Laptop makers know it's the 'Back to School' season, which is why you'll find various options available in the sales.

Problem is: there are a whole lot of laptops to pick from, right? So what should you opt to buy? Panic not, though, as our experts are here to help.

First up: Windows or Apple? This might be a choice based on how used to one operating system you are over the other, or it might be based on specific app access – which you should check with your school, college or university course.

If Windows is your requirement, then which processor is going to do the job? We've written a piece about Qualcomm V Intel V AMD and the virtues of each – so whether you need on-the-go longevity or outright processing power, that'll help you decide.

Most institutions now suggest that a Chromebook is not the best match for studies (despite earlier school years utilising such budget kit) and the same is typical of using an tablet. Nonetheless, having ditched a laptop for an iPad, some may find it the ideal match.

All said, here are the best 3 laptops for students this Back to School season. We've aimed for the more affordable end of the market, with one a little pricier if pure power is your must-have requirement for more demanding project tasks.

Top 3

Pricing

Technically, the MacBook Neo is the most budget laptop of this trio. But it's the HP's discount price that manages to under cut it at the time of writing – giving a great head-to-head asking price in the £549-599 region.

The MacBook Air is more than double that for its latest M5 processor version. But you don't have to buy the 2026 model, as the M4-toting 2025 version, if available for less, is a very good alternative – that you should be able to get for £999 or under.

What's Unique?

HP OmniBook 5

While 'being a Windows laptop' isn't a unique feature by any means, in this trio of selections it's that operating system that does set it apart from Apple's MacOS.

That'll be a benefit if you're looking to run EXE file types, with some specialist software lacking on Mac (which uses DMG/APP) – especially for some educational, design and programming software.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon Elite X processor isn't to be sniffed at, either, delivering plenty of power – but great efficiency. So if you're going to be on-the-go and unplugged then the epic battery life here is a winner.

MacBook Neo

Apple's budget MacBook is like nothing else in the range – and not just because it's got lots of colourful finishes to pick from.

The Neo skips the typical M-series silicon for the Apple A18 Pro, just as you'll find in an iPhone 16 Pro handset. But this isn't just an iPhone on a bigger scale, it's capable of running full MacOS and associated apps.

The real winner for the Neo, of course, is the trim asking price. This is several hundred cheaper than anything else in Apple's laptop roster, yet the compromise isn't to excess. For many students it'll be ideal and, like its Windows competitor, the battery life is great too.

MacBook Air

If you need a good bit more power, without tickling the 'multiple thousands' box when it comes to price (that's the reserve of the MacBook Pro), then the MacBook Air is a savvy pick.

Its iconic design is seen everywhere for a reason. It's well built, long-lasting, M-series silicon is very powerful, yet the battery life remains massive per charge (thanks to optimisations that Apple gains from controlling all its hardware and software).

You might find connectivity a drawback – USB-C Thunderbolt ports are all that's offered – as you'll need an adapter to plug in an HDMI or larger USB-A peripheral, which is more typical of Windows laptops.

Conclusion

When all's said and done, however, price is a major factor in buying a shiny new Back to School laptop. And it's here that the MacBook Neo is just undeniable.

If Windows is a must then, by all means, look to HP's great-priced option. And if more power is the demand then the step-up MacBook is ideal – even if the price doubles.

All three are great picks, but for the best all-rounder it's the Neo that takes the student crown. A+

Honorable mentions

There are many, many alternative options that could be included here, such as those in our best laptops under £500 guide.

The Acer Aspire 3 is a great laptop at the even more affordable end of the spectrum. Alternatively, the Dell Inspiron 15 sits in the same sort of space.

If you can spend a little more, then the Asus Zenbook A14 offers a slim and light build, an OLED screen, and powerful Snapdragon X1 hardware.

Rank up again and the Dell XPS 14 (2026) is the ultimate purchase, but the price is significant – likely too much for students.

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.

When MSI gave me a glimpse of its upcoming laptop slate late last year, my eye was caught in particular by the new Stealth 16 AI+, which redesigned the MSI laptop that I would most want for myself. The new version was sleeker and slimmer, but it took months to get to the market (like so many recent laptop launches).

Now I've had the chance to use the 2026 champion for a couple of weeks, though, and to finally put the Stealth 16 AI+ through its paces. The slimline gaming laptops market is only getting more competitive, so how does this compete with the Razer Blade 16 and Asus ROG Zephyrus? Read on to find out.

Price and Availability

The MSI Stealth 16 AI+ is available now, having launched earlier this summer, and if you were wondering whether it's the machine to buck the trend of ever more expensive laptops, look elsewhere. As the "Stealth" label suggests, this is a high-end option for those who want a sleeker build, and it's priced accordingly.

The Stealth 16 AI+ starts from $2,099 in the US, but in the UK right now, the cheapest version in stock (as linked by MSI's own site) is at Overclockers for a whopping £2,599.99. That's a serious chunk of change, and confirms that the rebrand has made this a really high-end bit of gaming kit.

Design and Spec

Really, the biggest news about the Stealth 16 AI+ in its 2026 guise is its all-new design, and given it had been a few months since the last time I saw it in person, I wondered if it would live up to my memory of its quality. Well, no worries there – this is a really gorgeous gaming laptop, make no mistake.

MSI has taken things right back to the drawing board, so there's very little common ground shared with last year's Stealth 18 HX AI, for instance. Rather than that older, blockier and more sharp-edged design, this new version is way more rounded in the corners, and has far less ornamentation.

It's black all over, in the mould established by Razer's Blade lineup – that being a T3 Awards 2026 winner, by the way – with just some very subtle linework on the back of the display to make it stand out a little when the light hits it right.

Underneath MSI's laptop there's a whole heap of ventilation in the form of bored-out holes, and there's no thermal shelf (AKA rear-end) behind the display, so it's nice and compact for a 16-inch laptop.

That said, there's no point pretending that this is the thinnest laptop on the market, even in the gaming world. It's 16.65mm at its thinnest point, which is still hugely impressive but not the smallest out there, and 1.99kg – so it's not like you'll forget about it in a backpack.

The design is rounded out by plenty of IO action. On the right edge of the laptop, you'll find an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a USB-A port and a 3.5mm audio jack. The other side houses two Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C ports, another USB-A port, the main power delivery port, and a slot for a Kensington lock.

Opening the laptop up, you get a tenkeyless keyboard with quite widely-spaced keys, complete with colour-shifting backlighting that you can control. The trackpad, meanwhile, is huge (and mechanical) – not that you'll use it for gaming unless you're crazy. Usefully, the power key in that keyboard doubles as a fingerprint scanner.

The keyboard is flanked by stereo speakers under grilles, and above that is the display – and while I'll get to how it performs in a bit, the specs tell a lot of the story.

It's a 16-inch OLED panel, at 2500x1600 resolution with a refresh rate of 240Hz, and has a glossy finish. It actually underlines how nice and compact the design of the laptop is overall, since it looks massive in the frame that it's set into. Above the display is a 1080p (at 30fps) webcam with a mechanical privacy shutter.

What you get under the hood in that relatively slim body is superb, though. The version I tested packed in an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, with 32GB of RAM to keep things snappy. 1TB of SSD space is no longer the insurance it used to be, but it's still enough for plenty of games.

Those specs are a mixture of largely top-end options, though, and you can start out with 16GB of RAM and a standard 5070 to keep your costs lower (if you can find the configuration in stock, that is).

That mixture of what's inside the 2026 Stealth 16 AI+ and its all-new looks on the outside is really potent. While I can't quite say it reaches the level of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 from a design standpoint, it's really close, and that makes it MSI's best-looking gaming laptop ever.

Performance

As always with a gaming laptop, a nice design gets you pretty far, but if it meant terrible thermals and throttled performance, it would be no good to anyone. MSI has clearly taken care to avoid that with the Stealth 16's newest version, and I've been hugely enjoying the raw performance it offers up in this top-end configuration.

Benchmarks aren't always the be-all-and-end-all, but it's never a bad thing to compare performance in the likes of Cyberpunk 2077, and the Stealth 16 AI+ (2026) treats one of the most graphically-intensive games ever made like a chew toy.

No matter what configuration you go for, you'll be able to find a super smooth and playable framerate in Cyberpunk. I started by checking out the default configuration, on the "Ray-tracing Low" preset at native resolution (2560x1600), and clocked a lovely 94.89fps average with no frame generation.

Swapping over to the Ultra preset with no ray-tracing, I got 87.43fps on average (also at native resolution), but frame generation unlocks wild potential if you're happy to use it. This is the main advantage of Nvidia's newest generation of cards, after all, and with just the lowest 2X setting, I was able to play the game on its maxed-out "Ray-tracing Overdrive" preset with an average of 77.78fps.

