There’s a new class of Windows laptops out there. Powered by impressive Arm CPUs from Nvidia, packed with generous amounts of RAM and premium materials. And they damn well better be since they start at approximately double the price of a “nice” laptop and go up to $7,000 dollars. 

But if you actually buy one, you’ll be getting an experience that is familiar in most ways. They boot up into Windows 11 and force you to log in, and try to upsell you on a bunch of services. They default to tons of cloud-based services, and Microsoft will act like you kicked a puppy if you download any browser except Edge. 

And it still wants you to pay $3 a month to get rid of the advertising in the built-in solitaire game. 

HP wants you to watch The People’s Court

Let’s set specific terms since I don’t want to throw shade where it may not be warranted. I got the HP Omnibook Ultra 16 in for review. It’s using the more premium 20-core RTX Spark setup, and 32GB of RAM. This is the “base” configuration of this particular laptop, and it costs $3,200. There are cheaper options for RTX Spark out there (the Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,600 with an 18-core/24GB configuration). But the maximum configuration for this one, with 128GB of RAM, costs over $6,000. 

And it still comes pre-loaded with freakin’ McAfee. Which many consider to be akin to malware at this point, to say nothing of how it’s duplicating functions that are already present and perfectly serviceable within Windows 11. 

It has “HP TV+,” something I wasn’t even aware of before now. It’s a free streaming TV thing like Crackle or Tubi. You can’t pick what you want to watch or even pause, it’s just a bunch of always-on channels. It’s full to bursting with advertising, of course. The ads are the point, trying to get HP users to watch a few commercials for gambling or insurance or prescription drugs, just to put another nickel in HP’s pocket after they’ve bought a laptop. 

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Windows has bloatware, from both Microsoft and manufacturers. It’s infested with advertising. More or less every product and service that you pay for is trying to get even more money out of you at every turn. 

Recently I was asked if I wanted to buy an extended warranty for a $20 Blu-Ray. This is the world we live in. I can’t reasonably object to advertising or subscriptions — I write on the internet for a living. But the general social contract at this point is that if you spend a bunch of money, you don’t have to deal with this sort of crap. 

Also, brand new BMW owners were assaulted with treated to an in-car ad for Spider-Man. So I suppose that social contract has been ripped up and tossed out. 

The Surface is only slightly better

As I was writing up this editorial, I asked Mark Hachman to look through the Surface Laptop Ultra for bloatware. (Go read the review here.) Microsoft tends to take a lighter touch to its own Surface brand. And, indeed, there was no McAfee or Norton. But it did have the frickin’ ad-infested solitaire game as well as LinkedIn in the Start menu. Both of those are Microsoft properties, so I guess Redmond just can’t help itself. 

One last interesting tidbit: The Surface Laptop Ultra did come with the Nvidia app pre-installed. You might think I’d object to that — it’s just more branding, after all. But no, Nvidia’s unified app is the quickest, easiest way to install the most recent GPU drivers, an essential aspect of the experience for any PC that leans on graphics. It’s an entirely reasonable thing to install on a laptop with an Nvidia chip as its most important selling point.

And, for some reason, HP decided not to pre-install the Nvidia app. Apparently getting users to watch The People’s Court with a banner ad for printers was more important. 

I’ve never bought a $3,200 computer for myself. Not even half that. My home-built PC is now worth about that much, but only because I bought the parts before everything went insane. But if I spent that kind of money on a laptop, I’d expect a certain level of elevated experience that goes beyond the actual parts inside. And Nvidia and Microsoft would seem to agree, pushing these RTX Spark laptops as literally “A new beginning for Windows PCs,” according to this promotional page. 

That new beginning apparently hangs on to McAfee bloatware and subscription solitaire.

Price When Reviewed

$1,199.99

Best Prices Today: HP Googlebook 14

The HP Googlebook 14 knows how to make a good first impression. It’s got a fancy aluminum chassis, a gorgeous OLED display, and a comfortable keyboard. But (of course) there’s a catch. 

It costs $1,199.99, which is about $300 more than the Acer Googlebook 14. Having recently reviewed the Acer, I couldn’t help comparing the two. While I personally prefer HP’s design, the performance results and form factor make the decision a little more complicated.

I also think Googlebooks are a fairly niche product to begin with because they lean so heavily on Android phone integration. Not everybody has–or wants (hi!)–an Android phone. Also, it would be nice if that integration worked properly… but I’ll get to that later.

HP Googlebook 14: Specs

• Model: HP Googlebook 14
• OS: Googlebook OS
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite
• Graphics: Integrated Qualcomm Adreno GPU
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5X
• Storage: 512GB SSD
• Display: 14-inch 2800×1800 OLED touchscreen, up to 120Hz
• Brightness: Up to 500 nits
• Camera: 5MP IR camera with facial recognition and manual privacy shutter
• Audio: Quad speakers with HP Audio Boost 2.0
• Battery: 70Wh
• Charger: 65W USB-C GaN adapter
• Weight: 2.74 pounds
• Price: $1,199.99 starting MSRP on HP.com

HP Googlebook 14: Design, build quality

Having just reviewed the Acer Googlebook 14 last week, I had a little deja vu when unboxing the HP Googlebook 14. The two machines have similar builds, but I much prefer HP’s design.

First, the HP logo sits in the middle of the lid. I like the symmetry of it–I think it looks both sharp and clean. On the Acer, the logo sits off to the right corner. This probably wouldn’t bother most people, but I just think the logo looks better in the center.

I like HP’s colorway more, too. The manufacturer calls it “Atmospheric Blue” and it’s subtle yet sophisticated. The deeper blue color is more interesting to look at (in my humble opinion) than the Acer’s grey colorway. That said, this is purely subjective. What I like isn’t going to be what you like. 

The build quality is quite good, which is what I’ve come to expect from these particular machines. Googlebooks are a step up from Chromebooks, their mostly plastic brethren, and you can feel the difference as soon as you pick one up.

The HP Googlebook 14 has an aluminum chassis with a sandblasted finish–so there’s no mistaking the premium quality here. Unlike the Acer Googlebook 14, the HP Googlebook 14 is a traditional clamshell laptop rather than a convertible. You won’t get the tablet functionality of a 2-in-1, but this laptop is still built to feel durable. 

The hinge feels solid, and the screen barely flexes when you try to twist it. I can also open the lid with one hand, which is always a nice touch. I’m big on small details, and HP really nails it in that department.

HP Googlebook 14: Keyboard, touchpad

I got accustomed to the keyboard pretty quickly. Again, it’s a 14-inch laptop, so it’s got a similar layout to the Chromebook I use on a daily basis. The keyboard also has backlighting that you can toggle on and off with a dedicated key. The smaller form factor is also just better suited for my hands, which are childishly small for some reason. However, I’m not sure if I’ve been extra oily lately or what, but I noticed fingerprints right away on the space bar. This is a miniscule nitpick, but it’s still worth noting.

The haptic touchpad is a good size and sits in the center, much like the one on the Acer Googlebook 14. It gives you plenty of room to navigate without feeling cramped, which is always welcome on a 14-inch laptop. I found it very responsive, too, and I’m especially fond of the simulated clicks. 

HP Googlebook 14: Glowbar

The Glowbar is a strip of light on the outside of the lid. Every Googlebook has one, and it’s meant to indicate battery level and charging status. On the HP Googlebook 14, it sits at the top center of the lid rather than off to the side, which I think looks better. For some reason, Acer really likes putting things off to the side. 

My opinion of the Googlebook Glowbar remains unchanged. Is it necessary? Not really. Is it something I mind having? Not really.

HP Googlebook 14: Display, audio

My husband and I watched an episode of Love Is Blind on the HP Googlebook 14. (Not the most dignified use of a review unit, I know.) Still, it gave me a chance to see how the display handled actual video content–I thought the picture looked bright and colorful. The show’s vibrant (creepily uncanny?) sets looked good on the screen, making for an enjoyable viewing experience.

The Googlebook 14’s got a 14-inch 2800×1800 OLED display, with a brightness level of (up to) 500 nits. Colors tend to really pop on OLED panels because of the strong contrast. The display also supports a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz, so scrolling feels quite smooth. 

As for the quad speakers, they’ve got quite the punch! I played Olivia Rodrigo’s new song “expectations” (featuring David Byrne from Talking Heads, which had me so excited!) and found the audio almost overwhelmingly loud at max volume. I actually had to move the volume slider down a bit. That’s definitely a great problem to have. The sound quality was pretty good, too.

HP Googlebook 14: Ports

The HP Googlebook 14 automatically wins points here because both USB-C ports (one on either side of the laptop) support charging. We feel strongly about two-sided charging ports here at PCWorld. 

That said, the selection is a little slim: just two USB-C ports and a headphone jack. If you need HDMI or USB-A, you’ll need to pick up an adapter. I can’t knock the port selection too much, though, because the HP Googlebook 14 is designed to be portable. Its slim form factor doesn’t leave much room for extra ports — though more connectivity would certainly be welcome on a laptop this expensive. 

HP Googlebook 14: Android phone integration

Deep integration with your Android phone is, arguably, the Googlebook’s defining feature. It’s supposed to be seamless. Unfortunately, my experience was anything but. 

But I could not, for the life of me, get the Googlebook to link up with the Pixel phone Google supplied me for these reviews. I spent about two hours trying to get them to work together, including pairing and unpairing, restarting both devices, and updating the devices and their apps, but I still wasn’t successful. 

Every time I clicked the little phone icon in the Googlebook’s taskbar, I was greeted with a “Get started” screen that took me to a QR code. I never got past that point. I experienced the same issue with the Acer Googlebook 14, too.

The main features you can (theoretically) use are Cast My Apps and Continue On. Cast My Apps lets you access apps from your phone on your Googlebook, which is handy if you don’t want to install those apps directly on the laptop. It could help save storage space. Continue On lets you pick up certain activities from your phone on your Googlebook, making it easier to switch between devices.

Those features sound really neat. I wish I could’ve seen them in action! Turns out I wasn’t the only one running into that issue. 

Android Authority actually reported pairing issues with Pixel phones. Google confirmed that the QR code remaining on screen was a known setup issue and said it started rolling out a fix. I also tried the workaround outlined by Hadlee Simons in the article, but no dice. 

Because I feel like this needs to be said, I don’t think the fault lies with HP or Acer (or any manufacturer) here. It’s Google and the new Aluminum OS. The truth of the matter is this: Googlebooks are a first generation product, they’re going to have some issues.

HP Googlebook 14: Performance

I compared the HP Googlebook 14 against the Acer Googlebook 14, which uses an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 processor. The HP Googlebook 14, meanwhile, uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite. Both laptops felt plenty snappy in everyday use, and their benchmark results were fairly close in some areas. However, MotionMark is where the biggest difference lies. 

HP Googlebook 14 benchmark results: 

• Basemark Web 3.0: 1,442
• MotionMark: 2683.94 (@ 60 fps)
• WebXPRT 5: 92

Just so we’re clear here, Googlebooks aren’t gaming machines in any way, shape, or form, so I wouldn’t read too much into one graphics benchmark. I just feel it’s important to point out.

MotionMark measures how well a browser handles animations and visual effects.The Acer Googlebook 14 really pulled ahead here with a score of 4,670.12. That’s about 74 percent higher than the HP Googlebook 14’s score.

So what does that mean exactly?

Simply put, the Acer Googlebook 14 handled MotionMark’s browser-based graphics workload much better in my testing. The HP uses Qualcomm Adreno graphics, while the Acer uses Intel Graphics with four Xe cores. Acer’s newer graphics platform could be a factor, but the benchmark alone doesn’t exactly tell us why it performed better.

Another thing to consider is the price. The Acer Googlebook 14 has a starting price of $899.99, so it’s about $300 cheaper than the HP Googlebook 14, which starts at $1,199.99. While browser performance is about the same, the Acer Googlebook 14 is cheaper and scored higher across all three benchmarks. Food for thought.

HP Googlebook 14: Battery life

During my time with the HP Googlebook 14, I clocked about eight hours of active screen-on time across a day and a half of unplugged use. My regular workload consisted of writing in Google Docs, keeping multiple browser tabs open, streaming music on Spotify, and watching YouTube. For full transparency, I turned off the keyboard’s backlight but kept the screen’s brightness at approximately 85 percent (this will naturally consume more power than, say, 50 percent).

I also ran the PCMark for Android Benchmark, which simulates everyday workloads until the laptop dies. With the screen brightness turned down slightly, the HP Googlebook 14 lasted a little over 14 hours in the test.

Charging is relatively quick, too. The laptop reached 50 percent in about 45 minutes. 

So, should you get the HP Googlebook 14?

The HP Googlebook 14 is a good machine. I like the build and finish, as well as its colorful display and keyboard.

The problem is the price. At $1,199.99, it’s about $300 more than the Acer Googlebook 14, which delivered stronger performance across all three benchmarks. It’s also a convertible, which offers additional flexibility. That doesn’t automatically mean the Acer Googlebook 14 is the better choice for everyone, though — and many people may better off going with a similarly priced Windows laptop instead. 

And then there’s the elephant in the room, which is my desperate attempt to connect an Android phone with the Googlebook. I just couldn’t get past the initial setup. Here’s hoping for a future fix! 

TL;DR: A grade A refurbished Dell Latitude 5420 with an 11th Gen i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and Windows 11 Pro is $264.99 (MSRP $1,099). Limited inventory available.

A brand-new business laptop with Windows 11 Pro, Thunderbolt 4, and an 11th Gen Intel processor usually costs north of $800. But if you don’t mind a refurbished model, this near-mint Dell Latitude 5420 brings all of that down to $264.99 (MSRP $1,099). The only “catch” is that inventory is limited, so order ASAP.

An 11th Gen Core i5-1135G7 runs at 2.4GHz and turbo-boosts to 4.2GHz, so spreadsheets, browser tabs, and video calls don’t compete for processing power. RAM is 8GB DDR4-3200, and the board supports up to 32GB if you want to upgrade later.

Storage is a 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD. Boot times and application launches are fast, though heavy media libraries or large project folders may need an external drive.

A 14-inch Full HD anti-glare display keeps text sharp and readable without the glare that makes glossy screens hard to use near a window.

Two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB 3.2 ports, and HDMI 2.0 give enough connectivity for a monitor, a dock, and peripherals without running out of slots. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 are both included. At 2.9 lbs, the laptop travels easily. A 90-day parts and labor warranty comes with the unit.

Pick up a business-grade laptop at a fraction of its original price while inventory lasts.

Get the Dell Latitude 5420 (Refurbished) for $264.99 (MSRP $1,099).

Dell Latitude 5420 (2021) 14″ i5-1135G7 8GB RAM 256GB SSD Win11Pro (Refurbished)See Deal

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Price When Reviewed

Base price: $2,599.99 Reviewed price: $3,699.99

Best Prices Today: Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra and its newfangled Nvidia RTX Spark chip characterize what many would call a new axis of productivity: AI. With it comes an old, familiar feeling of FOMO, or the fear of missing out.

For decades, the equation has been simple: A faster CPU means applications run faster. A faster GPU equates to higher frame rates in PC games. Now there’s AI, which means memory matters. Memory is shared between the Arm CPU and powerful RTX GPU inside the Nvidia Spark N1X chip powering the Surface Laptop Ultra, and more memory means the ability to load more powerful AI models.

As regards the Surface Laptop Ultra model that Microsoft shipped us, my first impression was one of disappointment, as it came with just a “measly” 32GB of memory (along with its whopping $3,699 price tag). By contrast, RTX Spark machines with 48GB to 128GB of RAM encourage users to load AI agents as part of the setup process. Ours and others like it do not, implying that there’s both first- and second-class experiences within the Surface Laptop Ultra and other RTX Spark devices. A new AI model is like a new video game: We all want to play it. Some can’t.

So here’s how I approached it: I began first by testing the Surface Laptop Ultra as an “ordinary” productivity device, like every other laptop we touch. I then pivoted into examining it as a content-creation machine, with tests of image and video editing. After I touched on gaming, I then took a harder look at the Ultra in its natural setting: as a portable AI workstation, owned by those with money to burn.

For me, the latter half of this review was a chance to ask the question, why do we need the Surface Laptop Ultra when gaming laptops exist? I think it’s one worth exploring, with valid reasons both for and against this new class of devices.

Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra: Configuration options

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra starts at a base price of $2,599, which is hundreds of dollars more than the existing 15-inch, $1,615 Surface Laptop 8. That laptop uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite Arm CPU, while the Surface Laptop Ultra ushers in a more powerful Arm alternative, the Nvidia RTX Spark N1X, a collaboration between Mediatek and Nvidia.

While you don’t have any choice in different display sizes, you can choose between two basic configurations, a Surface Laptop Ultra with an 18-core N1X CPU/5,120-core GPU RTX Spark N1X ($2,599 and up) or a version with a 20-core RTX Spark N1X with a 6,144-core GPU ($3,699 and up). More importantly, the two configurations include different memory options: 24GB and 32GB for the 18-core version, and 32GB, 48GB, 64GB, and 128GB for the 20-core version. (At press time, the 128GB option was listed as out of stock.)

