ASUS

strange,-unique,-and-otherwise-noteworthy-pcs-and-pc-accessories-from-ces-2025

Strange, unique, and otherwise noteworthy PCs and PC accessories from CES 2025

Acer, ASUS, cases, CES 2025, inwin, Lenovo, NUC, PCs, steam deck, Tech / /

i respect and applaud the effort

Most of these experiments don’t stick around for long, but who knows.

Acer’s Nitro Blaze 11, which takes the “portable” out of “portable handheld gaming PC.” Credit: Acer

The Consumer Electronics Show is a reliable source of announcements about iterative updates to PCs and PC components. A few of those announcements are significant enough in some way that they break through all that noise—Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs and their lofty promises about AI-generated frames did that this year, as did Dell’s decision to kill multiple decades-old PC brands and replace them with a bland series of “Pro/Premium/Plus” tiers.

But CES is also a place where PC companies and accessory makers get a little weird, taking some bigger (and occasionally questionable) swings alongside a big batch of more predictable incremental refreshes. As we’ve covered the show from afar this year, here are some of the more notable things we’ve seen.

Put an E-Ink screen on it: Asus NUC 14 Pro AI+

The NUC 14 Pro AI+ finds a way to combine E-Ink, AI, and turn-of-the-millennium translucent plastic into a single device. Credit: Asus

The strangest CES PCs are usually the ones that try to pull away from “a single screen attached to a keyboard” in some way. Sometimes, those PCs have a second screen stashed somewhere; sometimes, they have a screen that stretches; sometimes, they get rid of the keyboard part and extend the screen down where you expect that keyboard to be.

Asus is currently the keeper of Intel’s old NUC mini PC line, and this year it’s updating the NUCs mostly by putting new processors in them. But the Asus NUC 14 Pro AI+ also decides to spice things up by adding a color E-Ink display on top, one with images that can display persistently even when the device is off.

While other PCs with shoehorned-in E-Ink displays have at least tried to do something functional—older laptops in Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus series could be used as E-Ink tablets when they were closed—the screen on the NUC 14 Pro AI+ seems strictly ornamental. Asus offers few details about how it works: “users can generate AI images through the built-in app, allowing them to create unique personal identification designs that continuously display content without being plugged in, consuming no power.”

All of Asus’ product shots show the NUC with the same pattern of abstract triangles displayed on the top, so it’s unclear whether users will have the option to use custom non-AI-generated images, or if they’ll be able to use the screen to display any other kind of system information. It’s unique, at least.

Stretching out: Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable

Is this a weird stretched-out Photoshop of a laptop? No, it’s just the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable! Credit: Lenovo

We wrote about the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable already this week, so we won’t dedicate a ton of extra space to it here. But its stretchable screen, which expands vertically from 14 inches to 16.7 inches, is an interesting riff on the “one laptop, multiple screens” idea. Some pictures of the laptop look vaguely Photoshopped, like someone grabbed the top of the screen and stretched it out.

Other laptops have put a second screen beneath the hinge under a removable keyboard and a second screen that folds out horizontally. The new ThinkBook keeps the portrait orientation, but it has a traditional non-removable keyboard in the base. One day, maybe Lenovo will hit a ThinkBook Plus screen idea that it likes well enough to keep for more than a generation or two.

A time for reflection: InWin Prism PC case

The InWin Prism case has mirrored glass side panels, so you can see everything inside your PC and also everything outside your PC.

Seeing what pre-built weirdness the PC companies can come up with is always fun, but I live for the PC case ideas that companies bring to CES. Maybe you’re using weird materials like fabric or wood paneling. Maybe you’re making a case that looks like a shark, or a giant shoe. I probably won’t buy any of these things, but I sure do like looking at them.

The most eye-catching entry into this genre from CES 2025 is from InWin, which has also given us hits like this case with addressable RGB lights all over its entire front panel. The InWin Prism midtower uses two-way mirror panels on its sides—if you’ve already got a PC filled with busy RGB lights, the Prism makes things look even busier by also reflecting everything in your room back at you.

The pristine press shots of this one don’t really do it justice; photos from Tom’s Hardware of the case on the show floor do a better job of conveying just how chaotic this thing looks in person.

Feeling exposed: MSI Project Zero X case

MSI’s Project Zero X concept case achieves a clean look by using back-connect motherboards. It’s very glassy. Credit: MSI

If the Prism is a PC case that looks a little too visible, MSI’s Project Zero X is the opposite, with glass that wraps around the back, front, left side, and top of the case to show off everything inside to an even greater degree than most windowed cases.

This is a follow-up to the original Project Zero concept case, which wasn’t quite as glassy. The (relatively) unique thing about both cases is that they’re designed around motherboards with all their various connectors on the back side—often referred to as “back-connect” motherboards. The power plugs, fan and USB headers, power button, and everything else you need to plug cables into when you install a motherboard are all facing the opposite direction from your CPU socket, RAM slots, and PCI Express cards.

The point is to make it easier to create clean, show-off-able builds without as much cable management hassle, which is why you’d combine it with a case that shows your motherboard off from every side but the back.

A roommate for your gaming PC: MSI MEG MAESTRO 900L PZ

The MSI MEG MAESTRO 900L PZ can fit a full-size E-ATX build and a mini ITX build into the same case at the same time? Because why not? Credit: MSI

MSI also makes the cut for the MEG MAESTRO 900L PZ. This is a hulking monstrosity of a PC case that can, for some reason, fit an E-ATX motherboard, an ITX motherboard, and the power supplies, fans, and GPUs for both systems in the same case at the same time.

