At CES 2025, Asus has announced a new Vivobook 14 laptop that is pushing the boundaries on what you can get in a budget laptop. The Snapdragon X-powered Vivobook 14 will start at just $700, making it the most affordable Copilot+ PC on the market.
Mind you, this laptop is still thoroughly a mid-tier device, featuring a plastic chassis, a fairly basic 1200p IPS screen, and a somewhat thick side profile for a laptop of this type at 0.70 inches.
But for $700, you’re getting a Snapdragon X processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. I’m used to laptops of this price selling with half that memory and storage.
Snapdragon X laptops hitting this new low for pricing is extremely important for Qualcomm. At launch, Snapdragon X was all focused on its Elite chips in premium devices such as the Surface Laptop 7th Edition. This was a smart move, showing that for the first time, Qualcomm was bringing a chip to the table that could actually rock the boat.
That’s certainly what the Snapdragon X chips have done over the last six months, and now these more affordable Copilot+ PCs will only solidify Qualcomm’s seat at the table. Compared to what Intel has to offer at this price, laptops like the Vivobook 14 should really stand out.
Asus is also selling a larger 16-inch version of this Vivobook, which will sell for $50 more at $750. There’s also the more high-end Vivobook S14 and S16 (pictured above), which begin to blur the line been Vivobook and Zenbook quite a bit. But Asus’ stated goal is to have a solution for every possible need and retailer desire, which is how it ended up with this many variants.
Still, these new Vivobooks should be a solid addition to Asus’ lineup this year, which includes a new super-light Zenbook A14 and a few refreshed Zenbooks.
The Vivobook 14 will be available starting on January 27 at Best Buy and Asus’ website, while the Vivobook 16 will launch a week earlier on January 20.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.