There are three storage options, a PCI Express Gen 4 512GB option on the base model, plus the choice of between 1TB and 2TB of PCIe Gen 5 SSD storage. The latter is reserved for the 64GB RAM configuration, not the 128GB RAM option.

You have two choices of colors: Nightfall (black) and Platinum. Not all configurations are available in all colors.

Oh, and Microsoft’s getting snarky: Trade in your MacBook Pro and get up to $1,000 back. That’s good, as the top price for a Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra is $5,899.

Surface Laptop Ultra features:

• CPU: Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 18/20 core CPU, 5,120/6,144-core GPU (20-core CPU as tested)
• Memory: 24GB/32GB/48GB/64GB/128GB LPDDR5x (32GB as tested)
• Graphics/GPU: RTX Blackwell 5,120-core/6,144 core GPU (6,144-core GPU as tested)
• NPU: Yes? But maybe not? To be continued below.
• Display: 15-inch (3720 x 2180) PixelSense Ultra mini-LED display
• Storage: 512GB removable PCIe4 SSD/1-2TB removable PCIe5 SSD (1TB as tested)
• Webcam: 1080p
• Connectivity: 2 USB4 USB-C, 1 USB4 USB-C (magnetic connect), HDMI 2.1b, 10Gbps USB-A, SD, 3.5mm headphone jack
• Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth
• Biometrics: Windows Hello (webcam)
• Battery capacity: 89Wh (95Wh as tested)
• Dimensions: 12.95 x 9.4 x 0.71 inches
• Weight: 4.41 pounds
• MSRP: $2,599 to $5,899 ($3,699 as tested)

Surface Laptop Ultra: Out of the box and construction

The word to describe the Surface Laptop Ultra is dense.

Many other laptops feel like a construction of parts. The Surface Laptop Ultra feels like somehow the electrical traces and fans and compute were all routed through a single piece of metal. Technically, it’s made from “precision‑molded polymer composites” for the main body, combined with “aluminum and magnesium alloy frames” for structural rigidity and heat dissipation. The keyboard tray feels slightly plasticy, but that’s all.

Otherwise, it’s about the most solid laptop I’ve ever used. There’s no give to the keyboard, and I didn’t notice any twisting to the display, which reclines to about 40 degrees or so off of the horizontal.

Physically, the most noteworthy addition to the Laptop Ultra is the return of the magnetic I/O connector. For over a decade, Microsoft built its Surface devices with a magnetic Surface Connector, which delivered power and (if it was connected to a Surface Dock) data as well. With the Surface Laptop Ultra, Microsoft designed in something novel: a magnetic USB-C connector, which snaps in and out securely to avoid yanking the laptop off a table if ever your foot accidentally catches the cord. I’ve never had that happen, but it’s a comfort nevertheless.

The thing I don’t like about the charger is that it’s essentially a larger version of the existing Surface charger, with the plug built right into it. That means that the 140-watt USB-C charger (its most powerful to date) monopolizes at least one end of a power strip, unless you buy one with plugs perpendicular to the strip itself. You can buy a cord extension to the charger which eliminates the problem, but that costs extra. Unfortunately, it’s also proprietary, too, as I was unable to plug the Surface’s magnetic USB-C adapter into other laptops.

Otherwise, if you’re a fan of ports, the Surface Laptop Ultra has them in spades: a whopping three USB4 (the generic equivalent of Intel’s Thunderbolt 4) ports, including one with the magnetic connector; an HDMI 2.1b port; a 10Gbps USB-A port; an SD card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Normally, most laptops vent air by pulling it from a grille on the underside of the laptop and routing it over the components, then outside, typically via the hinge. Instead, this laptop appears to pull air through grillwork mounted on the outer edges, much like the older Surface Laptop Studio series. The fans are loud, though not especially noisy. I thought a heard a note of coil whine at some point, but it didn’t last.

Surface Laptop Ultra: Display

Microsoft has flirted with OLED screens in the past, which produced some speckling. In this case, the company chose a Mini-LED-based PixelSense Ultra screen instead, the first Surface to use the technology.

Mini-LED displays use a collection of small LED lights, rather than a giant LED backlight, providing a middle ground between an IPS display and an OLED. An OLED’s pixels can be turned off and on individually, as can the Mini-LEDs, and can suffer a “bloom” or “halo” effect while they’re on. I didn’t notice anything like that, which makes me think there are quite a few Mini-LEDs behind the display. (I asked, but never heard back from Microsoft.)

Microsoft provides three modes: The default Vivid mode, a mode for sRGB video and photo editing, and an “enhanced” mode for watching videos, with more visual pop that tends to dial up the contrast. I’ve included the color gamut for the default mode below.

Microsoft claims that the display puts out 1,000 nits while in SDR mode, with HDR brightness at about 2,000 nits. I found the display put out far less than that, with 792 nits maximum in an SDR mode. It’s still a terrific display, but my review unit didn’t live up to its promised ratings.

Surface Laptop Ultra: Mics and audio

Microsoft has always manufactured Surfaces with surprisingly solid audio, even including its earlier tablet offerings. The Surface Laptop Ultra lives up to its reputation.

When I played back my test tracks, the music sounded excellent up and down the spectrum, maintaining cohesion even at maximum volume — which is more than sufficient for individual playback or for watching a movie with a companion or two. I’m not going to say that it sounds like the best laptop ever, but it’s certainly top tier.

As for the mics, voice recording is superb, and my voice sounded warm and natural, honestly about as good as most mics I’ve used.

Noise cancellation was surprisingly a mixed bag, however. I test by holding a phone playing back music (a rock track as well as white noise) behind my head and then move it off to the side, while recording my voice using the Windows Sound Recorder app and the built-in mics. I expected more here. Other laptops (Asus generally nails this) perform audio filtering quite well.

The laptop stumbled rather badly trying to distinguish my voice from the background music, but did far better when cancelling out the white noise of a recorded rainfall. In that case, it preserved my voice’s tones while wiping out the sounds of the rain almost completely.

For all of its “AI” positioning, I didn’t see an NPU listed in the spec sheet, nor did I see it active while recording audio. Windows reported one, though. Supposedly this is a Copilot+ PC, yet I see no rated NPU TOPS.

Surface Laptop Ultra: Keyboard, trackpad

The best laptop keyboard I can recall using was the sadly discontinued Surface Book series, whose key travel rivaled that of a mechanical keyboard. The Surface Laptop Ultra feels on par with recent Surface Laptops, and perhaps a bit better. The key action feels a bit stiffer than other laptops I compared, and might loosen up a bit over time. Overall, it’s a good keyboard, though not outstanding.

Microsoft continues to play with its function keys, however. On the top row of the keyboard there’s now a dedicated microphone on/off toggle, plus controls for adjusting the screen brightness and volume. There’s also a screen capture key, the first I can recall seeing on a Surface keyboard.

Microsoft says its haptic keyboard on the Surface Laptop Ultra is its largest ever. That might be; haptic keyboards are clickable throughout the breadth of its surface area, and this follows suit. To me, a haptic keyboard adds a bit of luxe to the whole experience, and for this price tag you’d better believe I expected one. Gestures worked as advertised, with no issues.

Surface Laptop Ultra: Webcam

I was not impressed with the Surface Laptop Ultra’s webcam, and I’m shocked by that. The webcam is just an ordinary 1080p webcam, and not the superior webcams that helped jumpstart the webcam renaissance during the pandemic. While the color balance was fine, the fuzzy 1080p (am I too used to testing top-notch 4K webcams for our recommendations?) left me feeling like Microsoft cut a corner here — and for the price, I don’t expect many corners to be cut.

No NPU also means no Windows Studio Effects, the filtering and zooming and panning effects that are built into Copilot+ PCs. It’s just an ordinary webcam, and that’s not something Surface fans expect.

Surface Laptop Ultra: Performance

My experience with the Surface Laptop Ultra began poorly. Apps simply crashed or refused to load, or loaded so slowly that I could literally see the display painting the screen like AOL’s dialup service during the 1990s, as was the case with 3DMark. My initial battery rundown test uses Windows Media Player, with a video file looped over and over until the battery expires. Media Player, however, froze when loading my test, and froze again during the run, on two occasions.

I notified Microsoft, and they believed that I had been accidentally sent a defective unit. That might be the case. But Microsoft snuck in a security update after I began testing it. By the time I started intensively testing the laptop, those issues had gone away. I can’t say for certain what happened. Because of my limited testing time, I chose not to run our standard battery rundown test, but I replaced it with what I feel are more accurate tests, anyway.

(Microsoft sent a replacement Surface Laptop Ultra — with 48GB of RAM — which I didn’t have a chance to test before this review published. The initial issue I had was with stability, not performance, so I think my results are valid.)

Nevertheless, there are several caveats worth noting.

First, the Nvidia N1X is an Arm CPU, so certain applications won’t run natively. (Those apps use Windows’ own Prism translator, sometimes robbing them of a bit of performance.) But the CPU wasn’t the issue, the GPU was. Some applications (Adobe Premiere, for example) refused to run because of an unknown GPU. However, a beta version of Premiere accommodated the new CPU architecture.

Microsoft also released the Surface Laptop Ultra as it normally does, by dialing down the Windows power slider into its most efficient mode. On the other hand, Microsoft and Nvidia also claim that, like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, Nvidia’s N1X should run as close to the performance of wall power when on battery.

That wasn’t always the case! Where I could, I ran each test on the default power settings, as well as with the Windows power slider cranked to the max. Finally, I tested on battery as well, again on the default efficiency settings. You’ll see these reflected in the charts below.

By default, the single-core CPU performance of the N1X isn’t great, and the Laptop Ultra felt laggy and slow in places, at least at the beginning. Pushing up the performance increased the single-core clock speed, making the laptop feel faster and more responsive. If you buy the Surface Laptop Ultra, dial up the performance using the power slider. It makes a significant difference.

I’ll give you another hint at my findings down below: This is an Arm machine, and Arm chips typically run cooler and more efficiently. I measured the power draw of the Surface Laptop Ultra versus several gaming laptops. I think a key selling point here is power efficiency.

Surface Laptop Ultra: Productivity tests

I chose to break down the performance in two ways: First, as a general productivity machine, and second, as a challenger for gaming laptops — though not so much for gaming per se, but for content creation and AI. I do include one gaming benchmark for comparison, but my colleague Michael Crider is preparing his own review with an eye toward gaming, so stay tuned for that.

Because these are Arm laptops, some of our tests have to be swapped out for Arm-compatible versions. That includes replacing the PCMark 10 benchmark, which tests laptops against a variety of open-source applications, for Procyon’s productivity benchmark, which uses the three basic Microsoft 365 apps — Word, Powerpoint, and Excel — and adds Outlook to the mix. I guess it’s good that Microsoft is targeting AI and graphics, as opposed to productivity, because this clearly is not a good start. Well, unless you dial up the performance.

The two synthetic CPU benchmarks restore the luster to the Surface Laptop Ultra and its N1X RTX Spark chip, with one exception.

I always point to the single-core performance as one response to the question, why does my laptop feel slow? Single-core performance and the close ties between the OS and the silicon is one of the key reasons that Macs feel quick. Microsoft may enjoy close ties to chipmakers, but the default single-core performance here is disappointing.

(For comparison, the base Apple M4 scores 175 with its single-core performance, and the Apple M5 scores 198, according to CPU Monkey.)

Remember, Nvidia’s N1X combines an Arm CPU (10 performance X-925 cores, 10 slower A-725 cores), which debuted as part of Nvidia’s DGX Spark workstation. That means that this chip platform has been around for about 21 months, and that’s not necessarily a good thing — “it’s old, which probably explains it,” as one analyst privately described the slow single-core performance.

I’ve used the older Geekbench 6 scores for comparison’s sake, though the newer Geekbench 7 takes advantage of some of the RTX Spark’s capabilities. For reference, the Geekbench 7 single-core score is 2,008, while the multi-core score was 20,093, jumping to 2,687 and 23,256 with the Windows power slider set to “Best performance.” The GPU score is 84,107 on default settings, 140,100 with CUDA enabled, and 116,344 on default settings with the power slider maximized.

On battery, the Geekbench 7 CPU score was 1,899 (single-core) and 17,328 (multi-core), with a GPU score of 83,861 (OpenCL) and 138,212 (CUDA). If you’re a general consumer, you can ignore this; that information is just for productivity enthusiasts.

In the chart above, I tested single-core, multicore, and graphics performance on wall power and on battery on the older Geekbench 6.

Does the Surface Laptop slow down over prolonged use? While it doesn’t howl in protest, it does indeed falter. Under Cinebench 2024’s stress test, performance dropped by 6.3 percent after 10 minutes of use. It also failed 3DMark’s stress test, as graphics performance fell 6.8 percent over a series of looped testing runs.

We use the Handbrake transcoding test as another way to test the laptop’s performance over prolonged periods. Since we’re measuring the time to complete a task, less is more. Note that this isn’t an Arm-specific test, though my testing in the past didn’t find a real advantage with versions coded specifically for Arm processors.

When I can, I like to point to real-world applications as evidence of actual performance. But 3DMark’s venerable (too venerable?) benchmarks provide our first hints of how the graphics core will shape up, with more tests further down in this article.

Note that the Time Spy test is written for x86 processors; the Night Raid test was coded for Arm. I include both. I was very impressed with Intel’s Panther Lake chip (the X7 358H, below) in terms of graphics…but look how the N1X shapes up!

Surface Laptop Ultra: Battery life

Because of the early glitchiness associated with the Surface Laptop Ultra laptop, I wasn’t able to record a rundown test where I measure the laptop’s battery life by looping a 4K video over and over at a fixed brightness level. As video playback logic has been assimilated into various parts of the laptop silicon, video playback is more of an afterthought than ever. A video rundown test is still useful, since you’re perfectly welcome to copy or download a 4K video on to the laptop.

A more realistic way of measuring battery life is either streaming or trying to simulate a day’s work. I can do both. While Netflix appears to have implemented checks to prevent hours of streaming at a time, YouTube offers some 4K videos that last up to 24 hours. No laptop exceeds that, yet. The Surface Laptop Ultra lasted 7 hours, 57 minutes while streaming 4K video.

To simulate actual work, there’s the UL Procyon Office Productivity test, the longer version of the Office Productivity test I used earlier. Here, the laptop simply cycles through simulated tasks in Excel, PowerPoint, and other office apps until the battery runs out of power. The Surface Laptop Ultra lasted 10 hours and 3 minutes.

Note that the 95Wh battery in my review unit somehow charged to more than the design capacity, 89Wh. A battery of 99Wh is the most allowed on U.S. aircraft.

Surface Laptop Ultra: Content creation and gaming

Let’s switch gears. Until now, we’ve treated the Surface Laptop Ultra as just another Arm laptop, capable of handling typical office tasks. But that RTX GPU is just asking to be put to work.

The question is, what do we compare it to? Historically, devices like the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 were considered creator-class laptops, with a powerful CPU but a modest GPU aimed at video editing and light gaming. For a more apt comparison, I requisitioned some existing, pure gaming laptops. Here’s my question: Do you need to buy a monstrously pricey Surface Laptop Ultra when monstrously (?) pricey gaming laptops already exist?

My candidates included an as-yet unreviewed $1,899 updated version of the Acer Nitro V, with an AMD Ryzen AI 7 450, paired with an RTX 5060 creator-class GPU; an $3,799 MSI Raider, with an Intel Core i9-14900HX, and a last-generation RTX 4090; and a modern monster, $4,299 Asus ROG Strix gaming laptop equipped with a Core Ultra 9 275HX and an RTX 5090.

My tests included a Cinebench run to establish overall performance, then runs of Adobe Photoshop and Premiere to assess the laptops’ comparable creation chops. I made a brief segue into gaming with Cyberpunk: 2077, then dove into AI: Procyon’s text-generation benchmark measures large language-model performance. Finally, I crushed each laptop with a text-to-video application, governed by ComfyUI, with some on-device local LLM testing. Here, I didn’t fool around with battery mode; I tested with default settings but also at maximum power.

Here’s each laptop, as evaluated by Cinebench 2024 for total CPU performance. (I used the Arm version of the test for the Surface Laptop Ultra.) The Acer Nitro glitched and wouldn’t run this test. It’s impressively close.

I then used PugetBench’s Photoshop and Premiere tests as a gauge to how the Surface Laptop Ultra fares as a content-creation machine. I was shocked by the first result.

At base levels, the Laptop Ultra finishes last. With performance dialed up, it’s…first? The PugetBench Photoshop test is finicky, so I only checked this result once. Still, the Photoshop test completes three runs before settling on a final score, so I suspect that it’s accurate.

I didn’t see nearly as much improvement in the Premiere test, which exports several video files. I’m not sure why. Adobe will have new versions of its Creative Cloud applications to use with the RTX Spark platform, but Adobe hasn’t said when they’ll arrive. I used a beta version of Premiere for this test, which Adobe supplies as part of its Creative Cloud beta program.

Nevertheless: A solid showing here by Microsoft’s newest laptop.

As mentioned above, my colleague Michael Crider is testing his own RTX Spark sample laptop with an eye towards gaming. Again, the RTX Spark platform is an Arm chip, which may have compatibility issues…or not. I present the Cyberpunk: 2077 test below as a representative sample, but expect more in terms of game testing soon.