That's frankly remarkable in any portable machine, and underlines just how high the performance ceiling is becoming on laptops now – and I'm a huge fan of how open to tinkering this all leaves you for gaming. It also means that other modern releases will be no problem at all, and it's important to stress that dropping down to a still-nice-and-sharp 1080p will free up way more headroom for you again – that native resolution is arguably sharper than you need.

I say "arguably" because the OLED display here is so lovely that you might just want to max out your settings at all times to make the most of it. OLED is always great in my experience, but this one does stand out as one of the best laptop screens I've ever seen. It's expansive, has real depth of colour and blacks, and that glossy screen coating makes it just look beautiful (albeit while restricting its usefulness in brighter lighting).

It should come as no surprise that when gaming with power connected, on that discrete Nvidia GPU, the fan noise is pretty massive, though. This is something that few gaming laptops can eliminate, and it does mean that you'll want one of the best gaming headsets to go with it for better immersion.

If you opt for some mobile gaming without that power supply plugged in, you'll step down enormously in performance. Since it has that GPU for plugged-in play, MSI hasn't included an Intel chip with the all-important B390 GPU, so the nonetheless excellent Core Ultra 9 386H is way more mediocre when using its built-in Intel Graphics.

Away from gaming, though, I found performance to be really admirable. Light work tasks were no problem at all, and battery life when not gaming wasn't too unreasonable. Of course, it's important to underline that for those who haven't already used one of the best gaming laptops out there, they're really not aimed at unplugged play sessions.

Verdict

I had a feeling that MSI had done sterling work on the Stealth 16 AI+'s 2026 revision, but getting my hands on it has confirmed that in all the most important ways.

This is a superb gaming laptop – one that packs in some brilliant power, but also has a design that's mature and delightfully simple.

It's got a price tag that can't exactly be ignored, of course, and you'll struggle to find the more affordable variants in stock right now, such is the demand.

So if you want a great-looking gaming machine with a stunning display that doesn't have to jump through too many hoops to stay cool, MSI's 2026 is a masterful option.

Also Consider

Razer's Blade 16 is the obvious competition here, and I've mentioned it a few times in this review as a result. Razer's still ahead in terms of design, thanks to the incredible slimness of the Blade, but there's an advantage to be had from MSI – it's more affordable for the same spec, which is a huge deal.

That said, if you want a smaller and even stealthier laptop, I remain in love with the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, although I haven't yet tested a newer version than the 2025 model. It's a beautiful little laptop that runs games flawlessly, but it's got an older processor and a smaller display.

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.

Chrome users in the UK just got a Gemini upgrade for the desktop app – following an earlier rollout in the USA.

The addition of Gemini to the browser brings artificial intelligence (AI) benefits to the user experience and interaction with the browser.

The update will also roll out to Apple's iOS Chrome app some time in August, so iPhone users will also gain benefit.

But what exactly does this Chrome update actually bring? Here's a breakdown of the 5 key benefits:

One Tab  

You can continue to use Chrome as usual, with as many tabs as you wish, but Google's "zero-tab workspace" approach means you can summon Gemini via the icon to the upper right of the browser, even ask it to peek into other tabs to bring contextualised answers – without the need to leave your current tab.

The "side panel" to the right side of the page will pop up, negating the need to toggle between tabs, which is where you can interact with Gemini directly – and see your recent query history, as relevant.

Voice Control

Google Gemini is able to operate with text prompts, but a key part of use is with voice. Now that Gemini "lives" in Chrome – via that top-right browser icon, opening the side panel once clicked – you can also summon the AI agent by voice.

Whether you want to summarise an article, compare data points from multiple tabs, query a YouTube video's content without watching, all of this is possible – again, without leaving your current tab.

Connected Apps

As Chrome is part of the suite of Google apps, the addition of Gemini can be given permissions for cross-app context, too. Whether you're using Google's Maps, Calendar or Gmail, your AI assistant can natively look into those apps for contextual answers, when prompted.

This could mean you compose an email by voice, review it and send it to the relevant party without even opening the separate Gmail tab. Or using Maps to add a location to a Calendar meeting by merely asking Gemini directly.

Imaging

Gemini also integrates its Nano Banana 2 model – used for image creation and manipulation – meaning you can request visual results directly within your current tab. Simply text prompt or use your voice for image-based results.

Personal Protections

Now that Gemini can automate a variety of tasks for you – whether sending that email, posting to social media, or even purchasing products – it's also added personal protections in a "pause and prompt" way, always asking for additional verification before finishing a task.

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.

Gaming laptop deals are a funny thing. It's easy to get carried away when you browse the Amazon Prime Day sale, and to think that every saving you see is an automatic buy – especially if the laptop in question has an Nvidia GeForce RTX card inside it, for instance.

That said, though, the reality is that a fair number of the laptop deals you'll see in the results of a search on Amazon right now aren't that brilliant – with older components or obvious weak spots. If I were going to actually buy one, though, I think MSI would take the crown.

It has a £500 discount on one of its best laptops, and unlike some of the others in this sale, it's a quite recent launch – the 2026 version of the Raider 16 HX.

Going under the hood, it's obviously important to review the components that make this laptop tick, since they're where most of the value is evidenced, and first up is the machine's processor, a high-end Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX. That's nice and powerful, and it's paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti laptop GPU for oodles of gaming oomph, too.

That QHD+ 240Hz OLED display is 16 inches in size, and looks absolutely gorgeous in person, ideal for ensuring that your gaming sessions are as immersive as possible while using the Raider 16 HX.

This all adds up to one heck of a gaming machine, and while I can't pretend that it's an impulse buy, given that it's still over £1800, the scale of this discount means that anyone who's been considering a gaming laptop purchase for a while should be interested.

Geekom has been having a great year, even though these are challenging times for PC manufacturers. It has launched one of the best Windows laptops I've used in recently times – the Geekom X16 Pro – and its mini PCs have proved that you don't need a desktop beast for super speedy everyday tasks.

It has also surprised many with its PCs' gaming prowess. Even though each mini PC features integrated graphics, they are capable of decent gaming experiences for the price. More so with their Prime Day discounts.

I've been testing the Geekom A9 Max recently, running Bazzit for a similar experience to the official Steam Machine and it nigh-on matches performance. It is capable of up to 1440p gaming at 60 frames-per-second, and even 120fps at 1080p.

However, even with the discount, it's a bit pricier than a Steam Machine – not least thanks to the fact you get 32GB of RAM rather than Valve's 16GB. And the AMD Ryzen AI9 HX470 chipset is designed for far more than gaming, making it a very capable AI tool, as well.

There are other Geekom alternatives though, at prices from just £499.

Take the Geekom A7 Max, for example. I turned one of those into a very capable Steam Machine-alike that can play AAA games at 1080p 60fps, and it's now priced at just £560 / $594. That's a lot lower than even the entry Steam Machine, yet it comes with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

And there's the Geekom A6, which is now under £500. It runs on the AMD Ryzen 7 6800 chipset, and sports 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

While not quite Steam Machine standard, the Geekom A6 is ideal for indie and light PC gaming, and can play retro games up to PlayStation 3. Even Nintendo Switch emulation is possible.

There's certainly plenty of choice, although you will need to be quick as Geekom's Prime Day deals will end at midnight tomorrow, Friday 26 June 2026, when Amazon Prime Day is finally over.

When I reviewed the Geekom X16 Pro in May I didn't hesitate in giving it the full five stars. The first Windows laptop from a brand best know for its quality mini PCs has an enormous 16-inch IPS display and more than decent processing oomph, yet comes in a chassis that weighs about the same as a 13-inch MacBook Neo.

I also thought it was great value at the time, with the higher-end Intel Core Ultra 9-185H model costing far less than equivalently spec'ed rivals. And that was without its current Prime Day price drop.

You can also order the same model from Geekom itself and get an even bigger bargain. It's available for $1,119 when bought directly from the manufacturer's US website. You just need to enter the unique T3 code at checkout: T3GKX6D.

The Amazon deal is available until the end of Prime Day on Friday 26 June, while the direct Geekom deal will continue until 2 July 2026 – so you have a bit more time if you miss out.

Naturally, if you order from Amazon the X16 Pro can be delivered the next day. There are benefits to both, therefore, which is why I include them.

As I originally wrote in my review, the X16 Pro is a "confident, powerful PC". It comes with 17-hour battery life and weighs just 2.8lb (1.27kg). That's even with its huge 16-inch display.

It is superthin too, at just under 7mm at its thinnest point, and only 11mm at its thickest. While the display is excellent, with a 120Hz refresh rate and 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution.

There are a stack of connectivity options, including USB 4.0 and HDMI 2.0, and there's Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.4 on board.

It's currently only available in the US, but I'm seriously hoping it comes to the UK and Europe as well at some point in the future.

