Audio cues can sometimes be crucial for success in games. Developers frequently design the sound environment for their experiences to be not only rich and immersive, but to also contain hints about approaching enemies or danger. Players who are hard of hearing can miss out on this, and it's not fair for them to be disadvantaged due to a disability. A product called Audio Radar launched at CES 2024 and it can help turn sound signals into visual cues, so that gamers with hearing loss can "see the sound," according to the company AirDrop Gaming LLC. 

The setup is fairly simple. A box plugs into a gaming console to interpret audio output and converts that data into lights. A series of RGB light bars surround the screen, and display different colors depending on the type of sound coming from the respective direction they represent. Put simply, it means that if you're walking around a Minecraft world, like I did at the company's booth on the show floor, you'll see lights of different colors appear on the different bars.

Red lights mean sounds from enemies are in the area adjacent to the corresponding light, while green is for neutral sounds. An onscreen legend also explains what the sounds mean, though that might just be for the modded Minecraft scenario on display at CES. 

Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget

I walked around the scene briefly, and could see green lights hovering above a pen of farm animals, while purple lights fluttered in tandem with a dragon flying overhead. I did find it a little confusing, but that is probably due more to the fact that I know very little about Minecraft, and as someone with hearing I might not appreciate the added information as much as someone without.

With an SDK that the company launched at the show, developers will be able to customize the lights and visual feedback to elements in their game so that they have control over what their hard-of-hearing gamers see. In the meantime, Audio Radar is using its own software to detect stereo or surround sound signals to convert to feedback in lights and colors. 

Though the product may seem in its early stages, various major gaming companies have appeared to indicate interest in Audio Radar. AirDrop Gaming's CEO Tim Murphy told me that Logitech is "providing support as we further develop our product and design our go-to-market strategy." Also, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was spotted at the booth on opening day.

Audio Radar is beginning to ship on a wider level this year, and the company continues to develop products for gamers who are deaf and hard of hearing, among other things. The system works with Xbox, PlayStation and PC.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

It's been a while since we saw over-the-air wireless charging demos from the likes of Oppo and Xiaomi, so CES 2024 caught us by surprise when we came across a new one from another Chinese mobile brand, Infinix. This "AirCharge" tech uses low-frequency magnetic resonance to deliver up to 25W of power wirelessly, and this works across a distance of up to 20cm (7.87 inches) — doubling that of Oppo's previous demo — and at angles of up to 60 degrees. 

Infinix believes that this use case is ideal for users who want to keep their phones charged while gaming or watching videos, without having a cable getting in the way of either hand. With this improved charging distance, you can also install the AirCharge pad to underneath a table, and then you'll have yourself a stealthy charging area. Before that, though, Infinix will need to figure out a way to avoid accidentally heating up metallic objects nearby. There are foreign object detection methods for existing "2D" wireless charging solutions, but it's more complex when the charging space goes from "2D" to "3D."

Another safety measure to keep in mind is for the case of a sudden drop in distance between the phone and the charging pad — it's not good to abruptly crank up the voltage on a device like that. As such, Infinix has already implemented (and patented) an over-voltage protection circuit on both ends of the chain. The company doesn't have a time frame for launching AirCharge on a mass production device just yet, but it hopes to eventually use this tech to push for an industrial standard on over-the-air wireless charging.

Photo by Richard Lai / Engadget

Infinix also showed off its "E-Color Shift Technology," which uses E Ink's Prism 3 to let you change the color patterns on the back of your phone. This feature supports eight basic colors, which are then expanded by multiple levels of shades, and this can be implemented onto a pattern with over 100 customizable areas. As is the case with conventional E Ink displays, once this Prism 3 panel has been refreshed, the new color pattern remains without consuming power.

Once the company figures out how to tackle the challenges related to thermal performance and thickness, it hopes to bring this funky feature to consumer devices within a year or two. By which point, you'll be able to customize the color pattern through an app — which we didn't get to see, as our demo used dummy phones instead. Even Lenovo is considering this display tech for decorating its laptop lids.