I ran several tests to compare the gaming laptops to the Surface Laptop Ultra, and settled on using 1080p resolution at Ultra settings, a decent compromise between efficiency and quality. Initially, I turned off frame generation.

But this is an AI laptop, and if there’s anything “AI”-related that Nvidia is known for, it’s DLSS AI frame generation. With those options enabled, frame rates jumped to 104 frames per second. And dialed up to maximum power with DLSS and frame generation on, the laptop ran that game at 130 frames per second — more than double the base rate.

I paused my testing for another angle: power. Even though the United States is blissfully headed into cooler temperatures, power bills keep rising. One of Arm’s arguments is power efficiency, so I hooked up a power meter to the laptops and reran the benchmark again.

Even though I didn’t measure prolonged power consumption, the differences between all four laptop platforms were immediately obvious:

• The Acer Nitro V laptop held steady at between 115 to 117 watts, touching 121W at peak.
• The MSI Raider blasted through 290 to 305 watts, hitting a peak of 335W max.
• The Asus ROG Strix fluctuated the most, consuming 261 to 290 watts and peaking at about 310 watts.
• As for the Surface Laptop Ultra? It didn’t consume the least amount of power, but 133 to 144 watts throughout the run holds its own. (I didn’t test the power output with DLSS on, which should increase efficiency.)

The point is that more power equals more performance, but more performance equals more power…and possibly a higher total cost of ownership.

Finally, I wanted to know if Microsoft expects people to work on an airplane, churning away at offline AI agents, with fans howling — and will the seat actually provide enough power? My research says no, but I can’t prove it definitively. (Microsoft said they’d get back to me.)

Surface Laptop Ultra: AI tests

Microsoft and Nvidia argued that the RTX Spark platform should usher in a new era of local AI, with local LLMs and agents busily chewing up compute cycles. That’s true, to a point. The argument in favor of that now is that local AI equals free tokens — cold hard cash is now the selling point, versus the privacy-first approach from a couple of years ago.

But there are still catches. Acer shipped its new Nitro V laptop with just 512GB of SSD storage on it, and I found myself spending my own human “compute cycles” just trying to find space on it for what I wanted to run. Photoshop, Premiere, text-to-video models…it all adds up. If you don’t have at least a terabyte of storage, you’re going to feel the pinch.

And that’s before you begin trying out AI models. Local AI requires local memory to run in. Dedicated gaming laptops with discrete GPUs have their own fixed pools of video RAM, which AI can tap for executing generative AI. Agents, however, lean more heavily on the CPU. Laptops like the Surface Laptop Ultra split memory between the GPU and CPU, and my review laptop came with a small utility to let Windows handle the division of labor. (To date, users have been able to manually configure the split between VRAM and system RAM via the BIOS or an app supplied by AMD or Intel.)

UL’s Procyon app already ships with a handy little test to measure how well the laptop will process queries using models with about 8 billion parameters. (“Better” models usually favor more parameters, though that can vary. Models can also be “compressed” via a process called quantization to run locally without taking up as many resources.)

The performance via model varies, of course, but the overarching lesson is clear: The gaming laptops generated more tokens. (A token is a few letters, so that the word “few” might be a single token, and the word “somewhere” might be three.) An LLM spits out a response like an old dot-matrix printer, so reading that output is subjective. Using the Mistral 7B model, the Surface Laptop Ultra spat out about 52 tokens per second, about 13 words per second.

That’s not the only way tokens are processed, of course. A “token” can be part of a chart, an image, a video, or more. The most recent use of generative AI is AI-generated video, which has become rather scarily realistic. Is AI slop still AI slop when produced on your own local hardware? Regardless of how you land on the subject, text-to-video generative AI absolutely murders a laptop.

ComfyUI contains its own in-app benchmark to measure this. The Surface Laptop Ultra performs surprisingly well. (I ran it on its maximum performance settings by default.) It’s not noted in the cart below, but I used the WAN model to generate the output.

This benchmark doesn’t measure tokens, but the time to finish up a single run, supposedly generating several seconds of video. A lower score is therefore better. (ComfyUI too, now runs native on the RTX Spark platform.)

I also tested token output via LM Studio, using the Qwen 3.8-27b model as an example. LM Studio’s settings allow you to only choose from models which will run on your PC, which meant that I was prevented from using some of the more powerful options. Would that make a difference? I honestly have no idea. Still, I could only run what I could run!

Using a consistent reasoning budget, zero temperature (for, ideally, fixed responses), and a fixed outcome length, I asked for a science-fiction essay using the same prompt for the two high-end gaming machines, plus the Surface Laptop Ultra. After a trial run, I averaged the token output over three times.

• Surface Laptop Ultra: 39.9 tokens/s
• MSI Raider: 15.2 tokens/s
• Asus ROG Strix: 61.9 tokens/s

I then ran a fourth test, working on a web browser in the background, while trying to test whether working with an LLM in the background would affect its productivity. It didn’t seem to, as I noticed no difference. I didn’t work hard in the background as I normally would, with Excel and Outlook and a web browser all competing for compute cycles. I have to believe that will affect it, but that will have to wait for further testing. Keep in mind that when you do that, you’ll be working while the laptop’s fans are cranked up high.

Nvidia debuted a new Nemotron 3.5 Bolt 74B-A9B 24GB model for RTX Spark laptops as I finished up this review, but I didn’t have a chance to try it.

Finally, I did try running NousResearch’s Hermes, one of the recommended AI agents which you can access via the Microsoft Store, on the Surface Laptop Ultra. I’m still somewhat reluctant to give it control of my PC (yet) but it did load on my PC. I found it interesting, though, that Windows assigned 18.9GB of the available memory to itself — and while it used every bit, the GPU was barely touched during the agent’s operation.

Still, I was right — memory is going to be at a premium in the AI age, and you’re going to want more, more, more.

Should you buy the Surface Laptop Ultra?

I wrestled with this, naturally. The version of the Surface Laptop Ultra we were offered for review isn’t a low-end machine, obviously. Nor is it the minimum Microsoft offers. It feels, though, that we’re exploring the “low end” of the Surface Laptop Ultra lineup for an insane $3,700. Whew.

We’re not done yet, though. PCWorld’s review strategy has been to examine the RTX Spark platform through different eyes: First mine, focused on productivity, then separate articles examining it from a gaming standpoint as well as from an AI perspective. And yes, we have a $7,000 RTX Spark laptop in house.

And I think that’s the crux of the matter. As a pure productivity machine, you can find better options — and, if you’re eager to use AI, you can turn to a cloud model. That’s sort of what executives were privately pushing at the RTX Spark launch: to run a local “harness” on 32GB laptops like the Surface Laptop Ultra, and tap the cloud instead.

And yet! This is a $3,699 PC that’s far lighter and more compact than the gaming PCs I compared it to, consumes far less power, and performs somewhat near the other, bulkier machines. You can certainly make an argument that it’s well out of reach of the ordinary consumer, yet worth it as a (sorry) “budget” AI workstation.

I still think, however, that there’s going to be FOMO if a new AI model comes out and this version of the Surface Laptop Ultra can’t run it. So be careful. That way lieth dragons.

Googlebooks are here, promising productivity aplenty within the Google ecosystem. But how do Google’s new productivity features compare versus the more familiar Windows 11?

That’s the goal for Smart Mode this week: examining how you (and I) can use Googlebooks as productivity devices, specifically looking at several of the features both offer.

Unfortunately, two of the most novel platforms the PC has seen in years — the Googlebook and the Nvidia RTX Spark platform — have landed on the PC within a week or so of each other. I would have liked to have been part of the Googlebook launch, but it took place in my colleague Michael Crider’s backyard, and he already has an extensive professional history covering Android devices. My colleague Ashley Biancuzzo was first out of the gate with our review of the Acer Googlebook 14. (She did a terrific job. Read it! I definitely did.)

My own review is a work in progress…and you’re reading some of it right now.

I’m currently typing this on Lenovo’s Googlebook 15, which I’m crushed to find has an uncharacteristically crappy keyboard. So far, I have few complaints about the hardware, which wasn’t expected to be the star of the show, anyway. Instead, I’m focused on Google’s new Aluminium OS, driving the next evolutionary step of Chromebook devices. It really feels that Google set out to make AI-powered productivity the start of this show.

The phone problem

A key part of the productivity equation, however, is that your Googlebook demands an Android phone, and specifically an Android 17 phone at that. Only recently did Google allow rival Samsung phones to connect, but — my Samsung Galaxy S23 is up to date and supported, and it still runs just Android 16. Unexpectedly, that gives Windows a leg up here.

Phone Link (once called Your Phone) is Windows’ own version of “Better Together,” the corresponding Googlebook technology that connects an Android phone to a Windows PC. Interestingly, Windows only requires Android 10 as an OS requirement to connect the two devices; Googlebooks still have that pesky Android 17 requirement. Without it, phones and Googlebooks still live separate lives. Phone Link allows you to transfer photos from the phone to the PC, place calls and send messages (via Bluetooth) and even run Android phone apps within PC windows.

From what I’ve seen, Phone Link is Googlebook’s surprising equal in all ways except the app streaming. However, Windows can get fussy about which phones support this particular feature, while Googlebooks promise that all compatible phones will support it, with that Android 17 caveat of course.

But Android isn’t always the answer. Outlook works fine on a Windows PC; on my Googlebook, the Googlebook runs the Android app, which took forever to set up my work account. Even worse, it made me re-authenticate every time I logged on. It then crashed.

Windows, meanwhile, secures the entire OS with Windows Hello or a password, and leaves Outlook open to use. (The Lenovo Googlebook includes both face and fingerprint logins in front of an optional PIN, which I like.)

Are Googlebooks smarter? Maybe

Apps may be problematic, but I love how Google has moved widgets forward. On Windows PCs, they’re a distraction, so much that they’re relegated to a closed window in the corner of your screen. On Googlebooks, widgets live on the desktop, where you can create and modify widgets to show whatever information you’d like.

You can either select from a menu of pre-designed widgets (the screen time widget above is neat) or create your own. This is where AI is going to shine, eventually; you can ask Gemini to create a widget rather than hand-pick features. This doesn’t always work, however. I asked for a “up to the minute widget tracking the MLB playoffs” and received just the scores; I also asked for a widget highlighting all of my priority email and was informed that direct email access isn’t built in. Still, it’s a start.

Microsoft, to is credit, promises something similar with its new Copilot Code feature; I just haven’t played with it at length. Google will probably just make it simpler.

“Simple” also gives Google a slight edge in screen recognition. Magic Pointer and Copilot Vision fall in to the same category of AI assistance to highlight and explain what’s on your screen. Launching the Magic Pointer is more fun when you wiggle your mouse pointer instead of trying to remember another shortcut, for one. Magic Pointer launches a context-aware Gemini that highlights and “knows” what your mouse is pointing toward, and you can ask questions about it. Copilot Vision, hidden within Copilot, takes a different approach, always watching what you’re seeing once you turn it on.

Each has its flaws. Copilot Vision was relatively poor at identifying what it could see. Magic Pointer, though, took close to a full minute using its own “Flash-Lite” engine. Unacceptable!

I’d give Google a clear win for “Rambler,” its voice dictation system. Both Windows and Googlebooks have their own dictation system; Windows has one that’s shared across the platform as well as a dedicated dictation function in Word. Windows 11’s version, though, is pretty literal. Rambler, on the other hand, accommodates the user’s verbal fry (those “um,” “er,” “you know” placeholders we all use) and smooths them out.

One of the ways in which you can enable Rambler is by using the CAPS LOCK key, which Google has repurposed as sort of a shortcut for these little utilities. It’s incredibly useful. Most people don’t actually use the Caps Lock key, and in a situation like this, you can go ahead and cram a number of functions into a single key press. In fact, I dictated most of these last few paragraphs using Rambler, and it inserted punctuation, broke up the sentences, and applied the proper punctuation. That’s AI done right!

The Googlebook showed me a way to automatically apply AI to the search function within its Files app, promising to append (not rename) all of the files with an AI description. I haven’t seen this happen again, and I’m less concerned about what the AI thinks of how the file should be described than if I can find it, period. Window 11’s own semantic search and its recent changes to the Search function, period, seem just as promising or more so.

What I discovered while using the Googlebook, however, is that Windows is chock full of different ways to perform the same task, simply because it meets the user halfway. I felt like an idiot when I couldn’t find how to reboot the Googlebook (the power button did it). Why does the CAPS LOCK shortcut only work in certain scenarios, like Gmail, but not in others? I also felt a little nervous when absolutely nothing happened while right-clicking the desktop.

So what feels more productive? If I had to compare a Lenovo Windows machine (my demo Panther Lake laptop) versus the Googlebook, I’d definitely choose the Windows machine. The keyboard is far superior, and even with 16GB the Googlebook felt somewhat choppy and laggy. While I can use the Googlebook in the context I normally do — two displays, plus the Googlebook sitting beneath — running a few apps and Chrome tabs felt a lot choppier than I expected. And I still have no idea on the exact battery life, as there’s no great way to track it. Maybe a custom ROM will help?

In an earlier Smart Mode newsletter, I asked who the Googlebook is for? I’m still not entirely sure. I think some of the individual features of the Googlebook are smart, unquestionably. But as a cohesive whole, I still favor my Windows laptop nine times out of ten.

Productivity on camera

I complain about the Googlebook phone issues…but also show off some of the things on Googlebooks that work well, too.

Productivity in the news:

• As busy as I’ve been, the one thing I’ve missed having a chance to try out are the so-called Artcraft apps: AI-generated clones of Adobe’s popular Creative Suite (Photoshop, Premiere, etc.) released as open-source versions coded in Rust. The developer then moved on to the Microsoft 365 apps, pulling off the same trick. The advantages are obvious: no more subscriptions! The disadvantages (copyright infringement, bugs, and so on) have yet to be rooted out.
• Techtober is in full swing, and so we’re involved in trying to evaluate both Googlebooks (again, with Ashley’s terrific review, and mine and others to come) as well as the upcoming RTX Spark laptops — which will cost up to $7,000, yikes! Microsoft has allowed us to confirm that I have a Surface Laptop Ultra on hand, though I can’t say anything about its performance quite yet. I think I’m allowed to say that the keyboard feels a bit tighter than the Surface Laptop Studio, which I haven’t decided is a plus or not.
• If AI is being injected more and more into Windows…it’s going to arrive via Windows Search. I’m not sure who else picked up on this.
• Love is in the air…with laptop stands.
• I thought that the “learn more” Windows local account trick had been patched out years ago?
• It’s worth noting that the AMD Ryzen™ AI Max+ PRO 495 processor will be going up against the new Mediatek-Nvidia RTX Spark partnership for AI workstation notebooks, with up to 192GB (!!) of unified memory. More memory equals bigger AI models, and eventually the two may go head to head.

Productivity tip for the week:

If we’re going to be sticklers for the concept of “productivity,” the most productive days are days when you don’t have to deal with anything else at work… or be at work. Yes, I mean working weekends. I had to do so this weekend and I love the freedom of simply sitting down and fear without fear of someone pinging me for…something. Even my chat requests went unanswered — which they should have!

Just make sure you don’t make a habit of it, or find a manager who will give you compensatory time off in return.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for tuning in to this edition of Smart Mode, PCWorld’s newsletter devoted to helping you make the most of your life, smartly. Sign up and have it sent to your inbox every Thursday!

Laptops feel different this year. I mean, literally. Advances in laptop materials are changing the game. Forget plastic versus metal. PC makers are now competing on physical feel—and there’s a whole new world of different metals and alloys to choose from.

Laptop chassis materials are something else these days. I recently wrote about how plastic laptops are underrated—plastic isn’t a bad material for laptops these days, with well-made plastic laptops sporting a comfortable rubbery touch that doesn’t creak like they once did.

In a world where spec sheets have less and less to differentiate them, this is the next path for PC makers who want to stand out.

When it comes to flagship gaming laptops, the GIGABYTE AORUS MASTER 16 ticks about every box we can think of. It has the top-tier hardware options: Ryzen 9 9955HX3D 16 core CPU with 3D V-Cache, GeForce RTX 5090 mobile GPU at max 175W TGP, 2TB of NVMe storage, and 32GB of high-speed DDR5 memory, which is worth more than its weight in gold in 2026.

But most powerful gaming laptops have a mix of this kind of high-powered hardware, so what sets the GIGABYTE AORUS MASTER 16 apart? The way it’s looking to make the flagship gaming experience more approachable.

Too often, top-tier gaming laptops are hot and loud with limited battery life, and sure, if you run this thing unplugged and play AAA games at uncapped frame rates, you’re going to burn through the battery quickly and it’s going to be toasty and noisy while you do it. But GIGABYTE has put a lot of thought into the design of this laptop and the mix of management features could set it apart from the pack.

Effortless optimization

GiMATE is Gigabyte’s on-device AI agent that runs entirely locally and handles all your performance optimization and customization needs. Using voice commands, you can have it adjust system settings, tweak your graphics card and processor, fan curves, overclocking, CPU power limits, the works.  There are pre-configured OC profiles too, with several hundred megahertz on the CPU and GPU just waiting to be unlocked.

