I've used a fair few high-end laptops in the last few months – it's been a busy time in the PC laptop market, and now Apple has added to things by launching its most significant MacBook Pro revision in a while.

The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display and Touch is quite the name, but in fairness to Apple, it does describe exactly what's new about the laptop. It's the MacBook Pro, but with some telling upgrades, in the form of a gorgeous new OLED display, Dynamic Island and a touch screen for the first time on any Mac.

Crucially, it also starts from £2,899 or $2,899, making it the sort of laptop that most people probably can't really countenance picking up. That pricing isn't really a surprise, given the weeks of leaks and rumours, but it makes for an interesting comparison to the PC market right now.

Apple has always had the advantage of clarity compared to Windows laptops, where there are dozens of big brands making laptops, all of them with one of dozens of different chips from Intel, AMD, Qualcomm and now Nvidia. The RTX Spark just launched, bringing a new wave of expensive laptops that run Nvidia's first laptop chip, muddying the waters even further.

I spent a week using the gorgeous Asus ProArt P14 with the RTX Spark powering it, and while I came away with the impression that Nvidia's new hardware is a serious factor for the laptop market moving forward, its pricing still didn't really wash out for me.

That laptop starts at £2,699.99 or $2,599.99, actually making it a little cheaper than Apple's new machine, which is quite a surprise in isolation. It really calls into question, for me, who these machines are for.

I say "calls into question", but I actually think most tech enthusiasts will know the answer. These laptops are for developers and those with creative processes that really need the best and most powerful processors, along with the most accurate screens and controls.

The simple fact is that easily 95% of people looking for a new laptop would be better off plumping for the latest MacBook Air, saving more than £1,000 or $1,000 compared to these high-end options. The Air will do everything you want from it, unless what you want is non-stop 4K video processing and deeply complex AI pipeline work.

Perhaps you had already intuited that answer just from watching the way Apple launched its new MacBook Pro – with an in-person event and some teasers on social media, but nothing globally live to rival the way it debuted the iPhone Duo. That's because the Duo, despite its own chunky price, will actually be a mainstream product.

The new MacBook Pro will not, in my view; it'll be for those who need the latest and greatest, but its innovations will now trickle down to more reasonably-priced Apple laptops over the next couple of years. A great example is that Dynamic Island – there's no way it remains exclusive to this machine for long.

Still, I can't help but feel that we're in a period where tech launches can involve a little bit of misdirection. Apple knows full well that this laptop isn't for the masses, but the price hikes that have hit across the board mean that it's increasingly hard to work out what laptop is for normal people.

It's easy to make marketing spiels about touch screens and OLED panels, but as long as they're this expensive, they're likely to continue being side notes for normal customers. It turns out that goes for Apple just as much as it does for Nvidia.

It's been a pretty clear fact for quite some time now that the best time to buy a gaming laptop was "a couple of years ago". As memory prices have skyrocketed in recent times, the price of gaming laptops has started to creep into unreasonable territory, and anyone who bought before that spike will be feeling smug about it.

What were once budget machines now cost mid-range prices, and don't even ask about high-end laptops. Still, the good news is that sales events have so far proven great times to reverse those trends, and get prices that won't have you losing sleep over your decision.

Black Friday is still a month away right now, but retailers have started to drop early deals ahead of the biggest shopping day of the year, and Argos is one of them. In fact, it has a deal right now on an Asus gaming laptop that I think merits your attention if you want an entry-level gaming laptop.

I review a lot of gaming laptops, and don't really make a secret of my tastes when it comes to their designs – I like them stealthy. The more they shout about being a gaming laptop (which generally means external RGB lights on the back of the screen), the more I'm unimpressed.

So, this laptop from Asus ticks a lot of my boxes. It's got a design that could honestly blend in with the productivity crowd, other than its slightly jazzier keyboard backlighting. It also has an expansive 16-inch display, which is key if you don't have an external monitor and don't want to be squinting as you game.

Its Intel Core 5 Intel Core 5 Processor 210H processor is very capable, and that GeForce RTX 5050 from Nvidia will ensure that you can play all the latest and greatest gaming releases, with a good amount of future-proofing. You won't be maxing out the settings on those games, of course, but you'll still be able to have them looking really shiny.

This deal is really early for Black Friday, obviously – but it's still a great one. If you don't fancy the mayhem that is the end of November, it could be a really solid way to cut some stress out of your life and just get the gaming laptop you want a little earlier than expect.

After many months of speculation, Apple has finally lifted the lid on its touchscreen MacBook.

Retaining the MacBook Pro name instead of adoption "MacBook Ultra", the new model comes with 14- and 16-inch sizes, with each featuring when Apple calls a PROLED XDR display.

This uses Tandem OLED technology and boasts a claimed 2,000 nits of HDR and SDR brightness. It is also said to have a contrast ratio of 10 million to one, 120Hz refresh rate, and sports more accurate pro-level colour presentation and deeper blacks than ever before (on a MacBook).

It is also touch-enabled, of course, allowing users to manipulate macOS manually for the first time.

Another first is the Dynamic Island, which replaces the notch on the conventional models around the 12-megapixel Center Stage camera. This can therefore double as an extra utility for notifications and the like, much as it does on iPhone 18 Pro.

The new Mac can be spec'ed with either an M5 Pro or M5 Max chip, and up to 128GB of unified memory. Storage options run up to 16TB.

A lighter, thinner design has been implemented with both MacBook Pro sizes, with the 14-inch version weighing just 1.3kg and the 16-inch just 1.8kg. These are lighter than their standard equivalents.

The bezel around the display is slimmer too, resulting in a 14.2-inch screen for the smaller variant, 16.3-inch for the larger.

Apple also claim that the sound system on the new MacBook Pro is "industry-leading". It features a six-speaker array with deeper bass and new tweeters for greater clarity and dispersion. Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos is supported.

Battery life is claimed to last up to 24 hours, and the lid sees the return of the glowing Apple logo.

The new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and Touch, to give it its full name, is available to pre-order now starting at £2,899 / $2,899 for the 14-inch model, £3,399 / $3,399 for the 16-inch. Shipping starts next week, on 6 November 2026.

Apple is planning to update the MacBook Neo – its cheapest laptop – in the first half of 2027, meaning that those shopping for a cheaper Mac experience won't be left behind.

The MacBook Neo was announced in March 2026, launching at £/$599, but then seeing the price revised upwards to £/$699. Still, even with the price increase, it's the most affordable MacBook that Apple has released for a long time.

No details are known about the new model, but it's expected to continue with a run of bright colours. While the other models in the Mac family are expected to move to the M7 chip in 2027, it's likely that the MacBook Neo will get updated to the A19 Pro chip.

The details come from Bloomberg, where Mark Gurman has a good track record of sharing future Apple plans.

Apple is in the middle of a major refresh of its Mac line-up. That's seen the Neo introduced in 2026, but is expected to announce MacBook Pro model with an OLED display and supporting touchscreen – a first for the MacBook family.

To clear space for the big announcement, Apple has already unveiled the M6 MacBook Pro update, bringing performance updates to Apple's Pro workhorse, while also updating the iMac.

The announcement of the new iMac might give us a clue to Apple's plans for the MacBook Neo, because like the Neo, the iMac comes in a full range of colours.

However, Apple decided not to change these colours, but update it to the M6 chip and enhance the connectivity with the N1 chip. So, while it's an update, the design remains exactly the same.

Alongside the launch of the new MacBook Neo in 2027, we're expecting the MacBook Air to get an update and this is likely to be more meaningful, with a move to the M7 chip, although that's not confirmed.

Sitting behind these updates, there has previously been the rumour that Apple will introduce a new design with the OLED MacBook Pro, something that will filter down to refreshed M7 MacBook Pro models in 2027 too.

There's so much happening on the hardware side at Apple it's hard to keep up. We've had the iPhone Duo announced with the regular iPhone 18 expected in early 2027; we've had the move into smart home with the HomeView; and now we're looking at a real shake-up for MacBooks too.

The latest MacBook Pro 14-inch model now has a new chip inside. Today's announcement sees the new M6 chip with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU to deliver breathtaking speeds for everything from gaming to AI engines.

This is the smaller of the two MacBook Pro models, and there's something big expected for the larger model tomorrow. However, for those who want an extremely powerful machine that you can take anywhere, this model could be a winner.

Apple's new M6 chip also features in the new iMac released today, but this looks to be the more powerful version. It promises 30% faster graphics performance than the M5 model and 25% faster on-device AI performance.

The MacBook Pro 14-inch offers up to 24 hours of battery life and a Liquid Retina XDR display with 1600 nits peak brightness and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. There's the option for a nano-texture display here too, to remove reflections.

This new model uses the latest generation of Apple N1 communications chips too, so it offers WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity, in addition to 3x Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, MagSafe power port and SDXC card slot.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro M6 starts from £1999 in the UK, $1999 in the US and A$3199 in Australia.

It's a little hard to really get a grip on the Nvidia Spark N1X's importance. From some people's points of view, this is a real revolution in the world of the PC, bringing in a new generation of ARM-based machines running Windows.

On the flip side, the launch prices of said machines make them niche prospects. The Asus ProArt P14 is one of the more approachable laptops in the range of new options, but is still a pricey beast, especially in the configuration I've just spent a week using.

This is a laptop that can really sing when it's used the right way, but I'm not quite sold on Nvidia's new chip being a silver bullet against the dominance of the MacBook Pro and its own M-series silicon.

Price and Availability

Nvidia unveiled the RTX Spark back in May, at Computex in Taiwan, but machines featuring the chip are very fresh. They largely went on sale in mid-October, and you can generally buy either directly from their makers or from retailers in your area.

In the case of the Asus ProArt P14, the starting price is set at £2,699.99 here in the UK for a version with 24GB of RAM. That's instead $2,599.99 in the US.

If you raise that to 32GB of RAM (like the version I've been using), you'll instead need to pay £3,199.99 / $3,099.99. That's quite a chunky hike just for another 8GB of RAM, it must be said, especially given that there's no change in SSD capacity here in the UK, which stands at 1TB in both versions.

In the US, the SSD appears to be capped at 512GB in both versions, even more perplexingly. All of this applies to the 5120-core GPU and 18-core CPU version – there's a more powerful version that pushes prices well past the $5,000 mark if you want it.

Design and Specs

I'll start with the design of the ProArt P14, because it's quite frankly a considerably more straightforward part of assessing this laptop. Asus has fairly transparently built a competitor for the MacBook Pro here, and that aim has led it to a pretty darned lovely design.

I've been using the silver version, although it also comes in a matte black that looks extremely fetching. Each one is finished in a beautiful metallic material that leaves a far more premium impression than the Ceraluminum that Asus prefers for its slightly more accessible everyday laptops.

Closed, and from the back, the laptop looks so much like a MacBook Pro, in fact, that it's only really the ProArt logo that gives it away – and that logo is quite cool, since it's a bit more vague than a full-on brand logo.

Opening the ProArt P14 up, you'll find a gorgeous 3K OLED touch display topped by a webcam and with slim bezels.

Below that, there's a generously spaced keyboard with a good amount of key travel. It has a power button with a fingerprint reader above it for biometric security, and a huge trackpad below. This is a full haptic pad, and it's quite something to use, with an extremely glossy finish.

To the right and left of the keyboard are stereo speakers, with an interesting cut-out design that makes them catch the eye a little more than in some of the competition. That brings us to the ports; on the left edge of the laptop you'll find an HDMI port, two USB-C ports for display and power delivery, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The right-hand edge houses another of these same USB-C ports, a USB-A port and a full-sized SD card reader. That's a good amount of I/O for a creator-focused laptop, with that SD card reader in particular being the sort of thing that can get missed off lower-cost laptops (albeit the MacBook Pro very much has one).

Back to that display for some more spec: it's a 2880×1800 OLED panel at 16:10 aspect and with 120Hz refresh, offering 100% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut – all of which should make it a great pick for colour-accurate work in creative fields, whether that's photography, video or something else.

Meanwhile, the whole thing runs (of course) on the RTX Spark N1X, Nvidia's latest and greatest. As I've already covered, the variations in the specs that you can find for the ProArt P14 are pretty wide, and I'm surprised that Nvidia is making two versions of its chip available without giving them a proper named differentiator (like the M5 and M5 Max, for instance). That can't help with potential customer confusion.

Here in the UK, the basic spec will come with the N1X packing a 5120-core GPU and 18-core CPU, along with 24GB of RAM, but I've been using the version with a 6144-core GPU and 20-core CPU with 32GB of RAM. Whether that uplift is worth it to you will come down to a few factors, but I strongly suspect that most people will end up going with the more affordable version.

The crucial thing to know is that, much like a laptop powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips, these laptops run Windows on ARM. That means some benefits (most generally in the form of power consumption and battery life), but also the occasional spectre of compatibility issues, which have become rarer and rarer over time.

Performance and Display

The ProArt P14 is a beautiful bit of hardware, but when you're paying this sort of money, you're likely to be far more concerned with how it performs than how it looks (at least above a certain baseline that it clears).