Last but not least, Infinix teased its "Extreme-Temp Battery" tech for users who have to brave the cold. While conventional lithium ion batteries will have their capacities drastically reduced or even get damaged in low temperatures, Infinix's solid state battery will continue to operate even at a temperature as low as -40°C or -40°F. Similarly, when measured at -20°C or -4°F, Infinix's solution will apparently have a 50- to 300-percent boost in endurance time compared to others. We may see this battery tech on an Infinix phone as soon as the second half of 2025.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

Call it love at first sight. Every year, I come across a handful of products that elicit instant joy, a sense of elation that's so strong I forget about the many ways the tech industry is actively making our world worse. As we wrap up CES 2024 in Las Vegas, I can't stop thinking about the new ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, the latest edition of one of our favorite gaming laptops. 

As we covered in our initial hands-on, the Zephyrus G14 features the spec bumps you'd expect: new Ryzen 8000 CPUs and the return of NVIDIA's RTX 4070. But really, it's the all aluminum case and minimalist aesthetic that I've fallen for. When I touched it for the first time, it felt like I was holding a piece of high-grade scientific equipment. The case feels almost too good for a gaming laptop.

Couple that with the cleanest layout ever on an ASUS machine, and you have an evolutionary design leap for the company. (It's particularly shocking seeing it next to the new ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED, which looks practically ancient in comparison.) We've called Razer's Blade laptops the gaming equivalent of Apple's MacBook Pro for years — but now the torch may have been passed to ASUS. The Zephyrus G14 more closely resembles the boxier refreshed aesthetic from Apple's Pro machines. (If you’re looking for an even bigger screen, there’s also a new G16 with the same design and it can hold more powerful hardware, like NVIDIA’s RTX 4090.)

The G14 is more than just a design showpiece, it's also a far better gaming laptop than before. Its new keyboard, which sports 12 percent larger key caps, makes hours-long Halo Infinite matches feel far more comfortable since there's more room for my fingers to spread out. Just about everything shines on its new 3K 120Hz OLED screen, which makes colors pop perfectly. And I was even able to hear a decent amount of positional audio from its revamped speakers (20 percent larger than before) when I was too lazy to grab a pair of headphones.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

While I can't divulge any benchmarks from our RTX 4070-equipped preview unit, I can say that Halo Infinite, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and the new uber-stylish Metroidvania Cookie Cutter all played like a dream at the G14's native resolution with maxed out graphics quality. Cookie Cutter, with its fluid and expressive art style, was practically made to be shown off on OLED screens. And in Cyberpunk, the G14's HDR capability made the neon lights in Night City almost searingly bright.

The Zephyrus G14 also excelled at game streaming, something I like to test to stress a laptop's networking capabilities. I was able to hop into Forza Horizon 5 in around 30 seconds while I was sitting 20 feet and a floor away from my router. And once I hit the road, I was able to zoom through a few races without any noticeable video artifacts, tearing or slowdown. Anyone walking by might think I was playing the game locally.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Beyond gaming, the G14 just kept surprising and delighting me. Its larger keyboard feels great for typing, with more depth and responsiveness than before. Its touchpad is one of the smoothest I've used on a Windows laptop. And I can't help but love that it has all the ports I want: HDMI, mini-SD and both USB-C and Type A on both sides of the case. I was less enamored with ASUS' new power connector — it's a bit stiff, and a slight tug could easily send the G14 flying. It would have been nice to see a pure USB-C charging solution, but the company told our senior reporter Sam Rutherford that the cost and efficiency of using that port for high-powered charging still isn't good enough for wide deployment.

I'm looking forward to spending more time with the ROG Zephyrus G14 during our review. But until then, we’ll always have CES 2024.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

CES 2024 in Las Vegas had all kinds of tech, from attention-grabbing AI gadgets to, uh, whatever this is. There were also a whole bunch of laptops. Like, an endless array of laptops. So many laptops, in fact, that we had a real tough time deciding between them to choose our best of CES award winners.

