When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. CES 2026 will bring faster, stranger laptops. Just don't expect them to be cheap From bold OLED designs to pricier RAM, here's everything I'm expecting to see with laptops at CES 2026. CES (Consumer Electronics Show), the world's largest consumer tech expo, will kick off on January 6th, 2026. It's a notoriously gigantic event packed with everything from robotic pet doors to self-driving cars, and there's always a ton of laptop news amid the noise.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. 'Memories will win': Qualcomm partnership unveils superpowered AI photo search Memories.ai is working with Qualcomm on smart photo/video search for phones. But like Qualcomm's Snapdragon, PCs may be in the cards, too. A partnership between Qualcomm and an AI startup promises lightning-quick AI where it's really needed: searching through and using your photos and videos as a source of information stored locally on your device. Right now, the partnership is a foundational one, predicated for the future.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Benchmarked: Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme crushes Intel's laptop CPUs Qualcomm is setting a high bar with its Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite is once again threatening to upend the PC CPU market. About two years ago, Qualcomm debuted the Snapdragon X1 Elite, an Arm chip that replaced the company's mediocre 8-series Snapdragon chips and performed impressively. Now it's the Snapdragon Elite X2's turn, and the 18-core X2 Elite Extreme is ready for the spotlight.

Qualcomm just announced the Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme, anticipated sequels to its game-changing PC chips. Qualcomm has announced its next generation of PC processors: the Snapdragon X2. It might not sound very exciting, but these chips continue to bring Windows laptops up to par with Apple Silicon-powered MacBooks . The company took the PC world by storm last year with its Snapdragon X chips, breaking the long-held duopoly of Intel and AMD powering most Windows laptops. Nearly every major laptop manufacturer was on board, launching a bevy of Qualcomm-powered laptops.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. More TOPS, more cores, more challenges to lead Windows on Arm into a meaningful presence on the PC with the Snapdragon X2 Elite and Extreme. On Wednesday, Qualcomm announced three new Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme processors for PCs, pushing into what it calls'ultra-premium PCs' with a 5GHz CPU and an NPU delivering an industry-leading 80 TOPS. Qualcomm made a name for itself with all-day battery life, but its new "multi-day" battery life received little mention in the context of the X2 Elite chips for Windows on Arm PCs. Now, it's all about speed: the X2 Elite platform delivers 31 percent more performance than the X1 Elite at the same power, or the same performance at 43 percent less power.

Fujifilm announced a new camera this week, the X-E5, the latest in its X-E rangefinder-style mirrorless camera series. Think of the X-E as an interchangeable lens version of the X100. The big news in the X-E5 is Fujifilm's latest 40-megapixel APS-C sensor and 7-stop in-body image stabilization (IBIS). This is the first X-E series camera with IBIS, which Fujifilm says will gain you about 7 stops of handholding. The new sensor also means video specs jump to 6.2K at 30 frames per second (with a 1.23 crop) and 4K 30 fps full sensor video. The X-E5 regains the focus mode switch on the side of the body (notably absent from the X-E4), and adds a new film simulation dial.

It's been one future that sci-fi has promised since Star Trek. Microsoft now says that that future is arriving, at least within a small corner of Windows 11. Microsoft is promising that you'll be able to use natural language to change aspects of your Windows 11 Settings menu, and Windows will go out and make those changes for you using "agents," or small bits of AI that will work on your behalf -- at least if you own a Copilot PC with an AI-accelerating NPU onboard. Microsoft has begun to use its Surface devices as a showcase for its latest software, and the new 13-inch Surface Laptop and 12-inch Surface Pro are no exception. They'll serve as launch vehicles for Windows Recall, semantic search, and Click-to-Do, but also brand new features like agentic AI and relighting features for Photos, object editing and sticker generation for Paint, and more.

MediaTek launched the Kompanio Ultra as the company's premium Chromebook processor on Wednesday, predicting that it will easily offer the highest Minecraft performance of any Chromebook chip while bringing AI to the platform, too. Essentially, MediaTek launched the Kompanio Ultra to help answer the question: Which Chromebook should I buy? Besides Google's own Chromebook Plus brand, there aren't too many answers. Instead, the list of Chromebooks is a hodgepodge of various processors, including the Intel Celeron, Pentium, and Core processors; AMD's A-series and Ryzen chips, and Arm processors like the Qualcomm Snapdragon and the existing MediaTek Kompanio 500 and 800 series. Google launched the Chromebook Plus specification to help clarify matters, but it certainly doesn't help to differentiate the performance each chip can offer.

Qualcomm is bringing AI to its mid-range mobile chip lineup with the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 Mobile Platform, the company announced. The new chips also promise improved CPU and GPU performance, lower power requirements and faster Wi-Fi and mobile connectivity compared to the previous chip. The new AI features are made possible with support for Qualcom's on-device Gen AI support, allowing voice-activated assistants, background noise reduction during calls and more. It's also the first 6-series Snapdragon processor with support for INT4 that allows generative AI to run more efficiently on small devices. Qualcomm is also promising 11 percent improved CPU performance via its latest Kryo CPU and a 29 percent boost in GPU performance.

Intel's Core 285H chip, the first member of its Core Ultra 200 or "Arrow Lake-H" family for laptops, has a big crater to fill. Yes, crater: This processor essentially bombed on the desktop. In laptops, however, Intel's Core 285H chip helps redeem Intel's reputation, starring in the otherwise pedestrian MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo (B2HMG) laptop. Consider this to be two reviews for the price of one: I'll take a look at the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo itself, a sample of a laptop that has yet to begin officially shipping. But most of the performance tests I'll run are for the purpose of comparing Intel's Core Ultra 285H and the Arrow Lake-H architecture to the best that AMD and Qualcomm have to offer, plus Intel's older mobile chips. The new Core Ultra 200H chips essentially double the performance in general applications thanks to a ton of additional cores. But, hampered by its lack of a modern NPU, Intel is forced to mumble and kick the ground when it comes to talking about AI. At press time, I couldn't find any retailers that advertised the Prestige 16 AI Evo (B2HMG) for sale, and MSI's own listing for the laptop just references a number of overseas suppliers. MSI charges about 1,620 for the Prestige 16 AI EVO B1MG, which was the debut laptop for our tests of the Core Ultra 100-series chips, or Meteor Lake, in Feb. 2024. Intel sent us an engineering sample of the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo (B2HMG) for review, as a test bed for the Core Ultra 9 285H (Arrow Lake-H) chip inside.