Building a compact laptop in 2026 is a complicated thing. Spikes in component prices have turned overall pricing into a nightmarish gauntlet. Consumers are now more demanding than ever in an age of AI agents that hoover up computing capacity and browsers that chew up RAM like there's no tomorrow.

I've tested a few of the best laptops this year that already feel as though a last-minute price hike killed off their potential, but I think Asus has just about avoided that fate with this Snapdragon-powered Zenbook 14. This is a great laptop that I think stands pretty proud in its entry-level specification, with a design that makes it super easy to cart about too.

Price and Availability

The Zenbook 14 comes in quite a few flavours, which is no surprise based on previous models, but I've had the Qualcomm Snapdragon X version, which is available to order now, with shipping generally estimated for late September 2026.

That version starts nice and competitively at £799 here in the UK and $799 in the US, although it's worth knowing this comes with 8GB of RAM; to up that to 16GB you have to jump to £/$1,199.99, which is quite sizeable. I'll expand more on the specs below.

Design and Specs

The Zenbook 14 is a familiar machine in most main ways – Asus hasn't ripped up the design principles it's been working from for the last few years. In fact, it shouldn't shock anyone to learn that the Zenbook 14 is exactly like a smaller version of the Zenbook A16 that I tested earlier this year.

This means that Ceraluminum takes centre stage again – Asus' in-house branding for ceramic aluminium, the main material on the outside of the laptop's casing. It's a really interesting material that has grown on me over time, and in a weird way I like it better on this smaller laptop than I did on the larger one.

It's miles lighter than most metal finishes, but with a matte, almost dusty finish that I think looks really attractive in the blue colour of the model that I've been testing. It also doesn't attract fingerprints too badly, unlike most other laptops on the market. This also keeps the laptop super light at just 1.15kg by my scale.

In terms of design, once you open up the laptop, you'll be greeted by a 14-inch OLED display running a 1080p resolution – which is a panel type that I'm really pleased to see at this starting price.

It also has a generously proportioned keyboard with decent spacing between the keys, and a big trackpad to go with it.

The left edge of the laptop houses a few ports – an HDMI, two USB-C with power delivery, and a 3.5mm jack for audio. The right edge, meanwhile, has a single USB-A port. I'd have loved to see an SD card slot here, too, but I'm sure there are a whole heap of people who don't mind that omission, either.

The laptop runs on a Snapdragon X (X1-26-100) 8-core chipset, which is far from the newest of Qualcomm's chips, but remains a reliable performer. At this price, I think it's a fair choice from Asus.

To go with that, you'll start with 8GB of RAM, as mentioned, and that's a little stingy, for all that RAM is a particularly sticky subject right now where pricing is concerned. The starting spec also has a 256GB SSD, and upgrading to 16GB of RAM does at least bump this to 512GB, too.

I tested that beefier, specced-up version, so I can't speak directly to the performance of the 8GB variant, but we realistically know that 8GB is starting to feel like a stretch for the AI age on Windows.

Regardless, the Zenbook 14 comes with just about the precise specs that I'd expect at this point in 2026, and a design that I think succeeds in some ways that other more heavyweight rivals don't quite match.

Performance and Display

How does that Snapdragon chipset actually fare when in use, then? Well, with a 16GB configuration, I've found the Zenbook 14 a super zippy performer that's happily coped with everything I've thrown its way as part of my working day.

That's included plenty of image editing, juggling multiple browsers with a dozen or so tabs, streaming video and letting all of these run in the background the whole time. That's a pretty good indication of the multi-tasking potential that this machine harbours.

I've also been impressed by its cooling, which really hasn't been too loud and hasn't stopped the laptop from getting burning hot like some others I've used in the last couple of years.

Perhaps the laptop's biggest strength, especially in that entry-price configuration, is the OLED display. It's a real looker, elevating this laptop nicely into a more premium-feeling bracket. The bezels are impressively slim on the right and left, too.

One slight downside is that it's only a 60Hz panel, but that's not much of a gripe for regular productivity use, even if it's still worth knowing about before you take the plunge on buying.

Battery life is really solid here, too – Asus says it can stretch to 30+ hours, and while I haven't eked out quite that much from it, it's consistently gone through a workday happily enough, which is the most important threshold.

Sound is also impressively solid – the stereo speaker system won't have you writing home, but it's better than it could have been, and ensures you won't be wincing while watching videos, either.

Verdict

It's hard to poke many holes in the Zenbook 14, which does exactly what it says on the tin – and makes a lot of sense as a result.

It's a great little laptop for those who need something to power their productivity and work, with a lightweight design that's a little unlike the majority of alternatives (in a good way).

It's a shame that upping the ante from 8GB base to 16GB RAM requires such a steep jump in price, because that configuration is the more attractive for future-proofing against further Windows performance issues.

Still, the entry asking price of the 8GB variant means that Asus is neither embarrassing any of the competition nor itself – it's basically exactly the price you'd expect to pay right now. Which marks this out as a very viable option for your shopping list.

Also consider

If you want a Windows laptop that's light and sleek, and you have similar money to spend on it, you'd probably better check out the Dell XPS 13 that launched recently. Its starting price has already dipped lower thanks to an early sale, which makes this design marvel even more tempting.

Of course, to spend a little less and jump into the Apple ecosystem, you could also turn to the MacBook Neo, which promised to tear up the market before getting a price hike of its own. Even with that, it's still a very solid buy for a MacBook that should be good for quite some time, at a price that doesn't cause too much stress.

I've been working a lot with mini PCs in the last year, turning them into retro games consoles, Steam Machine alternatives, and generally using them for work and home applications.

There are models for all manner of budgets, from the cheap and cheerful, all the way up to powerhouse workstations, and GMKtec is one of the brands that pops up regularly with new devices.

Such was the case at IFA 2026 in Germany, where the manufacturer launched arguably its most capable mini PC yet (if you can really call it that). Crammed into a compact aluminium case, the EVO-X5 Pro is more than a convenient computer – it's a powerful agentic AI PC that can run LLMs locally and with considerably speed.

That's because it is spec'ed through the nose. You get the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 processor running the show, with its 16 Zen 5 CPU cores and 32 threads. Then there's the integrated Radeon 8065S GPU, featuring 40 compute units and hardware ray tracing support.

There's a dedicated AMD XDNA 2 NPU integrated too, with 55 TOPS of AI performance for local workloads.

On top of this, the PC sports 192GB of unified LPDDR5X RAM, running at 8533MT/s. Up to 160GB of that can be assigned as VRAM too, so this is a monster of a machine.

It's not really designed for gaming – it's a more enterprise-focused machine with an eye on running AI applications and hardware creativity tools. However, those specs are more than capable of playing AAA games at 1440p with very decent frame rates.

To be honest though, while GMKtec is yet to reveal full pricing, I was told that it will not be cheap during my booth visit at the show. Indeed, if you aren't as bothered by the use of high-end AI models, and are looking more for a powerful all-rounder, I'm currently testing the brand's NEO-X1 Pro compact tower which is purposely designed for that purpose and is very much a more suitable option.

As for the EVO-X5 Pro though, the units on show proved so popular at IFA the team found them missing on the last day – the dummy versions had been stolen.

Hopefully they'll turn up. But even if not, it shows that GMKtec has something of a desirable hit on its hands.

While attending the IFA technology show in Berlin, Germany, I visited Lenovo at a behind-closed-doors event to see what the tech brand has got cooking.

Amid the myriad laptop reveals from the company, however, it was one of the prototype concepts that really caught my eye – but rather for what you can't see.

The Lenovo AeroBlade Concept laptop showcases a fanless design. It also showcases a world-first design: debuting Lenovo's Active Flow solid-state cooling, no fans required.

So just what is this new system and how does it work? Using technology from Frore Systems, based out of California, this prototype laptop makes use of the brand's AirJet technology – which was first revealed last year.

The AeroBlade Concept, however, makes it a reality, positioning an AirJet module – which measures just 2.65mm thin – over the processor within the device.

This module has ultrasonic membranes that vibrate – and to such a frequency that it's beyond human hearing – to pull air through it, channelling the heat away from the processor and onto a copper base.

The result is warm air, which is ejected from the laptop, but which doesn't require any large vents as part of the design. All of which makes for a neat and tidy design.

The system functions in both passive and active modes, as and when it's required, and in the AeroBlade Concept can sustain 20W+ workloads. It's quiet, too, with a 31dBa maximum output equating to a library environment.

As the module is so thin, the AeroBlade Concept benefits from a trim design and weight as a result – at just 10mm thick and weighing around 830g in this 14-inch format.

So what does this all mean? I think we're potentially looking at the future of portable computing here. A fanless design that can cater for powerful workloads in ultra-portable designs is a dream.

And in Lenovo's product it's a dream that looks ever so close to reality. It's a fully functional working product, after all. And one that I wouldn't be surprised if we see in a shelf-ready updated form in 2027 or the year after.

Lenovo is a dab hand at creating concept prototypes – which is exactly what the PC-maker was showcasing at its Innovation World event, set in tandem with the IFA technology show in Berlin.

Having already seen the future of laptops in its fanless solid-state cooling concept, the AeroBlade, the brand's other laptop concept was a familiar idea – but impressive nonetheless.

Under the Project Swan Concept moniker, this latest laptop prototype is able to transform from a 14-inch 4:3 aspect ratio into a 17-inch 16:9 panel at the press of a button. Quite literally.

That's down to Lenovo's ongoing work with rollable display types, which use the benefit of OLED's flexible potential to its fullest extent.

Here, the laptop is a little thicker than normal, but even so that expansive screen scale made my 13-inch MacBook Air's1 16:10 aspect screen just seem inferior.

A simple press of the Insert key along the device's F-keys row activates the display's expansion, no other prompting required. It forms the new widescreen format in mere moments (complete, for this demo, with an animated swan ).

I can see why this is still a concept, however, as close-up you can see the flex in the rollable display. And there's always the risk of dust and grime causing damage across the rollers and the display itself.

It's not the first time that Lenovo has shown off expanding displays, of course, with the CES show in Las Vegas earlier this year showcasing the brand's Legion Pro concept – which expands into 16-inch gaming laptop.

Project Swan, however, just seems more feasible. It's better balanced than the Legion Pro concept was, for starters, and while the thickness is more than your average to cater for that roll-back display, it's still portable overall – at 17.9mm total.

With each new step in its rollable concepts, Lenovo is clearly working towards a conclusive, shelf-worthy product that you can actually buy. This one isn't that, but it shows yet more progress towards that goal.

So, who knows, maybe come 2028 we'll be living in a world where you needn't pick the 13-inch or 16-inch model – you might be able to buy a single device that caters for both. And all at the touch of a button.

This year, perhaps more than prior, we've seen the trendy-yet-affordable laptops market really pick up. Apple's MacBook Neo was a major catalyst in that movement, but now there are other viable Windows alternatives incoming.

Case in point: Lenovo's just-revealed IdeaPad Vibe line, which comes in seven largely vibrant colours, each with an affordable $699 starting price attached for the Windows 11 powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon option.

While there's no broader pricing options for the UK and Europe at this time – which you can expect will be higher than the US equivalent – that goes head to head against Apple's proposition, giving Lenovo a viable Windows option for a broad market.

Lenovo isn't pitching the IdeaPad Vibe as a 'just for students' kind of option, though, stating this new release "wasn’t created for one type of user". The base Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors will be joined by step-up AMD Ryzen 400 and, at a later date, Intel chip options.

Choice is a clear factor in the IdeaPad Vibe. With 14- and 15-inch sizes available, you can spec up to 24GB of memory, while an OLED display (with optional touch control for the 15-inch) is available for the 'Lowkey Grey' and 'Moody Blue' colourways.

Style is a major component of this line-up, though, as those Pantone-marketed colours tell you. Joining the above pair is 'Dreamy Violet', 'Spicy Gold', Zen Green', 'Chill Blue', and Radiant Coral – providing an eye-catching something for everyone.

Lenovo and its Motorola mobile division have been working with Pantone for years to deliver defined and different colour options to your norm. Beyond just the chassis colour, the option to purchase customisable keycaps can further hyper-colourise and customise your purchase.

Such configurability could, of course, see the IdeaPad Vibe's entry price swell. But as a starting point there's clear appeal in what Lenovo is delivering here. Especially during a time where supply and demand for memory is at an all-time high, which has created pricing complexity in the market.

Samsung has a new answer to Apple's MacBook Neo, and it's aimed at Windows users who don't fancy making the switch to macOS.

The new 14-inch Galaxy Book6 is the latest addition to Samsung's laptop range, but unlike the more premium models, this one is designed to be more accessible. It starts at £799 in the UK, with 8GB or 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage.

It's also pretty portable, weighing 1.35kg and measuring 15.7mm thick. That makes it a potentially useful option for anyone who wants a laptop for work, study or travel without carrying around something bulky.

The Galaxy Book6 uses an Intel Core 5 processor and has a 14-inch 1920 x 1200 LCD display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. There's also an anti-reflective finish to help reduce glare, which should make it more comfortable to use in brighter surroundings.

Samsung claims up to 25 hours of video playback from a single charge, although as ever, real-world battery life will depend heavily on what you're doing with it.

There's plenty of connectivity, too, including two USB-C ports, USB-A, HDMI 1.4 and a headphone jack. Ideal if you regularly plug in accessories or an external display, and it means you shouldn't need a collection of dongles just to connect your existing kit.

The Galaxy Book6 also gets Samsung's Galaxy AI features, including AI Select, AI Cut Out and Note Assist.

AI Select lets you select things on screen to get information about them, while AI Cut Out can remove backgrounds from images. Note Assist can summarise notes and pull out key information.

If you're already using Galaxy phones or tablets, the laptop has some extra tricks. Quick Share makes it easier to move files between devices, while Multi Control lets you use one keyboard and mouse across compatible Galaxy products.

Samsung is pitching the Galaxy Book6 as an everyday laptop rather than a premium powerhouse.

At £799, it's positioned below many high-end Windows laptops while offering the portability, battery life and connected features you'd expect from a modern machine. And, importantly, you get to keep Windows.

With more conscious purchasing now front of mind, and Europe's Right to Repair act changing how tech companies think about designing and manufacturing their products, Acer is leading the way in repairable laptops.

At the company's global conference, which took place at the IFA show in Berlin, Germany, it unveiled its latest Vero 16 laptop – showcasing a new degree of user-replaceable features.

Key to those is a replaceable battery, SSD slots and I/O port covers, permitting users to switch out an aged battery, a broken USB port, or expand storage (perhaps when the current RAMageddon demand levels out and costs settle somewhat).

To assist with making that easy, the Vero 16 even features a visual guide that's physically engraved onto the laptop's chassis – so you can't lose that manual!

The 2027 Vero 16 will be the fourth generation in the product line, offering a variety of improvements over the previous models. Looking to more sustainable practises, that means using more mindful materials.

The palm rest is "comprised of 50% post-industrial recycled aluminium and 50% low-carbon aluminium", while the bottom cover uses "60% post-consumer recycled plastic, and the display bezels use 30% PCR plastic". All steps towards a circular production line.

As a premium product, the Vero 16 is kitted out with top-tier hardware. There's up to an Intel Core Ultra X9 processor 388H paired with up to 32GB RAM, powering the 16-inch 3K resolution OLED display.

If conscious purchasing is a key issue for your next Windows laptop, then Acer has advanced what's possible with the latest Vero 16. It will be coming to the UK market, too, priced from £1,599 (with other regional pricing to be confirmed).

Portability is a big deal in the world of laptops. It took an age for a sub-1kg product to hit the market, after all.

But now Acer has blown that sort of figure out of the water with its newest laptop, the Swift Blade 14.

This 14-inch laptop somehow beats the 800g marker on the scales, meaning it's less than two tins of Heinz soup.

Most laptops are 50% heavier or more, but this Acer addition to its lineup has a "how's that even possible?" upsell in its favour.

It might be light in weight, but it's not light in specification, with lots of customisation options available to get this Swift Blade to your liking.

Chose up to an Intel Core 7 processor 350, pair that with up to 12GB RAM, and even 1TB storage. But then you can expect the asking price to be somewhat heftier than this laptop's flagship low weight!

The 14-inch panel can be specced out as an OLED with a 3K resolution, too, further adding to the premium credentials. It has just 4.3mm bezels around the screen's 16:9 aspect ratio, too.