Using the P14 as my daily driver for a week was an interesting process, not least because the vast majority of my work encountered absolutely no issues. It sort of goes without saying that a chipset Nvidia's touting as the future of computing can handle general productivity without any hitches or issues, but there we are.

The N1X, in all its glory, had no problem whatsoever when it came to my daily workflow, across a Chrome browser stuffed to the brim with tabs, high-resolution YouTube videos, and Photoshop instances. That's really just about the limit of what I work with most of the time, and on my personal M3 MacBook Pro it's never been an issue, either.

Performance was pretty smooth throughout my week using the laptop, although there have been odd hitches now and then, often the first time I've opened or used an application. That might be a familiar tune for those with Qualcomm-based laptops, but the landscape is miles better now than it was a couple of years ago.

That said, the trap here is that every so often you might just stumble upon an app, game or programme that doesn't want to run well on ARM, and it can be pretty hard to know when that might happen.

Speaking of gaming, with Nvidia's hands all over the RTX Spark, you might assume that it would be a doozy of a mobile gaming chip. Well, not really. It's competent enough, and with the right tuning (especially lowering your resolution) you can get solid results, but it's nothing to ruffle major feathers at Intel or AMD.

On Cyberpunk 2077, I found the Steam Deck preset was the most reliable choice at 2880x1800 resolution, but even with Frame Generation turned to Dynamic, I still topped out at 60fps on the dot.

That's solid, as I've said, but nothing to make you drop your jaw, although it's also running at a pretty high native resolution. Dropping this will clearly get you some sizeable performance gains.

Finally, it's also worth noting that the amount of fan noise you get with high-stress tasks like gaming is pretty significant, to keep all that new hardware cool under the laptop's hood.

Reassuringly, though, the display that you'll do this work and gaming on is a genuine beauty. Asus has a long history of putting stunning screens on its laptops, and this OLED is no different. It's pin-sharp, super bright, lovely to use as a touchscreen, and basically doesn't have any flaws that I discovered.

Verdict

Much like with the recent arrival of the first Googlebook laptops, it's a bit complicated to separate out the laptop from the tech underpinning it. In this case, Nvidia's new RTX Spark N1X is a major new arrival, but in the Asus ProArt P14 it doesn't necessarily feel that groundbreaking.

This is partly a good thing – using the ProArt P14 is much like using any other high-end creative productivity machine, and that's a testament to the power on offer in Nvidia's chip. On the flip side, it's not exactly an experience that's blown me away, and the price being asked for these machines might mean you'd want more from them.

In particular, the fact that its gaming performance is middle-of-the-road, rather than class-leading, feels like a missed opportunity from a computing brand so strongly associated with GPU performance.

I think most people won't find that this ProArt P14 is the best choice for them in 2026, frankly, especially with Apple having established such a clear position when it comes to high-end laptops. Still, it's a very solid start from Nvidia, and it's fascinating to speculate where things could end up in a few years' time.

Also Consider

For those who want oodles of power in a sleek, metallic frame, but don't fancy dicing with Windows on ARM, there's an obvious pick – the latest MacBook Pro. Sure, you could upgrade the M5 to one of its fancier variants if you have the cash, but for the vast majority of professionals, the standard M5 will be brilliant, and it looks like good value compared to Asus' offering.

If you do want Windows, though, with a 14-inch screen and a lovely design, then I'd point you at the 2026 version of the Dell XPS 14. It's a seriously gorgeous laptop, with pricing being its only real flaw, but it still looks like solid value when put next to an RTX Spark machine. Power comparisons might be worth delving into, but again, for most people this will be a simpler, winning pick.

I've called the release of Google's new laptops, Googlebooks, a bit of a revolution – and I stand by that, since this clearly signals a big change in how Google approaches the laptop market.

Still, after having worked with Acer's launch Googlebook for a week to review the first past the post, it's fair to say that moving into a different machine, this time from Asus, sort of takes some of the shine off.

After all, once you're over the shock and awe of the new, the fact that Google has set minimum standards for the internals for all these machines means that they're pretty similar in terms of components and power.

So, the difference between the various models comes down to design and the extra features that each maker might squeeze in. How, therefore, does the Asus Googlebook 14 stack up? It took me another week of use to answer just that.

Price and Availability

The Asus Googlebook 14 is available now, with Google having launched the whole ecosystem in recent weeks, and you can order it from local retailers or directly from Asus if it's going to come to your region at all.

Here in the UK, it starts from £1,199.99 with an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 chip; in the US, you can grab it from $1299 for the same spec. Since I've done so with previous Googlebook reviews, I'll just politely point out that the US price actually translates to £973 by conversion at the time of writing – so the UK is getting its usual raw deal.

Design and Specs

If you put Asus' Googlebook 14 next to one of its Zenbook 14 models from earlier this year, I think you might struggle to notice the difference at first glance – unless your eye is drawn straight to the Glow Bar on this new Google-flavoured machine.

The Googlebook laptop very much hews to the same design principles that Asus has been working with for a few years now, and the biggest tip on that front is its main material – ceraluminium, the ceramic-aluminium compound that Asus so loves. It remains a really impressive material, too, since it's nice and durable, with a soft-touch finish, but crucially is extremely lightweight compared to simpler metal options.

It seems like each manufacturer got some freedom when it came to the placement of the Glow Bar, but Asus played it pretty straight – it's right at the top of the lid, near where you open the laptop. Like in every other model, it does very little beyond some waking and sleeping animations, but showing your charging progress is its neatest trick.

Opening the laptop up, you're greeted by a 14-inch 3K OLED panel that's really quite gorgeous to look at, and possibly the single best display in any of the launch Googlebook models, thanks partly to its excellent anti-reflective coating. This is a properly matte screen, but it's still a proper touchscreen, too, just with less fingerprinting than some rivals.

Above it, there's a webcam with a privacy shutter, while the other half of the laptop houses a generously sized keyboard, complete with the fingerprint reader that Google insists on (to make Googlebook grade). Below that is the large touchpad, and in this case it is indeed haptic, whereas Acer's feels mechanical.

That keyboard is flanked by speakers, while each edge of the laptop houses some ports. On the left, you get a USB-C port with power delivery, a full HDMI port, a USB-A port, and a 3.5mm jack. The right edge holds another USB-A port and a USB-C port, making this one of the more fulsome I/O offerings in the lineup – although the lack of an SD card reader limits its creative utility.

Under the hood, the Asus Googlebook 14 runs on an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 chip, but you can upgrade to a Core Ultra 7 355 if you want a boost in power. With 16GB of RAM as standard, though, I don't think most people need that, or would find it cost-effective. The base spec is rounded out by a 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD (I'd hoped for 1TB at this price, but accept that those days might be gone).

Of course, the whole laptop is interesting from the point of view of its features, because Googlebooks are still a very new thing. It's going to be your first Googlebook, should you buy one, and the experience is meaningfully different from that offered up by a Chromebook, for instance, as I'll get into in the next section of this review.

Performance

From the off, that Intel chip and 16GB of RAM mean that the Asus Googlebook 14 runs very snappily, but the real utility of its OS will be something that Android phone users will have to probe and test over time. Some of its features, like having access to your phone's storage without any screen mirroring, are really slick, and it's great being able to pick up tasks from one device to the other seamlessly.

Apps open really promptly and run fluently, and in my normal workflow – which involves a whole heap of Chrome tabs open at once, something that can cripple a weak Windows laptop – I never really encountered any hitching or issues multitasking. One tiny hitch there is that Asus' laptop did get a little warm when running some tasks, but not to the point of any discomfort.

That said, how useful you find Googlebook OS will be a pretty personal question, one that's hard to assess until you've tried your own productivity on one properly. In my case, it's a good showcase of the good and the bad. Much of my work is browser-based, and all of this is extremely responsive, with built-in AI features that can be genuinely useful if you want them. I don't, really, but trying some Gemini queries never really let me down in terms of responses.

However, I process my own images for reviews like this one, and doing so was a bit of a pain on the Asus Googlebook 14, just like it was on Acer's. The Android version of Photoshop is a lightweight one, and even though Google seems to be trumpeting a partnership with Adobe, it just can't really compete with the proper laptop experience on Windows or Mac – right now, anyway.

That's a limitation that can be fairly hard to get past, but I do think that Googlebook OS can be really slick when you're in the zone and not demanding such levels from it. The touchscreen interface is quite dreamy (especially on Asus' matte display), and while the screen can wobble when tapping on it, it still works quickly and as desired pretty much the whole time.

The keyboard is very solid, the trackpad's actually pretty great, and the whole laptop has a lightweight design that makes it feel really quite futuristic when paired with this all-new OS (the first of its kind in a long while).

It leaves me with basically no complaints about how Asus has approached the Googlebook challenge, but the same reservations about how ready Google's laptop rewrite is for the big time.

If you're sticking to simple productivity, then it might just be a slick and quick option for you, but those with more involved workflows are unlikely to find it all that adaptable right now.

Verdict

Asus' Googlebook is a tidy little laptop – and while it can't match the 2-in-1 situation offered by the Acer Googlebook 14, it feels a little more premium in some other ways. Better ports, a gorgeous matte display, and a really lightweight build make it potentially the more straightforward laptop to integrate into your workflow.

That said, it's also really pricey, and with thinner software support than Windows and Mac right now, there's no doubt that it currently feels like early adopters will be making some compromises. This could be a superb laptop once more apps are properly adapted to the OS, but for now it's probably quite hard to justify over a more established alternative.

Also Consider

Speaking of alternatives, if you're really into the Googlebook concept, then the other one we've reviewed so far is the Acer Googlebook 14, which is just as impressive in different ways. It's more affordable to start with, and has a more adaptable hinge (a true 2-in-1). Still, it has all the same software drawbacks.

For those who decide a more established OS is probably the safer move (as I would echo), I still think the latest MacBook Air is the way to go for most. It's not as affordable as it was before the memory crisis, but it'll last for absolutely years and is a gorgeous slice of machine for a very similar price to what Asus wants for its Googlebook.

Apple keeps punching through the gears in 2026. Since the appointment of its new CEO, we've had the iPhone Duo foldable revealed, followed by the latest HomePod innovations just last week.

Now, it's the turn of MacBook – and before the month is even over – with the official 'Show and tell.' invites having just dropped. There's a clear Mac logo, which almost appears to have a multi-layered surface – just as a touch panel would.

That's the big rumour of this impending reveal: that Apple will finally bite the bullet and put out a MacBook with a touch display. Something that the Cupertino company has been staunchly against for many years – so why the change now?

Well, it's a new era of Apple. While Ternus' appointment as the boss coincides with all these launches, the Apple product teams will have been working tirelessly over the years to get these new launches ready. It's not been an overnight process.

This Apple event is due to take place in Los Angeles on 28 October. Apple has deviated from its Cupertino base once again, with New York being the site for the HomePod reveal and LA being the base for this supposed MacBook reveal. Again: it's a new era for the tech giant.

The event's 10am PDT kick-off will mean 5pm here in the UK (as daylight saving time will have occurred, but not in the USA), 6pm in Europe, with some media invited to attend in person to see the latest products. Don't expect a livestream launch, though, it's likely to be a video drop of all the latest hardware.

It's not expected that only one product will be part of the launch either. The touchscreen MacBook is purported to have an OLED panel – also a MacBook first – and may even be called the 'MacBook Ultra', to really turn things up a notch. And in the home of Hollywood, where digital effects are prime, that's a good fit.

Turning from MacBook, however, there's also expected to be a new iPad with OLED display and a new, more powerful iMac – with M6 at its core. Given the volume of releases in recent weeks, it makes sense that these have been kept together in one 'Mac' group.

So mark your calendars for Wednesday 28 October. Apple's invites are officially out. And the MacBook could be about to change forever – whether you like the idea of a touchscreen or not!

So, the age of the Googlebook begins. It's been a hugely busy period in the tech world, and Google isn't making things any easier by debuting what it seems to think is the future of the laptop – a new OS hybridising the desktop experience with Android.

There are five launch Googlebook models – I tried them all out ahead of launch schedules to identify the best – and while I'll fully test and rate each of them individually (all in good time), Acer was quickest with a loan unit for this very review.

That means I've spent a little over a week using the Acer Googlebook 14, trying to get a grip on what this slick machine is like if you make it your main laptop.

To be clear, though: while I will obviously discuss the nature of Googlebook OS as it pertains to the laptop's performance, this isn't a review of the operating system – I'm seeing how Acer's laptop holds up to scrutiny, rather than Google's big new idea.

Price and Availability

The Googlebook rollout has been pretty sudden, so you should find that the Acer Googlebook 14 is available now, depending on your region. Here in the UK, the laptop starts at £999, while the US market gets it for $899, and Europe sees it from €1,199.

This does mean that, once again in 2026, the US is by far the best place to be shopping for the laptop – if you actually convert $899 to GBP right now, it comes out to about £680 at the time of writing.