Maybe it’s a nice way to bring a spare or loaner system with you to a LAN party or an e-sports competition? But it looks and sounds like the kind of thing that requires team lifting to move around.

Building a bigger Steam Deck

Acer’s Nitro Blaze 11, which takes the “portable” out of “portable handheld gaming PC.” Credit: Acer

Clones of Valve’s handheld Steam Deck gaming PC have become a product category unto themselves, and companies like Asus and Lenovo are already a couple of generations deep into their own versions. One of Lenovo’s is the first non-Steam Deck to officially run Steam OS, a sign that Valve could once again be ready to make a move against Windows.

And when the PC companies see what they think of as a new market opportunity, the race for differentiation begins, with occasionally silly results.

Enter the Acer Nitro Blaze 11, which looks like a mostly conventional handheld with Nintendo Switch-style detachable controllers but with a huge 11-inch screen (the OLED Steam Deck is 7.4 inches, and other Deck-alikes mostly land between seven and nine inches). At 2.3 pounds, the Blaze 11 pushes the boundaries of what can reasonably be considered “handheld.” It also has a Switch-style kickstand for propping it up on a desk or table, which feels like an admission that you might not want to be holding the thing all the time.

All of that said, “take a thing people already like and make it bigger/smaller” has been a fairly reliable path to success in PCs, phones, and other tech over the last couple of decades. Maybe an 11-inch “handheld” won’t seem so weird a few years from now.

A “keyboard for writers”

The Wordrunner is “the first mechanical keyboard for writers,” or at least it will be if its Kickstarter takes off. Credit: Freewrite

This one’s for all the writers out there who believe that they’re just one equipment purchase away from having a perfect, productive, distraction-free writing setup.

Freewrite is known primarily for its smart typewriters, keyboards that are attached to small monochrome LCD or E-Ink displays that promise to be “dedicated drafting tools” that “maximize your productivity.

This year, they’ve unveiled a PC keyboard billed as “the first mechanical keyboard designed for writers.” The Wordrunner has a function row of shortcut keys that will be useful to writers navigating their way through a document, plus a built-in timer and word counter for the times when you just need to pull words out of your brain and you can go back and edit them into cohesive thoughts later.

I do enjoy a keyboard with extraneous knobs and doodads, which makes the mechanical “wordometer” particularly appealing to me. Unfortunately, as of this writing the Wordrunner is still in a primordial, pre-Kickstarter state of development. If you’re interested, you can put down $1 now, so you can get early bird Kickstarter pricing in February, and you might get a keyboard at some point several months or years in the future. Freewrite is, at least, an established company with several products under its belt, so we wouldn’t be too worried about this project vanishing without a trace as so many Kickstarter efforts do.

Photo of Andrew Cunningham

Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue.

Strange, unique, and otherwise noteworthy PCs and PC accessories from CES 2025 Read More »

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Review: Intel Lunar Lake CPUs combine good battery life and x86 compatibility

ASUS, core ultra, early reviews, Features, intel, intel lunar lake, intel meteor lake, ryzen ai, snapdragon x elite, Tech, zenbook / /

that lake came from the moon —

But it’s too bad that Intel had to turn to TSMC to make its chips competitive.

–

  • An Asus Zenbook UX5406S with a Lunar Lake-based Core Ultra 7 258V inside.

    Andrew Cunningham

  • These high-end Zenbooks usually offer pretty good keyboards and trackpads, and the ones here are comfortable and reliable.

    Andrew Cunningham

  • An HDMI port, a pair of Thunderbolt ports, and a headphone jack.

    Andrew Cunningham

  • A single USB-A port on the other side of the laptop. Dongles are fine, but we still appreciate when thin-and-light laptops can fit one of these in.

    Andrew Cunningham

Two things can be true for Intel’s new Core Ultra 200-series processors, codenamed Lunar Lake: They can be both impressive and embarrassing.

Impressive because they perform reasonably well, despite some regressions and inconsistencies, and because they give Intel’s battery life a much-needed boost as the company competes with new Snapdragon X Elite processors from Qualcomm and Ryzen AI chips from AMD. It will also be Intel’s first chip to meet Microsoft’s performance requirements for the Copilot+ features in Windows 11.

Embarrassing because, to get here, Intel had to use another company’s manufacturing facilities to produce a competitive chip.

Intel claims that this is a temporary arrangement, just a bump in the road as the company prepares to scale up its upcoming 18A manufacturing process so it can bring its own chip production back in-house. And maybe that’s true! But years of manufacturing misfires (and early reports of troubles with 18A) have made me reflexively skeptical of any timelines the company gives for its manufacturing operations. And Intel has outsourced some of its manufacturing at the same time it is desperately trying to get other chip designers to manufacture their products in Intel’s factories.

This is a review of Intel’s newest mobile silicon by way of an Asus Zenbook UX5406S with a Core Ultra 7 258V provided by Intel, not a chronicle of Intel’s manufacturing decline and ongoing financial woes. I will mostly focus on telling you whether the chip performs well and whether you should buy it. But it’s a rare situation, where whether it’s a solid chip is not a slam-dunk win for Intel, which might factor into our overall analysis.

About Lunar Lake

A high-level breakdown of Intel's next-gen Lunar Lake chips, which preserve some of Meteor Lake's changes while reverting others.

Enlarge / A high-level breakdown of Intel’s next-gen Lunar Lake chips, which preserve some of Meteor Lake’s changes while reverting others.