Inside, the Swift Blade 14 has a 50Wh battery, which is half of the 99.9Wh maximum that's permitted in laptop products. But that's in keeping with the size and weigh profile of this laptop.

So how did Acer do it? Well, the Swift Blade 14's chassis is "a combination of magnesium-aluminium alloy and carbon fibre," ensuring it cuts the mass associated with heavier metals.

The Swift Blade 14 will go on sale at the end of this year, with pricing yet to be confirmed. A larger 16-inch model, the Swift Blade 16, will follow in the first quarter of 2027.

As you'll know if you read my recent review of the beautiful XPS 13 launched this summer, depending on where you live in the world, it's either a direct competitor to the MacBook Neo or miles more expensive than Apple's entry-level computer.

That gap in affordability clearly hasn't come as a major surprise to Dell, though, since it's just used IFA to announce an even more affordable laptop coming soon – the Dell 14S.

As the name suggests, this is a 14-inch laptop that focuses on being lightweight, but it'll still have an aluminium body to ensure it feels moderately premium. The build quality and design of the XPS 13 are both class-leading, and while the 14S looks slightly more generic, it'll hopefully live up to those standards.

Perhaps the clearest hint that this is aimed at the Neo is the fact that it's launching in four colours – silver, pink, blue and green. They all look pretty handsome, frankly, but give you the option of a choice that suits your style.

By default, the Dell 14S will come with a 14-inch FHD display that caps out at 60Hz, but upgrades will let you raise that ceiling if desired. It'll also be powered by Intel Core Series 3 processors, which should mean that it's fairly capable but nothing that will light the world on fire in performance terms.

It'll also start with just 8GB of RAM, something that's increasingly raising red flags in the world of Windows laptops, so it'll be really interesting to see how it feels to use when we eventually get our hands on one. It'll also only have 256GB of SSD storage at the cheapest level.

Thankfully for students and professionals everywhere, though, it will have an HDMI port to go with its two USB-C ones – and a 3.5mm jack, too. At just 1.15kg in its lightest configuration, it should also be super portable for its size.

A launch date isn't yet set beyond vaguely later this year, and nor is pricing, which will be a huge variable. The XPS 13 saw a massive gulf between the US (where it's affordable) and the UK (where it's much less so), so I'm hoping that situation doesn't crop up again this time.

Ultrawide PC monitors have long been something of a status symbol in the gaming world – a sign that you not only have the highest of standards when it comes to your display, but also a budget to go with those standards. Finally, though, we're starting to get some monitors that don't feel egregiously priced.

For all that Dell just fumbled the UK pricing of the XPS 13, the launch price of its latest flagship ultrawide is a reminder of just how punchy its Alienware brand can be with the right setup.

The Alienware AW3926QW on review is the monitor I've been saddest to wave goodbye to in ages after its loan period – and I think it might just thread the needle for almost anyone.

Price and Availability

The Alienware AW3926QW is on sale now in the USA, but in the UK and EU it's going to take a tiny bit more time – with sales commencing from 8 September, to be precise.

In the UK the monitor will cost £999, while the EU will get it for €1149, and customers in the US will pay $1099.

I'll cover the specs of the monitor in greater detail further down, but for this scale of curved OLED that's an extremely competitive price. For those who want an ultrawide and have a cap that sits around a grand, it might just be the new best deal out there.

Design and Features

Look, I can't pretend that there's a vast amount of interesting stuff going on where the design of the AW3926QW is concerned. Other than its size, in fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find many differences compared to the 5-star AW3426DW that I reviewed earlier this summer.

It has the exact same stand and adjustment system, in fact, with a pedestal base that honestly doesn't take up too much space on a desk, and relatively easy adjustment options for height, tilt and rotation. This makes it easy to setup exactly and as ergonomically as you want it.

However, there's no getting around the size of the monitor. At 39-inches diagonally, this is quite a beast, and you will need to be careful with its measurements to make sure it doesn't dwarf whatever surface you're aiming to put it on.

In terms of controls, you get a power button on the bottom-right of the display, while there's an intuitive control nub on the back of it in the middle. This makes it easy to switch between inputs or adjust settings.

The display itself comes in at a whopping 5120 x 2160 (otherwise known as 5K), and Dell is calling it the first RGB stripe tandem OLED in this size. That means you're getting the latest innovations in OLED panel technology, the outcome of which ultimately comes down to brightness, colour vibrancy and accuracy.

In terms of refresh rate, you can get 165Hz at 5K or 330Hz at Full HD; high dynamic range (HDR) is also present and correct here – with DisplayHDR True Black 500 for real oomph in the black levels.

The monitor's curve comes in at 1500R, which I found to be really well-judged. It's enough to give you proper immersion, but not so much that you feel like it's trying to swallow you whole.

The bezels are also impressively small on all sides. A glossy coating on the whole thing still manages decent amounts of anti-reflection, although other more deliberately matte coatings excel more in this area.

There are two USB-C ports, one of which handily offers pass-through 90W charging, while the twin HDMI ports are both HDMI 2.1 with eARC in case you want a soundbar. There are no built-in speakers, though. Crucially, that HDMI 2.1 spec also brings variable refresh rate (VRR) to the table.

You also get a DisplayPort 2.1 port for PC use, two USB-A ports for connections, and a 3.5mm audio jack for connecting speakers or headphones. This makes the AW3926QW pretty fully-featured for the price, and I don't think there are any obvious shortcomings (although a third HDMI port would literally never go amiss on this sort of monitor, in my view).

Performance

I don't think anyone buys an ultrawide for its design, realistically, although its specs are more important. Most crucial, though, is how it performs in regular use, and I made the AW3926QW my main monitor for nearly three weeks to find out.

That meant it was a work monitor all day most days, connected to my MacBook Pro, and a gaming monitor most evenings, both on my gaming PC and connected to my PS5 Pro.

In all three settings, I had a pretty much flawless time with its luscious OLED panel, which resolves the tiny issues I had with the more affordable AW3426DW. That display sometimes saw text fringe a little, but I detected no such foible here, whether because of the upgraded panel or the beefier resolution.

It was a dream to work on, and even more of a pleasure to game on. Connected to my PC, I got through hours of both Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy (which natively supported the monitor's resolution, to outstanding effect) and Star Wars Zero Company (which didn't, but still looked great at a lower resolution).

Both underlined how terrific an ultrawide can be nowadays, and the range of colour and vibrancy displayed really was quite something, particularly in Resonance. Brightness is fabulous, and while I prefer a matte coating on my displays, I didn't find the glossy one here an issue at all – a benefit of the curved nature, in part.

Perhaps most impressive of all, though, was my experience connecting my PS5 Pro. Normally I accept that while testing an ultrawide, my console experience will be degraded a little, since most of them are built with such connections as afterthoughts, since they can't support the right resolutions.

The AW3926QW, though, auto-switched to its cut-down esports mode when I turned on my console, putting black bars on the right and left of the screen. Crucially, though, it was able to output at 4K in this mode, and 120Hz, too, which meant that I was basically playing the console on a 24-inch monitor.

That's the dream experience, in short, and it means that those who (like me) have a PC and a console connected to the same monitor aren't forced to go with a standard panel to avoid weird interactions with an ultrawide. I'm sure this isn't the only monitor managing such a trick, but it's really slick nonetheless, and a great advert for all-in-one usage.

Let's be clear – this is a PC monitor first and foremost. However, the fact that I had as smooth a time as this using a console with it is really quite rare, and I do think there must be others out there raring to get an ultrawide this adaptable.

Verdict

It's a rare thing to find a monitor that can flex in the ways offered by the Alienware AW3926QW. It's an expansive OLED with the latest bells and whistles, but it's the way it can apply those to both the PC and console experience that really makes it shine. I'd keep it as my daily monitor without hesitation, given how smooth I've found it to use in the last few weeks.

Crucially, although its price obviously still makes it a premium choice, it's launching at a really impressive cost compared to the competition (if you go by spec lists). I think it represents a fabulous choice at its full RRP, but I almost can't wait to see what sort of prices it might hit in 2027 once it's had time to bed in – this could be a monitor that rightly garners a proper fanbase over time.

Also Consider

I've mentioned Dell's other recent Alienware launch a couple of times in this review, and it's a really justifiable alternative if you want to save some money and know that you'll only really use it with a PC. The AW3426DW has the added advantage of being smaller, in case you have less space.

If you have more space, though, and want something truly sci-fi, consider the LG UltraGear 45GX950. It remains the maddest monitor I've ever tested, and the sheer scale of it is hard to comprehend. It frankly won't make sense for most people, but for dedicated gamers, there's nothing else quite like it.

How much refresh rate is too much? Well, it increasingly looks like there's basically no limit to how much companies will try to eke out of their displays at this point. LG just struck quite a big blow, at least in marketing terms, by producing the world's first 1,000Hz 24.5-inch display.

That's right, 1,000Hz – so many Hz you're unlikely to realistically be able to tell the difference between it and, say, 360Hz. Still, the LG UltraGear G5 25G590B will give you the peace of mind of knowing that you'll get perfect smoothness in-game, almost literally regardless of the frame rates that you're pushing.

At 24.5 inches and limited to 1080p, though, it's safe to say that this monitor, which is now on sale but is seeing stock roll out extremely quickly, is pretty clearly aimed at the competitive crowd.

If you're aiming to be the absolute best version of yourself possible on Counter-Strike 2, for instance, you're unlikely to give much of a hoot about visual fidelity. That means 1080p on minimum settings for most people, and at that spec, you might get some eye-melting frame rates on a powerful rig.

LG says that keeping the monitor at 1080p the whole time, rather than letting it swap between different resolutions with lower or higher refresh rates attached to them, means more consistency for training and gameplay. That's one way of looking at it, I guess!

It also says that it's included its Motion Blur Reduction Pro tech in the monitor, which does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin and helps to make objects clearer in motion. I've seen it demonstrated in person, and it really is quite effective.

The monitor's panel is an IPS one, meanwhile, so there's no OLED wizardry at play here, and it perhaps won't surprise you to learn that the world's first 1,000Hz monitor of this type doesn't come cheap. It's priced at £899.98 here in the UK, and $999 in the US, so you're paying quite a premium for a 1080p monitor.

If you want the best of the best for 1080p competitive play, though, this really looks like a new contender.

Apple has just announced the new Mac mini and Mac Studio, the start of what promises to be an extensive upgrade to its Mac portfolio. In the midst of these changes, the company also has new Magic Keyboards.

Before you get too excited, only the US is getting the new Magic Keyboard. Is this a case of the rest of the world being left behind and missing out on some new evolution?

Well, as it happens, it isn't - the US version of the Magic Keyboard was lagging behind the rest of the world. So what's going on?

Highlighted by 9to5Mac, the Magic Keyboard, Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad all appear as "new" on the Apple Store in the US.

But the only change to these keyboards is dropping many of the text labels on the keys and moving to more universal symbols instead. That was something that had already happened elsewhere, with the US hanging onto the labels for longer.

Some labels remain: control, option and command still dominate the bottom row of keys, but some of the other keyboard clutter has now been removed: home, page up, end, shift, return, tab and caps lock all lose the wording and just use symbols instead.

That reduces the visual clutter on the keyboard and for most users, they'll never even notice the change, especially if they are a daily user of the Magic Keyboard where most of the functionality is committed to muscle memory.

Some infrequent users might find that it's harder to find that pesky button when doing something unusual, but seeing as the rest of the world has managed to survive without them, it's likely that the US will adapt to the change too.

It's worth noting, however, that Apple still offers the older Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (without Touch ID), so if you really want those labels they are still available. Alternatively, you can still buy the older models from retailers like Amazon, although that will likely change as stock runs out.

Apple has also made this change to keyboards on MacBooks in the US with recent launches, so this is obviously a bigger effort to clean up keyboard clutter across the range.

The new keyboards are available now from the Apple Store.

Apple has announced the launch of updated Mac mini models, with one introducing the new M6 chip. It has also expanded the options with an M5 Pro variant. The new models replace the Mac mini M4 and M4 Pro launched in 2024.

The dinky Mac mini has seen high demand lately, as people have set it to task running AI models and that's one of the things that's highlighted by Apple: the new M6 model is said to have four times the AI performance than the M4 version, to speed up those AI workflows.

The cheaper of the two models is the M6, coming in at £899 / $899, a price that might make some wince – the previous model started at £599. While the new M6 chip has as 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU – boosting the performance compared to the M4 – the 16GB RAM and 256GB storage remain the same as before.

The price bump is also felt for the M5 Pro model, while starts at £1,699 / $1,699, compared to £1,399 for the M4 Pro. That, it seems, is the price that we're all paying for the demands that AI has put on the industry.

We previously reported that there is a wave of new Macs coming, introducing the M6 here in the Mac mini, with an M6-powered iMac expected to follow. The move to a touchscreen OLED display for the MacBook Pro is also expected as Apple shifts up a gear for its Mac models.

These new models are all about performance, with Apple underlining that the Mac mini M6 will run LLM prompts 4.8x faster than the M4 version, crunch through Excel spreadsheet calculations 1.5x faster than the M4 and deliver a better gaming experience too, with better ray tracing, for example.

Elsewhere, the new models support Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 for faster and more reliable wireless connectivity, with two USB 3 ports on the front and four Thunderbolt 4 ports on the back of the M6 model, upgraded to three Thunderbolt 5 ports on the M5 Pro model.

There are options to configure the models up to 32GB RAM for the M6 or 64GB on the M5 Pro, while storage options run up to 2TB and 8TB respectively. Storage and RAM are expensive, however, seeing the top price of the Mac mini M5 Pro topping out at £6,799.

Running macOS 27 and offering Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, pre-orders are open now, but deliveries aren't expected until 22 September.

Apple has opted to skip a generation with its new Mac Studio and go straight to M5 chips. While we had an M4 Max version last year, there was no M4 Ultra – so now we have a considerable upgrade.

The new Mac Studio is available with the M5 Max chip inside, or the M5 Ultra, with the latter capable of more than 10x the AI processing performance of an M1 Max model. It's almost 8x faster than the 2025 flagship version, too.

The mini Mac also features up to 512GB of unified memory, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thunderbolt 5 connectivity.

It is a true powerhouse that has been designed for professional use – including content creation, development, engineering and AI training. Gaming is even a consideration, with Apple claiming that it can run Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing one and a half times more effectively than its predecessor.

The M5 Max chipset features an 18-core CPU, up to 40-core GPU, up to 128GB of unified memory, up to 613GB/s memory bandwidth and a 16-core Neural Engine.

The M5 Ultra, on the other hand, really takes things up a notch. You get up to 36-cores on the CPU, 80-cores on the GPU, 512GB of unified memory, 1.2TB/s bandwidth, and a 32-core Neural Engine.

Naturally, the prices reflect the specs. The Mac Studio M5 Max starts at £2,499 / $2,499, while the Mac Studio M5 Ultra model begins at £5,499 / $5,499.

If you're feeling particularly flush and want the very best, you can expect to pay up to £18,299 / $18,299.

Pre-orders are open on Apple.com now with deliveries starting on 22 September 2026.

Apple has also announced a new Mac mini if you don't need quite so much power. It starts at £899 and runs on the new M6 chip. An M5 Pro variant is also available.

The iMac could be in line for an update soon, with new colours and the Apple M6 chip refreshing the model that was previously announced in 2024.

The iMac doesn't have the same update cadence as other Mac models so this refresh will come at a welcome time, although it's not thought that it will bring any other design changes with it.

The Apple M6 has not yet been released, but with Mark Gurman dedicating part of his Power On newsletter to the updated iMac, we're expecting to see the new model in the next month or so.

According to Gurman, the M6 will only be joined by colour changes and we don't know what those colours are as yet The M4 model offers Blue, Purple, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Green and Silver, but it might be that Apple aligns these with the MacBook Neo, which would see Silver, Blush, Citrus and Indigo.

As for the M6 chip, we don't know much about it, but there's a suspicion that it's going to be used in the new iMac and MacBook Pro in 2026, before we start to see M7 Mac models coming in in 2027 – skipping M6 Pro and M6 Max configurations.

What does Apple offer in the latest iMac?

