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For me, there are basically two "categories" of new Windows laptops that I'm excited about: innovative form factors, and compact laptops with RTX 40-series GPUs

For me, there are basically two "categories" of new Windows laptops that I'm excited about: innovative form factors, and compact laptops with RTX 40-series GPUs. As much as Nvidia has been charging ridiculous prices for desktop GPUs, it looks like laptops using their GPUs aren't going to cost crazy amounts this year, and DLSS 3 Frame Generation should be a huge benefit for laptop gaming. In terms of innovative form factors, look at these: - A laptop with a nice OLED screen and a Color E-ink screen. This seems like an incredible combination, although the 60Hz limit on the OLED screen is unfortunate: https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/5/23541379/lenovo-thinkbook-plus-twist-e-ink-oled-laptop https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/5/23541379/lenovo-thinkbook-... - This dual screen (dual OLED, even!) concept seems like it would be challenging to pull off, but every hands-on review I've seen was really impressed with it, and I can totally see use cases for this: https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/5/23518872/lenovo-yoga-book-9i-ces2023-dual-oled-laptop-announcement-specs-price https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/5/23518872/lenovo-yoga-book-... - The Flow Z13 is like a Microsoft Surface with an actual GPU and a 165Hz display. This one isn't as appealing to me as the two above, but it is neat: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow/rog-flow-z13-2023-series/ https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow/rog-flow-z13-2023-seri... In terms of the other category, - The Acer Swift X 14 comes with a nice 120Hz OLED screen and an RTX 4050, so it seems like a nice, balanced laptop, but I wish it had the option for more than 16GB of RAM: https://youtu.be/va3OmoYHKYs?t=298 https://youtu.be/va3OmoYHKYs?t=298 - The Flow X13 now comes with up to an RTX 4070 and 165Hz display and up to 32GB of RAM, and this is significantly more compact than the Swift X 14, but the display is not as nice as an OLED. This is also a convertible, so you can use the 360 degree hinge to make it into a tablet: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow/rog-flow-x13-2023-series/spec/ https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow/rog-flow-x13-2023-seri... - The new Zephyrus G14 is probably the one I find most exciting, offering a 165Hz MiniLED display that's almost as nice as OLED, as well as up to an RTX 4090 (Laptop) and 32GB of RAM, but it is about the same size as the Swift X 14, so not as small as the Flow X13: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-2023 https://www.techradar.com/reviews/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-2023 A number of these also have user-upgradeable RAM, SSD, or both. I really like OLED, so it's great to see so many options for that, and MiniLED is going to be significantly more common this year than it was last year. It would be nice if my M2 MBA offered OLED or MiniLED.

jyrkesh 4y ago
Thanks for sharing all these! I'm in total agreement with you that there's an insane amount of cool stuff and innovation happening in the OEM laptop/tablet/hybrid space. But I'm still really concerned about the consistency of hibernation and sleep so I'm not taking a searingly hot machine out of my bag at 1% battery life. Or the weird quirks of some new hinge or keyboard design that I have to live with for 4+ years of owning a machine. I'd honestly take half the specs and double the thickness/weight if it meant that my keyboard felt like a keyboard and that I can confidently close the lid at any time and re-open it back to whatever I was doing. I don't _like_ Apple. But they can do that. And I don't even have to compromise on anything except using macOS (which I can tolerate).

jyrkesh 4y ago

Thanks for sharing all these! I'm in total agreement with you that there's an insane amount of cool stuff and innovation happening in the OEM laptop/tablet/hybrid space. But I'm still really concerned about the consistency of hibernation and sleep so I'm not taking a searingly hot machine out of my bag at 1% battery life. Or the weird quirks of some new hinge or keyboard design that I have to live with for 4+ years of owning a machine. I'd honestly take half the specs and double the thickness/weight if it meant that my keyboard felt like a keyboard and that I can confidently close the lid at any time and re-open it back to whatever I was doing. I don't _like_ Apple. But they can do that. And I don't even have to compromise on anything except using macOS (which I can tolerate).