The ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist may be a mouthful to say, but the concept is a simple one: it’s a laptop that can recognize you and swivels itself to face you. Why? Because not everyone sits at their desk. Lenovo’s new ThinkBook might be useful for lecturers walking around a stage or simply for those people who can’t help but pace during a video call. And if that’s not enough, the laptop can pop up at your command. If you’ve been following Lenovo, you probably are familiar with the company’s ongoing proofs-of-concept, which generally evolve into actual products. That’s the case for the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist, which my colleague Chris Martin of Tech Advisor saw Lenovo show off in 2024. Today, Lenovo is announcing it as a product, shipping in June 2026 for a starting price of $1,649. Lenovo has shown off similar concepts in the past: at CES 2025, for example, Lenovo showed off a display that could twist and track your face as you moved, presenting the display at an optimal angle. That’s the same concept as the Auto Twist. It swivels, and opens and closes so that the screen is facing you at all times. It’s similar to the OBSBOT webcams I’ve reviewed for PCWorld, which have an independent gimbal that allows the camera to twist and turn to follow your face. Lenovo’s Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist incorporates a “Space Frame” motif that collects all of the I/O components in the same area without needing to extend the thicker portion of the laptop across its entire length. Mark Hachman / Foundry While I didn’t have a chance to test the original proof of concept, Lenovo now says that the electromagnetic motors inside the Auto Twist are quieter than before. They’re certainly not silent, however. Lenovo also showed off the laptop’s ability to respond to gestures and even spoken commands. Otherwise, the new ThinkBook Auto Twist is very similar to the other business and consumer laptops Lenovo is showing off here at CES 2026. Inside the 14-inch ThinkBook is an Intel Core Ultra Series 3, code-named Panther Lake. The display itself is a 2.8K touchscreen OLED, with a 120Hz refresh rate and one capable of pumping out 500 nits of brightness. Frankly, I was surprised that Lenovo seems committed to giving this ThinkBook premium specs: up to 32GB of LPDDR5x DDR5 memory, and up to 2TB of M.2 2280 PCIe SSD storage. Of course, who knows what they’ll cost, given the ongoing memory shortage which has driven DRAM and storage prices through the roof. Inside is a 75 watt-hour battery, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth, paired with a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports. The notebook weighs in at 3.09 pounds. The other side of the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist. On the screen some of the controls can be glimpsed including the laptops’ ability to use voice commands. Mark Hachman / Foundry I didn’t have time to really dig into the the ThinkBook, though my brief hands-on showed that it worked as advertised. I’m a little curious to see how sensitive it will be over time, reacting to minor head movements and glances between multiple displays. I’d also agree with Chris Martin’s assessment that it might be a little jerky when moving around the room, leading to a rough experience to whoever you’re talking to. Sure, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist might be a bit niche. Maybe even weird. But everyone still wrestles with laptops and webcams that don’t always show your face, directly facing the camera. Lenovo’s ongoing work in this area may continue to pay dividends down the road. Read...