More interested in extending battery life than boosting performance? GiMATE is configured to help there too. It can dial down your CPU’s power draw and reduce heat and noise. It can even intelligently manage which GPU you’re using – the onboard integrated one, or the discrete GeForce RTX 5090 – to maximize efficiency.

The 99Wh battery is as big as you can get in a laptop like this, too, but it also supports fast charging, so even when it is drained you can get it back to 50% in just 30 minutes.

Looks as good as it plays

To make sure you get the most from your high-powered hardware, the GIGABYTE AORUS MASTER 16 comes complete with a 16:10, 2.5K OLED display, with a 240 Hz refresh rate. That makes games look buttery smooth at high frame rates – especially with the 0.02ms response time eliminating ghosting entirely.

This isn’t like older OLEDs that suffer in bright rooms, though. With TrueHDR 1000 certification, you can rest assured this display is ready to make your games pop off the screen, whether you’re playing in a dark bedroom, or bright front room.

Concerned about OLED burn-in? Don’t be. GIGABYTE’s OLED Protector and Pixel Shift technologies ensure that nothing stays static on your screen for long – though you probably won’t notice it. This ensures nothing becomes a permanent mark on your screen, even if you’re playing games with static HUD elements for hours at a time.

Sleek and surprisingly cool

High-end gaming laptops have a reputation for brick-like designs, but the GIGABYTE AORUS MASTER 16 is just 19mm at its thickest, which is 17% thinner than the previous year design, making it look and feel impressively lithe for such a powerful machine.

Despite that slim profile, GIGABYTE managed to pack huge heatsinks and smart fans inside the chassis, meaning that it has a gigantic 230W thermal headroom that really lets the CPU and GPU cook – at lower temperatures, too. If you don’t push the system too hard, it even keeps the fans still until you need them, so you can enjoy silent-operation office work and web browsing, only kicking in the high powered fans when it’s time to really game.

And everything else besides

There’s also Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support, a 1080p IR camera with Windows Hello, Copilot support, fancy RGB lighting, and a comfortable and accurate gaming keyboard.

The GIGABYTE AORUS MASTER 16 is available now in two configurations: The flagship GeForce RTX 5090 model, starting at $4,899, and the equally-game changing, GeForce RTX 5080 model, starting at $3,499.There’s also Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 support, a 1080p IR camera with Windows Hello, Copilot support, fancy RGB lighting, and a comfortable and accurate gaming keyboard.

Price When Reviewed

$899.99

Best Prices Today: Acer Googlebook 14

The Acer Googlebook 14 impressed me, but not in the way I anticipated.

If you’re wondering what a Googlebook is, the short version is that it’s (in a way) the new Chromebook. Basically, it keeps much of the familiar Chromebook experience while adding deeper Android integration and new AI features. They’ve also got Intel and Qualcomm chips inside of them.

Going into this, I had a lot of questions, specifically about the new operating system (aka Googlebook OS) and its AI features. Is the new OS going to confuse me? What happens if I accidentally set off the Magic Pointer? Will it drive me bananas?

The answer, thankfully, was no — to a surprising degree.

Acer Googlebook 14: Under the hood

• Model: Acer Googlebook 14 (GP714-91N-50A0)
• OS: Googlebook OS
• Processor: Intel Core Ultra 5 325, 8-core, up to 4.5GHz
• Graphics: Intel Graphics, 4 Xe cores, up to 2.45GHz
• NPU: Intel AI Boost, up to 47 TOPS
• Memory: 16 GB
• Storage: 512GB SSD
• Display: 14-inch 2880×1800 OLED touchscreen, 120Hz
• Ports: 2× USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, 1× USB4/Thunderbolt 4, 1× 3.5mm headphone jack
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0+
• Weight: 2.51 lbs
• Price: $899.99

Acer Googlebook: Design-wise, it’s a step-up from Chromebook Plus models

The Googlebook arrived tucked inside what looked like a jewelry box–I got premium vibes from it right away. It also came with a laptop sleeve, which I appreciated. 

The design is a big part of why the price tag is higher than what you typically pay for a Chromebook Plus. (The other part is the hardware, which I’ll get to later.) You can feel the difference in the aluminum-magnesium chassis (most Chromebook Plus models are made of plastic). It feels very durable. The 360-hinge also lets you rotate the screen and use the laptop in tablet mode if that’s your thing. And, at 2.51 pounds and just 0.55 inches thick, it’s also surprisingly light and thin.

Acer Googlebook 14: The keyboard is comfortable, but the touchpad attracts fingerprints 

I generally prefer smaller laptops because I have smaller hands, so larger keyboards take me longer to get used to. Fortunately, I accustomed myself to this one pretty quickly since it’s still similar to the layout I use Once I adjusted, typing felt comfortable. 

The keyboard also has backlighting, which is nice — and something I’d expect at this price point. The power button doubles as the fingerprint sensor for logging in. 

The touchpad is centered and a good size, so I don’t have any complaints about how it feels to use. It’s also got a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass on it, so it feels smooth. 

The problem is that it started collecting fingerprints almost immediately. I don’t think something like that would deter me from purchasing a laptop (any laptops, really). But if you’re someone who likes keeping your laptop looking pristine, you’ll probably notice it.

Acer Googlebook 14: The webcam was fine, with one little hiccup

I used the 5MP webcam during a brief call and thought the video quality was perfectly fine. I didn’t look totally washed out, which is always a win as far as I’m concerned.

The call itself did drop me twice, although I was quickly reconnected both times. I don’t know if it was an issue with Microsoft Teams or the Googlebook itself, so I’m hesitant to blame the laptop for it. It didn’t feel great, though.

Acer Googlebook 14: The Glowbar is cute

There’s a little Glowbar on the lid, and I think it’s a cute feature.

Is it necessary? No.

But it’s unobtrusive, and it actually has a useful purpose: it tells you how much battery you have left, as well as the charging status. That’s handy when you only have a second to glance at the top of the laptop and want to know if you’re going to need to charge it soon.

It’s one of those little additions I wouldn’t necessarily ask for, but don’t mind having. I like that it’s small and subtle.

Acer Googlebook 14: This is a phone-first laptop

Acer sent me a Google Pixel 10 Pro XL to use with the Googlebook. I’m an iPhone user, though, so jumping to an Android phone felt a bit like landing on another planet. 

But this is where it got interesting for me. I could see why someone who already uses an Android phone would find this convenient. The Googlebook is designed to make your phone feel like an extension of it. The Continue On feature, for example, lets you continue whatever it is you’re doing on your phone on the Googlebook. I played around with it a little bit, but I’m not totally sold on the idea of connecting my phone to my laptop. I’d actually prefer to keep them separate–I don’t want all of my information in one place. But the deep Android integration is a clear selling point for Googlebooks.

Acer Googlebook 14: The interface feels surprisingly familiar

I expected the Googlebook to feel more different from a Chromebook, especially when navigating around the operating system.

It really doesn’t!

The biggest difference is what happens beyond the desktop. There is much more Android integration this time around. 

Still, I didn’t find myself fighting with the interface or wondering where everything had gone. 

Acer Googlebook 14: I kept forgetting about the Magic Pointer

The Magic Pointer is one of those features that I kept forgetting existed, despite being one of the darlings of the Googlebook’s marketing when it was first announced. 

That’s partly because you’ve got to wiggle the cursor in order to activate it, and that’s not something I naturally do when I’m using a laptop. If I’m wiggling the cursor around, it’s usually due to a moment of frustration. That said, you’ve got to really wiggle the cursor with intention in order to summon the Magic Pointer. It’s not easily triggered… but that might actually be a good thing.

Because I kept forgetting about it, the Magic Pointer wasn’t nearly as intrusive as I expected it to be.

I tried it out on a picture of a cool charcuterie board I saw on Reddit. The Magic Pointer came up with a couple of questions I could ask Gemini, including what kind of wine would pair well with it and how to recreate the board. When I asked to recreate it, Gemini popped up in the corner with a shopping list of ingredients and assembly steps.

It worked.

But I just don’t know if it’s something I’d actually use (or remember to use).

My instinct is to look up the ingredients and figure out assembly myself. And honestly, it’s probably easier for me to do that than to remember to wiggle the cursor first.

That’s the thing I noticed about the Googlebook’s AI features. They’re there. They work. They’re not particularly annoying. I just don’t always think to use them.

Acer Googlebook 14: As a laptop, it works really well

If you completely shelf the AI stuff/Android phone integration for a moment, the Googlebook is just a nice laptop. That’s a big compliment.

The particular Acer model I tested has an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, and that combination felt more than capable of handling my usual workload.

I had no problems throwing my usual workload at it: scrolling through Reddit, chatting with coworkers on Slack, writing articles in Google Docs, and generally bouncing between the things I normally do throughout the day.

I didn’t notice any slowdowns.

The web-based benchmarks I ran on the Googlebook backed up my experience:

• Basemark Web 3.0: 1,670
• Motion Mark: 4670.12 (@ 60 fps)
• WebXPRT 5: 95

Let’s take a closer look at Basemark 3.0, which measures browser performance–now let’s compare the Googlebook’s score (1,670) with the Acer Chromebook Plus 516’s score (901). The Acer Googlebook 14 was 85 percent faster than the Chromebook Plus model. As far as browser performance goes, the Googlebook has a meaningful advantage here. 

That comparison isn’t entirely apples-to-apples, though. Here’s why.

The Chromebook Plus 516 has the Core i3-1315U, which is a respectable budget CPU (2 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores). That said, the Googlebook’s Core Ultra 5 325 is much newer, with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, and is paired with 16GB of RAM rather than 8GB. No wonder it blew the Chromebook Plus out of the water!

In terms of hardware, the Acer Googlebook 14 is actually pretty close to the Dell XPS 14. They’ve both got an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 (“Panther Lake”) processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage. But the Googlebook has a much nicer display, and it’s also lighter and more versatile due to the 360-degree hinge. The Dell is considerably more expensive, too, at $1,409.99 (as tested). We didn’t run those web-based tests on the XPS 14, so I can’t make a direct performance comparison. 

The biggest hardware advantage, though, is the display. The Googlebook has a 14-inch OLED touchscreen, and it’s absolutely gorgeous.  

It has a 2880×1800 resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, and 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage. It gets up to 500 nits, too, so it’s both sharp and bright.

I ended up putting it through one of my favorite unofficial laptop display tests: A Björk concert.

I watched Biophilia Live on this Googlebook, and it looked great. This is actually the second laptop I’ve tested where I’ve watched a Björk concert, which has become a pretty useful way for me to judge how colorful and sharp a display looks. Her concerts are full of incredibly colorful costumes and visuals, so a good screen has plenty to work with here.

My husband and I also watched a few episodes of Star Wars: Clone Wars, and the Googlebook handled those well, too. I never found myself wishing the display were brighter or more colorful.

Acer Googlebook 14: Battery life is a nice surprise

Battery life was another strong point for the Googlebook 14. In my everyday use, I got around 14 hours on a single charge. 

That was enough to get through a full workday and then some (without having to watch the battery percentage bar like a hawk). That’s an awesome result for a laptop with an especially bright OLED display.

I should note that it wasn’t a controlled battery test. Instead, I used the laptop unplugged until it ran out of juice and then calculated the time by using the data from the Battery Usage section in the Settings menu.

So, should you buy the Acer Googlebook 14?

I don’t think the answer is so simple here.

It depends.

The Acer Googlebook 14 costs $899.99 at the time of this writing. It’s pricier than a Chromebook Plus laptop, but you’re getting hardware that’s much closer to what I’d expect from a Windows laptop (like the Dell XPS 14). It’s not a powerhouse, but as a daily driver, it definitely delivers.

If you’re looking for a cheap Chromebook, this isn’t the laptop for you. But I don’t think that’s really who’s being targeted here.

A Googlebook makes sense if you want a premium, lightweight convertible laptop and you’re already well-acquainted with Google’s ecosystem. Doubly so if you’ve got an Android phone, as they’re deeply intertwined with one another.

Google made such a big deal about AI, but the most surprising thing was how… normal using a Googlebook feels. It wasn’t anywhere near as AI-forward as I thought it would be. 

When I went to Google’s presentation on its new Googlebooks, it was an act of convenience. I happen to be near New York City, so I’m used to schlepping my way onto a bus for media events. As the Performance desk lead, I really don’t have any personal interest in Google’s successor to its Chromebook venture, especially since it’s packed with “AI.” So I was there mostly to support our AI expert, Ben Patterson.

But one bit of news caught my attention: You get access to the bootloader.

A brave new (old) world

This requires a bit of context. See, I’m an Android guy. I started my tech journalism career on Android-focused sites, back when smartphones were still the hottest, newest tech on the planet, and tons of people were obsessing over every new model. One of the most exciting parts of Android was the ability to modify the software fairly easily. You could “root” them to get access to all the various bits and bobs, or even load up your own custom-cooked, open-source operating system, colloquially called a ROM.

Rooting and ROMs are still a thing in the Android world, but they’ve fallen off by an order of magnitude since the glory days of 2010-2015. Somewhat because phones are far more locked down, aside from some where open access is a feature, like Google’s Pixel line or the Fairphone. But mostly it’s because phones are powerful and flexible enough to do pretty much everything you want now, no risky or skilled modifications required.

I installed an AOSP-based ROM on my Barnes & Noble Nook Color e-reader to turn it into one of the first full-power Android tablets. But I can’t remember the last time I looked at an Android phone’s bootloader, despite trying dozens (maybe hundreds!) of different ROMs back in the day.

Googlebooks are, at least in the purest technical sense, Android-powered laptops. They’re running Intel and Qualcomm chips — some of the same ones that power Windows laptops, in fact. But Android software is based on open-source code, loath as Google is to admit that these days. That means it should be possible, if not easy or straightforward, to modify it. At the NYC event I asked various representatives from Google and its hardware partners if they would allow users to wipe the laptops clean and install Windows, and they didn’t have an answer ready for me.

Fast forward to this week, and we have confirmation via Google support that Googlebooks will arrive with an unlockable bootloader. For those of you who’ve never dug deep into an XDA forum to find a Gapps ZIP that will work with your tweaked CyanogenMod build, that means you should be able to load up custom ROMs.

That’s got the nerdiest part of my soul extremely excited. Custom ROM developers advanced Android’s early years in ways that might be invisible to those outside of that particular niche. Google, Samsung, and others apparently took direct inspiration from the ways that developers modified their software in order to improve it, particularly in terms of the user interface and performance.

You know how you can swipe up from the bottom of your phone to go home and swipe on the side to go back? How there’s an easy shortcut to turn on the rear camera flash and make a quick flashlight? Yeah, both of those showed up in custom Android ROMs and other modifications years before they were stock in either Android or iOS. The prospect of seeing users customize the operating system in Googlebooks is absolutely tantalizing.

…but it’s not very likely to happen

But there’s a fly in this particular ointment. The early Android ROM scene was so vibrant specifically because millions and millions of people were excited about smartphones. It was the Wild West, and everybody wanted the fastest horse. For the same thing to happen with Googlebooks, Google’s AI-laden “reinvention” of the laptop, people will need to be excited about Googlebooks. And I don’t see that happening, not even to the degree that people were interested in Chromebooks when they debuted back in 2011.

There’s an extremely narrow slice of the consumer market for whom I think a Googlebook purchase makes sense. You need to be A) really, really happy with your Android phone, B) really want a new laptop, C) not reliant upon any tools or software that only works on Windows or Mac, and C) not particularly bothered by a lack of native game support. Oh, and you need to have a budget of about a thousand dollars or more, because even limiting the RAM to 8GB isn’t making Googlebooks cheap.

There’s a faint possibility of an exciting new world in custom laptop software. But it’s very faint indeed without a large, dedicated group of people making it happen. And as much as I want to see it, I doubt that I will.

There’s a brand new platform for Windows-powered laptops arriving soon, with a familiar name and some shockingly high prices. If you’ve been following the high-end hardware news in 2026… then I’m sorry. But possibly the most exciting thing to land in some time is Nvidia’s Spark RTX, an Arm-based chip that’s now going into consumer laptops, headlined by the Surface Laptop Ultra.

“Consumer” gets a bit of an asterisk there. While these Arm-based laptops are at least somewhat similar to Qualcomm-powered Snapdragon models we’ve seen for the last few years, there’s nothing spare or affordable about them. With chips custom-tuned for “AI” at every level, tons of speedy, expensive integrated RAM, and an integrated GPU that matches an RTX 5070 (at least on paper), Nvidia and its partners want these laptops to hit at the high end.

They certainly land at high-end prices. RTX Spark laptops start at $2,600 USD, and only get more expensive. Microsoft’s flagship Surface Laptop Ultra is a cool three grand at the recommended configuration. Pre-orders are available now, and shipments should be arriving next week. Here’s an at-a-glance look at all the RTX Spark laptops announced so far:

Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra — $2,600 to $5,900

• CPU: 20-core or 18-core
• GPU: Blackwell 6244-core or 5120-core
• Screen: 15-inch 3270×2180 touchscreen
• RAM: 24GB, 32GB, 48GB, 64GB, or 128GB
• Storage: 512GB gen5, 1TB Gen5, or 2TB gen5
• Ports: 3 USB-C (USB 4 spec), one USB-A, SD card reader, HDMI, hedaphone jack
• Battery: “Up to 15 hours of local playback”, 92 watt-hour
• Weight: 4.41 pounds (2 kilograms)

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra is the flagship of this push, ranging from an at least believable $2,600 all the way to an insane $5,900, if you load it up with the maximum RAM and storage. The magnetic USB-C charger is neat.