Intel

Let’s talk about the composition of Lunar Lake, in brief.

Like last year’s Meteor Lake-based Core Ultra 100 chips, Lunar Lake is a collection of chiplets stitched together via Intel’s Foveros technology. In Meteor Lake, Intel used this to combine several silicon dies manufactured by different companies—Intel made the compute tile where the main CPU cores were housed, while TSMC made the tiles for graphics, I/O, and other functions.

In Lunar Lake, Intel is still using Foveros—basically, using a silicon “base tile” as an interposer that enables communication between the different chiplets—to put the chips together. But the CPU, GPU, and NPU have been reunited in a single compute tile, and I/O and other functions are all handled by the platform controller tile (sometimes called the Platform Controller Hub or PCH in previous Intel CPUs). There’s also a “filler tile” that exists only so that the end product is rectangular. Both the compute tile and the platform controller tile are made by TSMC this time around.

Intel is still splitting its CPU cores between power-efficient E-cores and high-performance P-cores, but core counts overall are down relative to both previous-generation Core Ultra chips and older 12th- and 13th-generation Core chips.

Some high-level details of Intel's new E- and P-core architectures.

Enlarge / Some high-level details of Intel’s new E- and P-core architectures.

Intel

Lunar Lake has four E-cores and four P-cores, a composition common for Apple’s M-series chips but not, so far, for Intel’s. The Meteor Lake Core Ultra 7 155H, for example, included six P-cores and a total of 10 E-cores. A Core i7-1255U included two P-cores and eight E-cores. Intel has also removed Hyperthreading from the CPU architecture it’s using for its P-cores, claiming that the silicon space was better spent on improving single-core performance. You’d expect this to boost Lunar Lake’s single-core performance and hurt its multi-core performance relative to past generations, and to spoil our performance section a bit, that’s basically what happens, though not by as much as you might expect.

Intel is also shipping a new GPU architecture with Lunar Lake, codenamed Battlemage—it will also power the next wave of dedicated desktop Arc GPUs, when and if we get them (Intel hasn’t said anything on that front, but it’s canceling or passing off a lot of its side projects lately). It has said that the Arc 140V integrated GPU is an average of 31 percent faster than the old Meteor Lake Arc GPU in games, and 16 percent faster than AMD’s newest Radeon 890M, though performance will vary widely based on the game. The Arc 130V GPU has one less of Intel’s Xe cores (7, instead of 8) and lower clock speeds.

The last piece of the compute puzzle is the neural processing unit (NPU), which can process some AI and machine-learning workloads locally rather than sending them to the cloud. Windows and most apps still aren’t doing much with these, but Intel does rate the Lunar Lake NPUs at between 40 and 48 trillion operations per second (TOPS) depending on the chip you’re buying, meeting or exceeding Microsoft’s 40 TOPS requirement and generally around four times faster than the NPU in Meteor Lake (11.5 TOPS).

Intel is shifting to on-package RAM for Meteor Lake, something Apple also uses for its M-series chips.

Enlarge / Intel is shifting to on-package RAM for Meteor Lake, something Apple also uses for its M-series chips.

Intel

And there’s one last big change: For these particular Core Ultra chips, Intel is integrating the RAM into the CPU package, rather than letting PC makers solder it to the motherboard separately or offer DIMM slots—again, something we see in Apple Silicon chips in the Mac. Lunar Lake chips ship with either 16GB or 32GB of RAM, and most of the variants can be had with either amount (in the chips Intel has announced so far, model numbers ending in 8 like our Core Ultra 7 258V have 32GB, and model numbers ending in 6 have 16GB). Packaging memory this way both saves motherboard space and, according to Intel, reduces power usage, because it shortens the physical distance that data needs to travel.

I am reasonably confident that we’ll see other Core Ultra 200-series variants with more CPU cores and external memory—I don’t see Intel giving up on high-performance, high-margin laptop processors, and those chips will need to compete with AMD’s high-end performance and offer additional RAM. But if those chips are coming, Intel hasn’t announced them yet.

Review: Intel Lunar Lake CPUs combine good battery life and x86 compatibility Read More »

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Asus ROG Ally X review: Better performance and feel in a pricey package

ASUS, asus rog ally x, Features, gaming, gaming handheld, Reviews, ROG Ally, rog ally x, steam deck, Tech, Windows / /

Faster, grippier, pricier, and just as Windows-ed —

A great hardware refresh, but it stands out for its not-quite-handheld cost.

– Updated

It's hard to fit the perfomance-minded but pricey ROG Ally X into a simple product category. It's also tricky to fit it into a photo, at the right angle, while it's in your hands.

Enlarge / It’s hard to fit the perfomance-minded but pricey ROG Ally X into a simple product category. It’s also tricky to fit it into a photo, at the right angle, while it’s in your hands.

Kevin Purdy

The first ROG Ally from Asus, a $700 Windows-based handheld gaming PC, performed better than the Steam Deck, but it did so through notable compromises on battery life. The hardware also had a first-gen feel and software jank from both Asus’ own wraparound gaming app and Windows itself. The Ally asked an awkward question: “Do you want to pay nearly 50 percent more than you’d pay for a Steam Deck for a slightly faster but far more awkward handheld?”

The ROG Ally X makes that question more interesting and less obvious to answer. Yes, it’s still a handheld that’s trying to hide Windows annoyances, and it’s still missing trackpads, without which some PC games just feel bad. And (review spoiler) it still eats a charge faster than the Steam Deck OLED on less demanding games.