Lenovo’s latest prototype rollable, the ThinkPad Rollable XD Concept, clearly demonstrates that Lenovo feels that rollable displays are the future — or if not the future, than a niche that it can serve while its competitors do not. Yes, it looks familiar: the ThinkBook Plus Rollable debuted in 2025, extending the laptop’s screen vertically upwards by about 2.5 inches. Now, the ThinkBook Plus has given way to the ThinkPad Rollable XD at CES 2026, with a few tweaks to presumably make the laptop more accessible to corporate customers. The key feature of the ThinkPad Rollable is that the extended display is functional in both modes, in both the “extended” configuration as well as in a “normal” laptop configuration. While in its compact “laptop” mode, the display actually wraps around the back of the laptop, creating a small rectangular screen a few inches on the rear of the ThinkPad Rollable XD. In this configuration, the rear display is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass Victus cover, which allows the laptop to be stored in a backpack or carrying bag without harm to the display. Lenovo also believes that the rear-facing screen could be used as a business tool, and the concept that the company showed reporters included such items as a calendar, various widgets, and potentially an ongoing translation of what the speaker was expressing in a different language. Lenovo didn’t state whether the ThinkPad Rollable XD would be a candidate for Qira, its AI tool that will debut on “select” Lenovo devices and Motorola smartphones, but it’s likely that it could be. Mark Hachman / Foundry Otherwise, the ThinkPad Rollable XD learns from its consumer-oriented counterpart. The laptop’s display also extends from 13.3 inches upwards to nearly 16 inches, creating an extra ribbon of screen space, or transforming a landscape laptop into one oriented as a portrait screen. Lenovo didn’t release specifications for the device, given that it’s still in prototype mode. But I was told to imagine it as a potential candidate for Panther Lake, Intel’s Core Ultra 300 processor which is debuting this CES 2026 as well. Naturally, Lenovo claims that the ThinkPad Rollable XD is still a prototype, and will remain so for now. But Lenovo has a habit of actually launching its prototype devices as finished products, so keep your fingers crossed that it eventually comes to market. Read...

A young family are redefining self-sufficiency by growing a new salad business. Read...

A day after AMD announced the Ryzen AI 400 (Gorgon Point) processor for laptops, PCWorld and a handful of other reporters sat down with Rahul Tikoo, senior vice president and general manager of the client business at AMD, to ask about AMD’s client processors: its mobile Ryzen processors, the Ryzen AI Max, desktop processors, and more. Below are excerpts of the interview, edited for space and clarity. Client played a very minimal role in Lisa Su’s keynote last night. What does that mean? Tikoo: It was supposed to be about a 75-minute keynote, and client was about 15 of the 75 minutes, right? So if that gives you a clue, it’s roughly 25% to 30% of the time, and client business is roughly 30% of our revenue right now, right? I mean, so it’s an important part of our revenue profile, and it’s very, very important to us. This is just my characterization, but it appears that the Ryzen AI 400 is a modest upgrade to the Ryzen AI 300, which was a very good chip. How do you see it? I mean Qualcomm, kudos to them for continuing to fight the good fight. But you know, Arm is a big challenge in this marketplace, just because of the application compatibility, I feel really good about our [Gorgon Point] portfolio. Of course, we haven’t had a chance to get our hands on the competitive products yet, but everything that we heard yesterday did not surprise us, because, you know, we have our own market intelligence and what’s happening and what the competitive landscape look like, and so we didn’t see any surprises there. Based on that, what I would say is we have a pretty good head [of steam]. You had a certain number of design wins heading into the Ryzen AI 300, and a number of wins with the Ryzen AI 400. If you can’t give us specifics, which are larger? It’s about the same. What we’re going to see is about between the Ryzen AI 300 and 400 product, and the Ryzen Halo product, we have roughly a little over 250 designs that will be in the market. That’s all three chips. All three chips, yeah, roughly a little over 250 designs, give or take, that will be in the marketplace by the middle of this year, right? Because we just have notebooks that are coming out this month. Desktops will come out in early Q2. [The additional] Strix Halo is also coming out this month. Pro is March. So let’s just call it, the first three-to-four months of the year are going to be busy for us launching the portfolio. You mentioned the AI 400 desktop. It’s going to be a socketed AM5 part? Yeah. It’s a socketed AM5 part. I think the interesting thing about the desktop Gorgon part is that it’s going to be the first Copilot+ part, so