Buying a gaming laptop can be one of the most intimidating purchases you could hope to make. They're really expensive, whatever part of the market you're shopping in, and just like any other laptop, they're in danger of being replaced by newer, better-value versions at any moment.

That's one of a few good reasons why it's always worth waiting for big sales events to buy one, as the discounts tend to be really deep – and with Amazon Prime Day now in full swing, a window has opened up. If you're in the market for a new gaming machine and you want to make some impressive savings, there are oceans of deals to check out.

To help you narrow things down, I've picked out four top deals that I think you'll want to know about, all of which offer impressively low prices for well-specced machines. They also each make the Steam Machine's recently announced pricing look pretty suspect, so check them out below.

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.

We've been impressed by Geekom's mini PC and laptop range over the last six months, with different models forming the basis of retro games console and Steam Machine builds. But perhaps even more impressive has been the pricing.

Geekom tends to pack its devices with tech, yet keeps their price tickets low – even during the RAM crisis, which has seen the cost of RAM and other components more than triple.

On top of this, the brand regularly puts its best products on sale, with some of the mini PCs hitting rock bottom prices. And that's the case here, where it has pre-empted Amazon Prime Day with a deal so good we have to let you in on the secret.

The Geekom A6 is powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H CPU along with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. The chipset also carries integrated Radeon 680M graphics, capable of 1080p 60fps gaming and everyday use, including video and photo editing.

Usually priced at $599 – which is already a reduction on its original launch price – you can now get it for just $479 with a dedicated T3 code. Just enter OFF20T3A6GK at checkout, either on Amazon or Geekom's own webstore and you get a mighty 20% off.

What's more, if you want to save even more cash, the same code will work on other variants of the A6, including the 512GB model and an aurora edition in a rose pink colour way.

We're expecting further deals over the coming few weeks in the US and UK, not least during Amazon Prime Day, but this is the lowest price this particular model has hit this year.

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.

Lenovo has oodles of laptops to choose from at any one time, to the point where it's almost certainly a little overwhelming if you're hoping to pick up a new machine – where should you start? Well, probably not with the Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition, not because it lacks in any areas, but rather because it's a bit of a beast.

Part-timers need not apply: this is a professional-grade laptop with components to back that claim up, and it can try its hand at all manner of jobs as a result. With a discrete GPU and a powerful Panther Lake chip from Intel, you get power to spare, in a chassis that doesn't even pretend to be particularly lightweight. For those who want a do-it-all powerhouse, keep reading to see if this one's for you...

Price and Availability

The Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition 15-inch is available now directly from Lenovo, and can be configured in quite a few ways. It starts from £2,299.99 with an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H chipset, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 and no touch screen, but that's not the version I tested.

Rather, I got the higher-end model at £2,599.99, packing a Core Ultra Ultra 9 386H instead, along with an RTX 5060 and a touch version of its OLED display. Regardless of whether you get the starting version or that step-up, though, you'll probably agree that this is a seriously premium laptop that makes no pretences about being entry-level.

Design and Features

Lenovo's laptops aren't necessarily known for their slick designs, although some of them are slimmer and sexier than others. The Yoga Pro 7i isn't in that category, in my opinion, although there's still plenty to like about it.

On the positive side, it's a very professional-looking laptop that feels really well-made when you're using it. It has a metal body and frame that hardly flexes at all when it's on a surface, and a bunch of venting on the bottom, sides and back, to ensure that it gets airflow through it when it's under a heavy load. As part of that aim, it also has taller rubber feet than usual on the bottom, although this isn't really an issue comfort-wise when doing actual in-lap work.

There are some core design notes I don't adore, though, one of which is the slightly protruding area at the top of the display that houses the webcam offering. It has a practical purpose, in that it makes for a little lip you can use to easily open the laptop, but I never love how these protusions look.

Then there's the contrast between the bottom and top halves of the laptop. The lid (housing the display) is ever so slightly smaller than the main chassis of the laptop, making for a tiny shelf between the two, and they're also both finished with slightly different edges. This isn't a huge issue, but it makes for a non-unified seam between the two, where I'd prefer a more subtle joining.

The solid build quality also translates to a fairly bulky laptop. It comes in at 1.65kg to start, but that'll tot up slightly with more component upgrades, and at 34.7cm wide, it's a decent unit to put in a backpack or laptop bag.

Being professional-grade, though, the laptop excels from a connectivity point of view. On its left edge, you'll find an HDMI port, two power-enabled USB-C ports, and a full-size SD card reader. On the right, meanwhile, there are two USB-A ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, the power button and a camera switch that can toggle your camera off for privacy.

Opening the laptop up, another good decision is obvious. Despite a sizeable footprint as a 15-inch model, Lenovo hasn't played around with a numpad or anything. Instead, you get a simple but spacious tenkeyless keyboard that feels great to type on, with surprisingly deep key travel and height for a laptop.

The trackpad is very solid – I used its standard version with mechanical clicking, but you can kit it out as a haptic equivalent if desired.

On either side of the keyboard are solid enough stereo speakers, although they're prone to a little distortion, as with most laptop audio.

The display comes in at 2560x1600 and 165Hz, an OLED panel with all those specs, the same whether you upgrade to the touch version or not.

Under the hood, meanwhile, you'll get a latest-gen Intel chip, and again you'll have plenty of power either way.

Finally, this unassuming-looking machine has discrete Nvidia graphics, mainly aimed at professional workflows, but that also unlocks more gaming options. You can choose between a 5050 or 5060 – the latter which I had on test.

You'll get 32GB of DDR5X RAM soldered in on all versions of the Yoga Pro 7i, and a 1TB SSD, too.

That webcam is 5MP and has IR for facial recognition, as well as dual microphones for video calling.

The whole machine only comes in this one colourway – grey.

Performance and Display

Checking out the many specs I covered in the section above, if you've pursued many laptop reviews in recent months, you'll probably be able to make a pretty solid guess at how the Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition performs – extremely impressively.

With that Core Ultra 9 at its heart, I've found the laptop almost impossible to ruffle when using it for my daily workflow, albeit I don't work with video or 3D files. Using it for extensive multi-browser working, though, with image editing and a bunch of downloads and apps left open, it's not broken a sweat.

These Panther Lake chips aren't often in particularly cheap laptops right now, but I've found them extremely reliable performers, in short. Of course, the Ultra 9 chip I had in for testing also features the Intel B390 iGPU (which the step-down Ultra 7 doesn't), so the laptop's also surprisingly capable when gaming without a power supply connected.

It can get playable frame rates in Cyberpunk 2077 with some fiddling (hovering around 40fps easily without looking too shabby), and the same goes for Doom: The Dark Ages. That said, if you plug in your power adapter, the laptop will swap over to the Nvidia GPU you've chosen, and you'll get a major boost, making far smoother gameplay and higher resolutions attainable.

That duality between the GPU and CPU is what makes this laptop such a powerhouse, and a real contender against a highly-specced MacBook Pro, but I don't think people should kid themselves that it's a sensible buy if you want to game. You can get better value elsewhere if that's your main aim, that's for sure, and the best gaming laptops actually have some slicker designs to offer nowadays, too.

Still, it's an impressive set of performance options, and that's made all the more dazzling when you consider the lovely display that everything's happening on. This is a beautiful OLED panel, one that has all the depth and vividness that comes with the display tech. It's also, naturally, a 15-inch monitor, and you do feel that extra real estate compared to smaller laptops.

The extra manoeuvring space for multitasking and open windows can be gold dust when you don't have an external monitor to connect to, so don't discount the laptop based on its size alone. That said, this is one to perhaps see in person before you buy it, since it is a little larger than you might expect as a result.

Verdict

The Yoga Pro 7i Gen 11 Aura Edition (15-inch) has one of the least catchy names I've encountered in a while, even by laptop standards, but that hasn't stopped it from impressing. In terms of raw power, it offers a potent blend of CPU and GPU, in a design that you wouldn't guess has the latter inside.

However, it's far from the most elegant laptop I've encountered recently, and it has an absolutely stonking price tag attached. That means it ticks two boxes at once. Firstly, it does what it says on the tin and performs in the extreme Secondly, you should only buy it if you're certain your workflow requires a Windows laptop with this level of power and flexibility – otherwise, far more affordable options are out there waiting to be explored.

Also consider

It's impossible to ignore the shadow of Apple's silicon when talking about a laptop in this price bracket, so you might want to consider whether a slightly more affordable M5 MacBook Pro is a better choice for you, as I suspect it might be for most of us.

If you're committed to Windows, though, and want a bigger laptop with plenty of power that weighs far less than Lenovo's, then check out our review of the Asus ZenBook A16, with Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip in it. It's almost insanely light for its size, and therefore an interesting contrasting option.

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?

Google has just announced Googlebook, designed as a new category of premium laptops built on the intelligence that Gemini has brought to Android. But the company has also confirmed that support for Chromebooks remains in place.

