Why AI Is Reshaping Computer System Design, And Just About Everything Else At CES, what stood out to me was just how much Nvidia and AMD focused on a systems approach, which may be the most consequential change we've seen in computer design in years.

www.pcmag.com/articles/why...

Sometimes it helps to think about just how much changes in computer systems are impacting AI and vice-versa. A 1000x improvement in AI inferencing in 3-4 years is pretty amazing.

Living With 'Arrow Lake' Mobile Workstations From Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Which One Comes Out on Top? For the past few weeks, I've been testing the Dell Pro Max 14 Premium, the HP ZBook X G1i 16, and the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 3. Here's what IT pros need to consider before buying.

I've been trying a number of mobile workstations lately. They are heavier than traditional laptops but for some applications, the performance is simply amazing. #DellProMax #HPZBook #ThinkPadP16

www.pcmag.com/articles/liv...

Living With the iPhone 17 Pro: Apple's Cameras Are Finally Catching Up to Samsung's I've been using the new phone for a while now, and my photos have never been better.

I really liked the new cameras in the #iPhone17 Pro. Much better zoom and the phone seems to run better for longer as well. It's a worthy upgrade.

www.pcmag.com/opinions/liv...

Amazon's Vision of 'Billions' of AI Agents Inside Every Company Seems Premature AWS CEO Matt Garman acknowledges that reaching that goal will 'push the limits of what's possible with the infrastructure.' Much of this is still in preview, so it all seems a little early to me.

At #AWS25, Amazon made a big push for AI Agents. Not surprising, since Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI are also talking up the same concept. But for widespread deployment, we'll need the tools and the infrastructure to be solid, and they still aren't ready. Next year? # www.pcmag.com/articles/ama...

Struggling to Keep Up With Microsoft's Copilot Changes? Let's Break It Down I've covered Microsoft for decades, but even I was confused by the different versions of its AI. At Ignite, I asked execs to walk me through what the different tiers of Copilot can do for you.

#Microsoft talks a lot about Copilot, but it's actually not a single product but a set of features that varies depending on your license. I tried to answer the question "Which Copilot will you get?"

www.pcmag.com/articles/str...

Microsoft Wants Us Creating Our Own AI Agents. Is Anyone Actually Interested? At Ignite, Microsoft said software is 'evolving from being made for people to being made by people.' Attendees I spoke with were intrigued, but a little confused about how to make that work.

At #Microsoft Ignite, the company introduced a bunch of new Copilot features and focused on tools for building, managing, and securing agents. Interesting and important introductions, but they seem way ahead of where most customers are today. www.pcmag.com/articles/mic...

AI Isn't Paying Off for Many Businesses. Here's How to Change That At Gartner's annual conference, multiple sessions discussed the challenges of getting a return on investment from AI. Here are some suggestions from its analysts and what I heard from attendees.

Some good ideas on how to actually generate ROI from AI www.pcmag.com/articles/ai-...

Gartner: 10 Ways AI Will Change Your Business (and Hiring) in 2026 and Beyond In a 'world of shattered norms...we can't expect anything to be the same as it was last year or the year before,' Gartner Fellow Daryl Plummer says at the company's IT Symposium/Xpo.

Every year Gartner makes a lot of predictions at its #GartnerSYM - this year's include lots of ones on AI and agents. Some I agree with, but I'm skeptical about others. www.pcmag.com/articles/gar...

AI Supercomputing Platforms and 7 Other Strategic Tech Trends Businesses Can't Ignore in 2026 At the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, analysts Gene Alvarez and Tori Paulman outline what will be top of mind for enterprises in the next few years.

Each year Gartner lists what it think are the biggest trends in the industry for IT leaders at #GartnerSYM. It's good for CIOs and others to review and take stock of whether they are ready. www.pcmag.com/articles/ai-...

Frustrated by AI? How to Turn the Hype Into Real Results for Your Business At Gartner's annual IT Symposium/Xpo, analysts explain how to get value out of AI when most projects currently don't show any return on investment.

Some interesting thoughts about getting ready for AI from #GartnerSYM www.pcmag.com/articles/fru...