the first part with a 60 TOPS NPU. We’ve been working with Microsoft and our partners on optimizing for desktop, because you can imagine desktop has a different set of challenges, right? I think we have a lot of opportunity in that space, and we weren’t there two years ago. We weren’t playing as heavily. We didn’t have enough of a portfolio last year, we had a really reasonable portfolio. This year, we’re going to have even better portfolio. What we’re seeing is a lot of interest in mobile on desktop, even small desktops and even in large desktops, they’re actually putting mobile on because the socket infrastructure is cheaper on mobile. Even traditional desktops? Okay, yeah, even traditional desktops, we’re seeing mobile on desktop now. It’s more relevant in the smaller form factors, like, you know, you have the one liter boxes, the eight liter boxes, the small form factor. So that’s where it’s more relevant, right? But we’ve seen all kinds of desktops use mobile parts. There was a time a few years back where mobile shifted into two categories, high performance and thin-and-light, right? And it’s sort of the same inflection that you see in desktops. Let’s talk about what the prices of RAM and storage are doing, and the effects they’ll have. What are your customers telling you about how they’re going to configure their systems? Are they going to continue on pushing upwards to 2TB SSDs or 16GB of RAM? It depends on the market segment. If you think about creators, they want all the capabilities they can get. Let’s talk about a car company. They’re designing a car. They’re running wind tunnel simulations on a car. Are they going to sweat a 20% or 30% increase in price and say, well, you know, my seven-year research on the car is going to have to be slower? No, they’re going to invest. Now, consumers, on the other hand, you and I, you know, when we sit at home and we’re using the laptop for basic internet, web browsing, or email, we’re going to have to make a choice, right? Do we really need the highest end components in the laptop, or not? Now, we do know there’s a floor. A floor has been set where people like 1TB SSDs are the norm. Nobody buys anything smaller, you know? I mean, even phones, nobody tends to buy anything smaller than a certain capacity, right? So, I think consumers will have to make a choice based on that. But I do expect gamers will continue to invest. Creators will continue to invest. There’s a rumor that AMD was going to launch a Ryzen X3DX2, which didn’t materialize. What’s going on there? X3D dual-cache, right? Stay tuned. Stay tuned. I just came back from Intel, where they planned to invest heavily into the handheld space, which you’ve dominated. They claim that you’re selling “ancient silicon.” What’s your strategy going forward in the handheld space? We’re very committed to the handheld [space]. I mean, we created the space, so it’s a space that we’re very committed to. Here’s the beauty, though, of AMD and why we have a much higher chance of success in that space: because of our console business, or how we develop semi-custom silicon for the console business. You can’t just use mobile silicon and put it in the handheld. You can, but the handheld or the consoles, they care about high graphics. They don’t care about as much compute, and they don’t care about the I/O. So, if you’re putting a notebook chip like Panther Lake in there, and you’re not purpose building it, you have all this baggage that Panther Lake is going to carry around their chiplet architecture. You know, the interconnects of the chiplet architecture, the I/O that they have in there. I mean, it’s a Swiss army knife, and it’s good for certain things. We can do that, too. In fact, we do that in the handheld space in some segments. But when you think about the core of the handheld space, they want purpose-designed, purpose-built chips that have great graphics technology, great software like FSR, integration with game developers on Xbox, PlayStation, etc. We can have high battery life, good fidelity of content, high frame rate, and we do that very well. Intel believes their low-power E-cores give them an advantage, as they extend battery life. Does AMD have a response to that? We haven’t seen any issues there. I’ll tell you this, Intel does play games sometimes, and it’s very interesting. We had a customer. They said the same thing. They’re like, hey, I can get more battery life with Lunar Lake against the 300 series. So, we’re like, okay, let’s do a quick experiment. And we did this in the lab. And actually, Qualcomm did a video on this too, because we didn’t want to go out and do a video and everything. Qualcomm did a video on this: Lunar Lake has great battery life when measured with MobileMark with the power connected. As soon as you go in DC Mode, battery life climbs and performance drops. The Core i7 performs like a Core i3. So, the E-cores are very good for efficiency, very bad for performance. We balance the two, and we’re already making those choices for our customers and saying, hey, you don’t have to worry about it. Can you talk about the