At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Impressive battery life Colorful OLED panel Strong performance (with the right settings) Great connectivity Sleek, lightweight design Cons Display could be brighter, faster, and sharper Keyboard feel is inConsistent Battery takes a hit in practical use Our Verdict The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ has a solid formula. It’s fast, efficient, built well, lightweight, and not exceedingly expensive. There are a few areas it could have improved, but the bargain it strikes is a good one that lets it prove a great value. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ is one of the first few laptops in the new slate of machines running on refreshed Intel hardware, bringing some exciting bumps to graphical performance and efficiency. It also gets fitted into a new design that’s sleek, slim, and a step away from the gamer aesthetic that many prior MSI machines exhibited. In our testing, the hardware held up well and the internals held up even better. With that, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ proves a potent option for those looking for sleek performance and excellent longevity, though a few weaker aspects ultimately leave me more excited for updated models from different brands. MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Specs and features CPU: Intel Core Ultra X7 358H Memory: 32GB LPDDR5x-8533 Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc B390 Display: 14-inch 1920×1200 OLED touchscreen, 60Hz, Glossy, Stylus included Storage: 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD – Micron 2500_MTFDKBA1T0QGN Webcam: 1080p + IR Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C with Power Delivery and DisplayPort Alternate Mode, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm combo audio Networking: WiFi 7, Bluetooth 6.0 Biometrics: Windows Hello fingerprint, facial recognition Battery capacity: 78.6 watt-hours Dimensions: 12.42 x 8.74 x 0.55 inches Weight: 3.02 pounds MSRP: $1299 as-tested ($1,299 base) At the time of writing, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ was offered in just one configuration. This included the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H paired with 32GB of memory and Intel Arc B390 graphics. That said, MSI’s product details alluded to both Intel Core Ultra X9 configurations and lower-end configurations that would not include Arc graphics. So, it’s likely more models will join the stack, adding more powerful and more affordable options.  Playing offline video with the display set to 250 nits, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ ran for an astounding 34 hours and 28 minutes — blowing everything else we’ve tested out of the water. MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Design and build quality Foundry / Mark Knapp The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ is a sleekly built 2-in-1 laptop. It doesn’t do too much to be flashy or stand out, but it has curb appeal. The aluminum alloy chassis is consistent with its rounded edges and corners, which give it a comfortable feel even when in its tablet mode.  The hinges are the simple 360-degree style we see on most 2-in-1 models, not something more lavish or unique. They’re functional, but they do let the screen wiggle a bit after making adjustments. It can also be a little tricky to open the lid with just one hand.  Even though you’re getting an all-metal construction for the chassis, it does flex a little bit. It’s more than I’d expect, but not a worrying amount. On the flip side, the display lid flexes less than a lot of other laptops. Altogether it’s a fair showing for a laptop this thin. The screen gets a Gorilla Glass finish that extends all the way to the edges rather than swapping over to plastic for the bezels. Those bezels are thin on the sides but thicker at the top and thickest at the bottom — pretty typical for 2-in-1s. The upper bezel squeezes in a webcam with a physical privacy shutter that’s easy (but not too easy) to slide into place and two mics. MSI actually built in a third mic on the keyboard deck just to the left of the Caps Lock key.  Underneath, the laptop sits on rubber feet with one wide foot stretching across the back, which helps prevent reintake of the hot air exhausted out of the back edge of the system. Foundry / Mark Knapp Between the two front feet, there’s a charging slot for the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+’s included stylus. The stylus fully tucks away into this slot. It pops out using magnetism when a small latch is pulled out of the way. Unfortunately, this system makes it very fussy to get back into place. The magnets want to push it right back out and rotate it so that the charging pins don’t line up right, and it’s a very fine line between fully inserted and not quite inserted enough to avoid having the laptop pop it right back out.  The stylus is a very thin, akin to the kind you’d find for phones. It tracks accurately and makes for a more precise input than the trackpad or fingers for jotting notes or doodling. But it’s not a high-performance stylus with pressure or tilt sensitivity. At least it triggers hand rejection after it’s been used (but not before).  MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Keyboard, trackpad Foundry / Mark Knapp The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ features a decent keyboard that some may like. The keys have a short travel that can make for quick, light-touch typing. The stabilization is also pretty good. But they lack much tactility, and the keycaps are quite smooth and don’t have much contour, which I found held me back as I had a hard time confidently feeling each key and keypress. I was able to get up to a typing speed of 112 words per minute in Monketype, but struggled to keep my accuracy up above 95 percent. The keys get white backlighting, and thankfully MSI kept the keycaps black and legends white, which helps with visibility, though it can be a little hard to tell the backlighting is on (and wasting battery) in bright conditions.  The trackpad is large and fairly smooth, but it’s otherwise unremarkable. The physical click is light, plasticky, and quickly becomes too stiff above the bottom third of the trackpad. The top corners of the trackpad include shortcuts to the calculator and the MSI Center S software, which is fine, I suppose, but MSI Center S has a second shortcut on the F7 key. The trackpad also supports several other gestures and users can set up three additional gestures. But, crucially, MSI has locked the defaults — no customizing those — and made the whole system all-or-nothing, forcing you to either enable all of its gestures or disable all of them.  MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Software note The system comes with Norton pre-installed, which normally I would say isn’t too big a deal. I don’t care for it personally, but a freebie is a freebie. However, in this case, Norton created issues. I found many webpages failing to load frequently with no clear reason why. I’d go to Amazon, LinkedIn, or Facebook — common websites — and the loading wheel would just spin and spin even as I ran a speed test in a different tab that showed a fast connection. After having had enough, I tried uninstalling Norton and as soon as it finished, those pages finished loading. Norton also appears to have been responsible for another annoying behavior where instead of going to sleep when the lid was shut, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ would simply power down. It was plenty fast to boot back up, but this still closed all my browser tabs. As soon as I uninstalled Norton, this behavior went away.  It’s all the more curious that any of this happened in the first place, as I had at least disabled Norton from the start.  MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Display, audio Foundry / Mark Knapp The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+’s display is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it has some lovely qualities. It achieves 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and it even proved quite accurate with a measured average dE1976 of 0.57 and a max of 1.41. Those are great results. As an OLED panel, it’s also naturally responsive and has an infinite contrast ratio.  But the display is just 1920×1200, which is decent but not super sharp next to the glut of 2880×1800 competitors in this space. The display is also not impressively bright. It maxed out a surprisingly low 294 nits. In an office space or dimmer interiors, it’s not an issue, but that combined with the glossy display makes it harder to use effectively in bright spaces even with the screen dialed up to its max brightness. There’s a definite downside to the support for touch and the stylus: You can see the digitizing layer. On areas of the screen that are one solid color like the white background or a word document, the little dots that comprise the digitizing layer are readily visible, looking like tiny little speckles on the screen. It’s subtle and hides away better on darker and non-uniform backgrounds, but it gives a softness to visuals that impacts fine details. It may not irk everyone, and it naturally becomes more subtle the further away you view the screen, but I still find it hurts the overall experience even at reasonable viewing distances.  The laptop combines a pair of two-watt woofers and a pair of two-watt tweeters, which give it a pleasant sound without being too harsh in the mids or lacking fullness. The bass is still mild at best, and you’ll miss out on plenty of impact if you’re listening to music or watching movies. But you’re still getting loud, crisp speakers that more than do the job. MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The webcam on the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ supports Windows Hello facial recognition, which is a quick and convenient way to sign into the system. Beyond that, it’s kind of bad. Even with a 1080p resolution for video, it looks grainy and like everything it captures is smeared in grease, erasing any sort of fine detail. It gets its exposure right, but seeing such poor results even in good lighting conditions is a disappointment. Thankfully, the triple mic array performs far more admirably. It picks up my voice quite well, providing a clear reproduction of what I say while also suppressing background noise decently. An ambulance siren and a fan (that started squealing due to some fault) during my test recording were both audible in my test, but the siren was hushed and the squealing fan didn’t stop the mics from picking up my voice clearly.  In addition to facial recognition, the laptop includes a fingerprint scanner in the power button, which sits near the top-right corner of the keyboard. The scanner unlocked the laptop quickly after registering my fingerprint, which it did successfully about 50 percent of the time — a pretty good result in my experience using laptop fingerprint scanners. MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Connectivity Foundry / Mark Knapp Other thin-and-light laptops have been warned: there’s no excuse for skimping on connectivity. Even with the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ measuring just over a half-inch thick, it squeezes in a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, a pair of USB-A 10Gbps ports, a headset jack, and an HDMI 2.1 port. The fact that it even found space to house its skinny little stylus and charge it is icing on the cake. Any small laptop rocking fewer ports looks stingy in comparison. An SD or microSD card slot could have been a good bonus, but the USB ports are good enough for peripheral readers and hubs.  The system goes heavy on wireless connectivity, too, with Intel Killer Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 connections. Both have worked consistently in my testing, providing fast and reliable wireless connections.  MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Performance The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ has abundant performance thanks to its new Panther Lake chip, which combines both a very capable CPU and an integrated GPU that goes well beyond what we’re used to seeing. Though, to be upfront, the default power plan for the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ doesn’t let the system put its best foot forward. With ample memory and fast storage, it’s little surprise to see the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ score high marks in PCMark 10’s holistic benchmark, which examines how well a computer can perform routine office tasks like browsing, web-conferencing, spreadsheets, and media editing. The system gets a strong boost in the photo editing sub-test thanks to its graphics performance.  