OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has data centers full of memory, but seemingly it's the 32GB of RAM in your desktop that's the problem. In an interview over beers with the YouTube channel Cheeky Pint, Altman said that local inference, and, by extension, people having DRAM in computers at home, is "quite terrible."

When discussing local inference on home computers with open-source models, Altman discussed the assumption that people will be able to run local AI on their own computers, the ones they may already own or want to build. Then he explained why that's a bad idea (at the 29-minute mark):

"From a global allocation perspective, actually, it's quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used 5% of the time," Altman said. "You want maximum utilization in the cloud if you're trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment. And somehow many people's intuition is the opposite of that."

While OpenAI does have some open-source models, its primary business is in closed-source models that run in data centers, so he's really defending the company's business model.

OpenAI isn't exactly threatened by some laptops and gaming rigs just yet, but local AI could mean people one day paying less for subscriptions to models like GPT-6 Luna if they have the power to run them at home. Altman's talk suggests that the company would prefer that more RAM go to OpenAI's data centers rather than home computers, which also sparks enthusiast fears of not being able to own your own hardware or software, but rather rent an agent and a computer in the cloud.

Some of what Altman is saying is based on an idea that data center buildouts won't slow down. It also assumes that RAM being used in AI data centers 24/7 is more worthwhile than RAM that is used for spreadsheets, web browsing, gaming, and maybe even local AI occasionally.

The rest of the wide-ranging interview includes talk of this week's PHP vulnerabilities, sandboxing models in training, and OpenAI's research in mathematics.

Apple finally has touchscreen laptops. At an event in Los Angeles, the company detailed its new MacBook Pros featuring OLED XDR displays that you can control with your fingers.

The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros are available for pre-order now and will ship on Nov. 6. The 14-incher will start at $2,899, while the 16-incher will start at $3,399. The systems use Apple's existing M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, and go up to 16TB of storage and 128GB of memory.

These systems also feature the first redesigns for the MacBook Pro since 2021, when the M1 Pro and M1 Max launched in what has become a familiar design with a notch. These new models include the Dynamic Island around the webcam, similar to the iPhone, which can be used for real-time notifications. They also have light-up Apple logos, which we haven't seen on a MacBook Pro since 2016.

The PROLED XDR display comes in 14.2-and 16.3-inch sizes, with ProMotion allowing for refresh rates between 10 Hz and 120 Hz. Apple claims 2,000 nits of peak brightness and a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio for intensely deep blacks.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro is 3 pounds, about half a pound less than the existing version, while the 16-inch MacBook Pro is 4 pounds, or 0.7 pounds lighter than it was before. Apple's bezels are also less noticeable than before. The hinge seems to be a point of pride (that's the second time this month, after the iPhone Duo). In this case, it's that the screen is less prone to wobble when you touch it.

The new laptops are only slightly thinner than their predecessor. Apple claims that the 16-inch model is "nearly a millimeter thinner" and the 14-incher is "half a millimeter thinner." Apple attributes those shavings to OLED's display stack.

Apple's own apps are already set to work with touch out of the box, and the company says many other apps will already work right away, including Notion, Canva, Zoom, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Lightroom, DaVinci Resolve, Blender, and more.

Apple already had the best speakers in a laptop, and now it's promising improvements: 50% deeper bass and new tweeters for clearer sound. There's even dedicated audio tuning for people who want to use the speakers with their laptop lid closed.

The significant change to the Mac is another in a flurry of launches for new CEO John Ternus, who also recently introduced the iPhone 18 Pro; the foldable iPhone Duo; Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4; HomeView; and a new iPad Mini, also with an OLED panel.

The devices follow a long resistance to touchscreen laptops from Apple. Former CEO Steve Jobs, at an event introducing Mac OS X Lion in 2010, called laptops with touchscreens "ergonomically terrible", claiming that "after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off." (HomeView, Apple's smart home manager, has a vertical touchscreen and no one has made a peep about that. The iPad, too, has been vertical on Apple's keyboards, though some of those include touchpads as well).

The Mac resisted a touchscreen throughout former CEO Tim Cook's tenure, as well, though these new laptops definitely were developed under his leadership. In the last decade, touchscreens have become a common feature on laptops running Windows, and Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 11, was designed to be slightly more touch-friendly than its predecessors.

Apple is updating two more computers to its M6 system-on-chip. The base 14-inch MacBook Pro and the iMac lineup are getting the company's latest processor ahead of tomorrow's "Pro and Tell" event in Los Angeles.

These devices are retaining the same designs that they've had for years. The computers will be available for pre-order on Wednesday at 10:10 a.m. PT (1:10 p.m. ET) and will ship on Nov. 6. The M6 in the MacBook Pro will be configured with 12 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores, alongside dual neural engines for certain on-device AI workloads. On the iMac, there will also be a cut-down option with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU.

The MacBook Pro will be configurable with up to 32GB of RAM and is being updated with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 using Apple's N1 networking chip. The iMac is also getting those networking benefits, as well as a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port. Like previous iMacs, the number of ports you get is tied to the chip, with two Thunderbolt 4 ports with the base chip or four with the option with more cores.

It's no surprise that Apple is pushing both of these as AI-forward machines, both with the new chips and the recently released Siri AI and Apple Intelligence features in macOS 27 Golden Gate.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 will start at $1,999 ($1,899 with education discount), while the iMac will begin at $1,499 ($1,449 with education discount) for the 10-core CPU/GPU configuration and $1,699 ($1,599 with education discount) for the full chip.

Both of these new systems are being announced the day before Apple is expected to release a MacBook with an OLED touchscreen. Yesterday, in a week of announcements, Apple debuted a redesign of the iPad Mini with a thinner body and an OLED display.

For Asus ROG's 20th birthday, the company released a slew of computer parts (enough for a supremely expensive build). But it's not overlooking its more recent entry into gaming handhelds, with the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20, a revamped version of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, which is already one of the best handheld gaming PCs.

The $1,299.99 gaming handheld ($2,499.99 if you get it in a bundle with XR glasses, a Pelican case, and a Dbrand Killswitch case) doesn't change performance at all. Instead, it makes some common-sense tweaks to its existing $999.99 handheld, adding TMR joysticks, rubberized grips, a see-through design, a transforming D-pad, and, most importantly, an OLED display.

If you already have an Ally X, this isn't a reason to upgrade. But if you're looking to get into handheld PC gaming and are willing to splurge, the changes here sure are nice.

Design and Display on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20

If you put the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 and the original next to each other, it's impossible not to notice the differences. But still, these are largely the same system, inside and out. They have the same button layout, the same grips, the same screen size, speaker placement, and vents.

The most visible difference is that the X20 has a new, transparent plastic case with a black tint, along with gold menu buttons, a gold stripe across the back (rather than silver), and a large "20th Anniversary" ROG badge on the rear. I prefer the original Xbox Ally X's plainer design; the clear plastic looks more like a toy. I also found that it let the status lights shine through the top of the system, just abover the screen, which is distracting.

There is one minor change in the menu buttons: where the Ally X had a library button, the Ally X20 has a screenshot button. It's more useful in general, but it's also a great way to accidentally take a screenshot.

But once I picked up the Ally X20, the original couldn't compare. The chassis feels more substantial, especially with rubberized grips on the back of the prongs. There's a new directional pad, which feels more substantial; it also twists between a 4-way and 8-way pad, though I found switching between these two modes quite awkward. The 8-way D-pad is better for fighting games, while the 4-way with more distinct cardinal directions will make more sense for action-adventure and platform games.

The new TMR joysticks, which should show less wear with age, feel tighter. All of this adds up, even though there is no performance difference between the two devices. They share the same AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chip.

The other big change is the screen. Both use 1920 x 1080 touchscreens, but the Xbox Ally X20 has a 7.4-inch OLED panel, slightly larger than the original's 7-inch IPS display. While the screen size isn't much of a difference, the narrower top bezel is noticeable.

And the OLED screen looks great. It's only slightly more vivid on measured color tests. But it's definitely brighter, and it's absolutely an improvement. The OLED screen doesn't measure as well as the OLED screen on the Steam Deck OLED, but in isolation, I thought Asus's panel looked great, and it has a much more recent chip than the Steam Deck.

Forza Horizon 6 looked beautiful, with lush greenery on the sides of tracks and realistic, colorful paint jobs. In God of War: Ragnarok, dark areas with deep blacks made dim light stand out.

Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 Specifications

Battery Life on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20

The Ally X20 has the same 80 Whr battery as its predecessor. To get an idea how long you can play a demanding game for, I booted up God of War: Ragnarok, set the screen to 50% brightness, and used the 17W performance mode. With the game running on low settings with AMD FSR 3.1.4 at 720p, the machine had 47% charge left after an hour and 15 minutes of gameplay.

That suggests that I could have hit about 2.5 hours had I kept going. That's down from about 3 hours on the original Ally, though it's not apples to apples, as I played different games. It's to be expected that an OLED display would use a bit more power, however.

Software and Warranty on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20

The ROG Xbox Ally X20 uses the same Full Screen Experience that the original Xbox Ally X originated. Portions of Windows don't even load unless you switch to desktop mode, which saves RAM and helps boost performance.

For some features, Asus includes Armoury Crate SE. That's where you can make changes to the lighting around the joysticks, adjust power management (whether in the app or in the Xbox menu), and calibrate your joysticks and triggers.

Asus sells the ROG Xbox Ally X20 with a 1-year warranty.

Bottom Line

The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 is the definitive form of Asus' handheld. It feels better in the hands, has joysticks that should last longer, and the OLED display is a noticeable improvement.

All of that being said, games play the same across the two devices. If you already have an original ROG Ally X, this isn't worth the upgrade. You won't get any more performance, and the IPS screen on the original is still plenty bright and colorful, even if the blacks aren't as good as on an OLED screen.

If you're buying a new machine, it's a tougher choice. The X20 is $1,299.99 — a $300 increase over the original, which is staying on the market. If this is your sole gaming machine, that may be worthwhile for the improved screen, TMR joysticks, and a slightly more solid build. But it's a lot of money; the original Xbox Ally X will play games the same way for $300 less. Neither will play games as well as the Intel Arc G3, but the only system with that available right now is $1,799.

The X20 is worth getting if it's going to be your only gaming PC for a few years. The $1,299.99 price is high for a handheld, but given that the $999.99 version is effectively the best deal in handhelds right now, it makes some sense to invest if you want the best experience.

It's been a few years since we've seen a Surface focused on performance. With Nvidia's entry into mobile SoCs, Microsoft is one of several hardware partners that have developed an ultra-premium PC designed around the RTX Spark.

The Surface Laptop Ultra is the most beautiful laptop Surface has ever produced. The screen is gorgeous. The port selection is strong, and the metal chassis feels luxurious. It's heavy, but that's the price of cooling an SoC designed to run AI models.

This is also one of the first Windows on Arm laptops that isn't using a Qualcomm chip. It benefits greatly here from years of work by Microsoft and Qualcomm, and hopefully Nvidia's involvement raises the bar for everyone. Windows on Arm works better here than ever before.

And yet, this system is expensive. If you want to run mobile AI workloads on the go, you will see, the Surface Laptop Ultra is a serious contender. But if you're just a Windows power user, you won't get a ton out of RTX Spark besides better software and gaming compatibility than previous Arm-based laptops. This is a lovely laptop waiting for Windows 11 to catch up to it.

Design of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The Surface Laptop Ultra is, without a doubt, the nicest system that Microsoft has ever built. The company has made some nice designs across both its Surface Pro and Laptop lines, but the Laptop Ultra really is something else.

The Ultra very much looks like Surface Laptops of old, with a spartan design, including a tone-on-tone reflective Microsoft logo. Our system came in Microsoft's new "nightfall" color (a very dark shade of gray), though a more traditional platinum is available in select configurations. The aluminum chassis is rock solid.

The keyboard deck is just as spare, with room for a large haptic touchpad and backlit chiclet keys. The Mini-LED display has a minimal bezel surrounding it.

Unfortunately, the closed laptop is difficult to open with one hand. It's doable, but you have to really get a grip with your thumb, and there's no cut-out notch for easy lid lifting.

The bottom of the laptop is on a bit of a pedestal, likely to make room for cooling. It reminds me a lot of the Surface Laptop Studio, which also had the main part of the chassis on top of a raised portion covered in vents.