But the improvements Asus made to this X sequel are notable, and its new performance stats make it more viable for those who want to play more demanding games on a rather crisp screen. At $800, or $100 more than the original ROG Ally with no extras thrown in, you have to really, really want the best possible handheld gaming experience while still tolerating Windows’ awkward fit.

Asus

What’s new in the Ally X

Specs at a glance: Asus ROG Ally X
Display 7-inch IPS panel: 1920×1080, 120 Hz, 7 ms, 500 nits, 100% sRGB, FreeSync, Gorilla Glass Victus
OS Windows 11 (Home)
CPU AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme (Zen 4, 8 core, 24M cache, 5.10 Ghz, 9-30 W (as reviewed)
RAM 24GB LPDDR5X 6400 MHz
GPU AMD Radeon RDNA3, 2.7 GHz, 8.6 Teraflops
Storage M.2 NVME 2280 Gen4x4, 1TB (as reviewed)
Networking Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Battery 80 Wh (65W max charge)
Ports USB-C (3.2 Gen2, DPI 1.4, PD 3.0), USB-C (DP, PD 3.0), 3.5 mm audio, Micro SD
Size 11×4.3×0.97 in. (280×111×25 mm)
Weight 1.49 lbs (678 g)
Price as reviewed $800

The ROG Ally X is essentially the ROG Ally with a bigger battery packed into a shell that is impressively not much bigger or heavier, more storage and RAM, and two USB-C ports instead of one USB-C and one weird mobile port that nobody could use. Asus reshaped the device and changed the face-button feel, and it all feels noticeably better, especially now that gaming sessions can last longer. The company also moved the microSD card slot so that your cards don’t melt, which is nice.

There’s a bit more to each of those changes that we’ll get into, but that’s the short version. Small spec bumps wouldn’t have changed much about the ROG Ally experience, but the changes Asus made for the X version do move the needle. Having more RAM available has a sizable impact on the frame performance of demanding games, and you can see that in our benchmarks.

We kept the LCD Steam Deck in our benchmarks because its chip has roughly the same performance as its OLED upgrade. But it’s really the Ally-to-Ally-X comparisons that are interesting; the Steam Deck has been fading back from AAA viability. If you want the Ally X to run modern, GPU-intensive games as fast as is feasible for a battery-powered device, it can now do that a lot better—for longer—and feel a bit better while you do.

The Rog Ally X has better answered the question “why not just buy a gaming laptop?” than its predecessor. At $800 and up, you might still ask how much portability is worth to you. But the Ally X is not as much of a niche (Windows-based handheld) inside a niche (moderately higher-end handhelds).

I normally would not use this kind of handout image with descriptive text embedded, but Asus is right: the ROG Ally X is indeed way more comfortable (just maybe not all-caps).

I normally would not use this kind of handout image with descriptive text embedded, but Asus is right: the ROG Ally X is indeed way more comfortable (just maybe not all-caps).

Asus

How it feels using the Rog Ally X

My testing of the Rog Ally X consisted of benchmarks, battery testing, and playing some games on the couch. Specifically: Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and Tactical Breach Wizards on the devices lowest-power setting (“Silent”), Deathloop on its medium-power setting (“Performance”), and Shadow of the Erdtree on its all-out “Turbo” mode.

All four of those games worked mostly fine, but DRG: Survivor pushed the boundaries of Silent mode a bit when its levels got crowded with enemies and projectiles. Most games could automatically figure out a decent settings scheme for the Ally X. If a game offers AMD’s FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) upscaling, you should at least try it; it’s usually a big boon to a game running on this handheld.

Overall, the ROG Ally X was a device I didn’t notice when I was using it, which is the best recommendation I can make. Perhaps I noticed that the 1080p screen was brighter, closer to the glass, and sharper than the LCD (original) Steam Deck. At handheld distance, the difference between 800p and 1080p isn’t huge to me, but the difference between LCD and OLED is more so. (Of course, an OLED version of the Steam Deck was released late last year.)

Asus ROG Ally X review: Better performance and feel in a pricey package Read More »

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High-severity vulnerabilities affect a wide range of Asus router models

ASUS, Biz & IT, routers, Security, vulnerabilities / /

IT’S PATCH TIME ONCE AGAIN —

Many models receive patches; others will need to be replaced.

–

High-severity vulnerabilities affect a wide range of Asus router models

Getty Images

Hardware manufacturer Asus has released updates patching multiple critical vulnerabilities that allow hackers to remotely take control of a range of router models with no authentication or interaction required of end users.

The most critical vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-3080 is an authentication bypass flaw that can allow remote attackers to log into a device without authentication. The vulnerability, according to the Taiwan Computer Emergency Response Team / Coordination Center (TWCERT/CC), carries a severity rating of 9.8 out of 10. Asus said the vulnerability affects the following routers:

A favorite haven for hackers

A second vulnerability tracked as CVE-2024-3079 affects the same router models. It stems from a buffer overflow flaw and allows remote hackers who have already obtained administrative access to an affected router to execute commands.

TWCERT/CC is warning of a third vulnerability affecting various Asus router models. It’s tracked as CVE-2024-3912 and can allow remote hackers to execute commands with no user authentication required. The vulnerability, carrying a severity rating of 9.8, affects:

Security patches, which have been available since January, are available for those models at the links provided in the table above. CVE-2024-3912 also affects Asus router models that are no longer supported by the manufacturer. Those models include:

  • DSL-N10_C1
  • DSL-N10_D1
  • DSL-N10P_C1
  • DSL-N12E_C1
  • DSL-N16P
  • DSL-N16U
  • DSL-AC52
  • DSL-AC55

TWCERT/CC advises owners of these devices to replace them.

