Microsoft made some unusually major moves ahead of its Build developer conference: It announced a new Copilot initiative for powerful AI PCs, which will be led by the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. These machines are powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Plus and Elite chips, and they come with a special version of Windows 11 optimized for Arm mobile chips and AI. Basically, Microsoft is doing for PCs what Apple did with its M-series Macs four years ago. We still don't know how well these new machines will perform, but it sounds like Microsoft has certainly heard our complaints about Arm-based Windows devices. Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Devindra: Hey everyone, this is Devindra here. I had a chance to chat with Pavan Davuluri, the head of Microsoft Windows and Devices, basically the team in charge of Surface and Windows. And we talked about the new Copilot Plus Surface PCs, the Surface Pro and the Surface Laptop, and the whole new Copilot Plus initiative in general. We've reviewed quite a few of the ARM based Windows PCs and you know, they have not worked out so well. So I think this could be different, at least from the benchmarks we've seen.

It just revealed a bunch of new hardware and plans for Windows. Copilot PCs were the big announcement, designed to run generative AI processes locally instead of in the cloud. Of course, Microsoft had new Surface devices to showcase these features, but the usual PC suspects also have new laptops that meet the spec requirements -- and include Copilot in their name for added chaos. The company also claims Copilot PCs are 58 percent faster than the M3-powered MacBook Air. We'll drill into some other announcements down below.

For years, ROG Phone users had to put up with average camera quality for the sake of mobile gaming experience, and ASUS blamed it on cost reasons. To put it bluntly, it was either ROG Phone for gaming, or Zenfone for photography. Now that we've entered 2024, the Taiwanese tech giant finally has a change of heart. Announced at CES 2024, the ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro essentially blend together the best of both worlds, featuring the usual trove of gaming aids in -- at last -- a brand new design, along with a set of significant camera upgrades derived from the Zenfone line. Specifically, the new 50-megapixel f/1.9 main camera is powered by a more efficient Sony IMX890 sensor (featured on the OnePlus 11's main camera, as well as the 3x periscope camera on Oppo's Find X6 Pro and Realme's GT5 Pro).

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano is just the kind of powerful, light, and long-lasting laptop you'll want to take with you on post-pandemic business trips--and it's handy even now just because it's so easy to take all over the house. It also performs right there in the ballpark with other 11th-gen Tiger Lake competitors, and at a hair under two pounds, it weighs less than almost all of them. Equipped with an IR camera for facial recognition, a presence-detecting radar, a 2K display with Dolby Vision HDR, and a premium keyboard, the X1 Nano covers the most bases for corporate users, and we haven't mentioned the superlative battery life yet. But with only two available ports (Thunderbolt 4, at least), you'll need to invest in a USB-C hub to connect legacy accessories. Lenovo offers nine versions of the ThinkPad X1 NanoRemove non-product link on its retail website.

The AI revolution is coming for your PC. At the CRN Test Center, we've been trying out Dell's Latitude 9510 2-in-1. Along with being a workhorse--our unit was configured with a speedy six-core Intel Core i7 processor from the chipmaker's 10th generation--it's also a PC with some intelligence of its own. The Latitude 9510 2-in-1 has a starting price of $1,899. The review unit I tested--configured with the Core i7 chip, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage and a six-cell battery--is priced at $2,937. What follows are our picks for the five best features on the Dell Latitude 9510 2-in-1.

The 2020 QLED 8K TV features an AI quantum processor that combines machine learning with deep learning.

Apple has finally sent out invitations for its semi-annual fall event that expects to be loaded with new products: an all-new iPad Pro with USB-C, slim bezels, and Face ID. We may also see a new Mac mini allegedly geared at pro users, refreshed iMacs, and a new low-priced MacBook. While an updated Mac mini will be the kind of pigs-flying release that I'll believe when I see, I'm most intrigued by the MacBook. Not since the days of the polycarbonate iBook G4 and original MacBook has Apple sold a true budget notebook. Sure, the current MacBook Air retails for $999, but there are a lot of compromises there: a non-retina screen, outdated processor, and aging ports.

Google's press conference is well underway in NYC, and the most important order of business is formally announcing the new Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL smartphones. To say we're already acquainted with the devices would be an understatement. Between our own early hands-on with the XL, the left-in-a-Lyft incident and many other leaks, we knew what we were in for: A pair of handsets that, on the hardware front, are not really designed to break to new ground, but to update the Pixel brand for 2018. One thing that certainly hasn't changed a great deal between generations is the overall design. From the back, the Pixel 3 and XL look almost indistinguishable from last year's models.

The next iPad Pro is eagerly anticipated. There are now plenty of suggestions of what it might look like and how it might work. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted that it will have Face ID. A leak suggested it may remove the headphone jack. A not-quite-persuasive render suggested that the Smart Connector might move to the back of the device.

Last year, early iOS leaks gave us a preview of the eventual iPhone X and some details on Apple's HomePod speaker. Now, 9to5Mac points out an icon in the iOS 12 developer beta that seems to show an iPad design with tiny bezels all around and missing the home button. Separately, code for accessibility features shows evidence of FaceID support in an upcoming iPad Pro likely scheduled for release this fall. The image doesn't show an iPhone X-like notch, so presumably new iPads would manage to squeeze a TrueDepth camera into the remaining bezel. With iPad sales remaining flat compared to last year, it seems likely that we'll see new devices soon, and now we have some idea at least of what they'll look like.