There's a ton of ports on the Ultra. My favorite are three USB4 Type-C ports, each of which supports 140W charging, 40 Gb/s data transfer, DisplayPort 2.1, and fast charging. In addition, there's also an HDMI 2.1b port, USB Type-A 3.1, an SD card reader, and a headphone jack. Wirelessly, connectivity is based around Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

But the system is heavy. The 4.4-pound laptop feels premium, but it’s also extremely noticeable in a backpack. Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro with its top-end M5 Max chip is nearly a pound lighter, at 3.56 pounds. And that's before you add in Microsoft's 140W charger.

Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra Specifications

Magnetic Connect Charger

I've long loathed Microsoft's Surface Connect chargers. They fall out easily and take up space that could be useful for other ports. Microsoft's new charger for the Surface Laptop Ultra, Magnetic Connect, is far superior.

It works much like Apple's MagSafe, but with a small USB-C-shaped stub that fits into just the USB-C port on the top right, which is wider than your traditional port. (That also means that this charger doesn't fit in the other USB-C ports). There are magnets on both sides of the port, and the stub fits partway into the port to deliver power. If you trip over the cord, it should come out with pulling a laptop off a desk or table.

But the connection is also strong and satisfying to click into place. Unlike Surface Connect, I never worried it would come loose. You can still charge with a standard USB-C cable on any USB-C port on the laptop.

Because Magnetic Connect is a bit larger than a standard USB-C port, I did find some devices, like my go-to USB stick, dangling a bit out of the port, but there are two other USB-C options here if you don’t want to deal with that.

Productivity Performance on the Surface Laptop Ultra

The Surface Laptop Ultra we reviewed came with a top-end RTX Spark N1X chip, including 20 CPU cores, 6,144 CUDA cores, 32GB of unified memory, and 1TB of storage.

We compared this system to a MacBook Pro running an M5 Max, a Dell XPS 16 with Intel's "Panther Lake" Core Ultra X7, an Asus Zenbook A16 with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (a fellow Windows on Arm machine), and the Asus TUF Gaming A14 with an implementation of AMD's Strix Halo in a laptop.

On Geekbench 6, the Surface earned a single-core score of 3,151 and a multi-core score of 20,203. That fell well short of the MacBook Pro, and also proved less than the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme-based machine — at least, in this bursty workload.

When it came to transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in Handbrake, the Surface Laptop Ultra was the fastest, beating the MacBook Pro by one second. The next closest, the Zenbook with Snapdragon, came in at 2:08. Panther Lake fell behind hard here.

The Surface Laptop Ultra was speedy when it came to transferring files, completing a 25GB transfer at a rate of 1,998.59 MBps. The MacBook Pro took the crown, though, at 3,835.38 MBps.

On our Cinebench R26 gauntlet, running the rendering test 10 times, the Surface was largely consistent. Running in the mid 6,700's with the system's beefy cooling. Cinebench estimates that the RTX Spark CPU runs at 2.81 GHz. In our testing, the cores reached 3.35 GHz, on average, during this test, though HWinfo, which we use for logging, isn't yet updated to discriminate between the 10 performance and 10 efficiency cores.

For AI testing specifically, check out our RTX Spark N1X platform overview from GPU guru, Jeffrey Kampman, which highlights the difference between RTX Spark and M5 Max ( spoiler alert, RTX Spark often won). Just note, his unit had 128GB of RAM, while our 32GB of memory was tight for AI. With the 12GB of memory this review unit had dedicated out of the box for the GPU (you can adjust it), I needed to opt for smaller models like Google's Gemma 4 12B or Qwen 3.6 35B Q2 to run in a harness like Hermes.

Gaming and Graphics on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The RTX Spark has a GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores. For the average Windows user, you really just need to know this: yes, it can play games.

This is a big deal for Windows on Arm. Gaming has made decent strides on Snapdragon, but it never came far enough. Unsurprisingly, there is much better support with Nvidia on board. Nvidia and Microsoft have more games coming natively (Call of Duty is coming for RTX Spark platforms next year), while Microsoft's Prism emulator, which emulates x64 instructions for Arm64, has gotten much better, including working with more games with anti-cheat.

I've been playing a lot of God of War: Ragnarok in my spare time, so I tried it on the Spark to see how it works. At 2560 x 1440 with ultra settings and DLSS, the game ran between 41 and 47 frames per second during an ambush fight in Vanaheim. When I switched down to 1080p with the same settings, it ran anywhere between 51 fps and 79 fps.

I did experience one glitch: one time, when I paused the game, a Steam menu started showing through the game window. So while it was otherwise a good experience, there's still some work to be done.

Still, not all of our standard gaming laptop benchmarks worked. Red Dead Redemption 2, for instance, would not run.

On Shadow of the Tomb Raider at highest settings at 1080p, the Surface ran the game at 89 FPS, beating out the TUF Gaming A15 with Ryzen AI Max+ 392. But a much cheaper Gigabyte Aero X16 won at 109 fps at 1080p and 64 fps at 4K.

In Cyberpunk 2077 at very high settings, the Surface and Aero X16 were neck and neck, running at 32 fps and 34 fps at 1080p, respectively.

On Far Cry 6, the Surface hit 56 fps at 1080p, but the Aero X16 did 85 fps at 1080p and 70 fps at 4K.

For more gaming details, check out our RTX Spark platform overview.

Is Windows even ready for this?

Windows on Arm has been a mixed bag for a long time. It saw massive growth between the first and second generations of Snapdragon X chips, and the RTX Spark feels like a more polished platform from all the work that has been done before. Nvidia's own expertise and influence surely added to that, as well.

But Windows on Arm is still not perfect. There are some apps that don't work exactly, and some parts of Windows even still feel laggy compared to x86.

There are far more native apps than ever before, including all of the major browsers, VLC, Spotify, Slack, Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, Blender, DaVinci Resolve, Dropbox, Visual Studio, Zoom, and more, and Nvidia has more games working than ever before.

Most of Adobe's software, including After Effects, Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere, are Arm-native now. But InDesign, Illustrator, and Lightroom Classic are still running via emulation, so they may not be as speedy or stable.

Windows 11 includes an emulator, Prism, that runs apps built for x86 processors and converts the instructions, which does take care of a lot of the rest. But some advanced professional tools, like AutoCAD, aren't considered officially supported, though emulation may still work.

The other issue — which will probably never be totally cleared up — is for those who are using legacy peripherals that require drivers. The same goes for old software that is no longer updated.

But what isn't here yet is glaring: anything in Windows itself to take advantage of a chip that is designed to be an AI powerhouse. There's no sign of Nvidia OpenShell running in Windows 11 (26H1 came on the review unit, which is specific to Windows on Arm). Even the new Copilot hasn't rolled out broadly yet, and the Autopilot feature for a persistent agent isn't ready in time for launch. Microsoft's recently revealed feature that uses plain language search in the taskbar isn't here yet, and while that doesn't need Spark, it would at least have been an AI-specific change to Windows in time for this AI chip to make a splash.

Some off these features can be accessed through the Windows Insider program, but they should have been ready for general availability for a launch this big. This isn't limited to the Surface laptop, but also machines from other OEMs like Dell, Asus, Lenovo, HP, and MSI.

There's nothing that RTX Spark does that makes Windows itself better yet. This is not an operating system designed for local AI, and it doesn't feel like one. If you're interested in local models and running them, Spark has plenty of power. But there's nothing new in this AI PC for regular people using Windows unless you put preview software on your PC. Microsoft built a gorgeous, capable laptop here, but if the average person (or even a power user who doesn't rely on AI models and wants the most stable version of Windows 11) bought one, they wouldn't get anything dramatically special in the Windows experience, at least for now.

Display on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The 15-inch, mini LED screen on the Surface Laptop Ultra is really, really good. The 3:2, 2370 x 2180 panel gets exceptionally bright.

I'm talking "944 nits on our light meter" bright. That's so far above everything else (the MacBook Pro hit 529.4 nits) that we had to adjust the X axis on our chart. For most things I could see people using this type of laptop for, (which for me, involves a lot of dark mode), it's probably overkill.

When I watched the trailer for Avengers: Doomsday, the many shades of emerald green were vivid, and a white light surrounding Johnny Storm and his nephew Franklin Richards was nearly blinding.

The Surface's display covers 74.1% of the DCI-P3 gamut and 104.6% of the sRGB gamut, which is slightly behind every other system in the pack.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The keys on Microsoft's chiclet keyboard are a bit on the mushy side for my taste, but the keys don't bottom out. On the MonkeyType typing test, I reached 117 words per minute and a 98% accuracy rate.

The massive haptic trackpad feels great. It's smooth and responsive to Windows gestures. I liked the default "medium" sensitivity, but you can adjust it in Windows settings.

Audio on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

Microsoft outfitted the Surface Laptop Ultra with quad speakers with support for Dolby Atmos.

Listening to Chvrches new single, "Roses," I was impressed with the sheer amount of volume the Surface Laptop Ultra drove, easily filling a small room with sound, though it could get a bit muddled at the highest volumes. At more reasonable levels, vocals, drums, and even synths on the low end were all clear.

I did find the EQ to be too flat to my tastes. Microsoft doesn't include any audio customization software, though Dolby's software is available from the Microsoft Store.

Upgradeability of the Surface Laptop Ultra

At first, you might think you can't upgrade this laptop, as there are no visible screws on the Surface Laptop Ultra. Those are hidden underneath the feet, which you can pry off with a guitar pick or pry tool. There's no adhesive there, which is appreciated, though it's easy to ding up the soft feet. I wish Microsoft just used exposed screws.

Below those feet are recessed Torx T5 screws. From there, a pry in the vent lifts the whole bottom off, with no clips to deal with. Instead, parts of the bottom case are aligned with magnets.

Inside, the laptop looks great. It's clean and labeled with a variety of QR codes and symbols for part labeling, as well as which screws hold parts down. The battery also has a QR code that goes to the Service Guide, though the Laptop Ultra's isn't ready yet. It's nice to see the inside receiving as much care as the outside of the laptop.

The battery and the SSD appear to be the major replaceable parts. The latter is important, as Microsoft is only offering 1TB configurations of the Ultra as of this writing. But looking closely along the sides, you can also see that most of the ports are held in by screws, too. The RAM, of course, is part of the SoC, so that's non-negotiable; get what you need when you buy it.

While Microsoft puts fine print all over the place that only authorized service technicians are supposed to make repairs, it's nice to see the company has put so much work into precisely labeling the parts so that third-party technicians and enthusiasts can make some repairs or upgrades, too. Now we're just waiting for that repair manual.

Battery Life on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The Surface Laptop Ultra isn't a battery life champion. At 10 hours and 43 minutes on our test, which involves web browsing, video streaming, and OpenGL tests over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, it can get through a day.

It just beat the Zenbook A16 (10:26) with Snapdragon X Elite and surpassed the TUF Gaming A14 (9:07) with Strix Halo. But the XPS 16 with Intel's Panther Lake ran for 13:03, and the MacBook Pro led the pack at 17:58.

That being said, like a gaming laptop, you won't want to run AI workloads unplugged for too long. Without making battery efficiency setting changes, you can easily see the battery icon drop quickly when running demanding tasks.

Heat on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

We took temperature measurements while running our Cinebench stress test. The Surface Laptop Ultra can get toasty.

The center of the keyboard reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit, which you can definitely feel on the keys, though the touchpad was cooler at 88.5 F. On the bottom, the hottest point reached 110 F.

The fans have the capacity to get quite loud, especially when utilizing the GPU. Having Hermes work on some coding projects created consistent fan noise.

Internally, HWinfo hasn't been updated to be clear on which sensors are measuring what. We could make educated guesses, but we'll have more specifics when the software is updated.

Webcam on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

The Surface Laptop Ultra features a 1080p webcam. Given the price, I would've liked to see even higher resolution. Many laptops, including several Arm-based competitors using Qualcomm chips, have nicer cameras.

Stills had some graininess to them, even in our well-lit office. But in the video I appeared crisp, with a color-accurate powder-blue shirt and some unfortunate gray hairs poking out of my brown hair.

An infrared camera adds support for Windows Hello.

Nvidia's RTX Broadcast has some neat effects that make this system better for streaming or video calls. Under video effects, you can use RTX Super Resolution and RTX Video Frame Generation to make for smoother, higher-quality images. Eye Contact is particularly good here, though I found that the virtual key light had a smoothing effect that made me look unrealistic, like a video game character. That being said, this all can push the GPU (especially the key light) and make the system run noisily during your calls.

Software and Warranty on the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra

Microsoft includes one major piece of software on top of Windows 11: the Surface app. It's a one-stop shop to check that your firmware is up to date, change your battery setting preferences, adjust the haptic touchpad, and customize the Copilot key. Much of this is available elsewhere.

The Nvidia App is also onboard to make customizations for gaming, update Nvidia's drivers, and adjust how much of the unified memory is reserved specifically for the GPU.