Asus has advised all router owners to regularly check their devices to ensure they’re running the latest available firmware. The company also recommended users set a separate password from the wireless network and router-administration page. Additionally, passwords should be strong, meaning 11 or more characters that are unique and randomly generated. Asus also recommended users disable any services that can be reached from the Internet, including remote access from the WAN, port forwarding, DDNS, VPN server, DMZ, and port trigger. The company provided FAQs here and here.

There are no known reports of any of the vulnerabilities being actively exploited in the wild. That said, routers have become a favorite haven for hackers, who often use them to hide the origins of their attacks. In recent months, both nation-state espionage spies and financially motivated threat actors have been found camping out in routers, sometimes simultaneously. Hackers backed by the Russian and Chinese governments regularly wage attacks on critical infrastructure from routers that are connected to IP addresses with reputations for trustworthiness. Most of the hijackings are made possible by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities or weak passwords.

High-severity vulnerabilities affect a wide range of Asus router models Read More »

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The ROG Ally X leaks, with twice the battery of the original and way more RAM

ASUS, asus rog ally, gaming, gaming handheld, handheld pc, ROG Ally, steam deck / /

Handheld gaming PCs —

This handheld has more RAM than my gaming PC, though the chip stays the same.

–

Heavily altered image of a ROG Ally X, with

Enlarge / VideoCardz’ leaked image of a ROG Ally X, seemingly having gone through the JPG blender a couple times.

Asus’ ROG Ally was the first major-brand attempt to compete with Valve’s Steam Deck. It was beefy and interesting, but it had three major flaws: It ran Windows on a little touchscreen, had unremarkable ergonomics, and its battery life was painful.

The Asus ROG (Republic of Gamers) Ally X, which has been announced and is due out June 2, seems to have had its specs leaked, and they indicate a fix for at least the battery life. Gaming site VideoCardz, starting its leak reveal with “No more rumors,” cites the ROG Ally X as having the same Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU as the prior ROG Ally, as well as the same 7-inch 1080p VRR screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate.

VideoCardz' leaked image, seemingly from Asus marketing materials, with the ROG Ally X's specifications.

VideoCardz’ leaked image, seemingly from Asus marketing materials, with the ROG Ally X’s specifications.

The battery and memory have changed substantially, though. An 80-watt-hour battery, up from 40, somehow adds just 70 grams of weight and about 5 mm of thickness to the sequel device. By increasing the RAM from 16GB to 24GB and making it LPDDR5, the ROG Ally X may be able to lend more of it to the GPU, upping performance somewhat without demanding a new chip or architecture. There is also a second USB-C port, with USB4 speeds, that should help quite a bit with docking, charging while playing with accessories, and, I would guess, Linux hackery.

How does it feel? Only Sean Hollister at The Verge knows, outside of ASUS employees. The sequel has lost the weirdly sharp angles on the back, and more of your hand fits around the back, without the rear buttons being accidentally triggered so easily. The triggers and buttons all seem to have received some feedback-based upgrades to durability and feel.

If Asus sticks close to the $800 price point (that was also leaked), it could compete with the Steam Deck OLED on features and flash, if not library and polish. But as I’ve said before, perhaps somewhat defensively, bring on the flashier handheld PCs.

Expanding the viability of handheld PC gaming means more developers targeting these systems, in specs or just accessibility. More demand for new types of handhelds makes the whole field more interesting and competitive. Microsoft, which is keenly aware of this developing market and is contemplating a more cloud-based and less Xbox-centered gaming future, can only make Windows better on handhelds because the bar is pretty low right now.

All of that gives me more games to play on the couch while the rice is cooking, whether or not the device I’m holding has more and faster RAM and better USB-C ports than my gaming PC.

The ROG Ally X leaks, with twice the battery of the original and way more RAM Read More »

meta-debuts-horizon-os,-with-asus,-lenovo,-and-microsoft-on-board

Meta debuts Horizon OS, with Asus, Lenovo, and Microsoft on board

ASUS, Horizon OS, Instagram, Lenovo, mark zuckerberg, Meta, meta quest, Mixed Reality, Republic of Gamers, rog, Tech, xbox, Xbox Cloud Streaming, Xbox Game Pass / /

Face Operating Systems —

Rivalry with Apple now mirrors the Android/iOS competition more than ever.

–

The Meta Quest Pro at a Best Buy demo station in October 2022.

Enlarge / The Meta Quest Pro at a Best Buy demo station in October 2022.

Meta will open up the operating system that runs on its Quest mixed reality headsets to other technology companies, it announced today.

What was previously simply called Quest software will be called Horizon OS, and the goal will be to move beyond the general-use Quest devices to more purpose-specific devices, according to an Instagram video from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

There will be headsets focused purely on watching TV and movies on virtual screens, with the emphasis on high-end OLED displays. There will also be headsets that are designed to be as light as possible at the expense of performance for productivity and exercise uses. And there will be gaming-oriented ones.

The announcement named three partners to start. Asus will produce a gaming headset under its Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand, Lenovo will make general purpose headsets with an emphasize on “productivity, learning, and entertainment,” and Xbox and Meta will team up to deliver a special edition of the Meta Quest that will come bundled with an Xbox controller and Xbox Cloud Gaming and Game Pass.