The Apple iMac that launched in 2024 was exciting because of the fresh new colours and the power inside, but it stuck to the design that was introduced in 2021. That might leave some buyers wanting more, as it has a 24-inch display.

That was a little on the small side in 2021, and while the resolution is high, Apple's previous 27-inch iMac dwarfed it and many have been hoping for a 32-inch model. The problem is likely to be one of cost: while the high resolution is great, it would be expensive on a 32-inch display.

At the moment we have no idea when the new iMac might launch. Before we see a new Mac, we're likely to see the launch of the iPhone 18 Pro and the new folding iPhone in September. It could be that Apple then has a Mac event in October to introduce the new iMac and perhaps the M6 MacBook Pro.

Beyond that, it's likely to be March or April 2027 before we'll see that new MacBook Pro that everyone is waiting for, with the touchscreen OLED display.

With prices generally increasing, many will be watching them closely to see if the new iMac gets more expensive, or matches the price of the model it replaces.

Sometimes even the best tech launch has a sting in the tail. When I saw the new XPS 13 unveiled at Computex in Taiwan this year, I couldn't quite believe my eyes or my hands. This gorgeous little compact laptop was being positioned directly against the MacBook Neo, and had every shot at outstripping it, from what I saw and was told.

Now, a couple of months later, the first version of the XPS 13 is available, and I've tested it over the last week to see if it can match that incredible early impression. While I'm still in love with its design, the harsh reality of the pricing crisis we're all enduring in computing has made the XPS 13 far more complicated to assess than I was hoping it might be. Here's why:

Price and Availability

Dell's new XPS 13 was unveiled earlier this summer, and it's now available to order in most places, with a caveat. Right now, every version of the laptop on offer comes with a Series 3 Intel Core 5-320 processor – which is not a Panther Lake chip; a version is coming down the line with Intel's newer chip, but it's not here yet.

Anyway, here in the UK the XPS 13 starts at £899, a massive chunk more than the $699 being asked in the US (that's about £515 by conversion, just to add to the sting). In the EU, the laptop starts at €1,049, while in Australia it's $1,399.

In the UK, students can get it for £699, while in the US they'll qualify for a $599 price. That ought to quickly mark it out as one of the best laptops for students from the off.

Those spell out some pretty big regional pricing differences, to be honest, and only the US sees a price that comes close to being in the region of what I was hoping for – and, indeed, in a MacBook Neo ballpark. That said, given Dell's proclivity for discounts, it wouldn't surprise me if we see this price come down in sales relatively quickly.

Design and Features

The good stuff is pretty front-loaded in the new XPS 13, in my view, because the moment you unbox it and get your hands on it, I think you're likely to fall in love with its design.

This 13-inch laptop is smaller than the majority of the competition in the same size bracket – it's incredibly compact and skinny, with no major ornamentation or flourishes to catch the eye. It's built entirely out of metal, for a really premium hand-feel.

On the back of the laptop's display, there's an XPS logo, which is nice and subtle, while the bottom of the laptop has a Dell logo, some vents for airflow and some rubberised treads for stability. Opening it up, you'll find a tenkeyless keyboard that runs almost the whole width of the machine, above a nice and wide touchpad.

Above it, there's a 13.4-inch display with impressively tiny bezels. It features a really eye-catching anti-reflective coating that does wonders for the laptop in bright conditions – and is one of the more pronounced versions I can remember seeing in recent years. Above that, there's the webcam setup.

It bears repeating that the new XPS 13 is a seriously gorgeous little laptop – I've found its size almost hard to remind myself of at times when it's been in a backpack or drawer. There have been thinner machines, but I love the decision to avoid a wedge or taper in the design, and it's built really solidly, too.

This quality does mean that it weighs in at almost exactly 1kg, where we all know that more plastic could bring the weight down further, but I still find it to be hugely portable. In fact, I can't think of many recent laptops that would fit better into a flexible working pattern.

Back to the specs side of things, though. That display is a full multi-touch one, so you can swipe and tap if you like, and it comes with a 2560 x 1600 resolution, so it's extremely sharp given the size of the display. It can pull a refresh rate from 30Hz to 120Hz, so smoothness isn't an issue either.

The system is powered by a Series 3 Intel Core 5 Processor 320, as mentioned before, and this is paired with 8GB of RAM – which many people would agree is a slightly eyebrow-raising spec in 2026 on Windows. In the UK, upgrading that spec to 16GB costs a whopping £200 at the point of purchase, too.

You get a 512GB SSD for your file storage, meanwhile, and there's not even an upgrade path to make this 1TB, for instance, which underlines just how mad the pricing situation is becoming in computing.

Performance and Display

To keep going with the positives, I'm really impressed by the display that Dell has squeezed into such a tiny laptop. It's extremely crisp, and the lack of bezels on the left, right, and bottom really does make it feel expansive for the size of the laptop you're actually using.

Brands sometimes talk about "fitting a 13-inch screen into a 12-inch laptop" in a way that can feel slightly disingenuous, but if Dell used that sort of language for the XPS 13 I'd have no issue. The screen-to-body ratio is so impressive here that it really just underlines how impressively light and small the whole XPS 13 feels overall.

I also like the keyboard Dell chose, which is different from the one in the XPS 14 that I raved about earlier this year. Rather than all the keys being right up against each other, this time they're more spaced out and are basically more traditional rather than being chiclet style. I don't really mind either style, but I certainly have no complaints about the typing feel on the XPS 13.

The trackpad, similarly, didn't give me anything to specifically write home about, but in a good way – it's unremarkable but perfectly effective.

Where things do get a little more iffy, though, is when we turn to the XPS 13's actual power. We knew from the start that there would be non-Panther Lake versions of the laptop before the beefed-up versions arrive, but I didn't anticipate the compromises that have been made to get this XPS 13 version out the door.

There's no two ways around it – the Series 3 Intel Core 5 Processor 320 and 8GB of RAM just don't make for as snappy-feeling a Windows experience as I'd expect. And it's certainly a combination that feels like it should be on a cheaper machine. The market for components is absolutely brutal right now, so this might be another example of it claiming a victim.

It's not that you'll feel the pain while web browsing or word processing, necessarily, which does mean that for the majority of simple tasks the XPS 13 will be more than enough for you. It's more of an issue when you start to multitask with more complex workflows.

So, if you're editing image files and connecting external storage, while also leaving Chrome open with a host of tabs, expect some of the multitasking to occasionally feel sluggish, and for the laptop to be fairly maxed out much of the time.

We know that versions using the Panther Lake Core Ultra 7 355 are on the way, and they should be transformative, given the huge uplift in power that chip brings (although it won't have the game-changing graphics of the most powerful Panther Lake chips). Still, I hesitate to wonder what sort of price they'll bring – it can't possibly be a sensible one.

When Dell first showed me the XPS 13, it openly compared it to the MacBook Neo, and at the time it probably had good reason. Even after the Neo's £100/$100 price hike, though, the XPS 13 still comes in looking pretty suspect when it comes to price, and that makes it an awkward laptop to recommend from a specs perspective.

Verdict

I can't remember rooting for a laptop like I was for the XPS 13 before testing it – the hands-on time I had in Taipei at Computex impressed me so significantly that I thought we could have a true all-time great on our hands. In a world where memory prices weren't spiking because of AI, that might have been the case, too.

The XPS 13 is, undoubtedly, the most attractive compact Windows laptop on the market right now from a design standpoint. It's built sturdily and is incredibly sleek and well considered, with every aspect of the laptop feeling premium and careful.

Simultaneously, though, it's overpriced and underpowered. That's close to kryptonite for a laptop of this sort, and I'm sure Dell still has daydreams about being able to launch it with a genuinely competitive price against the MacBook Neo (which also, awkwardly, had to up its price after just 3 months on the shelf).

That context all comes together to make the XPS 13 difficult to judge, not least because its best version isn't here yet. When the Intel Panther Lake-toting product arrives, I suspect it'll be the best premium compact Windows laptop going – but at what price? Until then, the XPS 13 is a harder sell, but still one that's recommendable and might find a cult fanbase purely on its design merits.

Also consider

If you've even half-read this review, you'll be able to guess the first point of comparison for you to consider – the MacBook Neo. Those who don't need a Windows experience will find it cheaper than the XPS 13, and probably a little better-performing. That said, it's heavier and feels less premium, so it's not a straightforward situation.

For those who need the Windows life but are realising that their budget is perhaps bigger than the XPS 13 warrants, there's an easy alternative in Dell's current lineup. The 2026 version of the XPS 14 is a stunner, and has none of the compromises of its smaller sibling – although that price remains stonking.

We're in a fundamentally pretty rancid era for computer tech. Everything seems to be getting more expensive by the day. But if you haven't yet been priced out then there's some real interesting stuff going on. Case in point: the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11, which still represents a great deal too.

Yes, this is a series some of you may know already. But the latest Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X is among the first laptops that we've tried with a Snapdragon X2 Elite processor. This is what's going to have to do battle with not just Intel's new Series 3 generation, but the Nvidia Spark tech that could potentially rewrite the thin-and-light laptop rulebook.

Price & Availability

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 was announced at the CES show in early 2026 as part of the first wave of Snapdragon X2 laptops.

It starts at £1050 / $1099 / AU$2449 retail price (you’ll typically pay a bit less online) with the lower-end Snapdragon X2 Plus, or is £1199 / $1649 / AU$2799 for the Elite CPU family we have.

Our specific review model has 32GB RAM, though, which pushes the price up a bit more. Max out all options in Lenovo’s configurator, including a 2TB SSD, and you can get the “RRP” price up again. But at least it's configurable to your needs and budget!

Design

For years, Lenovo has nailed both the looks and practicality of the Lenovo Yoga Slim family. But the one part we always have to mention is the way this isn't quite as "yoga" a laptop as you may assume.

It's not a hybrid. It doesn't even have a touchscreen – although you can spec it up with one. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 is a pure ultraportable laptop, with no funny stuff involved, bar a near-but-not-quite 180-degree hinge.

Lenovo has made some perhaps slightly contentious moves to get the weight down to a trim 1.17kg, though. While the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 has a lovely all-metal outer casing, the screen has a plastic top layer. It's a dead giveaway when reflections distort a bit, as they do here.

This also means we lose the desirable pure flat screen finish you typically get in a glass screen PC. A biggie? That's up to you to decide.

Display

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 has a 14-inch 120Hz OLED screen, one whose 3K resolution looks sharp and clean at this size. Colour depth is fantastic too. And, as usual, OLED gets you those inky and deep blacks that make movie borders disappear completely in a dark room.

This generation gets a big brightness upgrade, although you won't see it in all conditions. In a normal room the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 will reach around 500 nits brightness with normal content.

Feed it some high dynamic range (HDR) video, though, and the ceiling rises to an impressive 1000 nits. This is far brighter than what we saw in previous generation OLED laptops. It's not going to change your life, though, as there's no obvious way to enable that searing brightness when you're web browsing. It's likely to avoid excessive battery use, and should also help avoid OLED burn-in, too.

Make sure you check before buying, though, as Lenovo sells this PC with at least three different screen types. In the cheapest spec you get a 1200p OLED, which wouldn’t look as sharp. And the mid-tier one has a glass touchscreen, but not the brightness of this review model.

Would we be tempted to upgrade to the top-tier display with glass panel but all the goodies of our review one? Absolutely. But you don’t get these options with any retailer, most likely just Lenovo direct.

Keyboard & Touchpad

New tech and trad vibes combine in the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11. And that continues in the keyboard and touchpad.

This laptop has a more chunky and substantial-feeling keyboard than most of its contemporaries. It’s one of my favourites in this class, and is ideal for long stretches of typing, and for all-day working that doesn’t just involve meetings with middle managers.

You can feel some of the Lenovo ThinkPad heritage here, even if these keys aren’t really as deep as those enthusiast-favourite designs.

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 also has a decent white LED key backlight. It’s a standard one-zone affair with two intensity levels and an Auto setting.

This laptop’s touchpad is very familiar too. It’s not a haptic pad, just a classic mechanical one. And that means it does have a slim dead zone at the top, an area that does not click.

It’s old-school, but is still a great pad. It has a quality click response, and a super-smooth textured glass surface. There’s been no scripting to save a gramme/quid or two with a plastic pad.

Performance

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 will be many folks’ first exposure to Qualcomm’s true second-generation Snapdragon laptop processors.

The chip-maker's first generation made a splash in 2024, for their unusual architecture, long battery life and fab CPU performance. This generation’s aim is to take things even further while addressing the biggest issues with the first, compatibility with some traditional x86 apps.

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11’s raw performance is terrific, particularly considering how portable this PC is. Its CPU power beats the rival 3rd Gen Intel Ultra Series according to benchmarks, and represents an up to 30% increase in power. That’s not bad across one generational leap.

GPU performance get a huge upgrade too, with a roughly up to 70% boost over the last generation. This is a healthy generational bump, way more than what we typically see.

It means you can run Cyberpunk 2077 at 60fps with a bit of settings massaging, rather than 30fps, and plenty more besides. Gaming power is roughly equivalent to a low-tier gaming laptop, which isn’t bad going given it’s at most a secondary job for the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11.

The one caveat is there’s a version of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11’s processor that has masses more graphics power, the X2 Elite Extreme. But it’s not seen in all that many models as, presumably, it costs a packet. Check out Asus’ impressive Zenbook A16 to see that one in action.

What this PC and that one don’t have, though, is access to the best of the tech that can turbo-charge real-world frame rates. There’s no bespoke frame generation or upscaling tech here, as seen in entry-level gaming laptops with Nvidia GPUs.

Lenovo also claims this processor offers up to 80 TOPS of AI power, matching the figures for the recently-announced Nvidia Spark. The real-world benefits of this are a little less clear than the base CPU and GPU power, though, unless you’re a power user already running AI models locally off your PC(s).

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 also does have a full-on fan-based cooling system, despite having one of these new super-efficient processors. You should be glad about that, though, as it will mean this laptop can operate at, or close to, its max exertion level for longer without major throttling.

As an ultraportable cooling system, the fan tone is relatively low on decibels and higher on the frequency range. But it’s mostly inoffensive.

We’ve also noticed a significant improvement to app compatibility – some apps that flat-out don’t work with Snapdragon X1 laptops run just fine here. However, there appears to be some support issues with the DirectX 12 graphics framework, which has been an issue in getting some games to run, including Resident Evil 5 and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Compared with the class of 2024, though? A major compatibility glow up.

Battery Life & Features

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 has a fairly ordinary 70Wh capacity battery but you can stretch this out to a very long runtime if you don’t push the laptop too hard.

When playing video, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 will last around 15-and-a-half hours. That’s towards the higher end of what we’ve seen from the latest generation of portability-first laptops, despite some of them claiming stamina upwards of 30 hours.

Or, at the other end of the spectrum, expect around 92 minutes when maxed out playing games. These processors may be dead efficient, but there’s no getting around that rendering gaming visuals needs power – and a good amount of it.

The speakers are the one area of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 that isn’t particularly remarkable. While these are decent-sounding, their bass depth is not close to that of Apple MacBook Air or Pro.

Extra attention has been given to the webcam, though. I has a 9MP sensor, typically enough for 4K stills or video. By default it takes 2560 x 1440 stills and video, but you can bump up the photo resolution to a native 3840 x 2400 pixels if you like.

While this isn’t a clever camera that uses high resolution to offer two fields of view – a normal one and a super-wide view – it is a good league above the laptop webcam norm. And there’s a physical privacy switch on the side for the security aware. You can use it for face recognition logins too.

Unlike a bunch of other Lenovo slim-and-light-laptops, this one absolutely does not bridge the generation gap on connectivity. You get three USB-C ports and that’s it. These are all high-bandwidth USB4.0 ports, though, each offering 40Gbps.

Should you buy the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11?

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X Gen 11 is among the best laptops in its class if you’re happy to prioritise practicality and the fundamentals over flashy stuff and extra features.

Highlights include an excellent keyboard, a bright OLED screen (in the top spec), very long battery life, and world-trotting portability.

Our review spec doesn’t have a desirable end-to-end glass screen, nor a touchscreen, but you can spec that. Lenovo offers options in its configurator, leaving the speakers as the only grating issue.

Also Consider

The laptop class of the Snapdragon X2 processor is mostly out there already, and there are some impressive candidates.

