Speaker 1: I'm back at CES in person this year. After two years of attending the show remotely and being back here in person, one thing has really jumped out at me and that is, this feels like a very traditional c s in one very important way. And that is, it is a show full of new laptops. It's really one of the big topics every year. There's a lot of new models, a lot of upgrades, a lot of new components that go in models. And we always get to see some very exciting laptops, tablets, hybrids. And this year is no exception.
Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Now, one of my favorite laptop lines for the last many years has been LGS Gram line. It's not the most popular, best known laptop line out there, lg better known for their TVs and other things. But the gram is really good. It's called Graham because these laptops are usually very light, also usually very thin. And we like them actually because they have very long battery life. This year's LG Gram is called the LG gram style, and it jumped out at me because it's taking a couple of bold moves in terms of design. They've got the [00:01:00] thin and light nailed. Uh, they've got the long battery life nailed. So now they're working on the style and look and design. And they have done something that I think is potentially dangerous, but they're handling it in a smart way. They've taken the traditional touch padd and they've basically gotten rid of it.
Speaker 1: It's just one big piece of glass along the front. The touch pad is there, it's a haptic touch pad, uh, but you can't see it until you put your finger down on the, uh, touch pad area and then it lights up the little border that lights up around it. And that at least gives you, uh, some visual scent of where the touch pad is because I always tell people, [00:01:30] if you mess with the placement of things like a touch pan on a laptop, uh, you're doing that in your own peril because the muscle memory is very important. I'll give you an example of where this did not work out. And that was in the Dell X PS 13 Pro from last year where they did something similar. Uh, an invisible touchpad basically, but they did not have those light up demarcations, that little border that goes around it.
Speaker 1: So you were just completely lost here on the style. Uh, they've kind of balanced both worlds here. Very sleek looking, very minimalist, but you can still see where the touchpad is. That's pretty important for people. There's [00:02:00] also another new LG gram and it's called the Ultra Slim. It's a 15 inch laptop, 11 millimeters thick. That is not the thinnest laptop ever, but it's pretty close, especially for a 15 inch one. It's uh, 2.2 pounds, also very light. And both of these, the style and the Ultra Slim have O Lead displays, which I think is another theme this year. Everyone is finally almost defaulting to O lead, which is a really great screen technology for a laptop to have. If you're looking for something that really pops out at you, almost literally. The Asus Pro Art Studio 16 is [00:02:30] really one of the laptops everybody's been talking about.
Speaker 1: Here at c s, uh, I get a chance to see it in person. It has one big thing that's trying to sell you, which is auto stereoscopic 3d. What does that mean? That means no glasses 3d. So you look at the screen, you see the 3D effect. You don't have to wear glasses now. It's not an entirely new concept. Something like the Nintendo 3D S has auto stereoscopic, uh, 3d. There were laptops including gaming laptops that tried it maybe about 10 years ago, but they never got past the first generation cuz frankly it did not work very well. [00:03:00] So the 3D effect works better now because it uses the lenticular screen and pairs that with eye tracking. So two little sensors see where your eyes are looking and it can line up the image so it looks correct, looks like in 3d. So if you look at it like this, you move your head, it follows, and that's something older auto stereoscopic 3D screens could not do.
Speaker 1: Now the thing it can't do yet is line up the image for two people at once. If I'm looking at the screen and you're over my shoulder looking at it, it's gonna look fine for me, not for you. We'll have to switch places. Uh, that's an upgrade that may come at some point soon. I think [00:03:30] that if people get used to and like these, uh, no glasses, 3D screens, they're gonna have to make the eye tracking work for multiple people. It also helps that this has an ole screen, which has a faster response time. We're is gonna help with the 3d and ASUS says that this is gonna add maybe about $500 to the cost of a laptop. They're adding it to this model and I think another one and a few other companies might have something similar. You're already paying a lot of money, so an extra $500 on top of that may not seem like too much.
Speaker 1: There are always a lot of gaming laptops at CES this year is no exception, really too many to choose a favorite from. So [00:04:00] I'm gonna choose the alien wear x 14, which stands out because Alien Wear says it is the world's thinnest 14 inch gaming laptop. There are not a lot of 14 inch gaming laptops, so that may not be that huge acclaim, but I've seen it in person. It is very thin, it is very nice. It takes alien wear's design language and evolves that they've had this, uh, very distinct look for a couple of years. And every generation they evolved a little bit. Uh, so now you've got, uh, more of a silvery look rather than the matte white that, uh, last year's versions had. Uh, the back fin has been flattened out a little bit. It makes it a little bit easier [00:04:30] to carry.