Users running Horizon OS devices from different manufacturers will be able to stay connected in the operating system’s social layer of “identities, avatars, social graphs, and friend groups” and will be able to enjoy shared virtual spaces together across devices.

The announcement comes after Meta became an early leader in the relatively small but interesting consumer mixed reality space but with diminishing returns on new devices as the market saturates.

Further, Apple recently entered the fray with its Vision Pro headset. The Vision Pro is not really a direct competitor to Meta’s Quest devices today—it’s far more expensive and loaded with higher-end tech—but it may only be the opening volley in a long competition between the companies.

Meta’s decision to make Horizon OS a more open platform for partner OEMs in the face of Apple’s usual focus on owning and integrating as much of the software, hardware, and services in its device as it can mirrors the smartphone market. There, Google’s Android (on which Horizon OS is based) runs on a variety of devices from a wide range of companies, while Apple’s iOS runs only on Apple’s own iPhones.

Meta also says it is working on a new spatial app framework to make it easier for developers with experience on mobile to start making mixed reality apps for Horizon OS and that it will start “removing the barriers between the Meta Horizon Store and App Lab, which lets any developer who meets basic technical and content requirements release software on the platform.”

Pricing, specs, and release dates have not been announced for any of the new devices. Zuckerberg admitted it’s “probably going to take a couple of years” for this ecosystem of hardware devices to roll out.

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MacBooks, Chromebooks lead losers in laptop repairability analysis

Apple, ASUS, chromebooks, Google, laptops, MacBook, repairability, right to repair, Tech / /

Disappointing Disassembly processes —

Analysis heavily weighs how hard the brands’ laptops are to take apart.

–

A stack of broken Chromebook laptops

Enlarge / A stack of broken Chromebook laptops at Cell Mechanic Inc. electronics repair shop in Westbury, New York, U.S., on Wednesday, May 19, 2021.

Chromebooks and MacBooks are among the least repairable laptops around, according to an analysis that consumer advocacy group US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) shared this week. Apple and Google have long been criticized for selling devices that are deemed harder to repair than others. Worse, PIRG believes that the two companies are failing to make laptops easier to take apart and fix.

The “Failing the Fix (2024)” report released this week [PDF] is largely based on the repairability index scores required of laptops and some other electronics sold in France. However, the PIRG’s report weighs disassembly scores more than the other categories in France’s index, like the availability and affordability of spare parts, “because we think this better reflects what consumers think a repairability score indicates and because the other categories can be country specific,” the report says.

PIRG’s scores, like France’s repair index, also factor in the availability of repair documents and product-specific criteria (the PIRG’s report also looks at phones). For laptops, that criteria includes providing updates and the ability to reset software and firmware.

PIRG also docked companies for participating in trade groups that fight against right-to-repair legislation and if OEMs failed to “easily provide full information on how they calculated their products.”

Chromebooks, MacBooks lag in repairability

PIRG examined 139 laptop models and concluded that Chromebooks, “while more affordable than other devices, continue to be less repairable than other laptops.” This was largely due to the laptops having a lower average disassembly score (14.9) than the other laptops (15.2).

The report looked at 10 Chromebooks from Acer, Asus, Dell, and HP and gave Chromebooks an average repair score of 6.3 compared to 7.0 for all other laptops. It said:

Both of these lower averages indicate that while often considered an affordable choice for individuals or schools, Chromebooks are on average less repairable than other laptops.

Google recently extended Chromebook support from eight years to 10 years. PIRG’s report doesn’t factor in software support timelines, but even if it did, Chromebooks’ repairability score wouldn’t increase notably since the move only brought them to “industry norms,” Lucas Gutterman, Designed to Last campaign director for the US PIRG Education Fund, told me.

The Chromebooks PIRG considered for its report.

Enlarge / The Chromebooks PIRG considered for its report.

He added, though, that the current “norm” should improve.

At the very least, if it’s no longer financially viable for manufacturers to maintain support, they should allow the community to continue to maintain the software or make it easy to install alternative operating systems so we can keep our laptops from getting junked.

Turning to its breakdown of non-ChromeOS laptops, PIRG ranked Apple laptops the lowest in terms of repairability with a score of D, putting it behind Asus, Acer, Dell, Microsoft, HP, and Lenovo. In this week’s report, Apple got the lowest average disassembly score out of the OEMs (4 out of 10 compared to the 7.3 average)

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The 5 most interesting PC monitors from CES 2024

ASUS, CES, dell, Features, lg, Monitors, msi, oled, Tech / /
Dell UltraSharp 40 Curved Thunderbolt Hub Monitor (U4025QW)

Enlarge / Dell’s upcoming UltraSharp U4025QW.

Scharon Harding

Each year, the Consumer Electronics show brings a ton of new computer monitor announcements, and it’s often difficult to figure out what’s worth paying attention to. When it comes to the most interesting models this year, there were two noteworthy themes.

First of all, my complaint in 2022 about there not being enough OLED monitors was largely addressed this year. CES revealed many plans for OLED monitors in 2024, with a good number of those screens set to be appropriately sized for desktops. That includes the introduction of 32-inch, non-curved QD-OLED options and other smaller screens for people who have been waiting for OLED monitors in more varied form factors.

Secondly, with more people blending their work and home lives these days, CES brought hints that the line between gaming monitors and premium monitors used for general or even professional purposes will be blurring more in the future. We’re not at the point where the best productivity monitor and ideal gaming monitor perfectly align in a single product. But this week’s announcements have me imagining ways that future monitors could better serve users with serious work and play interests.

For now, here are the most intriguing monitors from CES 2024.