Asus ProArt P14 — $2,600 to $6,500

• CPU: 20-core or 18-core
• GPU: Blackwell 6244-core or 5120-core
• Screen: 14-inch 2880×1800 OLED touchscreen
• RAM: 24GB, 32GB, 48GB or 128GB
• Storage: 512GB Gen4 or 1TB Gen4
• Ports: 3 USB-C (USB 4 spec), one USB-A, HDMI, SD card, headphone jack
• Battery: 90 watt-hour
• Weight: 3.26 pounds (1.48 kilograms)

Asus offers a slightly smaller take with the ProArt P14, sharing the same moniker as its well-regarded “creator” series.

Asus ProArt P16 — $2,800 to $7,000

• CPU: 20-core or 18-core
• GPU: Blackwell 6244-core or 5120-core
• Screen: 16-inch 3840×2400 OLED touchscreen
• RAM: 24GB, 32GB, 64GB or 128GB
• Storage: 512GB Gen4, 1TB Gen4, or 2TB Gen4
• Ports: 3 USB-C (USB 4 spec), one USB-A, HDMI, SD card, headphone jack
• Battery: 99.9 watt-hour
• Weight: 3.9 pounds (1.77 kilograms)

This bigger variant from Asus packs a 4K screen and an even bigger battery, impressively still sliding under the four-pound mark. But c’mon, Asus, for seven thousand dollars you couldn’t toss in a Gen5 SSD?

Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition — $3,800 to ???

• CPU: 20-core or 18-core
• GPU: Blackwell 6244-core or 5120-core
• Screen: 16-inch 3200×2000 OLED touchscreen
• RAM: 32GB, up to 128GB
• Storage: 512GB or 1TB
• Ports: 3 USB-C (USB 4 spec), HDMI, SD card, headphone jack
• Battery: “Pending”
• Weight: 4.45 pounds (2.02 kilograms)

Dell doesn’t seem ready to launch its highest-end XPS laptop, with a lot of specs still missing and/or inconsistent with retail listings. The cheapest configuration features 32GB of RAM, but there will be a 128GB version, presumably at a much higher price than is listed in pre-orders. It’s also considerably thicker and heavier than the Intel-based XPS 16.

HP OminBook Ultra 16 — $3,200 to (at least) $5,000

• CPU: 20-core
• GPU: Blackwell 6244-core
• Screen: 16-inch 2880×1800 OLED touchscreen
• RAM: 32GB or 64GB
• Storage: 1TB Gen5 SSD or 2TB Gen5 SSD
• Ports: 2 USB-C (USB 4 spec), 2 USB-A, HDMI, headphone jack
• Battery: 99.9 watt-hour
• Weight: 4.89 pounds (2.22 kilograms)

HP’s top-of-the-line OmniBook looks like an affordable and practical choice, at least in this crazy lineup. It defaults to the more beefed-up 20-core Spark chip with the faster GPU, and springs for Gen 5 SSDs. You also get two USB-A ports for older gadgets.

A smaller HP RTX Spark laptop, the OmniBook X 14, has been announced. It doesn’t appear to be ready for the October launch.

Lenovo Yoga 9n — $3,000 to $4,500

• CPU: 20-core or 18-core
• GPU: Blackwell 6244-core or 5120-core
• Screen: 16-inch 2880×1800 OLED touchscreen, reversible
• RAM: 32GB or 64GB
• Storage: 512GB gen4 or 1TB gen4 SSD
• Ports: 2 USB-C (USB 4 spec), 2 USB-A, HDMI, SD card, headphone jack
• Battery: 99.9 watt-hour
• Weight: 4.28 pounds (1.94 kilograms)

Lenovo offers one of the only choices for a convertible laptop in the initial RTX Spark lineup, which makes sense, as its top-of-the-line Yoga series sells itself on flexibility. It also comes with a stylus in the box. But where are the ThinkPads and Legion laptops with this hardware?

All of these models are available for pre-order now, though they’re scattered across manufacturers and retailers. (MSI has also announced a Prestige N16 with a convertible screen, but I haven’t been able to find a pre-order page for it.) In the U.S., Best Buy seems to have the best selection of pre-orders. Pre-orders should arrive on October 16th, or slightly later, depending on the usual factors.

Best Prices Today: Chuwi UniBook

With the UniBook, Chuwi is introducing Intel’s affordable Wildcat Lake platform. At $449, the 14-inch laptop focuses on practicality rather than raw performance. Its key strengths are its lightweight form factor and wide selection of ports. The 8GB of RAM, however, raises questions about how it handles multitasking and more demanding tasks.

Chuwi UniBook: Design and build quality

The dark grey UniBook has an understated look and feels significantly more substantial than its price would suggest. The lid, keyboard bezel, and underside are made from an anodized aluminum alloy. The matte surfaces show fingerprints only some fingerprints. Our test unit is neatly assembled. We found no sharp edges, uneven gaps, or creaking joints. The lid bends slightly in the middle, but remains stable during normal use. Even the keyboard yields only a little under firm pressure.

Measuring 12.38 × 8.70 × 0.65 inches, the UniBook takes up barely more space than a sheet of A4 paper. Chuwi states its weight as 2.65 pounds. This makes it significantly more portable than the MSI Modern 15, which, at 14.13 × 9.49 × 0.79 inches and 3.86 pounds, takes up more space in your bag. The compact 65-watt USB-C power adaptor also fits in well with the portable design.

The hinge holds the screen securely in place and allows for an opening angle of 180 degrees. However, the base is too light to open with one hand.

The backlit chiclet keyboard makes good use of the width of the chassis. The keys offer a clear actuation point and sufficient travel for longer texts. Two brightness levels make typing in dark environments easier. The backlighting shines through noticeably at the edges of the keys in places. Our test unit also features a US QWERTY layout without dedicated keys for umlauts and the ß. Prospective buyers should therefore check which keyboard layout the laptop comes with before purchasing. Due to the 14-inch format, there is no numeric keypad. The arrow keys are on the small side, but the rest of the layout remains clear and uncluttered.

The touchpad measures approximately 12 × 7 centimeters. Its smooth surface responds precisely to movements. Clicks work across almost the entire surface, though they feel firmer at the top edge.

The matt 14-inch screen has a resolution of 1920×1200 pixels in the practical 16:10 aspect ratio. This provides more vertical space for documents than a standard Full HD panel. Text appears sharp, whilst IPS technology ensures consistent viewing angles. The refresh rate is 60 hertz. This is sufficient for Office and video streaming. However, photos look noticeably washed-out and color-accurate editing is out of the question. Outdoors, there is a lack of brightness reserve.

The matt finish is a welcome feature, as it reduces distracting reflections. The display does not flicker. However, with dark images, the backlight shines through slightly at the edges.

Overall, Chuwi delivers impressive build quality. However, the UniBook does not match the torsional rigidity and build quality of more expensive premium devices.

Windows 11 Pro 10.0.26200 is pre-installed. Chuwi has omitted unnecessary additional programs, so the system appears tidy once set up.

On our test unit, not all Intel components were correctly configured after the Windows setup. We had to install the available chipset, graphics and NPU drivers separately. Some of these are found by the Intel Driver and Support Assistant.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2024 is already pre-installed. The package includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. An additional Microsoft 365 subscription is not required to use it.

Chuwi UniBook: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

The 722p webcam produces soft images with little detail. It’s adequate for occasional video conferences, but not for high-quality recordings. A mechanical slider covers the camera when required. An integrated microphone is also available for voice calls. T

he stereo speakers are loud enough, but the sound is thin and lacking in bass. Headphones are recommended for films and music.

Biometric login is not possible. The UniBook has neither a fingerprint sensor nor an infrared camera for Windows Hello. To unlock the device, you must use a PIN, password, or an external security key.

Chuwi UniBook: Connectivity

In terms of ports, the UniBook outperforms many of its competitors. On the left-hand side are two USB-C ports with USB 3.2 Gen 1, DisplayPort output, and Power Delivery. There’s also an HDMI 1.4b port and a USB-A port with 5 Gbit/s.

On the right-hand side, we find two further USB-A ports (one of which supports USB 2.0 only), a micro-SD card reader, Gigabit LAN, and a 3.5-millimetre jack. Both USB-C ports can charge the laptop and power a 4K display at 60 Hertz via HDMI. A maximum of 4K at 30 Hertz is possible.

The Realtek RTL8852BE module supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. High data transfer rates are possible on compatible Wi-Fi networks, though Wi-Fi 6E is not supported. The wired Realtek interface delivers 1 Gbit/s. The fold-out network port is a nice feature, especially if you work from home.

Chuwi UniBook: Performance

The UniBook is powered by Intel’s Core 3 304 from the Wildcat Lake series. The 15-watt chip combines a fast performance core with four energy-efficient cores, as well as five threads. The maximum clock speed is 4.3 GHz, and the L3 cache is 6 MB. The processor is manufactured using the Intel 18A process. The architecture is modern, but the limited expansion options place tight constraints on performance.

In PCMark 10, the laptop scored 4,917 points. The sub-scores of 7,765 points for basic functions and 8,099 points for productivity show that web browsers, Word, and spreadsheets run smoothly.

For digital content creation, the score drops to 5,130 points. Programs launch quickly, but running several large applications pushes the 8 GB of LPDDR5 RAM to its limits. Unfortunately, the RAM is soldered in place and cannot be upgraded. Anyone using lots of browser tabs, Microsoft Teams, and image-editing software simultaneously should expect short delays.

The 3DMark CPU Profile confirms the unbalanced core configuration. A single thread scores 1,027 points, while two threads reach 1,615 points. With four threads, the score is 2,691 points and the maximum score is 3,331 points.

The single P-core responds quickly, but during prolonged rendering or video conversion, additional powerful cores are needed. The UniBook is best suited for Office tasks, research, and media playback. Software development, large RAW projects, and video rendering require more patience.

The integrated Intel graphics uses just one Xe3 core running at up to 2.3 GHz. Its performance is sufficient for navigating Windows’ interface and video playback.

In 3DMark Time Spy, the UniBook scores 893 points, although 3DMark flags the result with a warning. The graphics score is 783 points, while the CPU score is 4,383 points. Despite the lack of validation, the result suggests that the graphics performance is likely sufficient only for older or less demanding games.

Demanding games run too slowly, even at 1080p. Newer 3DMark tests wouldn’t run because the graphics unit lacks hardware ray tracing and other DirectX 12 Ultimate features. According to the manufacturer, the NPU achieves 15 TOPS. This is sufficient for individual local AI functions, but does not meet the requirements of a Copilot Plus PC.

The 256 GB HOGE H750 NVMe SSD uses PCIe 3.0. CrystalDiskMark records sequential read speeds of 2,383 MB/s and write speeds of 2,101 MB/s. That’s respectable for a budget laptop. Around 237 GB is available after formatting, though Windows reduces the available space further. The M.2-2280 SSD can be swapped for a larger PCIe 3.0 or PCIe 4.0 model. A second SSD cannot be installed.

The MSI Modern 15’s Ryzen 5 7530U processor offers six cores and twelve threads. It performs noticeably faster on parallelized tasks and features more powerful Radeon graphics. Its RAM is also not upgradeable.

The UniBook, on the other hand, is more compact, lighter, and has longer battery life. If you prioritize value above all else, you’re better off with an affordable Ryzen 5 model. For commuters, the Chuwi offers a good balance between size, battery life, and connectivity options.

Chuwi UniBook: Battery life

The built-in lithium-polymer battery has a capacity of 53.38 Wh. In our battery test, with the display brightness set to 150 cd/m², the UniBook lasted around 13 hours and 40 minutes. At maximum brightness, the battery life drops to just under twelve hours. This is more than enough for a working day involving word processing, web browsing, and short video conferences.

In idle mode, we measured power consumption of around 2.5 to 4.8 watts, depending on the display brightness. Under typical load, consumption rises to around 18 watts. For short periods, it can reach just over 50 watts.

The included 65-watt power adaptor has plenty of headroom and can charge via either of the two USB-C ports. A charge level of around 60 percent can be reached after about an hour. The manufacturer’s claim of up to 20 hours, however, depends heavily on light use and low display brightness. In everyday use, 12 to 14 hours is more realistic.

Chuwi UniBook: Cooling, noise level

The UniBook actively cools the Core 3 304 with a single fan. When idle or during light office work, the fan often stops running. As a result, the notebook operates silently.

Short periods of heavy processing usually result in only a faint hum. Under full load, the noise level briefly rises to over 40 dB(A), but drops to around 30 dB(A) after the initial power surge. Compared to the MSI Modern 15, the cooling system seems more restrained, as the MSI fan is clearly audible under load.

The processor briefly draws up to 35 watts at the start of a task, allowing programs to launch quickly. After a few seconds, the firmware reduces power consumption to 15 watts to keep the laptop cool and quiet. As a result, computing performance drops during longer tasks such as rendering.

Even under load, the chassis only warms up moderately. Using the Thermal Master 3 thermal imaging camera, we measured a maximum of 101.5 degrees on the top surface. The warmest area is above the keyboard near the hinge. The keys and the palm rest remain significantly cooler. On the underside, the UniBook reaches a maximum of 90.9 degrees. This means it’s pretty comfortable to use on your lap. Just make sure the ventilation slots aren’t blocked.

Chuwi has sensibly tailored the cooling system to its target audience. The UniBook causes no disturbance, especially in a quiet working environment. The trade-off is not thermal throttling in the problematic sense, but rather a fixed performance budget. This configuration is well-suited to office software. Users with constant CPU loads will benefit more from a laptop with multiple performance cores and a larger cooler.

Chuwi UniBook: Conclusion

The Chuwi UniBook impresses in situations where an affordable device needs to be practical. The metal casing is lightweight and well-finished. The keyboard is suitable for longer typing sessions, and the battery lasts a full working day. Five USB ports, HDMI, a card reader, and Gigabit LAN mean many users won’t need an adapter. For $449, this combination is rare.

The cost-cutting measures remain evident. The display is matte and sharp, but covers only around 59 percent of the sRGB color space. Colors appear correspondingly pale. The webcam and speakers deliver basic quality. A more significant drawback is the 8 GB of soldered-on RAM. Even with demanding multitasking, there’s little room to maneuver. The Core 3 304 offers good responsiveness per core, but it doesn’t match the Ryzen 5’s performance under sustained load. Its modest Xe3 graphics are hardly suitable for gaming.

Anyone looking for a quiet, long-lasting laptop for office work will find this a well-rounded package. Buyers should assess their storage requirements and not expect any spare capacity for resource-intensive creative software. The MSI Modern 15 is larger and heavier, but offers more processing and graphics performance with the Ryzen 5 7530U. The UniBook wins when it comes to portability, but not when it comes to performance.

Chuwi UniBook: Specs

• Processor: Intel Core 3 304, Wildcat Lake, 1 P-core plus 4 LP-E cores, 5 threads, up to 4.3 GHz, 6 MB L3 cache, 15 watts
• Graphics: Intel Graphics, 1 Xe3 core, up to 2.3 GHz, 9 TOPS
• NPU: Intel NPU 5, up to 15 TOPS
• RAM: 8 GB LPDDR5-6400, soldered, dual-channel
• Storage: 256 GB HOGE H750 NVMe SSD, PCIe 3.0, M.2 2280, removable; slot supports PCIe 4.0 x4
• Display: 14-inch, IPS, matt, 1,920 × 1,200 pixels, 16:10, 60 Hz
• Ports on the left: 2 × USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 with charging and DisplayPort, HDMI 1.4b, USB-A 3.2 Gen 1
• Ports on the right: USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, USB-A 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, micro SD card reader, 3.5 mm audio
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 via Realtek RTL8852BE, Bluetooth 5.2
• Camera: 720p with mechanical privacy cover
• Keyboard: Chiclet, two-level white backlighting, QWERTY layout on the test unit
• Audio: Stereo speakers, combined headphone/microphone jack
• Battery: 53.38 Wh lithium-polymer
• Power adaptor: 65 watts, USB-C Power Delivery
• Dimensions: 314.5 × 221 × 16.4 mm
• Weight: approx. 1.2 kg
• Warranty: 12 months
• Operating system: Windows 11 Pro
• Software: Office Professional Plus 2024

Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Ultra is powered by a Mediatek CPU and Nvidia’s powerful RTX Spark SoC, which is mainly designed to run local AI models on the user’s lap. Five competing laptops—from Dell, HP, MSI and more—will offer additional options.

Here’s the thinking. Microsoft is banking on near-future AI developers and enthusiasts running local AI models and tools directly from their PC. If needed, they’ll tap Microsoft’s Copilot AI for more horsepower. Microsoft calls this “hybrid intelligence” and it’s basically an acknowledgement that users won’t necessarily care which device does what. It’s a compromise, as is most anything that’s AI-related in productivity: some love it, others despise it.