Design and Features

The Acer Googlebook 14 is a lovely exemplification of what Google wants its Googlebook lineup to feel like in the hand. It made a point of this when I was briefed for T3 about these laptops: to talk about them in premium terms, not just in pricing, but in build quality and features, too – and that's how this model feels.

Acer is the only one of the launch makers to offer a two-in-one design, despite the fact that every single Googlebook has to have a touchscreen to pass Google's requirements and earn the label. This means that, in some ways, it makes the most sense out of the launch options, and being the more affordable of the lot further helps on that front.

First in the list of factors that make the laptop feel premium is the fact it has a metallic body, cool to the touch and with a matte finish – that somehow still manages to pick up skin oils like nobody's business. It's impressively lightweight despite this, though, and features a nice robust hinge that's easy to open to whatever extent you like.

The outside case features the all-important (but not very key) Glow Bar – in this case off in one corner, rather than front and centre. It's Google's way of denoting a Googlebook at a glance, but is fairly free of functional use, beyond when you're charging, where it shows your progress in bar form. It doesn't detract from anything, but isn't much more than a little design note.

Once open, the laptop reveals a nice, large keyboard with an equally generous touchpad (another Google non-negotiable is apparently haptics here, but this one seems mechanical), and its large, very bright OLED display – which is a highlight of the build.

The I/O situation is where we hit our first stumble, in my view – one side of the laptop has a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port and a 3.5mm jack, while the other has two further 3.2 USB-C ports. I think there should be more.

These choices do ensure that you don't need another proprietary charger clogging up your life, but it's disappointing that Google wants these laptops to be productivity monsters, yet leaves them all but guaranteed to require a dongle for most professional uses, be it for HDMI connections, SD cards or more.

Still, in terms of specs, it's back to rosier territory. The Acer Chromebook 14 can be picked up with either an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 or a Core Ultra 7 355, and while I tested the more powerful of the two, both are extremely capable. This is shored up by being paired with 16GB or 32GBof RAM, the minimum again being one that Google has mandated to make the Googlebook cut.

You also get a 512GB SSD, which makes this laptop look pretty well-equipped to handle the sort of Chrome and Chromium-heavy tasks you're likely to be doing on it. That brings us to the operating system, which is all-new and much shinier than ChromeOS. It's pretty easy to see how it'll end up being miles better, although right now it's a little rough in places.

While the AI integration is slick – and easy to access in a few different ways, as the laptop's setup guide explains – ensuring that Gemini is indeed at your fingertips at all times, there are still huge limitations here. Principally, while you can install almost literally any Android app under the sun and use it natively, that still leaves big gaps.

While the Android versions of some 'big' apps are clearly going to get more love to cater to this new OS, it still means that sometimes you'll only have access to a mobile-flavoured version of an app. In a world where Mac and Windows users both have access to a far wider range of programmes, it'll take time (and a lot of investment) for Google to catch up in this area.

That's acceptable in the world of affordable Chromebooks, but it's harder to swallow in a Googlebook that costs a grand or more depending on spec. Adobe always seems front and centre in these discussions, and Photoshop is a great example (because I use it multiple times a day); put bluntly, its Android app is a pale shadow of the full desktop experience, and that makes the Googlebook feel hamstrung right now.

Still, at least battery life is impressive, eh? Google's quoted figures didn't blow me away (up to 14 hours of streaming video playback at 50% brightness) – but in practice the laptop never let me down in getting through a whole day.

Performance and Display

If the drawbacks of Googlebook OS mean that there are plenty of hiccups to get past while trying to work on the machine, there's more good news in the form of how its actual performance bears out.

Intel's new chips are workhorses, in my experience, and that's been proven again by the Acer Googlebook 14, which basically never chugged when I threw jobs at it. Given the scope of Chrome's RAM guzzling, a multitude of tabs is the starting point there, but multitasking was always really sprightly and zippy.

Some of the hardware varied a little, though. The webcam in place here is decent but not to the level I hoped for, and the fingerprint reader (another Google requisite) was quite slow, and took an age to set up in the first instance.

The best of the Googlebook experience comes when you have an Android phone connected to it, though. This lets you sort of pair the machines, then access your phone (and its storage) as if it were just an extension of your laptop.

It's a seriously slick feature that feels great when you need it, and is an example of Google doing something better than Apple (which may doubtless now move to one-up it on macOS). This only works with Android 17, though, which may be quite a limitation for some users.

The display that I mentioned when discussing the laptop's design is also really quite terrific. With a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR accounted for, and running at a resolution of 2880×1800, this OLED is a real looker (and a toucher, too). It's great for media viewing of all descriptions (even if gaming is limited by the OS, another sore point), and also works nicely as a touch interface.

The speakers included here are nothing more than decent, but that's a fair enough result in any type of laptop at this point, and I had no complaints about them.

Still, this all means that performance basically lives up to exactly what I expected from a new-gen Intel chip with 16GB of RAM to call on, plus a great screen to stare at. The more lasting question is really whether the software this machine is running will make sense for you.

Verdict

The first Googlebook I've been given the chance to actually live with has left me thinking just what I suspected I would after seeing the whole initial lineup earlier this year: Acer has built a really slick 2-in-1 that feels great to use, provided you're happy to stick to Chrome and some Android tabs.

If you need to go a little deeper, or your workflow relies on some particularly customised or powerful desktop apps, then it's almost certainly not going to be smart to try to move into this laptop anytime soon. It needs robust software support from not just Google but third-party app developers to adapt apps to its screen size and power, and there's no real telling how and when that might come in a given app's case.

Acer has little to do with that, of course, and I'll finish with the same clarification that I used to open this review – this isn't a review of Googlebook OS. Taken on its own merits, the Acer Googlebook 14 seems like a great introduction to Google's laptop future, but it's not quite value-driven enough to win me straight over to the new wave.

Also consider

Until I've tested more of the forthcoming Googlebooks, I can't really point you at others in the launch lineup confidently, although I'll be putting Asus' laptop through its paces very soon.

Instead, I'd say the smart money is on similar-cost laptops from the world of Windows and Mac. So, for the latter, the M5 MacBook Air is an obviously superb choice that basically demonstrates everything good about Apple's laptop decisions in recent years.

For Windows, if you have the budget, the XPS 13 might suit. It's pricey, sure, but cheaper than this Acer and is impressively tiny. While it's a tad underpowered, at least you're dealing with Windows and all the freedom that comes with it.

OneXPlayer has carved a niche for itself with high-end PC builds, whether that be some of the most powerful gaming handhelds on the market today, or extremely capable laptops. However, it might be outdoing even itself with its latest announcement.

The Super X Pro is a 2-in-1 tablet/laptop hybrid that sports the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495 processor and up to 192GB of unified RAM. This combination is making big waves on desktop computing at the minute, mainly thanks to its prowess with on-board AI processing and LLMs.

That's really the point of the chipset – to run significant AI models on the device itself, rather than in the cloud. However, it is also proving to be a dab hand at gaming – even without a separate graphics card.

The Radeon 8065S GPU has been tested with many AAA games online with exceptional results. Having 40 compute units is one thing, then adding the 192GB of RAM means you can allocate 160GB of it as VRAM to the iGPU making 1440p gaming at over 100fps a doddle. That's on the likes of Cyberpunk at very high settings too.

By including the new chipset in a hybrid means that you'll have a super powerful laptop that's capable of just about everything you want to throw at it, but also a mind-bogglingly capable gaming tablet.

OneXPlayer Super X Pro: other specs

OneXPlayer will be shipping the Super X Pro with the choice of either standard air cooling or support for an external liquid-cooling solution. The device will be able to deliver up to 120W of performance, so the latter is probably recommended if that's your aim.

It will also come with an AMOLED display with a resolution of 2880 x 1800 and a 120Hz refresh rate. It'll be built using CNC-machined metal and sport a kickstand that can rest at angles of up to 173-degrees.

Connectivity includes two USB-C 4 ports, a USB-A, HDMI 2.1 out, microSD card clot, a Mini SSD slot, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The keyboard has RGB lighting on board for good measure.

The only things we don't really know at the minute are the price and availability. OneXPlayer will announce both soon, but don't expect it to be cheap. AI workstations featuring similar spec are running into the thousands. GMKtec's EVO-X5 is currently priced over £5K, for example.

We'll update when we know more.

Google has only just launched Googlebook, its latest move to tempt you away from Mac or Windows and to consolidate the Google ecosystem with a premium laptop.

While the AI features were widely-touted, early reviewers have highlighted shortcomings in the experience that make it feel like another Android tablet experience rather than something new.

Part of that comes down to buggy software, some of it to a lack of real desktop apps, as well as limited compatibility – with a capital S. That's right, Samsung devices weren't compatible with Googlebook's phone features at launch, despite being the biggest brand in the Android space.

Googlebook supports a number of features to encourage a symbiotic relationship with Android handsets including Continue On, Cast My Apps, Quick Access and Notification Sync. These features (called Better Together) are supposed to work on compatible Honor, Lenovo, Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo, Sharp, Sony and Xiaomi phones.

This is meant to allow a seamless experience between phone and laptop, so you don't have to constantly use your phone. Instead, it's all just supposed to be there on your laptop display, with apps a click away, even when not installed.

The good news is that Samsung support is now starting to roll out and considering that Googlebook only launched on 5 October, that's not a bad start.

There's a caveat in that the Samsung device has to be running Android 17 / One UI 9, which narrows the list to just a couple of devices right now. Those with the brand new Galaxy Z Fold 8 should be fine, but while 2026 Samsung models are getting updated to Android 17, some might be left waiting for support.

According to the details from Google (shared as a community update in Reddit) the new compatibility will arrive as Google Play updates and background service updates, so this isn't dependent on Samsung doing anything.

That's great for Samsung phone owners thinking of getting a Googlebook, but the update from Google also hints to some of the first-gen woes.

In addition to the update for Samsung users, Google also says it has addressed a bug where first-time setup would leave users with a QR code on the screen even after setup had finished.

Googlebook is still in the first flourishes of its life but it seems that there's some way to go before it's a viable alternative to rival desktop platforms. It's easy to point at Googlebook and see it as ChromeOS with a load of Gemini dumped in: it's down to Google to change our minds.

Apple is said to be holding an event on 27 October where it will introduce its latest MacBook models. That's thought to include the touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro, known colloquially as the MacBook Ultra.

But that's not the end of Apple's plans. In what seems to be a slightly confusing timeline, we're going to see a number of new MacBook models over the coming months and it's a launch process that differs from previous Apple updates.

According to numerous sources, there is going to be new technology, a new design and new chips introduced, but that isn't going to happen in the way you expect it.

So far in 2026 we've seen the MacBook Pro updated with M5 Pro and M5 Max, but sticking to the existing design. At the event on 27 October, we're expecting to see a change in the design for the MacBook Ultra – the model with the OLED touchscreen.

New design for MacBook Pro OLED in October

That design of the high-end OLED model is said to be thinner and lighter, with a Dynamic Island feature like the iPhone, along with a version of macOS Golden Gate that accommodates touch. It's thought this model will launch on the Apple M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.

At the same event, we're expecting to see an updated MacBook Pro 14-inch with the M6 chip, but sticking to the older design – i.e., it's a replacement for the MacBook Pro M5 that launched in October 2025.

However, this updated model should be approached with caution, because it has been suggested that in spring 2027, Apple will introduce new entry-level MacBook Pro models using the new design as well as the M7 chip.

That might mean that the MacBook Pro M6 is a little short-lived, very much an incremental stop-gap before the new hardware appears.

A shift towards spring 2027

This points to a couple of anomalies. The first is the strategy for the M6 chip. We've so far we've seen it in the Mac mini and it's thought to be coming to the MacBook Pro I mentioned above, an updated iMac and then potentially updated iPad Pro and iPad Air models in 2027.

But the M6 is not thought to get Pro or Max versions. Instead, Apple is going to skip a generation, giving a full selection of M7 chip variants in 2027 instead.

The second anomaly is the speed in which Apple will move lower-level MacBooks over to the new MacBook design. It seems that the company will be using the new design in MacBooks from 2027, making it more accessible, where often we'd expect a delay of a couple of years.

This might be because the MacBook Ultra (or MacBook Pro OLED) is expected to sell for around $3,000, which is well beyond the means of many buyers.

Updating the design for more affordable MacBook models might encourage buyers who would otherwise just stick to their existing model.

We can expect a flurry of announcements, the introduction of a new design and OLED touchscreen to the MacBook in the coming weeks, but it's potentially 2027 that will be more important for everyday MacBook buyers.

Apple's October is shaping up to be really busy. The company has now officially confirmed its 13 October Welcome Home launch event, but more details about a second October event have appeared.

While the first event will focus on Apple's new Echo Show rival, the second event is expected to see the birth of the touchscreen MacBook Pro. The date for that event is said to be 27 October.

The details come from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, saying that the event will take place "on or around Tuesday, Oct. 27".

