Best laptops at CES 2019: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it [Video]
Video uploaded by The Verge on January 10, 2019
Three heavyweighters – Dell, HP, and LG – presented new flagship laptops at CES 2019. These laptops’ architecture focuses on impeccable performance and employs the latest technologies. Let’s have a closer look at them.
Dell’s XPS 13: Dolby Vision, Thunderbolts Ports, and More
CES 2019 saw the latest XPS 13 series of laptops. A 8th generation Core i7-8565U coupled with UHD Graphics 620 can support Dolby Vision, to say nothing about many modern games. The screen features HDR 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160; 400 nits of brightness) and supports Dolby Vision, which I think is a bit much for a 13.3-inch display: The fonts will look too small. Watching 4K movies on such a small screen is also questionable, even though CinemaStream and Waves Maxx CinemaSound enhance the video and sound. However, there’s a less packed model with a 1080p screen.
As for the design, Dell’s engineers manage to make the laptop look much more compact by shrinking the bezels down to 4mm. They also add the variable torque hinge. XPS 13 is easy to open, but stable enough to stay put. Two Thunderbolt ports are another feature this laptop shares with Macs. Its 16GB of RAM, two PCIe m.4 SSDs, and 12 hours on one charge (21 hours for the 1080p version) make XPS 13 an almost ideal working tool and companion. The laptops are presented in silver, rose gold, and frost. The price starts at $900.
Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 Laptop Will Recognize You Approaching!
The 14-inch Latitude 7400 2-in-1 Dell sports Intel’s proximity sensor, that can detect when a user approaches it. It is bundled with the IR camera and Windows Hello, so a user can log in by coming up. Under the machine’s aluminum “hood,” one can find a 1080p touch display, Intel 8th generation quad-core chip, 16GB max of RAM, and up to 1TB of PCIe/NVMe storage. Dell claims the laptop has a 24-hour battery life. This is a premium laptop by all accounts, so be ready to shell out $1,599 in March 2019.
Razor-Thin LG Gram 17 Loses No Ports
LG focuses on ports rather than on the video features. On the other hand, a 2560 x 1600 LCD display is more than enough for an 8th generation CPU with integrated HD 620 graphics. Anyway, a 512GB SSD is too small for storing many RAW photos, even if 16GB of DDR4 RAM are enough for photo processing. A photographer will have to rely on external storages (and video cards like NVIDIA’s Max Q). Fortunately, LG Gram 17 features plenty of ports: three USB-A sockets, two USB-C, an HDMI, plus a microSD card reader and a headphone jack. The 72Whr battery must have enough “juice” to power all of them. Engineers promise 19.5 hours of work on one charge.
Although thin laptops are rather fragile, LG Gram 17 passes military-standard MIL-STD-810G testing for durability. You aren’t going to pay $1,699 for nothing! Laptops are available in matte-silver and white.
HP Spectre 15 x360 Sports AMOLED Display
The AMOLED touch display, full 360 degrees flip, and webcam privacy kill switch are three reasons to choose the HP latest hybrid. The maker hyped the rare screen feature, but didn’t leak any other specifications. Having 33 percent more colors, 100,000:1 contrast ratio, narrow bezels, and tent formation make HP Spectre 15 x360 an ideal entertainer but not a work tool, I’m afraid. Intel Core i7 CPU, with either NVIDIA or AMD graphics, won’t improve the situation.
HP Spectre Folio
Spectre Folio, an HP version of Surface with a detachable keyboard, was upgraded as well. A dual-core Intel Core i5-8200Y, 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD, plus a Windows Ink-certified Pen now have a new 4K touchscreen display to match. The model in “Bordeaux Burgundy” color is available for $1,309.
As we can see, laptops continue to shrink and acquire tablet-like features. Only LG cares about connectivity, while others invest heavily in picture quality.
Links
- CES 2019: All the news, previews and analysis you need from the show floor – TechRadar
- Thinking to sell your used laptop? iGotOffer is the best place to sell computers and other devices online.
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