Living With a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: The Most Useful Foldable I've Ever Tried If you can overlook the crease and aren't too concerned about the zoom capabilities, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 lives up to the expectations I had for it at launch.

Really impressed by the #Galaxy #ZFold7 - I've probably gotten more positive comments from friends I've shown it to than any phone I've carried since the original iPhone. www.pcmag.com/articles/liv...

Living With an HP EliteBook X Flip G1i: A Top-of-the-Line But Affordable 2-in-1 The HP EliteBook X Flip G1i is an excellent convertible laptop, with a strong build, stellar performance, and a number of extra features at a good price.

I've been very impressed by the #HP EliteBook X Flip. Worth a close look if you want a laptop that flips to become a tablet. www.pcmag.com/articles/liv....

Living With a Dynabook Tecra A60-M: A No-Frills Laptop That Gets the Job Done While performance isn't quite up to snuff compared with the best laptops, and I wish it had stronger AV capabilities, the Tecra A60-M's battery life is notable for a midrange PC.

#Dynabook 's Tecra A60 isn't the fanciest laptop, but I was really impressed with the battery life. www.pcmag.com/articles/liv...

Living With Acer's TravelMate P6 14 AI: A Lightweight Battery-Life Champ for Work The biggest downsides of this otherwise solid laptop are the video and audio features.

#Acer doesn't get as much attention as it should among business laptop buyers. The TravelMate P6 is a pretty impressive lightweight laptop www.pcmag.com/articles/liv...

Living With HP's ZBook Ultra G1a: A Powerful Work PC With One Big Drawback This machine runs AMD's Ryzen AI Max Pro processor, but a lot of workstation apps are only certified on Nvidia, so it's hard to recommend a laptop that's not certified for professional work.

The #HPZbook Ultra G1a outperforms more conventional laptops on most applications, and is compact and easy to travel with. But it doesn't compare to mobile workstations with #Nvidia graphics for more demanding workstation apps. www.pcmag.com/articles/liv...

I Love the Tandem OLED Display on This Dell Laptop, But It Comes With Some Trade-Offs The OLED display on the enterprise-focused Dell Pro 14 Premium certainly looks great, but it's pricey and skimps on battery life. Will a package of peripherals help soften the blow?

#Dell's Pro 14 Premium with a Tandem OLED is a great laptop, though the screen takes some battery life away compared with the LCD version. I like the package of executive peripherals, particularly the pricey 32-in 4K display with a built-in hub. www.pcmag.com/articles/i-l...

Samsung Has Me Almost Convinced That Foldables Are Ready for Primetime The Galaxy Z Fold 7 fits nicely in my pocket and has robust features, but that $1,999 price tag is awfully steep.

I've always been intrigued by foldable phones, but they've involved too many compromises. The #Samsung Galaxy #ZFold7 addresses pretty much all the issues - except for price. And the #ZFlip7 is quite nice as well. www.pcmag.com/opinions/sam...

Qualcomm at 40: From Disrupting Mobile to Playing the Long Game With PCs Alex Katouzian, a 23-year-veteran of the chip maker who currently heads Qualcomm's mobile, compute, and XR business, explains how it's transitioning to a compute company.

I'm always intrigued by how companies evolve, and it was fun to look back at #Qualcomm, and how a company that I remember as pushing a communications standard became a chip powerhouse in phones and is now targeting PCs. www.pcmag.com/articles/qua...

Microsoft Wants to Solve Everyone's Problems With AI, But Can Copilot Get the Job Done? CEO Satya Nadella and team show tools for building and scaling agents and AI apps and a new version of Microsoft 365 Copilot. Very cool demos, though there’s still a lot of work to do.

Some thoughts on the Microsoft #Build2025 conference this week - lots of new ways to build agents, but still a lot to be done. www.pcmag.com/opinions/mic...

Living With the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 Gen 10: I'm Not Sure About the AI, But Battery Life Is Stellar Having used this long-lasting 2-in-1 for some time now, I can say Lenovo's AI tools aren't really useful yet, but performance is impressive thanks to its Intel Core Ultra 200V.