Chromebooks have been something of a breakthrough in the affordable segment of the laptop market, great for basic computing tasks and avoiding the expense and complication of a full laptop OS.

That's made them popular with educational institutions, for example, the very same budget-limited places that might be concerned that they've invested in obsolete hardware.

There's no need to worry though: Google has come forward to confirm that ChromeOS will continue to get 10 years of automatic updates, despite the evolution of Googlebook.

For those with a large fleet of Chromebooks, these can still be managed by the Google Admin console.

Finally, Google has also confirmed that it's going to be facilitating the move over to the "new experience" that comes with Googlebook, which integrates Gemini Intelligence to make for a smarter computing experience.

So, while those with an existing Chromebook will continue to enjoy that experience, fully supported, some will move to something newer and smarter.

At the moment it's not clear which models will move to the Googlebook experience, but I don't think it would be too much of a surprise if it includes models from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo, the very same brands name-dropped in the Googlebook announcement.

At the Googlebook announcement – part of The Android Show – Google showed off new powers that will come through the OS, including some really clever Gemini-powered skills.

The platform leans on Gemini Intelligence to join the dots, while working to seamlessly integrate Android, allowing instant access to your Android device.

The launch window for Googlebook is later in 2026, when those brands above are expected to release commercial devices, but there are still a few unanswered questions, like what the OS is actually called, and if Google will have its own model, something it has done in the past with Pixelbook, Chromebook Pixel and Pixel C.

What will be next? The Pixel Googlebook?

After months of speculation, Google has confirmed the phase out of Chromebooks in favour of an Android-based laptop platform.

Googlebook will replace its current portable computing solutions and uses a blend of Android, Chrome OS and Gemini to make an all-new, AI-powered MacBook Neo rival.

Unveiled during The Android Show on Tuesday, Googlebook has Gemini and agentic AI built into its heart. As with Chromebook, devices will be built by third-party manufacturers, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo, but they will have to adhere to strict standards.

Every Googlebook, says Google, will be made using "premium craftsmanship and materials" – although they'll come in all shapes and sizes. And there will be a "unique glowbar" on the front of each, with RGB LEDs highlighting the laptop.

As well as its own software and applications, Googlebook will be able to run Android apps from the Play Store, but it's biggest USP is baked-in Gemini Intelligence.

Even the cursor will be AI-powered, becoming a new Magic Pointer. This will enable you to simply wiggle the cursor and it will turn into a Gemini tool that will understand the context of where you move to and click.

That will then give you suggestions of things you might want to do with that specific window or content. Point it at an email, for example, and you might be asked if you want to set up a meeting or action a response. Or point it at two images and it could combine them to make a single picture.

You will also be able to create your own widgets through Gemini prompts, and use agentic AI to create workflows through multiple apps in the one window.

There's a lot still to learn about Googlebook – not least its availability and pricing plans – but it certainly looks like it'll be gunning for Apple's MacBook Neo as a student's next best friend.

We could find out more during Google I/O next Tuesday, 19 May 2026.

Apple’s MacBook Neo launched back in March to rave reviews. It’s the cheapest laptop the company has ever offered, with a starting price of £599 (or £499 if you can take advantage of the education pricing), and it’s superb for the money.

Rather than running on the M-series of processors like the rest of the MacBooks launched in the last five years, the MacBook Neo is powered by leftover A18 Pro chips that previously made for the iPhone 16 Pro.

However, it’s said the leftover processors were kept in storage after they were produced with partially defective cores, meaning they couldn’t be used in the iPhone 16 Pro that required a six-core CPU.

They were fine for the MacBook Neo though – the only issue is, there was only a finite number of them.

Why is there talk of price increases for the MacBook Neo?

Rather than letting them go to waste, it's said the spare chips were repurposed into five-core CPUs and put into the latest MacBook, but now the stock is apparently running out. And that leaves Apple with an intriguing decision.

According to 9to5Mac, analyst Tim Culpan claims Apple has revised its plans after the runaway success of the new device. It now expects to make 10 million MacBook Neos in total – double what was initially ordered.

As a result, this will require a new run of A18 Pro processors to be manufactured, which would consequently be accompanied by a bill from Apple’s chipset manufacturer TSMC.

The cost of the previous run of A18 Pro processors had already been accounted for, being as they were discarded chips left in reserve. The report goes on to say that it's therefore unclear whether the price of the MacBook Neo will increase as a result of more processors having to be manufactured – especially during the global RAM crisis.

We think it's unlikely. It could be that Apple will instead have to accept lower profit margins on the Neo going forward – to keep the buzz about its new laptop continuing apace.

Culpan suggests Apple might actually stop selling the 256GB version of the MacBook Neo though, and only sell the 512GB model in the future, which costs £100 more and offers larger profit margins.

At the moment, it isn't clear, but there have already been rumours of a second-generation MacBook Neo so it might not be a problem for too long.

Satechi has begun selling its latest drive enclosure called the DotDisk as a way to get maximum speed out of the SSD inside, thanks to active cooling.

The drive case supports up to 80Gbps transfer speeds for sustained transfers – something most other enclosures struggle to deliver for anything more than a short burst.

Many current enclosures use breathable materials to try and keep things as cool as possible. Yet you often find a transfer will begin fast and slow down as the drive gets hotter and hotter. This is called thermal throttling and it's exactly what this enclosure is built to fix.

How does the Satechi DotDisk work?

The enclosure works on two levels to ensure the SSD inside stays as cool as possible. Firstly, the precision-milled aluminium cassis helps to dissipate heat while also giving the enclosure durability.

Secondly, it's the active cooling that really sets this apart. The DotDisk uses a thermal pad in conjunction with a micro-fan to actively pull heat away from the drive.

The result is an enclosure that offers consistent speeds with support for up to 80Gbps using USB4 V2 or Thunderbolt 5 connections.

That means this works across Mac and PC options and specifically supports M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs up to 8TB in size. You will, of course, have to buy the drive separately to the enclosure itself.

On the plus side that means you can spend the money on the enclosure itself and then upgrade the drive as and when suits your needs.

The drive features a small LED which works as an indicator light to signal connections status. You also get a 30cm Thunderbolt 5 cable included as well as screwdriver and mountain screws for setup.

How much is the Satechi DotDisk and when can I buy it?

The Satechi DotDisk is available to buy now from the company's own website where it is priced at $199.99, or about £146.

When you review as many gadgets, laptops, headphones and more as I do, you start to notice a pattern when you've been testing something high-quality. Plenty of the time, even a creditable device won't leave me pining away for it once it's gone, since I have my daily drivers that tend to be the best stuff I have access to.

Sometimes, though, when I package a review unit back up to be returned to the brand, I get a pang of regret, and that's how it felt waving goodbye to the Dell XPS 14. This 2026 revision (and revival) of one of Dell's most influential product lines is a superb success in my books, and I underlined that opinion with a five-star review last week.

While it's never a great tragedy to go back to my M3 MacBook Pro, which still performs absolutely as well as I could need it to, I can't help but miss parts of the XPS 14, which stands out as probably the most desirable non-gaming laptop I've tested in the last couple of years.

Sure, something like the Asus ROG Zephyrus 14 has more chops when it comes to plugged-in gaming performance thanks to its discrete graphics card, but aside from that I think the XPS 14 is the laptop I'd most like to own if I was abandoning the life of the Apple ecosystem.

The most crucial thing is probably its refreshed design, which is simply gorgeous and full of high-quality materials. It properly rivals the MacBook Pro in most ways, with a lack of flex or give under your hands, and a really sturdy hinge that can be opened with one hand.

The fact that I tested the upgraded OLED version of its display also meant it was simply brilliant for viewing content, whether that meant streaming a show in the evening or editing some photos for another review. The warm colours and deep blacks of OLED displays are always memorable.

With a Panther Lake chip from Intel at its heart, I was also blown away by the gaming potential of the XPS 14, which can play new games capably if you tune them right (and if they're optimised right). For older titles, it's a genuine option, and I think we're only a few years away from laptops that make separate gaming GPUs look like bad value.

The reality for me is that it would take one heck of a crowbar to pry me away from Apple, since I've got an iPhone, AirPods, Apple Watch and MacBook Pro. That's a quartet of devices that work together pretty dreamily in my everyday working life. Still, for those who aren't as bought in, the XPS 14 is simply gorgeous.

It isn't the cheapest option on the market if you want a new laptop, especially in the configuration I tested, but a week after boxing it back up, I'm still thinking about how well-built it is. That's a pretty high compliment, so check out my review if you want to know more about the details of its accomplishments.

Apple has quietly killed off the cheapest version of the Mac mini.

This is the Mac mini with M4 processor and 256GB storage. It brought the entry price for Apple’s brilliant pint-sized personal computer down to £599, but now you’ll have to pay £799 to get on board.