If you have more cash to spend, take a look at the Asus Zenbook A16. It costs a chunk more but has an even more powerful processor, a larger screen and yet is basically no heavier at 1.2kg. Its Ceralunium finish doesn’t have the obviously metallic feel of aluminium, though.

For a real hybrid, there’s the latest Microsoft Surface Pro, quietly updated with Snapdragon X2 tech. Its pricing is less aggressive than Lenovo’s, though. You need to spend a few hundred more to match it on specs.

Or there’s Microsoft’s laptop version, the Surface Laptop, which is more a direct rival for the Yoga. A lovely-looking thing that will feel fantastic too, but it “only” has an LCD screen, not an OLED, and again costs hundreds more versus the Lenovo.

There are no two ways around it – the best gaming laptops are super expensive. If you want the sort of performance that can shine on an external monitor at high resolutions, it can be hard to avoid looking at machines that cost thousands (regardless of your currency).

As millions of students around the world head to university or school, whether for the first time or going back after a summer break, though, we know there's a big audience out there who want to save their cash and make astute purchases. So, if you're on the lookout for a cheap (or at least cheaper) gaming laptop for your dorm room, student house or lecture theatre, check out these three options that I think merit a proper look.

T3's Top 3

Best for performance?

Lenovo Legion 5 (Gen 10)

Lenovo's superb laptop isn't exactly cheap – but it's just about as affordable as you can get if you want an Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series card. This one packs the 5060, the standard card in the lineup, but that crucially means you still get access to newer features like frame-generation and more.

These are total game-changers for laptop gaming, unlocking big boosts to performance with little to no visual cost. That makes this a brilliant option in terms of future-proofing, despite a very fair price, and you can also make a build with lower specs to bring the price down.

That said, the state of the market right now means this still isn't the cheapest option – I'm prioritising quality over sheer pricing.

Best cheap laptop

HP Omen 16 Slim

HP's Omen 16 has been a brilliant budget buy for a good few years now, but this "Slim" version is a much newer idea. It's actually barely slimmer than the standard version, but is the default budget option in the lineup now. The starting point is an RTX 5050 (which isn't much of a step down at all, in truth), and that ensures you'll get some great value for around the £1,000 or $1,000 mark.

This will still play games on great settings, especially if you're not connecting to an external monitor, and while it's hardly the most portable laptop on the market, it's very well-made and durable. That said, don't expect to get much battery life from it – that's simply not its priority.

Best left-field option

Legion Go S SteamOS

Okay, it's not a gaming laptop – but if you want bang for your buck and need to keep the bulkiness to a minimum, I really think most students or canny buyers would do well to look at an affordable portable. The Legion Go S (SteamOS) is my favourite, and its price has held steady, so you're still looking at a brilliant deal compared to most laptops.

The only real limitation it has is that it runs on SteamOS, which uses Linux as its base – that means there will be some non-Steam games that can't run on the machine. Still, the vast majority of PC gaming now does funnel through Steam, giving you a huge amount to explore, and you can even dock it to use it as a genuine mini PC. This is what I'd buy if I was going back to school, frankly.

Verdict

Overall, all three of the options we've laid out make sense depending on your exact budget, and all of them are far more affordable than the machines on our list of the best gaming laptops overall. That said, I do think that the best choice for most people will be a Legion Go S, even with its relatively old central hardware.

The display is great, but really, it's the flexibility that makes it sing. Sure, it won't work great as a productivity machine to study on in the library – but if you're looking for something to game on, it's a special bit of kit that has aged beautifully.

That said, if you do need your choice to be a laptop, with keyboard, trackpad and all, then either the Legion 5 or the Omen 16 Slim should stand you in good stead and enable high-quality gaming sessions between classes.

As we enjoy the summertime, there's that niggling background thought of University or college also looming. "Which MacBook should I buy?" says that voice in your head.

Well, ponder no longer. If you're considering buying a new Apple laptop for your studies, then we're here to help you select the perfect MacBook – specifically for your course.

There are more MacBook options now than in preceding years, but that makes each option a better fit for certain workloads, as we'll get to below. And don't forget: Apple also offers a (typical) 10% discount for students.

So whether you need a lightweight Mac for word processing, or a larger option with extra power for computer modelling, here are the 3 best MacBook options available now:

T3's Top 3

Apple MacBook: Pricing and Discounts

Apple has a dedicated Education Store, where you will find all the Apple products eligible for student discount. Any current or newly accepted higher education students can get these savings, as well as parents buying for higher education students, and teachers and staff working in education.

You will need to verify your eligibility during checkout on the Education Store website, which you do through UNIDAYS in the UK. After that, you'll be able to buy Apple products, including MacBooks and iPads, at a discounted rate.

In terms of pricing, the MacBook Air 13-inch model with the M5 processor starts at £1,199 for students. That's why you might want to seek out an M4 version, which was priced at £999 at launch – and can be had for even less. The MacBook Neo is less again, at £599 for students. But the MacBook Pro is more than both those combined – from £1,899 at its lowest student price.

Apple M4 vs M5 Processors: What's Different?

The M5 is the latest generation of Apple silicon. It's more powerful in terms of compute (CPU), graphics (GPU) and AI (NPU) than the M4 before it – but perhaps by not such a huge amount that you need to buy the latest. Both are 3nm process chips, so are architecturally similar.

Where the bigger shifts come into play are within the variants of chips in the family. The M5 Pro and M5 Max, for example, step things up a margin – just as the M4 equivalents do – with far more graphical nous to make light of specific tasks.

Paying the extra for these step-up chips will mean greater memory, for lighter work in process intensive tasks. You'll have quicker renders, more fluid visuals for 3D models. But you'll also have a lighter bank balance and have to suffer more fan noise – as that extra power needs extra cooling. It's overkill for most basic courses, in short.

Verdict: Which Apple MacBook wins?

Let's try and keep this as simple as possible: for most students, the MacBook Neo is going to be plenty enough – and the savings hugely appreciated to spend on other much-needed materials and life.

That said, if you're studying for an arts or animation or music production or computer modelling course then you might find you need a lot more power. A MacBook Pro will handle demands considerably better – saving you time, which is valuable – despite costing far more. The Pro and Max grade chips reach high professional standards.

In between those two is the sweet spot for many, though, with the MacBook Air a great do-it-all machine. It's got ample power to deal with photo/video editing tasks, for example, surpassing the Neo in this regard – without making as much noise or being as costly as the MacBook Pro.

What about Windows?

This list is for the best student MacBooks, noting, of course, that these run on Apple's MacOS software – not Windows.

It's worth checking whether your course would instead recommend a Windows machine for specific executable files required for certain programmes.

The Windows landscape is complex at present, as there are a multitude of processor options, which present opportunity but, at times, disadvantage with compatibility.

Read our Laptop confusion 101: Should I buy Intel, AMD, Snapdragon or what? feature to help with that conundrum in the Windows space.

Of the current options, however, the HP OmniBook 5 is a great option, per our Cheap Back-To-School Laptops feature.

If you're looking for a new laptop, there's not only a huge amount of choice out there, but there are several things you should consider before you make your decision too. You'll first want to decide what operating system will work best for you. If you have Apple devices – like an iPhone or an iPad – consider choosing an option from our Best MacBook guide for a seamless experience across your devices.

If you're after a clutter-free and cheaper laptop, then selecting one of the best Chromebooks will serve you well and is an ideal pick for students. If Windows is more your vibe, however, then now is a great time to buy one of the best laptops from our curated list – and with various manufacturers offering different options, such as on-device AI and better battery life thanks to a Snapdragon X chipset, there's more choice than ever before.

It isn't just the platform – Apple silicon in MacBooks; Qualcomm, Intel, AMD options for Windows – that you'll want to think about when you invest in a new laptop, though. There are many things that can make a big difference in use. To help, we've picked our top five essential features and upgrades to consider before you press that 'buy' button, with best-matched picks for those considerations.

An AI future

Current-gen Windows laptops pretty much all now come with Microsoft's AI tool, called Co-Pilot+, baked in. On devices like the Asus Zenbook A16 (2026), which runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon Elite chipset, there is a Co-Pilot button built into the keyboard, offering quick and easy access to the AI tool and its capabilities.

These AI features include things like turning a sketch into an image, drafting a proposal from meeting notes and live translations, thus making everyday tasks quicker and easier. You can also pay extra for Co-Pilot+ Pro, which will integrate fully into the Office apps, but even opting for a Windows PC with the standard Co-Pilot is worth considering.

Right now the AI feature set of these laptops is at the beginning of its life, meaning it should progress and improve with more features in the future. Snapdragon Elite does bring better battery life, and its emulation software also means it's fully compatible with Windows apps.

Battery life

Battery life is arguably the most important feature to consider before buying a laptop. You could have the most powerful laptop out there – but if you're always looking for a charger, that's simply going to annoy you and prevent you from getting work done.

The latest Windows AI PCs – as they are typically being referred to – certainly up the battery life compared to older Windows PCs, but MacBooks have been offering great battery life for years now, too. The MacBook Air, in particular, delivers great battery life, with well over a standard working day of use.

But if you're not into Apple's operating system, then there are plenty of choices to consider: we've reviewed the Dell XPS 14, for example, which netted an epic 5-star score for delivering well across the board – but being particularly brilliant when it comes to longevity per charge.

Display quality

There's yet another reason to want the Surface Pro 11th Edition too: its display! If you want a laptop that will not only be lovely to work on, but one that's great for watching content on too, an OLED display really helps deliver the goods.

Some laptops come with an OLED screen by default – like the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x – whereas others, like the Dell XPS 14 (2026), feature an OLED screen as an option. The panel type, which stands for 'organic light-emitting diode', means that each pixel emits its own light source, for perfect backlighting and high-contrast visuals with inky blacks and punchy whites.

You of course pay extra cash for an OLED panel on the XPS 14, but the vibrant and punchy colours, coupled with truly black blacks and white whites, make for a great viewing experience. It's worth the extra cash, and it'll last you for years to come too.

Mobile connectivity

Not all laptops have the option of connectivity beyond Wi-Fi, but if you think that having a connection when you're on the move might be helpful, you could consider a tablet over a laptop.

The Microsoft Surface Pro 11 – what we would call a 2-in-1 – has the option of 5G connectivity, as do the Apple iPad Air and Apple iPad Pro. You'll need to buy a SIM with a relevant data plan, of course, but if you're not desk-bound all the time, then it's worth its weight in gold.

Opting to upgrade to a device with 5G connectivity means you won't be reliant on Wi-Fi, allowing you to work on trains and in cafes and restaurants, or wherever else you fancy that has mobile signal. Some workplaces also restrict untrusted Wi-Fi networks, with dedicated mobile data connectivity a valuable workaround – especially if your college, university or work has such a restriction.

Lightweight picks

Not all laptops are created equal. Some are much slimmer and lighter than others, while others prioritise fans and cooling elements to offer increased endurance for things like gaming.

If you're planning on carrying a laptop around with you in a backpack or bag, it's worth considering weight and picking one of the best lightweight laptops – one that's not too heavy, whilst still offering good performance. For a 13-inch laptop, anything around 1kg (2.2lbs) is considered very lightweight.

The MacBook Air is nice and light (1.25kgs/2.7lbs), as is the Galaxy Book 4 Edge (1.16kg/2.5lbs), and the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x (1.28kgs/2.8lbs). Any of these choices will do your back a favour, that's for sure, especially if you've got a long walk to work or college.

Just prior to its annual developer conference in May, Google effectively announced the death of the Chromebook and gave us a glimpse of what's to take its place.

Googlebook is coming with an all-new operating system and deep Gemini integration, and we'll see models from many of the manufacturers that have partnered with the tech giant in the past. Google even teased a first-party device.

However, now we have an even better idea of what the average Googlebook could look like – and it's not a million miles away from its predecessors.

Both Android Headlines and Digital Citizen claim to have got their hands on marketing images of a Lenovo Googlebook. The former includes a 2-in-1 tablet, too, alongside a dedicated mouse.

The Googlebook looks similar to former Lenovo Chromebook models, although there's one specific addition that draws our attention.

On the keyboard, between the function and alt keys is a "G" key in Google's font. This, it is said, is a Gemini key to bring up the AI assistant at a single tap.

The other interesting element can be found on the lid, with what looks to be a light bar. This is much like the LED "glow light" seen on the teaser version shared in May.

The images posted by Android Headlines also show a tablet 2-in-1 with a similar "glow light" next to the camera lens on the rear. It seemingly comes with a stylus and keyboard case.

The new "AI mouse" will reportedly also include a "glow light" strip and a dedicated AI button to bring up the assistant. It will be 59g, says Android Headlines.

According to Digital Citizen, the Lenovo Googlebook will support several connections and ports, including a couple of USB-C inputs/outputs and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There also seems to be a card slot and a full fat USB.

The timing of this leak suggests we'll see the launch of several Googlebook models soon, which will run on Google's new, currently unnamed OS. We expect to hear more during the 12 August Made by Google launch event.

Apple is planning to refresh all of the Mac models that it offers, with an onslaught of updates planned for the latter half of 2026 and into 2027. That's going to include new M6 chips in some models, as well as the introduction of an OLED model that supports touch.

We've previously reported on Apple's plans for a high-end MacBook Pro model that could adopt the name MacBook Ultra. This is said to come in 14- and 16-inch sizes, with the internal names K114 and K116.

The launch window isn't exactly known as yet, but it's said it will be between the end of 2026 and early 2027. It's also thought to be powered by the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.

The details come from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who details that the first models to launch will be the refreshed version of the current MacBook Pro. That will see the debut of the Apple M6 chip, but the design will, in the short term, remain the same.

However, there's a replacement for the base MacBook Pro in the works too, with plans to launch this in 2027.

The staggered launch of what appears to be the same product line might be confusing, but it seems that Apple's focus is on getting the M6 into the hands of consumers, before updating the design to match the new MacBook Ultra. That might cause some who are planning an update to wait to see the new design before committing to a purchase.

Apple will also release a redesigned MacBook Air, it's claimed, which is slated for an early 2027 release.

Both 13- and 15-inch models are expected and it's said that the design "will closely resemble the current version" which some might be disappointed with. That's considering the dramatic design that the MacBook Air has offered in the past and the current likeness to the MacBook Pro.

An OLED MacBook Air is reportedly in the works, but this isn't expected until 2028.

Finally, the MacBook Neo will also be updated to keep it fresh, although plans are less certain. It's said that a model with the A19 Pro chip (which powers the iPhone 17 Pro) is in testing, but given the recent launch of the Neo, it's unlikely to appear soon. Apple will likely change the colour to retain its appeal.

Apple's desktop models are also getting updated

It's not just MacBook models that are in the frame for updates, Apple's desktop computers are also in the works. Gurman says that's going to start with refreshed iMac models, launched alongside the updated base MacBook Pro. It will likely benefit from the M6, but there's no mention of a redesign.

In the future, there are plans for an iMac with OLED display.

The Mac mini and Mac Studio are also in line for a refresh, with the M5 Pro and M6 in testing for the mini, while the Studio is testing the M5 Max and M5 Ultra. However, it's said that the supply situation makes the timeline for these updates less certain. The Mac Studio has been popular with those running AI applications, so demand is high.

That's a huge run of updated models planned by Apple, so to clarify, here's a timeline of what to expect when based on the information we have so far:

• 2026: MacBook Pro M6
• 2026: iMac M6
• 2026/2027: MacBook OLED M5 Pro, M5 Max
• 2026/2027 (?): Mac mini M5 Pro, M6
• 2026/2027 (?): Mac Studio M5 Max, M5 Ultra
• 2027: MacBook Air M6
• 2027: New MacBook Pro M7
• 2027/2028: MacBook OLED M7 Pro, M7 Max
• 2028: New MacBook Air OLED
• TBC: MacBook Neo A19 Pro

Focus timers aren't exactly exciting, but this one stopped me scrolling. Called Immersion, the tiny gadget transforms the passing of time into a calming stream of digital sand, and somehow makes the whole idea of concentrating feel more appealing.

Nottingham Trent University design student, Carrie Lee, has created Immersion, a minimalist timer designed to help you concentrate without adding another screen to your life.

About the size of a Tamagotchi, Immersion strips away almost everything you'd expect from a timer. There's no ticking countdown clock or barrage of numbers. Instead, its circular display fills with animated digital sand as your session progresses, giving you a gentle visual cue rather than a constant reminder of the seconds slipping away. Better still, rotate the device and the sand shifts naturally, making it super satisfying to interact with.