Otherwise, there are a few extras in the Start menu, including WhatsApp and LinkedIn.

Microsoft sells the Surface Laptop Ultra with a one-year warranty. If you purchase on Microsoft's website, Microsoft Complete for more protection starts at $249 for two years, $319 for 3 years, or $399 for four years, including coverage for hardware failures, battery wear, and accidental damage.

Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra Configurations

The Surface Laptop Ultra has many configuration options. The system starts at $2,599.9 with a cut-down version of the RTX Spark, using an 18-core CPU and GPU with 5,120 CUDA cores, along with 24GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and Windows 11 Home.

Our review unit is a nice step up, using the version of RTX Spark N1X with a 20-core CPU and 6,144 CUDA cores, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and Windows 11 Pro. That pushes the price to $3,699.99. (All systems with 24GB of RAM have Windows 11 Home, while 32GB through 128GB get Windows 11 Pro).

The highest-end configuration uses the same RTX Spark chip as our review unit, but features 128GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage. That's $5,899.99, and it sold out almost immediately during pre-orders on Microsoft's website.

Bottom Line

If you want the nicest Surface Laptop Microsoft has ever released, the Surface Laptop Ultra is for you. The system definitely copies the MacBook Pro in some areas, but is a luxury machine with a solid build, exceptionally bright display, a clever charging connector, and powerful components. It's the most exciting Surface hardware in years, and I hope it’s a signal that Microsoft is looking at the brand for more reinvention.

Nvidia's RTX Spark offers a decent CPU and a strong GPU, but it's also not a high-end gaming laptop. Where its strongest performance lies is in running local AI models, though that is a niche market right now. Windows on Arm, while not perfect, is better than it's ever been, and Nvidia is benefiting from years of work done before its entry into the market.

If you're a regular power user, you won't be getting any features in Windows that actually take advantage of the RTX Spark yet, unless you're diving into Windows Insider builds. If Microsoft has AI-grade hardware, it's time to start putting features into Windows that let everyone, not just people who care about local models, take advantage of this compute power. Some of those features should have been ready to show at launch.

And that's what you pay for with this machine — Nvidia's latest, a bunch of RAM, and a lovely design. This laptop is a status symbol, proof of either wealth, devotion to Surface hardware, or a serious interest in local AI. But it also suffers from a bit of an identity crisis, as Windows and RTX Spark aren't a true marriage feature-wise. This is a Copilot+ PC on steroids, where some software engineering and imagination could potentially allow the Surface and the other Windows-based RTX Spark PCs to be a new generation of computers. But we're not quite there yet.

Chromebooks have gotten a bad rap. The systems have often been seen as glorified web browsers designed only for schools. But with Googlebooks, Google is making a renewed push to show its laptops are designed to be full-on PCs, running a new operating system that feels more like Android than anything else.

Googlebook OS is also designed to merge your Android phone and your laptop in a way that has never been seen outside of Apple’s macOS and iOS devices.

And of course, Google has packed Googlebook OS full of AI features. Some of these are unique to the new laptops, while others, like Rambler, have been introduced on Android phones before.

The new undertaking currently has five hardware partners: Dell, Lenovo, HP, Acer, and Asus. The hardware that we tested is generally sound, though I wouldn't mind a bit more battery life.It's the OS itself that needs some more time in the oven. It largely feels like Android, with some features nailed on to fit a desktop OS. Despite the expansive Google Play Store, the platform is still limited and largely centered around the web browser.

In some ways, Googlebooks are more powerful than Chromebooks could ever be. In other ways, they feel like they haven't yet grown into a full PC operating system.

Googlebook Hardware

I've spent the last few days using the Lenovo Googlebook 15, HP Googlebook 14, and Dell’s XPS Googlebook. In general, if you've seen some recent Windows laptops, you've seen this hardware. The HP Googlebook 14 is clearly based off around the HP OmniBook Ultra, while the Dell XPS Googlebook is a carbon copy of the Dell XPS 13 — although there is a haptic touchpad in this version. I have few complaints there — both of those are solid machines, though I still wish HP would move away from the keyboards without spaces around the keys.

Of the systems, the HP feels the most premium, but I've come to appreciate Lenovo's airy design with the all-white Lenovo Googlebook 15. Despite the 15.3-inch OLED screen, the mix of carbon fiber with aluminum and magnesium doesn't feel as high-end, but is light at approximately 2.84 pounds.

HP and Lenovo both include beautiful 2880 x 1800 OLED screens, while Dell opted for a 2560 x 1600 LCD panel instead.

While ports, materials, and screens might differ, all of the Googlebooks share a few things in common. The first is the Glowbar, which originated on the Chromebook Pixel and Pixel C tablet. Here, it serves as the sole unifying element that tells anyone looking at you that yes, you're using a Googlebook. When you turn the system on or put it to sleep, it has a nice rainbow pattern, but otherwise it largely glows white. It dances around when you speak to Gemini, and when you plug or unplug the device, it indicates battery life with colors (green, yellow, red) and flashing when the battery is low or there’s a charging problem.

Other than turning the Glowbar off, there's not much customization. Or rather, there isn’t unless you find the hidden Glowbar Disco app, which Google is positioning as an easter egg. (SPOILER ALERT: Go to Settings > Apps and click "See all [Number] apps." Click on the three dots in the corner and click "Show System." Click "Glowbar Disco" and press the External arrow button. This launches Glowbar Disco.)Glowbar Disco lets you choose a custom color, preset gradient, or a series of animations like a Knight Rider-style scanner, a rainbow, or my favorite "vibe code," which looks like the letters from The Matrix dropping. You can also set it to sync to music, which is set as "experimental." That's funny, given how hidden this app is. Effects aren't persistent when you close the app, and you can't even pin the app to the taskbar to easily reset it.

The other major similarity across all of the hardware is the keyboards. Google has a shared layout across all of the devices, including a G key that opens the app launcher and works with shortcuts, a Caps Lock key that doubles as Quick Insert, and, on F1 through F3, are the Back, Show Homescreen, and Overview buttons (The latter shows all open apps). These feel like throwbacks to Android phones before they largely went gesture-based, though they can still be found in Settings on Android phones today.

Performance: Intel vs. Qualcomm

There are two chips in the first crop of Googlebooks. The HP Googlebook 14 and Dell XPS Googlebook are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1-80-100, while the rest are using Intel's Core Series 3 "Panther Lake" processors, specifically the Core Ultra 5 325 in the Lenovo Googlebook 15.Since launch, there have been questions about app compatibility on the Intel models, as most Android apps are designed to run on Arm chips in phones. Google and Intel are in a bit of a back-and-forth over how many Android apps simply work on Intel right now. I've also found a few glitches in the Android based-version of Googlebook OS, like popping icons on the taskbar. Perhaps most notably, when trying browsers that weren't Chrome, the Arm-based Googlebooks were able to run Microsoft Edge, while the Intel-based Lenovo had issues. That app is marked as being "compatible with desktop" in the Play Store.

In benchmarks, we found that the Snapdragon X1 Elite models outperformed the singular Intel option we had to test. Notably, though, that's Qualcomm's high-end Oryon chip (albeit from its first generation) compared to an Intel Core Ultra 5. We didn't have a system with an Intel Core Ultra 7.

In Geekbench 7, the Snapdragon-based systems edged out the Lenovo Googlebook with Intel, particularly in multi-core. But on WebXPRT4, the Lenovo system won. Google claims people spend 70% of their time in the browser.

On 3DMark's Steel Nomad Light, the Snapdragon systems won out again, though not by a ton. If you're doing a lot of Android gaming, it's worth noting.

On our battery test, the Intel-based Lenovo won out at 11:52, while the HP hit 10:25 and the XPS reached 10:04. None of these are amazing times. Our Googlebook battery test browses a list of 30 live websites on a loop at 150 nits of brightness.

It's also notable that while Googlebooks as a class have at least 16GB of RAM, they appear, according to their task managers, to always have at least 7-8GB in use, likely housing local AI models to be ready at any moment.

Googlebook OS

If you use an Android phone, specifically one of Google's Pixels, you'll feel right at home with a Googlebook. For all the talk of merging ChromeOS and Android, Googlebook OS really feels like an Android phone, just on a laptop.

There's a taskbar on the bottom (there's no way to move that yet — shades of Windows 11 there), and the systems come with some precreated folders for Google apps on the desktop. There's also a dedicated My Googlebook app on the desktop to teach you the ropes.

Along the very top, there's a status bar with the time, date, a button to turn on the Magic Cursor, and some quick settings that can be accessed by clicking the Wi-Fi and battery icons (think macOS' Control Center).

Apps are in the G Menu, and, if you have a phone paired, it appears next to it with a separate drawer of apps you can cast to your phone.

It's quite simple — especially if your primary app is Google Chrome. If you use the rest of Google's ecosystem, like Photos, Calendar, and Messages, you'll almost be set up out of the box (they all wanted me to confirm my Google account, which was a bit annoying). In fact, if you don't use all of those services, I question the value of buying a Googlebook at all.

But the simplicity and elasticity of Android only goes so far. While it's clearly flexible enough to become a desktop OS, there are some areas where you can just tell the team needed more time.

For starters, a lot of the spacing feels meant for touch. When I right clicked on the desktop for context menus, there would be a significant amount of space to move my mouse. But when I touched the screen, that spacing felt natural for my finger.

You see more of that in the Files app. It's lacking features that make some sense on a phone but don't on a computer. For example, there are no forward and back buttons. Instead, you have to navigate through folders or the path at the bottom of the screen. Additionally, the Files app doesn't let you pin or re-order the folders in the sidebar.

Perhaps the most damning, given how flexible ChromeOS is with profiles, is that the version of Google Chrome on Googlebook OS doesn't, as of this writing, support multiple profiles. That breaks plenty of people's workflows, especially those who have separate accounts for work and personal use.

The best thought-out desktop feature is Quick Insert. Having a key that serves as a go-to place for your clipboard history, suggested emojis, recent browsing, and links to tools is a real time saver when you don't want to click around looking for them all.

All the apps you want, as long as you like the Play Store

The only way to install apps on a Googlebook is through the Play Store. That is where the system is most locked down. Unlike Windows, macOS, and Linux, you can't install software from the web browser.

In the Play Store, Google has five "desktop ratings" that lets you get an idea of how an app works on a Googlebook. Made for Desktop is the gold standard, which means it's a desktop-first app with features and controls designed for a mouse and keyboard. Optimized for Desktop is a close second, in which an app has been adjusted for the bigger screen.

Compatible with Desktop means a keyboard and mouse will work. After that, you get Better on the Website. Slack gave me this, as did Duolingo. Lastly, Built for Mobile means you'll get the app, but it will be formatted for a smartphone.

Compatible with Desktop doesn't always mean great. One of my go-to mobile games, Marvel Snap, is compatible, but it stretches out and leaves black bars on the sides. It did, however, support Google's ability to map touch to keyboard controls, though that's not really appropriate for this game. Given this game has a widescreen version on Steam, I'd hope Google could get developer Second Dinner to make it work on Google Play just as well.

Designed for Mobile should be a last resort. I downloaded my bank app, and I regretted not just going to the website.

Google's own apps are a mixed bag. Gmail and Calendar are just web apps in a nice wrapper. At least Messages feels like a proper Android app.

One issue I had is that when I connected a phone at setup, it offered to transfer my apps. It auto-selected some, like Apple Music (Optimized for Desktop), but left a bunch off. But I thought I'd want some, so I picked them. At that time, it didn't tell me why they left them off, though I'm guessing it's the lack of optimization many of them later displayed.

In many ways, that lack of optimization means that Googlebooks still feel like Chromebooks, with web apps as a major fallback. There are some major apps, like Photoshop, Netflix, Fantastical (leaving the Apple ecosystem!), Obsidian, Notability, Zoom, and Microsoft Office all optimized or straight up designed for desktop. But it's not enough just yet. Google really needs developers on board.

The other option is installing apps through a Linux virtual machine, but I don't recommend it (see below).

Cross-device use

The other trick up these Googlebooks' sleeve is to pair your laptop and phone together more closely than has ever been done before. In many ways, it's impressive. You can share notifications and drag files to and from devices wirelessly in the Files app.

Perhaps the biggest issue was finding a phone that worked. Google keeps it in the fine print that you need a phone with Android 17 to get the best cross-device features, like app casting, Continue On, and Quick Access in the Files app. If you have a phone that doesn't have Android 17 yet, like the Samsung Galaxy S23 I had set up ahead of this review, you'll only be able to use the phone to set up the computer and transfer apps. This is surely a technical hurdle, but one that leaves out the vast majority of people with Android phones right now.

