Qualcomm’s forthcoming LTE-enabled PCs are coming to a new set of U.S. phone carriers, adding T-Mobile, and AT&T to a growing list of vendors. At CES, Qualcomm already confirmed Sprint and Verizon would be offering access to the new PCs, adding T-Mobile and AT&T to the list completes the set for Qualcomm. That means every major U.S. phone carrier will offer Qualcomm’s new ultra-mobile laptops as early as this year.
“Consumers around the world will be able to experience firsthand how the Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered Always Connected PC are designed to bring the best smartphone features to their PC,” Don McGuire, Qualcomm’s vice president of Global Product Marketing, said in a statement.
In addition to the new carriers, Qualcomm revealed a couple new retailers which will be offering the Always On PCs online and at brick-and-mortar locations nationwide. First up, the Always On PCs will be available on Amazon starting this calendar quarter and you will also be able to find them at physical Microsoft Stores.
“Our collaboration together with Microsoft has continued to build momentum for the Always Connected PC category,” McGuire continued. “With the growing list of commitments from leading mobile operators worldwide, Snapdragon-powered Always Connected PCs are engineered to offer consumers a compelling and powerful mobile computing experience, with instant-on capability, always-on connectivity and ‘beyond all-day’ battery life in innovative, thin and light designs.”
Qualcomm first announced its Always On PCs in late 2017, promising a new generation of laptop computing. Qualcomm touted the upcoming laptops, developed in partnership with Microsoft, as mobile workstations which behave more like smartphones than laptops. These new Always On, or Always Connected PCs all feature 24/7 LTE connectivity and due to their ultra-low-power Qualcomm processors, they’re set to feature battery life that could eclipse anything currently available in a standard laptop.
We’re still waiting for this new generation of laptops to hit store shelves, but recently Microsoft leaked a comprehensive list detailing precisely how they differ from their traditional laptop counterparts. Unfortunately, Microsoft was quick to backpedal and take down the leaked list of limitations, but if you’re curious about how Qualcomm’s PCs stack up to their competitors, we have the goods.
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.