There are further tradeoffs. Users will be able to run models locally, but the Surface Laptop Ultra ships with a 140W power adapter. That’s a signal that it will consume much more power than typical laptops, though not gaming laptops. (That’s another question: is this a gaming laptop? Microsoft showed just a single Gears of War game running on the Ultra, with no indication of frame rate.)

Nevertheless, I left the Windows and Surface Event with a question that no one at Microsoft could answer: What will be the battery life of these laptops? In one demonstration, Microsoft employee Kayla Cinnamon proudly put the Surface Laptop Ultra into “airplane mode,” showing how the laptop could run entirely disconnected from a network.

(Microsoft’s official stance: “Battery life details for Surface Laptop Ultra will be shared closer to availability,” reads the Ultra’s spec page. “It varies based on usage, settings, configuration, and other factors.”)

But these laptops may not even work on airplanes. For one, 140W is more than some airplane power outlets can supply—110W to 150W is apparently typical. (Edit: Jason Rabinowitz, cohost of the AVTalk podcast and an avid airline enthusiast, says that 60 to 100 watts is actually more common.) Will you be able to run AI agents continuously throughout a 13-hour flight from San Francisco to Taiwan? I very much doubt it. We don’t even have a reliable way to test the battery life while churning tokens.

All of these unknowns left the analysts I spoke to shaking their heads. Who’s going to buy these devices? The $2,599 price is the base, which means as users scale up to more and more memory—to run larger and more powerful AI models—the price will balloon with it. We’re still in 2026, a time when the $699 Apple MacBook Neo blew up headlines.

“I think it’s very obvious that no one wants to spend all this crazy money [on cloud AI],” said analyst Bob O’Donnell, principal at Technalysis. But how users want to divvy up their work between slower local AI and faster, more expensive cloud models remains to be seen.

It seems we have a new breed of laptops that might not really be laptops at all—they may not have the battery to last with how much power they chug, and they can’t plug in while on the go. They’re “portable” AI workstations for a niche of users who are willing to pay more than what it costs for a normal productivity laptop, for “productivity” loathed by some of its users. Whew.

Updated at 2:02 PM with additional detail.

Looking for a lightweight Windows laptop that doesn’t cut too many corners? Then take a look at this Samsung Galaxy Book6 deal on Amazon. It’s a 14-inch laptop that weighs just 2.98 pounds. It’s also packing a current generation Intel Core Ultra 5 325 processor. And right now, it’s $999.99 for Prime Day, down from $1,249.99.

The thing that really caught my eye, though, was the amount of memory and storage. 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage are exactly what I’d want to see in a laptop at this price point. That’s enough memory for multitasking, Zoom, streaming… the whole chalupa! And the 512GB SSD gives you more breathing room than the 256GB drives you’ll typically see in entry-level laptops.

The 14-inch display is quite good, too. It has a 1920×1200 resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio. The aspect ratio is worth nothing because you’re getting more vertical space than you would with a standard 16:9 screen. 

The Galaxy Book6 is meant to be an easy grab-and-go laptop, which is a big part of the appeal here. Plus, if you already use a Samsung Galaxy phone, the ecosystem integration is another nice perk.

At $999.99, I’d put this squarely in the “solid Prime Day deal” category. The 16GB/512GB configuration makes it a much more attractive long-term purchase than the 8GB/256GB version.

Get the Samsung Galaxy Book6 for $999.99 at Amazon

If you’ve been waiting for the price of Apple’s M5 MacBook Air to come back down to earth, Prime Day just delivered. The 13-inch M5 MacBook Air is $1,099 at Amazon, the first time it’s dropped back to that price since Apple hiked it in June.

That’s $200 off its current $1,299 price — and effectively wipes out Apple’s steep recent increase. If you want a MacBook that can handle more than the basics but don’t want to spend MacBook Pro money, this is the one I’d zero in on.

According to our friends over at Macworld, Apple didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel here… but honestly? It didn’t need to.

The M5 chip delivers impressive performance, with Macworld finding it performed similarly to the pricier M5 MacBook Pro in many tests, especially single-core CPU workloads (think tasks like opening programs and general responsiveness). The Air is fanless, though. While that means quieter operation, the MacBook Pro still has the edge as far as demanding tasks go.

The 13.6-inch 2880×1864 Liquid Retina display is another reason why the Air works well as an everyday laptop. Macworld praised its color accuracy, so it should be great for everything from documents and browsing to watching movies.

And then there’s the battery life. Macworld managed 18 hours and 24 minutes in its battery test, while noting that the Air could comfortably make it through an eight-hour workday without needing a plug. 

The MacBook Pro is probably overkill for most people, and this Prime Day deal makes the M5 Air an even easier choice. For the first time since Apple raised its price, you can get it for $1,099 again — with plenty of performance for everyday work and then some.

Get the MacBook Air for $1,099

If you’re shopping for a new laptop and don’t want to settle for 8GB of RAM, this Asus Vivobook 16 is definitely worth a look. It’s currently $529.99 at Amazon, which is $140.01 off of the original $670 price. 

One thing I really like about this deal is that Asus didn’t cheap out on the memory. You get 16GB of RAM, which is what I’d go for in a laptop these days. Sure, you can still find plenty of lower-cost laptops with 8GB, but 16GB gives you a lot more breathing room when you’re bouncing between browser tabs and programs. 

You’re also getting a 512GB SSD, so storage isn’t an afterthought either. Put those two specs together, and this feels like a laptop you can actually live with for a few years rather than one you’ll want to upgrade in a year or so. 

The Snapdragon X processor is another nice fit for this kind of laptop. It’s designed with efficiency in mind, so the focus is less on raw performance and more on giving you a responsive machine for the daily stuff, paired with a long-lasting battery. 

The 16-inch 1920×1200  display is another reason I’d consider this over a small budget laptop. You get more screen real estate for spreadsheets and documents, as the 16:10 aspect ratio gives you a little more vertical space than a standard 1080p screen. 

This laptop isn’t trying to wow you with one premium feature. Instead, it’s giving you a well-rounded set of specs. It’s one of the best Prime Day laptop deals around if you’re on a budget — especially if you don’t want to suffer the sacrifices an 8GB laptop requires.

Get the Asus Vivobook 16 for $529.99

Officially known as Amazon Prime Big Deals Days, today mark’s the start of Amazon’s second annual Prime Day sales event, which runs from October 6 through October 7. It’s an opportune time to pick up some new gear at a good price. Perhaps get your holiday shopping started early?

You’ll need to be a Prime member to take advantage of (most of) the sales, though! Here’s how to get Amazon Prime for free if you need it.

Deals at a glance

• Best laptop deal: Microsoft Surface Laptop, $1,099 ($150.99 off)
• Best budget laptop deal: Asus Vivobook Go 15, $479.99 ($120 off at Amazon)
• Best OLED gaming monitor deal: LG 34-inch 1440p 240Hz — $699.99 ($300 off)
• Best budget Thunderbolt docking station: Amazon Basics Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station, 85W charging, $102.33 ($46.60 off)
• Best mainstream USB-C docking station: Ugreen 14-in-1 USB-C Docking Station, 100W charging, $79.99 ($30 off)

Below we offer a hand-selected list of the best Amazon Prime Day deals on tech right now. Our opinions are honed from the decades of combined experience PCWorld’s editors have reviewing and evaluating PC hardware. We know what a product’s specs and features are worth and we know when a deal is truly a bargain.

We’re updating often, so make sure to check back frequently to see what deals we found.

Best Prime Day deals on laptops

From budget to premium, there is something for everyone.

Best laptop deal: Microsoft Surface Laptop, $1,099 ($150.99 off )

Why is this a good deal? The Surface Laptop is a complete package for everyday computing tasks. With a Snapdragon X Plus chip and 16GB of RAM, it can handle everything from media streaming to video calls to the full gamut of productivity chores. It’s relatively lightweight at 2.7 pounds and has excellent battery life (Microsoft says it can last up to 23 hours). Its 13-inch 1920×1280 touch-enabled display is versatile and easy on the eyes. All in all, it’s an appealing machine, especially at this price.

Get the Microsoft Surface Laptop for $1,099

View Deal on Amazon

Best budget laptop deal: Asus Vivobook Go, $479.99 ($120 off )

Why is this a good deal?The Vivobook Go is the laptop you use for reading Reddit stories, watching Netflix, and getting lost in a Wikipedia hole. The lighter stuff. That’s what the entry-level AMD Ryzen 5 40 processor is exactly made for. This is a good machine, especially for under $500. It’s not trying to be crazy powerful. It’s trying to be consistent. 

Get the Asus Vivobook Go for $479.99

View Deal on Amazon

See more deals in our roundup of the best Prime Day laptop deals.

Best Prime Day deals on mini PCs

Mini PCs can be great-spacing desktops and their capabilities can span from general purpose chores to gaming.

Best AMD multi-purpose mini PC deal: Reatan A8, Ryzen 7 8745HS/Radeon 780M/16GB DDR5 RAM/1TB SSD/Oculink/quad 4K support—$499

Why is this a good deal? The Reatan A8 is a good choice for anyone who wants a compact PC with strong everyday performance and surprisingly capable integrated graphics. Its Oculink port also makes it an enticing option for users who may want to add an external GPU for gaming down the road.

The Ryzen 7 8745HS and Radeon 780M graphics deliver excellent performance for the money—including the ability for some light gaming. That plus 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD make this a well-balanced mini PC that is ready for most tasks right out of the box.

Get the Reatan A8 for $499

View Deal at amazon

Best Intel desktop replacement mini PC deal: Kamrui P2, Core i5-12600H/32GB DDR5 RAM/1TB SSD/triple 4K support—$519 (44% off)

Why is this a good deal? For $569, you get a Core i5-12600H, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD — a strong hardware value at this price. Windows 11 Pro and triple 4K display further sweeten the pot, particularly if you’re building a compact workstation.The Kamrui P2 is great for anyone in the market for a compact PC that is capable of heavier office work, multitasking, and productivity loads. The generous 32GB of RAM and support for three 4K displays make it well suited to professionals who run lots of simultaneous apps or work across multiple monitors.

Get the Kamrui P2 for $519

View Deal at amazon

See more deals in our roundup of best Prime Day mini PC deals.

Best Prime Day deals on monitors

A nice monitor can change your whole computing experience, and lucky for us, the latest monitor tech is more affordable than ever.

Best OLED gaming monitor: LG 34-inch 1440p 240Hz ($700 after $600 discount)

Why is this a good deal? If you want premium options for your gaming hardware, including a big 34-inch ultrawide OLED screen, but you can’t spend top dollar, this $700 LG ultrawide monitor is for you. The 34-inch, 3440×1440 panel gives you appreciably more space versus a 27-inch monitor, with options for multitasking when you’re not gaming. With a 240Hz refresh rate, it’s ready to tackle intense online multiplayer too. It’s G-sync compatible and offers USB-A ports for extra gadgets. Typically, a monitor with all this would be pricey, but with a $600 discount off the original price of this model, you’re getting name-brand performance at no-name price.

Get the LG 34-inch OLED ultrawide monitor for $699.99

View Deal at Amazon

Best budget office monitor deal: BenQ 24-inch USB-C ($95 after $35 discount)

Why is this a good deal? It’s hard to find a cheap monitor with USB-C, but this BenQ model manages it for under $100. It’s a flexible, easy-to-connect display that makes for a great stand-alone screen or as a second monitor. Yes, it’s kust 24 inches and 1080p resolution, but the 144Hz panel gives it a little extra utility. The USB-C connection doesn’t have enough juice to recharge a laptop, but should work for most phones and tablets.

Get the BenQ 24-inch USB-C monitor for $94.99

View Deal at Amazon

See more deals in our roundup of the best Prime Day monitor deals.

Best Prime Day deals on USB-C hubs and Thunderbolt docks

A USB-C hub or Thunderbolt dock can add useful expandability to your PC setup.

Best budget USB-C docking station deal: Ugreen Revodok NVMe Docking Station, $59.99 ($20 off)

Why is this a good deal? If you’re a budget buyer who doesn’t need to connect more than one external monitor, this docking station has you covered. It’s got a nice compact design for desktops. An SSD slot can serve as handy local storage. The price reflects steady cuts from it’s original $79.99 list price. And it’s backed by the Ugreen brand, which is solid in the budget space. Keep in mind that you’ll need to provide your own USB-C power supply (up to 100W, but any USB charger will do) and your own SSD. Otherwise, there’s a USB-C and a USB-A port, HDMI, Ethernet, and a card reader.

Get UGreen’s Revodok USB-C docking station for $59.99

View Deal on amazon

Best mainstream USB-C docking station deal: Ugreen 14-in-1 USB-C Docking Station: $79.99 ($60 off)

Why is this a good deal? If you don’t need the full power of a Thunderbolt dock, this Ugreen 14-in-1 docking station offers a ton of functionality in a more accessible USB-C format: three display ports (two HDMI, one DisplayPort), plus 140W charging via a 27W charger output and 100W upstream to the laptop dock. In addition, there’s an SD/TF card reader as well as a pair of USB-C ports and a USB-A port. Amazon and Ugreen were charging $120 for this station most of the year, so you want to jump on it at this price.

Get Ugreen 14-in-1 USB-C Docking Station for $79.99

View Deal on Amazon

Best budget Thunderbolt docking station: Amazon Basics Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station, $102.33 ($46.60 off at Amazon)

Why is this a good deal? Amazon’s Basics dock is a great value for anyone who wants to connect multiple monitors. (Note that you’ll have to supply the display cables yourself.) The minimalist docking station features two HDMI, and one DisplayPort, plus 140W charging via a 27W charger output, and 100W upstream to the laptop dock. There’s an SD/TF card reader as well as a pair of USB-C ports and a USB-A port. Plus an extra Thunderbolt 4 port for further port expansion.

At just a tad over $100 (a 31% discount), it’s a solid deal.

Get the Amazon Basics Thunderbolt 4 docking station for $102.33

View Deal on Amazon

See more deals in our roundup of the best Prime Day deals on Thunderbolt docks & USB-C hubs.

Price When Reviewed

1279.99

Best Prices Today: Acer Aspire 16 AI

The Acer Aspire 16 AI surprised me. It’s the first laptop I’ve looked at in a while that I’d seriously consider buying. It’s just effortless to live with. It’s lightweight and the OLED display is so pretty that even my husband commented on it. 

Are there things I’d change? Yep. That said, the quirks never really got in the way of my day-to-day use.

Acer Aspire 16 AI: The guts

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 355
• GPU: Intel Arc 140V GPU
• NPU: Intel AI Boost, up to 49 TOPS
• RAM: 16GB LPDDR5X
• Storage: 512GB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD
• Display: 16-inch OLED, 1920×1200, 60Hz
• Display: 100% DCI-P3, 100% sRGB, 300 nits
• Touchscreen: Yes
• Aspect Ratio: 16:10
• Webcam: 1080p FHD
• Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi 7
• Bluetooth: 5.4+
• Battery: 65Wh, 3-cell
• Ports: 2× USB4 Type-C, 2× USB-A, HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm audio
• Card Reader: MicroSD
• Keyboard: Backlit keyboard with number pad
• Weight: 3.23 lbs
• Price: $1,279.99 (MSRP)

Acer Aspire 16 AI: It’s pretty light for a 16-inch laptop

At 3.23 pounds, I kept forgetting I was carrying a 16-inch laptop. I could easily pick it up with one hand and carry it around (although I wouldn’t recommend making a habit of carrying any laptop that way!). The aluminum chassis also feels nice in hand—I definitely prefer it to the plastic ones. 

Flip the Aspire 16 over and you’ll see several ventilation openings across the underside, along with a raised section toward the rear. Acer identifies the openings as part of the laptop’s ventilation and cooling system. I didn’t hear much fan noise at all, and the underside of the laptop stayed cool.

Acer Aspire 16 AI: A display made for scrolling

The biggest reason I’d reach for the Aspire 16? The display. Even my husband, who has watched me test many different laptops, noticed the display and commented on how good it looked. 

First, the size. It’s 16-inches with a 16:10 aspect ratio, which means you’re getting more vertical space than a standard 16:9 panel. I appreciated that extra space, especially when scrolling through longer emails and PCWorld articles. 

Second, it’s an OLED panel, so colors are rich and vibrant. Darker scenes have a sense of depth to them, too. To put it through a less scientific (but more entertaining!) test, I watched one of Bjork’s live concerts. And, just as I expected it to, the Aspire 16 handled the concert beautifully. 

Bjork’s white feather mask really popped against the colorful backgrounds—I could easily spot her in faraway shots. I found myself pretty immersed in the performance. In part due to the larger screen size. In part due to Bjork being, well, Bjork. 

I also watched a documentary about Iceland (I was there recently and I’ve never felt more humble), and the sweeping shots of the moss-covered lava rocks were stunning. The chunks of glacier ice looked especially blue.

Brightness is the one thing I wish were better.

Even with the brightness turned all the way up, I still wished I could bump it up a click or two. Acer rates it up to 300 nits, which lines up with my experience. 

I didn’t use the touchscreen much, though. That’s purely because I just prefer navigating on the touchpad and keyboard. Still, the touchscreen is nice to have at this price point ($1,279.99 at the time of this writing). 