Google loaned us a Pixel 10 Pro XL to test these features, and it's important they did. Even Samsung's Android phones, the most popular in the United States, don't all work with Googlebooks yet. On Reddit, one Google staffer wrote that support "will be rolling out across all Android 17-supported Samsung devices over the coming weeks. Sorry for the inconvenience!" News broke just days ago that support was rolling out for Samsung phones running Android 17 and Samsung’s One UI 9, but we still had issues connecting a Samsung S25 Ultra after initial setup with Dell’s XPS Googlebook.

Otherwise, perhaps my biggest issue was that you have to turn on a bunch of settings that you may not have turned on yet. Even Google's reviewer's guide had a bunch of steps to enable cross-device settings, and, if that didn't work, on its own, a series of restarts or QR code scans. When it works, though, it takes, and the experience is far better than what you get on Windows.

The key word being "when." I didn't always get notifications. I couldn't drag some small files from my Googlebook to the phone, and I still don't know why.

Casting Apps was my favorite use case, especially apps I wouldn't really install on my laptop. Unfortunately, there was some lag and hiccups with connections, both at work and at home, which occasionally made the whole thing unusable. It's impressive, however, that you can have your Android phone running other apps while you have one open only on your Googlebook; Apple's casting method mirrors the whole phone, so it can only be on a Mac or on the phone itself.

Continue On is also appreciated. Like Apple's continuity, I could be browsing the web on my phone and pick it back up on the laptop. I just wish it worked with more apps, as it mostly works with Google's work suite and Chrome.

So many ways to use Gemini

Googlebooks are smothered in AI. For the most part, you never have to use it, but the system is all about teaching you at first. For example, there are early prompts to learn about the Magic Cursor, which lets you click on something and share it with Gemini immediately.

It's quicker than copy and paste, but I never found myself using it as often as I expected. Maybe the next time I see a shirt I like, I’ll try it.

The idea of making your own widget is really neat, but I wish it was more flexible. Sure, countdowns and motivational quotes are fun, but when I asked the AI to create a widget showing me CPU usage, it denied me, expressly telling me that system telemetry wasn't allowed.

The most impressive thing, which Google should talk about even more, is Rambler. This isn't new to Googlebooks — it's already on Android phones. It lets you talk, make mistakes, and still correct your statements into what you ultimately meant. For people who talk to their computers and use dictation, this is powerful to have on the computer alongside the phone.

The one I worry the most about is Antigravity. This comes preinstalled, without a care if you are a developer. In theory, this is empowering Googlebook users to make their own apps. On the other hand, there's a reason AI models keep asking for human intervention and approval. The agentic-first IDE may let anyone make prompts, but given that your agents can execute shell commands, it's far safer if you understand what they're doing. I expect many people to just hit "yes" without knowing what they're talking about, but hey, it's just bringing vibe coding to more people.

Gemini is also sprinkled throughout Google's apps, and you can also talk to it with a simple "Hey Google" command. I would argue these systems are best if you are a Gemini user, if only because you'll get so many features.

The Debian Linux Terminal

Each Googlebook comes with a Debian Linux terminal and virtual machine preinstalled. I was able to install apps, like the photo editor GIMP and Steam for gaming, but I don't find these Linux apps decent replacements for most people.

For starters, the apps in the VM live there, and only there. You can't put them in the app drawer and run them separately later.

The VM is also laggy. Even lightweight games like Dead Cells didn't always run fluidly, and I had some issues with the sound making popping and groaning noises.

Resizing windows and using some tools in GIMP resulting in its own lag. This might work for basic development testing, but for applications, you're better off sticking with the Play Store or web apps.

Too early to tell, but already on sale

It's too early to render judgment on the ultimate fate of Googlebooks. If you like using Android on your phone and do everything on the web or Android apps, you can make this work.

Google clearly has some work to do to make Googlebook OS feel truly at home with a keyboard and mouse. And it needs a ton of developers to optimize their apps to feel like you're not using them on a phone when you put them on a big screen. With enough of them, the Googlebook platform will feel far more friendly.

At the moment, I think people should wait and see how the Googlebook platform evolves. If you buy now, you're getting the early adopter experience. There's too much that doesn't work as it should for you to spend your hard-earned money on these. The hardware is there, but Google's software doesn't feel done.

Google should ensure users’ favorite apps work no matter which silicon platform they use, and they should be darn sure their phone will work with the system they have. And prospective buyers should definitely wait and see if Google delivers on its promises that developers will improve their apps.

At an event in San Francisco, Microsoft and Nvidia teamed up to show off the RTX Spark chip, along with the Surface Laptop Ultra and new features in Windows 11 that use the new system-on-a-chip's capabilities. The device, along with the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box and the broader Spark ecosystem is available for pre-order today, with devices shipping on October 16. You can see our full breakdown of retailers and listings in our dedicated pre-order coverage here.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Windows and Devices head Pavan Davuluri took turns on stage.

"We've reinvented the personal computer completely," Huang said.

Nadella described the event as one that would be building the "frontier ecosystem," anchoring it in Agent 365, Microsoft IQ, and Copilot. Davuluri describes Windows 11 as being the most secure platform for AI agents, highlighting containment for agents.

Windows 11 and Surface Laptop Ultra

The Surface Laptop Ultra will start at $2,599, while the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box will begin at $5,999. Both are available for pre-order. They, along with PCs from Asus, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and MSI will ship next Friday, Oct. 16.

Davuluri showed the Surface Laptop Ultra running Github Copilot and playing Gears of War: E-Day at 60 frames per second. He said that "hundreds" of AAA titles and indies will be available day one, and that Call of Duty will come to RTX Spark in 2027.

The 4.5-pound system has the brightest peak HDR on a laptop, he said. The system also features a magnetic USB-C charger it calls "magnetic connect." The connector plugs in, similar to Apple's MagSafe or the old Surface Connect ports, except using a standardized port.

An impressive video demo using multiple local and cloud models across Blender, Photoshop, ComfyUI, and Unreal Engine to make a workload that took hours instead of days was impressive, but also highly produced.

Microsoft compared the Spark to the M5 Pro in a MacBook Pro, promising performance up to 2.1 times faster to first token, 4.3 times faster image generation, and 6.2 times faster video generation.

On Windows 11, there will be new quick actions in the Search menu in the Task Bar, making quick changes to settings, taking screenshots, or arranging windows using natural language. The Taskbar will also launch Copilot if the request calls for it, and you can jump from Search to Copilot.

Davuluri also described local models running from other vendors, including Hermes, OpenClaw, and Perplexity, performing a demo with Perplexity Computer. He also stated that Meta's Muse will come to Windows. There will be a new setup for Windows AI agents to make them easier to configure.

Davaluri also announced DGX Spark and Station for Windows, a "supercomputer" to bring "last quarter's frontier to your desktop." He showed off desktops from HP and Dell that will come "later this year." Up to this point, both have been exclusive for Linux.

Copilot and Local Agents

Microsoft's Jacob Andreou detailed the recent launch of the new Copilot, which is now getting access to local files, local models, and the ability to take actions on account of the user. It will still use cloud models, but will switch to local models when privacy is called for.

In one example, Andreou was grabbing tax data for his accountant. The system used a mix of local and cloud models to search for documents, rename them, and zip them into a folder. Copilot also wrote an email to the accountant to send on his behalf, which he approved. These features, he said, are coming over the next few months.

Containers, Trust, and Hybrid Ingelligence

Daviluri focused on the technical details of agents, including Microsoft Execution Containers, which is moving to general availability. These are sandboxes that are integrated with the OS to decide what data is shared with agents.

Windows will also require agents to attribute their actions to themselves. There will be IT actions for enterprises that want to set agentic rules once and use them across their fleet of devices.

Microsoft's Divya Venkataramu demonstrated this system, showing how she had access to documents even when agents didn't.

Davuluri also described hybrid intelligence, a mix of agents running locally and in the cloud to reduce token budgets. Microsoft's HydraFusion, which balances local and cloud agents, is coming from GitHub to Windows on October 15 for GitHub Copilot, the CLI, and VS Code, and will use new models like MAI Code 1.1 Flash and Nvidia's Nemotron. Using advanced quantization, DeepSeek V4 Flash can be used at 1.6 bits to run locally at 60GB of memory, he said.

Windows ML will serve as the runtime to deploy models across GPU, NPU, and CPU. Llama.cpp will come to Windows ML to give developers chances to experiment with new models at launch.

Microsoft's Kayla Cinnamon demonstrated Hybrid intelligence on a Surface RTX Dev Box by prompting GitHub Copilot to detect unused codes, packages, and feature flags to clean up code. With an Efficiency mode, Copilot selects a model automatically based on how complex a task is. A more complex prompt used GPT-6 Luna, while separate sub-agents ran locally.

Anything with memory or a GPU is tough to find at a good price right now, even on Prime Day. But over at HP, there's a desktop deal that's at a surprisingly good price given the components inside.

The Omen 35L with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 32GB of memory, and 2TB of storage is $2,799.99, down from an MSRP of $4,999.99.

• Check out the HP Omen 35L at HP

Given that the RTX 5080 on its own is typically going for anywhere between $1,600 and $2,000, this is a significant deal if you're willing to buy a PC rather than build one.

The system also comes equipped with a 1,000-watt, fully modular, 80-Plus Gold power supply; Wi-Fi 7; and a 240 mm AIO cooler for the CPU. The 35-liter chassis should be small enough for many desks, but will still be fine on the floor.

We haven't reviewed this model, but HP typically uses standardized parts, allowing for easy upgrades down the line.

Whether you're gaming at high refresh rates at 1440p or chasing the highest image quality possible at 4K, this system is, at least on paper, built for the job. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is one of the fastest gaming CPUs available today, and the RTX 5080 is the fastest gaming graphics card around short of an RTX 5090.

Prices on these high-end components are only going to keep going up, especially the storage and RAM, so if you're looking for an awesome upgrade for yourself or a loved one, grab this deal before it's gone.

Whether you're one of the many people who rushed on the M4 Mac Mini this year or grabbed the M6 or M5 Pro Mac Mini that released last month, you're bound to eventually want to consider more storage, more ports, or both.

You can't upgrade the storage (it's soldered on the M6, and on M4 you need specialty NAND that will void the warranty and isn't easy to come by), so using external storage is all there is. And while the Mac Mini is fairly generous with five USB-C ports, there are no legacy USB-A ports or an SD Card slot like on the Mac Studio.

For Prime Day, there are a handful of docks specifically designed for Apple's Mac Mini that will give you more ports, including options with SSD slots to allow for more storage in a compact footprint. Keep in mind these won't work in older Mac Minis, which had a different chassis.

In general, some Mac users love these docks, while others have suggested that placing them underneath a Mini can block the Wi-Fi signal. That's something to consider if you're not plugging into Ethernet.

While there are lots of specialized docks for the Mac Mini, you don't need that. If you're willing to use any standard, rectangular USB-C or Thunderbolt dock, which can offer the same advantages, just not in a bespoke shape.

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Also, you can join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

When a PC gamer's GPU with a 12VHPWR or 12V-2x6 power connector melts, it's often in a computer they built by hand, and they typically only have one chance at recourse — hoping their GPU is under warranty and making a claim.

But it ends up that when someone else built your PC, it could open up a can of worms that has two companies pointing the blame at each other while a customer sits with a burned-up RTX 5090, power supply, and power cords.

That's what happened to Tom's Hardware reader Anthony DeMarco, whose father purchased a Digital Storm Corsa for him ahead of his first job after graduating from college. DeMarco says he suggested his father purchase the system before RAM prices went up. The system was delivered in May of 2025. DeMarco says he tested the system, then packed it up for when he got a job. That jealousy-inducing system included an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, 2TB Crucial T700 Pro SSD, 64GB of Kingston Fury RGB RAM, and, crucially, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 from PNY. The computer cost $5,245.00 before tax.

DeMarco says he got the computer from his father in August 2026, upon starting his job. He says the problems started two weeks later.

"I noticed a strange burning smell from near my computer," he recalled to Tom's Hardware, wondering if it was an issue with dust from another PC he owned. "The next day I noticed my monitor screen kept flickering. I then used Claude to try to figure out the issue and it pointed to the GPU, and then I checked the wires and noticed them very melted and burned. I immediately powered off my computer so hopefully my GPU is still functional."

But that's hard for him to tell. The cable was "fused" into the connector, and while he managed to separate the pieces, some of the connectors are still stuck together.