These weren’t just any laptops with minor spec bumps. The theme of the year was, of course, AI, with many computers adopting dedicated AI chips. OLED displays with speedy refresh rates were also all over the show floor and, of course, there were several unique designs that just about defy description. We’ve gone through them all and come up with a list of the best laptops at CES.

ASUS Zenbook Duo

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The dream of a dual-screen laptop isn’t dead! The ASUS Zenbook Duo is a technical marvel, with a dual-screen display and a detachable Bluetooth keyboard. In other words, you can use it in a traditional clamshell mode, with a keyboard in front of one of the displays, or you can balance the screens on top of one another. This is great for those who want the convenience of a laptop, but with added screen real estate.

The aesthetics are on point and the Duo includes high-end hardware like Intel's Core Ultra chips and gorgeous OLED screens. The price is also fairly reasonable, given the tech, as this laptop starts at $1,500.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

ASUS strikes again. The ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 line has gotten a full redesign, with an attractive aluminum chassis and plenty of power underneath the hood. These laptops can run just about any AAA game on the market, thanks to its AMD Ryzen 8000 series processors and the optional NVIDIA RTX 4070 GPU at the high end.

We called it a “grown up” and “sophisticated” gaming laptop because, well, that’s what it is. It’s incredibly sleek and would feel at home in an office and in a basement-turned-gaming-paradise. It’s also lighter than previous generations, making it more portable. Each model ships with a simple LED slash across the front that can be programmed to glow in gray or white, instead of the typical Skittles rainbow of colors found with most gaming laptops. There’s no pricing on these yet.

HP Omen Transcend 14

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

There’s a new record-breaker in town. The HP Open Transcend 14 is the lightest 14-inch gaming laptop in the world, weighing just 3.5 pounds. Even cooler? HP seems to have hit this milestone without cutting too many corners. Despite being closer in size and weight to an ultraportable than an average gaming laptop, you still get support for the 14th-gen Intel Core Ultra 7 or Ultra 9 processor, up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM, 2TB of storage and an RTX 4070 GPU. This thing won’t struggle to play modern games.

Despite the teeny-tiny dimensions, you still get two USB-A and two USB-C ports (one of which supports Thunderbolt 4) plus a full-size HDMI 2.1 jack on the back. You’ll also have the option to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7 card with Bluetooth 5.4. This laptop starts at $1,600 and goes on sale later this year.

Dell’s new XPS line

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Dell has upgraded its entire XPS line, with form factors that resemble last year’s XPS 13 Plus. The redesign covers the new XPS 13, 14 and 16, and there’s no longer a Plus line. Each of these laptops boasts a glass wrist wrest that hides an invisible haptic touchpad. There’s also touch-sensitive function buttons above the keyboard and large key caps for comfortable typing.

The XPS line includes Intel’s Core Ultra chips, which feature NPUs for AI tasks. The ports are on point, with the XPS 14 and 16 boasting a headphone jack, three Thunderbolt 4 USB-C slots and a microSD card reader. The minimalist design here is gorgeous and these laptops nearly made our best of CES list, but not quite. Once these are out in the wild, however, they could wind up on our list of the best laptops in 2024, just like the XPS 13 Plus.

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

We promised unique and funky designs, and here’s one. The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 is a Frankenstein’s monster of sorts, with a design that’s basically two gadgets smashed together. This is anything but your typical 2-in-1 device. At first glance, the ThinkBook Plus looks like an ordinary clamshell, but the display lifts right off and becomes a 14-inch tablet.

Not that big of a deal right? Here’s where things get interesting. Once removed, both components remain fully functional. So you can use the tablet as a standalone Android device, a wireless monitor for the laptop base or a Wacom-like inking display via Lenovo’s Freestyle app. Meanwhile, you can also use the deck as a mini desktop by plugging in an external screen. Now that’s some modular thinking. This thing starts at $2,000, however, which is fairly steep.

Everything else

There were many laptops that just missed this list, but still deserve mention.

• MSI 18-inch laptops - The company went big this year, introducing a trio laptops with 18-inch displays. Now you won’t have to sacrifice screen real estate for portability.