Focus sessions can be set anywhere from five minutes to two hours, making it suitable for everything from a quick reading sprint to a full Pomodoro-style work session. Crucially, because it's a dedicated device rather than an app, it keeps your phone out of the equation – removing the temptation to check messages or just quickly open Instagram.

The design is just as considered as the interface. Immersion sits in a sculptural charging dock inspired by stacked balancing stones, turning it into a desk ornament when not in use. There's even an optional strap so it can hang from a bag, making it easy to take to a library, coffee shop or shared workspace.

Sadly, there's one catch: it's currently only a concept. Lee developed both digital renders and a working prototype as part of her design project, so there's no word on commercial availability.

But with digital wellbeing becoming an increasingly hot topic, this is exactly the sort of gadget I'd happily make room for on my desk. It proves that sometimes the smartest tech is the technology that deliberately does less.

The rise of the mini PC in the last couple of years has been nothing short of extraordinary. Even during a worldwide RAM and components crisis, mini PC manufacturers are pushing the boundaries of what's possible in a compact box.

GMKtec is one of the companies you might have spotted on the likes of Amazon, with its numerous AMD and Intel mini PCs. They're available at all price points and configurations, but if you really take your productivity seriously, there's a new flagship model you need to take a look at.

The GMKtec EVO-X3 is a mini PC in theory, but more an an AI workstation in practice. It's capable of general computer use, even AAA gaming, but the power under the hood can do so much more besides.

The slim form factor contains an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 CPU supported by Radeon 8060S integrated graphics. This is one of the best iGPUs ever made and considering its made up of 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units, there's little it can't handle.

On top of that, the standard EVO-X3 comes with 128GB of unified memory (LPDDR5X) running at 8,000 MT/s. It also has a 2TB SSD inside, with an upgraded version expanding that up to 4TB.

You can even upgrade further yourself, with dual M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD slots and a head limit 16TB.

Premium connectivity

Wi-Fi 7 is on board, along with Bluetooth 5.4, 2.5G LAN, and a host of ports, including USB 4.0, HDMI 2.1 and even Oculink, if you want to add an external GPU.

It is, in short, a beast – in the body of a supermodel.

GMKtec claims that it's designed for running local LLM AI processes and can be used for AI software development. But it's also well suited to image and video generation, 3D rendering and CAD workflows. And it comes with Windows 11 Pro preinstalled.

And if you fancy running the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 while the boss isn't looking, you can easily achieve up to 90fps it in high settings at 1440p.

Of course, all this grunt comes at a price – the GMKtec EVO-X3 usually starts at £3,212, although the brand currently has it reduced on its website, for £2,939.99. It's currently $3,799.99 in the US.

Hopefully, the tech will bleed down into other mini PC builds soon, maybe even more consumer level. We'll keep you informed of any future updates.

The retro gadget revival shows no signs of slowing down, but the latest throwback might be one of my most tempting yet. Called the PocketMage, it's a tiny clamshell computer that blends the best bits of old-school PDAs with a distraction-free writing machine. Plus, there's even a DIY kit if you fancy building your own.

Designed by Talisman Design and currently seeking crowdfunding, the PocketMage looks like a miniature laptop. Open it up and you'll find a 3.1-inch E Ink display paired with a tactile QWERTY keyboard that's clearly aimed at writers, note-takers and anyone nostalgic for the days before smartphones became endless notification machines.

So while it might be a bit small to make it onto our best mechanical keyboards list, this definitely serves its purpose well.

Interestingly, there's also a second display. A slim OLED panel sits above the keyboard to handle menus and other fast-moving interface elements, leaving the E Ink screen free to deliver its eye-friendly reading experience without feeling sluggish.

Under the hood, it's intentionally modest. An ESP32-S3 chip, 2MB of RAM and 16MB of storage (expandable via microSD) are enough to run a Markdown editor, calendar, journal, dictionary and other lightweight productivity apps. There's also WiFi, Bluetooth, USB-C and even an expansion port for hardware tinkerers who want to customise the device further.

The best part? If you're the sort of person who enjoys assembling gadgets as much as using them, the PocketMage is available as a DIY kit that only requires a screwdriver – no soldering necessary.

There's also a fully assembled version if you'd rather get typing straight away. Prices start at around $185 (roughly £135) for the kit or $235 (around £170) assembled, with shipping currently expected in March 2027.

The ultrawide gaming monitor is slowly but surely undergoing something of a shift in reputation right now, even while the wider gaming world is battered by price hikes and component shortages. Even just a couple of years ago, an ultrawide felt like the status symbol of a super-rich gamer – not really something 'normal' folks bought.

Well, times change, and display technology has been moving quickly. While ultrawides still look much like they have for years, they're now getting better and cheaper, a double whammy that you love to see. Dell's newest Alienware launch, in fact, the AW3426DW, comes in at a price that I think is really tempting given its QD-OLED status.

Price and Availability

The AW3426DW went on sale in late June here in the UK, so you can order it now directly through Dell and possibly some other enthusiast storefronts. Its RRP is £709.

US shoppers will have to pay $799.99 – with a later release date penned from 9 July 2026. There's no Australian pricing or pre-order details as yet.

Design and Specs

You might think there's a limited amount to say about the design of an ultrawide monitor. In some ways you'd be right, but the flexibility that manufacturers have on key points can be massive for the experience of using one.

The AW3426DW is a 34-inch ultrawide with an aspect ratio of 21:9, which makes it fairly typical for the market. This means that it's not the tallest monitor, so it's perhaps easier to fit onto a desk than some others I've tested, although the width is clearly the main point of contention.

The AW3426DW is built largely out of a matte-finish dark blue plastic, with a real sturdiness to its frame and stand. There's been some online criticism of that blue finish, but in person I think it's quite nice – although the footprint of the stand is fairly significant on your desk.

The arm that the screen attaches to is sturdy and offers some tilt both in terms of up-and-down and left-or-right motion. That means you can position the monitor relatively easily if you have a peculiar setup in mind. The arm also has a channel to route cables through in quite a rudimentary way.

The back of the screen is unremarkable, but there is one bit of ornamentation – a glowing RGB Alienware logo that looks nice, but really doesn't emit too much light. I could probably do without it, but it hardly impacts usability at all.

The front of the display has a status light at the bottom right that's surprisingly large, until you realise theat is doubles as the on/off button (which some monitors make much more difficult to find).

The screen's actual user interface (UI) and settings menus are accessed using a control nub right under the middle of the display, which I found really easy and responsive to use.

The panel itself is a 3440 x 1440 resolution QD-OLED Penta-Tandem RGB Stripe type, with an improved refresh rate of 280 Hz and a higher peak brightness of 1,300 nits – an increase over its '3425' predecessor.

It has HDR (high dynamic range) certification and works with Dolby Vision – which is fairly rare in this market – and can boast a VESA DisplayHDR True Black level of 500, which is also impressively rare.

Perhaps the biggest single upgrade on the monitor, though, is a new anti-reflective coating. It's hugely impactful in person, as I'll get to later in this review.

If there's a big downside to testing ultrawides, it's where multi-device functionality is concerned. The array of ports here is solid rather than outstanding – two HDMI 2.1 and a DisplayPort 1.4 are what you get, along with a 5Gbps USB Type B, plus Type A and Type C USB charging.

I usually have a 27-inch flat panel on my desk, and swap between my work MacBook Pro, my gaming PC, and my PS5 Pro according to what I'm doing and who I'm gaming with. The key part here is the PS5 Pro, which doesn't really work nicely with this monitor.

The AW3426DW does allow you to crop its picture down to a 24.5-inch version that works for devices that don't support ultrawide screens, but it's limited to 1080p and therefore loses a lot of clarity. This is far from a Dell-only issue, and really is just about what you want from your monitor – so be aware that console gaming isn't really a great fit here.

Performance

So, the AW3426DW isn't great for a PS5 Pro – what else is news, Einstein? This is a PC gaming monitor, so I used it that way for almost all of my testing. And what a lovely time I had, too.

The AW3426DW's QD-OLED panel is a really lovely one for the price. It has those inky dark blacks that you want from the technology, plus really impressive vibrancy to colour – especially with Dolby Vision-compatible content.

I used the monitor to play a dozen or so hours of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, and the bright, bold blues of that game's oceans were really well-represented, as were its torches at night and multifaceted underwater hues.

One small miss is the lack of integrated speakers – sure, they're never great, but I sometimes find it more relaxing to game without a headset, which isn't an option with this monitor (unless you have other speakers, of course).

Another welcome factor in my enjoyment of the screen has been that anti-reflective coating; I saw it briefly at Computex in Taipei, but at home it's been revelatory – even bright and pointed lights barely make a ripple when I'm gaming. The boost this gives to immersion is truly great.

While I don't recommend it for consoles, I did also do enough PS5 Pro gaming to confirm that it's entirely acceptable on that front, too, and that swapping back and forth between modes is quick and easy to accomplish. That's worth more than nothing, at this price.

It's also worth highlighting that, unlike some other monitors of this type, the cooling for what is a big panel is all done through ventilation rather than actual fans. Some other monitors can indeed have a distracting whirr, but there's no such bugbear here.

Using the monitor for work has also been a reminder that ultrawides can be really quite practical – you get so much real estate for multitasking and windows. At 3440 x 1440, things are nice and sharp, although I have found that text can suffer from a little fringing at times, so a point of note if you're sensitive to that.

Verdict

I think Dell's Alienware brand has played a great hand here. The AW3426DW doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it crucially also doesn't charge the world – unlike some competitors.

While its QD-OLED panel isn't radically upgraded over its predecessor, instead going for modest but welcome gains, the price feels really fair for what you get.

Sure, you can get more expensive monitors that push things further in terms of resolution, size, and indeed processing power and internal capabilities – but you'll find that these upgrades come with discomfiting price spikes, too.

By avoiding those hikes, you'll be getting a monitor that feels premium in all the most important ways, even if it's secretly not as best-in-class as it looks. The Alienware AW3426DW is a great deal.

Also Consider

If you do want something that's more like the best of the best, then consider going for LG's crazy UltraGear 45GX950. It's simply massive, and therefore not quite in the same category, but it's a stunning piece of gear. It remains the high-water mark for the ultrawides I've tested.

Another alternative comes in the form of a counter-proposal. If you do want to game on both PC and console, maybe an ultrawide isn't right for you. In that case, the Sony Inzone M10S is a beautiful OLED panel – while there's now a new version, that means you might be able to find lower prices on last year's model.

The new OASIS 1 smart ring swaps heart rate sensors and sleep tracking for productivity. This new take on wearables packs a miniature touch-sensitive trackpad and microphone into a ring designed to control your devices without you reaching for a keyboard or mouse.

The touch surface supports swipes, taps and scrolling, while the built-in microphone is designed for private voice dictation. The idea is that you can hold the ring close to your mouth and quietly dictate messages or AI prompts, rather than broadcasting them across the office.

OASIS says the ring works with Macs, iPhones and Apple Vision Pro, with integrations including Spotify and Apple Music already listed. Pre-orders are open now for $289 (around £210 / AU$430), with shipping expected by Christmas 2026.

It's an intriguing twist on the smart ring formula. While rivals have spent the past few years trying to shrink fitness trackers onto your finger, OASIS is betting that AI is creating demand for a completely different type of wearable – one that's all about interaction rather than health.

Whether people really want to replace a keyboard with a ring remains to be seen, but there's something undeniably futuristic about the concept. If the hardware proves as intuitive as it sounds, it could be one of the more interesting wearable ideas to emerge this year – and certainly one of the few that lets you edit a document with the wave of a finger.

Apple could launch a new entry-level MacBook Pro with a redesign that's related to the rumoured MacBook Pro Ultra. This would likely usher in a new era of design for the MacBook Pro family.

There seems to be a lot happening in the world of MacBook at the moment. Not only have we seen the cheapest member of the family in the MacBook Neo (albeit getting a price bump thanks to component shortages), but we're also looking at a new high-end MacBook Pro, called the MacBook Ultra.

The MacBook Ultra, thought to be launching in Q3 2026, could usher in an OLED display, touchscreen support, a new design, as well as dropping the notch for a Dynamic Island type tool instead.

A report from the often-reliable Mark Gurman at Bloomberg points to an updated MacBook Pro (codenamed K104) that offers a new design "in line with what Apple is preparing for high-end MacBooks with touch screens".

That suggests that the new entry-level MacBook Pro won't just soldier on with the current design, but will be closer related to the MacBook Ultra. That would see the Ultra launching in late 2026 and the refreshed cheaper models adopting a similar design in early 2027.

What this entry-level, possibly 14-inch MacBook Pro is unlikely to get is touch support, and with OLED being a new addition for Ultra, it's unlikely to get that either.

Instead, it seems that Apple will go all-out on the MacBook Ultra in 2026, loading it with new features through that display and showing off a fancy new design that's slimmer and more compact.

Then it looks like it will follow up some six months later with an updated MacBook Pro, with a slimmer design of its own to keep customers happy. Whether there will be models between the two isn't clear, but it's likely that we'll end up with the MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, new MacBook Pro in 2027 and MacBook Ultra in 2026.

It's thought that the MacBook Ultra will run on M5 Pro and M6 Max chips and it's also been suggested that an updated MacBook Pro would appear with M6 in 2026. With the suggestion now that a refreshed MacBook Pro will be launched in 2027 with M7, there's the potential that it's going to get confusing.

This might just mean that there's too much congestion around the MacBook line-up, with disparate chips, so there's every chance that these details may not all be correct.

The Mac Studio could be inline for some changes, with new details giving us an insight into Apple's plans for it's powerful but compact desktop computer. That includes new hardware coming over the next couple of years.

First up, the Mac Studio is expected to get an M5 Ultra upgrade according to Mark Gurman with the current configurations offering either the M4 Max or M3 Ultra, so it's a generation behind the latest MacBooks.

The Mac Studio was expected to get this upgrade around WWDC, but that didn't happen. The previous update was in May 2025, so we're not too far off an annual cycle – although pressures on component prices are likely causing some of the delays here.

The Mac Studio has seen strong demand from those looking for a powerful machine with high levels of unified memory for running AI, but in a perfect Catch-22, the AI boom has driven prices up and caused shortages in the industry.

That's something that's felt in Apple's supply chain, with price increases recently announced across a full range of products.

But according to what we know so far, Apple's M6 is going to be markedly different, with plans only including a base M6 chip, with a bigger push for the M7 through 2027. That should give component prices time to settle, something that's needed for the M7, M7 Pro, M7 Max and M7 Ultra with high levels of integrated RAM.

That leads us into the most powerful iteration of the Mac Studio, with a refresh expected in 2028. While the design is expected to stay the same from the exterior (something that Apple is known for), it's thought that there will be some internal changes, including a new heat sink.

That's going to help manage temperatures when pushing the Mac Studio hard to support increasing AI demands.

These plans present something of a mixed bag for those looking for a Mac Studio. Prices are only heading in one direction, demand has been high, with the real bump in performance coming in 2028. Exactly how much it will cost remains to be seen, but some of that will be dictated by AI's path and how component manufacturers scale to meet current pressures on demand.

Maybe it's time we all stop making pictures of talking cats to share on social media.

If you have a Mac, the Apple Studio Display is one of the best monitors you can buy. While there is now a newer Studio Display XDR model with Mini-LED and 120Hz, the original is more than enough for most users and is a far better price.

However, in the Amazon Prime Day sale this week, a Lightning Deal has seen the price of the monitor drop to just £1099 – that's 37% off the list price, making the Studio Display an absolute steal.

As I write this 46% have already been claimed, so this deal is likely to sell out today. So if you are tempted, you need to move quickly. It's certainly the biggest Apple deal we've seen on Prime Day for a long time.

This isn't the standard version either; the discounted model comes with the nano-texture glass, giving you a nice matte finish which eliminates reflections.

