Summary

• Windows PCs are finally stepping up to compete with MacBooks thanks to Snapdragon X processors.
• Some choices in the lineup, like the Asus Vivobook S 15 OLED, are odd choices.
• The Dell XPS 13 with a Snapdragon X Elite processor is a big deal in the premium laptop market.

It's an incredibly exciting time for Windows fans. With the Snapdragon X series of processors, the era of the AI PC is finally getting started, but most notably to me, Windows PCs are finally going to be able to compete with MacBooks. The power and efficiency of an Arm processor are unlike anything you can get with an x86 chip, and I can't wait to see expectations for Windows laptops evolve and to have a laptop that can last me all day without a second thought.

Between Microsoft and its hardware partners, 14 laptops were announced this week, which is very exciting in itself. But out of those 14, which ones are truly the most exciting? There are a lot of great PCs in this lineup, but there are also some odd ones, so I wanted to separate the great from the good here. And yes, this list only has 13 items because we have two laptops under the same listing. You'll see why.

13 Asus Vivobook S 15 OLED

A questionable choice

I'm not sure what Asus was thinking with this one. Asus was pretty much the only company to not introduce a laptop as part of its premium line for this initial batch of laptops, and the Vivobook S 15 OLED is a weird choice all things considered. This is only one of two laptops with a 15-inch display, but most importantly, it's the only one that's still using a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Sure, that gives it some distinction and helps it be different from all the other laptops on offer, but the industry has been moving away from 16:9 screens for a reason. It's not like Asus cheaped out on this machine, either, it still includes a 2.8K OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, but the 16:9 format is just a strange choice. The laptop also one of the weaker Snapdragon X Elite configurations without dual-core boost, and overall, there's nothing too crazy going on here.

It's not a bad laptop by any means, it just feels like Asus didn't really want to put its heart into this one.

12 Acer Swift 14 AI

I'm already tired of AI logos

Unlike Asus, at least Acer brought its A game to the table with the Swift 14 AI. The Acer Swift 14 is the company's flagship, after all, and this still looks like a great laptop, with a 14.5-inch Quad HD+ display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. It's also available with either a Snapdragon X Plus or X Elite, so there are choices for different price points. However, Acer had to go and bungle an otherwise exciting announcement.

The Acer Swift 14 AI is a big step back in terms of design compared to its predecessor. It gets rid of the beautiful green and gold dual-tone design of previous iterations, and in its place, we get a boring silver color. But what's more offensive is that Acer decided to slap not one, but two big AI logos on this machine. There's a bunch of dots on the lid to (somehow) symbolize AI, and when you open the laptop there's another big, ugly logo on the touchpad that lights up when you're using Copilot. Why is this a thing?

Otherwise, the Acer Swift 14 AI looks like a pretty solid laptop, I just don't understand why we had to take such an exciting laptop and tarnish it with weird choices.

11 Dell Inspiron 14

A fine, lower-end laptop

We can't really say too much about this one, because Dell really hasn't revealed much about it. The only reason it's further down the list is because this is a laptop aimed at a lower price tier, featuring a weaker Snapdragon X Plus processor compared to other machines on this list, though even the specs for this lower-tier model haven't been revealed yet.

It's just hard to be excited about a laptop we know nothing about, so we had to rank it lower. That being said, the Dell Inspiron 14 looks to be the cheapest laptop with Snapdragon X processors we know of, and that makes it exciting in its own right. Bringing this new era of Snapdragon PCs to a lower price point is already a good thing.

10 Dell Latitude 5455

Still a lot of unknowns

Much like the Inspiron 14, the Dell Latitude 5455 is one we really haven't heard much about. Dell hasn't even shared an official spec sheet, though we do know it will feature Snapdragon X Plus processors, specifically the 10-core model we know about, so there's a bit more performance here right out of the gate.

That being said, we don't know much more about it than we do with the Inspiron 14, so it's still hard to be ecstatic. Regardless, Dell is bringing Snapdragon to a good chunk of its lineup, and that's already great to see considering the company has always been so skeptical about embracing Intel alternatives (even AMD).

9 Dell Inspiron 14 Plus

A solid high-end machine

The first Dell laptop we actually have some information on is the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, and at this point, we're already talking about laptops that aren't bad, just not the most exciting. The Inspiron 14 Plus is actually a very promising machine, though. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chipset with 10 cores and an NPU with 45TOPS (like all the laptops here), plus it has a 14-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio and Quad HD+ resolution, which already makes for a great experience all around.

Add in a solid port selection with two USB4 ports and USB Type-A, a quad speaker setup, and 512GB of storage, and you've got a great machine for almost everyone. The $1,099.99 price tag also makes it one of the cheaper options available with the new Snapdragon X processors, and considering everything you're getting for that price, it's actually pretty reasonable.