The event is expected to focus on the new touchscreen MacBook - dubbed the MacBook Ultra by many - while also introducing the new iPad mini.

It's thought that the MacBook Ultra will offer a touchscreen OLED display, have a slimmer and lighter design than previous models and use the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.

The new models, codenamed K114 and K116, will also feature the Dynamic Island on the screen, like the iPhone.

The new version of the iPad mini is expected to feature an OLED display, a new speaker system and see the front camera switch to the landscape side.

But that's not all that's expected from Apple at the 27 October launch. It's also thought that Apple will update the MacBook Pro and the iMac with the M6 chip, but stick to the existing designs, so they will essentially be like-for-like replacements.

The Apple M6 chip was announced recently, finding its way into the new Mac mini, the company's dinky desktop computer, although it's thought that Apple is only going to offer the base M6 chip, saving the Pro and Max versions for the M7 chip that's thought to launch in early 2027.

It's thought that the MacBook Ultra could cost $3000, but the design of that model is expected to be introduced to other models in the family through 2027. That's going to make the new M6 MacBooks feel a little like a stop gap and might make some pause before investing in a new model.

It's definitely a busy time, but Apple has introduced new products along the way - with the iPhone Duo, the rumoured new home display speaker and then the touchscreen MacBook, there's plenty of new hardware coming from the company.

Microsoft has gone on the offensive, offering its new Surface Laptop Ultra for pre-order, while offering huge incentives for those who trade in their MacBook Pro.

The RTX Spark-equipped Surface Laptop Ultra is the most powerful Surface device and Microsoft is dangling up to $1000 cash back trade-in on a MacBook Pro for those who pre-order the Surface Laptop Ultra.

While the trade-in is highlighted on the Microsoft Store in the US, it isn't explicitly mentioned on the UK store, but you can still trade-in a MacBook Pro to get cash back from Microsoft. Those who pre-order in the UK get a free 140W charger.

That leaves no doubt about what Microsoft sees this device rivalling as it looks to divert power users from macOS and get them onto Windows. The company has already outlined changes coming to Windows to support what it calls "world builders" and this is the hardware that Microsoft thinks you'll use to do it.

Core to the Surface Laptop Ultra is the Nvidia RTX Spark, the next-gen chip that piles in an ARM-based N1X CPU, a Blackwell GPU and has up to 128GB of unified memory onboard. It's the most powerful Surface Laptop ever.

There's a 15-inch display on the Surface Laptop Ultra, with touchscreen support, but also claiming to offer the highest HDR brightness of any laptop. Microsoft says it has 25% higher peak brightness than the MacBook Pro M5, coming in at 2000 nits.

Microsoft has also designed a clever power connector for the Surface Laptop Ultra, with a magnetic USB-C plug. This combines the benefit of MagSafe - it clips right into place and releases if someone walks into the cable - but there's a fully-functional USB-C port at the centre.

That means less compromise, but it's a little larger than most USB-C plugs. Additionally there are two USB-C ports, HDMI, USB-A, SD card reader and a 3.5mm audio socket.

The Surface Laptop Ultra claims to offer 2.5x better thermal capacity than previous Surface Laptop models, with a 18mm thick chassis and weighing 2.05kg.

This is all designed to give you the optimal device for running local AI models or for sustained performance, while RTX Spark will also benefit from wider game support in the future as Windows looks to bolster gaming on ARM devices.

The most powerful Surface Laptop ever comes with a price however, starting at £2,599.00 or $2,599.99 on Microsoft.com, for the 18-core, 24GB, 512GB SSD model. It's worth noting that the SSD is user replacable, so you can make your own upgrades.

At top specifications the Surface Laptop Ultra comes with a 20-core CPU, 128GB and 1TB SSD, all for £5,899.00 or $5,899.99.

With Amazon's October Prime sale in full effect, the deals have come in thick and fast – as it's all over in a matter of hours, at the end of Wednesday 7 October.

I've found plenty of goodies (and bought some items of my own), but I think I've found the best budget laptop deal of the entire sale in Lenovo's mega-discounted Ideapad.

Check out the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 deal on Amazon

While I've already highlighted a must-buy Sonos upgrade for soundbar surround sound and a bunch of decent TV deals, if you're after one of the cheapest of laptops then this Lenovo deal is a veritable bargain.

Lenovo's budget offerings have long been a success in our best budget laptops feature, with this particular model now at a lower price than I've ever seen it before – approaching the half-price marker!

It's also very timely, as mere months ago Apple announced the MacBook Neo. I'm massively impressed with that laptop, of course, which I think is ideal for students – but those wanting a Windows machine for a fraction of the price aren't going to be interested.

That's where this £399 offer comes into play. This is Lenovo's bargain basement asking price, really, and in the RAMageddon crisis of now it's rare to find any decent Windows machine at such an asking price.

As we progress into a Googlebook era, competition and consumer choice changes. But those are brand new and pricier at present – again opening the door for a classic Windows machine such as this Lenovo.

Best get a move on, though, as this Amazon sale is over and done with after 23:59 today (Wednesday 7 October), so your buying window for this Windows machine isn't very long...

Shopping for a gaming laptop is a complicated process in 2026, largely because the memory crisis has spiked prices something fierce. Laptop makers that used to be able to churn out reliably wallet-friendly machines are increasingly being forced to raise their prices.

Still, that doesn't mean it's impossible to find a deal at any cost – you just need to be a little more patient and wait for the right opportunity. I'd say Amazon's latest Prime Big Deal Days event is a great example, since it's brought a surprising number of chunky laptop deals to the table.

Of course, you'll need to be a Prime member to take advantage of this one, which also has a limited number of units before the price disappears, but if you tick that box and want a new gaming laptop with oodles of power, MSI's here for you.

Getting an Nvidia RTX 5080 is a great start for any gaming laptop, but that alone doesn't explain the normally lofty RRP of this Stealth machine from MSI – although the other components really do help. For one thing, you get 2TB of storage at a time when this sort of memory is at a crazy premium (and 32GB of RAM will help, too).

Crucially, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor that powers the system is a beast, and means that you won't be CPU throttled while gaming, something that can threaten the performance of lower-specced laptops commonly enough.

The really great thing, in my view, is that this is a laptop that doesn't scream out its gamer credentials. MSI has taken great strides in design terms in the last couple of years, and while the 2026 revision of this model is even sleeker, this 2025 version is still plenty lovely to look at, even for a 16-incher.

Things are rounded out by a 2560x1600, 240Hz display panel that should be ideal for competitive gaming or immersive single-player fare alike. It's one heck of a package, and £800 off is absolutely nothing to sniff at. If you're on the lookout for a sleek new gaming laptop with basically no power compromises, you might not see much better than this.

It's increasingly becoming commonly accepted that the best time to buy a gaming laptop will always be "last year" from now on. The still-surging prices in the memory component market mean that laptops are now about as expensive as they've ever been, and no model is guaranteed to stay the same price for long.

This means that when you do want a new gaming machine, it's more important than ever that you look out for good sales events to help you get a cut price. Frankly, I think there's a case to be made that these are now the only times when it makes sense to make a major tech purchase.

While the deal I'm showcasing here isn't technically part of Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days event, I think it's likely prompted by that event, and either way it gets you a big chunk off a really capable 16-inch Acer gaming laptop, making it one to pay attention to.

Getting a laptop with the latest generation of Nvidia cards (a generation that looks set to last a good long while, given the AI industry's hunger for GPUs) is always a good idea if you can afford it. That's just future-proofing, after all. Here, the 5070 should be bankable for ages, based on how it performs with even pretty challenging games right now.

To round out the spec list, the Nitro V 16 AI has a 1TB SSD, which is good since you do occasionally see 500GB instead, even at this sort of price. Its CPU is an AMD Ryzen 7 260, which is great for eking a bit more battery life out when you're not gaming on the machine (if that's a use case you can imagine).

Meanwhile, its 16-inch display comes in at 1920x1200 resolution, which means you can get really sharp if you want it, and with a refresh rate of 180 Hz you'll be able to enjoy extremely smooth gameplay.

It's a great little package, although "little" isn't really the right word, given its size – and if you're on the lookout for a gaming laptop this month, you probably won't see many steeper discounts.

Apple has already had a bumper launch season, introducing the iPhone Duo alongside the iPhone 18 Pro – but still has a lot more to come. First, there's an event said to be scheduled for 13 October where we're expecting to see an Echo Show rival launched.

That same event is expected to give us an updated HomePod mini and an Apple TV 4K, all with the proviso of strengthening Apple's smart home offering.

However, according to MacRumors, there's a second launch later in the final week of the month too. That's likely to be back on the computing side, with the launch of the MacBook Ultra – the touchscreen OLED model – as well as the new iPad mini.

Sandwiched between the two is the availability of the £2,000 iPhone Duo, which neatly bridges two launches and will see Apple dominate the next month of tech headlines.

The flurry of launches neatly aligns with the arrival of Apple's new CEO, John Ternus, although clearly the new devices were in development long before he took the helm.

With a wide selection of new launches, we see Apple making a move into the smart home that's been missing so far: Apple HomeKit struggled to get going while Alexa and Google Home raced away. But with dedicated home hardware – as well as Siri AI – Apple stands a better chance of making its mark on this segment of the market.

While a display-equipped HomePod has been rumoured for a long time, the most interesting thing will be how it interfaces with existing devices. Apple is a member of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the organisation that manages Matter, which is expected to be core to the Apple's smart home experience.

But it's really the advent of Siri AI that's going to drive the segment along. Just as Alexa became a core component of smart home control over the past decade, Apple is likely looking to Siri to provide a seamless and intelligent smart home experience.

That's not the only change of direction that we're expecting from Apple. The subsequent launch of the MacBook Ultra will see the first touchscreen Mac, something that Apple had previously avoided.

While there will be a lot of new products to get excited about, the current component crisis is expected to push prices higher – especially for the new MacBook and iPad – meaning that some might have to temper their excitement this Christmas and decide exactly which new Apple device to buy.

Plenty of attention might be getting sucked up currently by an explosion of deals as part of Amazon's Big Deal Days event, but don't let that distract from the fact that it's a big week for Google in hardware terms.

Having finally unveiled its Googlebook revolution a couple of weeks ago, the laptops are now starting to actually hit store shelves, and that means launch deals, in some cases. One in particular has caught our eye, and it happens to be the most affordable laptop in the range.

The Acer Chromebook 14 comes in at £999 here in the UK, a price that means Google can tout the whole range as starting below £1,000, handily. While there's no actual discount on that price at launch, Acer is offering a free bundle to early adopters that might well make it worth ordering soon.

The deal here is slightly convoluted, though. Basically, buy your Acer Chromebook 14, get it delivered and set it up. Register the laptop with Acer on its website, and you'll be able to claim your rewards bundle, which will be shipped to you. It includes a 100W GaN fast charger, a 5-in-1 USB Type-C hub, an Acer wireless mouse, an extended 3-year warranty and 10 trees planted in your name by Ecologi.

That's a nice little heap of extras, and since Acer's Googlebook doesn't have anything other than USB-C ports, that hub could come in particularly handy.

The laptop looks like a super interesting bit of hardware, from its custom Googlebook OS to the lovely 2.8K OLED 120Hz touchscreen. I've actually been sent a review unit on loan from Acer, so keep your eyes peeled for the T3 verdict coming soon (and it won't be the only Googlebook I test over the next month).

Apple's anticipated MacBook Pro update could happen in the next couple of weeks, with new details pointing to a significant change in design.

According to Mark Gurman on Bloomberg, the new MacBook Pro – also dubbed the "MacBook Ultra" by many – will be "significantly lighter". This is said to have been achieved by reengineering the laptop's interior and miniaturising parts.

The current 16-inch MacBook Pro weighs 2.14 kg, while the MacBook Air is 1.51 kg for the 15-inch version, so there's plenty of weight to be lost here.

That's as far as the news goes for the future MacBook Pro, although we're previously heard that it's ushering a controversial new feature too – a touchscreen OLED display.

It might come as a surprise that Apple hasn't yet offered the MacBook Pro with an OLED screen, but a shift to the tech should give a richer and higher quality result, albeit paired with a higher price.

But, it's the addition of a touchscreen that's more controversial. Back in 2010, Steve Jobs specifically said that touch didn't work on a laptop, because of the ergonomics. In the meantime, both Windows and Chromebook has offered touchscreen models at a full range of prices.

Subsequently, Craig Federighi doubled down on the position of not offering touch, saying that touching the screen was fatiguing. Adjacent to Apple's anti-touch position, the iPad Pro has repeatedly be positioned as a laptop alternative.

We could be in for a significant shift in position for the MacBook however, with macOS 27 expected to have a number of adaptations to support touch when the new model appears.

It's also thought that the MacBook Ultra will be offered with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, rather than expanding the M6 – with a move in early 2027 to the M7 family instead.

That could see the launch of the new MacBook Ultra as a watershed moment ushering in a new design that's lighter, a new screen technology and a new method of interaction. Over time, it's expected that some trickle down will occur, but given the high price of components, the biggest surprise could be the price.