• Shop all Apple deals in the Amazon Prime Day sale

More great Apple deals

• Apple AirPods 4 with ANC: 26% off, now £125.40
• Apple iPad Air 13in M3: 23% off, now £650
• Apple Watch Ultra 3: 13% off, now £649
• Apple AirTag (2nd Gen) 4-pack: 15% off, now £84.55
• Apple iPhone Air 256GB: 4% off, now £719
• Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M4: 17% off, now £1000
• Apple Pencil (USB-C): 29% off, now £56.05
• Apple Watch Series 11: 21% off, now £317
• Apple Watch SE 3: 9% off, now £199

The Apple Studio Display XDR is the second generation of Studio Display, providing a relatively affordable home monitor to pair with the Mac Studio or MacBook Pro.

It replaces the former 32-inch Pro XDR model, which sat alongside the original Studio Display, which was close to five grand. At double the price of the original Studio Display, it’s by no means cheap though.

This new 27-inch model is a step up from the Studio Display in almost all areas. It uses a mini LED rather than an LED display, which is much brighter, and finally offers a faster refresh rate of up to 120Hz – something previously lacking from Apple’s lineup.

Those using a Mac mini or MacBook Air are probably better served by the standard Studio Display or one of the many third-party options. However, for those wanting ultimate performance, the Studio Display XDR is likely to fit the bill.

Having used the Studio Display as my main display for the last year, I was keen to see how much better this new model is. I’ve been running both the Studio Display and Studio Display XDR from a Mac Studio for the past few weeks, to compare. While the Studio Display still holds up as an excellent monitor, the XDR model is that much better.

How much is the Apple Studio Display XDR?

Released in March 2026, the Apple Studio Display XDR starts from £2999 in the UK, $3299 in the US or A$5499 in Australia. Unlike the Studio Display, the height-adjustable stand comes as standard, though you can purchase it with a VESA mount adapter for wall mounting or attaching to monitor poles.

The only configurable feature is the option to have the nano-texture glass display. This provides a matte surface to the display, much like on the iPad Pro and the MacBook Pro. This isn’t a coating, this is part of the display, and the difference is stark. It does add £300 to the price, but if you are placing it in a bright room where reflections are likely, it’s well worth it.

Design and features

Design-wise, it’s difficult to tell the XDR version apart from the standard Studio Display. From the front, the black bezels are identical, with a 12MP CentreStage camera built in at the middle of the top bezel. Meanwhile, the back view has the same two USB-C and two powered Thunderbolt 5 ports.

The one potential giveaway is if it has just a tilting stand, though it’s possible to get both with the height and tilt adjustments. To really tell the difference, you need to plug the display in and take a look at the picture, as that’s where the difference really lies.

While the Studio Display XDR still offers a 5K resolution, it now has a 120Hz refresh rate with adaptive sync to adjust the frame rate to suit different media. This makes the display ideal for gaming, which is an area the Studio Display range has previously fallen down on.

The display itself now also uses mini-LED backlight technology, as opposed to standard LEDs, with 2304 dimming zones to provide more precise lighting and, therefore, deeper blacks and whiter whites. This is high compared to most mini-LED TVs, especially considering the size of the screen.

It’s brighter, too with up to 1,000 nits in standard definition and a peak of 2,000 nits for HDR content

Using the Apple Studio Display XDR

The Studio Display XDR is a great-looking monitor. With the brushed aluminium stand and back, along with the clean black bezels on the front, it looks every bit the Apple product and therefore sits perfectly alongside any Mac.

Due to the cost of this monitor, it’s likely to be paired with higher-end machines, but it will work perfectly well with any MacBook, Mac mini or Mac Studio. A 27-inch display is the perfect size for most desks, and more than enough real estate for most users. If you are connecting it to a MacBook, you can still use the laptop’s screen as a second display, but in practice, it’s not necessary.

The main requirement is that your machine is running on Apple silicon (so M1 and above) and is using macOS 26.3.1 or later. It is also compatible with newer iPad models, including all iPad Pro models and the iPad Air 5th generation or newer. The latest iPad Pro M5 will even support 120Hz when connected to the Studio Display XDR, while all other iPads are limited to 60Hz.

I love how clean and simple the Studio XDR display looks, thanks to the ports being kept on the back. I also love the height adjustment on this model, as it means you can position the screen in the right place for your line of vision – there’s nothing worse than spending out on a fancy monitor and then having to prop it up on books, or an additional stand.

As with the standard studio monitor, the built-in webcam is excellent, giving you 12MP images or high-quality video calls. It also has built-in microphones and speakers – the speakers especially sound nice and big, giving you full spatial audio from the six-speaker system.

The best thing about the display, though, has to be the picture. As I said in my review of the original Apple Studio Display, its picture is absolutely stunning, and for general use the Studio Display XDR looks very similar.

Where it differs most is in the brightness, though there are subtleties between the images from the XDR and the standard model, with a little more contrast and gentler gradation on tones. It’s a tough call to the naked eye, though, and you wouldn’t be unhappy with either.

Refresh rate is the big ticket feature here, and having 120Hz on the XDR. You can test this quite easily for yourself using different online tools, like Test UFO, but you can really see it if you play fast-frame-rate games, such as DOOM Eternal. I noticed the difference playing Cyberpunk 2077 and even in the sequences of Civilization VII.

Should I buy the Apple Studio Display XDR?

For most Apple users, the regular Studio Display is still more than enough monitor, and if you want 120Hz, there are other options that cost significantly less. However, if you want the very best experience for your Mac, the Studio Display XDR is the one to go for.

Using this monitor is a dream, whether you’re working or gaming. The quality of both still and moving images is hard to beat, and the built-in speakers, microphone and cameras save you needing any add-ons apart from the computer itself.

While possibly overkill for most home users, it does offer pro-quality, so whether you’re editing video, images or 3D modelling, you will get a precise image and accurate colour. It’s the perfect pairing for the Mac Studio devices, but equally at home with a MacBook Pro.

Some users may miss the 32-inch size of the former model, but there’s always the option to pair two of these screens together for a giant workspace. Personally, I wouldn’t want anything bigger than 27 inches on my desk. I would love to see an iMac Pro offering, though, at this size.

If you've got hundreds of thousands burning a hole in your trouser pocket, there are lots of ways you could spend it. Many of us would look to a car, or a house payment – others might splash on a stunning watch, or some hi-fi equipment.

But there are few instances where you might think of spending it on a computer. If you do fancy that, though, Asus has you covered with a new model, with a staggering US$99,999 (approx. £74,500 / €86,150 / AU$140,000) price tag.

That comes with a whopping 748GB of RAM on board, which is likely to make up a significant portion of that price tag. The ongoing price rises for RAM – known colloquially as RAMageddon – have seen the cost of many consumer electronics grow significantly in recent years.

The bulk of that popularity comes from those seeking to power AI models, which requires exorbitant amounts of computing power. It's part of the reason why so many devices are facing stock issues and seeing their prices increase.

Here, that RAM is paired with an Nvidia Grace Blackwell Ultra chip, which is paired with a Blackwell Ultra graphics chip. All of that is powered by a built-in power supply which delivers 1,600 watts, while the cooling system is said to be capable of handling the chip's full power under sustained load without throttling, which is probably the least you'd expect at that price.

You'll find eight USB 3.2 ports on board, as well as a USB 2.0 port and a pair of 10 Gbps Ethernet ports. There are, however, no USB 4 or Thunderbolt ports on offer, which feels a little short-sighted at this price point.

Still, this is never going to be the option for the everyman. This is designed with one goal in mind, and that's to power AI models, and it should do a fine job of that. Personally, I'd still buy the Porsche Taycan, but that's just me.

2026 is certain to be a landmark year for Apple. With the departure of long-term CEO, Tim Cook, happening in just a few months, we're expecting big things to mark the dawn of John Ternus' reign.

According to the latest reports and rumours, that could include as many as four new members of the Mac family. It comes after a trio of MacBook models arrived earlier in the year, including the more affordable MacBook Neo.

Here's everything you need to know about what's expected.

Mac Studio

The most professional Mac in the brand's range looks set to get another boost later this year. That's set to include the M5 Max and an as-yet-unreleased M5 Ultra chip.

Current reports don't suggest any other changes, but that's not too uncommon. More power is never a bad thing, and it should make a big difference for power users.

iMac

The iMac got boosted up to the M4 chip in late 2024, which does make another change feel sudden. Still, fans certainly won't complain, with a bolstered M5 chip-equipped model slated this year.

The report also suggests a new palette of colours for the range, though there's no greater detail on offer.

Mac Mini

This is the one I'm personally most excited for. I've been eyeing up the current Mac Mini for a while, but I've been holding out for the added boost of an M5 chip.

According to reports, the new device will look much the same as its predecessor, but will gain the M5 and M5 Pro chips inside. That's a decent enough boost, and should make it worth the wait.

MacBook Ultra

Last, but certainly not least, is the long awaited MacBook Ultra. That's the expected name given to the redesigned MacBook Pro model, which has been the subject of rumours for years now.

That's said to include an OLED, touchscreen panel as the key feature of a new design. It's also said to feature a Dynamic Island in place of the current notch, which would tie the design in more closely with other devices like the iPhone.

When Logitech told me it was making a folding mouse, I immediately needed to know what on earth that meant, and it didn't take much time reading the Mobi Fold's press release to know I also needed to test it out for myself.

After all, when you see a mouse that folds like a little wallet or a flip phone, you immediately wonder what it's like to use, and whether it can possibly be comfortable enough to actually feel worthwhile. Well, after getting my sample midweek, I've spent 24 hours working with it, and it's confirmed my suspicions in more than one way.

The Mobi Fold is a fascinating bit of design. When you unbox it, you'll find it already unfolded, looking much like a mouse but with much of its bulk missing. It sits on your desk like a little hill, and only when you lift it out can you see how easy it is to snap it shut.

Doing so powers it down, so flipping it shut is basically the power switch. You can pair it with Logitech's included dongle for the best connection, but it also has Bluetooth and can swap between three devices with a button press near its sensor.

Actually getting into some regular use with the Mobi Fold, though, its design immediately raises some obstacles. My daily work mouse is the Logitech MX Master 4, so I'm used to good ergonomics, and the Mobi Fold has basically none to offer. It's flat and narrow, and my two outer fingers end up dangling over it onto the desk as I use it.

Because of the open space beneath it when it's unfolded, I also end up clawing around it a little, and that just isn't too comfortable. The main mouse buttons are very solid, thankfully, with good clickiness and travel, but the scroll wheel between them is far from ideal.

To keep that surface flat, it's a touch-sensitive system, and I found it a little stilted and not too fluid. It's miles worse than a mechanical wheel, and because of the mouse's design, there are also no extra buttons to speak of (like a forward or back toggle, for instance).

Using the mouse all day, I've been struck by its limitations pretty constantly, but Logitech obviously intends it for quite a niche audience. After all, at £70 it's far from a really affordable option, and a top-end MX Master 4 is only £40 right now on Amazon – step down to the older but still phenomenal Master 3S, and you might end up paying similar money.

With that comparison in mind, the sole advantage the Mobi Fold offers is its portability, which is extremely impressive. Is it so much better than one of Logitech's already small, much cheaper devices, like the Pebble Mouse 2 M350s, which is literally £15 direct from Logitech right now? No – in fact, it's worse. Yes, it's smaller in your bag and can be pocketed more easily, but in every other way, I'd rather have the cheaper mouse (having used it a decent amount, too).

This means the Mobi Fold ends up being a classic case for that famous Jurassic Park quote: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." Logitech made a folding mouse, and from a technical standpoint, that's hugely impressive, sturdy and solid as it feels in the hand.

Separately, though, Logitech was already making the best productivity mouse in the world, and that obvious comparison means the Mobi Fold looks more like an experiment than it does a device I'd ever recommend to anyone.

There are rumours that Apple could be planning to announce a MacBook Ultra, a premium tier device that sits above the MacBook Pro and offers something we've not seen in Apple's laptops before – a touchscreen OLED display.

With WWDC 2026 came the announcement of Apple's next macOS software, called Golden Gate. That new software has been released in beta and it contains an interesting new function – full touch support for a Mac via Sidecar.

Previously, with macOS 26, you could only control your Mac on iPad using a mouse or trackpad – ie., it behaved in the same way as it did on your actual Mac. That's now different in macOS 27, pointing to Apple implementing full touch support across macOS.

This was discovered by @BLCNYY on X, who shared a video of the touch support in action after accessing the macOS 27 beta (via Notebookcheck).

As with rumours about Apple's iPhone Ultra, this isn't an absolute confirmation of Apple launching a touchscreen MacBook – it's more the case of showcasing software support for something we expect to happen. It might simply be that Apple decided to add touch controls via Sidecar.

But, that doesn't account for other pointers we have towards a new touchscreen MacBook. We've previously reported that Samsung Display is expected to ship OLED screens to Apple for the new MacBook in July, in 14.3- and 16.3-inch sizes.

That's on top of previous confirmation that Apple is creating an Ultra tier of devices, as well as other Apple plans from Mark Gurman, one of the most reliable leakers of Apple's future products.

The idea of a touchscreen MacBook was shot down in 2010, with Steve Jobs saying during the launch of Mac OS X Lion that it wasn't a good experience: "We've done tons of user testing on this and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical… it's ergonomically terrible".

But the assumption that Jobs had made was that you're using touch a lot of the time. I have a Windows laptop that supports touch and I don't use it often, but I can't imagine it not being there.

I use it for ad hoc interactions, for casual things. It's not a replacement for the keyboard or trackpad, but sometimes, I just want to tap – especially when I'm showing someone else something on the screen.

The introduction of touch to the Mac would open up a whole new world of opportunities for users and for some, that might be the incentive to move to the MacBook Ultra.

Just make sure that if it does happen, you have your Apple Polishing Cloth to hand.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend that Logitech's new mouse is the smallest I've ever seen, or the most portable – but it is undeniably a first in one big, obvious way: it folds. That's a feature that makes almost no sense when just written down, but if you check out the header image at the top of this piece, and the product image a little further down, it might start to clarify for you.

The Logitech Mobi Fold is basically an ultra-portable, slimline mouse that has a big folding hinge in the middle of it. When you're not using it, it can fold up clamshell-style, like a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7, and with pretty similar dimensions, to be honest.

The mouse comes with one of Logitech's Bolt USB receivers to let you connect it to just about any device (including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and more). It also has Bluetooth, though, like almost any Logitech mouse, as an easy backup alternative.

Also consistent with other Logitech devices is outstanding battery life – rated at up to 30 days on a charge with normal use, and with 22 hours of use coming from just a single minute of charging. That last stat is fairly remarkable, obviously.

Of course, as those who moved early on folding phones can attest to, hinges are a failure point, so Logitech's keen to point out that this one should last for up to 15 years, and has been drop-tested and is dust-resistant. That's reassuring, albeit I haven't had my hands on one to test quite yet.

The part I'm probably most curious about is the scroll wheel, which is a touch area rather than a mechanical system, to keep the mouse super compact. We'll see how that works, although Apple's Magic Mouse has long proved that it can be satisfying when properly engineered.

The Mobi Fold should come out later this month, and is priced at $79.99/€79.99/£69.99. That's far from the bargain basement, of course, and suggests that Logitech thinks plenty of people will value its portability highly enough to make it worth spending a decent chunk on it. We'll see what I make of that very soon.

Plans for the next-gen MacBook Ultra have been revealed, detailing that it could use a hybrid OLED display, with the release expected in Q3 2026, likely October.

Rumours about MacBook Ultra have been floating around for some time. After a flurry of releases that gave us updated MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines – and introduced the MacBook Neo – Apple could have something even bigger in store.

The details come from analyst firm Omdia, talking about the rise in OLED display shipments for laptop use. In the report, it says that Samsung Display will provide the panels from July, lining up a launch later in the year.

Apple hasn't used OLED for its laptops so far, instead opting for Mini-LED. The report says that Apple will use "oxide TFT and RGB tandem OLED technology", which sounds like it will be similar to the display in the iPad Pro.

The aim will be to provide power efficiency, without losing the high brightness that Mini-LED offers. While OLED's self-emissive properties mean greater light control and the elimination of blooming, maintaining high brightness will be the challenge here.

But the MacBook Ultra might offer more: it could debut touchscreen onto the MacBook line for the first time, about a decade after the rest of the market. Apple has long maintained that touch doesn't fit on a laptop (despite the ill-fated Touch Bar), but rumours point to a significant shift in policy.

