Dell XPS 15 9500 Review: A Case Study In Laptop Excellence

Remember when Coca-Cola reformulated its popular soft drink in the mid 1980s? The so-called New Coke formula barely lasted a few months before it failed and the original was brought back. The company already had a good thing on its hands and it was a valuable real-world lesson in not trying to reinvent the wheel when the one you have spins well. On the surface, soft drinks and laptops like Dell's new for 2020 XPS 15 9500 don't have anything in common, so why bring it up? Generally speaking, this concept also applies to what Dell has done with its XPS 15 series of laptops, or not done, as the case...

ASUS TUF Gaming A15 Review: Ryzen Power With GeForce RTX Pop

by Ben Funk - Fri, Jun 12, 2020

It's official: from what we've seen so far, AMD's Ryzen 4000 series of mobile APUs are a hit here in the HotHardware labs. It started with the svelte ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming notebook, which impressed us with excellent performance at a reasonable price point, all packed into a lightweight 2.7-pound 14" chassis. After that came the Dell G5 15 SE, which brought together Ryzen and Radeon in an exclusive (for now) combination with similarly excellent performance and an even lower, more entry-level starting price. Talk about a strong showing for AMD yet again, with both Ryzen 4000 and Radeon RX...

Dell XPS 17 9700 Review: The 17-Inch Laptop Gold Standard

by Chris Goetting - Tue, Jun 09, 2020

Dell’s premium XPS family of notebooks is growing, literally. The company recently announced the all-new XPS 17, and as the name implies, this new Dell laptop features a spacious – and gorgeous – 17-inch display. It also features the updated design language introduced with the company’s redesigned XPS 13 9380, and the new 2020 XPS 15 9500 carries that DNA as well. A 17-inch laptop may sound cumbersome to some folks that might travel a lot with their notebook. Fortunately, Dell did more than simply scale up the previous generation XPS 15. The new design language features...

Samsung Galaxy Book S Review: Thin, Sleek, Big Battery Life

by Ben Funk - Fri, May 29, 2020

Always-on, always-connected PCs like the Samsung Galaxy Book S -- the kind of machines that are ready to go first thing in the morning and last all day and night, while never losing an internet connection thanks to cellular connectivity -- are a potential game changer for some users. Manufacturers have tried to make this happen with tablets, but haven't entirely been successful. Half-computers like the iPad Pro may have been "blessed" with $300 keyboards, but iPadOS can be pretty limiting for real work. This seems like a job for full-blown Windows and a proper clamshell, but x86 notebooks...

Lenovo Yoga C940 Review: A Great Ice Lake 2-In-1 Laptop

by Ben Funk - Wed, May 27, 2020

Variety is the spice of life. Nobody would be happy with just one flavor of ice cream, a single car, or the monotony of a single video game. Thankfully, we don't live in a world like that, so even premium 2-in-1 laptops come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. Today we're going to take a look at Lenovo's Yoga C940 convertible notebook, which is a bit different than some of the other foldable computers we have evaluated over the last few months. You see, the C940 is one of the bigger convertibles around. It's got a full 14-inch display and ample bezels, all of which make it larger than the Dell XPS...

Dell G5 15 SE: Testing AMD Radeon Vega 7 Integrated Graphics

by Ben Funk - Mon, May 25, 2020

When we reviewed the Dell G5 15 SE, an all-AMD gaming laptop that features an AMD Ryzen 7 4800H processor and a Navi-based Radeon RX 5600M, we didn't have a chance to dive into integrated graphics performance. The gaming battery life with powerful discrete graphics left something to be desired of course—the system lasted just an hour on battery with a gaming workload—but bypassing the discrete GPU should give a bit more time away from the wall socket. Folks wanted to know how this integrated AMD GPU performs, and come to think of it, so did we. So now it's time to find out.  If...

Dell G5 15 SE Laptop Review: All-AMD Gaming With SmartShift

by Ben Funk - Thu, May 21, 2020

AMD is in an enviable position in the gaming laptop world. Not only does the red team arguably produce some of the fastest mainstream mobile CPUs around in its Ryzen 4000 series, there's also formidable graphics horsepower in the same camp. As a result, AMD can control the whole platform, hardware and driver stack in a PC with its CPU, GPU, and accompanying chipset, if a manufacturer chooses to use those components. The first of these gaming laptops to hit the lab with an all-AMD bent comes from Dell. The G5 15 SE launches today with a feature set, performance target, and price point that makes...