The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ gets well ahead of recent thin-and-light champs like the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI and the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition, showing some of the benefit of having newer hardware. But we can also see that the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ isn’t always going to lead the way. By default, the system comes in a balanced power profile, and that conservative setup can be enough to hold it back.  Running our Handbrake test, which tasks the system with a hefty encoding task that slams the CPU long and hard, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ fell well behind the pack. It took almost twice as long as the Dell XPS 14 running the same CPU and lagged behind even a last-gen CPU in the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition. Perhaps the only reason it beat the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI is because that system, too, ran in a balanced power profile by default. You might assume the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ has weak cooling that throttles it during long tests, but that’s not quite it. Instead Handbrake helps demonstrate what a crucial difference simple power settings can make.  Managing power use is good for battery life, but it’s worth knowing just how much power the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ is willing to sacrifice. So I repeated a few of the tests in a performance power profile and the difference was stark. The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ actually has plenty of speed to offer and a decent cooling setup that combines a vapor chamber and two cooling fans that work quite well without getting too loud. While its balanced profile again showed so-so results in Cinebench, narrowly beating some last-gen Intel-powered systems, the performance profile was enough to turn it into a leader. It managed a single-core performance bump of 7 percent in Cinebench R23 and 5 percent in R24, and a multi-core performance bump of 19 percent in Cinebench R23 and 49.5 percent in Cinebench R24. Not only did the system prove willing to boost its performance, but it also sustained longer tasks better rather than quickly throttling under a load.  This performance held true for the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+’s graphics as well. Even in its balanced mode, the new Intel Arc B390 graphics were enough to give it an edge over earlier Intel Arc 140V systems, but it still lagged well behind the Dell XPS 14 running in performance mode. But as soon as the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ toggled over to performance mode, it leapt ahead. Its performance even puts it in league with some systems running discrete GPUs like the RTX 4050 or RTX 3060, though it tended to fall a little short of those, especially in thicker, higher-wattage systems.  The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ proved capable of some heavier gaming as well. It hit an average of 68fps (49fps in Balanced mode) in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p and the Highest graphics preset. And it held a steady 30-40fps in Helldivers 2 at Native 1920×1200 (no DLSS/XeSS/FSR) and Medium graphics settings. Even while running hard, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ doesn’t get too hot or loud. The fans can be a little shrill, but not horrible.  MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Battery life The flip side of the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+’s conservative Balanced power profile is that it can chug along like no laptop I’ve ever seen. We’ve seen laptops leap up in battery life over the last couple years, doggedly trying to catch up to Apple’s first-party silicon, and there have been some huge successes (Lenovo’s ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 breaking records when we first tested it). And the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition dazzled with plenty of performance, a gorgeous design and display, and nearly 24 hours of runtime in our standard battery test. Even then, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ puts it to shame.  Playing offline video with the display set to 250 nits, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ ran for an astounding 34:28 (a result so staggering I almost wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t already seen the laptop muster 29:45 in the same test when I had started it from 93 percent charge because it was refusing to charge to 100 percent for an unknown reason). This not only blows everything we’ve tested before out of the water but it also trounces the Dell XPS 14 running on the same chip and an only slightly smaller battery. The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ had still more to offer. Running PCMark 10’s built-in battery benchmark, still at 250 nits and this time with Wi-Fi still on to better simulate real-world use, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ lasted 18:14. That saw it run nearly as long as the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI managed in its offline video playback test. All that said, actual battery life can still vary quite a bit. In my regular use, which involves a good few Google Docs and Sheets open in a tab-heavy Chrome browser with side-by-side windows and frequent video or music playback, the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ was on pace for nine to 10 hours of runtime. It’s very respectable, but still shows that scenario and usage play a huge role.  MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+: Conclusion The MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ has a lot going for it. It’s a nicely built machine and is surprisingly light for all it packs inside. It’s all the more impressive to see the levels of performance it can eke out thanks to Intel’s latest hardware, especially with its graphics solution. To pair all that with battery life that tops the charts in our testing simply makes it an astounding thin-and-light option. It would have been a lot more exciting if it were paired with a sharper, faster, and brighter display. And even with its excellent efficiency, battery life in actual use falls back to earthly lengths. Ultimately, that prevents it from being a truly brilliant machine, but it has enough going for it to be otherwise great. Read...

