CES 2022 is often the laptop industry’s biggest media event. This year was no different, despite the sudden and unexpected shift to a more virtual than in-person show (major chipmakers stayed away, as did most laptop makers).
In fact, 2022 is shaping up to be a banner year for Windows laptops. New CPUs and GPUs from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel promise to take laptop performance to the moon, and that’s just the beginning.
Here are the 5 biggest laptop trends from CES 2022 that can’t be ignored. Hopefully some of these laptops will make it to our list of best laptops sooner rather than later.
Do not miss the most innovative of CES 2022.
Laptops are gaining power (and power consumption)
At CES 2022, the world of laptops focused on the big, the heavy, and the expensive. While AMD, Intel, and Nvidia continue to build silicon with a focus on thin and light systems, the most exciting announcements continue to be in high-power, high-performance mobile computing.
Even the best thin-and-light laptops, like the Dell XPS 13 Plus and Lenovo ThinkPad Z, are attractive because they try to pack ever-faster hardware into a tiny space (whether they succeed remains to be seen).
Intel’s 12th Gen Core processors have a base power of just nine watts. However, the maximum potential thermal design power ranges from 29 watts for the U-series to 115 watts for the faster H-series processors.
For comparison, Intel’s popular 8th Gen Core Mobile processors, such as the Core i5-8250U and Core i7-8550U, had a listed maximum thermal design power of 25 watts.
This increase in power is justified by the huge jumps in the number of cores, since the 12th generation Core processors have up to 20 cores.
The trend continues in discrete charts. AMD and Nvidia have announced faster discrete graphics options for laptops, such as the AMD Radeon 6850M XT and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.
They offer the best mobile performance to date from every company, but also aim for a slightly higher maximum design power than their predecessors.
Higher power consumption can hurt portability, but it does have its upside. The push for powerful laptops means 2022 is a good time to buy if you want a reasonably priced machine with excellent multi-core processor performance and respectable discrete graphics.
The lower-end Acer Swift X, Lenovo ThinkBook Plus, and Razer Blade seem to perform well at an average price. For most people, these laptops should be fast enough to replace a gaming desktop or workstation without any noticeable downside. Well, aside from howling fans of the system.
Faster integrated graphics are a win for budget laptops
High-performance laptops were all the rage at CES 2022, but there was good news for those who want a budget laptop or something fast and light. AMD and Intel have announced new integrated graphics (IGP) options that deliver the biggest year-over-year performance boost since the launch of the first Ryzen APUs.
AMD’s Ryzen 6000 mobile APUs win by swapping the IGP for the RDNA 2 architecture found on recent AMD discrete graphics cards.
He claims that the performance has been doubled compared to the Ryzen 5000 APUs, which already delivered excellent results in games. This improvement will make most modern games playable at 1080p resolution and 30 frames per second, and many at 60 FPS.
The IGP also supports AMD’s FidelityFX super resolution, which can upscale games from a lower rendering resolution to further improve performance. With this feature enabled, AMD claims that the best Ryzen 6000 CPUs can average 59 FPS in Far Cry 6 at medium detail and 1080p resolution. That’s pretty impressive for integrated graphics.
Intel’s integrated graphics for the 12th Gen Core i7 and i5 processors resemble those of the 11th Gen Core, but the Core i3s get a significant upgrade from 48 execution units to 64 EUs.
Integrated graphics performance on 12th Gen Core i3 processors will still be far from ideal, but this improvement should make a wider range of games playable on entry-level Windows laptops around $500.
Wired and wireless connectivity is upgraded
A laptop is much more than CPU and GPU performance. Wi-Fi connectivity and performance are often just as important to your everyday experience, and big improvements are coming in 2022.
These are the best processors presented at CES 2022.
Physical connectivity is improving with the arrival of USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4. These aren’t new announcements for CES 2022 and are already available in some laptops, but they’ll be mainstream in 2022.