The pricier version does have 512GB storage, which is an upgrade we can recommend to any remotely serious Mac user — SSD storage juggling gets old fast. However, a £200 real-world price bump in this economy? It’s no small affair for buyers on a budget.

The good news is that, at least at the time of writing, some retailers still have the old deal in stock. You can pick up a 256GB £599 Mac mini from Argos, subject to collection-ready stock in your area. Other key UK retailers appear to have pulled this lower-capacity model from sale already.

While Apple hasn’t released a statement on this decision, you don’t have to be a market analyst to have a decent guess at why this has happened.

In case you missed it, the tech industry is going through a major RAM and components cost crisis. And as both the old £599 and current £799 baseline Mac minis have the same 16GB of RAM, it’s likely Apple was feeling too much of a profit margin squeeze on the cheaper version.

One of the core reasons for this whole techy crisis is the rapid building of computer infrastructure for AI services. It’s also thanks to AI that the Mac series’s baseline amount of RAM was raised from 8GB to 16GB in 2024. Artificial intelligence is hungry for the stuff.

This could also be taken as a sign we can expect Apple’s hardware prices to increase in the future, despite the company already charging a small fortune for bumps in RAM and storage capacity. You'll currently pay £200 for an additional 8GB RAM in a Mac mini, another £200 to make the jump from 512GB to 1TB storage.

Tim Cook even warned that increased RAM costs will impact Mac pricing from June onwards, during a recent earnings call. And, well, we’re clearly already seeing that impact in a slightly sneakier form already.

In April, Cook announced he plans to step down from the role of Apple CEO on 1 September, to be replaced by leading Apple hardware geek John Ternus. You’ll have seen plenty of him if you have watched some of Apple’s product launch presentations in recent years.

Apple's MacBook Neo didn't launch long ago and already the rumour mill is churning out stories about the next generation model.

According to supplier sources, Apple is currently in talks around MacBook Neo upgrades, following its great uptake success since launch.

One upgrade that is expected is to the CPU. The current model uses the same A18 Pro chips found in iPhone 16 Pro phones. In fact, it's been suggested by suppliers that it uses the leftover chips from that original production run. So, now that Apple has seen this is a viable new product, it should get its own chips, conceivably.

As such this source is saying we could see an upgraded MacBook Neo, packing in more advanced chips.

So, while Apple managed to reuse the A18 Pro chips as an effectively free way to run the laptop, future models could see more dedicated power offerings. How that affects the price remains to be seen.

The original plan, according to the source, was to use old A19 Pro chips on the next model. But since the Neo has proved to be such a success, the company is looking at other alternatives now.

Anther consideration here is the longer term goals of Apple. The MacBook was previously reserved for high end computing needs, with powerful onboard processing. But in an age of AI and cloud based processing, that is starting to become far less in demand.

This move towards the lighter and more affordable Neo makes sense to extend accessibility, while also transitioning across to more mobile friendly solutions.

Apple looks set to pull in a lot more users to the macOS world. If it hopes to continue that draw, with the next generation of Neo, it's likely it may need to spend a bit more to upgrade components – especially in the face of rising RAM and aluminium costs.

Expect to here more on the new Neo early next year.

The HP OmniBook X Flip is a hybrid laptop aimed at the everyday buyer who wants a bit of everything without paying an absolute fortune.

It has a 360-degree hinge, includes a stylus for sketching and handwriting, has a metal casing, and includes Intel's AI-ready Core-series processors. There's a version of this laptop line with AMD chipsets, too, if you’re that way inclined (of the price is even more persuasive).

A perfect PC pick ’n’ mix? The only serious potential roadblock here is the more affordable HP OmniBook X Flip version reviewed has a fairly low colour saturation screen. While solid in other respects, it's a ways apart from the step-up OLED version of the same laptop. Consider this carefully before buying.

Price & Availability

There are two key versions of the Intel-powered HP OmniBook X Flip you’ll tend to find online.

Our base model costs £1030 (£799 at the time of writing) / $1299. And it features an Intel Ultra 5 processor, 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD and an LCD screen.

For £1249 / $1399 you get a bump up to the Ultra 7 processor, 1TB SSD and a more vibrant OLED display.

Want an even better screen? While some of this review’s observations may not apply to this model, the AMD Ryzen 7 version has a gorgeous 3K resolution OLED panel, which may be the pick of the bunch here if you want a top-tier entertainment experience.

Design

The HP OmniBook X Flip is a proper jack of all trades laptop that can fulfil a whole bunch of roles. But the first one you'll clock is that of a fine-looking portable PC.

There's a general air of classic MacBook-style minimalism here, but the distinctive keyboard gives it a thoroughly different aftertaste. Brush your fingers over the keyboard surface and it feels almost smooth, with just the tiniest gaps between the keys, and no contouring.

The entire outer shell is nicely anodised aluminium, for a feel as pleasant as the appearance. And while all that metal leads to unremarkable ultraportable weight of 1.39kg, sometimes that extra-metallic character is worth it.

This is also a style of laptop that doesn’t generally benefit from super-low weight, the hybrid. The HP OmniBook X Flip has a 360-degree hinge, for tablet or tent-style use.

The hinge is decent, although as with many hybrid laptops you may notice a bit more micro-wobble when you type away, with reflections on the glossy screen (which obviously make slight wobble far more apparent).

The relatively unadorned style of the HP OmniBook X Flip will let it slide effortlessly into roles as an exec PC, a family computer or a coffee shop-hopper. And it also has an attractive edge-to-edge glass top display layer.

Display

When you shop for a HP OmniBook X Flip screen, tech is a crucial element you need to take into account. It's available with two screen types, and there's a big gap between them.

I have the lower-end one, so we're working with a "worst-case scenario" at least. This is a 14-inch IPS LCD of 1200p resolution. Pixel density is only fair and the refresh rate is your standard 60Hz, but brightness is entirely respectable, capable of pumping out 443 nits. While not miraculously high, it’s enough for comfort in brighter spaces.

The HP OmniBook X Flip's screen issue is colour. Once you get close to filling the old sRGB standard, my eyes are going to be pretty happy. But this laptop only hits around 62% of it according to the screen tester tool I use, and this means you just don't see anything like the vibrance of today's OLED screens. These come in some pretty cheap laptops today too.

Our laptop also suffers from some noticeable backlight bleed, with greater raised blacks nearby the hinge areas.

Take the step up to the HP OmniBook X Flip with an Ultra 7 processor, rather than this Ultra 5 version, and you get a far punchier OLED screen. This is likely to impact battery life to some extent – more on that later – but is well worth considering for the screen fiends. It’s still "only" a 2K resolution one, though, while the AMD line of this family has a higher-res 3K one.

Both styles are touchscreens, though, and support stylus input. Most seem HP OmniBook X Flip laptops appear to include the stylus, ours just happened to have been left out of the box.

But you can picture the drill: it will be a great tool for a bit of digital artwork, and is an MPP2.0 standard stylus, for those who want to look a little deeper.

Keyboard & Touchpad

If low colour saturation is the first contentious point here, the keyboard style is the second.

I think it looks great, but have to admit it does take a little getting used to. For the first couple of hours of use my fingers were mis-typing way more than usual, as there's just not quite the level of key contouring that lets you bed easily into unfamiliar keyboards.

But now? I'm fine with it. I enjoy the crisp but not-too-light tactile feedback you get on the depress of each keypress. The HP OmniBook X Flip doesn't have a super deep-dish keyboard, but it's a solid one. It feels snappy and responsive, once you've adapted to its ways.

There's a pure white backlight too. It only offers two intensity levels, but you can easily alter the timeout of the light, which is handy.

The HP OmniBook X Flip's touchpad also looks the part, a close match of the aluminium surround plate. The clicker feels nice too, with a pleasant mix of dark substance and bright definition to the clicker.

But it is ultimately a budget pad because the surface is plastic rather than glass, and therefore more prone to a squeaky feel as you drag your finger across it. At this price there's always a decent risk of ending up with a plastic pad. Not the end of the world, but one to consider.

Performance

As I have the lower-end version of the HP OmniBook X Flip, here we get the Intel Core Ultra 5 226 processor with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. This is more than powerful enough for general productivity and family use.

It runs Windows 11 perfectly, and I think plenty of folks won't really notice the different between this and the step-up Ultra 7 256V version – a processor I've used far more often.

There are differences, though. The Ultra 7 is better for hyper-threaded multi-core applications. That's going to make a notable difference in plenty of pro-style apps like video editing suites.

This entry-level HP OmniBook X Flip has a weaker graphics chipset too. The margin is not huge, but it does make a difference when you try to play a game that really stretches the HP's integrated graphics, like Cyberpunk 2077. This PC can only just scrape by, with significantly cut-down settings and resolution.