Really liking the #ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 which has great performance and battery life and just about anything else I want in a high-end convertible laptop. www.pcmag.com/opinions/liv...

Living With an HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: An Impressive Copilot+ PC With a Little Heft It's not the lightest laptop, or the one with the best battery life, but it does a good job of balancing features and performance.

Really impressed with #HP's #EliteBook Ultra - a high-end notebook with very strong performance and battery life, at a reasonable price for this kind of machine. www.pcmag.com/opinions/liv...

Living With the ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition: A Spiffy Ultraportable With AI Smarts With the X9, Lenovo gives the ThinkPad a contemporary makeover with plenty of AI-powered optimization features.

#Lenovo's #ThinkPadX9 offers a more modern look than most ThinkPads, offering a lot of power in a small package and some AI extras.

www.pcmag.com/opinions/liv...

Living With an HP EliteBook X G1a: A Solid Enterprise PC With Handy AI Features This sleek 'Strix Point' laptop looks great, but is the performance worth the top-dollar price tag?

#HP's #EliteBook X with a #Ryzen processor is a great looking laptop with particularly strong local AI features. www.pcmag.com/opinions/liv...

Living With the Galaxy S25 Ultra: Samsung's AI Shines in This Year's Model The S25 keeps what's good about Galaxy and bolts on some impressive AI. For top-end buyers, it's an easy choice.

The #Samsung #GalaxyS25Ultra has pretty much everything you could ask for in a large Android phone -- great camera (love the zoom), fast processor, great display, and far more AI features than the current iPhone. www.pcmag.com/opinions/liv...

At Google Cloud Next, We're Off to See the AI Agents (And Huge Performance Gains) Google's AI has led to fun projects like reworking The Wizard of Oz for The Sphere in Vegas, but the real moneymakers are billion-dollar investments like its upcoming Ironwood TPU.

At #GoogleCloudNext I wasn't surprised to hear a focus on AI Agents - it's what everyone is talking about. But I was impressed by the huge gains in efficiency Google claims. www.pcmag.com/opinions/at-...

Can Microsoft Win the AI Race? I Want to Try These Copilot Features First At its 50th anniversary event, Microsoft welcomed us 'to the era of AI companions' and showed off intriguing Copilot features it says are the 'very first glimmers' of what its AI can do.

At Microsoft's recent 50th anniversary event, the company introduced a lot of new Copilot features for consumers, including Deep Research and Vision capabilities. I'm curious as to how these compare with the others already on the market. #Microsoft50 www.pcmag.com/opinions/can...

Living With a Dell Pro 14 Premium: A Solid Copilot+ PC With Phenomenal Battery Life It's pricey, but Dell's Pro 14 Premium offers by far the best battery life I've ever seen.

I've tested a lot of laptops, but never have I seen one that 30 hours of battery life. And the #DellPro14Premium is a great performance and pretty light - a real winner. www.pcmag.com/opinions/liv... #Dell

Reflections on Microsoft's 50th: What Will It Take to Make It to 2075? After 50 years, Microsoft is still talking about the same things it did in 1975, but with different technologies. Can Copilot help Redmond stick around for another five decades?

www.pcmag.com/opinions/ref...
Fun to hear from Bill, Steve, and Satya at Microsoft's 50th Anniversary Event. Here are there thoughts on where it's been and going along with my reflections on covering them for most of those 50 years.

At 50, Microsoft Makes a Midlife Pivot Redmond's 2025 roadmap shows a shift toward AI and away from major changes to core products.

www.pcmag.com/opinions/at-...
Looking over Microsoft's roadmaps, what struck me is how much AI and copilots have so completely taken over. Otherwise, Windows and the Office apps aren't evolving much.

Living With a ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition: A Performance Champ The Intel Lunar Lake version of Lenovo's high-end business laptop offers improved battery life and surprisingly better performance than its predecessor, particularly on my toughest tests.

On my toughest tests, the Lunar Lake version of the #Lenovo #thinkpadx1carbon surprised me with by far the best test results I've seen on a lightweight laptop. And the battery life was quite good too. www.pcmag.com/articles/liv...