desktop X3D processor and the direction that it’s going? It’s a very critical part of our portfolio. I mean, the channel market overall. If you look at IDC, the DIY market is about 30, 35 million units. And give or take, we’re close to 60 points of share in that market, right? We’re pretty high. And then as you look at X3D, which is the top of that market, we have over 80 points of share in that market, and it’s driven by the fact that there’s really nothing else that comes even close in terms of performance. And then with the new X3D part that we just announced, the new part to the stack that, with that boost clock you see on it, it now separates us even more, right? We used to be about 20% better now, or 27% better, when you look at average game performance, and so we’re very committed to that space. That customer base is very demanding, as you can imagine, right? And they’re very vocal. Do you have anything to say about AMD’s ability to supply chips to its customers? We’re using the biggest and the best supplier in the world, TSMC. And our Gorgon portfolio is based on four nanometer technology and is a fully ramped, highly yielding, very proven technology. So, we don’t have the same challenges our competition has where they’re bringing up a new technology. We feel very good about it. No challenges. Threadripper, X3D, and the Ryzen AI Max: these are all innovative though niche products. Does AMD remain committed to all three? We are very committed to those spaces. We’re very, very committed to those spaces. How do you see the Ryzen AI Max going forward? First of all, we will continue to invest in that space. That’s an important space for us. Stay tuned. There will be more announcements in that space over the course of this year. Our focus has been in ramping developers and gamers around that product. You know, thin-and-light gaming is a space where that product has done well. Creative users is another space that product has done well, and now AI. Read...

I’ve been using triple monitors for over 15 years, longer than I’ve been writing about monitors at all. And though some of the super-ultrawide gaming offerings have tempted me, I’ve never strayed, kept in place by easier window management and lower prices. But Dell might just have my number with its newest Ultrasharp design.  Dell is calling this the “Ultrasharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor.” That’s a mouthful, but here are the basics. The U5226KW is a business-class display with an odd resolution, 6144×2560. That “6K” number is meant to emulate one 4K monitor in the center and two 1440p monitors on the side, with the side monitors in a vertical orientation. It doesn’t quite match up perfectly — that works out to a little taller than 21:9 aspect ratio, with a slightly lower total pixel count than two 4K displays.  Michael Crider / Foundry So, trying to run games at fullscreen on this 48-inch-wide monster will probably cause said games to pitch a fit, even if you could get them to the IPS panel’s 120Hz maximum and take advantage of VRR support. But this definitely isn’t designed with gaming in mind, or at least not as a primary aim. This is a business-slash-media production monitor right down to its bones. Programming, data analytics, video editing, stock trading — any application that demands tons of screen space and typically needs multiple displays, this beast is right at home serving.  That includes multiple device inputs, naturally. The monitor can handle four virtual splits in its panel across two different devices simultaneously, with inputs spanning two HDMI 2.1 ports, two DisplayPort 1.4, and USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 with 140 watts of power delivery. That includes a virtual KVM that can let you share a keyboard and mouse between devices. The back panel, as indicated by the name, also includes plenty of extra ports: three USB-C (data only), four USB-A ports that max out at 10 gigabits, and an Ethernet port that can handle 2.5 gigabits.  Dell But wait, there’s more! That’s just all the stuff ’round back, meant for semi-permanent setups. A handy little pop-down expansion port includes two more USB-C ports with 27 watts of device charging, and one last USB-A port for the odd gadget or flash drive. Very cool. The little pop-down USB ports are kind of adorable. Dell Other technical details include a very mild curve, dual 9-watt speakers (hey, better than usual I suppose) 400 nits of brightness, a 2000:1 aspect ratio, and an integrated light sensor for automatically adjusting the backlight, laptop-style.  Dell If you want this massive monitor on your desk, preferably with some reinforcement for its 40-pound weight, you’ll have to lay down some serious cash. Dell is asking $2,900 USD for the standard package, though you can save a hundred bucks if you supply your own 200mm VESA-compliant stand. Considering you’ll need a reinforced model to hold it, It’s the rare example of an upsell that’s probably worth it. At least you won’t have to wait very long — it’ll be available from Dell.com starting tomorrow, January 6th. Read...