Speaker 1: And they've updated the, uh, little fins on the bottom of the system that it's sort of Reston gives you better airflow in there. Like a lot of the other new gaming laptops at cs, you're gonna be able to get the newest Intel ships in there. 13th generation stuff. Uh, the 4,000 series Nvidia GPUs, uh, new AMDs CPUs and GPUs. That's pretty much stable stakes for any new laptop here, but it's nice to see all that stuff. And something as thin and small and light as this 14 inch laptop. Now you can do a multi-colored effect, uh, on the back lip touch pad so you can have, [00:05:00] uh, you know, a rainbow factor, different colors mixed together rather than just choosing one color. Now that's not the only other new alien we are here M 16 n and M 18, that new bigger 18 inch screen size.
Speaker 1: And there's also new G Series laptops from down, which I actually like a lot. They're very inexpensive, decent components. And for this year, they've got some cool new designs. Uh, I think they've really got interesting places with the colors, which is something that can really make a budget gaming laptop stand out because otherwise they all look kind of like gray and black and generic. So if you add a splash of color to them, uh, that [00:05:30] really counts for a lot. And I really like the new G Series. It's budget gaming laptops from Dell. Now I mentioned the Alien Wear M 1818 inch, uh, gaming laptop. It's not something we've seen in a long time. It's not brand new. I remember reviewing a couple of 18 inch gaming laptops maybe back in 2012 or so. They didn't last very long. No one's made one in a long time.
Speaker 1: Now suddenly everybody has one. Uh, Alienware has one, Acer has one, Asus has one, razor has one. So the one I'm gonna pull out to highlight for you is the Acer model, the [00:06:00] Acer Predator Helios 18. It's one of this new generation of 18 inch gaming laptops. I'm pretty excited about it because I think a lot of people work at home a lot now or they do hybrid styles, so they want something that's a little bit bigger on their desk, a little more desktop rather than working off a small 13 or 14 inch laptop. And of course it doubles as a great gaming laptop. And with a big display like this, it's also great for design for office work, for video meetings, uh, a good big screen gaming laptop can really be an all-purpose computer for you. And of course this has got all the [00:06:30] latest 13 gen intel chips, the Invidia 4,000 series GPUs.
Speaker 1: I like that it has a mini l e d display option. There's some other display options, but that's the fanciest one. Uh, very power efficient. It's the new technology that is eventually gonna replace olet and TVs a couple years down the road probably. But they have it in this laptop and they also have mini l e d lights under the keyboard. Uh, so this keyboard back lights are individual per key, but very uniform, very bright and don't use a ton of extra power. If you want to get that, uh, you know, cool colorful backlit, uh, look to [00:07:00] your laptop. Now, all these new 18 inch gaming laptops, they're not inexpensive, but the Acer model starts at $1,700, which for an 18 inch gaming laptop does not sound bad to me. Now, every year Lenovo has a bunch of regular laptops, a regular updates, but they also have a bunch of kind of bold experimental, almost prototyping laptops except you can actually go up and buy them.
Speaker 1: And I really appreciate that. Uh, this year they've had some very interesting things, including a hybrid laptop that has an olad screen on one side and a color e ink display on the other side. And I love e ink. I think it's a [00:07:30] really underutilized technology. This is the one I'm gonna highlight for you here is the Lenovo Yoga book. Nine i. Now it's a yoga, so it's got that, uh, hinge that folds back 360 degrees. So you can, you know, fold it up like a tablet table tinted kioski or just hold it like a regular clamshell laptop. But the key is instead of a screen here and a keyboard here, like 99.9% of all laptops, it's a screen here and a screen here. It's two Olin displays, no keyboard. So now you can type on the screen with [00:08:00] an onscreen keyboard, but it also comes with a little mini Bluetooth keyboard that sits right on top of one of the screens and connects automatically.
Speaker 1: And you can type on it. And when it sits on there, it senses you have it there and gives you a little virtual touchpad right below it on that bottom screen. So you get your keyboard, you got your touchpad, you can actually move the touchpad around to different places or you can, uh, just take the two screens and stand them up and put the Bluetooth keyboard in front of it and use it almost like a mini two screen all in one. This, this gonna be a practical laptop for everybody. I don't think so, but I think that [00:08:30] taking the two screen idea and finding a way to make it actually work for people is very interesting. And of course, I love one ole screen, so I'm gonna love two ole screens even more. So what we've seen at CES 2023 is a lot of laptops that are small incremental upgrades to things that already exist.
Speaker 1: Sure. But also a lot of pre bold experiments. Things like, uh, taking two screens and no keyboard and putting that into a laptop. Uh, something like adding a color e ink display to a, a laptop, uh, taking a laptop and bumping it up to a gigantic 18 inch display, the type of which we have not seen in [00:09:00] many years. Uh, going back and experimenting with auto stereoscopic 3D again, which has been a dead end before, but might actually have its time in the sun right now. Uh, so I'm very excited to see how all of these interesting bold experiments to play out and whether these laptops that we think are the best ones at ces, we're gonna come back and say at the end of 2023 that they were some of the best laptops of the year. And of course, you can read more about each of these laptops and our hands on impressions of them. You're gonna find some of those links down below.