It's hard not to point out the irony in calling it the MacBook Ultra, if it's then the only model that supports touch, a feature the company has avoided for so long. It's expected that this model will sit above current M5 Pro and M5 Max model, and might also see the debut of the new M6 chip.

The Ultra name is expected to be introduced across Apple products, with the iPhone Ultra the anticipated name for the folding phone. We could also see an iPad Ultra and AirPods Ultra in the future to create a new super class of Apple devices.

According to 9to5Mac, the new MacBook Ultra could come in 14.3 and 16.3-inch sizes, while the new panel might allow for slimmer packaging than the Mini-LED panels in the current Pro models.

By the end of 2026, Apple could have effectively topped and tailed its MacBook line, with the Neo at the bottom and Ultra at the top, providing a wider choice of models and price points than ever before.

Computex was a pretty big deal this year, full of new chips from the likes of Qualcomm and Intel, but while those will likely change the market in bigger ways, the show also offered up some more particular innovations that I got to see. One of these very precise steps forward was taken by Samsung's displays division, which had a secret to share.

While it wasn't visible on the public-facing booth, Samsung had a genuinely tiny sideroom that I was ushered into at one point this week so that I could see a non-final version of the world's first 4K QD-OLED display with a 360Hz refresh rate. While we've obviously seen plenty of monitors go much higher than those numbers, on OLED displays there's been a fairly hard ceiling at 240Hz for technical reasons.

Samsung isn't the only display centre working hard on the problem, but it might just be the first one to get a monitor on the market to solve that problem and burst through that performance ceiling. The QD-OLED Penta Tandem, as it's labelled for now, uses a blend of Samsung's techniques to make things work. It was suitably vague about exactly how it did so, but the crucial thing is that it's been done.

The panel is 31.5 inches diagonally, so it's close to what many of us might call a small TV, but it has a bunch of obvious gaming features to offer. One is that the 360Hz cap only applies when you're in 4K – drop down to 1080p, and it rises up to 680Hz, making this theoretically adaptable to competitive needs.

It also boasts a DisplayHDR True Black rating of 600, which is hugely impressive and means that its blacks should have that super inky richness that you'd want for immersion. Plus, it brings Samsung's new V-Stripe OLED panel system, which again should boost the vividness of its colours a little.

Some of those specs are more than a little technical, of course, and I'm not sure I'm the one to break them down in crazy detail. What I can do, though, is give you a sense of what the monitor actually looked like in motion. The short version is that it's clearly a monster, but I'd have to test it in a more practical setting to get a better sense of its performance.

The brightness isn't to be questioned – showfloor lighting is always a stress-test for devices, and even in Samsung's side room, things were challenging. The monitor looked super bright and vivid, and that makes me think it should be nice and adaptable to different conditions.

The level of detail was exactly what you expect from a 4K demo, albeit with just a looping F1 25 trailer to go from – again, hardly the most comprehensive sizzle reel for a monitor of this sort, not least because it wasn't a 360Hz trailer.

That also cuts to the real dark heart of this hands-on time, which is that I can't really speak to the monitor's smoothness, because the demo wasn't geared that way. Samsung effectively wanted to put its money where its mouth is, and prove that it wasn't making up the monitor it had announced but not shown.

Well, now I can indeed confirm that it exists, but I'm relatively confident that there will be more occasions on which Samsung shows it off in more detail over the coming months. After all, we don't know the monitor's target price or release date, and the former of those is liable to be fairly frightening.

Early adopters in the world of gaming sometimes end up getting incredible deals that stand the test of time (like if you bought a Steam Deck OLED on release day, for instance). On other occasions, they can end up paying more than anyone else for devices that will only ever be better in subsequent revisions. I'm confident the QD-OLED Penta Tandem will be super polished, reducing any risk, but it's likely to be super expensive when it does arrive.

Last week Ferrari made its biggest announcement in years: its first electric car is the Ferrari Luce EV. But the general public reaction might be best summed up in a single word: yikes.

If people weren’t complaining about the very concept of an electric Ferrari, they were aghast at the design. And to be fair, the Luce EV wasn’t designed by Ferrari’s usual team – but one headed up by former head guff huffer at Apple, Jony Ive.

Given that the Luce EV costs £450,000 / $640,000, it’s fair to say it relies on that classic Ferrari desirability. It may not have enough of it though.

Weirder still, I actually think this just-announced HP laptop may have more of that special tangy Ferrari sauce than the auto-maker's new electric car.

And that’s not actually as mad as it sounds, as this PC was made in collaboration with Ferrari Design Studio, not the chap that gave us the cute and colourful iMac from the late ’90s – much as we bloody love those things.

This is the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC, a laptop that has been in the works for around two years. The aim was to combine all of HP’s practical know-how and as much Ferrari flavour and design sensibility as possible to make one of the most desirable ultraportable laptops of all time.

HP and the Ferrari Design Studio have gone all-out with this one, and I'm not even talking about the specs here. There’s an excessive attention to detail that frankly goes far beyond what separates a bad laptop from a good one.

But then you need to get excessive when you’re talking about the rarefied air of an almost $6,000 laptop (that's circa £4,500 by conversion) where part of the appeal is it’s only made in a run of 4999 – mirroring Ferrari's cars.

So, have the teams pulled it off? I went to see this fancy new HP x Ferrari laptop collab – which, by the way, is called the 'HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC' – to find out.

Haptic touchpad: Ferrari style

The centrepiece of external design from the user’s view is the expanse below the keyboard. It’s a blank and at the same time completely eye-catching piece of textured glass with a sub-surface foil finish layer that shimmers as it catches the light. The idea is that it evokes the finish of one of Ferrari’s shinier cars, like the Scuderia.

You’ll notice there is no outline of a touchpad here, but there is one here nevertheless. It’s because the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC has a haptic pad, which uses a motor to emulate the feel of a mechanical clicker. But there’s no need for any actual motion.

These kind of invisible pads have proved pretty controversial in the past, notably in laptops like the Dell XPS 13. Here, though, HP uses a light bar in the Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC that subtly shows you where the lateral borders of the pad are. Neat, right?

However, the really eye-catching stuff is found on the underside of the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC. That’s right, the bit you never really look at.

Functional minimalism meets pure excess

There’s a lot going on down here. We have a great mass of carbon fibre composite below an oversize viewing window that lets you see a bunch of the internal components, including the fan system and cooling pipes. It’s all based on the exposed engine bay design of Ferrari performance cars.

And from a laptop-reviewer’s perspective, the really unusual part is what this is made of, and how HP hasn’t jammed all sorts of plastic or composite seams and bars between these panels. That viewing window? It’s a single piece of Corning Gorilla Glass in which 2000 holes – not all of the same size, by the way – are drilled in order to allow for air intake.

In the everyday world of laptop design, you tend to use more forgiving, or at least cheaper, materials for these more intricate parts. But the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC isn’t about that life.

Just check out some of the other charming but ultimately unnecessary-from-a-practical-perspective bits down here. There’s the unique number out of 4999 of your laptop stamped on the cooling pipe, which is of course also Ferrari red.

A mini-map of Ferrari’s private Fiorano test track is printed on a heat shield, alongside the coordinates for the Ferrari workshop. The HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC is packed with evidence of both quiet and loud excess.

There’s more of this around the back too, where the heat outlet is a single piece of machined aluminium inspired by the Ferrari F76 “virtual” hypercar.

The funny part is it’s more real than the actual car, which was a purely digital 2025 project made in service to an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) – and as such has long since been consigned to the dustbin zone of Ferrari history in our minds.

Ferrari laptop: Specs and substance

One of the parts that may surprise when you take a closer look at this laptop is how “quiet” the Ferrari branding really is here. There’s the classic Cavallino Rampante ('little prancing horse', as it translates) logo on the bottom, and another small one that half blends into the corner of the rest below the keyboard.

The lid? You’ll only find HP up there. The HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC is a strangely humble show-off.

But let’s get to some more of the substance, not only because I've actually had a try of this exclusive laptop, but because some of the best stuff is here too.

First up, the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC has a great keyboard, with more key travel than an Apple MacBook. It even uses Ferrari’s own font on those keycaps.

Taking a pinch (and thankfully only a pinch) of inspiration from gaming laptops, the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC also has per-key lighting. You guessed it, they are red by default, but you can pick any colour combo you like, including some of those more obnoxious LED animations you’ll recognise if you’ve ever owned a high-end gaming notebook.

The screen is a 3K resolution, 14-inch OLED touch display, with a tandem panel design that lets it reach peaks of 700 nits.

There are no spec options to choose from here. Each HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC has 64GB RAM and a 1TB SSD, while the processor is an Intel X7 Ultra Series 3 chipset. It’s no new-fangled Nvidia Spark or Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite – both fresh off the start line – but is another area where the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC is more classic in its bones, for all its other flashy parts.

The weight is telling too. At 1.382kg, HP and the Ferrari Design Studio have clearly not obsessively spent months shaving off every possible gramme. It’s light enough for ultraportable use, easily. But the focus seems to be on looking and feeling the best, not to lower weight for a more impressive-looking spec list – and that’s no bad thing.

The HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari PC is available from June 12, priced at $5599 in the USA. It'll also be available in the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland. But only 4999 will ever been made – so it might be a trick to obtain one!

When I tested the new XPS 14 earlier this year, I thought I was on relatively safe ground calling it the Windows laptop of the year. Little did I know that Dell would one-up itself this quickly. The XPS 13, launched in front of my eyes at Computex 2026 in Taipei, has skyrocketed up as my most anticipated laptop launch of the year.

The MacBook Neo might be a sea-change for Apple, but having handled and used both, I'd rather have the XPS 13, and that's quite a statement to make while Apple's little fanless wonder impresses testers left, right and centre.

Dell teased the XPS 13 back at CES, with a prototype unit that it wasn't letting people really get hands-on with. Now, though, the laptop's here and ready – it should launch in its default configuration later this month, with more customisable options to follow.

Even without those upgraded SKUs, though, the base-level XPS 13 might just be the best-value Windows laptop I've seen in ages. That's not just because of its specs, which are extremely solid, but because of the superb design work that's evident in its every curve.

Apple was rightly lauded for sticking with an all-metal design for the Neo, and the XPS 13 matches it on that front. It's made from CNC-machined aluminium and looks simply gorgeous, plus it's hugely compact and slim. It weighs just 1kg, and honestly felt like less than that in the hand, and at just 12.7mm thick it's going to be one of the sleekest laptops you could hope to pack into a backpack or carry-on.

Dell's demo units behind closed doors at Computex were locked to a presentation mode, so I couldn't do even the remotest bit of performance testing, but they should come in very solidly. The default version will pack an Intel Core Series 3 to start, with upgrades to Core Ultra versions in the pipeline.

What I did get to do was a whole bunch of tapping and test-typing on the keyboard, which is an interesting one. Dell has moved back to a chiclet keyboard, different from the tighter and bigger-keyed XPS 14 and 16. I don't have strong thoughts on this change – I found the 14's keyboard really solid, and the 13's is clearly also great, just with a slightly different approach.

Key travel felt clicky and deep enough to be satisfying, and the trackpad similarly looks like a good one from my early impression. It's not a haptic one, unsurprisingly, and is a lot smaller than the equivalent on the XPS 14, but I'd be surprised if that caused much angst in everyday use.

If you want an OLED, you'll also have to make the big upgrade to the XPS 14, because the new XPS 13 has an LCD, no matter what, with no upgrade option. It does come with a touchscreen as default, though, which is nice, and it has a really good anti-reflective coating that was tested in harsh lighting and impressed me. With a variable refresh rate that can go between 30Hz and 120Hz, and a native resolution of 2.5K, it looked vibrant and impressive, but with limited on-screen action that'll need more testing.

Dell isn't being shy this summer – its blog post announcing the XPS 13 repeatedly calls out the MacBook Neo's specs and dimensions, to push the narrative that its laptop is a better buy. Crucially, we know only US pricing right now, but at $699 ($599 for students), it's going to end up as a close-run thing.

For $100 more, whether you're a student or more, you'll get a more powerful laptop that's smaller and sleeker, and you'll have the Windows ecosystem if it's your preference (not always a given). I think the Neo is a paradigm shift for Apple, but that doesn't mean it would be my default recommendation for everyone, and those looking for a mid-range, incredibly portable laptop should surely perk their ears up at the XPS 13.

That June launch estimate for the US means that we'll likely get UK pricing confirmed imminently, which will tell us more about the regional comparisons to the Neo, but I'd almost like to get out of that mode regardless. For Mac buyers, the Neo is a huge deal – I'd say that for Windows customers, the XPS 13 could be similarly game-changing.

For loads of people, that Intel Core Series 3 chip will be more than enough power to get them through light workloads and study, and the design notes of the XPS 13 make it irresistible. I can't wait to get my hands on it in a more in-depth test when it's closer to launch – the way it grabbed my attention on a busy showfloor in Taipei really shouldn't be undervalued.

If it can stick the landing, then the XPS 13 and XPS 14 will give Dell perhaps its most compelling XPS slate ever, which is a remarkable reversal from the brand being killed off just 18 months ago. Picking which one's the laptop of the year might be the hardest part.

Microsoft has announced its most powerful Surface Laptop ever – the Surface Laptop Ultra. This isn't just a powerful laptop, it's Microsoft's debut for Nvidia's new SoC – the RTX Spark – that's going to usher in a new era of notebooks.

There's a seismic shift happening in PCs that started with Qualcomm's drive to make Windows on ARM work and provide an alternative to the Intel hardware that's dominated Windows PCs for the last decade.

The Surface Laptop Ultra becomes the new hero device for Windows on ARM, while giving Nvidia exactly the partner it needs to really put some impetus into this side of the market. It also increases the competition with Apple's MacBook range.

New RTX Spark devices aren't going to be available until the "fall", which explains why Microsoft's announcement reads more like a love song to the new hardware, pitched as a laptop "for world makers".

My first thought was that it was designed for the political classes, but the emphasis here is on creators. Microsoft says it's "made for the kind of work that does not fit in a standard laptop".

While there's no end to the broad horizons hyperbole, the point Microsoft is making is that this is new, powerful and deliberately optimised – mechanically, electrically, thermally, acoustically – so that power isn't compromised.

It will come in two colours, Platinum and Nightfall, with a 15-inch PixelSense Ultra touchscreen sporting a 3:2 aspect and boasting 2000 nits peak brightness (comfortably brighter than the MacBook Pro). It'll also feature a pixel density of 262ppi.

We're told that it's less than 18mm thick and weighs under 2kg, again, MacBook Pro territory, while it also features a 30% larger trackpad than previous Surface laptops.

Finally, it's well equipped with connections, including USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, SD card and a 3.5mm headphone socket.

But the star of the show – and the bit that's also an unknown right now – is the Nvidia RTX Spark that sits at its core. This is a new super SoC that's designed to handle local AI, integrating a powerful GPU, while offering up to 128GB unified memory.

Effectively, it's pitched for the evolution of Windows computing that supports much greater AI workflows on the device without offloading compute into the cloud, while also offering the sort of power that will probably draw gaming to Windows on ARM too.

Perhaps the icing on the cake, is that a footnote on the Surface Laptop Ultra page outlines that the SSD will be user replaceable too.

Early benchmarks suggest that the Nvidia RTX Spark offers 54% more power than the Apple M5, but is bettered by the M5 Pro. This is just the start of the RTX Spark journey, though, so I'm sure we'll hear a lot more about the performance in coming months.

While it might well be ruffling feathers at the more long-established likes of Intel and AMD, Nvidia’s announcement that it’s bringing its first SoC, the RTX Spark, to the market in the coming weeks and months seems not to have caused too much stress at Qualcomm.

The San Diego giant has been making strides of its own in the PC world for the last couple of years, building up its Snapdragon X line to become a player in the high-end laptop market. Now, it’s launching the Snapdragon C to also take a tilt at the low-end segment, and that means that it’s basically further along than Nvidia, but still very much a direct competitor.

When asked about Nvidia at a media Q&A in Taipei, where it announced Snapdragon C at Computex, Qualcomm’s Kedar Kondap, SVP and general manager of compute and gaming, had a concise and bullish response to Nvidia’s arrival in the market: “Welcome to the family”.

Expanding on that a little, he said that Qualcomm is “excited” about the new competition and sees Nvidia’s arrival as a useful bellwether for the industry more widely. There’s clearly some institutional ego, though – as evidenced by vocal reminders that Qualcomm was in the sector first.