Currently, it's predicted that there will be a 20% price hike over the existing MacBook Pro model, with prices according to Forbes expected to land in the $3,000 / £3,000 price range.

Standing out among the best laptops in the market isn't the most straightforward thing in 2026 – given the RAM crisis and cost of production, making turning a profit on the machines ever more taxing. MSI knows this as well as any brand, but has continued to push out solid machines in both the gaming and productivity markets.

I just spent a couple of weeks with its latest Prestige 13 AI+ – the naming of which is getting a little confusing, given we've reviewed the Prestige 13 AI+ Evo from last year. It's a laptop that does very little wrong, albeit it won't necessarily catch anyone's eye from across the room or launch all-new competitor strategies. Is that enough in this tricky landscape?

Price and Availability

The MSI Prestige 13 AI+ is available now, and comes in at £1299.98 in the UK and $1,299 in the US, although you'll already find it for slightly less than that with some retailers – check out the widget above for the current best deals. It doesn't have the widest retail presence, though, so you might well end up bagging it from MSI directly, frankly.

That price is an interesting one, at a time when conventional logic about how much people want to spend on laptops is being shredded. It's a chunk of change, and while MSI is far from the only laptop-maker inflating its prices, it's still worth considering what price this might have launched at if the memory crisis had never happened. We can all daydream, eh?

Design and Spec

Laptops tend to look pretty homogeneous right now – they're all broadly silver slabs with the same old hinges and rounded corners. To its credit, that isn't all true of the Prestige 13 AI+ this year. Sure, it's silver, but it has some fun details that do make it stand out a little.

Firstly, this is a really light laptop that's also super compact. It comes in at 899g, which means it's lighter than, for instance, the beautiful 2026 version of the Dell XPS 13 that I tested earlier this summer. MSI's laptop is portable in the most literal sense as a result, and that's immediately an advantage.

Its design is also slightly different. While it does have a largely silver look (made from magnesium-aluminium alloy), its hinge is a fun one. When you open the laptop, you'll actually end up pushing its display slightly into the surface under the laptop. This puts two rubberised feet into play, which wedge the laptop up slightly.

This doubtless has advantages for airflow, and presumably some microscopic ergonomic upsides, too, but I'm just a fan of the design details that make it work. The rest of the laptop is rather more utilitarian, after all.

In terms of I/O, the right edge of the Prestige 13 AI+ houses a USB-A port, and a microSD card reader. The other edge has another USB-A, an HDMI port, two Thunderbolt 4 DisplayPort USB-C ports with power delivery, and a 3.5mm jack for audio.

Opening the laptop, you'll be greeted by its 2.8K 13.3-inch OLED (which MSI is keen to point out has a 16:10 aspect ratio to avoid the problem of a squat screen). It's a 60Hz display, though, so not the smoothest out there.

The laptop comes with a 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM, with the latter reassuring given Windows' struggles on 8GB in the last few years. It also boasts impressive battery life for its size, with MSI quoting up to 19 hours of continuous use in the right circumstances (with a whole heap of networking turned off).

Atop the display (in the admittedly quite chunky bezels), you'll find a webcam complete with the privacy shutter I always like to see. It has Windows Hello compatibility, as you'd expect, and MSI touts various noise-cancelling microphone features for video calls.

All of this runs on the Intel Core Ultra 7 355H (in the machine I tested), a Panther Lake chip that should be more than powerful enough for most productivity tasks. It's firmly from the mid-range of the lineup, and therefore misses out on the all-new Arc graphics, so there's not much to be had in terms of gaming power here.

Performance

Turning the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ on and then using it in detail for a couple of weeks, I was almost surprised by how unsurprising it was. This is a laptop that really just fulfils the brief it sets out for itself – and that's a good thing.

Firstly, that OLED panel is a great one. It has beautiful colours and the deep blacks that you've come to expect, and I frankly didn't feel the 60Hz was much of a limitation at all. It does have slightly more bezel than I'd hope for, but that's no great sin. It also has a very shiny finish which can be quite reflective, but it's become clear over time that this is a matter of taste.

I also found the CPU more than capable enough to carry me through a workday without needing to manage my windows or multitasking. When given a really heavy load, I could hit up against its limits, but I don't think anyone will be coming to this machine expecting (for example) a video-editing powerhouse.

On the more practical side of things, the keyboard that MSI has squeezed onto the body of the Prestige 13 AI+ is something of a mixed bag. Its travel is decent and I didn't have any trouble with the tactility of typing, but its layout is fairly cramped, especially in the bottom-right corner, which can be a little annoying.

The trackpad is completely fine, with nothing about it really standing out for scrutiny, and I continue to like that MSI includes a fingerprint reader in so many of its laptops, for security and quick unlocks.

Battery life was great in my testing, with the laptop never failing to get through a workday with some charge left – especially on lighter days that didn't involve as many programmes being open and actively used. I'd say it's certainly an all-day machine, which not every rival can boast.

Verdict

MSI has kept things simple with the Prestige 13 AI+ – and I have a lot of time for that approach. Ironically, it's resulted in a laptop that doesn't really stand out all that much; one that's therefore harder to write about than many I've tested recently.

The reality is that you might find other laptops in the same price bracket with more striking designs, and potentially some more power to play with, but if keeping things lightweight is your main concern for sake of portability, then few can do better.

Also consider

If you want a Windows laptop that's supremely portable but need to spend less, then the latest XPS 13 from Dell is worth considering. It's a gorgeous bit of design, and while it's not the most powerful at base spec, it's beautiful to work on and is tiny – although heavier than MSI's laptop.

Alternatively, there's always the MacBook Air, which might be in a phase where it's almost taken for granted. It remains the best laptop for the masses, really, even with prices creeping up, and the M5 version is very comparable in price terms. I think it's the better buy, frankly, but it's obviously not a Windows machine.

Apple might recently have launched one of its most significant new products in years, the iPhone Duo, but it's not finished there. We're fully expecting a series of other devices to arrive before the end of the year, and we should see them unveiled in the next few weeks.

There's the elusive new Apple TV 4K, for starters – a refresh that is long overdue. And a new Siri-powered HomePod should be wending its way to Apple Stores shortly. Oh, and let's not forget the much-rumoured MacBook Ultra.

Here then are four Apple products we think will be launched in October or November, just in time to nestle under the tree for particularly good boys and girls this holiday season.

Some of them have been on the cards for years.

Apple TV 4K (2026)

Considering the current Apple TV 4K is arguably still the best streaming device available today, even though it's four years-old, a new model will undoubtedly be welcomed by most.

We don't think it'll look much different and the software experience will be mostly the same, but the main enhancements will be a faster chipset – possibly the A19 Pro – so it can support Siri AI.

The new chip should also make it more capable for gaming.

Apple HomePod with a screen

Apple has long been rumoured to be introducing a rival to the Amazon Echo Show, with industry experts often referring to an Apple HomePad – a HomePod with an iPad-like display. However, like a new Apple TV 4K, it has remained elusive to date.

Still, we can but hope that it is imminent, considering Siri AI is finally here in full. That was the missing element, surely?

It is also expected to arrive with an all-new operating system, often dubbed homeOS, that will revitalise Apple's smart home ambitions.

Other than that, it has also recently been discovered in code that Siri AI is coming to existing HomePod speakers soon, too.

iPad mini OLED

The current iPad mini (7th gen) came out in 2024 so we're due a refresh, and the next model could bring with it a major upgrade.

It is claimed that the 8th gen device will adopt an OLED display – as found on the likes of the iPad Pro – which greatly improves the colour saturation, contrast and black levels.

It should also come with an improved processor – possible the A19 Pro chip – so it will be faster and more capable with Apple Intelligence and Siri AI functionality. We don't expect the overall design to change, with an 8.3-inch screen size to remain, but it could also feature improved water resistance.

MacBook Ultra

There will undoubtedly be at least one new MacBook launched in October – this is a tradition for Apple. But what MacBook(s)?

The most exciting rumour is that a MacBook Ultra could be on the cards, with an OLED display and possibly even touchscreen support. This would represent a massive shift for Apple considering the late Steve Jobs always believed touch panels should be limited to tablet use, not laptop.

It is also tipped to sport a Dynamic Island on a MacBook for the first time and the latest Apple silicon. And if it does arrive, one thing's for certain, it won't be cheap.

Alternatively, we might just see a mid-range MacBook Pro refresh with M6 processing (as featured on the new Mac mini). Maybe we'll even get both.

MSI is in an interesting place as far as its laptop lineup goes. Earlier this year it finally redesigned some of its most popular machines, with the new, far sleeker Stealth 16 proving a particular hit – I loved that machine.

However, the simple fact is that not everyone wants their gaming laptop to emphasise slimness and portability. A lot of gamers out there seek the most power they can possibly get in a gaming laptop, with little worrying about it being office-appropriate or whether it could pass for a productivity machine.

MSI knows it can't leave that segment behind, so that's doubtless the motivation behind the new Raider 16 Max HX, a beast from whichever angle you peek at. I've put it through its paces to see whether it holds up to its lofty billing.

Price and Availability

The sad reality is that gaming laptop prices are going absolutely mad at the moment. Consoles might be stealing a lot of the headlines and scrutiny, but the fact that my spec of the Raider 16 Max HX comes in at £3550 is frankly a little bananas.

That's not the starting price of the machine, though. It begins from £2249 / $2999, and that version has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU, which shows you that there's no attempt to be entry-level here.

My review version, though, packs a 5090, paired with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, both high-end (although you can go even more premium on the processor front).

There's no way around the conclusion that this isn't a "sensible" laptop, even for top-end buyers – it's now extremely difficult to find pricing that feels fair, and if that angers you then you'd be best off pointing the finger at the AI boom.

Design and Spec

As I mentioned in the opening of this review, the MSI Raider 16 Max HX isn't where you should be looking if you're in search of subtlety. This is a gaming laptop that earns the 'Max' in its name, with a maximalist approach to both its design and its spec sheet.

Taking a tour around its hardware, the laptop is a hulking one even at a glance. It weighs in at a serious 2.6kg, and its footprint is actually a bit bigger than I'd typically expect for a 16-incher. It's very much in the same huge bracket as the Alienware 16 Area-51, making sense for those who are happy to take on a much bigger machine than they otherwise could.

Aesthetically, the Raider 16 Max HX has different looks when it's on or off. In the case of the latter it's finished all over in matte black, and is relatively understated; the back of the display has an MSI crest and a large but subtle embossed logo to make it stand out.

Switch it on, though, and the RGB lighting comes into play. That crest lights up and strobes, while there's a whole strip of lighting at the bottom of the keyboard and mousepad's shelf.

That and per-key lighting control means that you have plenty to play with if you're a fan of these effects, although I wonder if some customers might prefer to just turn them all off.

That keyboard is full-size and includes a compact numpad, and a tie-in with SteelSeries makes it easy to set up macros and shortcuts, albeit through more baked-in software. The mousepad is a good enough size but otherwise mediocre, although in this sort of gaming laptop you'll really only be using it in a pinch.

Build quality is solid enough, although it's a very plastic-heavy design (which is no surprise or point of difference with most of its competition). That does mean there's a degree of flex to be found if you search it out, but I had no deeper issues with solidity in regular use.

It almost goes without saying that the size and weight aren't chosen arbitrarily – components are jammed in here, along with huge amounts of ventilation and active cooling. The number of vents for fans is quite striking, but the I/O on offer is relatively typical.

The back edge of the laptop houses the proprietary charging port, for connecting the absolutely massive power brick. It also offers an Ethernet port, an HDMI port and a USB-A port. The right-hand edge has two more USB-A ports and a 3.5mm jack. The left edge gives you a full-size SD card reader and two USB-C ports.

Spec-wise, there aren't many chances to get a 24GB GPU in a gaming laptop, but that's what's on offer here thanks to the inclusion of the RTX 5090 Laptop GPU.

That makes this a bit of an apex predator, but there are grades of processor to pair with it. I tested the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, but that can be upgraded to a 290HX for a few hundred pounds/dollars if you really want it.

My tested spec comes with a 16-inch WQXGA IPS display at a resolution of 2560x1600, with a refresh rate cap of 240Hz, and it backed up its main specs with 32GB of DDR5 RAM in a 2x16GB configuration. Storage-wise, it has a 1TB SSD – and it's one of the many annoyances of RAMageddon that this sort of pricing doesn't get you more storage than that.

Performance

So, if you're going to make a multi-kilo laptop the size of a small planet, you'd presume that it'll need to have fairly staggering performance to make up for that inconvenience, right? Well, thankfully that's something that MSI has taken care to ensure, and the power on offer in the Raider 16 Max HX is indeed class-leading.

There's no point hanging around – I got straight into benchmarking when I turned my loaner machine on, and it pretty immediately impressed. Cyberpunk 2077 remains the gold standard where benchmarking is concerned thanks to its huge array of presets and almost every graphical integration on Nvidia's side.