Chamberlain, best known for its smart garage door openers, is making its most ambitious move into home security with the launch of its first smart lock. Unveiled at CES, the myQ Secure View 3-in-1 Smart Lock combines a smart lock, a 2K HDR video doorbell, and a camera into a single device, expanding the company’s home-access ambitions from the garage to the front door. The $279.99 device offers five methods of entry: fingerprint recognition, facial recognition, a PIN code, smartphone app control, and a physical key. It’s designed to work within the myQ ecosystem, which includes garage door controllers, indoor and outdoor cameras, and accessories like the myQ Smart Garage Video Keypad. The company hasn’t disclosed a BHMA or ANSI grade for he lock. According to Chamberlain, the lock is among the fastest on the market, with an unlock time of just two seconds. It also includes AI-powered detection that identifies people, vehicles, packages, and animals, and can trigger automatic actions like locking or unlocking the door based on whether a recognized individual is detected. The myQ Secure View 3-in-1 Smart Lock combines a smart lock, a 2K HDR video doorbell, and a camera into a single device, Chamberlain The device operates in temperatures ranging from -4°F to 140°F and is powered by a rechargeable lithium battery that lasts up to six months. A fully charged backup battery (sold separately) can be swapped in to avoid downtime. For homes without a wired chime, Chamberlain also offers an optional myQ Chime accessory. The lock is available to myQ users starting January 6, with general availability on January 13 via myQ.com and select retailers. While the product represents a significant step forward for Chamberlain’s home security lineup, it arrives against the backdrop of growing consumer skepticism about the company’s business practices. In recent years, Chamberlain has been criticized for locking key features behind subscription paywalls after product launch, and for disabling support for popular third-party platforms. In late 2023, the company blocked access to its API for Homebridge and Home Assistant, effectively cutting off users who had relied on those platforms to integrate Chamberlain devices with Apple HomeKit and other smart home ecosystems. Chamberlain framed the move as a necessary step to protect performance and security, but it left many users frustrated and without the integrations they had come to depend on. Even before that, the company had phased out Google Assistant integration and stopped selling its own HomeKit-enabling accessory, the myQ Home Bridge, though it still supports devices that are already in use. Chamberlain has not said whether the new Secure View Smart Lock will require a subscription to access features like video storage or advanced automation. That detail may be crucial for consumers already wary of the company’s history of rolling out fees post-purchase. Whether the Secure View lock will overcome that history remains to be seen. But with deep integration into Chamberlain’s expanding myQ ecosystem, it may appeal to existing users looking for a unified approach to home access control. This story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart locks. Read...

The Australian-based video game retailer is proposing to close its New Zealand business, according to a letter sent to employees. Read...

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Plus processor has the same goal as its predecessor: to provide a slightly stripped-down, leaner alternative processor for midrange Windows on Arm laptops. But there’s a slight difference. While last year’s X Plus chip came in two flavors: a 10-core and an 8-core offering, Qualcomm is offering customers either a 10-core or 6-core Snapdragon X2 Plus chip instead. Qualcomm is eyeing Intel’s Core Ultra 200-series chips as well as the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series as potential targets. Qualcomm’s Plus series of processors essentially fill the same role as a Core i5: Qualcomm uses the same CPU architecture, plus the same GPU (adjusted for power, which lowers the speed) and the same NPU. But Qualcomm is being way more aggressive in terms of the performance comparisons. Eighteen months ago, Qualcomm was claiming that its X Plus chip offered 28 percent faster performance at the same power. This time, it claims that the top 10-core chip in the X2 Plus family delivers over three times the performance of the competition, the Core Ultra 7 265U. Qualcomm’s first-generation Plus processors appeared in the Acer Swift 14 AI, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, and the Dell Latitude 7455, among others. The company will disclose more customers here at the CES show in Las Vegas. Executives said to expect the X2 Plus to land in the same price range as the X Plus, or devices costing about $799. Essentially, the mission of the X2 Plus is the same as Qualcomm’s first generation, “to really get the same technology advantages to