The damage went beyond the GPU, with the "most severe" damage at the power supply, a 1,000-watt semi-modular model from Digital Storm with an 80-Plus Gold rating. This is the cheapest, default option you get when you pick an RTX 5090 on the Corsa configurator, though his PSU cables are an upgrade with custom blue sleeving. "The cable into the power supply is completely melted and the cable head is completely fused into the power supply with bare wires exposed at both ends of the cable," he said.

DeMarco claims that he checked that all the cabling was in place after his father formally gave him the PC.

Pictures of the damage

The photos that DeMarco sent us are brutal. Perhaps the worst are the photos of the ends of the power cable, which are wrecked on both ends. But there's burns on the cable itself, too. The part going into the GPU appears to have some sort of bend, though we don't have many photos to judge perspective.

Who do you go to for help?

DeMarco had two options to go to for help. Digital Storm, which built the PC, and PNY which made the GPU.

This is where buying the system early bit DeMarco. Digital Storm offers a one-year warranty on parts and three years on its labor, and that one-year warranty on parts was up. But the components are separately supported by manufacturers, and PNY warranties its GeForce RTX gaming GPUs for three years.

He went first to Digital Storm, raising a support ticket under his father's name on Aug. 26, according to records Tom's Hardware reviewed. He later uploaded photos. That ticket was closed on Aug. 31 following a phone call, a summary of which explains that while there is a "faulty 12VHPWR cable that melted" that DeMarco would attempt to RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) with PNY, the GPU vendor, due to being "Due to being far out of warranty." DeMarco also claimed on the call that he could get the GPU fixed at a repair center to replace the power connector on the GPU.

On Sept. 8, DeMarco had a back and forth email chain with PNY, requesting an RMA of the GPU and highlighting the 3-year warranty. He also inquired if PNY offered a repair service for his existing GPU. Following supplying the receipt and photos of the damage, a PNY service representative said there was an issue with the fact that Digital Storm had used its own cables.

"We want to clarify an important part of the warranty regarding the power connection to the GPU. All PNY GPUs that require a 16-pin (12VHPWR / 12V-2x6) input include a PNY-approved power cable or adapter in the box. This cable is the only configuration covered under warranty," the PNY support rep wrote. "If a third-party power cable, adapter, or PSU cable is used and damage occurs — including melting, burning, overheating, or deformation of the connector — PNY cannot accept the product under warranty. Damage caused by non-PNY cables falls under the responsibility of the manufacturer of that cable or power supply."

"We are always happy to help with any PNY-related issues," they added, "but in cases where the damage was caused by unsupported cabling, we are unable to process an RMA."

DeMarco responded with a series of questions. Does PNY publish a list of approved cables? Is the bundled adapter the only supported configuration, and not an ATX cable included with a PSU? Are system builders covered when they use PNY's cables?

The answers to the first two (no, and not automatically) don't change much. On the third, PNY's rep wrote that machines from authorized system builders are covered, it doesn't mean their cabling is.

Without knowing what else to do, on Sept. 16, DeMarco filed a report on the Consumer Product Safety Commission SaferProducts.gov database.

"PNY stands behind its GeForce RTX graphics cards, including those sold through our authorized system builder partners," the company wrote in a statement to Tom's Hardware when asked about its policies. "We are presently reviewing this case and will be engaging the customer directly. PNY’s ongoing commitment to its customers includes providing clear terms, policies and processes, and making adjustments where appropriate."

Digital Storm did not respond to requests for comment.

DeMarco then asked if PNY has a repair service he could pay for out of pocket (they do not), and then came to Tom's Hardware with his plight. He had seen another story of PNY rejecting an RMA for using a cable that came with their power supply — an ASRock rated for 1,600 watts.

In Digital Storm's warranty, it says that "After the first year, Digital Storm will help replace any defective parts for the customer as long as those parts are still under warranty with the manufacture [sic]." DeMarco says Digital Storm said that because PNY had denied him, there was no use getting involved, but there is no corroborating record of this.

What does he want? What should he get?

If it were up to DeMarco, he wouldn't get another GPU. He'd get a refund for the component:

"In an ideal situation I would get a refund for my PNY RTX 5090 instead of [having] it replaced because I do not feel safe leaving my computer to run anymore without me if it has a PNY RTX 5090 in it."

In his email, DeMarco writes that there is a "a known problem with the PNY RTX 5090 power connector melting that is happening to many people."

In this area, he's incorrect, at least when it comes to PNY. There have been plenty of reports over the years of GPUs with a 12VHPWR connector that have melted across both RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 graphics cards, and many of those are other brands. This is a widely known issue with the connector, which is standardized by the Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group, or PCI-SIG. In 2022, PCI-SIG sent a notice to members about the connector, ensuring they test for safety and help avoid user error.

If DeMarco were to get a refund and turn around and buy an RTX 5090 from another manufacturer, it's possible he could see the same fate. Digital Storm doesn't guarantee a PNY RTX 5090. "Digital Storm will use a top brand name graphics card from the likes of ASUS, PNY, MSI, etc... An example would be the ASUS TURBO series," the website reads.

One could say that either company could step up and help DeMarco out as a way of engendering goodwill. PNY's warranty isn't specific about which power cable you can use, though reviewing other GPU vendors' policies leads to an equally mixed bag. MSI's is more specific, stating that the warranty can be voided based on "any breakdown or damage caused by the use of parts or software not authorized or recommended by MSI[.]" Asus' warranty has similar vague language to PNY's. PC building is often a hobby where parts from various manufacturers are used.

In most cases, going to Digital Storm would be the obvious answer. But DeMarco and his father let the expensive system sit in a box for over a year. While he was right to test it out of the box to make sure it worked, a gesture of goodwill buying in advance ultimately backfired when it ran out the clock on the warranty, and the system builder doesn't seem to have any further obligation here.

What should you do if you buy prebuilt?

When you build your own PC, it's up to you which power cables you use. When you buy one elsewhere, that's on them.

Reviewing the warranty for every single component in a system (if you even know it — DeMarco didn't know which GPU he was getting here) is onerous. But reviewing the single warranty from any system builder could give you an understanding of how much support you might get in the future.

Alternatively, if you're really worried, you could buy a system from the company that makes the GPU and PSU, like Asus or MSI sometimes do. It's hard to blame the cabling when they chose it.

If you're buying a gift, buying it in time for the recipient to get most of the warranty is the best idea, especially on an expensive purchase where parts can fail. Or, at the very least, you may want to purchase extended coverage.

DeMarco says he checked all the connections. That's a good idea. You shouldn't have to do it, but better safe than sorry. While you're at it, you can also make sure the RAM and GPU are properly seated.

What if I'm building my own PC?

If you're building your own PC, you're handling each warranty individually. In theory, if you want to be extremely conservative, you could be sure to only use the PSU adapter that comes with most RTX 4090 and 5090 graphics cards: a 16-pin power connector that connects to four standard 8-pin PCIe power connectors, from the power supply.

But that also eliminates a lot of cables that come from perfectly good power supplies that might eschew the need for adapters, making for cleaner, simpler builds.

While DeMarco is out of warranty with Digital Storm, PNY's policies could be more representative of what PC building is really like. And so can Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, and anyone else who makes a GPU, including Nvidia itself. Perhaps, with the most expensive GPUs, it's time for companies to be putting both adapters and full on 16-pin ATX cables in the box.

PC building is all about customization. And it seems the more custom you get, the less likely companies selling the most expensive GPUs are going to be flexible about helping to replace those parts if there's a problem, even, if, like the 16-pin connector, it's a possibility that could strike almost anyone.

HP is the latest to announce a MacBook Neo competitor before the holidays. Its OmniBook 5, starting at $699.99, will use Intel's Wildcat Lake chips and come in a series of colors. What stands out is HP's choice of OLED screens for every model.

Like Apple's Neo and Dell's upcoming 14S, HP is offering four colors: peony pink, starlit blue, smoke silver, and soft honeydew.

HP is following steps we've seen from Lenovo, which recently announced its colorful IdeaPad Vibe lineup; Dell's XPS 13 and forthcoming 14S; and Acer's Swift Air 14.

The company is promising up to 42 hours of battery life, with the catch that that's measured with local video playback. At 2.56 pounds, it's lighter than the 14S, which measures 2.65 pounds, and the Acer Swift Air 14, which measures 2.62 pounds. The MacBook Neo and Dell XPS 13 are both lighter, but have smaller 13-inch screens.

Starting with an Intel Core 5 320, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage, the system is familiar to others on paper. It's the 1920 x 1200 OLED touchscreen that stands out. The system will start at $699.99.

But that OLED screen does have one catch: the two 1920 x 1200 models at launch will each be rated for 300 nits, which is fairly dim for OLED, which benefits quite a bit from brightness.

Some configurations have clearly been affected by the ongoing component crisis. While 8 and 16GB RAM configurations will be available at launch, a 12GB option is set for November. The same goes for the top-end 1TB storage option. Lastly, the highest-end OLED panel, a 2560 x 1600 touchscreen rated for 620 nits, won't be shipping until March of next year.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had a rocky first meeting, according to an upcoming book. Kevin Roose, the author of the forthcoming book, The AGI Chronicles, published an excerpt on X that their initial rendezvous was filled with disagreements and included some slights.

The meeting, which the book says took place in May 2022 at the high-end Chinese restaurant Eight Tables in San Francisco, was to discuss Anthropic's compute needs.

Roose writes that ahead of the dinner, Anthropic's chief compute officer, Tom Brown, had attempted to haggle for a discount on GPUs, showing Huang a spreadsheet suggesting that Tensor Processing Units from Google were, "dollar-for-dollar, a better investment than Nvidia's chips." That's when things reportedly got nasty.

The book claims that Huang, angry at the comparison, called Brown a "bean counter," though an Nvidia spokesperson denied that to Roose.

The dinner afterward didn't go much better. Huang reportedly talked about building the biggest data center in the world, which Amodei repeatedly pressed Huang on with various questions. Huang "just kept repeating himself," the book alleges, citing a source who saw the dinner. That led Amodei to mutter that Huang was being "kind of Trump-like." While no deal was struck at the dinner, the companies did later come up with a partnership.

Today, Anthropic uses a mix of GPUs from Nvidia and AMD, Google's TPUs, and is working on co-designing its own custom inference chips. Amodei recently published an essay entitled "We Must Pace the Frontier" recommending slowing down the pace at which new AI models are improved and dined with the actual Donald Trump.

Huang has publicly disagreed with calls for pacing and regulation, and instead has said in interviews that companies should self-police. Huang also said that companies that release unsafe products should be shut down. Many rogue AI attacks, such as OpenAI's model attacking Hugging Face, were in training during these incidents.

The AGI Chronicles releases on Oct. 6.

The announcement of Google's new Googlebook laptops raised questions: what happens to the Chromebooks that many, especially students, know well? Google says it will be phasing out ChromeOS updates in mid-2034. That date matches plans previously described in court records, but it is now official.

In a support document for Chrome IT administrators in the enterprise and education space, the company explained that "many of our newest Chromebook devices will be eligible to transition over to Googlebook OS," but it hasn't listed models or described how upgrades will take place.

Chromebooks have 10-year support lifecycles. If you have a Chromebook with a cycle that extends beyond 2034, Google is telling education and enterprise managers that "Google is committed to supporting your transition to Googlebook OS, with many devices offering direct migration paths."

Googlebooks will support the same 10-year update and security patch system as Chromebooks, though it starts from the launch of the CPU inside the system.

The document also reveals that management capabilities for Googlebooks will come in the back half of 2027, suggesting that it also may be a while until we see the first enterprise Googlebooks. Chrome Education and Enterprise upgrade licenses are different from Googlebooks. If IT admins update Chromebooks to Googlebook OS or buy new machines, they will be on new licenses. Google has not yet announced those terms.

Googlebook OS appears much more like Android than Chrome OS, though we're still waiting for time with a device. In the support document, Google says it is "commited" to web developers despite support for Android apps. "[W]e will continue to support the manageability of web apps for IT admins and a robust set of APIs for web developers," it says.

Googlebooks are available for pre-order now and will launch on October 4.

Microsoft is taking another swing at Copilot, adding new features as it specifically turns the AI feature set into a series of tools designed for work. Branded "new Copilot", it will serve as a mix between a chat, a harness, and a business assistant.

Copilot will now be divided into three sections: Home, Code, and Autopilot. Microsoft pitches Home as a "new starting point," where you organize and connect your meetings, documents, emails, apps, and yes, agents. Effectively, it keeps everyone aligned on projects. The company describes the Home area as mixing Chat and Cowork, its existing agent. The new Copilot is rolling out with Microsoft's Frontier Program for businesses and individual subscribers, allowing early access to features now.