Starting off modest, I picked the Ray-Tracing Low preset at native resolution, a preset that I think delivers excellent visuals without necessarily turning on expensive extras that don't add too much. An average frame rate of 120.9fps speaks for itself, frankly, and looks superb. Whacking on frame generation to the 4x mark as an experiment boosted this to a ridiculous 310.9fps.

Clocking that the laptop had more performance headroom than I anticipated, I went straight to the big guns and used the Ray-Tracing Overdrive setting next, maxing out almost every setting. I got back an average of 60.87fps, another staggering result for a portable machine. With 4x frame generation, this leapt to 189.67fps, for outrageous smoothness.

The power draw of this sort of performance is really significant, of course, but I was impressed to see that even playing unplugged (something you really aren't going to intentionally do much at all), I could still get a playable 31fps from the Ray-Tracing Low preset, making it doable in a pinch. The battery wouldn't last long, of course.

The display, meanwhile, is an interesting case. It's a pretty excellent IPS panel, and I don't really have any complaints in isolation. It's sharp, precise and really accurate – but for this price I would like to get an OLED in such a laptop, for the deeper blacks that you get with it. That upgrade is available in some territories and from some retailers, but it's not cheap.

The keyboard is decent in use, I'd say, but there is a little flex underneath it to bring down the impression of quality formed by the performance you'll be enjoying. The same goes for the mousepad, but I used a mouse in my testing, as I'd expect anyone to if they're spending this much on a gaming laptop.

The amount of venting on the Raider 16 Max HX had me a little worried that it would sound like a jet engine under any amount of load, and while I can't say it's whisper-quiet, it's not as loud as I feared.

Of course, you should still pair it with one of the best headsets out there for immersion's sake, but I think the thermal management is done quite well here. That also means the laptop never got uncomfortably hot in my testing.

There is quite a lot of nonsense pre-installed on the machine, though, with Norton's pop-ups proving particularly irksome – so be prepared to do some proper pruning once you're all set up, if you want to enjoy a more peaceful computing future.

Verdict

MSI's beastly laptop feels like a good summary of where gaming hardware is at in a more general sense. It brings unearthly amounts of power in a form factor that can't be called anything less than chunky, and gives you the option of playing the latest games at incredibly high frame-rates – which can't be sniffed at.

However, it demands an absolute wedge of your money to get that performance, and I think there are parts of the package that lag a little. For this price, I want more than 1TB of storage, and I don't want to feel any flex in the build (even if it's plastic). I'd also like an OLED panel without shelling out for an upgrade.

If you're in the market for a gaming laptop with very few compromises, though, the MSI Raider 16 Max HX should definitely figure in your calculations. The question of whether its price is right is ultimately likely to come down to your personal affordability.

Also consider

Of the MSI machines I've tested this year, I think I'd rather have the new Stealth 16 AI+, despite its less powerful starting specs. Its redesign puts it far ahead of the Raider 16 in terms of aesthetics, and I think it's easier to fit into regular life, for when you do just need a regular laptop.

That said, if you're perfectly happy to go with something absolutely massive, and want a different option, then the obvious pointer would be to look at the Alienware 16 Area-51, which is a total monster. It has a different look and feel, which makes it more divisive, but I think it competes pretty directly with what MSI's doing here.

At this year's Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit – where the chip-maker revealed its latest 'Extreme' processor for Android phones – there have also been many hardware reveals.

That includes for PC, with Microsoft showcasing its latest Surface product line-up, revealing the 2026 versions of the Surface Laptop 13-inch and Surface Pro 12-inch. Both feature the Snapdragon X2 Plus chipset.

While those two products are key to Microsoft's portfolio, the tech giant also revealed a new Surface Mouse – which was a welcome surprise, seeing as the previous mouse product was discontinued in 2023, following iterative product releases since its debut in 2016.

Surface Pro 12

The Surface Pro 12 is a fanless Windows machine that follows a familiar presentation: it doesn't look different to the first-gen model, as revealed last year, but upgrades some hardware features.

The Snapdragon X2 Plus processor is what drives the enhanced power available, while Microsoft has also introduced a new touchscreen display that's 25% brighter than its predecessor.

Touch is an important factor for Surface, which is why the brand has introduced Microsoft Ink Canvas – an AI-powered experience optimised for the Slim Pen. This software layer will be pre-installed on device and introduced on other supported Surface and Windows devices from 13 October.

That's the key date when Surface Pro 12-inch will go on sale, with a $1149.99 suggested retail price (other regions TBA). That means it's a pricier machine than the first-gen model, which you can pick up right now for $779.

Surface Laptop 13

The other key launch is the 2026 refresh of the 13-inch Surface Laptop, also using Snapdragon X2 Plus in a fanless form for silent, long-lasting use.

Continuing with its established premium design, the Surface Laptop 13 has an aluminium body, full-size backlit keyboard, and is available in a new Black finish.

The display is a taller-than-average 3:2 aspect ratio, making it ideal for work. This panel, just like the Surface Pro 12, is 25% brighter than its predecessor, ensuring it can compete at the premium level.

Also available from 13 October, the Surface Laptop 13-inch will be priced at $1,199 (other regions TBA) – positioning this edition model at an even lower price than its 12th-generation predecessor.

When Sony ducked out of the laptop market in 2014, it split with Vaio as a brand as Sony refocused away from the PC market.

While Vaio's visibility declined, the company continued as a more selective laptop maker, producing a few specialised models, but never really stepping up to compete with the likes of Dell or HP who dominated the Windows PC market in the 2010s.

But the latest Vaio model looks really interesting. The Vaio T has a screen that you can flip, making it a multi-model device, able to operate in three different modes.

While many will use it as a conventional laptop, it's possible to flip the screen by 180 degrees in presentation mode, or close the lid leaving the display on the outside like a tablet.

Unlike many convertible models, this then means the keyboard is covered, rather than having to put the keyboard face down on the table. That should keep it clean and protected, which other models don't.

The Vaio T puts into place a flip mechanism that was first investigated in 2013, according to Yanko Design, but now returns with Vaio's new owner, Nojima. The price at 374,000 yen, about $2400, is focused on the Japanese market with no indication that it will see wider release.

The Vaio T will be available with Intel Core hardware - up to Ultra 7 - so this is a high-end model to match the price. The chassis is well-equipped with connections, while there's a 13.3-inch LCD touchscreen with 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution with a 16:10 aspect. Storage runs up to 2TB and 64GB RAM.

Ignoring the specs, it's the design that fascinates, with Fine Black and Fine Red colours. The red is especially fetching, leaning on Japanese culture to create a laptop that's as eye-catching as it is unique.

It's unlikely that you'll ever see one outside Japan, but it's an interesting resurgence from a once popular brand in its former years under Sony.

Alienware is one of those storied brands that might sometimes go under the radar, largely because it's been around for so long under Dell that it might not always get its due recognition.

Decades of presence in the gaming laptop market don't happen by coincidence, though, as it's always had something to offer.

In 2026, that offer boils down to "beastly power" when it comes to the Alienware 16 Area-51 – a total monster of a gaming laptop that doesn't even try to disguise its monstrous capabilities.

This is obviously a gaming machine for those who want no compromises on performance, but does it make sense in everyday testing? I've had one for a couple of weeks to find out.

Price and Availability

The Alienware 16 Area-51 is available now, having launched this summer, and comes in at a fairly whacking price, something that's increasingly inevitable in the world of gaming laptops.

Here in the UK, it starts from £2749 with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, but the version I tested (with a 5080) comes in at a fairly enormous £3799. That gives you a sense of the upward choices on offer. In the US, the machine starts from $3250 and again has the same range of options to upgrade with.

It's worth highlighting, though, that you can still easily buy the older version of the Area-51 (without an OLED, or the newer Intel chips that grace these new editions), for less cash. That remains a valid option given these prices.

Design

Alienware's laptops have never really aimed at being sleek or ultra-portable – it's perhaps sensibly left that part of the market to others. Rather, its machines tend towards utilitarianism. If they're chunky, it's to fit in more componentry, and if they're heavy, it's because those components add weight.

Well, chunky is one way to describe the 2026 Alienware 16 Area-51. It's a bit of a beast, and no mistake. This is one of those 16-inch laptops that feels more like an 18-incher when it's in your bag, not least because its body is actually bigger than its screen.

The laptop has what's called a "thermal shelf" in some circles – a rear-end that protrudes behind the display when it's open. It's arguably the main feature of the design brings both upsides and downsides.

The biggest downside is that it is indeed huge, and I'll be open and admit that I think it makes the laptop far less attractive. However, an upside is that it make for a very convenient place to house almost all of the machine's I/O.

You'll find the power supply socket, an HDMI port, two Power Delivery USB-C ports, and three USB-A ones. The left-hand edge of the laptop adds a 3.5mm audio jack and an SD card slot, but that's it. This undeniably keeps things organised, so your mileage may vary.

Zooming back out, the laptop is finished in a really quite fetching metallic dark blue that almost looks greenish in the right light – I like it a lot.

The back of the display houses an RGB Alienware logo, while there's also lighting embedded in that thermal shelf.

Turn the laptop upside down, and you'll see a pretty awesome glass panel that gives you a peek at the internals, including more RGB lighting in the twin fans. This serves no purpose but is extremely slick.

There's a huge amount of venting for cooling around the laptop, on basically all sides other than the display, and Dell has done a decent job of slimming down its lines and shapes to make it less enormous with various tapering edges.

Still, it's big, and comes in at a chunky 3.4kg in its heaviest configuration (it'll vary slightly based on your component choices).

Open the laptop up, and you'll be greeted by a 16-inch display, and you'll be able to see the other side of those two RGB-lit cooling fans, along with loads of speaker and cooling vents.

The keyboard is full-sized but tenkeyless, while the trackpad is a good size and is also RGB-lit, which does look quite fly.

At the start of my testing, I wasn't a fan of the Alienware 16 Area-51's design – but it weirdly grew on me with time. There's an unashamedness to it that works on you, and while its fondness for RGB is a little amusing, it's still relatively tasteful compared to some I've tested.

The big caveats here are size and weight, though, which make this a laptop for those who know they don't mind being a pack mule for their gaming power.

Specification

So, all of that bulk must mean quite the specs list, right? Well, yes – but also quite the range of customisation options. As mentioned at the top of this review, the version of the Area-51 I tested is a total beast, but that's not the whole story.

Starting with the CPU, this 2026 revision brings Intel's latest chips to the table, so you get to choose between a couple of Intel Core Ultra 9 processor variants (I had the 290HX Plus), but you can also step down to Ultra 7 options to save some cash.

The same is true of the GPU options. I was using an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, but the whole range of current laptop GPUs is there to choose from (5060, 5070, 5070 Ti, and 5090 to round it out).

I had 32GB of RAM to call on, in a 2x16GB DDR5 configuration, but it starts at 16GB and goes up to 64GB. Similarly, I had a 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD for storage, but you can upgrade this to 2TB, 4TB, and even 2x2TB, 2x4TB or 3x4TB RAID options if you're made of money.

The new OLED display is one point of consistency, though – all the new models have the same panel. It's a 16-inch WQXGA anti-glare OLED panel with a refresh rate ceiling of 240Hz and HDR on board.

The keyboard is one point of differentiation. If you use a US layout, you can upgrade it to a CherryMX ultra low-profile mechanical keyboard, but this isn't available with the UK layout (which is quite a shame but perhaps not a dealbreaker).

This meant I tested the standard version, which I still think is really quite excellent – it has more travel by far than the average laptop keyboard, and is nice and clicky.

Performance

So, Dell has clearly tuned its development of the Area-51 around leveraging its size and weight to deliver proper power, and I've unsurprisingly put that to the test over the last couple of weeks.

True to expectations, it's been quite a beast, too. I put it through its paces in a fair few games and never found it wanting, with the benchmarking numbers back that up.

In Cyberpunk 2077, which remains power-hungry, I got superb results. Playing the game at its native display resolution of 2560x1600, the default preset was Ray-Tracing Low. That gave me an average of 93.36fps – which is terrific.

Dialling things up to the way tougher Ray-Tracing Ultra, I still got 72.76fps, which is also fantastic. The maxed-out Ray-Tracing Overdrive preset brought me 53.58fps, and I'd call that extremely playable.

Keeping it on Overdrive mode, though, and then activating the first rank of frame generation (2X), that boosted back up to 95.83 fps, confirming that Nvidia's feature remains a fantastic addition to the laptop ecosystem. Latency was minimal, so this is a clear net win.

For curiosity's sake, I left frame generation at 2X and bumped the preset back down to Ray-Tracing Low, and got a stellar 176.08fps result – unbelievable smoothness, in short.

Swapping games, in Ubisoft's new Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, the High preset, with Ray-Tracing set to "extended" mode, brought me a 91fps average, which is already excellent. Adding that 2X frame generation setting bumped this to 149fps, again making for a massive boost with basically no downside.