If you want to play console games, you can do better for the money. And it’s better to think as a PC that excels jumping between situations rather than pro-grade software suites. But it’ll still comfortably out-CPU the MacBook Neo according to some of our testing.

Its runs nice 'n' quiet when you're just doing simple work too.

Battery Life & Features

The HP OmniBook X Flip does not gave the most massive battery going, at 59Wh. But its power scaling efficiency is clearly pretty great because a charge still lasts ages. With very light work you can expect it to truck on for almost 17 hours. But you can easily bring that down closer to the 8-hour mark with less careful use.

And for gaming? You’re looking at about 100 minutes with a taxing title. Typical of a slim and light laptop, it uses a USB-C charging connector to top up the battery.

There are two of these, so you're not left high and dry if you need to charge. One is a super-fast 40Gbps Thunderbolt connector, the other a slower 10Gbps one, but you can use either to charge.

Alongside this pair the HP OmniBook X Flip has two old-style USB-A connectors, a full-size HDMI 2.1 port and a headphone jack. It's a solid selection.

The HP OmniBook X Flip also has good speakers for a competitively priced PC. They have a bit of bass weight to them, and respectable enough volume too.

Its webcam is a surprise too, although largely because it's a 5MP camera rather than a bog-standard Full HD one. More pixels and more detail, but it's still a fairly standard laptop webcam – don't come expecting it to outdo a good phone selfie cam.

HP OmniBook X Flip 14 review: Verdict

The HP OmniBook X Flip family is one of the better hybrid PC ranges of the moment for those who want to spend sensible rather than silly money.

It comes with an important disclaimer, though. There's a gulf between higher and lower spec models, a shift in display tech as well as a bump in storage and power. I'd recommend plumping for the OLED money for a little extra cost.

The HP OmniBook X Flip's lower-end version looks and feels great, though, and has a decent (is slightly contentious) keyboard. You just need to make peace with the screen's limited colour punch before buying – but at current pricing, it makes a great case for itself.

You might not be familiar with the Geekom brand, especially when it comes to laptops, but it's been making significant waves in the Mini PC arena in recent times. I've even used a couple of them in projects to build my own retro games console and Steam Machine.

Now it's turning its hand to Windows 11 notebooks and the Geekom X16 Pro is as confident a debut as it gets.

Available in 14- and 16-inch sizes, it's a direct rival to the likes of the Dell XPS 14 (2026), which we raved about, and other Intel Core Ultra peers. However, like other Geekom products, it is also remarkably affordable for its specs.

So would I recommend the Geekom X16 Pro over more well-known alternatives? Well, guess you'd better read on to find out.

Price and availability

One of the caveats of the Geekom X16 Pro at present is that it's only available in the US. It could be rolled out wider and farther soon – after all, Geekom's Mini PCs are readily available in the UK too – but we don't have specific details on that right now.

There are two variants – one running on an Intel Core Ultra 5-125H CPU and with 1TB of storage, the other running the Intel Core Ultra 9-185H and with 2TB. The former will usually set you back $1,399, while the more powerful model is listed at $1,749.

However, not only are those prices currently discounted to $999 and $1,349 respectively, Geekom is giving T3 readers an extra 12% off right now. That means you can get the i9 version of the X16 Pro for just $1,187, and the i5 for just $879.

You just need to enter the code T3X16PRO at checkout whether you buy it from Amazon or Geekom itself.

Considering similarly spec'ed rivals can set you back over $2,000, that's an attractive offer.

Design

When you first unbox the Geekom X16 Pro you can't help but admire one major thing – its weight. Or lack, thereof.

The laptop is large enough to accommodate a 16:10 16-inch display with a 1080p video call camera built in, yet weighs around 1.27kg (2.8lb). That's almost the same as the 13-inch MacBook Neo, and 28g lighter than a 14-inch MacBook Pro M5.

It is also superthin, measuring just under 7mm at its thinnest point (0.27-inches) and a little over 11mm at its thickest.

The Geekom is therefore easy to chuck it in a backpack and comfortable enough to carry around all day – yet also gives you that extra screen real estate for productivity and gaming.

Of course, you don't get an aluminium casing here – it's all metal, but magnesium alloy to achieve the lighter weight. It's still extremely rugged though, and feels nice and premium in the hand.

Once open, the display is mighty. Those 16-inches are filled with a 2560 x 1600 pixel IPS screen, sporting a 120Hz refresh rate. It's bright (400 nits), crisp and a particular highlight. Its matte coating means it is relatively glare-free for outdoor use, although it's also worth noting that there are no touch capabilities.

As a MacBook Pro user normally, that doesn't bother me. And whenever I test or use a touchscreen laptop, I find myself constantly having to wipe the screen to get rid of fingerprints. That usually results in me ignoring the touch capabilities anyway.

There's a large multitouch pad anyway, plus backlit keys. If buying from outside the US right now, you should note that you'll be getting a US keyboard (and the "@" key is in a different place), but again, I'm mostly used to that.

You also get a fingerprint reader on the power button above the top right of the keyboard, to unlock Windows 11 Pro, which comes preinstalled. And audio is served from under the laptop, via a pair of 2W stereo speakers.

Specifications

Looking at the left-hand side of the Geekom X16 Pro, there are two USB-C ports – one being USB 4.0 and also able to serve as a power port (for a 65W USB-C charger). A HDMI 2.0 port is also available for video out.

On the other edge, you get two USB-A 2.0 ports for accessories, a 3.5mm headphone jack (that can also be used with a mic), and a microSD card slot for memory expansion.

The version I received for review came with an Intel Ultra 9-185H SoC, supported by Intel Arc graphics. This chipset also includes an integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) to make certain tasks run smoother by taking the load off the processor – such as AI-intensive functions and Photoshop rendering.

There was also 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM – gold dust in the current climate. This ensured that not day-to-day use cases were achieved fast and fluidly, AAA gaming was possible on the PC (albeit at lower resolutions and/or settings), even using the integrated Arc GPU.

Unfortunately, as some others have pointed out too, there's no possibility of increasing the RAM – it's fully soldered onto the board. But again, during the current RAM crisis, you probably won't want to anyway. And 32GB with possible speeds up to 7500MT/s, you should be fine without.

That's not the same for the M.2 2280 SSD, which can be replaced. The model I tested had 2TB of storage, but the laptop supports up to 4TB.

Also inside the case lies a 77Wh battery, which is charged using an included 65W adapter. However, as I'm based in the UK and the laptop is a US model, I had to provide my own power. Thankfully it charged and operated fine from an alternative 65W brick I have with a three-pin plug.

It's also worth noting that I found the X16 Pro would run for a full day on a single charge with usual everyday tasks, such as browsing the net, processing Photoshop images, replying to emails and writing in Word. Even using Nano Banana 2 to create a few AI pictures and light gaming seemed to be fine.

Of course, play Cyberpunk 2077 on the battery alone and you'll shorten the battery life significantly, but then I'd suggest you'd likely only ever play more intensive games when plugged in anyway. It has a maximum of 35W TDP to utilise.

The final specs to note are for wireless connectivity. You get Wi-Fi 6E on board, with Bluetooth 5.4 for good measure. There's no Ethernet port, so you'll have to add your own via an adapter or dock if you want to wire it up.

Performance

As a heavy Photoshop user and gamer, those were the tasks I set the Geekom X16 Pro primarily – and for its size and weight, I came away impressed.

Although the chipset used is a couple of generations old, it performed great with all the tasks I'd usually perform for my job. Quickly resizing and editing images were simple, while the Wi-Fi 6E modem worked well with my Nest Wifi Pro system to upload them quickly.

There were also no problems operating several windows at once, with no slow down even with Steam, the Xbox app, several Chrome browser pages, and Photoshop all running in the background. And popping them up and down again was speedy.

Gaming performance was perhaps more surprising. The X16 Pro is in no way a gaming laptop, that's just a side hustle. That's a general trait of Geekom products – its Mini PCs are more geared for desktop use when space is at a premium, yet I've managed to eke out some impressive performance from several of them.

The same is true with this laptop. I've managed to get Cyberpunk 2077 running in 1080p and with medium graphics settings (no ray tracing). That's with an average of around 30fps too without frame generation, which is very acceptable. It's up to around 50fps with frame gen on.

Older AAA games, such as Tomb Raider, run even better – 1080p 60fps with only a few settings sacrifices. And Indie hits like Hades II and Hollow Knight: Silksong play beautifully, making much more use of that 120Hz refresh rate.

Basically, you wouldn't buy the Geekom X16 Pro to solely play games on, but it's a great bonus to find it so capable.

There's just one major caveat – fan noise. When working at its hardest, such as during my 3DMark tests (around 3,700 on Time Spy) and playing the more intensive games, the internal cooling fan was aggressively loud. The benefit is that this is a laptop that can actually stay on the lap, but it's not something you'd want to do out and about.