Office will live in the Home section, including Teams threads, calendars, Outlook, and more. You can ask Copilot to build slides, create spreadsheets, or put together documents.

Code is an answer to ChatGPT's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code. Microsoft is describing the act of vibe coding and building small apps "as basic a skill as writing a memo or modeling a budget." Code is built on the same technology as GitHub Copilot, and is run in a sandboxed environment that can be hosted on your system. With Microsoft's new Copilot Managed Runtime, enterprises will be able to host code in their own Microsoft 365 environment, with Microsoft managing the code.

Autopilot is a rebranding of Scout, a "digital teammate." This is a semi-autonomous agent that you can name and tell what to do, and it will go off on its own to do it. This is designed for recurring work, though Microsoft describes it as being able to do more advanced work, including building schedules, handling meetings, and reaching out to others in an organization.

All of Copilot uses Microsoft IQ, designed to set a business context for agents to follow by giving them a framework about how AI should work in your organization. By the end of the month, Microsoft expects to launch a plugin registry to add functionality, in a catalog managed by IT administrators.

For managing spending, Microsoft's subscription license will give you Copilot in chat across Office, while an "Auto" mode will consider accuracy, speed, and cost to pick a model for other jobs. Organizations can use usage-based billing to pick which models they want to use based on cost. "Cowork, Code, and Autopilot; new long-running agentic capabilities; and frontier models like Astra and Fable all run on UBB," Microsoft chief marketing officer for AI at Work, Jared Spataro, wrote in a blog post.

Copilot may not be as exciting to individual developers and at-home enthusiasts as some other AI platforms, but it's clear Microsoft is revamping to take another shot at making its AI tools the most popular for businesses.

Microsoft is finally updating its lowest-end computers: the 13-inch Surface Laptop and 12-inch Surface Pro. Both systems are getting the Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Plus processor (including an 80 TOPS NPU), up from a first-gen Snapdragon X Plus. The company announced the new Surfaces on its blog, in timing with Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit.

Both new devices will launch on October 13. The Laptop will start at $1,199, while the Surface Pro will be $1,149. These are substantial increases over the previous versions, which started at $899 and $799, respectively, when they launched.

Microsoft claims that the new systems are 17% faster in Microsoft Office workloads, up to 18% more efficient on battery, offer "more than" 60% faster graphics, and have up to 95% faster AI inferencing on the NPU. Those are all compared to previous-generation Snapdragon X Plus processors.

Both systems are getting a new black color and 25% brighter displays than previous generations. The 12-inch Pro will also receive optional 5G connectivity, but only in enterprise versions of the device.

The Surface Pro will also introduce Ink Canvas, a new sketching and annotating app for Windows 11. It comes preinstalled on the new tablet and will be available for other Surface and supported Windows 11 devices through the Microsoft Store.

Surface Mouse

Beyond the two new Surface systems, the company is also announcing a new Surface Mouse. The $79.99 mouse includes haptic feedback, which has only been on some Surface notebooks so far. This can take advantage of features built into Windows 11 that allow for haptic responses for actions such as hovering over the exit button or resizing windows. Logitech's recently released MX Master 4 mouse also supports haptics.

Microsoft's pointer is designed for ambidextrous use (unlike the MX Master 4), connects over Bluetooth 6.0, uses two AAA batteries, and comes in both black and platinum colors. Like the laptops, it will launch on October 13.

After a brief tease back in May, Google is detailing its lineup of Googlebooks, its new line of laptops designed to serve as premium systems that work best with Android phones and deliver unique abilities through Gemini.

At an event ahead of the launch, Sameer Samat, Google's president of the Android ecosystem, said that the device's new OS would pull from the best aspects of ChromeOS and Android to design a modern

The systems are available for pre-order today and will land in stores on October 4 in the U.S. and October 5 in Canada, the U.K., Ireland, France, Germany, and Australia.

Googlebook hardware

The first five Googlebooks come from five partners: Dell, Lenovo, HP, Asus, and Acer, and offer silicon from either Intel or Qualcomm. MediaTek is also listed as a partner, but its chips aren't in the first wave of devices.

These devices are clearly designed to go after the MacBook Air and premium Windows laptops, using materials like aluminum, magnesium, and carbon fiber rather than plastic. The screens are all high-resolution, with several 2880 x 1800 OLED screens. Most of the lineup has haptic touchpads.

Google has set a floor of 16GB for RAM, with several of the options offering up to 32GB. 256GB is the minimum for storage, though many go up to 512GB, and Dell and HP go up to 1TB.

All of them also feature a Glowbar (a throwback to the Chromebook Pixel and Pixel C tablet), a series of RGB lights on the lid that glows playfully at startup, shows battery charge, and can react when you talk to Gemini. Given that the Glowobar is behind the screen, we'll see how much use it gets, but Google says it's going to open an API for developers.

Several of the new laptops are reminiscent of existing Windows machines. The HP Googlebook 14 resembles the HP OmniBook Ultra, while the Dell's XPS Googlebook is effectively this year's XPS 13. The Asus Googlebook 14 is a dead ringer for the premium, enterprise-focused ExpertBook Ultra.

And yet some of those familiar looks were my favorites on first impression. I particularly appreciated how thin and light both Asus and Dell's designs are, though Asus' has far more ports. With the exception of Acer's 2-in-1, the entire lineup consists of clamshell designs.

The laptops aren't cheap, particularly if you're used to the lower end of Chromebooks. The cheapest notebook, the Acer Chromebook 14, starts at $899, though the notebook maker says it's a limited-time price. The XPS starts at $1,199, while the rest all start at $1,299, the price of a base MacBook Air.

Google's keyboard layout brings back the caps lock key (which also doubles as the Quick Insert key, see below), and also adds a G key that brings up the launcher.

Meet the Googlebooks

*️⃣ Acer Googlebook 14

*️⃣ Dell XPS Googlebook

*️⃣ Asus Googlebook 14

*️⃣ Lenovo Googlebook 15

*️⃣ HP Googlebook 14

Googlebook OS

The Googlebook OS is designed to be tightly integrated with your existing Android phone. The idea is that once you log in and set up the laptop for the first time, you'll find all of your files, photos, apps, emails, and saved passwords right where you would expect them, with changes flowing back to your phone. The whole idea seems very Mac-like, but for Android, which never had that same tight integration with Microsoft's Windows, despite multiple attempts.

In general, this seems like a simple but mostly full-featured desktop OS for the crowd growing out of Chromebooks. Much of the work still occurs in your browser (in this case, Chrome), but there's a full file manager (including AI descriptions of files) to open files locally. You can put phone-style widgets on your desktop, and there's a taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

The applications, however, all come from the Android side of things. Google provides apps through the Play Store. Google is counting on a mix of the Play Store and web apps, meaning you won't be downloading any executables to use on a Googlebook from the web. Google claims that 70% of time on a laptop is spent in a web browser.

The company is highlighting Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom, CapCut, Netflix, and Disney+ (with offline viewing). Those apps, among others, will have a desktop mode. Additionally, Google says that half of the 100 top games on Android are "already optimized for keyboard, mouse, and large screen, with new games launching monthly."

That latter point is quite PC gaming, though. For that, Google is offering a free year of Nvidia GeForce Now, and suggests more gaming will come to Googlebooks soon enough. (Gaming Chromebooks didn't quite take off, so we'll see what Google does differently here).

There are a handful of features to move back and forth between your laptop and your phone that seem helpful (and again, quite similar to macOS). Continue On is effectively macOS and iOS's Continuity, which lets you pick up on a task from your phone on your laptop, and vice versa. The application for the file you're working on shows up in a Googlebook's taskbar. For when you want to use your phone directly on the laptop, Cast My Apps lets you control it from the desktop (similar to macOS's iPhone Mirroring)

Google also includes Antigravity, its platform for developing agentic workflows and agents to build web apps or Android software on your device. At an event ahead of the show, Googlers were vibe coding software to put on their machines, from a teleprompter Android app to an arcade full of '80s arcade games. Google says Antigravity will also include a Linux terminal environment to run tools like Claude CLI or Antigravity CLI.

Google promises 10 years of support for Googlebook OS on a Googlebook, though at a press event, there was a big asterisk next to that claim. The 10 years starts from the launch of the platform and chip inside the Googlebook, I was told, which means that Intel's Panther Lake chips will have nearly a year lopped off immediately (they launched in January this year), while Snapdragon X Elite, which first shipped in 2024, will already be 2 years behind.

This isn't terribly different from how Google supports its Chromebooks now — by platform, not launch of the system, but that difference may not play the same in the big leagues. Google keeps a database where you can see when any given Chromebook model will stop receiving updates, and presumably it will do something similar with Googlebooks.

Gemini Intelligence

The features that make Googlebooks stand out are the ones where Google baked its Gemini AI directly into the operating system. That also means how much you like a Googlebook may be directly tied to how useful you find these features.

The one feature Google talks up the most is the Magic Pointer. You wiggle your cursor, and it becomes a Gemini-focused pointer. Click on anything to get contextual suggestions or type into the assistant to get answers about what you chose. For example, one demo showed someone using Magic Pointer on a PDF of a calendar and asking Gemini to add the dates to their calendar. In many cases, it felt like a shorter way to get to Gemini than copying and pasting screenshots, but I didn't get enough time to judge how useful it could be.

The Caps Lock key doubles as a "Quick Insert tool" — effectively a souped-up copy and paste that includes your clipboard history, emojis, translation tools, proactive assistant capabilities, and opens Rambler, which allows for text-to-speech and cleans up where you might have stumbled and messed up.

Rambler was introduced at I/O this year and debuted on the Pixel 11, but it was impressive on the Googlebook. I tend to type rather than speak on a computer, but this might convince some people otherwise. It even did well in a relatively loud demonstration environment.

While there are a number of widget options in Googlebook OS, you can also create your own with natural language. I was able to make one that showed me the top movie of the day in a given year.

Perhaps the most natural are Magic Cues — recommendations to do something with the information you're seeing — peppered throughout the OS. If you see dates, you may be cued to make a calendar invite. If someone asks a question in a text message, the answer might pop up if it is in your email, texts, or somewhere else it was discussed before. This has also been on Pixel phones before, but seems to fit in just fine on a laptop.

Beyond the Gemini features, every Googlebook is shipping with 12 months of Google AI Pro (usually $19.99 per month), offering 5TB of cloud storage and advanced tools like higher rate limits in Gemini, entry rate limits to agent models in Antigravity, credits for use in Google Flow, and higher access to AI in Google Search. There are also 3 months of YouTube Premium, CapCut, and Photoshop. Additionally, there's 1 year of Gemini Spark, a version of the AI that acts as an autonomous agent. That's a lot of freebies, and it will be interesting to see how many people feel the need to keep and renew them to make the most of their Googlebooks.

Can Googlebook break through?

Despite Android's popularity globally, Chromebooks have largely been seen as kid stuff — quite literally for education. Googlebooks are a play to be more serious computers, but also bring a premium price.

The AI features are neat in some cases, and showboaty in others. I need to spend real time with a Googlebook to truly decide what's useful.

What is undoubtedly the most important part here is that Android users will have a device that integrates with their phones as well as Macs do with iPhones. Whether that's enough to justify a new operating system that still has some limitations is an open question. Again, we have to try these.

Google clearly has some OEMs excited, but as computers get more expensive thanks to a component shortage, we'll have to see how these prices land, and if the company finally has a mainstream competitor on its hands.

Earlier this year, Apple discontinued the Mac Pro, leaving the Mac Studio as its top-end desktop. With the new M5 Ultra chip, Apple's relatively diminutive system is more than ready to take on the mantle.

While you might not have a ton of PCIe connections and both RAM and storage are set, the Studio offers a ton of ports for accessories, monitors, and peripherals, memory options up to 256GB (with 512GB coming later), and a clean, quiet design.

Starting with an M5 Max at $2,499, the Mac Studio could be poised as a creator system for video editors, photographers, or game designers. At $12,299 as tested with the top-end M5 Ultra, 256GB of unified memory, and 4TB of storage, it effectively becomes an enterprise device, possibly a remote server, that could handle any task with aplomb, including local AI.

Design of the Mac Studio (2026)

Apple hasn't made any changes to the Mac Studio's design. It's a silver, squared-off block that's 7.7 x 7.7 inches on your desk that stands 3.7 inches tall. The aluminum chassis has a shiny Apple logo on the top. The M5 Ultra version we tested weighs 8 pounds, a 2-pound increase over the M5 Max variant. This is largely because the M5 Max version uses a cooler with a thin aluminum stack and a copper heat pipe, while the M5 Ultra uses a heavier copper fin stack and a copper vapor chamber.