more and more users,” said Mandar Deshpande, senior director of product management for the compute business at Qualcomm, in a press briefing with reporters. How fast is the Snapdragon X2 Plus? Officially, the two Snapdragon X2 Plus chips are known as the 10-core X2P-64-100 and the 6-core X2P-42-100, reflecting Qualcomm’s impenetrable naming scheme. Typically, you’ll see both chips referred to as the 10-core X2 Plus and the 6-core X2 Plus. The 10-core X2 Plus will run at speeds up to 4.0GHz, with an X2-45 GPU that Qualcomm hasn’t disclosed the speeds of. The 6-core X2 Plus also runs at that same clock speed and features that same GPU as well. Both chips also include identical NPUs with 80 TOPS. Why six cores? Deshpande shrugged off the question. “Fundamentally, we’re not really tied to core counts, frequencies, or [power],” he said. Qualcomm’s current list of processors does not reflect the new additions, but you can see how they’ll fit in: probably a touch below the older Snapdragon X Elite, and with similar specifications to the first-gen Snapdragon X Plus chips, at least on paper. Those chips also included an additional two processors with some variations in clock speed; Deshpande declined to comment when asked if Qualcomm would do the same with the X2 Plus. We also don’t know the clock speeds of the GPUs. Though the Snapdragon X2 Plus and the Snapdragon X1 Plus look similar on paper, the numbers may be deceiving. Like the Snapdragon X2 Elite, the X2 Plus is built on updated third-generation Oryon CPU cores, which increase performance. While the Snapdragon X Elite included a pair of cores that could run at a faster “turbo speed” to accomplish high-priority tasks quicker, the X Plus did not, and the X2 Plus does not either. On the other hand, the X2 Plus base clock speed is as high as the turbo speed was in the X1 Plus, a Qualcomm representative noted. One of the key improvements for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite was its inclusion of “performance” and “prime” cores, also tuned for high-performance work. Those, the X2 Plus has. The ten-core X2 Plus has six prime cores and four performance cores, while the six-core X2 Plus includes six prime cores, the representative added. Still, comparing the X1 Plus to the X2 Plus, performance improves significantly: 35 percent more single-threaded CPU performance, and up to 39 percent more GPU performance, using 43 percent less power. (Qualcomm used Geekbench and 3DMark’s Steel Nomad tests for the comparisons.) Qualcomm is projecting significant gains over the other mobile processor platforms competing against it, which it classifies as some of Intel’s Core Ultra 200 7-class processors as well as the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350. Like the Snapdragon X2 Elite, the X2 Plus chips run at full speed on battery power as well when the laptop is plugged in, a key differentiator from the competition. Naturally, Qualcomm is comparing itself to the existing “Lunar Lake” and “Strix Point” platforms from Intel and AMD; Intel has already announced its next-gen “Panther Lake” mobile platform, and AMD is expected to debut its “Gorgon Point” mobile platform at CES. None of these chips have shipped, however, so Qualcomm can’t test against them. Qualcomm didn’t quote any battery-life estimates for Snapdragon Plus notebooks; the company said that it is still working with customers to optimize those products. A big question mark continues to be the utility of the NPU, and how receptive applications partners and customers will be to using local AI on the PC. Since the X2 Plus includes the same 80 TOPS NPU as the X2 Elite, that will allow more NPU-powered features from Microsoft Windows, Da Vinci Resolve, and other apps to run simultaneously, much in the same way that a powerful CPU or GPU allows multiple apps to be run simultaneously. The chip’s memory bandwidth is also up to 152Gbps, which gives enough headroom for LLMs. If and when an NPU-powered AI future comes to pass, Qualcomm will be ready. As far as games, Deshpande said that the company has tested 1,400 games on the Snapdragon platform, and that they’re running “really good” — where that means at 60Hz on a 1080p resolution. Microsoft published an update to its Prism emulator in mid-December, which provides some additional support. While Qualcomm is encouraging its partners to write native Arm code that can boost performance, the updated Prism emulator will allow a wider range of applications to simply run on Windows on Arm, without specifying exactly what. Qualcomm is exploring in other ways, too. “One thing now that we’re working closely with the OEMs is really now innovating on the form factor front, right?” Deshpande said. “So we’re trying to make the PCs thinner and lighter. We’re looking at panelist devices. We’re looking at desktops, which can be made more portable. So all of that form factor innovation is very exciting, and you should expect those types of devices coming in the market very soon.” Read...