An important additional note is that Dell's upgrade to an OLED display also pays dividends – it's a beautiful panel. The benefits of OLED are fairly well-established at this point, but they're worth restating. The colours are brilliantly deep, while the blacks are actually black, so your contrast levels end up being great too. It's a welcome boost and fixes the only real problem with the last generation of Area-51 laptops.

That said, there's also no escaping that its performance and display quality do make the laptop run hot and loud – it has all that venting for a reason. I've long said that no gaming laptop is complete without one of the best gaming headsets to go with it, and that point stands this time around.

Battery life is unsurprisingly not that stellar, either, although I can't imagine many people will be aiming to use this as a genuinely portable productivity option. You might get a couple of hours of non-gaming use if you're lucky, but powered play is the real point here.

Verdict

It's hard to fully decouple the new Area-51 from two main factors – its heft and its price.

The former is really circumstantial; it's not like it'll take you by surprise that it's massive and heavy, but that bulk does impact how you'll use it.

Its price, meanwhile, shows just how damaging the memory crisis is for laptop businesses, since the OLED upgrade only slightly softens the blow of its objectively sky-high starting cost compared to last time out.

Still, if you do have the budget and want a gaming laptop that makes basically no performance compromises, this is certainly one of those. The power being leveraged is quite something, and the gaming performance it delivers won't disappoint.

For the niche it'll serve, the new Area-51 looks like a real phenomenon.

Also Consider

I increasingly feel like the real value in gaming laptops now lies in the class of 2025, which got Nvidia's new frame generation tech on its new GPUs but didn't get smashed by storage prices.

See, for example, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, which is the polar opposite of this Alienware. If you want something sleeker, it should be in your reckoning for sure.

If your goal is instead to slice your costs way down, then you might want to look into the Lenovo Legion 5 (Gen 10). It's more affordable than the Area-51, and while it's less powerful, too, the compromises might be worth it for the money.

Google’s making a pretty big splash in the laptop market with the hyped-up arrival of its Googlebook machines. "These aren’t your grandma’s Chromebooks" is basically the subtext, and at a hands-on event in London last week, I got extended time with all five launch models.

Those laptops are coming from Dell, Asus, HP, Lenovo and Acer, and they run the gamut from lightweight 15-inch beauties to impressively compact little 13-inch numbers. After handling all five for a few hours, here’s what I learned.

GooglebookOS leans heavily on AI integrations to stand out

This isn’t really news, but Google’s really leveraging its advantage with Gemini when it comes to the laptop experience it’s built over the last few years.

Its spokespeople were keen to call the new software suite an “intelligence system” rather than an operating system, and that’s a little hard to swallow. Still, Gemini is basically laced right through the OS, and it’s impressively integrated.

Where a Windows laptop has a Windows key, Google now has a G key that launches an app tray slash start menu. Press and hold the G key, then tap the actual “g” key, though, and you’ll bring up Gemini, something that you can also do by wiggling your pointer or pressing an icon on the top-right of the laptop’s taskbar.

This will have you querying on-screen items, making Gemini requests and more within seconds, and it’s slicker than Apple’s Siri equivalent, or indeed Copilot. If you're a big Gemini user, this might just make the OS a great way to cut out the middleman in requests.

The glowbar might just be a snazzy distraction

Google’s presentation and marketing of its Googlebooks is leaning quite hard on the glowbar that adorns each one of them on the outside of their case.

That bar is a nice little touch, and it has one important and actually useful integration – converting into a charging bar when your laptop is plugged in. Beyond that, though, it’s basically just a little RGB light that won’t change your experience with the laptops. There are far more consequential features and changes elsewhere!

Android users will be right at home

For a long time, people have been wondering whether Apple might just merge macOS and iPadOS, as the two have become more and more similar. Well, it feels a little like Google skipped the queue and did just that for Android and ChromeOS, with the result being GooglebookOS.

The OS very much feels like the flagship native Android experience, with proper laptop computing power behind it, scaled up and properly designed to work as a desktop.

There’s a pretty serious limitation in the form of a developer’s approach to optimisation. Take Netflix as an example that Google was keen to point out for demo purposes.

Browsing the “desktop” version of its Android app, much of the interface was still on-screen in vertical mode, with letterboxing on either side, like your phone screen was just being mirrored.

Starting playback, though, resulted in landscape video that took up the whole screen (and went fullscreen). So, that’s a slightly weird journey but one that ends up in a great, laptop-scale viewing experience.

While that might sound like a mixed bag, though, most of the integration with Android was extremely impressive. Once your phone's paired with your laptop, for instance, the Files browser on the machine can access your phone's files as if they were right there on your hard drive – that's hugely handy, and becomes even more useful with AI-powered search.

This lets you search for files not just based on their file name, as is traditionally the way, but also based on subject and text within photos. So, for instance, right there in Files you could search for "cat" and get results featuring cats.

The value proposition is far from open-and-shut

Laptop prices are all out of whack right now. Dell’s the best example, given the almost tragic pricing of the otherwise pretty magic XPS 13 this year.

Google won’t say anything on this front, but it surely would have loved to be able to launch its Googlebook lineup with a minimum price of £700 or even £800. Instead, the most affordable laptop in the lineup will still be £999, and that means the compromises of ditching Windows or macOS.

Now, it’s worth saying that the laptops I handled at the hands-on event felt impressively premium, pretty much as a rule. Still, their prices are eyebrow-raising.

They also raise the question of where Google goes next with Googlebooks, and I think the answer is almost certain to be "cheaper" at some point. It's positioning the laptops as upgrades on a Chromebook, with more functionality and power, but given you can get a Chromebook for a fifth of the price of one of these machines, there's room for a middle ground.

Perhaps the AI features require more RAM than manufacturers can comfortably pack in without pumping the price up, but I'd still feel comfortable making a chunky wager that we see Googlebooks for a couple hundred less than these launch models before too long.

ChromeOS isn’t dead

Speaking of Chromebooks, eh? When Google talked us through the operating system that these new laptops would run on, it took a surprising amount of time to actually mention its name – Googlebook OS. It was keen to talk about its architecture (which is based on Linux blended with Android, basically), but not necessarily to talk about it as a new software product.

When I asked about this, I was told it was basically because consumers don’t, on average, care enough about the OS underpinning a laptop, but rather about what it’s capable of. That might be, but the arrival of a brand new OS like this begs the question – what happens to Google’s existing OS, ChromeOS?

Well, the short answer is apparently “nothing”, at least for now. Chromebooks will continue as their own product category, with a bunch set to launch in the next 12 months.

When I put it to a Google spokesperson that this looked like Chromebooks were the entry-level option, and Googlebooks the more mid- and high-end one, they basically said that was how they look at the situation, too.

Then again, given the huge presence it has in education and other sectors that rely on low-cost machines, is it any wonder that Google wouldn't just arbitrarily move on from ChromeOS like that?

Google just confirmed what Googlebooks actually are, after months of teasing and years of leaks. Its laptop revolution is in full swing, and it’s powered by a completely new OS that blends Chrome, Android and Linux in pretty interesting ways.

Crucially, the new Googlebooks are launching soon, on 5 October, so they’re no longer distant concepts. At launch, there are models from Asus, Dell, Acer, HP and Lenovo, and each of them seems to aim at a slightly different user.

Their pricing is also incredibly interesting, with the most affordable of the new Googlebooks starting at £999 here in the UK and $899 in the US. That’s not exactly entry-level, and it stands in pretty stark contrast to the entire vibe of the Chromebook product slate. Chromebooks, incidentally, aren’t going away – ChromeOS will remain, and there are more Chromebooks coming this year.

Googlebooks run on Googlebook OS, and if that name sounds a little clumsy, it might be a clue that Google really isn’t all that keen for people to focus on it from that angle. It’s clearly proud of what the new OS can do, but also calls it an “intelligence system” rather than an operating system, a clue that it thinks people don’t actually care that much about what OS they use.

That’s a bold enough play, but someone with a decent Android phone might well just be impressed by the degree of integration that a Googlebook can offer. Its hybrid OS can run literally any Android app, and if it’s optimised for a big-screen experience, then all the better.

The laptops will consequently have access to the entire Play Store, and that also means the many games on offer. Given they run (at launch) on Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors or on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips, they’ll have enough power to manage mobile games nicely. A year’s membership of Nvidia GeForce Now chucked in on purchase should make cloud gaming an obvious option, too.

In fact, Google’s going quite big in terms of freebies when you purchase a Googlebook, since you’ll also get a year of Google AI Pro into the bundle. That’s a tip of the hat to how deeply Gemini is integrated into the Googlebook offering. It’s on tap at any time thanks to new shortcuts accessed by the keyboard or just wiggling the pointer.

Those interested in security questions will doubtless be impressed by a promised 10 years of updates and feature drops, which basically dwarfs most of the competition’s offering. Google said these would be quarterly at least, although it’s an unknown at this stage how the machines will fare a decade down the line.

In terms of specs, though, they’re actually geared up for current AI-powered productivity, which helps to explain that chunky pricing. They all have 16GB of RAM as standard, and decent processors. That said, the battery life figures we were quoted (around 14 hours of video playback, or 16 hours of web browsing) aren’t exactly staggering.

Other things that Google has made standard for the platform include a touchscreen, a backlit keyboard (featuring a G for Google key, instead of a Windows one) and a haptic trackpad rather than a mechanical one.

The final flourish is the unifying design note – a so-called Glowbar on the outside of the laptop. This is lit in solid white when the Googlebook’s in use, and plays flashy rainbow animations when powering up or going to sleep. The only real function I saw was that it can become a charging progress bar when you’re plugged in, but it will be a way to tell what’s a Googlebook at a glance.

All of those features and solid specs mean that these Googlebooks don't come all that cheap. Here's a breakdown of the five models, their chipsets and their US prices:

• HP Googlebook 14: from $1299 (Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Elite)
• Dell XPS Googlebook: from $1199 (Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite)
• Lenovo Googlebook 15: from $1299 (Intel Core Ultra 3)
• Acer Googlebook 14: from $899 (Intel Core Ultra 3)
• ASUS Googlebook 14: from $1299 (Intel Core Ultra 3)

I was at a behind-closed-doors Google event last week, and got to go hands-on with all five launch models for an extended period of time, so if you want to learn more about what Googlebooks are like to use, be sure to check out my write-up here. Otherwise, sit tight until early October, when we’ll doubtless start to get a more detailed sense of how these machines perform in everyday use.

Anyone who's ever tried to take their laptop, a camera, a tablet and perhaps the various chargers associated with them on a weekend trip, a busy day out, or even just to a work event, will know that a good backpack is more complicated than it might seem.

Whether it's proper drop protection for its laptop sleeve, a main compartment that's easy to open up really wide, side pockets that have some actual flexibility to them, or quick-access pockets that make your life easier, upgrading your everyday carry (or EDC, as it's become known) can change everything.

For the last couple of months, I've been doing just that every week or two, trying out a new backpack as part of my daily routine, and it's left me with strong impressions of six absolute highlights that you should know about.

I've listed these brilliant bags below, and have categorised them for you so that you can get a sense of what each is best at. That said, I'm going to start with the one that stands just a little bit above the rest, my favourite of the bunch.

Best tech backpack overall: Almond Oak V2 (25 + 5L)

A backpack so good that you have to get yourself on a waitlist to get one – that's the sell right now from tiny UK brand Almond Oak, but having used its new V2 backpack for a few weeks, I'm telling you it'll be worth the wait.

Coming from a designer obsessed with optimising for one-bag travel, it's a bag that keeps things super simple in almost every way, but makes smart design choices at every turn. The first is a huge main compartment that opens like a clamshell, suitcase-style, rather than from the top.

Crucially, this is where the expandable side of things comes in – a compression zipper that takes the backpack from 25L to 30L if you need the extra space. The front of the bag has a vertical pocket that I've come to love, large and spacious, while the back holds the all-important tech compartment. It can take a 16-inch laptop and has the false bottom needed for sleeve-free safety.

Final touches include mini pockets at the top of the bag (with a slightly sticky zipper, literally my only gripe with the bag) and another hidden one for a passport or cash at the back of the bag. Bottle holders are on either side, there are fastening points for you to hang extras off in smart places, and the whole thing is so incredibly lightweight that it could flex to being a daypack, too.

This does make for something that some people might not love – its lack of weight means this isn't a structured bag or one that has hard and fast compartments that won't flex. I find that a strength, but the other backpacks on this list demonstrate that it's up to personal taste.

I've found myself using the Almond Oak more than any other bag on this list, which is how I know it's my winner, and it's flexed up and down in terms of packing, all without annoyances or awkward rummaging. Cross your fingers that its second wave of stock comes soon, because it's a brilliant bag for tech storage, but basically any other circumstance, too.

Best for structure: Aer City Pack Pro 2

Start researching EDC bags, and it won't take long for Aer to pop up. Its brand has attracted praise from customers and creators on all sides, and the City Pack Pro 2 was probably the one bag that was most widely recommended while I researched for this piece.