The back of the system is also home to the power button, as well as a bunch of air holes for exhausting heat.

The air comes in through more holes in a small stand built into the bottom of the system. (There's also a Kensington lock slot, though its placement on the bottom necessitates a special adapter.)

Mac Studio (2026) Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Mac Studio (2026)

On the front, there are two Thunderbolt 5 (USB Type-C) ports along with an SDXC card slot. The rest of the ports are on the rear, including another four Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI 2.1, a 10Gb Ethernet jack, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

There is no upgrading the Mac Studio. The RAM is soldered to the board, so be sure to get what you need when you're first buying the system, and Apple doesn't sell replacement SSDs (Some third parties may sell reverse-engineered NAND, but it will certainly void your warranty, and Apple doesn't support it. You're best off using external storage)

M5 Ultra

If you pony up for the most expensive Mac Studio configurations, you'll get Apple's most powerful chip. This is the only machine that Apple currently puts that chip inside.

M5 Ultra is Apple's first quad-die chip, connecting a pair of dual-die M5 Max SOCs over its UltraFusion connection. Apple claims that UltraFusion increases bandwidth between the dies to over 4.4 TB/s. Memory bandwidth is up to 1.2TB/s, which lets users store and run huge LLMs entirely on device.

Each of the 80 GPU cores features a neural accelerator, and there's a 32-core neural engine. There's now a media engine with hardware-enabled H.264, HEVC, hardware-accelerated AV1 decode, and four ProRes encode and decode engines.

Cinebench estimates that the M5 Ultra runs single-core at 4.6 GHz and multi-core at 4.3 GHz.

Productivity Performance on the Mac Studio

The Mac Studio is an absolute workhorse. The system stayed largely quiet (though the fan can make itself known) as it powered through our benchmarks. Anything you might want to do on a Mac, you can do on this one.

In fact, while we ran our basic desktop suite on this, we also ran some extra tests, as we don't test many workstations. Instead of pitting this system against other desktops, we pitted it against other workstations to get a better idea of how the M5 Ultra performs. While that's a bit antithetical to the way Apple designs its products (it doesn't sell chips separately; it designs them as part of its computers), it does give us a reference point to the chips powering the Windows and Linux workstations.

On Geekbench 7, the Mac Studio was the clear winner, with the ARM-based chip leading the pack in the bursty workload with a single-core score of 3,770 and a multi-core score of 52,293, despite having fewer cores than the competitors.

The Mac continued its lead on Handbrake, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in 1 minute and 4 seconds. The next closest, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9980X, took 8 seconds longer.

On Blender's benchmark testing CPU-based rendering, the Studio with M5 Ultra fell behind the previous- and current-gen Threadrippers (7980X and 9980X, each with 64-cores), as well as the 56-core Intel Xeon w-3495X.

The Mac Studio with M5 Ultra copied 25GB of files at a rate of 2,983.08 MBps, surpassing the speeds of the M3 Ultra and M4 Max from the last generation.

The Mac Studio was consistent over our 10-run Cinebench 2026 stress test. Its lowest score, 17,825, was actually the first run. When the cooling kicked in, the rest of the results were slightly higher. The sixth run was the highest at 18,069, but it was so similar to the other runs that it's within the margin of error.

During the test, the CPU measured an average of 78.29 degrees Celsius.

Local AI on the Mac Studio (2026)

The M5 Ultra's GPU cores feature neural accelerators, granting it some extra matrix math horsepower, and Apple has boosted the chip's memory bandwidth to 1.2 TB/s, double that of the M4 Max we previously tested for AI.

The M5 Ultra's prompt processing speeds are even faster than Nvidia's DGX Spark's, and its tokens-per-second throughput is double that of the M4 Max and almost four times higher than the DGX Spark across the board.

Our tests, here using Qwen 3.8-27B-Q4_K_M, a dense model that relies heavily on memory bandwidth, are largely aimed at GPU performance in isolation. But combined with the blazing-fast single- and multi-threaded performance of the 36-core CPU, the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra looks to be ready for anything one might want to do with local or agentic AI workloads — and that's before someone tries to put it into an MLX cluster.

In addition to its raw performance, our M5 Ultra sample's 256GB of memory means you can fit very large, intelligent single models or a range of different models onto a single node. I spent time running models far larger than our tests with Hermes and LM Studio with strong performance. If you are interested in local AI, this will definitely do the job.

Gaming and Graphics on the Mac Studio (2026)

While the M5 Ultra and its 80-core GPU are more than capable of gaming, the Mac Studio isn't a gaming-first rig. For the price, systems with Nvidia's high-end graphics cards are far more competitive.

To stress the Mac Studio, I booted up InZoi, a life simulator that isn't graphically imposing but is hard on the CPU and memory. I set both the simulation performance and graphics to ultra settings, and set the game to 1080p, but allowed for upscaling with MetalFX's Performance mode, which upscaled from 960 x 540. The game ran between 45 and 65 frames per second, dropping to the lower end in outdoor environments with lots of other characters.

To compare more graphically demanding games, I picked out a few gaming PCs we've tested in the last year and pitted them against each other with the data from the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark with the Ray Tracing Ultra preset, which we use for those kinds of rigs.

At 1080p, the Mac Studio ran the game at 66 FPS, falling behind systems like the HP Omen Max 45L and Maingear MG-1 with Nvidia's top-end GeForce RTX 5090. It was much more in line with the Acer Nitro 65, with an RTX 5070. At 4K, the Mac Studio didn't reach playable levels, though the RTX 5090 systems both reached 59 FPS.

Using Cyberpunk's "For This Mac" preset set the resolution to 1440p, turned off ray tracing, and mostly stuck to high settings and effects options.

On 3DMark's Steel Nomad graphics test, the Mac Studio still fell far behind the RTX 5090 system, but outperformed the RTX 5070-based Acer desktop.

Software and Warranty on the Mac Studio (2026)

The Mac Studio comes with macOS 27 Golden Gate. This is a great update over macOS 26 Tahoe, refining the Liquid Glass aesthetic and making it more customizable (I actually kind of like it in this iteration), and yes, thank heavens, consistent window shapes. It also adds the new Siri AI (be sure to get on the waitlist). The new Siri is far superior to the one you're used to.

Golden Gate also adds AI throughout apps, including more photo features, including a better Clean up option and spatial reframing, which lets you move a camera after you take a picture (the latter is kind of surreal). Better indexing makes it easier to search messages, emails, and calendar entries, and now you can use natural language to create automations in the Shortcuts app or come up with your own Safari extensions.

There's no bloatware, as usual. Apple's software suite includes Safari, Messages, Photos, Maps, Notes, and Reminders. Its services, including News and Apple TV, also have applications. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers are still in the dock by default, but they're the Creator Studio subscription versions, which require a subscription to get full features, including AI functionality, royalty-free graphics, and additional templates.

People using the Mac Studio as a server running AI models may not need all of those programs. For the first time in a while, I found myself wishing for something akin to macOS Server, but for better remote monitoring. I would also like to see an option for a system of this class to come with pared-down built-in apps, perhaps limiting it to the browser, App Store, Terminal, Activity Monitor, and other essentials and letting system admins decide what else needs or deserves to be there. A video editor might want to use Messages on the side. But you don't need that for a cluster running a huge model.

Apple sells the Mac Studio with a one-year warranty. Further repairs and support can be added as part of AppleCare+ ($6.49 monthly or $64.99 annually), or as part of AppleCare One or AppleCare Family.

Mac Studio (2026) Configurations

Our Mac Studio review configuration is clearly an enterprise machine. With the top-end M5 Ultra (36-core CPU, 80-core GPU), along with 256GB of RAM (currently the top-end option, with a 512GB configuration coming in late October), and a roomy 4TB SSD, it costs $12,299.00, but that's not stopping anyone: As of this writing, it's backordered between 16 and 18 weeks.

But there are a lot of steps below that. The base model is $2,499 with the M5 Max (18-core CPU, 32-core GPU), 36GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. There are two versions of each: the M5 Max and M5 Ultra. Going from a 32-core GPU to a 40-core GPU on the M5 Max costs $300.

The cheapest M5 Ultra system is $5,499 with a 30-core CPU and 64-core GPU, along with 96GB of memory and 1TB of SSD storage. Bumping up to the M5 Ultra we tested increases the price by $1,300. Moving from 96GB of RAM to 256GB adds $4,000. Bumping up from a 1TB SSD to 2TB is $500, while our 4TB SSD is a $1,500 increase.

The M5 Max configurations have slight port differences on the front of the desktop. The USB-C ports on those are 10Gb/s ports, while on the M5 Ultra, you get Thunderbolt 5 for up to 120Gb/s.

Bottom Line

At $12,299, the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra is effectively an enterprise computer, capable of difficult workloads like rendering and running AI models that are as close to frontier-grade as you're going to get right now on edge computing.

Much of that price also comes from RAM and storage. Given the fact that you can't really upgrade this computer, businesses and people using this for their job may see the extra cost as an investment. Really, its biggest weakness is in gaming, for professionals who may want to do that on the side. Discrete GPUs still win there.

Given the fact that an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9980X, a 64-core monster that beats this CPU in Blender, is priced around $5,000 on its own before memory, storage, power supplies, or any other components, it may not actually be that crazy in this market, and the Mac Studio can be had in a much smaller case. (For wealthy homelabbers, businesses, and server farms, third-party accessory makers already make rack mounts to fit the Mac Studio; its shape hasn't changed since its last redesign).

For local AI, the M5 Ultra is seriously impressive, though that may still be a niche use case for some. But in a computer that can reach over $12,000, niche is the name of the game.

This all makes the M5 Ultra version of the Mac Studio an impressive package and further proof of the power and performance Apple can draw out of its own silicon in concert with its own software.

If you don't have the most colorful computer, the fastest computer, or the nicest screen, you can at least have a ton of ports. For Acer's take on the premium $699 laptop, the Swift Air 14, the company doubled down on connectivity and battery life, adding top-of-the-line Thunderbolt 4 ports and up to 16 hours of battery life in our tests.

But battery life and ports alone, while important, don't make a laptop great. Competitors have stronger builds and, in some cases, better performance. Acer's choices are practical, but they might not be what everyone wants.

Design of the Acer Swift Air 14

The Acer Swift 14 feels more premium than I'd expect a $699 laptop to be, especially one from Acer, which is known for making tough decisions to hit certain budgets. The all-aluminum design isn't as solid as the MacBook Neo or Dell XPS 13. That's mostly due to flex in the Acer’s lid and on the keyboard. It feels nice in general, but if you look, you can find the small flaws.

Acer is offering the Swift Air 14 in four colors worldwide, but here in the United States, there's just one: sage green. (In other countries, including Canada, there's also frost blue, blossom pink, and lilac purple.

The lid is mostly plain, with an Acer logo and two silver accent lines. I like the sage color, which is more like an olive in some lights and silver in others. Like the MacBook Neo, the bezel is a bit thicker than I'd like, but not unforgivably so.

Where Acer wins on design is with its ports. On the left side of the laptop, you get two full Thunderbolt 4 ports over USB-C, which we haven't seen from any other laptop in this class yet. The right side features a 10GBps USB Type-A port and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. This system has more and faster ports than both the MacBook Neo and Dell XPS 13, which is great for people on a budget who still use a lot of peripherals, or want to use a wireless dongle while still having other ports available.

At 2.62 pounds, the Swift Air 14 is heavier than the 2.2-pound XPS 13, but still slightly lighter than the 2.7-pound Neo. I don't mind the weight, but others on my team found it felt heavy compared to Dell's laptop.

At 0.51 inches at its thinnest, the Swift is on par with the Neo and XPS 13 (both 0.5 inches thick). There's a small foot on the bottom of the Swift that pushes it to 0.71 inches thick, which might matter a bit in a backpack, but it won't feel any thicker than the other systems when you're holding it.

Acer Swift Air 14 Specifications

Productivity Performance on the Acer Swift Air 14

The Intel Core 5 320, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB PCIe Gen 3 SSD make the Acer Swift 14 a decent (but not startling) performer that's best for a few simple tasks at a time.

On Geekbench 6, the Swift Air notched a single-core score of 2,613 and a multi-core score of 7,977, putting it in close proximity to the Dell XPS 13, which uses the same chip. The Chuwi UniBook, with an Intel Core 3 304, was the lowest on the charts, while the MacBook Neo with its Apple A18 Pro was the fastest performer.

