When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Nothing flashy, but it gets the basics right. The Acer TravelMate X4 14 AI is a competent business notebook with good battery life, but it doesn't offer much to get excited about. If you're looking for a portable business laptop you're likely to turn first to something like a Lenovo ThinkPad, HP EliteBook, or Dell Pro but the price could well scare you off, as business laptops tend to carry a substantial price premium. The Acer TravelMate X4 14 AI is also expensive on paper, but competitive retail pricing makes it more alluring.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Laptop docking stations may evolve into'AI docks' with video and apps Synaptics also says it will offer both USB4 chips as well as DisplayLink in the future. For better or worse, laptop docking stations have generally been "dumb" devices. Synaptics and its customers are hoping to change that. Right now, there are two main technologies that "compete" in the docking stations space: USB4 (which Intel puts its own spin on with its Thunderbolt 4 technology) and DisplayLink (a technology Synaptics bought in 2020).

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i combines a premium Lunar Lake laptop with lots of AI software tricks, but the price tag feels too high. I feel like I've been hearing about AI PCs for years now, and it's easy to tune that out. Despite the machine's capable hardware and attractive build, HP's primary focus remains on AI. HP really wants to talk about all the AI software it bundled with this PC, so I'll try to focus more on that in this review than normal. Indeed, this is a high-quality portable PC with solid Lunar Lake hardware. Assuming you don't want a discrete GPU, it's a good pick.

The first time you make anything, it probably won't come out perfect, so it wasn't a huge surprise when MSI's debut gaming handheld struggled out of the gate. And that's before you consider the unorthodox choice to go with an Intel chip instead of one from AMD like practically all of its rivals. However, MSI didn't give up, and now it's back with not one but two versions of its second-gen handheld, headlined by the Claw 8 AI . Not only is it bigger than before, it has twice as many Thunderbolt 4 ports, a way bigger battery and some of the best performance we've seen from any device in this category. But more importantly, as the follow-up to a device plagued by lackluster software and unfinished drivers, it feels like the Claw got its bite back. With its 8-inch screen, the Claw 8 AI is bigger than its predecessor and a number of its rivals like the ROG Ally X, though it's still smaller than Lenovo's chunky 8.8-inch Legion Go.

More than a year has passed since Asus' acquisition of the NUC brand from Intel, which marked the first major change the brand had seen since Intel launched it back in 2013. After more than a decade of continuity -- including last year's transition year where Intel still had a say on design -- this will be the real first year in which Asus has done most of the groundwork, fronting up with its own designs and innovations. So how is the NUC different now in this new era? I spoke to Kuo Wei Chao, general manager of Asus IoT business unit, to find out. The Asus NUC lineup announced at CES 2025 in Las Vegas included the NUC 14 AI and the more premium NUC 14 Pro AI with 48 TOPS NPU AI power and a dedicated Copilot button for quick access to the AI assistant. They were on display alongside two new powerful mini-PCs for everyday use featuring the latest Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) chips: the NUC 15 and NUC 15 Pro .

Apple's upgraded MacBook Pro for 2024 gets a significant power boost with the M4 chip, double the memory as standard, even longer battery life and a price cut, ending the year on a high. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. The longstanding laptop line now starts at 1,599 ( 1,899/ 1,599/A 2,499), making it 100 or so cheaper than last year's M3 models. Though still an expensive, premium laptop, it comes with at least 16GB of RAM rather than 8GB, which was an upgrade worth paying extra for on previous models. The outside hasn't changed from its predecessor.

Attending HP's Imagine AI event in New York City last Thursday gave me a real indication about the direction AI laptops are heading in. My main takeaway is that manufacturers are going to continue to push the limits on TOPS--tera operations per second, the processing speed of NPUs in AI PCs--as mobile workers dig deeper into the kinds of benefits generative AI will deliver them. Proof of that was HP's announcement of a new laptop in its consumer portfolio: the HP OmniBook Ultra PC. The 14-inch clamshell-style laptop, designed for hybrid workers, makes a big leap in AI processing over the previously announced HP OmniBook X, offering what HP claims is an industry-leading 55 TOPS AI processing power in a laptop this thin. The HP OmniBook Ultra looks almost identical to its stablemate the HP OmniBook X.

Microsoft's latest top-end laptop sticks with its novel screen-flipping form, with upgrades on the inside aimed at keeping up with the powerhouse competition – but these improvements come with a very steep price increase. That takes it far away from the normal premium consumer range on which Microsoft has built its Surface reputation, and places it firmly in the creative workstation class of machine typically used by programmers and video and photo editors. It may have "laptop" in the name, but the Laptop Studio 2 is a bit of a beast, weighing almost 2kg in its top spec – heavier, slightly thicker and made of aluminium rather than the magnesium of its predecessor. The rest of the machine is very similar to the 2021-22 model. The good-looking 14.4in LCD screen is hinged in the middle, allowing it to pull forward to switch between stage, drawing and laptop modes. With the excellent Slim Pen 2 stylus (£120), this flexibility is the machine's big draw.

Getting hands-on with the HP Spectre Foldable at a press event in Palo Alto California last week revealed an exciting reality about folding laptops: They've now evolved past that first troubled stage that new-concept technologies occupy until later generations iron out their hang ups. The HP Spectre Foldable PC is a lot more refined than I was expecting, and mostly performs as well as HP claims it can. The laptop's design was the first hint of that, being very slim and light to hold and so easy for me to manipulate. It measures just 0.33 x 14.8 x 10.9 inches unfolded (0.84 x 14.81 x 10.91 inches folded) and weighs just 2.99 pounds (3.58 pounds with the keyboard attached), which is slightly more compact and lightweight than its near rival the Asus Zephyrus 17 Fold OLED. When shut in laptop mode, the HP Spectre Foldable is extremely compact. The big appeal of this laptop, if you haven't already heard about it, is that it folds like a book and opens up again, yet it's essentially just one continuous display.

It's official: The next-generation Thunderbolt spec will be called Thunderbolt 5, debuting next year with enough charging power and bandwidth to support eGPUs and a new class of "external AI devices." Intel teased the new Thunderbolt specification at the end of 2022, promising that the next-gen Thunderbolt would continue the trend of doubling bandwidth, all the way to 80Gbps in one direction. That included a promise, now confirmed, that the four lanes of Thunderbolt could be reconfigured to allow three lanes from a laptop to a monitor, rather than two. That will allow the option of a 120Gbps connection to a display, which Intel now refers to as Bandwidth Boost. Thunderbolt 5 will eventually be integrated within Intel's Core platforms, primarily laptops.