Intel’s 12th Gen Core mobile platform supports USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4, so these features will be common as new models are released through 2022. AMD’s Ryzen 6000 mobile does not support Thunderbolt 4, but it supports USB Four.
Mobile hardware from AMD and Intel will support Wi-Fi 6E, the latest Wi-Fi standard. Open up a new 6 GHz wireless band. I’ve tested 6E Wi-Fi routers and can attest to their speed. They make Gigabit Ethernet obsolete for most homes, as Wi-Fi 6E can reliably deliver speeds of 800 Mbps or more under real-world conditions.
Speeds were a bit questionable at the time, as laptops sold in 2021 didn’t support Wi-Fi 6E. This will change quickly throughout 2022. It’s not a must-have feature for most, but people with Gigabit access should seriously consider upgrading to Wi-Fi 6E.
It’s okay to be a little weird
The lack of advancements in thin-and-light laptop design has forced laptop makers to look for new ways to set themselves apart. Attempting to outperform the competition with a thinner and lighter system is often impractical and can even be detrimental if it requires a reduction in performance.
That means PC makers have to get creative. Dell’s radical XPS 13 Plus has an island-style keyboard and replaces the row of functions with touch-sensitive buttons. There are plenty of multi-screen laptops, like the new Lenovo ThinkBook Plus, which replaces the numeric keypad with an eight-inch touchscreen.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad Z and Dell’s XPS 13 Plus also feature haptic touchpads, a rare feature on a Windows laptop. Asus has introduced a new high-end foldable laptop aimed at creators.
Mid-range laptops are also starting to diverge. Acer’s Swift X, Lenovo’s Yoga 7i and Dell’s Inspiron 7000 series are all mid-range laptops with distinct advantages.
Acer’s Swift X features RTX graphics, Lenovo’s Yoga 7i is the only 2-in-1, and Dell’s Inspiron 7000 offers substantial connectivity with affordable high-end RAM and storage configurations. Laptops have their own style, with each company moving towards unusual materials and bright colors.
Battery life struggles to keep up and AMD makes an unrealistic claim
Most of the laptop trends at CES 2022 are positive, and even more so if you care about performance. However, if you want multi-day battery life, I don’t think the industry is heading in the right direction.
This partly brings us back to the first trend: large, fast laptops that consume a lot of power.
AMD, Intel, and Nvidia combat this with optimization. 12th Gen Intel Core processors combine the less capable, low-power E cores with the faster P cores, and attempt to minimize the use of the latter when not needed.
Nvidia emphasizes a similar approach in its GPUs, which can selectively max out the clock of certain GPU cores while leaving others unused. For its part, AMD vaguely boasted of 50 new power management features that can enable up to 24 hours of battery life.
Hold. 24 hours of autonomy? On real laptops? Well no.
AMD tested an unspecified reference laptop computer under conditions that produced AMD’s claimed result. This is a true statement. However, you cannot purchase a reference laptop from AMD, and the use case is a specific video playback test that is not representative of actual use.
The claim that laptops with Ryzen 6000 APUs can achieve 24 hours of battery life does not mean that AMD laptop buyers will see 24 hours of battery life (or anything close) in everyday use.
Intel, to its credit, didn’t participate in this farce at CES 2022. The 12th Gen Intel Core processor press kit makes no specific claims about battery life, and laptop makers have largely followed Intel’s lead.
I suspect that means the 12th Gen Core’s battery life isn’t impressive, but at least it won’t lead naïve buyers to expect multi-day endurance.
CES 2022 was a boon for laptops
Overall, CES 2022 was undeniably a boon for laptops, despite the pressure from high chip prices and Apple’s M1 MacBooks.
The laptops shown at CES are expected to offer impressive performance, a very competitive price, and unparalleled versatility. There is no doubt that PC laptops are still the best option if you want a computer for work and play.
Original article published in English on our sister site PCWorld USA.
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