Every New Year we have to see more and more interesting laptops. We have seen the light ones, thin ones, giant, gaming ones and ones that flip and spin around.
The Expected New Laptop Trend 2018
So this year the laptops have not been as insane but there’s a few that give us a little glimpse of what to expect for the rest of the year.
Computer Speed and Performance
Starting with the HP Specter X360 and Dells XPS 15, these are both 15-inch laptops but what really matters is exactly what is inside which is the Intel for actual processor and the AMD’s graphics card.
This is the first time we are seeing such a thing and what it basically means is that we are probably going to see gaming laptops or laptops that are capable of playing games this year.
With the sort of size and form factor of these two devices, Dells XPS 15 is new this year. You have probably seen the XPS 15 before but this one has hinges so you can go and put it in a tablet mode.
This is a quite a regular looking laptop but the graphics support on it allow playing games or stuff like that. It is expected to be a little bit better.
For the first time, AMD and Intel have paired up since like the 1980s. It is also kind of interesting to see what could happen for the rest of the year. Dells XPS 15 includes a maglev keyboard, that sounds pretty fancy.
What is inside is essentially magnets underneath the keys which hold the keys in place.
It is quite interesting to see this technology on this particular laptop and on Windows laptops in general. The keyboard is slightly thinner something more like the Apple MacBook Pro. We expect to see some of the other PC makers do a similar sort of thing with their keyboards.
Experimentation
Speaking of experimentation we are starting to see quite a lot less of that this year, there are not so many crazy flipping laptops, companies are sort of settling on their own designs. What we are starting to see and we saw it in December are these new arm powered laptops.
Basically what that means is that laptops will be having all-day battery life. That is 20 plus hours like they can be put on standby, throw them in your bag, and they will not be out of battery.
On the inside, we are going to get the similar sort of components you would on any other laptop. The form factors that we have seen so far are mainly tablets and two-in-ones, but I think we are probably going to see a lot more experimentation later in the year.
We might even get some just regular clamshell laptops.
Functionality
With the Lenovo’s Miix 630, it looks like a laptop stroke tablet, kind of like a surface, a two-in-one sort of thing. We have seen quite a few times before. What is really unique about this particular device is inside.
There is a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. What that means is that it has basically phone components inside. You will get LTE connectivity inside. You will be able to use it anywhere more than that it snaps off so you can use it as a tablet as well.
With the LTE connectivity, it will run for about 20 hours with battery life, according to the manufactures a key thing about this device. it is quite a nice little device it’s fin and light. It comes with a single USB Type-C port on the back.
This kind of like the future of tablets and laptops is what we are expecting to see this year. Lenovo’s Mixed 630 is setting the stage. The other devices like the HP One as well same sort of family devices, sort of sets the stage for what we might see in which is a lot of arms powered Windows laptops.
Screen Clarity
Another trend we are starting to see is the HDR on our laptops. HDR is High Dynamic Range which basically means that you are will get a little bit better detail when you are watching a movie.
Colors will pop out, the blacks will be darker. It will be really good for viewing content and stuff like Netflix, youtube and stuff like that.
What we are kind of waiting to see now is for Windows to be updated with Netflix and all those sorts of different applications. It is still quite early days but I think once that comes we will probably see a lot more HD on our laptops for out 2018 and beyond.
Multi-Device
Razer is experimenting with its own Android-powered phone and docking it, turning from a phone into a laptop. We have seen a bunch of times Motorola’s Atrix, Samsung’s Dex doc and even Microsoft’s phone continuum stuff on Windows Phone, but a lot of those projects have failed in the past.
Razer stuff is very much a prototype at the moment I don’t think we are gonna see a phone that turns into a laptop be a success this year but it is good to see another company giving it a go and try in another concept to see if we can get to that point.
Voice Assistant
Aside from the hardware, on the software side, I think we are gonna see a lot of Amazon Alexa appearing on Windows PCs throughout the year.
Amazon announced at CES that Alexa will be built into a bunch of different laptops from HP, Lenovo, Asus, and Acer. These devices are coming later this year.
I am curious to see whether we will ever see Google assistant appear on Windows laptops. It quite obvious on Google’s own pixel book.
It could be interesting if it made the jump over to the windows side as well. so all those trends combined with Microsoft’s work on Windows and the updates and also their ability to push the arm that tops out makes for a really interesting for laptops