You'll probably want to wear headphones while gaming anyway, as the stereo speakers are fine for watching YouTube and other online content, but they're not really designed for a rounded audio experience. Sure, they support DTS:X Ultra, but the soundstage is not particularly wide – simply pleasant.

Verdict

Fan and thin speakers aside, the Geekom X16 Pro is a highly impressive all-rounder that puts some better-known, pricier rivals to shame. It is big yet light enough to be both your desktop and portable work PC, while also happy to play a game or two.

The keyboard is comfortable to use and full-sized, with a number pad included on the side, and the super-sized touchpad is responsive and precise.

I've been impressed by Geekom's latest Mini PCs recently, and it seems to have pulled a similar trick with its first laptop. The display is great, performance impressive, and you get a whole lot of tech for your buck – especially with the discounts that are currently available.

This is, for sure, an impressive debut – not least during a global RAM and storage crisis.

Let's just hope the manufacturer brings it to the UK in the near future, too.

Also consider

We recently also tested the Dell XPS 14 (2026) which is a similar Intel-powered all-rounder designed with AI functionality in mind.

While the display on that model is smaller, there is a 16-inch version you might want to consider, although it's likely you'll need to at least double your budget in comparison with the Geekom.

And, of course, you can't discount a MacBook Pro (M5). Again, the 16-inch version will set you back considerably more than the laptop tested here, but its performance is simply head and shoulders above.

It all depends on what you're looking for in a laptop and how much you have to spend.

We've long been hearing about a new, even higher-end MacBook Pro coming in the next year. And there's been talk about how it'll sport an OLED display with touchscreen functionality – a first for a MacBook. However, it now looks like it will never happen.

That's not because the next-level MacBook itself won't appear, but it is unlikely to sport the "Pro" name. Sources claim that the all-new, enhanced laptop will be the first in Apple's new Ultra range.

According to MacWorld, Apple is set to extend its Ultra branding across each of its main product lines – including MacBook, iPhone and iPad. Previous reports have also claimed that AirPods could get an Ultra model, too.

The iPhone Ultra is thought to be the final name for the iPhone Fold – Apple's first foldable phone. And although we don't yet know much about an iPad Ultra, it would make sense to keep the flagship lineup branding consistent.

But it's the MacBook Ultra that's arguably the most intriguing for now, not least because MacWorld claims it might miss its expected release window this year.

The OLED touchscreen MacBook has often been touted as a late 2026 model, with numerous industry experts suggesting so. However, MacWorld says that it's more likely to arrive in 2027 instead, largely due to the ongoing RAM crisis.

It's an issue that is affecting new products from all manufacturers, with AI centres gobbling up available RAM like Pac-Man munches on pills, and unless things change fast, we shouldn't expect many major upgrades and innovations this year.

That could well include Apple products. Indeed, it is widely understood that we should only expect the iPhone 18 Pro models to launch alongside the foldable iPhone Ultra in September. The standard iPhone 18 will be pushed back to early 2027 instead.

Still, considering just how pricey the MacBook Ultra is likely to be (even a entry-level MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro chip is priced at £2,200), at least we'll have extra time to save up our pennies.

Long live XPS, eh? After a slight rebranding debacle in 2025, during which Dell retired all of its laptop sub-brands, it's now seen the light and brought XPS back into the fold – and it's done it in some style. The 2026 refreshes of the XPS lineup are finally here, and I've had the XPS 14 for a couple of weeks to see how it stacks up.

Without spoiling my verdict entirely, what I've experienced has been probably the slickest Windows hardware I've got my hands on in years, and the first proper competitor to the peerless MacBook Pro in terms of a genuine day-to-day recommendation for people. Its price makes that a harder sell, to be fair, but purely in terms of the experience on offer, the XPS 14 (2026) is something special.

Price and Availability

Unveiled at the CES tech show at the turn of the year, you can now order the XPS directly from Dell, in both its 16-inch and 14-inch variants. I've tested the XPS 14, but in its most highly-specced version (featuring a Series 3 Intel Core Ultra X7 358H and a touchscreen). This version costs a whacking £2,198.99 here in the UK (or $2,309.99 in the US).

The lowest-spec version offers a Series 3 Intel Core Ultra 7 355, instead, and comes in at £1,599 or $1,699.99, which is more competitive – but remains a pretty tall order. Still, the redesign underlines that this is a premium laptop, so the proof is in the pudding, as I'll get to below.

Design and Specs

For a long time, the XPS line had stuck to a fairly tried-and-true design language that involved a wedge-like taper for its laptops, but in bringing the brand back from the dead, Dell has also given it a hardware makeover. I can't allege that it's actually copied Apple's homework, but anyone who's handled a recent MacBook will be in familiar territory.

Now, the 2026 version of the XPS 14 is flat with rounded edges, spreading its thickness evenly. It has a slight lip where the top meets the bottom, which you fairly easily grip to open the laptop, and it's 14.62mm thick throughout. That makes it really compact and packable, but it's worth pointing out that it feels super solid in your hands.

The laptop is made from CNC aluminium, and that gives it a really premium feeling that is again familiar from Apple's best work. But part of what I've really loved is how it's finished. It has a dark grey, almost blue finish that looks great in different lights, but the inside surface hosting the keyboard and trackpad is in a slightly contrasting soft finish that pairs so nicely.

Weighing in at 1.36 kg, it's not the lightest laptop in the world, but it has that premium feeling that makes it feel well worth the heft, in my view. The design isn't without some downsides, though. The chief one is that Dell is sticking to a low-on-ports vision that now feels a few years outdated.

One side of the XPS 14 houses a 3.5mm audio jack and a USB-C port, while the other side offers up two more USB-C ports – all three of those USB-C options have Thunderbolt 4, Display Port 2.1 and power delivery, so they're all really flexible. Still, for a high-end professional laptop like this, there's no substitute for the ease of an HDMI port, and plenty of people would welcome an SD card reader, too.

Still, I owned an XPS for years that had such fun design touches as a webcam on the bottom of the screen to ensure that you looked terrible on every video call, so the vast majority of design notes here are positive (including the webcam now being above the screen).

The keyboard is nice and sizeable, with big keys that take some getting used to, but which feel pretty great under your fingers. It's paired with a touchpad that you can almost lose sight of, so subtle are its edges, but it feels good in use and has solid haptic feedback.

That takes us to what's inside the laptop – and it's a bit of a specs list. The cheapest version of the XPS 14 comes with 16GB of RAM, with steps up taking this to 32GB. The cheapest build comes with a non-touch display at 2K resolution, as does the middle option, while only the tested version offers a 2.8K OLED that's touch-enabled.

The lowest-cost version also has a Series 3 Intel Core Ultra 5 325 powering it; an 8-core chip with Intel Graphics and no B390 iGPU. Either of the step-up models has the same 16-core Series 3 Intel Core Ultra X7 358H with the Arc B390 for graphical oomph.

Interestingly, all three versions come with 512GB of SSD space, which is a little cheeky in the more expensive versions' case. There are a host of rivals offering 1TB as standard for this sort of price, and Dell should really be matching that, I'd say.

Performance

I'm now quite a few laptops deep into my experience with Intel's Series 3 chips (otherwise known as Panther Lake) and I've yet to encounter a version that feels underpowered. There are quite a few variants to try, of course, but the Core Ultra Ultra X7 358H that I've been using is super-capable.

It's not quite the absolute top-end chipset, but that's a bit like criticising an Apple M3 Max for not being the M3 Ultra – if you really need that power, you can find a machine that includes it. For most people, though, the X7 358H is plenty beastly enough. It's chewed through image-editing tasks with no hitches, and my normal workload of open Chrome tabs, Slack and WhatsApp windows has it barely breaking a sweat.

This really comes into focus when you put the laptop through its gaming paces. The version I tested includes the B390 iGPU, and it performs so impressively, as I've found on other Panther Lake chips. In Doom: The Dark Ages, I've been able to get benchmark results hovering around 50fps on low settings, with some variance according to whether you target performance or quality using Intel's XeSS upscaler.

Even more impressively, I've been able to get a solid 65fps result from Cyberpunk 2077 on its low preset, which is immensely playable and far prettier than its nomenclature suggests. These are demanding games, so indie titles, older games and those with less photorealistic graphics could well be extremely fluid on this laptop, which is quite a boast.

Like some other Panther Lake machines I've used, the XPS 14 isn't afraid to spin up its fans pretty immediately when you put the chip under a little load, but they're not offensively loud, and that's a worthy price to pay for heat management and therefore performance.

