2023 may initially look like a rather typical year in the consumer tech world, but it could end up being a very important one that shifts the mobile computing landscape. Qualcomm finally introduced a custom-designed ARM silicon for Windows machines, which promises to bring the power and efficiency of Apple silicon to the Windows laptop space. Apple, of course, countered with a new set of M3 silicon of its own.

We also saw laptops try new form factors – like dual screens or foldable screens – that were both technically impressive and practical. On the mobile front, the North American market finally has a competitive foldable phone scene for the first time, and we got new handheld game consoles and other excellent accessories as well.

We at XDA have the privilege to test just about every new and bleeding-edge product that hit the market this year, and these are our favorites.

Lenovo Yoga Book 9i

Dual-screen goodness

The Lenovo Yoga Book 9i was one of the coolest products of 2023. It's a dual-screen laptop, meaning both the top and bottom half have a 13.3-inch display, like the Surface Neo Microsoft promised us but never gave us.

That might sound gimmicky, but it's one of the first of its kind you could actually justify buying. You can use the two screens simultaneously or attach the included keyboard to the bottom screen to make it feel more like a typical laptop, so it's super versatile. It looks great to boot, thanks to the unique blue colorway. The stand makes it easy to use the two screens side by side in book mode or even stack them for a proper dual-screen experience that feels more like working at a desktop.

However, what makes the Yoga Book 9i even more special is that it's actually good. It has good processors, the keyboard is solid, and the price point, while higher than a typical laptop with similar specs, is actually very reasonable. It's one of the few experimental products out there that most people could buy without having too many regrets. -João Carrasqueira, Senior Editor

HP Spectre Foldable

The best foldable screen laptop

While foldable smartphones have become widely accepted and have been mostly refined at this point, foldable PCs still feel very much like prototypes. But HP challenged that notion a bit at the tail end of this year with the Spectre Foldable.

This is the first foldable PC that really feels like it makes use of the form factor. The large 17-inch display can be folded in half for two 12-inch panels, and you can attach a keyboard to the bottom half to make it more like a laptop. There's also a new mode that lets you extend the screen partly to the bottom half, so you get a 14-inch panel with a keyboard and a real touchpad. Plus, it has a built-in kickstand that, while limited, feels more intentional than previous foldables, and the design just looks good in general.

There are also just good specs here: an OLED display, a solid (but poorly placed) webcam, and decent performance. It's definitely not a laptop you should buy, especially considering the insane $5,000 price tag, but it pushes the foldable PC space forward, and that makes us excited for the future. -João Carrasqueira, Senior Editor

HP Dragonfly G4

The best laptop of 2023

Good doesn't always have to be exciting, and no laptop proves that better than the HP Dragonfly G4. HP makes some of the absolute best business laptops on the market with its Dragonfly series, and the G4 is refined to near perfection. It may look subdued, but that's what you want in a work laptop, and the magnesium chassis makes this a very light laptop that's easy to take anywhere. It also has one of the best keyboards you can get on a laptop, a great touchpad, and one of the best webcams around, which is especially important in the age of remote work.

HP also has all bases covered in terms of connectivity, with Thunderbolt 4, USB Type-A, and HDMI all crammed into this thin and light laptop. And, of course, you can get optional 5G connectivity, so you can get your work done from anywhere without relying on unsafe public Wi-Fi. While the base display isn't stellar, it's good enough for business use, and you can always upgrade to the OLED configuration if you want the best experience. It's all rounded out by great performance and battery life, making this a laptop you can always rely on. -João Carrasqueira, Senior Editor

MacBook Air 15

Changing the game for 15-inch laptops

In 2023, Apple released the 15-inch MacBook Air, and it was a game-changer for the brand. The MacBook Air only came in 13-inch sizes for a while, and Apple decided to go bigger this year. The display is high quality and bright, the keyboard and haptic trackpad are the best we've seen on a 15-inch laptop, and the M2 chip under the hood is more than powerful enough for productivity work. And even though Apple went big, the design is still classic, keeping with the sleek and modern all-aluminum look that made MacBooks famous, even if it is a fingerprint magnet.

Of course, not all laptops are perfect, and some issues knocked this a bit. For example, it's not powerful enough for video editing since it doesn't have fans on board. Still, it's a winner of a laptop if you want something thin and portable but with a large screen perfect for creative work. -Arif Bacchus, Computing Writer

Surface Laptop Studio 2

Power in a convertible

Microsoft had a mostly quiet 2023 for the Surface line, but the Surface Laptop Studio 2 was still an exciting addition. Coming two years after the original, the Surface Laptop Studio 2 brought the performance that the original model was lacking. With a 14-core Intel Core processor and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU with 80W of power, this is a beastly machine that actually delivered on the promise of being a laptop for creators, gamers, and anyone in-between.