TL:DR: Sometimes a faster computer is just an OS upgrade away — get Windows 11 Pro for $12.97 (MSRP $199). When a computer starts feeling slow, most people assume the hardware is done for. But a surprising number of performance issues come from outdated software — cluttered menus, inefficient multitasking, and security processes working harder than they need to. That’s where an operating system refresh helps. And right now, Windows 11 Pro is $12.97 (MSRP $199), and installing it can feel less like an upgrade and more like clearing years of clutter from your screen. The interface is cleaner, windows snap into organized layouts, and virtual desktops make separating work and personal apps much easier. Security is also built deeper into the system. Features like TPM-based protection, BitLocker encryption, and Smart App Control run in the background rather than relying on extra utilities. Then there are the practical improvements: faster wake-from-sleep, improved search, better external monitor handling, and built-in Copilot assistance for quick actions and summaries. None of this turns a decade-old machine into a gaming monster — but it often makes everyday use smoother, with browsing, documents, video calls, and multitasking feel less cluttered and more predictable. Don’t miss grabbing Windows 11 Pro for just $12.97 (MSRP $199). Microsoft Windows 11 ProSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

With the new Firefox 148 browser update for Windows, macOS, and Linux, Mozilla is introducing a number of new features and improvements. For example, the backup feature is now available to more users, and you can disable all AI features with a single click. The developers have also fixed a large number of security vulnerabilities. Mozilla plans to release Firefox 149 in four weeks on March 24th. What’s new in Firefox 148? Probably the most important new feature is the AI Settings section of the browser settings. Here, you can disable all “AI”-based functions, then manually re-enable the ones you do want. For example, you might want to keep the translation function, which works locally and not in the cloud. You can also select which AI chatbot you want to use in the dedicated sidebar (unless you, of course, disable everything). Windows 10 users who have Firefox set to delete browser data upon exit can now also use the data backup feature. Data that’s set to be deleted won’t be backed up. This feature is under Synchronization settings. Security fixes in Firefox 148 Mozilla lists over 50 vulnerabilities that have been fixed in its 2026-13 Security Advisory for Firefox 148. Mozilla classifies more than half of the externally reported security vulnerabilities as high risk. Five of these relate to ways of breaking out of the browser sandbox, and eight use-after-free vulnerabilities have been plugged in the JavaScript components. Many of the vulnerabilities could be exploited to inject and execute code on a system. None of these security vulnerability are knowingly being attacked in the wild. The last three entries in the Security Advisory list an unspecified number of internally discovered vulnerabilities, which are summarized under CVE numbers CVE-2026-2807, CVE-2026-2792, and CVE-2026-2793. These problematic memory access errors are also considered high risk, and some of them even affect Firefox ESR and Thunderbird. Firefox ESR and Thunderbird In addition to Firefox 148, Mozilla has also released Firefox ESR versions 140.8.0 and 115.33.0, although the latter is only available for Windows 7/8.1 and macOS 10.12 to 10.14. In the ESR versions, Mozilla has fixed the aforementioned vulnerabilities that are present in the partly-well-established code of these older browser generations. In Firefox ESR 140.8, there are 37 fixed vulnerabilities; in Firefox ESR 115.33, there are 21. Note that Firefox ESR 115.33 is the last release of its branch, to be discontinued this month. Thunderbird 148.0 and 140.8.0esr have also been released. In these versions, the developers have also fixed dozens of security vulnerabilities inherited from Firefox. Read...

Linux gaming is kind of having a moment. Granted, that’s almost entirely on the back of Valve’s Steam Deck, and the Linux hippies probably don’t love having to thank a billionaire for their platform gains. But with the Steam Machine on the horizon (hopefully), even Nvidia is taking notice, according to a couple of new job listings. Nvidia’s job postings now include a “Linux Graphics Senior Software Engineer” and a “Senior System Software Engineer, Vulkan Performance.” The former is self-explanatory; the latter is all about the Vulkan graphics API, a cross-platform alternative to DirectX. And perhaps more pertinently, it’s a core component of Proton, the Valve software that makes it super easy and barely an inconvenience to run Windows games on the Linux-based SteamOS that powers the Steam Deck. While it’s not perfect, notably missing out on core features (some would say “drawbacks”) of some anti-cheat software for online multiplayer, Proton is reliable enough that it makes even brand-new games playable on the Steam Deck and Linux. So it’s not surprising that Nvidia is looking into it, even though most of the relevant hardware is running on AMD graphics (an integrated APU for the Steam Deck and most handheld gaming PCs, and a discrete Radeon card for the Steam Machine). The job listing for Vulkan specifically calls out “Diagnosing GPU and CPU performance bottlenecks in Vulkan and Proton titles” as well as “Implementing driver performance improvements,” as noted by VideoCardz.com. That sure sounds like Nvidia is trying to buck its reputation for poor driver support on Linux, specifically for gaming. Nvidia might be keeping an eye open to the expansion of SteamOS and other Windows alternatives among gamers, too. Read...