• Acer Predator Helios 18 - This is another large laptop with an 18-inch screen. However, the Predator Helios 18 also features a uniquely-designed hinge absolutely stuffed with RGB lights.

• Acer Swift and Aspire - These are basic refreshes that don’t offer much by way of innovation, but will certainly sell like absolute hotcakes. They are stuffed with AI, however, with Intel's new Core Ultra processors and dedicated keys that can summon Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant.

• Razer Blade line - Razer offered a refresh of its entire Blade gaming laptop line. The biggest news here? The Razer Blade 16 features a glorious 240Hz OLED display.

• Alienware m16 R2 - What would CES be without some Alienware goodness? The m16 R2 is a sleek gaming laptop with a large 90 Whr battery, slim bezels and a beefy touchpad – all in a package with a 15 percent smaller footprint than previous iterations.

• Lenovo Legion updates - Lenovo announced a slew of new Legion gaming laptops at CES, each featuring proprietary cooling technology and performance-enhancing AI chips. These all ship with Windows 11 and come with three free months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

• Sightful Spacetop - Well, here’s another funky one. The Spacetop doesn’t have an actual screen. It ships with AR glasses that allow for a 100-inch virtual display. The design is nifty, but the execution is iffy.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

Apple sent an email to customers today notifying them that when they pre-order the Vision Pro starting on January 19, they will need to scan their face with an iPhone or iPad using Face ID to make sure they get a precise band fit on the headset. Deliveries will begin when it launches on February 2. US shoppers will be able to purchase the headset on apple.com, in the Apple Store app and in retail Apple Stores.

Apple said the latest version of the Apple Store app will be needed for shoppers to conduct a face scan. Additionally, for people that wear glasses, there will be an option to add optical inserts into the headset so that they can be worn without eyewear. To get the inserts for an additional fee, provided by its partner Zeiss, Apple says shoppers will need to share an updated official prescription document when pre-ordering the headset.

For those on the fence about purchasing the Vision Pro, which starts around ​​$3,499, Apple said the headset will be available in store for demos on the launch date. The Vision Pro, which was first announced at Apple’s WWDC 2023 keynote, received praise for its crisp 3D visuals during a hands-on preview. The headset will provide more than just a VR screen and speaker system for watching films and playing games — it will eventually act as a tool that will connect friends in Horizon Worlds.

The option to freely roam around a virtual world with an integrated gaming program made by Meta will push the bounds for what constitutes modern social networking and online gaming. Apple’s push for the Vision Pro to be branded and function as a spatial computer will also create endless possibilities for developers to create compelling apps.

So much of what we see at CES tends to be focused on technological innovation for the sake of innovation, or obvious attempts to tap into whatever trend is gripping the internet's attention that year. In the last few shows, though, there has been a heartening increase in attention to assistive products that are designed to help improve the lives of people with disabilities and other different needs. At CES 2024, I was glad to see more development in the accessibility category, with many offerings appearing to be more thoughtfully designed in addition to being clever. It's so easy to get distracted by the shiny, eye-catching, glamorous and weird tech at CES, but I wanted to take the time to give due attention to some of my favorite accessibility products here in Las Vegas.

GyroGlove

Before I even packed my bags, numerous coworkers had sent me the link to GyroGlove's website after it had been recognized as an honoree for several CES Innovation awards. The device is a hand-stabilizing glove that uses gyroscopic force to help those with hand tremors minimize the shakes. Because the demo unit at the show floor was too large for me, and, more importantly, I don't have hand tremors, I couldn't accurately assess the glove's effectiveness. 

But I spoke with a person with Parkinson's Disease at the booth, who had been wearing one for a few days. She said the GyroGlove helped her perform tasks like buttoning up a shirt more easily, and that she intended to buy one for herself. At $5,899, the device is quite expensive, which is the sad state of assistive products these days. But GyroGlove's makers said they're in talks with some insurance providers in the US, which could lead to it being covered for those in America who could benefit from it. That's one of the biggest reasons that led us to name GyroGlove one of our winners for CES 2024. 

Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget

MouthPad

I did not think I'd be looking deep into a person's mouth and up their nose at CES 2024, but here we are. Sometimes you have to do strange things to check out unconventional gadgets. The MouthPad is as unusual as it gets. It's a tongue-operated controller for phones, tablets and laptops, and basically anything that will accept a Bluetooth mouse input. The components include a touchpad mounted onto the palette of what's essentially a retainer, as well as a battery and Bluetooth radio. 

As odd as the concept sounds, it actually could be a boon for people who aren't able to use their limbs, since your tongue, as a muscle, can offer more precise movement and control than, say, your eyes. If you're feeling apprehensive about sticking a device inside your mouth, it might be helpful to know that the battery is from the same company that's made them for medical-grade implants, while the rest of the dental tray is made from a resin that's commonly used in aligners and bite guards. The product is currently available as an early access package that includes setup and calibration assistance, with a new version (with longer battery life) slated for launch later this year.

OrCam Hear

Assistive tech company OrCam won our Best of CES award for accessibility in 2022, so I was eager to check out what it had in store this year. I wasn't disappointed. The company had a few updated products to show off, but the most intriguing was a new offering for people with hearing loss. The OrCam Hear system is a three-part package consisting of a pair of earbuds, a dongle for your phone and an app. Together, the different parts work to filter out background noise while identifying and isolating specific speakers in a multi-party conversation.

At a demo during a noisy event at CES 2024, I watched and listened as the voices of selected people around me became clear or muffled as company reps dragged their icons in or out of my field of hearing. I was especially impressed when the system was able to identify my editor next to me and let me choose to focus on or filter out his voice. 

Audio Radar

If you're a gamer, you'll know how important audio cues can sometimes be for a successful run. Developers frequently design the sound environment for their games to be not only rich and immersive, but to also contain hints about approaching enemies or danger. Players who are hard of hearing can miss out on this, and it's not fair for them to be disadvantaged due to a disability. 

A product called Audio Radar can help turn sound signals into visual cues, so that gamers with hearing loss can "see the sound," according to the company. The setup is fairly simple. A box plugs into a gaming console to interpret the audio output and convert it into lights. A series of RGB light bars surround the screen, and display different colors depending on the type of sound coming from the respective direction they represent.

CES 2024 saw not just Audio Radar's official launch, but was also where the company introduced its SDK for game developers to create custom visual cues for players who are hard of hearing. The company's founder and CEO Tim Murphy told Engadget that it's partnering with Logitech, with the gaming accessory maker "providing support as we further develop our product and design our go-to-market strategy." 

Photo by Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Transcribe Glass

Google Glass was resurrected at CES 2024. Sort of. A new product called Transcribe Glass is a small heads up display you can attach to any frames, and the result looks a lot like the long-dead Google device. It connects to your phone and uses that device's onboard processing to transcribe what it hears, then projects the text onto the tiny transparent display hovering above the eye. You'll be able to resize the font, adjust the scrolling speed and choose your language model of choice, since TranscribeGlass uses third-party APIs for translation. Yes, it converts foreign languages into one you understand, too. 

The company is targeting year's end for launch, and hoping to offer the device at $199 to start. When I tried it on at the show floor, I was surprised by how light and adjustable the hardware was. I had to squint slightly to see the captions, and was encountering some Bluetooth lag, but otherwise the transcriptions took place fairly quickly and appeared to be accurate. The TranscribeGlass should last about eight hours on a charge, which seems reasonable given all that it's doing. 

Samsung's subtitle accessibility features

Though we didn't catch a demo of this in person, Samsung did briefly mention a "sign language feature in Samsung Neo QLED" that "can be easily controlled with gestures for the hearing impaired, and an Audio Subtitle feature [that] turns text subtitles into spoken words in real-time for those with low vision." We weren't able to find this at the show, but the concept is certainly meaningful. Plus, the fact that Samsung TVs have mainstream appeal means these features could be more widely available that most of the niche products we've covered in this roundup.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

In 2023, passkeys popped up all over the place. Big tech companies embraced them, which trickled down to smaller firms, until passkeys became a ubiquitous part of any security conversation. To give passkeys the credit they deserve, top security experts agree that the new way of logging in comes with greater security. Like every other security advancement from SMS-based multifactor authentication to hardware authentication keys, however, adoption lags because people still hesitate to make the leap.

