Just before CES 2018, Dell unveiled its new XPS 13 laptop. The device, favorited by many thanks to its compact design, bright display, comfortable keyboard and decent battery life, has been completely overhauled, boasting narrower bezels, a new cooling system and a white option with a stain-resistant coating. The device had been revealed at CES 2012 and counts now seven versions, the very last one featuring a new white-and-gold finish, a slimmer frame, eighth generation Intel CPUs and other upgrades. Design wise, the latest version marks the first tangible design changes since its original launch. Dell slimmed down the XPS 13 chassis to be 30 percent thinner at just 0.3 inches (3.4mm) at its narrowest point, but also lighter at nearly 2.7 pounds (1.2kg). Obviously, the color change is the most notable modification, even though the original black and silver configuration is still available. The white and rose model features a woven glass palm rest that has a slight texture to it, unlike the black model’s smooth palm rest. According to the company, it is finished with a titanium oxide coating for shine, and the anti-stain coating that should protect the palm rest from turning yellow. There are three USB-C ports (two of which are Thunderbolt 3), a microSD card reader and a 3.5mm audio jack. One strange thing about the XPS 13 is the webcam placement—at the bottom of the screen instead of above it—but this is not something new. The camera can be used to log into the computer using face recognition if the fingerprint scanner feels ancient. The device will be available with an FHD non-touch or 4K touch display, while inside it comes equipped with 8th generation quad-core Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs, Intel Graphics 620, support for up...

Microsoft’s Surface lineup welcomed its newest computer, the Surface Laptop, the company’s direct answer to the MacBook. The new flagship device for Windows 10 S was designed with college students in mind. It will sell starting at $999 (upgraded versions will costs as much as $2,199) and will begin shipping on June 15. The new device doesn’t hold any records—it’s not the thinnest nor lightest out there, but its 0.6-inch thickness and 2.74-pound weight make it an easy burden to carry around. The Surface laptop doesn’t bring any novelties either, it’s a Microsoft PC with the Surface branding. The overall design makes you think more about a MacBook-style notebook rather than a Microsoft’s Surface Book—the screen is not detachable and the hinges are not supposed to be seen. In fact, the Surface Laptop feels to be geared toward Apple customers more than anyone else. It will be available in four colors—burgundy, graphite gold, platinum and cobalt blue—the burgundy and blue versions are special in a way that will immediately stand out. Out stands the cloth-like Alcantara fabric, brought from Italy and is laser cut to coat the palm rests and the space between the keys. Even though it’s not more luxurious than metal, its softness and warmth look appealing. How well will it stand the test of time? Remains to be seen. Tech-specs wise, one of the first things that catches your eye is its lack of ports (which seems to have turned into a trend lately): the headphone jack is still there, next to an USB 3.0 port and a mini DisplayPort. But that’s it, Microsoft decided that the USB-C doesn’t have a place there, nor does Thunderbolt 3. One cool thing is that it doesn’t have any visible speaker grilles or holes,...

CES in Las Vegas was yet again a groundbreaking tech event, but aside from self-driving cars, next-gen TV’s, drones and virtual reality, there was one item that made waves —Razer’s Project Valerie. A couple of years have passed since the PC gaming peripheral brand brought something bold to CES (Project Christine in 2014), but this year the company went all out and unveiled the world’s first automated triple-display laptop. Founded in 1998, the innovative tech company once only known for its gaming accessories, like keyboards and mice, has quickly become an industry leader with its Blade series laptops, and Razer Edition PC’s. The newest addition to the Razer family, Project Valerie, which is just a prototype as of now, is quite different from any other laptop currently on the market. The firm showcased the device at CES and it was available for testing as well. In fact, it attracted so much attention, that two of the laptops were actually stolen and later popped up in China, listed for around $22,000, but I’ll get to that in a minute. First, let’s see Valerie’s specifications. Besides the three obvious screens, each 17.3-inch wide with 4K displays, making the laptop actually 12K (I know, right?), Project Valerie weighs approximately 12 pounds and is 1.5 inches thick. It boasts lighting strips under the two side monitors, a low-profile mechanical LED keyboard which features 16.8 million colors with vibrant lighting effects, and a touch pad and roller on the right side of the device. At its core, Project Valerie features the top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card and Intel’s 6th generation i7-6700HQ quad-core processor. Since it is a concept design, the rest of the specifications and battery life have not yet been released. Moreover, the price tag and...

