Laptops News - Page 1

Microsoft is preparing to release a new family of Arm-based laptops that insiders are saying will be more powerful than Apple's current line of M3-powered MacBooks.

A new report from The Verge has detailed that Microsoft is preparing to fully unveil its goals with AI PCs at an event scheduled to take place next month. The company is said to be very confident in the performance of these new AI laptops as insider sources speaking to The Verge have said these laptops will beat Apple's line of M3-powered MacBooks. These new Windows laptops will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processors, which Microsoft is extremely confident in when it comes to taking the crown from Apple in terms of raw CPU performance.

The publication reports these new processors from Qualcomm will be faster than Apple's M3-powered MacBook Air in CPU tasks and will arrive with "faster app-emulation than Rosetta 2," which is the software layer Apple uses to bring over apps designed for Intel processors to new Apple silicone such as the M3 chip. The same process applies to Windows laptops, with The Verge writing that native Arm applications are integral to increasing performance across this new line of laptops.

Apple has long been rumored to be planning a big new push into the world of artificial intelligence with CEO Tim Cook having already teased that something is coming in 2024. Now, a new report suggests that the AI focus could have received a boost from someone who has been integral to the success of the Apple Watch.

Kevin Lynch has long been a driving force behind the Apple Watch, reporting directly to Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams. And while he will continue to oversee Apple Watch progress, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that he has been moved over to work on the Apple AI problem as well. What's more, he's now reporting directly to John Giannandrea, Apple's AI chief.

The reason for that move wasn't clear, but Gurman, writing in the weekly Power On newsletter, now says that people close to the matter believe that Lynch's move is designed to bring some order to the Apple Ai project, a project that has long proven to be problematic for Apple.

The Razer Blade 18 has been announced and is available now. It's a portable gaming monster. It will arrive with two impressive display options: the world's first 18-inch 4K+ 200Hz display (3840x2400) or an 18-inch QHD+ (2560x1600) 300Hz Mini-LED display. Both feature low response times and DCI-P3 100% color gamut accuracy.

The 4K option is also touted as the world's first Thunderbolt 5-equipped laptop. It offers up to 120Gbps of bandwidth - tripling what's currently available. CPU-wise, it uses the top Intel Core 14th Gen i9-14900HX processor with a fully unlocked 175W NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU variant.

It's also thin, at just 21.99mm or 0.86 inches, and includes the latest Razer Blade advanced cooling system. The Razer Blade 18 (2024) also ships with DDR5 5600MHz Memory and Windows 11 Home.

We keep hearing about AI PCs, and some more info just dripped through on the topic - namely that such a device will have a hard requirement in terms of a dedicated key for Copilot on the keyboard.

The concept of the Copilot key was introduced by Microsoft back at in January 24, with the idea being that it's a dedicated key in the same vein as the Windows key, except obviously in this case tapping it summons the AI assistant.

Apparently having a Copilot key on the keyboard deck of your AI PC will be mandatory going by details Intel just shared as spotted by The Verge.

Apple has today released the macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 software update to the public, bringing with it no new features but a number of important bug fixes that are likely to be a big deal for those who suffered from those issues. One of those issues related to a bug that caused some USB hubs not to function correctly when connected to an external display.

Apple's new update is now available for download for free via the System Settings app on your Mac and it's currently rolling out to Apple's servers across the world. If you aren't yet able to download the new update it's important to try again later, with Apple's servers sometimes slow to update.

In terms of fixes, Apple says that the new macOS Sonoma software fixes an issue that caused some USB hubs to misbehave, with users having reported that they could no longer get their external display to work when it was connected to a Mac running macOS 14.4 via a USB hub.

You probably haven't missed that Microsoft just launched a new Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 for businesses, and consumer models are inbound - except they may come with a sting in the tail.

According to chatter on the grapevine, those consumer Surface devices will be the ones to carry ARM chips - specifically the Snapdragon X Elite, or a custom version of it tinkered with by Microsoft - whereas the business-targeted models revealed today have Intel Meteor Lake CPUs.