Passkeys let you log in without a password. Instead, it creates a digital authentication credential, or a "key," between your device and where you want to login to verify your identity. In practice, this usually looks like a fingerprint or face scan to prove that its really you, and the rest happens on the cryptographic backend. Support for the new way of logging in skyrocketed in 2023, going from “a handful of sites with no users to hundreds of sites with billions of accounts” that could potentially log in using passkeys, according to Andrew Shikiar, executive director of the FIDO Alliance, one of the organizations driving passkey adoption.

To understand the scope of end user passkey adoption, I asked around a bit. Companies that touted passkey compliance, like password manager Bitwarden, declined to share specific figures about adoption. Competitor Dashlane’s chief product officer Donald Hasson shared that the company is seeing about 20,000 passkey-based sign-ins per month, “with growth doubling quarter over quarter.” It’s impressive, but worth noting that it still appears to be a small fraction of actual Dashlane users.

Travel company Kayak told Engadget that it switched completely over to passkeys at the end of last year, which is certainly one way to push people on board. Users can either use single-sign on, passkeys or an email to log on. There are still some legacy password users, but they’re being fazed out by being pushed to switch to the other options when they attempt to log on, said Matthias Keller, chief scientist and senior vice president of technology at KAYAK. “Sign in with Google and sign in with Apple are very popular because they're probably still the easiest experience if you're already logged into these systems,” Keller said. “For new account creation, we see, I would say, around two-thirds of users taking the passkey option.” Still, he declined to share specific login figures. We reached out to Adobe, Apple, GitHub, LinkedIn, Nintendo, PayPal, Roblox, Robinhood, TikTok, and Uber about passkey implementation, but none have responded by time of publication.

Shikiar sees the switch to passkeys playing out like biometrics (e.g. fingerprint and face ID). Switching to passkeys aligns more with the seamless single action you get from just looking at your phone to unlock it, not the clunky steps of MFA that involve another device or extra time to access an account, Shikiar said. The problem, in short, is that we’re stuck in our ways. We love our passwords, no matter how many times we’re told that they’re fallible. The username and password combination has been our comfort zone for logging in since the dawn of computer accounts, and users will drag their heels to avoid any change. We saw this with the slow adoption of multifactor authentication that still falls behind today.

Users are slow to adopt passkeys, and companies are still catching up, too. It is getting easier for smaller companies to adopt passkeys because they no longer need to build out support in-house. For example, password manager 1Password launched Passage last year as a way for businesses to support passkey authentication without having to DIY the infrastructure. But while passkeys have caught on in principle, a year of transformative passkey adoption is still far away.

Security analyst and consultant Cole Grolmus detailed why consumers have been slow to adopt passkeys in October. He set out to change as many logins as possible from passwords to passkeys and, despite being all in on passkeys in principle, ran into roadblock after roadblock. Out of the 374 apps Grolmus uses, only 17 supported passkeys, which led him to conclude we’ll be stuck with passwords for the foreseeable future. “The hype is very well merited,” Grolmus told Engadget. “At the same time, I think you just have to be realistic about the amount of time that it takes for any technological change, particularly ones involving consumer adoption, to play out.”

Still, passkeys could mark a shift in personal security if we give it time to play out. New ways of doing things often struggle to replace the entrenched patterns we’ve gotten used to, even if the new paradigm is superior on paper. At least passkeys smooth out the login experience, as opposed to adding another security hurdle like we saw with MFA. Once people see that passkeys can be a “wonderful experience,” they’ll make the switch, said Grolmus.

If you have the chance to switch to passkeys, it's worth a shot. If you use PayPal, Shopify, Uber, Roblox or other big name companies (the list goes way on), you can get it set up today, but keep in mind, most services probably don't have the option, and might not for a while.