When Aer said it would send me one to test, the first big question was which material to pick, since you can get the City Pack Pro 2 in quite a few finishes. I went for the relatively new EcoPak version, which currently only comes in this interesting brown colour, and haven't looked back.

This is a backpack that feels like it's been designed to within an inch of its life, in the best way possible. Every seam and pocket has clearly had attention paid to it. In theory, it's a 24L backpack, but I found it easy enough to stuff more than that into it, thanks to how extraordinarily far its main compartment can open.

The front of the backpack has two pockets to offer up. The upper one is organisational, with sections and compartments, while the lower one is bigger and open for whatever use you want. A third quick-access pocket right on the top of the bag is ideal for keys, earbuds or other small items.

At the back of the bag, there's a tech compartment that's completely separate from the main one, and it's a stunner. A laptop sleeve with a false bottom protects your tech nicely, while there's also another sleeve for a tablet or anything else you'd like.

The number of compartments makes this a dream to pack for a day, but it's worth knowing that it's pretty structured and isn't the lightest pack when empty. For some of us, that structure, which means it stands up nicely on its own, for instance, is a huge pro – for others, the weight that comes with it might end up being a con.

Best design: Alpaka Elements Backpack Pro

If you want a backpack that keeps things stealthier, and has a little bit less of the tactical vibe to it, then Alpaka has a superb option in the form of its Elements Backpack Pro, which it sent to me for testing in the Black X-Pac VX42 version.

This is a backpack that has plenty of impressive design touches, but keeps things simpler than Aer's. One big example is its tech sleeve, which is at the back of its main compartment rather than being separate. It's suspended, though, and the orange material used inside the backpack makes visibility stellar.

The front has two pockets, and the main upper front one is the Elements Backpack Pro's best feature. It's a really big compartment with plenty of organisation, and it opens really deep for easy access. Below it is a lower-down small zippered pocket that's hard to spot unless you know it's there.

Finally, this too has a small quick-access pocket right on top of the backpack, though it's slightly bigger than Aer's. That makes Alpaka's bag a close match, and I also really liked its interesting arm padding and decent breathability on the back padding.

It's probably the sleekest backpack on this list, and was only pipped to the post by Aer because of the slightly better practicality from Aer's packability – and the fact that I was able to get a little more into the Aer backpack despite their stated capacities being the same.

For those who want something stealthy and refined, though, I think Alpaka's got a brilliant option, and it's basically a close runner-up in my eyes.

Best for capacity: Rushfaster EDC Pro Backpack

Before Rushfaster sent me its EDC Pro Backpack for testing, one of its designers stressed to me that its design was all about stripping back some of the complication that has become the norm in backpacks. That includes the likes of Alpaka and Aer, and in fairness my testing showed where Rushfaster has a point.

This backpack is one of the simplest that I tested from a user perspective, but not in a bad way – far from it, in fact. Rushfaster has designed a bag that feels like a backpack, rather than a more complex other category of everyday luggage.

That means its main compartment, which opens really deep, as I'd hope, isn't too multifaceted. Against your back there's a laptop sleeve (which isn't suspended as high as I'd like for protection) along with a tablet pocket and some other flexible pouches for gear.

In front of that you get a massive main compartment at 26L, including various bhits of internal pocketing for those who want it. I found I could properly stuff this bag full thanks to this huge compartment, and it made Rushfaster my leading contender for longer usage – like in one-bag travel, which it starred nicely in over a couple of long weekends.

On the front of the backpack there's a front compartment that's one of the biggest I've seen, again with a few pouches for organisation, and a quick-access pocket on the very top of the bag rounds things out. Except, that is, for the hidden passport pocket along the back of the backpack, which is great for travel.

Breathability on the back is very decent, although it's worth knowing that this has some of the thinner arm strap padding I tested. I didn't find that an issue, but if your taste is for more padding then it's something to consider.

A final ace up Rushfaster's sleeve is its Cargo Pouch. The EDC Pro Backpack has some cargo loops on its front that can be used with carabiners or other fasteners, but you can also get the official solution, which expands the backpack with a securely attached external pocket. This is a great idea with impressive implementation, although the pouch is currently a little too small to be hugely useful, in my opinion. Forthcoming iterations could well solve that issue, though.

Best for sustainability: Cotopaxi Allpa 26L Daypack

Cotopaxi is a huge name in the travel community, for good reason, and its Allpa line is a storied one – but it also has absolutely loads of bags to pick from. The 26L Daypack is the one that makes the most sense for everyday use, and this is probably the bag I'd most readily take outside on a day hike where I might want my tech with me.

To underline the fact that this is an EDC bag, though, Cotopaxi has separated out its compartments, so you get a distinct tech pocket in the bag. This features a nice suspended sleeve for a laptop, along with a thinner pocket for tablets.

The bag's main compartment doesn't open too deeply, which is a slight shame, but its capacity is pretty solid (albeit I couldn't get nearly as much into it as the Rushfaster EDC Pro). You get some decent organisation in the form of pouches and one zippered pocket.

The front of the bag houses two more pockets, with one large upper one and a smaller but still generous lower one. This is it, though, so Cotopaxi doesn't give us a quick-access pocket on the top or side of the bag, sadly.

The bag's really sturdy and well-made, though, and keeps things really simple, and Cotopaxi also scores major points for its commitments to sustainability. Every meaningful part of the bag (meaning the main body, the side and bottom panels, and the lining) is made from recycled material, which is rightfully a huge boast.

Beyond that, Cotopaxi's backpack is a great option for those whose plans are more complicated than just a daily commute, and it packs impressively flat to the point where you could pack it in a suitcase as a holiday daypack easily.

Best for style: Bellroy Venture Ready Pack 26L

Bellroy makes extremely high-quality stuff, and you don't have to handle the Venture Ready Pack 26L for long to see why it's developed that reputation – this is a bag that just feels great in the hands. It's made of a lovely nylon that might not be quite as hard-wearing as some alternatives, but makes up for it in style and beauty, especially in this crazy pretty green colour.

The bag itself isn't an afterthought, though. Its capacity is impressively huge with one main compartment that actually has the deepest opening of any bag I tried, which makes it easy to really stuff the bag. Only its narrow design stopped it from matching the Rushfaster EDC Pro for sheer packability, in fact.

That main compartment has a tech sleeve that's braced on the back of it, and its padded laptop sleeve is nicely suspended against drops, with a second sleeve for a tablet or anything else in front of it with less padding. The rest of the compartment's organisation is on the inside of the opening flap, in the form of two zippered pouches.

On the outside of the bag there's just a single pocket at the top, which has the interesting feature of being split in two vertically, making for two small pouches. I'll be honest, I think it's a really odd choice that massively limits what can be put in the pocket, and it underlines that the Venture Ready Pack 26L isn't a dream from an organisation point of view.

It does have a hidden side pocket on the left that can fit an extra water bottle, but I that still leaves it a little lightweight in my view.

That said, it's comfortable and breathable, and I think it might be the most aesthetic bag on this whole list. If you don't care whether your bag draws compliments, then disregard it if you like, but I think there's a lot to be said for the fashion side of the buying question here.

As a final footnote, Bellroy accidentally sent me the smaller Venture Ready Pack 20L at first, and that bag is exemplary as a packable day pack for holidays – it weighs so little and packs so flat that you'll be able to fit it into even just bigger backpacks with ease. That's worth knowing, in my view!

Google is preparing to give Googlebook its full launch, having first been announced during The Android Show in May 2026. Prior to launch, comprehensive specifications have leaked for the Lenovo Googlebook 15.

The Googlebook promise is that the best of Chrome and Android will come together in the operating system, while various manufacturers will be making the new models.

From the leak (via MacObserver), we can see that Lenovo will be offering a Googlebook with a 15-inch touchscreen OLED display, Intel Core Ultra 5 power, up to 32GB RAM and 512GB storage and a huge swathe of connections. It appears there will also be a matching mouse.

This outlines that Googlebook isn't a budget replacement for Chromebook, instead offering premium features: the display, especially, is something that's associated with premium models, as is the haptic trackpad and fingerprint sensor.

We also see that "Google facial authentication" is listed, suggesting that it will offer face unlocking and authentication for payments. That makes sense: with the industry encouraging people move to passkeys and biometrics, this makes sense.

Exactly how the facial authentication works is something we don't yet know, but it seems that Googlebook is going to introduce it. It will probably be similar to the seamless experience currently offered on Pixel phones.

The other detail is that the design looks a lot like existing Lenovo laptops, but with the coloured "Pixel Glow" detail on the lid. This, like the HiLight feature on the Pixel 11 Pro, is designed to provide a little more interactivity, perhaps to show when you're talking to Gemini - and something we've seen in previous leaks, as is the dedicated "G" Google key.

Google has previously said that its aim is to bring together Chrome OS and Android elements, specifically calling out the integration of AI in the Android stack - so Gemini will be front and centre in the Googlebook offering.

The launch of Googlebook isn't the end of Chromebook, with Google committed to ongoing support for its existing laptops, while some will have the option to move over to the Googlebook platform.

It does, however, mark the beginning of a new Google platform for laptops and tablets. The focus is likely to be on productivity, with heavily integrated Google services and AI at its core.

That's going to see some unique features, like the Magic Pointer that can instantly tell you what you're pointing at, the ability to quickly create the widgets you want, and seamless connectivity across your laptop and your Android devices.

It's confirmed that Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo will provide the first Googlebooks, with a date of Autumn 2026, suggesting it's going to happen imminently.

What we still don't know, however, is the price.

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

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

Price and Availability

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

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

Design and Specs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Performance and Display

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Verdict

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

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

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

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

Also consider

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's only a matter of days since I tested the beautiful XPS 13, a machine with possibly the best design of any Windows laptop I've tested in recent years, let down by one fatal flaw – its fairly outrageous UK price.

Now, reacting to what it probably already knew (that its UK pricing made no sense compared to the US), Dell has set live a really quite tasty deal on the laptop, which marks one of the quicker discounts you'll ever see on new computing hardware.

You can currently grab the XPS 13 for a very precise £769.02, down £130 from its normal starting price of £899, which marks a pretty sizeable reduction and brings the laptop down closer to a price that makes sense based on its specs.

This is classic Dell, in some ways – it's a big enough corporation that this sort of promotional offer sometimes does come along just after a device has launched, as baffling as that may seem. Crucially, in a world where almost every device seems to get a price hike soon after launch as memory prices keep climbing, it's not impossible that this deal will be the cheapest the laptop ever gets here in the UK.

The XPS 13 was one of the most confounding devices to review that I've ever encountered, thanks to that launch price. That obviously means, though, that there were a whole heap of positives to offset the cost, including a gorgeous metal build, and almost unbelievable portability.

It also has a frankly brilliant little display, and while the lack of ports could be an issue for some professionals, it's hard to imagine a better Windows machine for studying at whatever level you might like.

So, if you were on the fence about the XPS 13 because of its pricing (and who could blame you), think long and hard about whether this is going to be the best moment to pick one up. It might just be!

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

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

Price and Availability

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

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

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

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

Design and Features

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Performance and Display

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Verdict

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

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

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

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

Also consider

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

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

The latest MacBook Pro models have taken performance to a new level with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. These workhorse machines are designed for creative professionals that need super fast processing for audio, video or AI tasks.

Available in both 14-inch and 16-inch sizes, they feature Liquid Retina XDR displays with 1600 nits peak HDr brightness and MproMotion technology for adaptive refresh rates of up to 120Hz.

Machines are configurable with upto 48GB of memory and up to 8TB of storage, depending on the model and have a battery that can provide up to 24 hours of video streaming.

While these machines attract a premium price for these features, New York based B&H Photo Video Audio have some big discounts to make that the latest MacBook Pro models even more appealing.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro has up to $400, while the 16-inch model has up to $650 off. That means you can pick up the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M5 Pro) for $2899, and the Apple MacBook Pro 16 M5 Pro for $3099.

• See the full range of MacBook Pro models on sale at B&H here.

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

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

Price & Availability

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

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

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

Design

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

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

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

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

Display

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

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

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

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

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

Keyboard & Touchpad

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

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

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

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

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

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

Performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Battery Life & Features

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also Consider

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

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

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

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

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

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

T3's Top 3

Best for performance?

Lenovo Legion 5 (Gen 10)

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

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

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

Best cheap laptop

HP Omen 16 Slim

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

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

Best left-field option

Legion Go S SteamOS

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

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

Verdict

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

T3's Top 3

Apple MacBook: Pricing and Discounts

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

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

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

Apple M4 vs M5 Processors: What's Different?

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

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

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

Verdict: Which Apple MacBook wins?

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

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

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

What about Windows?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An AI future

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

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

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

Battery life

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

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

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

Display quality

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

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

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

Mobile connectivity

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

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

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

Lightweight picks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

If you're in the market for a powerful 16-inch laptop, however, then Samsung's Galaxy Book 6 Pro is like the Windows alternative to a MacBook Pro – and while it's fairly pricey, it's undoubtedly performant.

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