ASUS ROG Strix Hero III Review: A Svelte RTX Gaming Laptop

by Paul Lilly - Tue, Apr 21, 2020

Sometimes it feels like the 17.3-inch laptop form factor is dying out, but fortunately for those who (like myself) prefer a bigger notebook, they can still be found. Proof of this exists with the larger of the two ASUS ROG Strix Hero III options. Offered in both 15.6-inch (G531GW, G531GV, and G531GU) and 17.3-inch (G731GW, G731GV, and G731GU) builds, buyers can go big if they want to, and not at the expense of portability—surprisingly, the 17.3-inch models are not very cumbersome at all. We can confidently state as much after spending several weeks with the ASUS ROG Strix Hero III, model...

Dell XPS 13 (2020) Review: Laptop Excellence Refined

by Ben Funk - Tue, Apr 07, 2020

When we evaluated the late 2019 model of Dell's XPS 13, we thought a few small things kept that ultraportable from achieving complete perfection. That machine shipped with Intel's Comet Lake-U family of processors, which are plenty fast on the CPU side of things. However, they lack the graphics "oomph" of Intel's latest Iris Plus graphics, available in Ice Lake-based 10th-Gen processors. This (very slightly) older model also had a 1920x1080 display with a 16:9 aspect ratio, while the Ice Lake-equipped 2-in-1 model had a slightly higher resolution 1920x1200, 16:10 display. We felt like adding those...

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: AMD Ryzen 4000 Mobile Unleashed

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, Mar 30, 2020

We first got our hands on the AMD Ryzen 4000-powered ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 during CES early this year. If you are unfamiliar with the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, it is a new breed of thin and light gaming notebook, that packs the performance of a much larger desktop-replacement type machine into a slimmer and sleeker 14”, sub-20mm class notebook. There will be multiple models of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 available when it hits store shelves in the coming days, but at the heart of the particular system we’ll be showing you here today is the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS 8-core / 16-thread processor....

AMD Launches Ryzen 4000 Series For Laptops: Zen 2 Mobile Unleashed With Big Performance Gains

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, Mar 16, 2020

AMD announced its Zen 2-based Ryzen 4000 series mobile processors a couple of months back at CES 2020. The information disseminated at AMD’s press conference, however, was relatively high-level, and as it turns out, wasn’t quite complete. Since the show, we’ve been made privy to much more information regarding the Ryzen 4000 series mobile line-up, including a couple of new processor models that haven’t been officially disclosed just yet. Though the Ryzen 4000 series mobile processors won’t be widely available for a few more weeks, some of AMD’s partners...

HP Elite Dragonfly Review: A Super Stylish 2-In-1 Laptop

by Ben Funk - Thu, Jan 30, 2020

The high end 2-in-1 notebook market is pretty crowded with entrants from Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, HP, ASUS and others. As a result, it's pretty tough to make a convertible laptop that stands out from the rest. HP's doing its best, however, with its new Elite Dragonfly line of lightweight, 2-in-1 hybrid PCs.  What we have on hand today is the currently-shipping edition of the Elite Dragonfly. That means this notebook carries an eighth-generation Intel Core processor. No doubt that right now is a transitional period, where the previous generation is being phased out, and new Intel 10th Gen CPUs,...

HP Omen 17 Review: A Value-Priced Mobile Gaming Beast

by Paul Lilly - Thu, Jan 23, 2020

For the longest time, replicating a desktop-class gaming experience on a laptop meant spending a hefty premium on a comparable mobile configuration, and to some extent, that still holds true today. The situation is much improved, however, as the cost of entry into PC gaming territory in general has continuously fallen on the hardware side, for both desktops and laptops. Simply put, the bang-for-buck proposition on a gaming PC has never been higher than it is right now. HP's newest model Omen 17 gaming laptop highlights this. It also accentuates the shrinking divide between desktops and laptops,...

Microsoft Surface Pro X And Pro 7 Review: Snapdragon And x86 Experience

by Ben Funk - Wed, Jan 15, 2020

Microsoft Surface Pro X (left) and Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (right) - Similar But Very Different Beasts Microsoft's Surface Pro line of convertible tablets has long been one of the standards by which premium Windows hybrid convertibles are judged. The Surface Pro family has been around for years, but these latest tablet 2-in-1 devices come with a twist. First is the tried-and-true Surface Pro 7 with an Intel Core processor and a surprising amount of power for the form factor. However, the Surface Pro is now available with an Arm 64 system-on-a-chip (SoC) and platform from Qualcomm, to boost battery...

Dell XPS 13 (2019) Review: A Refined 6-Core Ultrabook

by Ben Funk - Fri, Dec 27, 2019

Dell's XPS 13 family is split into two main product lines; 2-in-1 convertible notebooks and traditional clamshell-style laptops. It wasn't too long ago that we looked at the latest 2-in-1 with Intel's 10th-generation Core i7-1065G7. That machine was a thin, light, flexible beauty and a great performer, thanks in no small part to its improved graphics capability with the Intel 10th Gen Core series of CPUs. So when Dell offered up the latest XPS 13 clamshell version with a bright 4K display and Intel's Comet Lake 6-core 10th Gen CPU on tap, we just had to kick the tires a bit.  For those not...