If you’re in the market for a proper gaming-capable OLED monitor, then you’re going to love this deal. Right now, Amazon is selling LG’s fantastic 27-inch 1440p OLED stunner with a 41% discount, dropping its price down from $799.99 to just $499.96. That’s a heck of a sale for an awesome set of specs that’ll level up your gaming sessions. Okay, I know $500 is a lot to spend on a monitor even if it’s on sale, doubly so for a monitor that’s “only” 27 inches. But we’re talking about OLED here, the most in-demand display tech as of this writing—and not just OLED, but at the “sweet spot” resolution of 2560×1440 with a super-fast 240Hz refresh rate and a near-instantaneous 0.03ms response time. That’s more than great for any enthusiast gamer. Tack on these other features and you have a real winner in LG’s UltraGear 27GX704A-B: VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400, peak brightness of 1,300 nits, Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, and connectivity via dual HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 1.4. (The lack of USB-C video means this display isn’t great for laptops.) A 27-inch 1440p 240Hz OLED monitor from a brand like LG is going to cost you big—unless you score a hefty discount like this one. Get it for just $499.96 while you still can! Or if you’re looking for something even more affordable, see our picks for the best gaming monitors. Save $300 on LG`s 27-inch 1440p 240Hz OLED gaming monitorBuy now at Amazon Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Bright, low-glare display Lightweight design Great webcam Good port selection Cons Underwhelming performance Lack of Arc graphics is a huge loss Battery could last longer Our Verdict The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 is a capable partner for work, but it’s no powerhouse nor does it blow us away with its battery life. For the money, there are more capable machines out there. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 Retailer Price $1,504.31 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 joins Lenovo’s ThinkPad lineup as a more affordable entryway into the family compared to its premium X1 line. Touting a $1,244 starting price, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 is certainly on the cheaper side for ThinkPads, and it has plenty going for it. It carries the signature looks of the family, decent components, and a quality build. But it lags behind the pack-leaders in quite a few ways, and price isn’t one of them. With great options like the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI out there and new Panther Lake-powered systems like the MSI Prestige Flip 14 AI+ landing, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 has its work cut out for it.  Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6: Specs and features CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 255U Memory: 16GB LPDDR5x-8400 Graphics/GPU: Intel Graphics Display: 13.3-inch 1920×1200 IPS touchscreen, anti-glare Storage: 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD – UMIS RPETJ1T24MMW1QDQ Webcam: 5MP + IR Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 with Power Delivery and DisplayPort Alternate Mode 2.1, 1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI 2.1 (max 4K/60), 1x 3.5mm combo audio Networking: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 Biometrics: Windows Hello fingerprint, facial recognition Battery capacity: 54.7 watt-hours Dimensions: 11.78 x 8.15 x 0.7 inches Weight: 2.3 pounds MSRP: $1,869 as-tested ($1,244 base) The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 has a $1,244 starting price, at least by Lenovo’s “Est Value” system, which leaves firm retail prices in the ether and attempts to make whatever price is listed look like a deal against that “Est Value.” At the time of writing, the base model was on sale for $1,094. This includes an Intel Core Ultra 5 225U with 16GB of LPDDR5x-8533 memory, 256GB of storage, Windows 11 Home, and a 41Wh battery. On lower cost configurations like this, fingerprint scanning and Windows Hello IR sensors are optional extras, as is touchscreen capability. Our test unit sits at the top of the stack with a $1,869 “Est Value” (going for $1,569 at the time of writing). It upgrades to an Intel Core Ultra 7 255U, 1TB of storage, a 54.7Wh battery, and includes a touchscreen, fingerprint scanner, Windows Hello-capable webcam, and Windows 11 Pro. For what it’s worth, these systems aren’t even being branded as Copilot+ PCs. Lenovo supports custom configurations as well, though options are limited, letting you select from just two options for the CPU, storage, display, webcam, and battery. The configurator does allow choosing between a magnesium and stamped aluminum keyboard cover, with the latter enabling a $180 5G model to come inside the system. Keyboard backlighting also becomes a $20 option in the configurator rather than coming standard. Interestingly, the custom configuration options top out at an Intel Core Ultra 7 265U and don’t include the Core Ultra 7 255U in our test configuration. That Core Ultra 7 265U upgrade also appears to be the only way to get 32GB of memory and Wi-Fi 7, which are both automatically added to the configuration when selecting that CPU. The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 is a good machine for modest office needs. Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6: Design and build quality Foundry / Mark Knapp One look at this new X13, and it’s unmistakably a ThinkPad. While some of the angles might be changed and the weight and dimensions of different elements change, the core design is the same as so many other models. It’s a stealth black affair with a matte finish on the hardware. In all cases, you’ll find a chassis with Lenovo’s carbon fiber-reinforced polymer display lid and either a magnesium or aluminum base depending on the configuration of the system.  Lenovo’s design doesn’t tend toward being the thinnest out there, and so the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 sits at about 0.7 inches at its thickest. It’s still compact at 11.78 inches wide and 8.15 inches deep. And it sits at a very modest 2.3 pounds. Lenovo ships a compact, USB-C charger with the laptop that keeps up the portability.  The system makes efficient use of space. Everything is packed in pretty light. On the base, there’s no more than a half-inch gap between anything — the keyboard and speakers, the keyboard and trackpad, the keyboard and display hinge, for example. The base features tall grilles at either side of the keyboard, though only a small portion of this grille is actually backed by speakers. On the bright side, they’re up-firing speakers.  