Dell UltraSharps hit 120 Hz

  • Dell started adding 120 Hz models to its UltraSharp series.

    Scharon Harding

  • This monitor is VESA DisplayHDR 600-certified.

    Dell

  • Ports include Thunderbolt 4 with 140 W power delivery. There’s also a pop-out box of ports by the monitor’s chin.

    Dell

Dell UltraSharp monitors have long attracted workers and creatives and, with their USB-C connectivity, even Mac users. The last few CES shows have shown Dell attempting to improve its lineup, with the most landmark innovation being the introduction of IPS Black. With CES 2024, though, Dell focused on improved video resolution.

Dell’s UltraSharp 40 Curved Thunderbolt Hub Monitor (U4025QW), pictured above, is a 39.7-inch ultrawide with a 5120×2160 resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate. As most monitors are aimed at workers still using 60 Hz, this is a big step up for people with systems capable of supporting 11,059,200 pixels at 120 frames per second. Such speeds have been relegated to gaming monitors for a while, but with TVs moving to higher refresh rates (with encouragement from gaming consoles), more people are becoming accustomed to faster screens. And with other attributes, like a 2500R curve, we wouldn’t blame workers for doing some light gaming on the U4025QW, too.

But Dell says the refresh rate boost is about increasing eye comfort. The UltraSharp U4025QW is one of two monitors with 5-star certification from TÜV Rheinland’s new Eye Comfort program, which Dell helped create, a Dell spokesperson told me last month at a press event.

According to TÜV, the certification program “is no longer limited to the old low-blue-light or flicker-free labels” and now “covers a broader range of safety indicators, such as ambient brightness, color temperature adjustment and regulation, and brightness.” New requirements include brightness and color temperature control for different ambient lighting. Dell’s ultrawide covers this with an integrated ambient light sensor.

The certification also requires a minimum 120 Hz refresh rate, which is probably where Dell got the number from. A Dell spokesperson confirmed to Ars that the use of IPS Black didn’t impact the monitor’s ability to get TÜV certifications and that it could have theoretically earned five stars with another panel type, like VA.

Dell announced bringing 120 Hz to the UltraSharp lineup in November when it debuted two 24-inch and two 27-inch UltraSharp monitors with 120 Hz refresh rates. At CES, Dell proved this upgrade wasn’t a fluke relegated to its smaller UltraSharps and went all in, bringing the refresh rate to a top-line ultrawide 5K Thunderbolt 4 monitor.

The U4025QW has an updated version of ComfortView Plus, which uses hardware to lower blue light levels. I’ve seen it function without making colors turn yellowish, as some other blue-light-fighting techniques do. After not significantly updating ComfortView Plus since its 2020 release, Dell now says it’s using a “more advanced LED backlight” to reduce blue light exposure from 50 percent to under 35 percent.

The effects are minimal, though. Dell-provided numbers claim the reduced blue light exposure could reduce eye fatigue by 8 percent after 50 minutes, but we should take that with a grain of salt. It’s nearly impossible to quantify how well blue light reduction techniques work from person to person.

The UltraSharp U4025QW releases on February 27, starting at $2,400.

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Portable monitors could make foldable-screen gadgets finally make sense

ASUS, CES, foldable, Monitors, oled, Tech / /

  • Asus plans to release this foldable OLED monitor in 2024. Electronics retailer Abt Electronics captured footage of it on display at CES.

  • The monitor has a metal chassis and glossy coating.

  • The monitor could help workers quickly add more screen space to setups.

  • In its video, Abt Electronics showed off different angled views of the monitor.

  • Like other foldables, the crease can seemingly catch reflections and glare when the device is bent.

  • Port selection.

  • The portable monitor will come with a sleeve.

Foldable screens have been bending their way into consumer gadgets over the last few years. But with skepticism about durability, pricing, image quality, and the necessity of such devices, foldable screens aren’t mainstream. With those concerns in mind, I haven’t had much interest in owning a foldable-screen gadget, even after using a foldable laptop for a month. However, the foldable portable monitor that Asus is showing at CES in Las Vegas this week is an application of foldable OLED that makes more sense to me than others.

Asus’ ZenScreen Fold OLED MQ17QH announced on Tuesday is a 17.3-inch portable monitor that can fold to a 12.5-inch size. The monitor has 2560×1920 pixels for a pixel density of 184.97 pixels per inch. Other specs include a 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage claim and VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification.

When I think of the ways I use portable monitors, foldability makes more sense than it does with other device types. For example, I love working outside when possible, and an extra 17.3-inch screen that’s easy to carry would make long work sessions with an ultraportable laptop more feasible. The Fold OLED’s 17.3 inches is near the larger size for a portable monitor, but the fold and comparatively light weight should make it feel more transportable than similarly sized monitors that don’t fold in half.

Regarding dimensions and weight, Asus compares the monitor to a 13-inch thin-and-light laptop. The monitor weighs 2.58 lbs—that’s notable heft for something meant to be lugged around (the smaller Lenovo ThinkVision M14 weighs 1.3 pounds, for comparison). But 2.58 lbs is still on the lighter side for a 17-inch-class monitor (Asus’ 17-inch ROG Strix XG17AHP is 3.88 lbs), and Asus’ foldable is similarly thin.

Asus credits a “waterdrop-style hinge” for the monitor’s thin size. It’s 0.38 inches (9.7 mm) thick when unfolded, which should translate to about 0.76 inches (19.4 mm) when the monitor is folded shut.

