Creator Playbook Look Up Back to School Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Say More Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series This is a great deal on the best MacBook Neo alternative for Windows users. Haley Henschel is a Chicago-based Senior Shopping Reporter at Mashable who reviews and finds deals on popular tech, from laptops to gaming consoles and VPNs. She has years of experience covering shopping holidays and can tell you what's actually worth buying on Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. Her work has also explored the driving forces behind digital trends within the shopping sphere, from dupes to 12-foot skeletons . All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers.

Look Up Back to School Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Say More Trending Now Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Creator Playbook Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series It now starts at $700 with half the storage as before. Haley Henschel is a Chicago-based Senior Shopping Reporter at Mashable who reviews and finds deals on popular tech, from laptops to gaming consoles and VPNs. She has years of experience covering shopping holidays and can tell you what's actually worth buying on Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. Her work has also explored the driving forces behind digital trends within the shopping sphere, from dupes to 12-foot skeletons . All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Dell's new $699 XPS 13 looks and feels far more expensive than it is -- and comes surprisingly close to beating Apple's MacBook Neo. Dell's XPS 13 is a compelling budget laptop, even if it falls just slightly behind the MacBook Neo. When the MacBook Neo emerged from the waters like Excalibur, I was taken aback. I never thought I'd ever see a budget-friendly MacBook and yet here we are!

It's only been four months since we reviewed the latest Intel version of the XPS 13, but now Dell has released a model built for Microsoft's Copilot AI PC initiative. But with that mobile-focused hardware comes new expectations: More battery efficiency than Intel's x86 chips, as well dramatically faster AI capabilities thanks to its beefier NPU (neural processing unit). As with all Arm-based Windows systems, though, there's also the potential for trouble with older x86 apps, which may run slowly through emulation or simply not launch at all. It's undoubtedly a chaotic time for the PC industry, as chipmakers and PC companies build for an uncertain AI-powered future. For consumers, that just means confusion.

The laptop buzzword of 2024 is "AI PC" -- notebooks that have neural processing units (NPUs) for AI-related tasks. But while it's smart to be aware of those systems, there are far more important things to consider beyond AI-savviness. It turns out buying a computer in 2024 isn't really that much different than in recent years: You'll still want to find something that balances power, weight and screen size with your computing needs. Out of the 11 notebooks we've tested and reviewed in the first half of 2024, we consider Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air M3 to be the best laptop for most people. It's powerful enough to handle most tasks (even light video editing); it has a great screen and built-in speakers; and its battery could last around 20 hours (depending on what you're doing, of course). The MacBook Air M3 is also one of the lightest and thinnest systems we've reviewed, and it's dead silent, thanks to a fanless design. While Apple has debuted its new M4 chip in the recent iPad Pro, we may not see it in the MacBook Air until next year. For now, the MacBook Air M3 is still an excellent laptop to buy. As for Windows laptops and Chromebooks, the recommendations are a bit more nuanced and varied. While the aforementioned AI features may dominate the news, the more traditional choices – between Intel and AMD CPUs, and whether or not you want a dedicated graphics chip (or GPU) – still stand. And unlike Macs, your options include systems with touchscreens, 2-in-1 convertible tablets and more.

The Intel-powered Dell XPS 13 was already a letdown next to the competition, and this Snapdragon-powered XPS 13 winds up downgrading most of the package without a meaningful reduction in price. It just makes a disappointing experience worse. The Dell XPS 13 (9345) takes most of what we already saw in the Dell XPS 13 (9340) -- a thin, light, and stylish system that focused a little too much on style and not enough on substance next to its competition -- and loads it with new brains in the form of a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip. While the Intel-powered XPS 13 was already on shaky ground, the shift to Snapdragon only gives this new version even less stable footing to compete with the many great laptops out there. Snapdragon might promise advanced AI capabilities over the current field, but with so many AI capabilities in wait-and-see limbo, it's probably worth waiting and seeing if the impending AMD and Intel mobile chips don't just catch up on the NPU front and then continue to score easy wins in the CPU and GPU department. As it stands, the 1,299 Dell XPS 13 (9345) has a rocky path ahead of it.

Razer just can't quit video games. The Blade Stealth was its exit strategy--or so I thought. Released in 2016, the Stealth was Razer's debut Ultrabook, and brought the larger Blade's sleek, MacBook-like aesthetics and build quality to people who just check their email and type up memos, or whatever. There are three Razer Blade Stealth models for 2020. They differ only in terms of the display, not the internals.

Dell's XPS 13 squeezes more screen, more power and even Windows Hello face recognition into a tiny frame, but trips up over software issues. The XPS 13 is Dell's top-of-the-line compact laptop and starts at £1,349. Various models with different processors, storage and screen resolutions are available. The XPS line is where Dell shows off its design chops. It is a premium Windows 10 rival to Apple's MacBook Pro and more recently Microsoft's Surface Laptop line.

Out of the 4,400 exhibitors in Las Vegas for the massive consumer tech show, here are the best ones we found. As you might expect, covering the massive Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas each year is a thrill for tech enthusiasts, as you get to kick the tires, so to speak, on gadgets and gear not commercially available for months or, sometimes, years. But when you're talking about 4,400 exhibitors, you bet there's no shortage of ho-hum products, blatant copycats, or ridiculous concepts. Still, within the vast convention halls housing CES, there are gems to be mined. When it comes to products I'd actually buy, the following are a few 2019 standouts for me so far.

Over the past several years, CES -- formerly the Consumer Electronics Show -- has shifted its focus from "traditional" consumer tech towards self-driving cars and Internet-connected kitchen appliances. Despite that, PC makes still showed up in droves to this year's CES to flaunt their latest laptops, 2-in-1s, and more. Here's a look at the five best laptops we saw at CES 2018. The XPS 13's nearly edge-to-edge screen and elegant design already made it one of our favorite Windows laptops. But the newest version, which Dell unveiled just ahead of CES in early January, brings some notable enhancements.