A rather small selection, unfortunately, but some look pretty tasty indeed.
CES 2024 is winding down now and it’s been a frantic week of computing and gadget showcases. Intel launched its laptop-focused Core Ultra series of processors at the very end of 2023, so we expected to see a good number of the usual vendors releasing gaming laptops sporting the Meteor Lake chip. In the end, it wasn’t as many as we hoped to see but even so, there’s plenty to get excited about.
The first thing to note is that almost all of the big laptop manufacturers announced at least one model powered by an Intel Core Ultra CPU, with the most notable exception being Gigabyte, which isn’t using it at all. However, many of those that do aren’t marketed as gaming laptops.
While the integrated GPU in the majority of the Core Ultra lineup is good enough to handle entry-level gaming, you’re far better off considering PCs with at least an RTX 4060 or equivalent, to ensure that you can enjoy a decent gaming experience.Acer
So far, there is just one gaming laptop from Acer to sport Meteor Lake, the 16-inch Predator Trion Neo. Ridiculous name aside, it looks to be a solid laptop, though that will depend on what configuration you’re able to get. The highest spec version will have a Core Ultra 9 185H, with six P-cores, eight E-cores, two LPE-cores, and a boost clock of up to 5.1GHz. For graphics duties, you’ll be able to get up to an RTX 4070, though what power limit it will have is unknown.
As for RAM and storage, those details have yet to be confirmed, but we do know that the 16-inch screen will have a 3.2K resolution (3200 x 2000 in a 16:10 ratio) and a 165Hz refresh rate. The chassis is a fairly dull affair, but the keyboard offers the usual gaming-required RGB lighting.
Prices are expected to start at $1,499/€1,799 for the base Predator Trion Neo 16 model. That seems a little on the high side, compared to the competition, but if the amount of RAM and size of the SSD are both decent, then it could be worth considering.Alienware
Dell announced two Core Ultra models under its Alienware brand at CES 2024, the similarly named m16 R2 and x16 R2. The first is a significant update to the original m16, with the chassis having 15% smaller footprint, all while improving the overall cooling.