The latest ZenBook 14 OLED from ASUS has most of the hardware we'd want in a modern ultraportable: Intel's new Core Ultra chips, a gorgeous OLED screen and a decent number of ports. But after testing ASUS's laptops for years, and seeing how much progress it's made with the Zephyrus G gaming line, it's surprising that the company's premium Zenbook hasn't evolved much lately.

While it's a solid step into the "AI PC" era, thanks to its NPU for accelerating AI tasks, the new ZenBook 14 is also a reminder that ASUS is lagging behind Apple and Microsoft when it comes to premium design. It doesn't feel nearly as sturdy or sleek as the redesigned MacBook Air, and it lacks the refinement of the Surface Laptop. The ZenBook 14 OLED looks fine — it’s as if you asked an AI to generate an image of a generic ultraportable.

On the plus side, ASUS is delivering far more bang for the computing buck than Apple and most other competitors. You can snag the ZenBook 14 OLED with a Core Ultra 7 155H chip, 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD for $1,300 at Best Buy. An M2 MacBook Air for the same price comes with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD (and it can only be upgraded to a maximum of 24GB of RAM). ASUS also includes a decent selection of ports, including a USB-A connection, two USB-C Thunderbolt ports, an HDMI socket and a microSD card slot. You'd have to step up to the pricier 14-inch MacBook Pro to get some of those ports on a Mac.

While ASUS is touting the Core Ultra's AI capabilities as the big upgrade this year, I'm still far more compelled by the Zenbook 14's glorious 14-inch 3K OLED screen. It's wonderfully bright and colorful when it needs to be, and it can hit those inky dark blacks that we love from OLED displays. This year the Zenbook's OLED screen can also reach a 120Hz refresh rate for smoother scrolling, which is practically a requirement for premium laptops these days.

Images and video practically leap off of the ZenBook 14's OLED screen, which makes it ideal for binging Netflix or catching up on your YouTube queue. And thanks to the laptop's incredibly thin bezels, it's almost as if the display is floating in the air — so much so, I stopped noticing how dull the rest of the ZenBook's design feels. I also wish there was a bit more spring and depth to its keyboard, and that its trackpad didn’t feel so stiff.

But back to Intel's Core Ultra chip. Our review unit, which was equipped with a Core Ultra 7 155H, 32GB of RAM and Intel Arc graphics, delivered some healthy gains over ultraportables running Intel's 13th-gen chips. It scored 1,000 points higher in PCMark 10 compared to the ZenBook S 13 running a Core i7-1355U, and its Arc graphics were almost twice as fast as the S 13's Intel Xe graphics in the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme benchmark.

While it's far from a gaming machine, the ZenBook 14 OLED's Arc graphics also reached between 30fps to 49fps while playing Halo Infinite in 1080p with low graphics. Streaming games over Xbox cloud gaming delivered far better results: Halo Infinite and Forza Motorsport played like a dream over Wi-Fi in my office. Of course, that's more a testament to the ZenBook's wireless hardware than its graphics.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Intel's Core Ultra chips are also focused on a lot more than just raw horsepower (Intel's internal benchmarks even show it getting bested by a 13th-gen chip in some single-threaded tasks, a trade-off it made to deliver better AI and graphics performance). The addition of an NPU means the ZenBook 14 OLED can handle AI workloads in the future; developers like Adobe and Audacity have announced they're working on AI-powered features in their apps. If you're not using those apps, there's not much to do with an NPU in Windows yet except for Microsoft's Studio Effects, which lets you blur backgrounds and automatically keep yourself in frame during video chats. And notably, Studio Effects delivers far better background diffusion and person detection than the built-in alternatives in Zoom and Google Hangouts.

Buying an AI PC like the ZenBook 14 OLED is more a bet on the future rather than an immediate speed upgrade. But based on the industry support we've seen from Microsoft and other big tech firms, having an NPU-equipped PC could pay off soon. Just imagine Microsoft giving Copilot offline capabilities to make it more responsive, similar to Apple's push to make Siri available offline (something also powered by the company's Neural Engine). Eventually, you may be able to speak aloud to Copilot and have it instantly find files or locate a specific setting on your PC.

