Independent, testing-based reviews of laptops from all the top brands. We pick the best budget, premium, and gaming PCs, and compare AMD vs. Intel.
By Melissa Riofrio Executive Editor, PCWorld| Today’s Best Tech Deals Picked by PCWorld’s Editors Top Deals On Great Products Picked by Techconnect’s Editors Shopping for a laptop is about to get a lot more interesting. Computex 2021 (virtual) brought a heavy rain of news from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia, everything from new CPUs to technologies that enhance gaming performance. The laptop market is still tight, as pandemic-fueled sales remain strong. But if you yearn for the latest and greatest, this is your time. Keep reading for the latest news and reviews. Our top picks from currently available laptops are below: Here are the latest stories: Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition is all red inside with its Ryzen 9 5900HX and Radeon RX 6800M. When we think about the best thin-and-light laptop, it’s always been a close contest between the Dell XPS 2-in-1 and the HP Spectre x360. This time around, we’re giving the luxurious HP Spectre x360 14 some time in the sun, with a nod to the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 that preceded it as our top pick. The Spectre x360 14, now sporting the same Intel 11th-gen Tiger Lake CPU available in the Dell XPS line, trades blows with its eternal rival in test after test. It rises to the top because of a few key advantages: It offers longer battery life (thanks to a bigger battery), a far better keyboard, and little things like a USB-A port and a physical webam shutoff switch, all for a lower price. Well played. Read our full review. [ $1,590 on HP.com ] Now that Apple’s M1 chip has raised the bar for lightweight laptop performance, there’s a question every ultraportable PC maker must address: Why would someone buy this instead of a MacBook Air? Well, here’s an answer for the new Acer Swift 5: It’s fast enough to play Fortnite and a bunch of other games that are absent from Apple’s platform, but it weighs only 2.