Coupled with the versatility of its unique 2-in-1 form factor that makes it very easy to switch between modes on the fly, it's truly a machine that can please all kinds of users. Plus, Microsoft refined the design with an aluminum chassis that feels even more premium than before, and it listened to feedback, adding ports like USB Type-A and a microSD card reader for connecting cameras and external storage more easily. Everything comes together to make a terrific laptop with virtually no competition. It's a little pricey, but it's hard not to love. -João Carrasqueira, Senior Editor

Lenovo Legion 9i

Liquid cooling in a gaming laptop

Lenovo's Legion laptops are some of the best you can get for playing video games, but the company decided that wasn't enough. It took the liberty of making an absolutely insane machine with the Legion 9i. It isn't necessarily more powerful than the competition, but it's the first laptop to use a fully self-contained water-cooling loop to keep the GPU running cool, which allows it to be thinner than any other laptop with comparable specs. It also has a ton of airflow, even if it comes at the expense of the touchpad. This not only makes it a fantastic gaming laptop, but it's also more portable than most of its competitors.

On top of that, the Legion 9i has a phenomenal Mini-LED display with up to 1,200 nits of brightness, which makes for a terrific HDR experience in gaming, arguably the best you can get outside an OLED panel. Add a beautiful and unique design with its forged carbon lid, tons of RGB, and a solid keyboard, and you have a truly fantastic laptop. We can't wait to see future iterations of it take the water cooling system even further, but this model is already worth it — if you have $4,000 to spare, that is. -João Carrasqueira, Senior Editor

Dell Latitude 9440

An excellent business laptop

The best business laptops tend to be boring, but the Dell Latitude 9440 is in a league of its own. It takes a lot of inspiration from the company's XPS line, creating a striking design with an aluminum build, slightly polished diamond-cut edges, and a screen with very thin bezels. The palm rest is super smooth, too, which makes using the laptop comfortable. There are even top-firing speakers. And we can't forget the amazing haptic touchpad, which has collaboration controls built in for Zoom.

Other highlights include the unique zero-lattice keyboard, with super large keycaps, which make typing comfortable and easy. The keyboard even uses mini-LED backlighting, which helps with battery life. Finally, there's the Dell Optimizer software, which gives useful ways to tweak the laptop's performance and boost the 13th-generation Intel Core i7-1365U-vPro CPU on board. -Arif Bacchus, Computing Writer

Snapdragon X Elite

Set to revolutionize laptops in 2024

This is the big one. For years, Microsoft and Qualcomm have been promising great Arm-based PCs running Windows, but the efforts always felt half hearted. However, this year, we got confirmation for the Snapdragon X Elite, and it's poised to change everything.

Qualcomm has designed its first fully custom Arm chip for Windows PCs, and it's no joke. It has 12 powerful CPU cores and a faster integrated GPU than any of its x86-based competitors. AI has always been a huge investment for Qualcomm, so the company is way ahead of the game compared to Intel or AMD. The Snapdragon X Elite is the most exciting PC hardware in years, and the biggest problem we have with it is that we can't buy it yet.

But we only have about six months to wait, and more importantly, more manufacturers than ever are on board from the get-go. HP, Lenovo, and Dell have all committed to launching PCs with the Snapdragon X Elite. Dell, specifically, is a huge deal because it's the only major company that has done next to nothing with Arm. All we've had from Dell was a budget-oriented Inspiron PC that came out years after Windows on Arm first appeared. There's confidence in this hardware that we've never had with Windows on Arm, and the excitement is almost immeasurable. It's finally time for Windows PCs to compete with Apple Silicon Macs. -João Carrasqueira, Senior Editor

Crucial T700

PCIe 5 SSDs are here

If you're looking for a new SSD, then the Crucial T700 is the king of PCIe 5 SSDs. It's the fastest you can buy with multiple sizes available, with its only major downside being that thermal throttling can affect its performance. However, it's considerably faster than PCIe 4.0 SSDs out of the box.

The Crucial T700 SSD can be bought with a heatsink to alleviate those thermal throttling issues, though it's another connector to worry about inside your PC. If you're confident that your PC can keep it cool enough (especially if you have a motherboard heatsink), then you don't need to worry about it, but you're very likely to notice better thermal performance with it.

We loved this SSD in our review, and it's one of the fastest consumer-grade SSDs available, so its inclusion on our list was an easy one. -Adam Conway, Lead Technical Editor

Steam Deck OLED

The best gaming handheld gets better

2023 has been the year of PC gaming handhelds, and the one that arguably started the trend in 2022 is still the one on top. The Steam Deck OLED has a bunch of key improvements over the original Steam Deck, with the biggest being the fact that it has, well, an OLED screen.

However, the improvements don't stop there. The screen has a 90Hz refresh rate now, and the battery life is massively improved. Not only is there a 25% increase in battery size, but the AMD APU is more efficient as it's fabricated on a 6nm process, down from 7nm. Sure, its performance has been outclassed by other options from Asus and Lenovo, but there's more to a gaming handheld than just raw performance.

The Steam Deck OLED is one of the best PC gaming handhelds you can buy, and that's why it's earned a place on our best of 2023 list. -Adam Conway, Lead Technical Editor