By the way, the screen is pretty reflective (as you can see in that horrifying picture above), especially under brighter lights. 

Acer Aspire 16 AI: A keyboard that takes some getting used to

The Aspire 16 has a large keyboard with a dedicated number pad, which will be a welcome addition for anyone who regularly works with numbers.

Me? The Aspire 16’s larger layout is a little too big for my hands, so it took me longer to get accustomed to typing on it. I found myself landing on the wrong key more often than not. That’s probably because I’m used to using a 14-inch laptop on a daily basis, which has a smaller keyboard. I also struggled with the size of the vertical (up and down) arrow keys. I just kept wishing they were the same size as the horizontal ones.

I appreciated the backlight, as usual. I’m a creature of the dark, so I like being able to see the keys when I’ve got the lights switched off. You can also toggle the backlighting on and off with a dedicated key rather than getting yourself lost in Windows settings.

Acer Aspire 16 AI: And yes, the speakers do get loud

Back to Bjork for a moment.

The Aspire 16’s speakers got loud enough that, while I was watching the concert in the kitchen area, my husband called out from a different room, “Is that Bjork?”

That’s not exactly a laboratory measurement of audio quality, but it does tell you about how far the audio can carry. For watching concerts and YouTube videos, the Aspire 16 can get plenty loud.

But volume is just one part of it. 

The other part is the quality of sound, which I’d describe as “OK.” They’re fine for most folks. But if you’re a big music lover and want to hear every little sound, you’re better off buying a good pair of headphones. 

Acer Aspire 16 AI: A decent spread of ports

For such a thin machine, the Aspire packs a good range of ports. There are two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, HDMI 2.1, and a headphone jack, so I didn’t find myself reaching for an adapter just to connect to the usual stuff.

But there’s one issue (it’s a minor one, but it’s still a thorn in my side).

You can only charge the Aspire 16 on one side of the laptop. Both USB-C ports support charging, which is all well and good, but I wish they were on either side. It’d be more convenient that way!

Acer Aspire 16 AI: The AI stuff

I don’t want to dawdle on about the AI stuff because, well, I’m a bit tired of it.

The Aspire 16 AI is a Copilot+ PC (the NPU can go up to 49 TOPS), so it can do all the usual stuff. Recall saves snapshots of what you’re looking at, Live Captions adds transcriptions to videos, and so on.

Honestly? The only thing I used was Live Captions, as I have a harder time processing things through audio alone. 

Acer Aspire 16 AI: It’s capable of handling the day-to-day stuff

Performance was snappy enough for the daily stuff. My workload is fairly light, though. I’ve usually got a few tabs open: Google Docs, YouTube, Facebook, X, PCWorld’s main page, etc. I didn’t notice any slowdowns. 

• Acer Aspire 16 AI ($1,279.99 at MSRP): Intel Core Ultra 7 355 (Panther Lake)
• Acer TravelMate P2 14 AI ($1,699 at MSRP): Intel Core Ultra 5 322 (Panther Lake)
• Dell XPS 13 ($699.99 at MSRP): Intel Core 5 320 (Wildcat Lake)

The Aspire 16 AI did well in our benchmark testing, too. I ran the benchmarks with Acer’s Standard Performance profile enabled. I also compared it against the recently reviewed Acer TravelMate P2 14 and Dell XPS 13. The Aspire 16 and TravelMate P2 both use Intel’s Panther Lake processors (different tiers), while the XPS 13 uses a Wildcat Lake chip.

Let’s take a look at PCMark 10, which measures overall productivity performance. The Aspire 16 AI’s score of 7,135 puts it ahead of both the Acer TravelMate P2 14 (6,581) and the Dell XPS 13 (6,103). The Aspire uses the higher-tier Core Ultra 7 355 processor, so the higher score makes sense here. Interestingly, graphics performance is where the Aspire 16 pulls away from the TravelMate P2.

The Aspire’s 3DMark Time Spy score of 3,236 is more than twice the TravelMate’s 1,479. The difference likely comes down to (at least in part) the Aspire’s newer Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics.

That extra graphics performance means the Aspire 16 can handle some casual gaming without getting loud or too hot. I played ComboLands for a couple of hours one night and didn’t notice any slowdowns whatsoever. The laptop got slightly warm, but I never heard the fans ramp up—even with it sitting on my lap while I played.

To be fair, ComboLands isn’t exactly a demanding game. It’s a citybuilding game where you’re tasked with stacking the correct buildings. Most of the time, you’re just looking at a relatively static map and placing things like houses and crops on it as you work toward different goals. So I wouldn’t take this as evidence that the Aspire 16 is a gaming laptop. But for lighter games, it was perfectly comfortable to use.

Acer Aspire 16 AI: Battery life is pretty good

Battery life is pretty solid, too. I ran one of UL Procyon’s battery benchmarks and it lasted 11 hours and 47 minutes. Almost 12 hours! It’s not the 36-hour result we saw with the Dell 14S, but nearly 12 hours is still more than a full workday. 

Acer Aspire 16 AI: Should you get it?

The Aspire 16 AI is the laptop I kept reaching for (even after the testing period was over). Sure, the keyboard was a little big for my hands and I wish I could charge it from either side, but those things never really got in the way of me wanting to use it. 

There are a lot of things I like about it. The spacious OLED display is great for light gaming and watching concerts. There are also plenty of ports, and it handled my daily workload without issue. 

For $1,279.99, I think the Aspire 16 AI makes the most sense for someone who wants a big, beautiful screen without lugging around a heavy 16-inch machine. 

I’ve been spending the past few months digging into laptop pricing, and one thing is incredibly obvious here. Laptops are getting wildly expensive thanks in part to the rising cost of RAM and storage. But with Prime Day finally here (October 6th and 7th), some genuinely compelling discounts are beginning to materialize.

That’s why I’ve pulled together the best laptop deals worth watching right now across the biggest categories: everyday budget laptops, gaming laptops, Chromebooks, and so on. I’m pretty tuned in to the landscape because I oversee all laptop and Chromebook coverage here at PCWorld. I also maintain our best laptop deals roundup daily, along with our best laptops of roundup weekly.

Before diving in, don’t forget that you’ll need to be a Prime subscriber to take advantage of those deals. You can discover how to get Amazon Prime for free here. 

Deals at a glance

• Best laptop deal: Microsoft Surface Laptop, $1,069.46 ($180.53 off at Amazon)
• Best budget laptop deal: Asus Vivobook Go 15, $479.99 ($120 off at Amazon)
• Best gaming laptop deal: MSI Cyborg 17, $1,189 ($210.99 off at Amazon)
• Best Chromebook deal: Lenovo Chromebook Plus, $475.24 ($49.76 off at Amazon)

Best laptop deal: Microsoft Surface Laptop, $1,069.46 ($180.53 off at Amazon)

Who is this for?

Anyone who wants a really good laptop at a fantastic discount should consider the Surface Laptop. 

Why is this a good deal?

The Surface Laptop is pretty much the complete package as far as I’m concerned. Not only is it pretty lightweight at 2.7 pounds, but it’s also got a Snapdragon X Plus chip and 16GB of RAM. That’s plenty for hopping on video calls and streaming your favorite shows. Throw in the excellent battery life (Microsoft says it can last up to 23 hours) and a 13-inch 1920×1280 touch-enabled display, and it’s easy to see what makes this machine so appealing.

Get the Microsoft Surface Laptop for $1,069.46

View Deal on amazon

Best budget laptop deal: Asus Vivobook Go, $479.99 ($120 off at Amazon)

Who is this for?

The Vivobook Go is for anyone who just needs a barebones machine. Just something reliable for browsing or streaming. Whatever it is you do when you’re busy killing time.

Why is this a good deal?

The Vivobook Go sits in that increasingly important “just enough laptop” category. It’s not trying to be crazy powerful. It’s trying to be consistent. 

This is the laptop you use for reading Reddit stories, watching Netflix, and getting lost in a Wikipedia hole. The lighter stuff. That’s what the entry-level AMD Ryzen 5 40 processor is exactly made for. This is a good machine, especially for under $500.

Get the Asus Vivobook Go for $479.99

View Deal on amazon

Best gaming laptop deal: MSI Cyborg 17, $1,189 ($210.99 off at Amazon)

Who is this for?

The MSI Cyborg 17 is for anyone who wants a big-screen gaming laptop without sacrificing an arm and a leg. Its 17.3-inch 144Hz display gives you plenty of room for gaming, while the RTX 5060 GPU provides enough horsepower to handle modern games at 1080p.

Why is this a good deal?

Honestly? You’re getting an RTX 5060 with 8GB of GDDR7 memory for a little over $1,000. That’s a current-generation GPU with DLSS 4 and frame generation. You’re basically getting a laptop with a lot of capability.

The display is another big selling point. It’s a spacious 17.3-inch 1920×1080 panel with a 144Hz refresh rate, so you’ve got plenty of screen to work with (as well as a fast refresh rate for smoother gameplay). The resolution isn’t anything spectacular, but it makes sense for this class of hardware.

Get the MSI Cyborg 17 for $1,189

View Deal on Amazon

Best Chromebook deal: Lenovo Chromebook Plus, $475.24 ($49.76 off at Amazon)

Who is this for?

The Lenovo Chromebook Plus is for anyone who mainly works in the browser, prefers Chrome’s operating system, and wants something low-maintenance.

Why is this a good deal?

Chromebook Plus models are Google’s attempt to push Chromebooks out of the extreme budget category. Honestly? It works. Just go in with realistic expectations and you’ll be fine. 

Inside the Lenovo Chromebook Plus, there’s an Intel Core 3 N355 processor and 8GB of RAM. It shouldn’t slow down on you when you’re chatting with friends on Discord, but if you’re deeply into gaming or creative work, then this isn’t the laptop for you — no Chromebook should be.  

Get the Lenovo Chromebook Plus for $475.24

View Deal on Amazon

Other great early Prime Day deals

These aren’t the only early Prime Day deals being tracked by the PCWorld team. If you’re looking to supercharge your home setup with the juiciest tech sales, hit the links for only the best expert-curated picks we’ve found.

• Best monitor deals for Prime Day: OLED, home office, and more
• Best Prime Day mini PC deals: Big savings on tiny computers
• Best Prime Day deals on Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs
• Best Amazon Prime Day tech deals: Great sales chosen by experts

Price When Reviewed

$699.99

Best Prices Today: Acer Swift Air 14 (SFA14-I31)

On paper, the Acer Swift Air 14 is almost exactly what a productivity laptop buyer in 2026 ought to want. A great price, decent performance, and excellent battery life. Does it all play out as planned?

Here’s the tradeoff, in short. The laptop’s $699 sticker price is offset by an anemic 8GB of RAM — a grievous error in 2025, but more forgivable during the component shortages of 2026 and beyond (?). It all plays out as you would hope… but just don’t push it.

Acer Swift Air 14: Specs and configurations

Right now, the Acer Swift Air 14 (SFA14-I31-58V8) is available to buy at Acer and Best Buy for $699. It might be also worth noting that Acer’s chief executive recently said that he expects PC prices to rise by between five to 20 percent during the fourth quarter of 2026, which may be an incentive for you to buy soon.

• Model number: SFA14-I3
• CPU: Intel Core 5 320
• Memory: 8GB LPDDR5X (expandable to 16GB)
• Graphics/GPU: Intel Graphics
• NPU: Yes, 16 TOPS
• Display: 14-inch (1920×1200) TFT, 30-120Hz
• Storage: 512GB PCIe Gen4 SSD
• Webcam: 1080p
• Connectivity: 2X USB-C (Thunderbolt 4), USB-A, 3.5mm headphone jack
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6e, Bluetooth 5.3
• Biometrics: Windows Hello (webcam)
• Battery capacity: 70 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 12.4 x 8.8 x 0.51 inches
• Weight: 2.62 pounds
• MSRP: $699.99 as tested

Acer Swift Air 14: Out of the box and construction

Since Acer sells this laptop for $699, I wanted to see if any corners had been cut. As the specs above note, one key shortcoming is the amount of memory: we all know that RAM is expensive, but we’ll see how 8GB affects its overall performance later in the review.

Otherwise, you might expect the Swift “Air” to float in your hands. It doesn’t, but at 2.62 pounds, it’s much lighter than a typical 14-inch laptop, which typically weighs about three pounds. Its aluminum construction feels solid, and I couldn’t feel any untoward flexing either in the keyboard tray or as I moved the display up and down.

Acer’s product page indicates that the Swift Air 14 ships in “purple, blue, pink, and green,” though Acer and Best Buy sell the laptop in a sage green only.

Put another way, the Acer Swift Air 14 does not feel cheap, which was one of the goals of the Intel Project Firefly program associated with the Core Series 3 (“Wildcat Lake”) processor inside the laptop itself.

The laptop’s display fully reclines, which is a little odd given that the Swift Air 14’s display isn’t touch-enabled. Acer included a pair of powerful USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 capabilities on the left side of the laptop, with just a single USB-A port and a headphone jack on the right. It feels perfectly appropriate for the size of the laptop and its price point.

Note that this laptop can’t connect to the latest Wi-Fi 7 routers, although Wi-Fi 6e still has sufficient bandwidth for home networking.

Acer Swift Air 14: Display

Even 14-inch laptops seem to have moved beyond 1080p resolution to 1200p, a positive step forward for the industry. My colorimeter measured the display brightness at 376 nits, substantially higher than the 250 to 260 nits we deem adequate for everyday office use. Though the panel used pretty standard IPS technology, Acer’s “Comfyview” matte coating does a good job of diffusing reflections to make it easier to work under bright lights.

No one seems to care too much about bezel sizing, though the underscreen bezel seems a bit bigger than most to achieve the 16:10 aspect ratio.

Budget laptops usually lack the visual fidelity of more expensive “creator-class” laptops. Still, I applied my colorimeter to the display and it fares pretty well. Here’s how my colorimeter assessed the display output:

Remember, too, that the variable refresh rate of the screen (30 to 120Hz) can provide silky smooth mousing and scrolling at the highest refresh rate, but sips power at 30Hz to extend battery life. You’ll need to go into the Windows settings menu to enable the dynamic refresh rate. Otherwise, it will remain fixed at 120Hz.

Acer Swift Air 14: Keyboard and touchpad

I like Acer’s laptop keyboards, and the Swift Air 14 is no exception. The keys are wide and spacious. The key travel is comfortable and forgiving, too. As a budget productivity laptop, this is ideal. The top row of the keyboard includes dedicated keys for AcerSense, Acer’s utility software, as well as a shortcut to Acer.com.

I did catch a bug. The keyboard doesn’t wake up immediately at the tap of a button–this happens when the laptop’s running on battery and wall power. After the first tap, however, the keyboard worked normally… until I left idle for a few seconds. Then the laptop would revert to its earlier state.

In other words, when I tapped the Start button, the laptop did nothing. I also wondered why I kept mistakenly entering PIN codes and passwords! That was why. Acer advised me to reset the PC as a workaround, which solved the problem.

The included trackpad works as well as could be expected for a budget trackpad. It’s clickable up until the about the top third, where it peters out. Gestures work like normal.

Acer Swift Air 14: Audio, webcam, mics, and biometrics

The laptop’s audio quality is good. Acer mounts four speakers inside the laptop, enhanced by DTS:X Ultra Audio. The combination delivers solid audio from lows to highs. It’s a little soft on the low-end bass, but with good volume otherwise. Moreover, turning up the volume doesn’t immediately turn the audio into mishmash, as older laptops used to do. (I did notice a little distortion on Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way, however.) Watching video on the laptop is surprisingly good, too.

Access to the laptop is protected by Windows Hello, enabled on the webcam’s depth camera. This is traditionally difficult to test because we only have the laptop for a short time. However, I was able to set it up and it recognized me several times without flaw over the course of the review.

Otherwise, the laptop’s 1080p/30Hz webcam was acceptable. You’ll notice that the laptop’s processor does include a small NPU of 16 TOPS. This is enough for the Windows Studio Effects (pan and zoom, background blur, and the odd “eye contact” effect)–these all worked well enough. Right now, I’m not convinced that this class of laptop will really benefit from local AI, save the for the built-in studio effects.

I’ve included a sample webcam shot below. (Consider one of our webcam recommendations otherwise.)

There’s also an interesting twist: Acer specifically pushes a popup at you if you open the Windows Camera application. It advertises a “Acer Phone Webcam” application that can be downloaded for your Android or iPhone. Essentially, your (far superior) phone camera’s feed stands in for your webcam.

Acer Phone Webcam isn’t that different than what you can already do with your PC, though using a phone camera as a webcam is a bit complicated to set up within Windows. Acer simplifies it, and it’s a smart use of an app to do so.

The on-device mics don’t do a great job of capturing audio, though the audio filtering is excellent — with a major caveat. I test the microphone quality by using the Windows Sound Recorder application to record my voice, with and without music, then with white noise playing in the background.

The Acer Swift Air 14 did a good job filtering out the white noise — rainfall, in this case. My voice was captured almost perfectly. My voice sounded more distorted when I was playing music in the background, though the music was totally filtered out. Great work! Well, kind of.