AMD is launching the Ryzen AI 400 at CES 2026 as the next chip in the company’s CPU roadmap, with what appears to be a similar goal as the current Ryzen AI 300: Aim high on CPU performance, but with sufficient AI TOPS and battery life to attract mainstream laptop buyers, too. AMD said that the Ryzen AI 400 chips will power both Copilot+ laptops as well as “socketed desktops,” bringing their AI capabilities to desktop PCs as well. AMD also announced “Pro” configurations of most of the chips, designed to power enterprise PCs. AMD executives didn’t refer to the AI 400 by its expected codename, Gorgon Point, but the chip’s specs matched up with a leak inadvertently published last year: up to 12 cores and 24 threads using the Zen 5 architecture, with a boost clock that can hit 5.2GHz. The Ryzen AI 400 will achieve 60 AI TOPS, AMD promises, with 16 RDNA 3.5 GPU cores. On paper, that’s very similar to the current Ryzen AI 300 chip, which in PCWorld testing of the Ryzen AI 300 emerged as a surprisingly powerful competitor to the Intel Core Ultra 200 “Lunar Lake” as well as the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite: somewhat comparable in battery life, but at the top of the heap in CPU benchmarks. Rahul Tikoo, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s client business, said in a call with reporters that AMD aimed for “leadership performance across the CPU, the GPU, and the NPU,” plus “multi-day mobility” as well as “AI performance to enable the next wave of experiences.” The new Ryzen AI 400 series has higher CPU and GPU boost clocks, a higher supported memory speed, and extra TOPS. Still, it’s close enough to the Ryzen AI 300 that reporters asked if it was just “rebadged” silicon. It’s not, according to Rakesh Anigundi, director of product management at AMD, though improved performance arrives via improved firmware as well as manufacturing changes. The process technology used in the AI 400 is 4nm, or basically the same process technology used in the Ryzen AI 300. AMD is launching a total of seven Ryzen AI 400-series chips, ranging from a specialized Ryzen AI 9 HX 475 processor at the top of the stack, designed for gaming, down to the Ryzen AI 5 430 at the low end. The cores will be a mix of the full-fledged Zen 5 cores as well as the more efficient Zen 5c cores, in various configurations differentiated by core count, clock speed, and the number of graphics CUs as well as their speed. All of the Ryzen AI 400 chips tolerate anywhere from 15 to 54 watts of thermal design power, or TDP. AMD’s new Ryzen AI 400 chips include substantially more offerings than the original AI 300 series, which didn’t reveal the base clock speed at launch. It’s also interesting that all of the processors run at 2.0 GHz, but boost to different speeds. And yes, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 475 and 470 are nearly identical, save for the difference in NPU TOPS: 60 versus 55 TOPS. Ryzen AI 9 HX 475: 12 cores/ 24 threads, 2.0GHZ base clock/5.2GHz boost clock; Radeon 890M/16 CUs/3.1GHz Ryzen AI 9 HX 470: 12 cores/ 24 threads, 2.0GHZ base clock/5.2GHz boost clock; Radeon 890M/16 CUs/3.1GHz Ryzen AI 9 465: 10 cores/ 20 threads, 2.0GHZ base clock/5.0GHz boost clock; Radeon 880M/12 CUs/2.9GHz Ryzen AI 7 450: 8 cores/ 16 threads, 2.0GHZ base clock/5.1GHz boost clock; Radeon 860M/8 CUs/3.1GHz Ryzen AI 7 445: 6 cores/ 12 threads, 2.0GHZ base clock/4.6GHz boost clock; Radeon 840M/4 CUs/2.9GHz Ryzen AI 5 435: 6 cores/ 12 threads, 2.0GHZ base clock/4.5GHz boost clock; Radeon 840M/4 CUs/2.8GHz Ryzen AI 5 430: 4 cores/ 8 threads, 2.0GHZ base clock/4.5GHz boost clock; Radeon 840M/4 CUs/2.8GHz The question is whether the Ryzen AI 400 will remain at the top of the heap in terms of performance. In this, AMD was somewhat vague, claiming that in “responsive multitasking,” such as running a Microsoft Teams call with background blur enabled, the Ryzen AI 400 was 1.3X faster than the competition, or 1.7X faster in content creation. In this, AMD can only