Laptops

This is the ThinkBook Wireless Dock, which you’ll be able to buy later this summer. If you happen to own a Lenovo ThinkBook, you can stick it on this pad, and not only does it charge the laptop, but it connects it to up to two 4K displays as well. The panel on the left side is a universal charger for mobile devices. I tried this out at Computex 2023, and it works impressively well.

I have a very vested interest in this kind of gadget, as someone whose deskside cable management is...you know what, let’s not talk about it.

Or at least, it’s trying to. The company is working on a program called AI Artist, which it hopes to preload onto future MSI devices. You select a style (manga and realism are currently available), you select a size, and you type what you want to be drawn into a text box. Watch the wheel spin for a while, and AI Artist spits out an image.

I’m calling it now: We’re going to see more of this. It’s clear from walking around Computex 2023 that AI, and what it can do for consumers, is at the center of the conversation.

If you’ve ever wished you could own a luxury car without paying luxury car money, you might consider, instead, an RGB gaming laptop. MSI has partnered with Mercedes to create the new Stealth 16 Mercedes-AMG Motorsport, and it looks like about what you’d get if you put a racecar into laptop form.

The new SMAM (that’s not its name, but it’s what I’m going to be calling it) features the Mercedes logo on the lid, an AMG rhombus pattern on the spacebar, and a power button that looks like an engine ignition. Oh, and it’s full of RGB. Because, of course. Obviously.

The Taipei International Information Technology Show opens in just five days, and we’ve already got announcements rolling in. Acer’s getting the ball rolling this morning with the launch of a refreshed Swift Edge 16 (it’s high-end, AMD-powered, ultralight, OLED workstation) and Predator Triton 16 (a QHD AAA gaming rig).

Expanded tools for SpatialLabs, its glasses-free 3D technology, are also in the works. Whether these will be enough to make people actually want glasses-free 3D laptops, of course, remains to be seen.

We’ll be on the ground in Taipei next week bringing you news from all the biggest Taiwanese laptop companies (and maybe some others too).

Razer has announced new Mercury Editions of its flagship Blade 16 and Blade 18 gaming laptops. These look similar to the Razer Blades we know and love, but they swap out the standard black for a whiteish-grayish color.

A complaint I always have about the black Razer Blade models is that they pick up fingerprints very easily, and often end up looking a bit gross. Lighter-colored laptops are better about this, and if I were buying a Blade, this is the color I would go for.

Dell has announced updates to its Inspiron line, a tried-and-true favorite of high school and college students everywhere. There’s a 16-incher, a 16-inch 2-in-1, and a 14-inch 2-in-1 — and they’ll all be available with both 13th-Gen Intel processors and AMD Ryzen 7000 processors.

Boy, do I wish these had been available in my college era when I was living life on a clunky, pink Inspiron that could barely open my word processor. Actually, maybe it’s a good thing that all these options weren’t available — I probably would’ve spent days Googling them all instead of writing my Comparative Literature papers.

If you’ve got an HDMI or DisplayPort expansion card, it might be sucking down juice — but Framework will now let you flash firmware (DP) and solder a jumper wire (HDMI) to fix the issue. The company will also ship the new versions by default with its new AMD and Intel 13th Gen laptops, and you can buy ‘em from the company’s parts store soon.

Acer’s Global Press Conference has concluded — and it was, in typical Acer fashion, a whole bunch of totally random stuff. Highlights: the “eco-minded” Aspire Vero 15 has a new green color (you know, like the earth), the Swift X comes in a new 16-inch size, and the fan-favorite Chromebook Spin 714 is being refreshed. There’s also an air purifier? Look, I don’t know either.

If you missed the event, watch the replay for all the juicy deets.