The Swift 14 outperformed on Handbrake, transcoding a 4K video to 1080p in 10 minutes, just 3 seconds behind the Macbook Neo. The Swift was a surprising 38 seconds faster than the XPS with the same chip.

On our file transfer test, the Swift Air copied 25GB of files at a rate of 677.24 MBps, slightly faster than the MacBook Neo, but significantly slower than the XPS 13.

Usually, we stress test productivity laptops running Cinebench 2026. But like some other Wildcat Lake-based laptops, the Swift Air wouldn’t run that benchmark. Instead, to get some speeds, we opted to measure while running Handbrake. While transcoding a 4K video to 1080p, the Core 5 320's two P cores ran at 3.3 GHz, while the four low-power E cores ran at just over 3 GHz.

Display on the Acer Swift Air 14

Acer's 14-inch, 1920 x 1200 screen is colorful enough for its price, but I sure wish it were a bit brighter.

While I watched the trailer for Avengers: Endgame, I found myself reaching for the button to raise the brightness even in decently lit scenes (like a group gathering in Avengers Tower), only to find the brightness was turned all the way up. In darker scenes, like those taking place in the X-Mansion, shadows were overwhelming. At least the blacks were deep.

On our testing, we found that the Swift Air 14 covered 107% of the sRGB color gamut and 75.8% of DCI-P3. That's within range of both the MacBook Neo and the Dell XPS 13. But both of those laptops have more luminous panels (the XPS 13's is also higher resolution, at 2560 x 1600) that make the colors look better than on the Swift Air.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Acer Swift Air 14

The keyboard on the Swift Air 14 is fine, but it has some flex while you type, and the keycaps are a little slippery. In fact, they're cheap-feeling. There's more travel than I would have expected, but with the flex, I'm not sure it mattered.

On monkeytype.com, I hit 108 words per minute, which isn't bad, but I'm usually faster. I hit that at 98% accuracy.

The touchpad has a shallow click outside of the very far corners (and also causes the system to flex), but its smooth, glass, and Windows gestures work seamlessly.

Battery Life on the Acer Swift Air 14

For a laptop in its class, the battery life on the Acer Swift Air 14 is fantastic. The system lasted 16 hours and 52 minutes on our battery test, which includes web browsing, video streaming, and light OpenGL work with the screen set to 150 nits.

That was the longest of the group by more than 2 hours. The next highest, the Dell XPS 13, lasted 14:26 on the test, while the Neo brought up the rear at 13 hours and 28 minutes.

Audio on the Acer Swift Air 14

The speakers on Acer's colorful 14-incher are just OK. The quad-speaker system doesn't offer a ton of depth. It's fine at $699.99, but not impressive.

Alice Merton's "Ignorance is Bliss" just filled my living room, but wasn't as loud as I would like. The artist's vocals were a bit hollow, though the song's guitars and snappy drums sounded decent for the price.

You can make adjustments in the DTS:X Ultra app, though I stuck to the default music mode. (Switching to voice made vocals louder, but drowned everything else out). There's also a custom EQ with three preset slots if you want to set the speakers to your liking. Taking some time to tweak, I was able to get the vocals and treble a bit closer to my liking.

Upgradeability of the Acer Swift Air 14

There are four Torx screws on the bottom of the Acer Swift Air 14. While the bottom of the laptop is metal, it's very thin, and the clips holding it to the rest of the chassis are made of plastic. I had to go very slowly around the edges with a prying tool to get inside.

The two major components that you can remove are the SSD and the battery. There's only one SSD slot.

Heat on the Acer Swift Air 14

Usually, we measure how hot a laptop gets during our strenuous Cinebench gauntlet. Because this system couldn't run that test, we stepped down to measuring with Handbrake video encoding.

During that test, the keyboard hit 96 degrees Fahrenheit, while the touchpad was a cool 84.1 F. The hottest point on the bottom of the laptop reached 96.9 F. None of these indicate an overheating laptop, but that's also because we couldn't run more difficult workloads.

Internally, the CPU measured 74.8 degrees Celsius while running the same test.

Webcam on the Acer Swift Air 14

Acer is using a 1920 x 1080 webcam on the Swift Air 14, but higher resolution doesn't always mean better. In testing, I found that it produced noisy, sometimes blurry images. Like many other cameras, it also struggled with open windows.

On the bright side, Acer also includes an infrared camera to support Windows Hello for facial recognition. There’s a small privacy shutter built into the bezel.

Software and Warranty on the Acer Swift Air 14

Acer packs the Swift Air 14 with extra software. Some is its own, but there’s also a lot of bloatware that it likely receives a licensing fee for.

There are more than ten of Acer-branded utilities. The most important of these is AcerSense (which also has a dedicated key on the keyboard). This offers simple performance statistics, extra settings, warranty information, and a few disparate links to excess programs.

Among the other apps are Acer's PurifiedVoice and PurifiedView for noise cancellation and camera enhancements during meetings, a built-in video speed controller, and a built-in QR code reader. That last one is kind of handy in theory, though it often didn't see the codes I was trying to scan.

Even on a $700 laptop, the inclusion of Forge of Empires, Solitaire, Amazing Block Blast, the Google Play Games beta, Dropbox, Booking.com, NordVPN, and a knockoff app store called App Explorer feels like a bit much. These are found in the Start Menu, pinned to the taskbar, and in the bookmarks bar in Microsoft Edge. It's just too much.

Acer sells the Swift Air 14 with a one-year warranty.

Acer Swift Air 14 Configurations

We tested the Swift Air 14 in a $699.99 configuration with an Intel Core 5 420, 8GB of memory, 512GB of storage, and a sage green colorway. As of this writing, this system is available at Best Buy in the United States.

Acer tells us that three additional models will be available exclusively at Best Buy Canada at $999.99 CAD, though we don't know what will be different or if they will include the other colors.

Bottom Line

If you have a budget of $699 and prioritize ports over all else, the Acer Swift Air 14 should be your choice. It has high-speed Thunderbolt 4 ports, a headphone jack, USB Type-A, and a headphone jack. With a 1920 x 1200 screen that isn't the brightest, it also reached over 16 hours of battery life in our tests.

But if you prioritize anything else, the MacBook Neo and Dell XPS 13 offer some significant upgrades at the same price. The Neo has performance for the price on lock, as well as improved build quality and the brightest screen of the bunch. The XPS 13 has the highest-resolution display and makes it a touchscreen; it also has a stiffer build than the Swift Air.

But if battery life and ports are your two strongest priorities, and you're willing to make some sacrifices on build quality and uninstall a bunch of bloat, the Swift Air 14 definitely earns a place among the recent budget laptop competition.

The computing world is splintering into two. At IFA 2026, the world of laptops continued its trajectory from Computex towards a logical conclusion: a world where personal computing aims at the low end to combat the MacBook Neo and pick up customers during a RAM shortage, but otherwise focuses on high-end systems that promise to be agentic machines for the next chapter of the AI boom.

There are machines that are below $800 with 8GB of RAM, and there are machines that are multiple thousands of dollars with anywhere from 128GB to 192GB of memory. Want something in between? Good luck.

The MacBook Neo's long shadow

When Apple announced the MacBook Neo in March, other laptop OEMs jumped to compete. Devices like the Dell XPS 13 and Chuwi UniBook came quickly (with varying degrees of success), packing Intel's budget-focused Wildcat Lake processors. But it took until IFA for those companies to finally reveal something truly designed to take on the MacBook Neo. The Lenovo IdeaPad Vibe laptops come in seven colors, up from the Neo's four, ranging from "lowkey gray" to "spicy gold," with optional color keyboards and two screen sizes. Unlike other Neo competitors, Lenovo is opting for a mix of Qualcomm Snapdragon X and AMD Ryzen AI 400 chips rather than flocking to Intel.

Dell's new 14S also has four colors, including a surprisingly bold "velvet green." But its biggest iteration is that it also adds ports. While the XPS 13 had just two USB-C ports, the 14S also has HDMI and a headphone jack. Acer also debuted a 16-inch version of its Swift Air (also in three colors). These laptops were widely considered some of the best from the show. Colors have been a rarity in the Windows PC market, and now that these companies are chasing Apple, they're back.

On the bright side, this means that the spur of affordable, more premium laptops wasn't just a blip following the MacBook Neo. It's still going six months later, and given that Apple is rumored to be releasing a follow-up next year, nicer, colorful laptops may be a permanent fixture of the market.

Agentic AI computers: Laptops or furniture?

The other computers at IFA were all largely focused on running agentic AI. There are finally systems getting ready to ship with AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 495, with up to 192GB of unified memory. Those include the Lenovo ThinkCentre X along with options from smaller names like Minisforum and GMKtec. The companies that are listing prices have them as high as $7,000. (When Strix Halo launched, entry-level configurations could be found under $2,000 with 64GB of memory, so these high-end systems with more memory aren't a shock given rising prices.)

Those were on display while Nvidia continued to hype its RTX Spark N1X platform, which will launch in October in two configurations. Two new devices, one from Acer and one from Lenovo, debuted at IFA, though we're still waiting on pricing for every RTX Spark device we've seen so far.

AMD's systems were portrayed as workstations in most cases, while others, like an AI NAS from Minisforum, gave us a look into what having some sort of AI furniture — dedicated AI hardware with access to your files that's not connected to a screen — could look like. Nvidia's laptops, all running Windows, are a mix of workstation, gaming PC, and agentic AI PC, though those demos were behind handlers, and we weren't able to try them ourselves.

All of these systems were shown running some sort of AI agent. Nvidia's bounced between Hermes and OpenClaw, while the many vendors showing AMD systems often had their own software, typically with the word "Claw" in there somewhere, running a variety of models locally.

These are all a swing away from what the industry called an "AI PC" just a few years ago. Now, with way more memory and far more compute (and less talk about NPUs), Nvidia, AMD, and the companies making the hardware are betting that you or your company are ready to set up agents and have them run workflows, and that you'll pay a pretty penny to do so.

Two extremes, but what about the rest of us?

There are clearly two visions of computing now: one with the power for local AI models to run tasks on your device (though how easy those will be to set up is an open question), and another where you do basic tasks on cheap computers. What about the rest of us? The people who are happy to spend $800 - $1,500 on a laptop or mini PC to get a bit of extra RAM and storage, the most premium build quality, higher-resolution displays, better speakers, and, of course, a bit more performance? Other than Dell recently adding Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 processors to the XPS 13 (which itself isn't the most premium), it's been quiet on that front.

Perhaps we have to wait for Intel to drop Nova Lake mobile, or for AMD to move forward with Medusa Point, to see these types of systems. Word on those has been quiet, but maybe next year, at CES, we'll see a return of the performance laptop. (Apple is likely to bring its M6 to the MacBook Air, but the company doesn't really do trade shows.) Or maybe memory prices mean something has to give ... and the laptop for everyone else is what is giving. But without new silicon aimed at that market, it seems that the Windows world is happy to be split into two extremes.

Nintendo of America got its tariff refund and is using the money to hold a sale, rather than returning it to customers who paid higher-than-expected prices for the Nintendo Switch 2 and accessories. The rare promotion, dubbed the "Customer Appreciation Sale," will run from September 13 to 26 and will offer 30% off digital Switch games, bundles, and "select physical games, downloadable content, accessories, amiibo, and apparel." Discounts will be available in Nintendo Stores and the Nintendo eShop, as well as other participating retailers.

"The Customer Appreciation Sale is our way of saying thank you to Nintendo players for their continued support and is made possible in part by tariff-related refunds," a brief blog post on Nintendo's U.S. website reads. "While Nintendo absorbed most tariff-related costs, the refunds helped make promotions like this one possible."

In a 2026 earnings document, the company stated that it got $300 million in tariff refunds.

Nintendo of America is facing a proposed class action lawsuit from customers who believe the company will be made whole twice: once through raised prices and a second time through the refunds. Sony is facing a similar suit, and in September, Nintendo of America filed a motion to dismiss its suit.

Nintendo was hit hard by the Trump administration's tariffs. Soon after the Switch 2's initial announcement, the company delayed U.S. pre-orders for the console, though the system launched on time. In May, Nintendo raised the price of the Switch 2 by $50 to $499, though that also priced in component shortages and included hikes in Europe and Japan.

In March, Nintendo of America sued the U.S. government in the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking refunds, joining Costco, FedEx, Revlon, and more than 1,000 others. The Supreme Court ruled that large swaths of the tariffs were unlawful, with over $166 billion due back to American businesses. By the end of July, the government had paid $100 billion in refunds.

Most companies seem to be pocketing the refunds, even though costs were typically passed on to American consumers. In August, Panic, which makes the handheld Playdate focused on indie games, refunded tariffs to customers.