On X (formerly Twitter), well-known Microsoft leaker Zac Bowden was talking about the new Surfaces and somebody chimed in with a question about whether there will be an Intel option with the consumer Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6.

It looks like Honor is the first to market with a new laptop featuring 24GB of DDR5 memory, with its new MagicBook Pro 16 AI laptop teased on Geekbench. Check it out:

The new Honor MagicBook Pro 16 AI laptop features 24GB of LPDDR5X memory, versus the usual SO-DIMM memory modules. Inside, there are 8 individual memory chips, each packing 3GB for a total of 24GB of LPDDR5X-6400 memory. This is great to see, as 24GB of RAM is a fantastic step up from 16GB, and while it's not quite 32GB, it's once again, not 16GB. Great stuff.

We should see 12GB SO-DIMM memory modules in the near future, which will allow for up to 48GB of DDR5 memory as long as the laptop of choice has four DIMM slots, of course.

When Apple announced the new M3 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air laptops the company took the decision to keep the M2 13-inch model around as the new entry-level option, priced at $999. That meant that there was no space in the lineup for the older M1 MacBook Air with Apple choosing to discontinue it entirely. However, those who still want to pick up the older 2020 model still can, and it's at an incredible price from an unlikely source.

That source is Walmart, making this the first time that the MacBook Air has been available from the company as a first-party sale. There were third-party sellers offering the laptop via the Walmart website but this is a first for Walmart proper. But that isn't even the most interesting part here - that distinction goes to the price that buyers will pay. At just $699, the M1 13-inch MacBook Air is a bargain and one that might be enough to get more than a few people to switch.

Switching from Windows to macOS is of course easier to do when you can get your hands on a bargain laptop at this kind of price and that could be a real benefit to Apple here. But this special price could also prove to be just low enough to get any Intel stalwarts to upgrade from their older model to a new Apple silicon Mac for the first time.

When Apple released the new M3-powered 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops earlier this month it shared plenty of details about the new machines. We know that on the outside at least, not much had changed while the M3 chip was of course the big improvement on the inside. However, as people quickly began to notice when they started to receive their new laptops, there's also a big SSD speed boost to be enjoyed - specifically when you buy the entry-level 256GB version.

People who have been using the new M3 MacBook Air have noticed that the 256GB model is significantly faster when moving files around than the older M2 model with the same configuration. When Apple launched the 256GB M2 MacBook Air it was noted that its SSD file transfer speeds were hampered by the use of a single NAND chip whereas those with more storage had two chips, allowing for faster read and write speeds. Now, it seems Apple has gone a different route with the M3 version.

As confirmed by the iFixit video above, Apple has chosen to use two 128GB NAND chips rather than a single 256GB one for the M3 MacBook Air, allowing for read speeds of up to 82% faster and write speeds of up to 22% faster than the M2 version with the same amount of storage.

Apple's latest M3-powered MacBook Pro laptops are available in both 14- and 16-inch configurations and are undoubtedly the best MacBook Pros that the company has ever made. But there's no rest for Apple's engineers and plans were always going to eventually turn to what comes next in the never-ending need for more power. Now, a new report suggests that Apple is hard at work on getting its next MacBook Pro ready for its debut - although it isn't yet clear when we should expect that to happen.

Writing as part of a Q&A session, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple has started formal development of an M4 MacBook Pro machine, saying that he currently uses a 16-inch M1 Max MacBook Pro and will look to upgrade to the M4 once it is available. Information on what the M4 will have to offer is hard to come by right now, but it's possible that a chassis design change is in the cards given the lack of any tweaks in the last couple of generations.

Apple updated the MacBook Air to add M3 chips very recently but it could be some time before we see the M4 devices make their appearance. The current M3 MacBook Pro models start at $1,599 for the 14-inch laptop with an 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD but there are upgrades available. Additional RAM and more storage are all offered, while the top-of-the-range 14-inch model comes with an M3 Max with a 14-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 36GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. The RAM and storage can also be upgraded here, but the starting price for that configuration is an eye-watering $3,199.