On my first run I noticed I had a benchmark program sitting idle in the background. However, the memory that app took up negatively affected the laptop’s audio capture ability, turning my voice into more of a garbled mess than an actual recording.

Acer Swift Air 14: Performance

The 8GB of RAM prevented one of our benchmark applications from running entirely. I think a bigger concern, however, is that an 8GB laptop pushes you to look at the hardware requirements for certain applications. Photoshop might be a poor example in this scenario, but its “required” memory is just 8GB. Adobe “recommends” 16GB instead. That means risking a substantial amount of money on an application that might not run well on your PC.

(Microsoft, oddly, doesn’t even list a minimum memory allotment for Microsoft 365, though Word, PowerPoint, and Excel all performed acceptably.)

I doubt that the keyboard issue I noticed above wasn’t due to the fact that this laptop only has 8GB of RAM, but leaving another application open while recording audio certainly affected the audio quality in a negative way. On the other hand, I was able to open ten media-rich tabs in Microsoft Edge, plus Word, and almost max out the laptop’s memory usage at 97 percent. Those tabs were perfectly navigable. Some of them even included video, too.

The Acer Swift Air is sufficient for basic tasks, including Office work and web browsing. It’s not a content creation laptop or a gaming rig, though, so you might want to taper your expectations. You may reach a bottleneck faster with 8GB of RAM.

Let’s assume that you’re trying to spend as little as possible on a laptop. In response to the Apple MacBook Neo, laptop manufacturers have presented options: the $699 Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i (now $749.99 at Lenovo), the $429 Acer Aspire Go 15 (now $515), and the $699.99 Dell XPS 13, which has increased in price to $799.99. All of these use 8GB of RAM by default, though the price and display sizes vary. The difference? The first two PCs date to 2025, when memory was more abundant and an 8GB laptop could be more heavily criticized. Sadly, minimal memory is much more acceptable in 2026.

The PCMark benchmark combines a number of tasks, from basic office work (spreadsheets, word processing) all the way up to video calls and CAD applications. I think it’s one of the most well-rounded benchmarks out there, but it doesn’t support Windows on Arm. Still, it gives a clear edge to the Acer Swift Air.

Normally, we’d follow this with the Cinebench 2024 benchmark, but it doesn’t run on laptops with 8GB of memory. I dropped it down to Cinebench R23, which does, and it produced a score of 7,274. That’s less than the Acer Aspire Go, which scored 8,530. That’s not great — by contrast, the Ryzen AI 400 chip inside the Acer Swift Go 16 produced a score of 11,967. You’re trading off some significant performance for the cost savings.

On the other hand, the laptop is closing in on the MacBook Neo. Using the cross-platform Geekbench 6 multicore benchmark, the Neo produced a score of 8,996, while the Swift Air recorded a score of 7,647, a 16 percent difference. The single-core score is also significant.

Here, the Neo recorded a score of 3,574, while the Swift Air 14 being reviewed here recorded a score of 2,397 — a whopping 39 percent difference, and usually an indicator using the laptop’s menus and navigating through its applications will lag a bit.

I also tested the laptop using the Handbrake transcoding benchmark, and it generated a score of 1,901 seconds, versus 2,053 seconds for the IdeaPad Slim 3i.

As my colleague Ashley Biancuzzo pointed out in her review of the Dell XPS 13, these aren’t gaming machines — though the Swift Air does outperform the Ryzen AI 400 series. Still, even light gaming is going to be a struggle. Don’t bother.

With regards to battery life, the specs tell the story. The Acer Swift Air 14 includes a 70 Wh battery, the largest of all the laptops we tested for this article. (The maximum allowed by the FAA’s battery restrictions is a 99Wh battery.) That gives a clear and massive edge to this laptop, even among more expensive machines.

Using our standard video rundown test, the Acer Swift Air 14 delivered about 19.5 hours of battery life, a tremendous showing. Even using the more arduous and realistic Procyon benchmark, which applies a series of standardized Microsoft Office tasks over and over, the total time was 11 hours 14 minutes. That’s a great result and a definite plus in this laptop’s favor. You might be able to push it even higher by enabling the dynamic display refresh rate — I left it at a fixed 120 Hz for testing.

Should you buy the Acer Swift Air 14?

Save for that annoying keyboard bug, I liked my time with the Acer Swift Air. That doesn’t mean I’d recommend it to everyone. For the basics — Office work, some light web browsing — it’s sufficient, and the battery life is outstanding no matter what the price tag says.

The trouble is that most laptops, perhaps excepting the ones we reviewed here, jump immediately to the $1,200 range and above. There’s going to be a class of people who immediately turn up their noses at any laptop with 8GB of memory. Others will be forced into it by necessity or to save a few bucks.

My recommendation would be to buy this laptop from a store with a solid return policy (Best Buy usually qualifies, but be sure) and check to see that you can do what you need to do with it before the return period expires.

A few days ago, Google quietly announced that it’ll be allowing certain Chromebook models to upgrade from ChromeOS to Googlebook OS at some point in the future. The announcement was made via a new support page, spotted by The Verge.

Googlebook OS is the company’s newest laptop operating system, which is being launched alongside its new lineup of Googlebook laptops. As of now, the first Googlebooks will come from manufacturers including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

However, exactly which models will be included in the upgrade, or how it will be carried out, remains unclear. Google states that more information will follow. Chromebooks that don’t receive the upgrade will still receive regular updates until the end of their standard support period.

The operating system combines elements of ChromeOS with Android technology and is tightly integrated with the Gemini AI assistant. That said, our first-hand impressions show that Googlebooks are phone-first, not AI-first and their most compelling feature is actually native support for fully isolated Linux environments.

You don’t have to drop $1,000 to get a laptop that can handle everyday computing, you know. That said, spending $500 wisely matters here.

At this price, some laptops make reasonable compromises while others cut way too many corners. For most folks, I’d recommend opting for a laptop with a 1080p display and at least 8GB of RAM (16GB is always better if you can swing it).

While you shouldn’t expect premium features at this price point, there are plenty of laptops that offer excellent day-to-day performance. Here are the best ones we’ve found so far.

Why you should trust PCWorld for laptop reviews and buying advice: It’s in our name! PCWorld prides itself on laptop experience and expertise. We’ve been covering PCs since 1983, and we now review more than 70 laptops every year. All of our picks have been personally tested and vetted by our experts, who’ve applied not only performance benchmarks but rigorous usability standards. We’re also committed to reviewing PC laptops at every price point to help you find a machine that matches your budget.

What to expect from a good laptop under $500

• RAM: 8GB is the minimum I’d target; 16GB is a strong buy if you can find it.  
• Display: Aim for a 1080p screen rather than 720p.  
• Processor: Core i3/Ryzen 3 is fine for basic use; Core i5/Ryzen 5 gives you more breathing room.  
• Storage: Prefer an SSD over slower eMMC storage.  
• Battery life: Around 10-12 hours is a good target.  
• Best for: Web browsing, Office, schoolwork, streaming, video calls, and everyday productivity.  
• Not ideal for: AAA gaming, heavy video editing, 3D work, or other demanding workloads.  
• Chromebook or Windows? Choose a Chromebook if most of your work is browser-based; choose Windows if you need desktop apps, broader software compatibility, or more offline flexibility. 

At this price, you’re not shopping for premium performance, you’re looking for the fewest painful compromises. 

Other laptops under $500 we tested

• Chuwi UniBook: The Chuwi UniBook is a well-built, portable laptop with good battery life and connectivity. That said, its 8GB of RAM and mediocre display hold it back.
• Acer Chromebook Plus 516: The Acer Chromebook Plus 516 isn’t much to look at, but it benefits from an Intel Core i3 chip with solid performance and, at times, low sale pricing.
• Acer Chromebook Plus 514: Offers good performance and lots of storage for the price ($399.99, by the way!).
• Asus Chromebook Plus CX14: Edges out models with Celeron processors and is currently on sale for $299.99 at Walmart.

How to choose the best laptop under $500

Ah, here we are at the billion dollar question. Do you spring for a basic Chromebook or go for a Windows laptop with more features? Honestly, it mostly comes down to your lifestyle and what you’re expecting from a laptop under 500 bucks. You’re not gonna get some super-powerful beast at that price, but if you just need something for the basics, there are a lot of decent options out there.

Chromebooks, for example, are super budget-friendly and the battery life is awesome. I actually use one myself for work (writing, editing, all that) and it does the job just fine. If you travel a lot, it’s worth going for something that’s nice and light — under three pounds, if possible. Still not sure what to get? No big deal, take your time figuring it out. I’ve put together a list of quick buying tips below.

• Laptop type: There are many different laptop types that fall in the sub-$500 category: clamshells, 2-in-1s, Chromebooks, and much more. The displays on convertible laptops (aka 2-in-1s), for example, can swing around 360 degrees. This allows you to use the laptop like a tablet. They can also be propped up like a tent for viewing movies or participating in video calls. Chromebooks come in various shapes and sizes, and exclusively run Google’s web-focused Chrome OS. With a Chromebook, all you need is a Gmail account and, boom, you’re in.
• CPU: When it comes to the sub-$500 Windows laptops, you can expect to find Intel Core i3 or i5 processors. An i5 processor obviously provides a little more oomph. That said, basic office and web work does just fine on a Core i3. For AMD stuff, Ryzen 3 is fine for everyday stuff like web browsing, and Ryzen 5 is a solid all-rounder—kind of like Intel’s i5. On Chromebooks, Snapdragon and Pentium chips usually beat out MediaTek ones.
• Graphics: Don’t expect great graphics at this price. You’ll mostly get integrated graphics, which is totally fine unless you’re trying to game or do 3D work.
• RAM: RAM-wise, go for 8GB if you can—it just makes everything smoother. Most Chromebooks come with 4GB, which works, but 8GB is way better if you can swing it.
• Display size: For screen size, 13 to 14 inches is the sweet spot. Big enough to work on, small enough to carry around. Bigger screens mean more weight (and usually a higher price).
• Resolution: Don’t settle for less than 1080p resolution. Anything lower just looks kinda blurry, even for basic stuff like Netflix or spreadsheets.
• Battery life: Battery life? Look for 10 to 12 hours. That’ll get you through most of the day without hunting for an outlet.
• Ports: It’s nice to have a bunch so you don’t need extra adapters. Look for USB-C and USB-A, and HDMI is cool if you want to hook up to a screen.

A laptop doesn’t need to do everything to be useful, you know.

That’s the Chromebook in a nutshell. It keeps most of the experience inside a browser, which leaves behind the complexity that comes with a Windows PC. They can be remarkably quick, straightforward, and easy to live with.

For this roundup, we focused on the models that deliver that experience without making big compromises on speed and battery life. Every laptop here was tested hands-on.

If you’d rather step outside Google’s ecosystem, PCWorld has a separate roundup of the best Windows laptops. And if you’re curious where Chromebooks are headed next, check out this deep dive into the new AI-powered Googlebooks.

Why you should trust us: It’s in our name! PCWorld prides itself on laptop experience and expertise. We’ve been covering PCs since 1983, and we now review more than 70 laptops every year. All of the picks below have been personally tested and vetted by our experts, who’ve applied not only performance benchmarks but rigorous usability standards. We’re also committed to reviewing PC laptops at every price point to help you find a machine that matches your budget.

Other notable Chromebooks we’ve tested

• Acer Googlebook 14: The Acer Googlebook 14 is a great premium laptop, but it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s only worth considering if you want a lightweight, high-end convertible laptop and you’re already deeply enmeshed in Google’s/Android’s ecosystem.
• Acer Chromebook Plus 514: The Acer Chromebook Plus 514 isn’t the most attractive ChromeOS machine, but it offers good performance and lots of storage for the price.
• Acer Chromebook Plus 516: The Acer Chromebook Plus 516 isn’t much to look at, but it benefits from an Intel Core i3 chip with solid performance and, at times, low sale pricing.
• Acer Chromebook Spin 315: Comfy to type on and handles the basics just fine, though the big bezels and limited charging options hold it back (hence why it’s not on the above list).
• Asus Chromebook Plus CX14: Performs better than models with Celeron CPUs.

How to choose the best Chromebook

If you want something like a Windows or MacBook but cheaper, check out a Chromebook. Just keep in mind they’ve got some limits. They’re good for simple, everyday stuff but they don’t have a lot of RAM or storage, so they’re not equipped to handle more resource-intensive tasks like gaming or video editing.

We’ve got a guide that compares Chromebooks and Windows laptops if you want to figure out what’s best for you.

Key Chromebook features to consider

Operating system

Chromebooks only run Chrome OS, which is pretty easy to use. You can’t put Windows or macOS on them — you’re stuck with Google’s setup.

Processor

Shoot for a mid-range Chromebook if you can. They cost anywhere in the $400 to $600 range and many of them come equipped with Intel Pentium, Intel Core i3, or AMD Ryzen 3 processors. These Chromebooks run the browser smoother. They’re the best deal for the price. The fancier ones sometimes come with Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 chips, which are way more powerful. Then there’s the new Kompanio Ultra chips, which are more powerful and AI-ready.

RAM

Lots of Chromebooks come with just 4GB of RAM, which isn’t much. Since they’re all about the web, you need enough RAM to keep your tabs from lagging. And with RAM prices being a bit more volatile lately, it’s worth opting for more if you can. If you can drop a bit more cash, you can grab a mid-range Chromebook with 8GB (or 16GB if you want to be extra safe), which runs way smoother.

PCWorld has been testing and writing about PCs since 1983. That’s a long time! Today, we put more than 70 laptops through our review process every year, covering everything from affordable everyday laptops to powerful gaming machines.

That kind of hands-on experience matters when you’re trying to buy a laptop. What begins as a simple Google search can quickly spiral into a maze of complicated processor names, graphic cards, and other specs that can be difficult to make sense of.

That’s where we come in. Every laptop featured below has been tested by PCWorld reviewers using a combination of real-world experience and performance benchmarks. We focus on a how a laptop performs in the ways that matter, so you can spend less time puzzling out the specs and more time finding out the right laptop that suits your lifestyle.

Updated October 2026 to reflect the latest prices and retailers, and to update our list of “other laptops we tested” below our top picks.

Other good laptops we’ve tested

• Acer Googlebook 14: The Acer Googlebook 14 is a great premium laptop, but it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s only worth considering if you want a lightweight, high-end convertible laptop and you’re already deeply enmeshed in Google’s/Android’s ecosystem.
• Chuwi UniBook: The Chuwi UniBook is a well-built, portable laptop with good battery life and connectivity. That said, its 8GB of RAM and mediocre display hold it back.
• Geekom GeekBook M16: The GeekBook M16 is a solid budget productivity laptop with outstanding battery life and build quality, but its weak display and limited graphics performance hold it back from being a true all-rounder.

Laptops we don’t recommend

• Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i: Lenovo’s budget IdeaPad Slim 3i doesn’t quite offer as much as competing devices or even competing IdeaPads, though there’s noting inherently wrong with it.
• Dell 16S: Everything is more expensive now, but that doesn’t excuse the Dell 16S for lagging so far behind similarly priced contemporaries at just about every corner.
• Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4: The Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 is a typical workstation affair. It’s fairly potent but big, bulky, and pricey. Next to consumer laptops, its performance doesn’t impress, and new Panther Lake hardware threatens it at every turn.

How to choose the best laptop

What’s the best laptop style?

Regular ones are fine for everyday stuff. 2-in-1s are cool because the screen flips around. Chromebooks are cheap and good if you mostly do web browsing.

How much power?

Depends on what you’re doing. For basic web or email, an Intel Core i3 or Ryzen 3 works fine. If you’re into video editing or creative stuff, an i7/i9 or Ryzen 7/9 is better. And if you’re handling heavy 4K editing or lots of apps, a Ryzen 9 is your best bet.

Discrete graphics vs. integrated graphics?

Gamers and video editors need a legit graphics card—Nvidia, AMD, something with real muscle. But if all you’re doing is YouTube, emails, and Netflix, the built-in graphics won’t hold you back.

How much RAM?

RAM is more important than ever, especially with AI-powered features using more memory. 16GB is the sweet spot for most folks today. 8GB is fine for the basic stuff, but can quickly feeling limiting after a year or so. 32GB or more is ideal for gaming, heavy multitasking, and content creation.

What’s the right display size?

Doing video edits? Go bigger—15 or 17 inches helps a ton. For everyday use, 13 or 14 inches usually does the trick. Light enough to toss in your bag, not a pain to carry, and still plenty of space to get stuff done.

Battery-life expectations

If you’re gonna carry your laptop around, try to get one that lasts 10 to 12 hours on a charge. That’s usually enough for a long flight or a full day of classes. Some of the new Snapdragon laptops are even crushing that, with one going up to 25 hours thanks to their super-efficient chips. Just remember, bigger batteries usually mean heavier laptops.

Laptop pricing guide

A decent laptop usually runs $500 to $750. If money’s tight, a Chromebook or a basic work laptop under $500 will get you by. Push closer to $1,000 and you’ll start seeing nicer screens and more speed, but it really depends on what you need.

Don’t forget the ports

I like laptops with lots of ports so you don’t need adapters. Having both USB-C and USB-A is great. An HDMI port is especially useful for hooking up to an external monitor, especially if your laptop display just isn’t cutting it the way you want it to.