It feels more natural for a portable monitor to add a fold for easy transport, since portability is right in the device category’s name.

Plus, a portable monitor doesn’t have the same types of component and cooling concerns as computing devices like laptops and phones do.

Crease concerns

I haven’t seen Asus’ foldable monitor in person, so I can only speculate on image quality. The monitor is still being finalized, but based on images and video from people who’ve seen the ZenScreen Fold OLED in person at CES and my experience using foldables, I expect the display to show a crease that picks up reflections and/or glare when bent. But considering that a portable monitor will typically be open flat, this doesn’t matter the same way it would with other types of foldable devices.

However, what matters is whether that crease is still visible when the monitor’s flat. A portable monitor is likely to be viewed from different angles, which could make even a slight crease pop. For what it’s worth, The Verge reported that the Asus monitor’s crease seemed to “disappear” when flat, but I remain highly cautious.

Asus’ monitor announcement showed confidence that “you’ll hardly be able to tell that there’s a hinge behind the display” when it’s open because of the waterdrop-style hinge, which is the same hinge type that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 uses, as pointed out by The Verge. The hinge type reportedly makes for a looser feel when the device is closed. Samsung Display has claimed that this puts less stress on the display and minimizes the gap seen when the foldable is shut. Asus’ announcement noted that the foldable monitor’s hinge uses “hundreds of parts,” which “all but eliminat[e] the gap.”

A close-up of the hinge, shown on-video by Abt Electronics.

Enlarge / A close-up of the hinge, shown on-video by Abt Electronics.

Like with any other foldable, though, durability remains a concern. A portable monitor may be moved around frequently, and Ars has seen firsthand how fragile a foldable screen can be, including with those small-gap designs.

Speaking of different viewing angles and visibility outdoors (and in bright rooms), the use of OLED suggests that this monitor won’t be as bright as some LCD portable monitors. That could limit visibility, depending on your use case.  Asus hasn’t shared a brightness spec for the ZenScreen Fold.

Portable monitors could make foldable-screen gadgets finally make sense Read More »

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Laptops’ 2023 quantum leap: 5 computers we’ll still be talking about in 2024

Apple, ASUS, Features, laptops, Lenovo, Tech / /
hand reaching for laptop, with blue swirls in the background

You’ll never uncover The Next Great Thing if you don’t deviate from the norm. When looking back at 2023’s laptops, we can see that many were merely refreshed designs—approaches that already work. But what happens when a company explores a design that, though not the most appealing today, might lead us to a new trend tomorrow?

You might end up with some computers that many, or even most, people aren’t currently interested in buying. But you could also end up glimpsing the designs that influence future laptops.

The laptops we’re about to look at all defied trends in some way, and we’re curious to see if they impact the laptop industry beyond 2023. We’ll also look at the challenges these ideas might face in the future—and some ways they could improve.

Lenovo’s laptop with dual 13.3-inch screens

  • A company called SZBOX is already selling a similar design, and I don’t think it’ll be the last.

    Scharon Harding

  • I was able to multitask like never before on a 13-inch-size laptop.

    Scharon Harding

  • Lenovo’s depiction of the Yoga Book 9i’s various forms. There has to be a useful idea somewhere in there, right?

    Lenovo

With the number of secondary screens already being built into laptops, Lenovo’s Yoga Book 9i, as striking as it appears, was a somewhat expected progression. But Lenovo actually pulled it off with a legitimate PC featuring most of the bells and whistles found among traditional premium laptops. With the design serving practical use cases in an improved form factor, I expect it to not only be imitated (one small firm is already selling a laptop like this) but to also give the concept of foldable-screen laptops a good run for their money.

The Yoga Book 9i, with its pair of 13.3-inch OLED screens, isn’t kicking off this list solely because it’s creative, flashy, or unique. It’s because, as detailed in our Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review, it proved itself an effective way to boost the amount of multitasking one can reasonably do on a 13-inch-size laptop. Lenovo’s revision of how to use a 13-inch chassis could improve options down the line for the many people seeking that golden area between ultra-portability and productivity potential.

On the Lenovo laptop’s 26.6 inches of cumulative screen, I was able to do the types of things that would only bring me frustration, if not a headache, on a single 13.3-inch panel. Want to take notes on a video call while monitoring your news feeds, having a chat window open, and keeping an eye on your email? That’s all remarkably manageable on a laptop with two full-size screens. And that PC is easier to lug around than a laptop and portable monitor.

What’s next?

The dual-screen setup worked well for small-laptop multitasking. But the polarizing lack of an integrated physical keyboard and touchpad challenge this form factor’s longevity. Easily accessible touchscreen controls are handy, but you can’t really replicate the reliable tactility and comfort of a keyboard and touchpad with touchscreens. A super portable laptop suddenly feels less portable when you have to remember to bring its accessories.

Still, I think this design has a place in the increasingly mobile world of computing. Future designs could improve with less reflective screens, given that reflectivity is especially distracting on a dual-screen laptop where one screen can cast reflections on the other.

Moving from OLED could help improve battery life to some degree. But, as you might have guessed, a laptop with two 13.3-inch OLED displays won’t be winning any laptop battery-life contests. Further, I wonder what price improvements could be made by foregoing OLED.

But many of the creative laptop designs these days opt for OLED, due to its high image quality, flexibility, and broad market appeal from more mainstream tech implementations, like OLED smartphones and TVs. This presents an ongoing price obstacle for a laptop design that already leans niche.

Laptops’ 2023 quantum leap: 5 computers we’ll still be talking about in 2024 Read More »