I won't blame you if you're not excited by the future of AI PCs. When Macs switched over to Apple Silicon chips, there were dramatic performance improvements over Intel's older hardware, along with the additional benefits of the Neural Engine and far better battery life. Windows users, instead, can only hope and pray that developers actually tap into NPUs.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

For now, though, you can look forward to some decent battery life from Intel's Core Ultra chips. The ZenBook 14 OLED lasted 12 hours and 43 minutes in the PCMark 10 Modern Office battery benchmark, which was longer than any other PC we've tested. During a recent trip, it held up for around a day and a half for general productivity work (lots of web browsing, writing, photo editing and a few video chats). ASUS is still lagging behind Apple, though — the M2 MacBook Air lasted 16 hours and 30 minutes in our benchmark. Fan noise also remains a problem: Its fans spun up noticeably during a podcast recording, whereas the fan-less MacBook Air is completely silent even under heavy workloads.

After spending a few weeks with the ZenBook 14 OLED, I’ve grown to love its OLED display and I’m intrigued by the possibilities of the Core Ultra chip’s NPU. It’s just a shame to see those features stuck in a relatively humdrum package. If you care more about getting a good deal than style, though, this ZenBook is tough to beat.

It's almost time for the first Samsung Unpacked event of the year. We're almost guaranteed to get the first official details about the Galaxy S24 smartphones, which are almost certainly going to have on-device generative AI features. You'll be able to watch Samsung Unpacked at 1PM ET on January 17 on the company's website or YouTube channel.

What to expect at Samsung Unpacked

Samsung hasn't exactly been subtle about what's on deck for Unpacked. The company has been teasing something called Galaxy AI for mobile devices across several promo videos:

Yeah, it's pretty safe to say AI will be a focal point of the showcase. In November, Samsung revealed its Gauss generative AI models. These can handle tasks such as translation, coding assistance and turning text into images. The S24 lineup is also expected to run on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which can handle many generative AI requests on-device. As such, at least some GAI features won't need to go through the cloud, meaning that they should be processed more quickly.

As for the new smartphones, there likely won't be many changes on the hardware front beyond spec bumps. That said, the S24 Ultra is slated to have a fully flat display along with a titanium casing, according to a leaked spec sheet. Just in case there was any doubt about fresh Galaxy phones being in the offing, Samsung already has a pre-order page up for "the newest phone from Galaxy."

It's less certain whether we'll see any hardware other than smartphones at the event, though some rumors have indicated the presence of a Galaxy Fit 3 fitness tracker and/or Galaxy Book Pro laptops. This being Samsung, there's always at least a small chance of seeing new tablets, smartwatches and earbuds too.

Just as we expected, AI was the running theme throughout CES 2024. In this episode, Devindra and Producer Ben Ellman chat with co-host Cherlynn Low, who’s on the ground in Las Vegas with the Engadget team. We dive into AI coming to almost every product category, new standalone AI hardware, and a surprising amount of “shush” tech. In geekier news, we dive into Micron’s new RAM format for laptops, which has the potential to reshape the notebook industry, and discuss why we all may want a rolling house robot like Samsung’s Ballie. And on a sad note, we chat about the wave of tech layoffs from Google, Amazon and others.

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!

Topics

• Transparent OLED TVs, assistive gloves, and a Sony car: What’s hot at CES with Cherlynn Low – 1:09

• AMD and Intel announce new chips – 28:22

• Micron’s replacement for SODIMM laptop RAM is a bigger deal than you think – 38:01

• Humane and Rabbit show off standalone AI devices – 45:49

• New gaming laptops from ASUS, Alienware, and Razer – 53:36

• Samsung’s Ballie robot could be a great multimedia companion for kids – 1:00:54

• Layoffs at Amazon: Twitch to lay off 35% of its workforce – 1:16:50

• Google lays off “several hundred” workers in an effort to reorganize hardware divisions – 1:18:14

• Pop culture picks – 1:22:09

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Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.