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 2 Review: Powerful Portability

by Ben Funk - Thu, Dec 19, 2019

Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 family has long been synonymous with excellent build quality and premium features; Over the summer, we were extremely impressed with the 7th-generation ThinkPad X1 Carbon's build quality, performance, and its bright 4K IPS display. This time around we're looking at the larger ThinkPad X1 Extreme, which shares a design aesthetic with its smaller sibling. However, this model trades the smaller notebook's ultrabook specs for a larger 15.6" chassis and higher-powered components.  Much like the Carbon, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme starts out with a 1080p IPS display and has several...

Google Pixelbook Go Review: A Premium Chromebook Experience

by Rod Scher - Thu, Nov 21, 2019

Google's new Pixelbook Go is a bit of an anomaly in the company's line of Chromebooks. Neither a folding, swiveling ultra-premium device like the original Google Pixelbook, nor a tablet like the Pixel Slate, the company's newest release is a traditional clamshell design, although one that features a touch-enabled display. It looks, feels, and behaves like a conventional laptop, but with its magnesium chassis, 1080p touchscreen, and quiet "Hush Keys," one that's small, light, feature-rich and well-made. That said, though its premium mobile laptop is fairly conventional, Google's Pixelbook line...

Alienware m15 R2 Review: Beautiful OLED, Beastly Performance

by Ben Funk - Wed, Nov 06, 2019

Alienware may just be the most well-known gaming desktop and notebook brand on the planet. The company's gray alien logo graces everything from proper, upgradeable desktops like the Aurora R9 to the huge desktop-replacement Area-51m notebook complete with actual desktop hardware. What we have on hand today isn't quite so big and bulky, however: the new 2019 edition of the company's workhorse m15 gaming notebook, the m15 R2. We had a chance to spend some one-on-one time with this sweet portable machine back at Computex, but now it's come through our labs from the alien mothership for an extended...

HP Omen X 2S Review: A Sleek, Dual-Screen RTX Gaming Beast

by Tuan Huynh - Fri, Nov 01, 2019

In the last 5 years, gaming notebooks have essentially reached performance parity with desktop systems and made it easier for gamers to experience their favorite PC games virtually anywhere, without losing out on image quality or performance. However, because most components perform similarly in any given form factor, manufacturers are constantly striving to predict what the next hot desirable feature may be, to help their devices stand out from the crowd. HP’s 15-inch Omen X 2S banks on dual screens being the next big feature and packs an innovative, two-display setup into a sleek, lightweight...

Dell XPS 13 2-In-1 (2019) Review: A Near-Perfect Intel 10th Gen Laptop

by Ben Funk - Wed, Oct 16, 2019

Dell's XPS family of premium laptops has long been synonymous with excellent performance and build quality. In particular, the XPS 13 lineup has included some of the most highly awarded ultraportable PCs on the market today. Today, we have Dell's latest XPS 13 on hand: model 7390, which is a 2-in-1 model with a 360 degree hinge and a 13.3-inch multi-touch IPS display that converts what looks like an otherwise-traditional laptop into a tablet. Perhaps more importantly, this is the first retail notebook we've gotten our mitts on with Intel's 10nm CPUs, codenamed Ice Lake, in tow. In fact, Dell...

Intel Gen 11 Graphics Takes Fight To AMD In Dell XPS 13 2-In-1

by Ben Funk - Thu, Oct 10, 2019

It's no secret that Intel has a lot riding on its "Ice Lake" 10th generation Core CPUs manufactured on its 10-nanometer fabrication process. The chipmaker got by on squeezing more power and efficiency out of its 14-nm node for what seemed like an eternity, but we're talking about a mobile sector that relentlessly demands more performance and longer battery life. This oft-delayed Intel process node promises to reduce power consumption and increase performance by a wide margin over the Kaby Lake Refresh processors that previously served as the brains for thin and light PCs. Dell's XPS 13 2-In-1 Gets...

Microsoft Unveils Surface Neo Dual Display Foldable PC Powered By Intel Lakefield Foveros Tech

by Brandon Hill - Wed, Oct 02, 2019

Remember the Courier concept that leaked from Microsoft over a decade ago? It has finally manifested itself into a real product that Surface Chief Panos Panay announced today called the Surface Neo. The Surface Neo features dual 9-inch displays covered in Gorilla Glass that are joined together with a central 360-degree hinge. That hinge, which features micro-gears with an innovative torque system, allows the device to contort into a number of various positions based on what your current workload is like. You can use it as a dual-screen device; you can it with just a single display; you can use...