The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 sits on two small rubber feet at its front and one wide foot at the rear. That rear foot helps avoid letting hot exhaust from the rear vent circulate back into the intake fan on the bottom. That intake fan is nicely protected with a solid grille and fine mesh, which should do a good job keeping out dust. Lenovo has made the insides of the laptop accessible with just four screws on the base. That’s nice to see, though it would mean more if there was more upgradeability. At least it progresses repairability.  The build feels fairly sturdy, particularly the base. The display has some flex, but not an excessive amount. The hinge lets the screen wiggle for a couple of seconds after adjustments, but then holds it firmly in place — no wiggle while typing.  Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6: Keyboard, trackpad Foundry / Mark Knapp Like most of its siblings, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 has an excellent keyboard. The keys are firm with solid stabilization, offering a consistent typing feel that let me comfortably hit a 110-word-per-minute typing speed with 98 percent accuracy in Monkeytype even before spending much time getting comfortable with the keyboard. The trackpoint at the middle of the keyboard could be a distraction for some typists. The keyboard features small, offset arrow keys that could be easier to navigate with, but they also have small Page Up and Page Down keys crammed in with them, and I find the small size of these keys makes all of them simply harder to use. Lenovo’s function row at the top of the keyboard is a nice touch, as it has grouped sets of four keys, making it easy to feel out the ones you want. It also provides dedicated Home, End, and Delete keys in the top right corner. The whole keyboard gets white backlighting that effectively illuminates the legends. The keyboard is also spill-resistant, so you don’t have to worry about a few drips of water getting in.  The trackpad is modestly wide and has a smooth mylar surface that’s a joy to swipe around on. It doesn’t get a lot of vertical space because the top section goes to dedicated left, middle, and right click controls. These can be useful alongside the trackpad but also work with the trackpoint. The trackpoint nib takes some finesse to use. It is quite sensitive to very small variances in touch, but it’s not too hard to get the hang of. Rather than acting as a click, double-tapping the nib instead opens up a special menu that curiously has nothing to do with pointing device settings. Instead it has audio and battery settings and a shortcut to voice typing. The voice typing is nothing special from Lenovo but rather just Microsoft’s built-in dictation tool, which proves fairly accurate albeit while omitting any punctuation.  Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6: Display, audio Foundry / Mark Knapp The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 has the right hardware to get work done and see what you need to, but it’s not an entertainment powerhouse. The 13.3-inch display is reasonably sharp with a 1920×1200 resolution. And its anti-glare coating helps keep visuals clear even in sub-par lighting conditions, though it doesn’t strike me as impressive as the Corning Gorilla Matte Pro I recently tested.  It’s nice to see the display hitting 99 percent coverage of the sRGB color space, especially as plenty of Lenovo laptops are content to hit much less. The screen is also plenty bright with a 430.3-nit peak brightness in testing. Even the contrast is strong at 1620:1 at full brightness, which is good for an IPS panel though no match for OLED. The screen misses out on full DCI-P3 gamut and the smooth visuals of higher refresh rates. It’s also not one of the especially low-power models I saw on the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, which rocked our battery testing results.  The sound is also so-so. The system has 2x2W speakers that are heavily mids-focused. This makes them good for speech, but leaves them sounding a little harsh for music. And they won’t do much for movies or TV. There are worse laptop speakers, but these are far from exceptional.  Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 includes a sharp 5MP webcam that looks solid in use. It captures pretty crisp detail for a laptop webcam. Even in unideal lighting conditions, it does an excellent job providing natural exposure. It can get grainy and soft in darker settings. The webcam also has a very sticky privacy shutter that slides over the sensor. It’s made harder to shift back and forth by the lack of a prominent lip to get a good grip on. If you have very short fingernails, it could prove very difficult to use.  The mic setup on the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 works great. It uses a pair of far field mics and Dolby processing to good effect, though it doesn’t pull off magic. Mostly, it just captures my voice well without noticeably lossy compression even while running background noise suppression. That said, the Dolby Voice tool is meant to have the option to capture voices all around the laptop or just from in front of the laptop, and in either setting, I found that the laptop still captured my voice clearly from either side though always sounded different when capturing from behind.  The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 misses out on Windows Hello facial recognition but includes a small fingerprint scanner beside the keyboard. This sensor is small and slightly recessed, which can make it hard to press consistently while training it on your fingerprint. And I found it worked inconsistently, sometimes quickly unlocking after recognizing my fingerprint and other times failing multiple times in a row and prompting me to use my password instead. Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6: Connectivity Foundry / Mark Knapp The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 brings decent connectivity, especially for a laptop of its size, but it’s not leading the way. You’ll find a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left, either of which can handle the system’s charging, alongside a full-size HDMI 2.1 port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The right side includes a 5Gbps USB-A port and a Kengsington Nano lock slot. It feels like there’s still room for a second USB-A port on the right or a microSD card reader, or maybe even both, but Lenovo didn’t include either.  Wireless connectivity lags behind a little, too. Though some configurations of the system can get more advanced Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, our test configuration sticks with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. It’s no slouch, hitting high speeds on a fiber-fed Wi-Fi network, but Wi-Fi 7 provides some promising advancements that this system will miss. Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6: Performance With a lower-power Intel chip and just 16GB of memory, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 isn’t positioned to be a performance powerhouse even among thin-and-light laptops. But that’s not to say it’s weak. It has enough horsepower to keep up with everyday office demands, and that shows in PCMark 10, which tests a system’s holistic potential in office scenarios.  In PCMark 10, we see it readily keep up with competing laptops in the video conferencing, web browsing, spreadsheet, and writing subtests. However, with its weaker integrated graphics, it does fall behind in digital content creation, and that’s enough to see it fall behind the pack.  Between its low-power processor and compact design, it’s little surprise to see the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 perform rather poorly in our Handbrake test. This tasks the laptop with encoding a large video file. Slower processors take a long time, and as they heat up under the stress of the task, they can wind up slowing down even further. This is what happened to the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6, which took almost 34 minutes to complete the test. The Acer Swift Edge 14 AI was nearly as slow with its higher-tier processor, but that was likely because it defaults to operating in a balanced power mode while the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 opts for a performance power plan when plugged in.  Another big reason the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 took so long to complete the Handbrake test is its raw CPU performance. We can see in Cinebench that it’s not a powerhouse. It leads the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI again thanks to its higher-performance power plan, but that’s a gap Acer could likely make up with a couple clicks in the settings menu. It also gets an edge on the Acer TravelMate X4 14 AI, which runs an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V and has four fewer cores. But next to the HP Omnibook X Flip 14 and Asus Vivobook S 14, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 comes across as pretty weak, and none of these systems push the high end of mobile CPU performance. Thankfully, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 remains fairly hushed while operating even when under a heavy load.  The biggest blow to the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6’s capabilities is its integrated graphics. While plenty of Intel Core Ultra processors have been bestowed with Intel Arc graphics that impress with their capabilities, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 gets simple Intel Graphics. It’s enough to stay toe-to-toe with the HP Omnibook X Flip 14’s Radeon 890M integrated graphics. But the rest of the systems here show just what a difference Intel Arc graphics can make in 3D performance.  Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6: Battery life All of the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6’s performance shortcomings might have been offset somewhat if it mustered exceptional battery life, but it didn’t. Part of the issue is the laptop’s small 55Wh battery. Plenty of other thin-and-light systems are finding ways to squeeze larger batteries in. The Acer Swift Edge 14 AI squeezed in a 65Wh battery and even weighs less than the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6. Meanwhile, the Asus Vivobook S 14 added about a half-pound but squeezed in a 75Wh battery.  In our video playback test, the small battery and modest efficiency saw the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 only run for a little over 16 and a half hours. It’s a fair bit better than we’ve seen from recent AMD-powered systems, but pales in comparison to the 20+ hours that the Acer TravelMate X4 14 AI and Asus Vivobook S 14 managed. Considering that both of those laptops also tend to perform better and cost less, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 winds up in a tough spot. Never mind how far the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 falls behind the 24+ hours of the Snapdragon-powered ThinkPad T14s Gen 6. In practical use, the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 doesn’t do too bad, though. Browsing the web, watching videos, and drafting documents with plenty of Chrome tabs open saw the system last for about nine hours, showing it has what it takes to make it through a modest workday. Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6: Conclusion The Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 is a good machine for modest office needs. It doesn’t offer high-performance for a laptop in its class, nor does it provide staggering battery life. Instead, it focused on being a simple, utility machine. Its display is plenty bright and doesn’t struggle with glare. Its webcam looks great and its mics pick up well, so you’ll shine in video chats. It also feels like a well-built machine with a pleasing keyboard and trackpad. If video call quality isn’t a huge priority, I’d point most folks to the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI instead, which otherwise leads the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 6 in most areas and even costs less. Read...

Lord Mandelson features on a number of front pages on Wednesday, following his arrest and subsequent release earlier this week. Read...

You may know the story by now: A Meta exec asked the viral OpenClaw AI tool to triage her inbox and suggest messages to delete, then watched in horror as the agent went rogue and nuked more than 200 emails, her frantic “STOP OPENCLAW” prompt lost amid the bot’s massive undertaking. The twist? The exec was Meta’s lead AI safety officer, Summer Yue. Yue’s email apocalypse has highlighted a way we can prevent similar agentic AI horror stories. Yes, Yue unwittingly made herself a guinea pig for OpenClaw and its runaway automations–and indeed, pretty much anyone using OpenClaw right now is a guinea pig.  But Yue’s email apocalypse also highlighted a way we can prevent similar agentic AI horror stories, and it’s a method that most coders–and even plenty of vibers–are already familiar with.  It goes by different names; I’ve heard it called “agent git flow” and “agentic feature branching,” for example. But mostly, it’s about applying the methodology of “git”–the command-line utility that’s essential for tracking changes in code–to AI agents. The best part of this solution? It lets us have our cake (the cake being the ultra-cool things AI agents can do) and eat it, too. Chicken, fish, and OpenClaws  First, a thought experiment. Pretend you’re at a restaurant, and there are two items on the menu: chicken or fish. The chicken sure sounds good, but the fish–salmon! Tough choice. Imagine, instead of risking a costly mistake by choosing the chicken over the fish (what if the chicken is spoiled!), you could create a “branch” of your immediate future–a temporary copy of your timeline that lets you test a choice before permanently making it. So, you go ahead and create (or “check out”) a new branch of your “main” lifeline–we’ll call it the “chicken branch”–and you then order and taste the chicken. Eww! It’s gross. No problem; we discard the chicken branch, go back to the “main” branch, and check out a new, second branch–the “fish” branch. Now we taste the salmon–delicious! We like this fish branch, so now we merge it with our “main” life branch, and commence with a meal that’s guaranteed to be yummy. In the code-tracking world of git, we call this functionality (which I’ve described only crudely) feature branching, and it’s an ingenious, battle-tested way to test big changes and new features in our code before committing them to our main project.  