Microsoft's Copilot+ PC initiative was ushered in by a wave of new laptops running Windows on Arm and powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon X chipsets. While the new platform is aimed at leveraging the latest generative AI technologies with faster on-board Neural Processing Engines (NPUs), the Qualcomm chipset's most significant promise revolves around great performance and significantly better efficiency.
So far, the results have been mostly positive. The first crop of Snapdragon X laptops have had better battery life than previous generations of Windows machines, and they're just as fast, if not faster. They're among the best laptops you can buy right now, and even compete strongly against Apple's MacBook Air M3, which is probably their most important target.
Why you should buy this: It's the best Windows tablet ever made.
Who it's for: Anyone who just can’t decide between a tablet and a traditional notebook.
Why we picked the Microsoft Surface Pro 11:
The detachable tablet isn't the most popular Windows 2-in-1 form factor, with the 360-degree convertible offering many more options. But, Microsoft hasn't given up on it, with the latest Surface Pro 11 not only demonstrating its commitment to keeping it alive, but showing that it is doubling down on what has always made the Surface Pro such a great product.
First, it leverages the Snapdragon X Elite chipset to offer very good performance and outstanding battery life. It's easily the fastest Surface Pro ever, thanks to the Snapdragon X Elite's 12 cores and up to 3.4GHz clock speed. It's not the fastest laptop using that chipset, but it is the thinnest at just 0.37 inches and the lightest at 1.97 pounds. Perhaps most impressive is its battery life, where it hits 14.5 hours in our web-browsing test. That's longer than most Windows laptops and a huge improvement over earlier Surface Pro machines.
It also introduces the first OLED display to Microsoft's tablet, with the usual bright, dynamic colors and inky blacks. The display runs at 120Hz, so the Windows UI is buttery smooth, and it supports the Surface Pen 2's haptic feedback that makes writing and drawing onscreen feel a lot more natural. Overall, the Surface Pro 11 leverages what's always made it the best Windows tablet while simultaneously adding in better performance and battery life. It starts at $1,000 but quickly ramps up to over $2,000.
Why you should buy this: It's a proper MacBook Air rival.
Who it's for: Anyone who needs a thin laptop with plenty of efficient power.
Why we picked the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7:
Microsoft's Surface Laptop has always been aimed at providing a reasonably thin and light clamshell option that shows off Windows' newest features. In the case of the latest version of Window on Arm using the Qualcomm Snapdragon X, that's focused on fast performance and great battery life.
Whether you're looking at the 13.5-inch or 15-inch version, the Surface Laptop offers up some excellent performance with the Snapdragon X Elite chipset. And its battery life of 14.5 hours of web browsing and 22 hours of video looping is among the best we've seen from Windows laptops.
As always, the Surface Laptop enjoys one of the most MacBook-like designs around, with a reasonably thin and light chassis and excellent good looks. The keyboard and haptic touchpad are excellent, the IPS displays are solid and run at a fast 120Hz, and the speakers that are embedded in the keyboard offer great sound. All in all, the Surface Laptop 7 pulls everything together.
Why you should buy this: It's the best affordable 2-in-1 you can buy.
Who it's for: Anyone who wants a Windows tablet, but has a smaller budget.
Why we picked the Asus ProArt PZ13:
The Surface Pro 11 might be the best Windows tablet overall, but it's not the only option. And, in fact, it's not the most affordable option -- that designation belongs to the Asus ProArt PZ13, which costs $1,000 for the same Surface Pro 11 configuration that comes in at $1,700. And Asus includes a detachable keyboard that costs an additional $130 from Microsoft.
Interestingly, although the ProArt PZ13 uses a Snapdragon X Plus chipset with just eight cores and so looks a lot slower on paper, it actually holds its own against the Surface Pro 11. That is, until you engage the Adreno GPU that's a lot slower on the Snapdragon X Plus. Even so, the ProArt PZ13 is a very fast tablet that's more than enough for demanding productivity users. And, its battery life is competitive with the Surface Pro 11, lasting two hours less while browsing the web, but two hours longer when looping our test video.
Its design is a little less elegant than that of the Surface Pro 11, with a snap-on kickstand compared to an integrated version. But again, the ProArt PZ13's very good keyboard is included, which makes its price even more attractive. And it, too, uses a high-res OLED display that looks great.
Why you should buy this: It's a very thin and light, long-lasting Windows machine.
Who it's for: Anyone who wants a thin laptop with great battery life.
Why we picked the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x:
Lenovo's Yoga Slim 7x enjoys the company's most recent design with rounded edges and an overall thin and light build that's both attractive and comfortable to use. It's the thinnest laptop on our list at just 0.51 inches, in spite of have a large 14.5-inch 3K display.
As with the rest of the laptops here, the Yoga Slim 7x is built around a Snapdragon X chipset, specifically the Snapdragon X Elite. It offers the same excellent productivity performance, and its battery life of 12 hours of web browsing and 17 hours of video looping is particularly impressive given the large, high-res OLED display.
The chassis is incredibly well-built, the keyboard and touchpad are very good, and the price is very reasonable at $1,200 for a solid configuration with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
Why you should buy this: It's HP's newest branding in a fast and long-lasting package.
Who it's for: Anyone who wants a well-built and attractive laptop.
Why we picked the HP OmniBook X:
The OmniBook X stands out as the first laptop to bear HP's newest branding. The OmniBook lineup will include all of HP's consumer machines, and the OmniBook X is the first to use the Snapdragon X Elite.
It's a broken record at this point, but the Snapdragon X Elite chipset used in the OmniBook X provides outstanding productivity performance with great battery life. The 13.5 hours of web browsing and 22 hours of video browsing rank high on our list of the long-lasting Windows laptops.
At the same time, the OmniBook X takes up the mantle of HP's premium laptops with a great build that's attractive and solid -- and it's also very thin and light. Its IPS display has great colors and contrast for the technology and contributes to the great battery life. And the keyboard and touchpad continue HP's tradition of comfortable and precise input options.
Mark Coppock is a Freelance Writer at Digital Trends covering primarily laptop and other computing technologies. He has significant experience in Windows, macOS, laptop hardware, and other technologies around mobile computing. He has been writing about technology since 2015, and has been a professional in the technology industry since 1995.
Mark graduated from Indiana University in 1991 with a degree in Marketing, which along with an interesting in PCs parlayed into a 25-year career in sales, marketing, and sales engineering across a number of companies in Indianapolis, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois. After stepping away from marketing, Mark entered into writing with a gig at the now-defunct Winbeta.org site. He has been writing for Digital Trends since 2016, and has reviewed almost 300 laptops. You can find many of his reviews in various Digital Trends best-of lists, such as the best laptops and best laptop 2-in-1s.
Generally speaking, Mark has been a geek since MS-DOS gave way to Windows and the PalmPilot was a thing. He’s translated his love for technology into a long career aimed at helping people use technology to enhance their lives.
When he’s not writing, you’ll find him in Southern California reading and watching science fiction, taking photos with his family, and obsessing over Indiana University basketball.
Best Budget Laptops
Best 2-in-1 Laptops
Best Business Laptops
Best Laptops Under $1,000
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
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.