Laptops

Samsung is making strides to make better laptops, and the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 continues the 2-in-1 design that helped spread the word.

Sony’s Vaio series of PC laptops has always won points for style and design and the company has become a leader in producing Windows 8 hybrid machines —portables that combine Windows 8 PC and tablet capabilities. I’ve spent the past week trying out Sony’s latest take on the hybrid form factor. After putting it through its paces, I can assure you that the Vaio Fit 15A is one of the most useful variations yet on the tablet/notebook convertible hybrid, a real looker (especially in the black finish of the test unit) and an able performer. It’s held back a little by a few details —a loud and persistent fan, so-so keyboard, and not so stellar battery life among them— but offers a solid portable computer experience, along with tablet capability, in a single package that just happens to look pretty smashing.  

Massive 17.3-inch, Full-HD display? Check! 6th generation Core i7 CPU with 16GB of RAM on tap? Check! Nvidia GTX 960M graphics card? It’s there too. The ASUS Republic of Gamers GL752V checks off all the boxes, delivering a performance-driven laptop and compelling mobile gaming solution.

I see a lot of laptops come through my door and many of them try to impress with fancy sculpted cases and LED lighting effects. Granted, looking hot does get some points upfront, but after trying out my third Eurocom laptop in the past few years —this time the Shark 2— I’ve really come to appreciate this manufacturer’s approach. While the Shark 2 doesn’t look cheap, it is understated compared to many laptops aimed at the gaming and graphics professional crowd. It’s also a solid performer with a good display, high quality sound, a powerful Intel Haswell CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M graphics card for gaming.

Intel Gamer Days are here! Follow the biggest news on PC gaming and get great deals and discounts. Learn more about the event and enter for a chance to win four Intel-powered gaming laptops.

As you no doubt know, when it comes to trying to pack the performance needed to undertake serious video gaming in a laptop, it comes down to a very tricky balance between speed and portability. Try to shove too much power in a gaming laptop and for all intents and purposes, it ceases to be a portable PC —heavy, bulky and with little battery life. Go too far in the other direction, though, and you end up with something that’s svelte but unable to play games on anything but the lowest settings. I just spent some quality time with a gaming laptop that manages to strike the perfect balance: the Eurocom M3. It’s a compact, lightweight laptop with the power to chew through pixels and polygons while keeping frame rates high. Eurocom says the M3 is the most powerful 13-inch notebook ever made and everything I’ve seen supports that claim.

LG is back with another round of its Gram laptops, continuing the trend with no less than five new models, including an external display.

The Prestige 16 AI Evo B1MG laptop combines a thin form factor with power from Intel's Core Ultra 7, AI enhanced processor.

  Many schools are implementing a ‘bring your own device’ policy – meaning students learn from their own computers and not those provided by the school.

One of the hottest new laptops at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show was the Dell XPS 13. Even now, three months after CES, the XPS 13 is still in the spotlight, frequently referred to as one of the great laptops of 2015 and Dell’s MacBook Air killer. With the XPS 13 now available at Best Buy, it’s worth taking a deep dive to learn what all the fuss is about.