Apple’s October keynote was a relatively small event with low key news, but the new laptops announced were sufficient to keep the audience excited. New MacBook Pros are finally arriving, including one that’s thinner than the MacBook Air. It also boasts a new feature called the Touch Bar. The MacBook Pro, after 25 years on the market since the first PowerBook, has been slimmed down from the previous Retina MacBook Pro, the company cutting 14-17 percent of its thickness and almost a half-pound of its weight. It comes in 13-inch and 15-inch models, in silver or space gray colors. Specs-wise, the new machine is more powerful than ever before. The 15-inch Pro features a highly-capable Radeon Pro discrete GPU in every configuration, delivering up to 130 percent faster graphics performance than the previous generation. It feeds of a mighty 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with 4GB of video memory and up to 16GB of RAM. It’s the first model that can be configured to 2TB SSD and is also the first time a MacBook Pro will not include standard USB ports, both sizes featuring just USB-C ports. This means that the MacBook Air is the only Apple laptop left with standard USB ports. It also means that the 4 Thunderbolt/USB-C ports will cause to people some consternation as the number of cables and accessories is going to skyrocket. However, Thunderbolt 3 combines ultra-high bandwidth with the versatility of the USB-C industry standard to bring one advanced port that integrates data transfer, charging and video output in just one connector able to deliver up to 40 Gbps of throughput. Dongles seem to be the future. The good news is that the headphone jack survived, but unfortunately and unexplainably, the MagSafe charging and the SD card...

A little over two hours were needed for Microsoft to showcase its latest products and software upgrades, putting a call out to “creators” now, meaning everybody. The giant unveiled the new version of Windows 10, dubbed Creator Update—which includes plenty of 3D-focused features, as well as an updated Surface Book and a jumbo all-in-one PC called Surface Studio. The underscoring theme was all about a mixed reality, a futuristic combo of holograms, virtual reality and three-dimensional emoji. Windows 10 Creators Update The operating system is getting a major update for early 2017. Highlights include the addition of new 3D creation tools, live-streaming and custom tournaments for the Xbox app, as well as a focus on communicating with close contacts by placing “people at the center of the Windows experience.” Terry Myerson, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Windows and devices group said he wants Windows 10 to “have the effect of the Gutenberg press on the next wave of computing.” Microsoft’s long-forgotten Paint is getting a revamp. Named Paint 3D, the software makes it easy to create 3D objects and environments. The philosophy behind it is to simplify as much as possible 3D creation, to the point where it becomes as easy as taking a photo or video with a smartphone. The update will impact Microsoft PowerPoint as well. The classic options will still be there, but a new feature will enable users to add a 3D rendering to their presentation. Moreover, users will be able to search from within the community of Remix3D.com, as well as their own. The insert process is actually the same for 3D models as is for 2D photos or videos today. Perfectionists will be happy to discover that they can rotate the 3D object in PowerPoint. Microsoft’s ambitious augmented...