Plus, the version of the laptop I tested had a gorgeous 2.8K OLED display that made actually looking at whatever I was doing a further pleasure. OLED displays are thankfully no longer the rarity they used to be among the best laptops, but they're still a real treat to use, especially when they're this sharp. It can also get up to 120Hz, which makes it extremely smooth, as a bonus.

Battery life can stretch to up to 31 hours according to Dell, although I didn't get anywhere near that number, especially if benchmarking. Still, in regular working use I was able to get through a whole day on battery power without dipping below 20%, which means that I feel confident in the XPS 14 as an all-day machine for light to moderate use.

Impressively, that webcam that I mentioned earlier is a 4K one, which is really rare in laptops that I've tested. It even has HDR (high dynamic range), and that delivers clarity in recordings and video calls that puts some others to shame. It doesn't have a privacy shutter, though, which is a surprising omission.

Verdict

The XPS is back in a big way – and after positive early impressions, it's great to confirm that this 2026 model is a major return to form, too.

The Dell XPS 14 is just about the most desirable non-gaming Windows laptop I've tested in years, and it's the first one that's had me genuinely wondering if I'd rather use it than my MacBook Pro.

It has a gorgeous design featuring a classy new chassis, superb Intel Panther Lake power at its heart, a beautiful OLED display in this premium model, and a keyboard that's pleasant to use.

All that makes it a laptop with basically no rough edges other than an undeniably steep asking price – but for those with generous workplaces or budgets of their own, this feels like a slam dunk from Dell.

Also consider

While I've mentioned the MacBook Pro a couple of times in this review, the MacBook Air remains the smart buy for most people, and given how it undercuts the XPS 14, it's a much more efficient pick if you want a capable laptop and don't mind limited ports. Of course, it means giving up on Windows, but that might be fine for you.

If you want a Windows laptop that's even lighter than the XPS 14, consider Asus' new Zenbook A14 or A16, which is incredibly thin and great to use. It's less premium in terms of build quality, and swaps Intel out for the latest wave of Qualcomm chips, but is no less capable as a work machine for that change.

MSI is keen that its non-gaming laptops be taken a little more seriously this year. And it's picked a doozy of a time to emphasise its lifestyle and professional range. After all, with memory prices remaining really high, it feels like a tough time to sell any high-end tech.

Still, the arrival of Intel's new Series 3 chips (Panther Lake continues to impress) has at least provided an interesting platform on which to base a generation of laptops, and MSI has obliged with the Prestige 14 Flip AI+.

I've been testing MSI's great little two-in-one for a couple of weeks to check out whether it's one of the year's best laptops. It doesn't come too cheap, but makes up for that with some genuinely impressive adaptability.

Price and Availability

MSI isn't the only laptop-maker that seems to be having a little trouble with just getting its machines out there globally and moving on, although the UK picture is a little easier right now. Here, you can buy the tested version of the Prestige 14 Flip AI+ for £1,449 from a few retailers right now, without any stock issues.

In the US, the machine is meant to come in at a comparable $1,699.99, but it appears hard to find, so you might have to keep your ear to the ground or set up stock alerts to actually get it in your basket.

Design and Specs

MSI is perhaps better known in the laptop world for its gaming machines, but it gave its lifestyle devices quite a revamp this year to make them significantly more mature and attractive, and that sees the Prestige 14 Flip AI+ arrive with a pretty simple but well-made design.

It's all-metal in its build, with rounded edges and quite a distinct two-part look, with the base and the lid deliberately not lining up with an invisible seam. The two are joined by a hinge that lets the screen flip all the way back around when needed, since this is a two-in-one.

On the outside of the case, there's a reflective MSI logo (that I don't really love visually – although it's not a dealbreaker at all).

Flip the laptop upside down, and you'll have to look closely to find where the included stylus hides. It has a small docking space in between the front rubber feet of the laptop, and getting it back into this slot can be a little fiddly, with misbehaving magnets making it annoying to seat back in place. That said, it's invisible when you're not using it, which is great.

On the left edge of the laptop, you'll find a full HDMI port along with two USB-C ports (including power delivery), while the right edge holds two USB-A ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack. That's a typical array of connection options, although an SD card slot might have been a nice extra.

Opening up the laptop (which requires a little more force than you might expect, which is another tiny thing to improve), you're greeted by a keyboard and trackpad with some interesting details. I like how the keys are edged in a lighter grey colouring to make them pop a little, although their travel is nothing special, and the board feels merely "fine" under your fingers.

The trackpad has some new shortcut options for those who want to use them, customisable in MSI's onboard software, but again, the hardware isn't much more than decent. It's mechanical and only really clicks quite low down on the rectangle, so I found it took some getting used to compared to a MacBook Pro trackpad, for instance.

The display above all this is a 1920 x 1200 OLED panel that looks nice and sharp and, importantly, it's really vibrant. However, the fact that it only has a 60Hz refresh rate feels like a slight miss at this price. Still, it's gorgeous to look at, and I found no real issues with it for professional use.

Above it, there's a Full HD webcam with a mechanical privacy shutter, which I always like to see.

The final piece of the puzzle is the internal specs. You get 32GB of RAM here, which is very solid in the current climate, along with a 1TB SSD for storage, and the laptop is powered by a new-gen Intel Core Ultra 7 355 chip in the UK (in the US it'll be a more powerful X7 358H, but I haven't tested that version).

This isn't Intel's most powerful new chip, but it still has more than enough oomph to get through basically any productivity task without too much trouble. It also has surprising gaming chops, as I'll cover below, although it misses out on the Intel Arc B390 iGPU and instead has standard Arc graphics.

Performance

I've tested a few machines with Intel's latest Core Ultra Series 3 chips in them, but most of those have been in top-of-the-line offerings, so it's been quite fascinating to get to grips with the Core Ultra 7 355, which is a step-down but still a pretty great bit of silicon from what I've seen.

It's the centrepiece that makes the Prestige 14 Flip AI+ tick, and I've found that the laptop is more than capable enough for my professional workflow, going from a whole heap of web browsing and multi-tab work to some image processing. I don't work in video, but it seems to have enough power to be a solid editing machine, albeit not one to ruffle the top-end chips' feathers.

The Prestige 14 Flip AI+ does have a tendency to spin up its fans pretty wantonly the moment you put it under load (including even just downloading a big game through Steam, for example), which can make it a little loud, but it's nothing criminal. Plus, those downloads let me test out its gaming performance, which is super interesting.

My two benchmarking games at the moment are Doom: The Dark Ages and Cyberpunk 2077. Firing up the latest Doom, I was able to get a 30fps average in-game from the Low graphical preset without any upscaling, while turning on Intel's in-house XeSS system upped this to 45fps without any other tweaks. That was all at 1080p – so still hugely playable – with resolution drops as further options.

In Cyberpunk, things could get more choppy, but I was still able to get a result of 48fps playing at 1920x1200 on the Low preset with XeSS set to Auto. That, again, is extremely playable, and further tweaking could doubtless optimise it even further, which underlines the fact that this generation of Intel chips is quite a stunner for built-in gaming, even without the B390 iGPU that the top-end chips boast.

Would I buy this as a gaming machine? Absolutely not – but the fact that it can do this well with graphically challenging games is remarkable. This was also without any power supply, running on the battery, which is another impressive detail.

That battery is 81Wh in capacity, and I found that it could easily get through a light work day without a charge, although the above gaming testing drained it way quicker. In the right conditions, you can push past the 24-hour estimate that MSI quotes, which makes this a really great performer from an efficiency standpoint.

I'm not a power-user of touchscreens, but the included Nano Pen is a great extra to make the Prestige 14 Flip AI+ more useful in touch mode, letting you avoid finger smudges as a bonus. It works well, although I wasn't converted into a full-time two-in-one fan.

Verdict

The Prestige 14 Flip AI+ makes a pretty great case for itself as a laptop that can do it all, from touchscreen collaboration to professional workflows and light gaming. I found it extremely solid in all of those cases, although I can't quite say I fell in love with all of its hardware choices.

It's an extremely solid two-in-one with an excellent chip inside, although its current price makes it slightly hard to recommend it compared to something like the MacBook Air or, frankly, a Windows laptop hovering more around the four-figure mark. Still, this MSI is well-built and clearly would be a winner for a business user, making it feel like a really solid entry.

Also consider

If you're not wedded to the Windows ecosystem, then a MacBook Air with M5 feels like a no-brainer of an alternative, since it's cheaper and will feel just as powerful in your hands (and potentially even faster for some tasks like video). Even the older M4 MacBook Air would be a great shout.

If Windows is your thing, then my recent test of Asus' Zenbook A16 made it clear to me that the smaller Zenbook A14's newest version is almost certainly a total banger, and would be much more lightweight than MSI's laptop (though no cheaper). That said, its Snapdragon chip has a few gaming compatibility issues.

Note that none of the alternative options I've mentioned here have a touchscreen, so that's something to consider, too.