Eliana Willis

With all the new Windows laptops released over the course of the past year, we’ve seen more than a handful of impressive machines. But it all comes down to which ones deliver an exceptional experience. That could mean delivering on solid performance, offering a unique feature, or just being a fantastic value relative to the competition. Advances in processor technology have blown up over the last 12 months, and with the release of the ever-growing Copilot+ lineup, Windows machines are thinner, sleeker, and run cooler than ever before. Not to mention the fantastic battery life on devices like the Surface Laptop and HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14. Also: The best lightweight laptops of 2025: Expert testedOur experts have tested dozens of the best laptops this year, and broken down our favorites by aligning them to common use cases that we think will be helpful to most folks. Here are our top Windows laptops of 2024. What is the best Windows laptop right now?We’ve gone hands-on with all of the best Windows laptops on this list, including models from Lenovo, Asus, Dell, Samsung, Microsoft, and more. Currently, our pick for the best overall Windows laptop is the Dell XPS 16 More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Phelinta three-in-one charger is available now on Amazon for $37 with a 13% off coupon. It charges all of your Pixel devices in one convenient place. It isn’t the fastest charger on the planet, but it does exactly what it needs to. –> To this point, I was charging my […] More

Max Buondonno/ZDNETGoogle has launched the first Android 16 beta to developers and early adopters, providing insight into what the OS will bring later this year. A post on the official Android Developers Blog reveals multiple quality-of-life changes, such as ending screen orientation and resizability restrictions for apps “on large screens.”Also: I may finally switch from Google Pixel to Samsung Galaxy in 2025 – and hardware has little to do with itMany mobile apps on the Android ecosystem are developed primarily for traditional smartphones and not for foldable devices like the OnePlus Open. Unoptimized apps will keep their orientation on a foldable, which has the side effect of leaving blank spaces around the sides. This change allows apps to scale appropriately to run on “any window size [or] aspect ratio.”Next, a “new class of notifications” called Live Updates is being added to Android 16. This lets users monitor and quickly access important ongoing activities as they occur — similar to how Live Activities work on the lock screen of iPhones. For example, Uber Eats could utilize this to provide more detailed progress tracking. Custom icons for the start, specific segments, and the end of a food delivery can be added to the app. More

bymuratdeniz/Getty Images One of the big trends in artificial intelligence in the past year has been the employment of various tricks during inference — the act of making predictions — to dramatically improve the accuracy of those predictions.  For example, chain-of-thought — having a large language model (LLM) spell out the logic of an answer […] More

Kerry Wan and Jason Hiner/ZDNETCheck out ZDNET’s list of the best smartphones, and two names usually top the list — Samsung and Apple. That’s no exception with our most recent picks, as the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro Max take the top two spots. That list will likely be changing soon though, as the Galaxy S25 Ultra More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways Jmgo’s N1S Ultimate 4K projector is available now for $2,099 at Amazon. It features astounding color and brightness, and is particularly portable. The case won’t win any durability awards, and it needs a soundbar to really sound cinematic. more buying choices Last September, laser TV manufacturer Jmgo released its 2024 flagship […] More

Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images This week US President Donald Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group, and Abu Dhabi’s AI-focused sovereign wealth fund MGX, to put as much as $500 billion over multiple years into US data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence.   Trump appeared at the White House with OpenAI CEO […] More

It’s high time to ditch the traditional upright vacuum, even if you have dogs, cats, or both. As a robot vacuum reviewer, pet hair is one of my pet peeves, so evaluating how a robot vacuum performs against it is one of the main characteristics I look for when testing these robots. With a very hairy dog and three young kids, the only thing that keeps my floors clean without manually vacuuming daily is a great robot vacuum that tackles the task for me.Also: The best robot vacuum mops you can buyWhen shopping for the best robot vacuum options to control the pet hair on your floors, there are quite a few features to consider. Look for robot vacuums with strong suction to pick up each strand of hair, obstacle avoidance to avoid larger items your pet may leave behind, ability to avoid hair tangles, capable navigation features you can trust, and any extra features important to you. Budget and floor types are also key factors when shopping for any robot vacuum. What is the best robot vacuum for pet hair right now?Since there are so many robot vacuums, you may wonder which is best for your home. We’ve tested dozens of robot vacuums at home and in everyday life, and our top choice to tackle pet hair is the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max More