Asus might have stolen the spotlight at Computex 2016 when it presented the ZenBook 3, a new laptop that combines ultra-thin design with powerful specifications. Yes, it is envisaged as a direct rival to Apple’s latest MacBook and we must say, on paper it looks great! The ZenBook is great portability-wise, weighing just 2 pounds and measuring just .46 inches at its thickest point. And this is pretty impressive, as what it hides under the hood is not easy to huddle into such heaped space. The aluminum device comes in three extremely shiny colors: Quartz Grey, Royal Blue and Rose Gold, making a bold statement in this sea of more mute-colored notebooks. Moreover, the ZenBook brings back the spun metal finish, in case you missed it. The ZenBook’s display features a 12.5-inch screen coated in Gorilla Glass 4 with ‘only’ Full HD resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels at 176ppi—slightly larger than the 12-inch screen of the MacBook, but less sharp than Apple’s 226ppi device. However, it looks like Asus was able to slim down the bezel with the screen now covering 82 percent of the laptop’s front. The slender frame though, hides some serious hardware. The device comes with several configurations on offer, with the entry-level model equipped with a low-voltage Intel Core i5 CPU, 4GB of memory and 256GB of on-board storage available at $999; the high-end version comes with Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD and sells for $1,999; what more could you want? Perhaps more ports besides that one Thunderbolt USB Type C port? Asus claims that the ZenBook 3 offers nine hours of battery life and has this ability to recharge to 50 percent capacity in under one hour. The battery is rated at...

A laptop doesn’t have to be bulky to be powerful. It doesn’t have to be ugly for that matter, either. Slowly more attention is invested in the appearance of the devices in our life. Apple’s inclination towards attractive designs has proved to be a win and an example to follow. So things are changing. HP prepared a stunning surprise launching its latest ultra-portable laptop, Spectre. It has an aluminum, carbon fiber and copper body that’s only 0.41 inches thin with a 13.3-inch, edge-to-edge display covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 4 and Bang & Olufsen audio with lace-like speakers. The laptop comes in a smoky gray color with gold accents—the entire hinge is a bright, jeweled gold which was moved in from the rear edge, inset by a bit. HP packed a beautiful surprise under the hood: instead of powering Spectre with Intel’s lower-power Core M line of processors—like the 12-inch MacBook and Samsung Galaxy TabPro S did—they’ve used the current-generation mainstream Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs combined with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. This amount of power needs cooling—the fans are much smaller (and quite silent) and pull the air in and through the laptop, rather than exclusively pushing hot air out. It’s a version of a cooling scheme from Intel which they call hyperbaric cooling. To better power the laptop, HP found inspiration in Apple and used a set of four differently sized internal battery packs flattened down into multiple separate thin cells, to fit across most of the bottom footprint. The company claims the battery life goes up to 9 hours and 45 minutes. The HP used a standard island-style keyboard that’s backlit. They feel a bit shallow with a shorter key travel due to the base’s thin...

On October 6 Microsoft took its fall hardware collection to New York, raising many eyebrows with its first laptop ever—the Surface Book. The long-awaited device (so long, that many believed it would never happen) bears the genes of the Surface family with its 2-in-1 mobile experience. Yet, it adds something the previous models lack: a stiff hinge. The Surface Book is still a tablet with a separate keyboard, but there’s no kickstand. The Dynamic Fulcrum hinge (which resembles a tiny metal gauntlet) holds the screen up and allows positioning it at any angle. The screen is firmly anchored into the keyboard/battery base; it can be ejected either through the physical eject button or through the one included in the software. The result is an incredibly thin but generous 13.5-inch, 3000×2000 screen, a standalone tablet. And this is not all—the screen can be reattached backwards to the laptop base, allowing to fold the tablet over the keyboard. It is what Microsoft calls the “drawing mode”. The look of the Surface Book will be divisive: the dynamic fulcrum hinge doesn’t completely close, the screen isn’t flush against the keyboard—look from the side and there is a gap. This might be unpleasant for some, despite the rest of the polished features. By far, this is the most beautiful Windows laptop ever made; it feels solid, well-engineered and designed, even though some might make a wry face when seeing its unadorned, almost industrial look. Microsoft’s newest star has an angular silver magnesium casing adorned with just two physical buttons—for volume and power. It measures 12.30” x 9.14” x 0.51 – 0.90” and weighs 3.34 pounds, including the keyboard. The screen sports 6 million pixels, 267 per inch, surpassing MacBook Pro’s 227ppi and making colors pop. The Surface Book...