draining apps. I used it mainly for writing on Google Docs, a lot of web browsing, Gmail, Slack, and very little Photoshop. If you work remotely and prefer to WFH from a new cafe every other day, you might get annoyed by having to check for socket availability or lug around a charger everywhere towards the end of your shift. At $900, the Swift Go 16 offers precisely what’s expected from it. It offers efficient performance, a good-looking display, a lot of ports, and an excellent form factor. The battery life is nowhere near what’s promised, but if you ignore the overambitious claims, 10 hours is not bad for a 16-inch machine. You might also have to ignore some overly enthusiastic AI marketing. Currently, “AI PCs†aren’t offering anything out of this world that can be considered entirely separate. It's best to go for this machine as something that provides a couple of cool AI features rather than "an AI machine." There isn't anything else that the Swift Go 16 promised but failed to deliver.Â