Kondap underlined that Qualcomm “invested early on” in breaking into the PC market as Nvidia now hopes to, and claimed that this added experience has seen it “driving the entire ecosystem” of its chips into relevance. That perhaps tilts a little bit more of his company’s hand – competition is generally good for the consumer, but it’s surely not the best news for a giant player in the sector like this.

Kondap went on to say that the RTX Spark represents evidence of “positive tailwinds for the entire ecosystem” of the PC market, though, and that’s probably a little easier to accept at face value. When the most valuable company in the world thinks there’s more money to be made in the laptop market, that suggests it’s in a solid place.

Of course, given price spikes, memory shortages and stock issues, that might not feel all that accurate from a customer’s point of view, but we’re getting used to shareholders and regular folks having slightly different reads on the tech industry, at this point.

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang does love a long keynote speech, and like any other head honcho in tech, he also loves to keep the tidbits that might actually matter to normal customers until the very last minute.

That’s what happened during Nvidia’s presentation at this year’s Computex here in Taipei – after pretty much 90 minutes of detailed waffle about data centres (sorry, AI factories) and big-stack server racks, Huang got to the extremely heavily-leaked important bit. Nvidia’s getting into the Windows PC business in a new, and very important way.

Huang got to do what Intel and AMD have been doing for years – hold up a tiny system on a chip onstage and greet it as the dawn of a new computing age.

That’s almost certainly hyperbole, but it’s nonetheless a really big business move for Nvidia, which has spent a couple of decades being heavily associated with graphics cards specifically.

The RTX Spark, its first SoC, means that for the first time, we’ll be able to pick up and test Windows laptops and desktops later this year that run entirely on Nvidia architecture. It’s built into a combined chip called the Arm-based RTX Spark, and basically pairs the N1X CPU (the all-new bit) with a Blackwell GPU, with 128GB of unified memory on board.

That’s quite a powerful pairing of hardware, and from Nvidia’s point of view, the motivation seems to be in removing potential bottlenecks where users’ CPUs are concerned. Of course, raising its market value by another few billion might be a side objective.

Crucially, as underlined by Huang having a chip to hold in his hand onstage, the RTX Spark and N1X are going to be in actual laptops this year. Huang had prototypes from the likes of Dell, Asus, MSI and a bunch more, so this shouldn’t be pie-in-the-sky stuff.

While we don’t really have full or detailed specs around power to refer to right now, the performance that Nvidia’s estimating on the graphical side looks remarkable. It says that the RTX Spark is roughly equivalent to a 5070 laptop GPU, which means you’ll get very solid performance from it in recent releases, and it confirms that in a few years, I’d expect almost any laptop to have gaming chops we’d have dreamed about years ago.

What does this mean for normal people? In short, the laptop market is about to get extremely competitive. Qualcomm has already injected real urgency by pushing so hard on its Snapdragon chips for laptops, but Nvidia wading in will make things even messier.

For now, the first generation or two of RTX Spark laptops is going to be premium – think laptops around £2,000 or $2,000 or more. Give it a few years, though, and you'd imagine it'll have more entry-level options to bring to the table, too.

Dell doesn't always bother to do much at Computex, but this year it's bucked that trend in a big way by debuting what might be the most consequential part of its XPS brand revival. After bringing out some frankly gorgeous 14 and 16-inch XPS laptops earlier this year, it's now showing off a more final XPS 13, which crucially comes in way more affordably.

In the US, which is the only place for which we have some confirmed pricing right now, the laptop will start at $699.99, with a student discount reportedly bringing it down to $599.99 when it launches in July, making it only a little bit pricier than the MacBook Neo. While we don't actually yet have sales figures to back things up, most analysts are confident that the Neo is a huge change for Apple, and it's clear that the rest of the industry is moving in the same direction.

While the XPS branding has been around for ages, it's been a very long time since a new XPS could be picked up this affordably, and it's very impressive to note that the laptop still looks pretty gorgeous and is the lightest XPS ever made at just 1kg. It's around 12.7mm thin, too, so also the thinnest ever.

How is Dell keeping the cost of the laptop down? By going with slightly older silicon – the Intel Series 3 Core 5 320 on the most affordable version, a chip that should still be more than enough for most light users (including the all-important student market). The laptop will come with a 512GB SSD to begin with, and either 8GB, 16GB or 32GB of RAM, depending on configuration, with a 256GB SSD version seemingly to follow.

You'll also be able to step up to Intel's Core Ultra 7 335 for a pretty significant boost in power, although the price hike isn't yet clear and could make that something to hesitate on. Regardless of internal specs, you'll get a 13.4-inch IPS touchscreen display, with a resolution of 2560x1600, and a 30-120Hz variable refresh rate.

The big downside to the laptop's otherwise very sleek design is that it cuts down on ports significantly, with a USB-C port on either edge being the sum total (not even a 3.5mm audio port, even). That's a throwback, but also familiar from the MacBook Neo, so might just be par for the course now.

I adored the XPS 14 this year when I tested it, and while there are plenty of major differences between that super-premium model and the XPS 13, I still can't wait to get hands-on with the new laptop. I might get that chance here at Computex in Taipei, but we'll certainly be raring to test it when it comes to the UK later this year, regardless.

There is now a place that you can go, online, which lets you experience what it was like to use computers in years gone by. The Virtual OS Museum is a live space for you to actually try the OS offerings of old.

Yup, this isn't just a list of old operating systems from machines no longer in use, it's a live experience. That means you can try out these working OS examples as if you were really using them back in the day.

At time of publishing, the Virtual OS Museum is home to over 250 platforms with more than 570 distinct operating systems and, it says, over 1,700 installs.

You can go way back to 1948 and try out Manchester Baby, or try out more modern options.

Currently you can try out early mainframe systems, CTSS, early Unix, Xerox Star Pilot/ViewPoint, classic MacOS, DOS, OS/2, BeOS, Windows from 1.0 to early Longhorn betas, PalmOS, Newton OS, early Android, and iOS.

Thanks to emulation you can try all these systems and more where you may have never had access or been able to try them before this.

So there is a chance to experience some nostalgia, for those that has these systems in the past. This is also an opportunity for anyone to experience what it was like to use these systems, and to see just how we got to where we are digitally today.

Curated by Andrew Warkentin, the museum is a way to run systems that might otherwise only work with certain emulators, exact versions, or with patched emulators that can take days to build. The museum makes access far more simple and open to all.

While this does make access far easier, it's not run within a browser. That means you will need to download and install this. The full edition is a massive 121GB zipped, which expands to 174GB when unzipped. Or go for the lite version, at 14GB zipped, where images are downloaded as needed.

If you want to give it a try, you can get started at The Virtual OS Museum website for free.

It shouldn't come as a huge surprise to anyone that Qualcomm's big launch at Computex 2026 isn't an ultra-premium one. After a year or so of flaunting the Snapdragon X2 lineup at various trade shows, it's using this one to branch out into potentially more important territory – the lower end of the market.

Its Snapdragon C chip is now public, albeit without a huge number of detailed metrics attached when it comes to its relative potency, but I just handled one of the first laptops that'll hit the market with the chipset on board. Acer's new version of the Aspire Go 15 will have the system-on-chip and should be out in a couple of months' time, with August looking most likely.

Acer isn't quite ready to nail down that release date, though, and it's also not yet made a final price public, which leaves two fairly large question marks open over this laptop's name. Still, Qualcomm has said that the Snapdragon C is targeting the $300 price bracket, so we can make fairly obvious guesses there.

That makes the Aspire Go 15 a direct competitor to Chromebooks of years past, Googlebooks of years future, and lower-end Windows machines in their millions. From that point of view, it looks like it has decent enough options to offer.

You get a 1080p display, 512GB of SSD storage and 8GB of RAM, with that latter spec being key to keeping the laptop's price from ballooning given global inflation. It also has a full-scale keyboard along with a number pad, which might well be useful for some of the students Acer hopes will buy the machine.

I gave that keyboard a quick bit of test typing, much to the concern of Acer's local reps, and it felt solid enough. That concern was because this wasn't a finalised machine, but a supply chain prototype – with apparently non-final materials, too. The laptop is plastic, as we've come to expect from this sort of price.

That means that picking it up, opening it and closing it, and giving it a bit of a squeeze surreptitiously, the Aspire Go 15 didn't feel too great from a durability standpoint. There was flex in the chassis aplenty, and I wouldn't necessarily love to test it with a drop from a few feet onto hard flooring.

Still, the likely price really does excuse that to a huge extent, and the real test of the laptop will be something I couldn't get into in my brief session – how Snapdragon C stacks up. If it can run Windows 11 really smoothly, albeit with a power ceiling that almost certainly won't make it a true productivity powerhouse, then it could be a pretty big deal.

Google might be rebranding Chromebooks, but its new Googlebooks will still be restricted by running on a simplified web-based OS, and even with its feature bloat and annoying AI integrations, Windows 11 remains hugely adaptable and compatible. A generation of super-affordable chips that can run it well moving forward could be pretty tidy.

Apple will still be sitting pretty and smug on the £599 MacBook Neo, mind you, with a couple of extra hundreds of your local currency to account for its vastly superior build quality and design choices. I suspect Qualcomm won't mind that vibe one bit, though, if it can shift a serious number of laptops £300 and under. From this first look at the Aspire Go 15, Acer might just give it a helping hand there.

Samsung has announced that it has developed the first monitor combining 4K resolution with a 360Hz native refresh rate. The new 31.5-inch OLED monitor will be shown off at Computex 2026.

Samsung is claiming a world's first with its new QD-OLED screen, as previous monitors featuring a 360Hz refresh rate have required a drop in the resolution to 1440p or 1080p, losing some of that essential detail.

Samsung says that optimisation of the panel circuitry and driving system means that this OLED screen can deliver both for the first time, meaning it will be able to produce incredibly smooth and detailed fast-moving graphics better than ever before.

The options for refresh rates don't stop there, because users can drop the resolution to 1080p to benefit from 680Hz, which Samsung says is ideal for competitive first-person shooter gaming.

Beyond the appeal for smooth and detailed graphics, the Samsung monitor doubles-down on picture quality, with support for Vesa's DisplayHDR True Black 600 standard, and higher brightness than existing OLED monitors. That should boost colour performance, give rich contrast and mean that blacks are really well handled.

The panel itself uses a V-stripe pixel structure where red, green and blue sub-pixels are aligned in vertical stripes, allowing sharper edges to text, which boosts readability and clarity.

Samsung has a strong reputation in this category, producing some of the best monitors, especially in its Odyssey family, designed specifically for gamers. Currently, Samsung's Odyssey G7 monitor offers 4K resolution, but to get 360Hz you have to drop it to 1920 x 1080 pixels.

Samsung's new monitor doesn't appear to have a name – it's just the world's first 4K 360Hz QD-OLED monitor – as it's exhibited by Samsung Display rather than the consumer division. That's likely to change though, once Samsung Electronics offers it for sale, probably in the Odyssey range.

It's also unlikely that Samsung will keep this panel as an exclusive, so it's likely to appear from other brands that have Samsung as a display supplier, such as Asus, Dell or Gigabyte.

Qualcomm has broken some of its own Computex news a little early this year, revealing the new Snapdragon C processor – one that takes it into new territory by explicitly targeting entry-level, more budget-friendly laptops and devices.

Unlike the Snapdragon X lineup, this chip should end up in laptops that cost far less (certainly less than £500, although we don't have pricing from any brands at the time of writing). It's a super interesting step for Qualcomm to take, but in some ways an obvious one, when even premium brands like Apple have made it clear recently that it wants to make more affordable devices.

The MacBook Neo, after all, is one of the most sensational laptop launches in ages, bringing Apple's design excellence to a far more approachable price for the first time in ages. Now, Qualcomm will hope that it can become an even more ferocious rival in silicon terms.

We know that Acer has a laptop with the Snapdragon C ready to go – the Aspire Go 15, and it's one of a few brands that Qualcomm has confirmed it's working with. That said, it's also keeping its cards close to its chest on both pricing and a release window, so we're still guesstimating on that front.

Given that Qualcomm was already in the process of building out more levels to the Snapdragon X portfolio, though, with some X2 Plus laptops coming in well under £1000 in theory, so it makes sense that Qualcomm says the chip will target "$300 and up" in pricing terms.

In a briefing call earlier this week, Qualcomm spokespeople were guarded but did confirm that the chipset could theoretically work with future Googlebooks, meaning that it could dovetail with Google's big new strategy direction in laptop, so it's really quite a big time in budget laptops.

I'll be in Taipei for Computex next week and expect to learn a lot more about Snapdragon C and its capabilities – including more technical details about its performance ceiling. We know that it has an NPU for AI work, but how powerful that ends up being is hard to gauge.

All of this is great news for you, if you're in the market for a new laptop and don't want to spend much. The lower end of the laptop world is getting far more potent and interesting, which should drive more competition and innovation to come.

LG has taken its competitive gaming monitor offering to a new level with its latest creation that promises to offer a blistering fast refresh rate.

According to the Korean company, this is the "world's first Full HD gaming monitor with a native 1,000Hz refresh rate". That should mean this offers the fastest possible delivery of visuals to ensure gamers can respond quickest – ideal for competitive gaming.

The LG UltraGear 25G590B is a 24.5-inch monitor with Full HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolution that sits in a compact design and is optimized for high-level gaming.

This is specifically designed and built to work with FPS games, with the ultra-fast visual updates needed for enhanced smoothness and motion clarity, that lead to faster reaction times.

The key here is that this is a native 1,000Hz monitor. Other options may have required you to adjust screen size or resolution settings to hit that level of speed. This monitor comes with that level of speed, and FHD resolution, as standard.

LG has also enhanced this with its own software smarts including Motion Blur Reduction Pro. This should make fast moving objects sharper and more easy to track.

The IPS screen can deliver rich colours, while it's covered in a low-reflection film, to ensure there is minimal glare for the best possible visibility and immersion.

AI Scene Optimization is another feature which allows the monitor to adapt output based on the scene being displayed, to get you the best depth and realism. While the AI Sound ensures spatial audio is offered with super clear in-game communications.

The monitor emblem itself also features lighting, allowing you to customise this for ambient illumination.

When is the LG UltraGear 1000Hz monitor released?

LG says the UltraGear 25G590B will become available to buy in the second half of 2026. It says this will be available in "select markets" with availability on a wider scale rolling out later in the year.

Usually LG launches in Korea the US and Europe first, so they are likely to be the first places to get access to the blistering refresh rates of this new class of LG gaming monitor.

We’re less than a month away from Apple’s developer conference, WWDC, where the company is expected to announce its future software releases for its iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch models and MacBooks.

Following a name change last year, the upcoming software builds are likely to be called iOS 27, iPadOS 27, watchOS 27, and macOS 27, and they will arrive on all the latest devices announced this year, along with those still to come. The folding iPhone Ultra, anyone?

Many older devices will also be treated to the software updates. That's usually at least those launched in the last five years, but as is typically the case, a few older devices will drop off the support list. And for Mac, we already know a couple of those models.

Which Macs won't support macOS 27?

As noted by 9to5Mac, Apple confirmed at WWDC25 that macOS 26 Tahoe would be the last software build to support Intel-powered Macs. The new macOS 27 software will therefore be the first to be exclusive to Macs powered by Apple’s silicon.

That means if you are still holding onto a Mac that doesn’t have one of Apple’s M chips under its hood, you won’t be able to download the new software when it is released.

There are currently four Macs that run macOS 26 Tahoe that are on the chopping block, based on the 9to5Mac report: MacBook Pro (16‑inch, 2019), MacBook Pro (13‑inch, 2020, four Thunderbolt 3 ports), iMac (2020), Mac Pro (2019).

All other Macs are expected to be supported by the new software, though we won’t know for sure until Apple unveils macOS 27 and the system requirements for that software at WWDC26.

There are also rumours that Apple will drop support for a few iPhone models with iOS 27. The iPhone models rumoured to lose support are the iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 and iPhone SE (2nd generation).

However, this isn’t confirmed as yet – Apple hasn’t actually mentioned anything about older iPhones and upcoming software to date.

For Intel Macs though, it’s the end of the road when it comes to new software features. Maybe it's time to upgrade?