8 Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6q

One of the most popular business laptops goes Snapdragon

Lenovo's ThinkPad lineup is home to a lot of laptops that are beloved by business users, but the most popular among them is the T14 series. So to see Lenovo bring Snapdragon processors to that line with the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6q is very exciting thing by itself, and it shows confidence that Lenovo believes this laptop can succeed in a crowded market.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s is a great laptop, too. It comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip by default, up to 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Plus, it has the durability and features you'd expect from a ThinkPad, including one of the best selections of ports you can get with a Snapdragon PC, with two USB4 connections, two USB Type-A ports, and HDMI built right in. Perhaps most importantly, this is one of the few Snapdragon laptops announced so far to feature 5G support, which is also great to see.

The ThinkPad T14s does have a ludicrous price tag at launch, but that's typical for Lenovo. That price will drop soon enough thanks to frequent sales on Lenovo's website.

7 HP EliteBook Ultra and OmniBook X

Great laptops with some baffling choices

Here's the reason this list technically only has 13 items. The HP EliteBook Ultra and OmniBook X are different laptops on paper, but in reality, they're basically the same. The hardware and specs of these PCs is virtually identical, outside of the color options, so it didn't make much sense to separate them. The EliteBook Ultra is the follow-up to the Dragonfly models for business, while the Omnibook X is the new HP Spectre.

HP usually makes some of the best PCs in the world, so it pains me to have these laptops so low on the list, but in merging these two laptops in the same design, HP has stripped them both of what made each one special. The HP Dragonfly models of the past used magnesium for their build, which meant they weighed as little as 2.2 pounds. But with this model, HP took the aluminum build of the Spectre lineup, so the weight has gone up to nearly three pounds.

Conversely, the Spectre lineup has almost always been made up of convertible laptops with beautiful dual-tone designs. But for the OmniBook X, HP took the basic clamshell style of the Dragonfly series and made this just a regular laptop.

These are both great, premium feeling machines, but they don't feel special in the ways that their predecessors did, and it seems like such a strange decision to make. Oh, and yes, there's also an AI logo on these, though frankly, I think this one looks much more elegant and less intrusive than Acer's.

• HP EliteBook Ultra

  Operating System

  Up to Windows 11 Pro

  CPU

  Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite

  $1699 at HP

• HP OmniBook X

  Operating System

  Windows 11 Home or Pro

  CPU

  Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 (up to 3.4 GHz, 12 cores)

  $1200 at Best Buy $1150 at HP

6 Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge

Incredibly thin, still premium

Samsung may not get a lot of the spotlight when it comes to its laptops, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve the attention. The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is the latest addition to the company's lineup and it's a great one, being the only model to feature Qualcomm's top-tier Snapdragon X Elite variant (X1E-84-100), even if it's only in the 16-inch model.

But what makes this laptop so great is what also makes the rest of the Galaxy Book 4 series great. These continue to be some of the absolute thinnest laptops on the market, with the 14-inch Galaxy Book 4 Edge being just under 11mm thick, and they don't sacrifice the high-end performance nor ports, featuring USB4 ports and HDMI 2.1, plus a USB Type-A port on the larger 16-inch model. And of course, Samsung uses beautiful 2.8K OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and touch support for both models, too, so there's no big sacrifice being made here. The only downside is that 16GB of RAM is the most you can get here, but otherwise, these are excellent PCs.

And with prices starting at $1,349, already including a Snapdragon X Elite chip, these are some of the best bang-for-the-buck options on the list.

5 Dell Latitude 7455

A premium business laptop

Dell really is catering to all kinds of users with its new line of Snapdragon PCs, and if you're a business user who wants top-tier performance, the Dell Latitude 7455 is one of the best options announced this week. It's not in Dell's 9000 series, so it's not technically a range-topper, but I personally find the Latitude 7000 series to offer the best balance of premium feel and features.

The Dell Latitude 7455 is available with up to a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite (and one of the higher-end models at that), it has a 14-inch 16:10 display with Quad HD+ resolution, and a premium metal chassis that may look boring, but at least that's par for the course for a business PC. And connectivity is great, too, with two USB4 ports, a USB Type-A, microSD card reader, and even optional 5G support. Plus it has quad speakers, so the audio experience should be pretty good too.

4 Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x

Gunning for the premium segment

Similar to the laptop above, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x may not sit at the top of Lenovo's range on paper (that would be the Yoga 9i), but this is far from a subpar product by any metric. It's available exclusively with the Qualcomm SNapdragon X Elite chip and has up to 32GB of RAM, but most notably, it comes with a 14.5-inch 3K OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate, and it should look absolutely phenomenal. It covers 100% of DCI-P3, has a Delta E under 1, and supports DisplayHDR 600 True Black.

By all accounts this is a top-tier laptop wrapped in a premium aluminum chassis that looks great in its Cosmic Blue colorway. It even has a quad speaker setup and there's a big 70Wh battery inside, so battery life should be fantastic on this machine, too. It's one of the pricier laptops announced this week, but it delivers on just about every front, so this is easily one of my favorites.