A feature branch in git is really just a copy of the “main” branch. We check it out like a book from the library, make all the changes we want, test it, find bugs, make more changes, and so on. All the while, the “main” branch of our project is safe and untouched.  Only after we’ve subjected our feature branch to a battery of tests–some automated, some performed by the human user–and determined that it’s in tip-top shape do we even think of merging our “feature” branch with the main branch. And if we don’t like how the feature branch is going, we can discard it–no harm, no foul. My point? This code-branching methodology can work with AI agents, too. (And no, I’m not the first person to consider with this idea.) How this could have gone better Let’s go back to Summer Yue and try our “branching” scenario on for size. This time, Yue sits down with OpenClaw and prompts it with, “Go through my inbox and suggest deletions.” (Her other prompt in the real-world story–”wait for approval”–was likely dropped from OpenClaw’s context window due to the sheer number of email messages it was wading through.) More–and potentially scarier–versions of Summer Yue’s terrible horrible, no good, very bad email day will happen again if we don’t give this idea a fair shake. Now, instead of OpenClaw diving into the live inbox, it creates a branch–call it the “triage” branch–that allows it to simulate the results of sifting, organizing, and culling her inbox, all in a sandboxed environment and all without touching her actual email messages.  OpenClaw does its thing, maybe gets carried away, and starts deleting messages willy-nilly. If that happened, Yue could simply look at the triage branch, decide she’s not happy with the results, and then either discard the branch or keep working with it, testing different iterations of the OpenClaw prompt or adding markdown-formatted “scaffolding” documents that govern OpenClaw’s actions from the word go. In the meantime, her real inbox is safe and sound. Now, will such “feature branching” work for every AI agent scenario? Probably not. It’s easy to put branched computer code into a sandbox and safety test any number of actions and outcomes. But just as you can’t actually sandbox the chicken-versus-fish choice, there are plenty of real-world agentic AI actions and roles (like, say, HR-focused AI agents) that can’t easily be simulated.  That said, more–and potentially scarier–versions of Summer Yue’s terrible horrible, no good, very bad email day will happen again if we don’t give this “agentic feature branching” idea a fair shake. Read...

Your laptop has a webcam, but is it any good? It might get the job done, but you deserve a much better webcam that’ll show you in the best possible light in all your Zoom meetings, video calls, online streams, and whatever else you use it for. Get a great one with a 41% discount with this Amazon sale: the Emeet Pixy is now $95 (was $160). This webcam might seem expensive (even on sale!), but it’s a fantastic option if you really want to level up your webcam game. Whether you want to look like a million bucks during work Zoom calls or make the best quality videos for YouTube or Twitch, this webcam is the one. This 4K webcam is the next level up Emeet Pixy 4K AI-Powered Webcam Best Prices Today: $94.99 at Amazon The Emeet Pixy is a dual AI-powered camera with a 4K sensor and a secondary camera that helps optimize autofocus and exposure so you look natural. What makes this thing even better is that it uses intelligent tracking to smoothly follow your movements, featuring a 310-degree pan and 180-degree tilt range, so you’ll always be the center of attention. This webcam also features a 3-microphone array that can filter out background noise, so it’s suitable for podcasts and business meetings, but also for streaming on Twitch or YouTube. Score it with a 41% discount while you can! Deals like this don’t last long. Save 41% on this AI-powered 4K webcamBuy now at Amazon Read...

The current AI-driven RAM and SSD shortage is making it hard to shop for value PCs and laptops—ones that offer plenty of power at reasonable prices. What if you don’t want to dip down to bottom-barrel budget specs, nor need something that’s a top-tier workhorse? What if you just want a decent mid-range laptop at a decent mid-range price? Well then, have I got the deal for you! Best Buy is selling a surprisingly good Dell 16 Plus for just $800 right now. That’s a whopping $300 down from its original $1,100 MSRP! And pretty impressive specs in this price range, what with the aforementioned shortages. Seriously, check this out: a whopping 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM and a spacious 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. Okay, that RAM is soldered directly to the motherboard, so you’re giving up upgradeability and repairability here—but that’s not a bad trade-off under the circumstances. The SSD is solid, though, and you won’t regret 1TB for your laptop. Save $300 on this impressive Dell Dell 16 Plus Read our review Best Prices Today: $799 at Amazon What else is in this laptop? A powerful AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU that qualifies this machine as a Copilot+ PC, meaning it gets access to all the nifty AI features in Windows 11. Also, a 16-inch 1920×1200 display with touchscreen capabilities and 300 nits of brightness, up to 20 hours of stated battery life (expect about half, which is still pretty good), and port options including 2x USB-C, 1x USB-A, and 1x HDMI 2.1. And if you want to do some light gaming, you won’t have to give that up thanks to the Radeon 860M integrated graphics, which offers close to the best gaming experience you can get right now without a dedicated graphics card. You can play 2D games and even some 3D ones like Minecraft without breaking a sweat (at modest frame rates). You do NOT want to miss out on this deal! It’s an insanely good configuration for the price in this climate, so snag it now for $800 while you can. But if you’re late and it’s gone, check out our roundups of the best laptop deals today and best budget laptops under $500. Save $300 on this RAM-packed Dell laptop with great hardwareBuy now at Best Buy Read...