compare to the silicon its competitors have shipped; in this case, it refers to Intel’s Lunar Lake or Core Ultra 200 silicon. Head-to-head comparisons will have to wait until both companies ship their silicon in early 2026; AMD is claiming that Asus, Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo, among others, have signed up. AMD said laptops from its customers would be available beginning in the first quarter, from thin-and-light laptops to gaming and content-creation PCs to, yes, desktops. Still, AMD’s benchmarks are impressive, both in content creation and in gaming. In gaming, however, AMD isn’t saying whether the games listed are technically “playable” (over 60 frames per second, generally) or whether any frame enhancement technologies were used. In a sense, however, its a win for gamers just to be able play some of these games on integrated graphics. (AMD’s configuration notes say that the Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 was used, with its integrated Radeon 890M GPU.) Clearly, the increased clock speed and NPU TOPS will be of benefit to consumers. However, the support for faster DRAM — 8533 MT/s — will be dependent on PC makers actually finding and buying that high-speed DRAM to add to customer devices. What’s not clear is whether AMD will be able to increase its market share in mobile, as it has done in desktops with its superb Ryzen X3D parts. Traditionally, AMD has held on to about 20 percent of the mobile market, according to analysts. “With this range of processors, OEMs can deliver AI PCs that are tailored to your specific need, while offering the best performance and robust on-device AI,” AMD’s Tikoo said. Read...

Just before the new year, an alert went out from Have I Been Pwned, a security website that monitors data breaches: A hacker surfaced with information taken from Wired accounts, reportedly stolen through the publication’s parent company, Condé Nast. The number of subscribers hit? 2.4 million. The lost details included email addresses and display names, as well as actual names, phone numbers, date of birth, gender, and physical addresses (or geographic location) for a smaller subset of users. This data was loaded into the Have I Been Pwned database on December 27, 2025, with the info dating back to September 2025. The hacker has also claimed to have stolen data related to other Condé Nast publications as well—40 million additional records, according to Ars Technica. Speaking of: If you’re into tech, a subscription to Wired is pretty common (at least at some point in your life)—as is one for Ars Technica, which is also owned by Condé Nast. But at this time, Ars Technica staff says its tech stack is run separately, and it should not be affected by this breach. As for the other Condé Nast publications possibly affected, here’s the company’s full brand list: AD allure Ars Technica bon appetit Conde Nast johansens (hotels / spas) Conde Nast Traveler epicurious Glamour GQ House & Garden La Cucina Italiana Pitchfork Self Tatler TeenVogue Them The New Yorker The World of Interiors Vanity Fair Vogue Vogue Business Wired If you or anyone you know is subscribed to these publications, you should be on the look out for: Phishing related to your current (or past) subscriptions. For example, a notice claiming your credit card didn’t charge you properly for a renewal. Phishing campaigns related to false products or falsely discounted products related to the type of publication you’re subscribed to. (Gadgets, fashion, etc.) Also be aware that if details about you, such as your physical address or phone number, are leaked, you could be at greater risk for scams through regular mail or phone calls. Not sure if you’re affected? Head over to the Have I Been Pwned website and input your email address. You can also sign up for direct email notifications any time your email address is part of a new breach or leak uploaded to the HIBP database. Some antivirus subscriptions include data breach monitoring, too. Read...