Intel’s rebranding of its processors was a big deal. The change from Core i5 to Core Ultra 5 was more than just a rebrand — it was supposed to signal a shift to a new era for Intel.
That’s why the announcements around 14th-gen Raptor Lake Refresh HX at CES 2024 are so unfortunate. These 55-watt chips will be appearing in gaming laptops of all kinds next year — everything from the Razer Blade 16 to the Lenovo Legion 7i.
If you’re going to do a rebrand, you have to put all your eggs in one basket. You gotta go all in. And when Intel revealed the change in December, it seemed like that’s what it was doing.
But now, at CES 2024, the company has also quietly announced a chip that it doesn’t seem to want to talk much about. The company has hardly mentioned it to to the press, and even laptop manufacturers seem confused about it. This has left us to come up with our own reasons for why part of Intel’s lineup hasn’t been moved to Meteor Lake.
The reason is obvious — these are chips that don’t fit into the company’s messaging around Core Ultra Meteor Lake. They don’t have nearal processing units (NPUs) onboard, they use an older architecture, and they even go by the old “Core i9” nomenclature. They are leftovers from the previous generation of chips, which Intel hasn’t been able to fully transition away from. The new Meteor Lake chips are all about efficiency, especially lower wattages, and apparently, they don’t scale up to 55 watts well enough to replace the previous-gen architecture.
Intel’s new Core Ultra H chips go up to 45 watts, which covers many machines — just not the most high-end gaming laptops. That’s good, and indeed, the Meteor Lake chips are more efficient than the Raptor Lake Refresh HX chips. And to be fair, that’s more important on smaller laptops than on these bigger ones.
But let’s not forget — full desktop chips won’t be in Meteor Lake this generation either. Presumably, Raptor Lake Refresh will be used for future desktop chips as well. For how long? We can’t know for sure, but it seems to be the case for at least this next generation.
For now, Intel’s big moment has been soured by its inability to replace its entire lineup of laptop chips. It’s starting to feel like an awkward transition year rather than a strong move forward.
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.