CES 2023: Innovation abounds in Windows 11 partner PC ecosystem
At CES 2023, one of the most influential tech events in the world, new Windows 11 PCs showcased innovation throughout its partner ecosystem. These include advances from silicon partners Intel, AMD and NVIDIA, as well as the latest consumer, commercial and gaming devices from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and other gaming device partners.
This technology reinforces how relevant the PC is in daily life; to connect, create, work, learn and play – from anywhere. It does all that while being accessible and secure, freeing up time and peace of mind to be creative. As an ecosystem, Microsoft is focused on achieving consistent sustainability targets across Windows 11 devices.
With Windows 11’s latest update, you’ll be able to tap into features such as Focus sessions, snap layouts that make it easier to get things done and the new Microsoft Defender SmartScreen to keep you safer on the web.
Acer debuted the first models of its new Swift Go line, highlighting an ultraportable design with Windows 11 and 13th Gen Intel Core processors built in. The Swift Go 16 and Swift Go 14 have an OLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. Long hours of work, learning and play are made easier thanks to the laptop displays’ TÜV RHEINLAND Eyesafe display certification, productivity-optimized 16:10 ratio and touch-optional capabilities. The laptops’ backlit keyboards and OceanGlass touchpads further ensure a smooth and productive experience when scrolling.
ASUS’ ProArt Studiobook 16 3D OLED is a 3D OLED creator mobile workstation with a nifty feature: the laptop screen can lie flat, offering any viewing angle up to 180 degrees. With its 3.2K 120 Hz display, content creators and gamers can view 3D photos, videos, or even games without glasses or headsets. This means being able to create 3D visual content faster, as it’s more intuitive.
HP announced new Windows 11 PCs focusing on sustainable hybrid experiences, including the new HP Dragonfly Pro, inspired by freelancers and their increasing presence in the U.S. workforce. This PC, co-engineered with AMD, is the first HP device to provide one-touch access to HP 24/7 live concierge support directly via one of the device’s four hot keys.
LG also introduced its 2023 LG gram laptops, updated gram 2-in-1 and +view for LG gram models, along with the newly-added gram style edition and gram ultraslim. The expanded lineup features new gram 14, gram 15, gram 16 and gram 17 laptops, with each model offering the brand’s signature combination of strong performance and light, compact design. Equipped with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4GB 3050 graphics, 13th Gen Intel Raptor Lake chip with Performance Cores (P-Cores) and a Gen4 NVMe solid-state drive (SSD), this year’s 16- and 17-inch models provide more choices for both productivity and entertainment. With LG’s portable monitor, +view for LG gram, you can double your screen real estate and enjoy easier multitasking, wherever you are. Upgraded from last year, the latest version of LG’s portable screen solution features dual USB Type-C ports to connect to two devices simultaneously and enjoy the convenience of two-way power delivery.
With the dual screens of Lenovo’s Yoga Book 9i, you can surf the web and look at images across two full screens. Powered by up to the latest generation of Intel Core CPU processors, it’s a PC on which multitaskers can work on separate files simultaneously on different screens. Or watch a video on one screen while taking notes or researching on the second screen at the same time. Switch seamlessly between laptop, tablet or tent mode. Lenovo’s screen reorientations were done in collaboration with Microsoft to further enhance the potential to work, learn, stream, create and do light gaming.
Lenovo debuted another head-turner at CES: the Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola. Microsoft worked with Motorola (a Lenovo subsidiary) to bring the best productivity experiences to Motorola’s commercial customers. This mobile phone, which runs on Android, provides an easy way to keep up with your work life from anywhere when you’re without your laptop. It comes preloaded with the apps you use daily: Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams and Outlook. Motorola and Microsoft are also working together to unleash additional experiences including adding push-to-talk capabilities through the ThinkPhone’ s red key, allowing users to have instant communication on the Walkie Talkie app through Microsoft Teams. Employees will also be able to use their ThinkPhone to securely access their personalized Windows apps, content and settings.
These partners also revealed new and refreshed gaming PCs that come with free trials of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, providing access to hundreds of high-quality PC games*. Head over to Xbox Wire for a gaming-focused roundup of those devices.
The silicon partners whose chips power these laptops also made a bevy of announcements at CES 2023, forming a trifecta of innovation for the Windows 11 PCs announced in the new year.
Intel rolled out its 13th Gen Intel Core mobile processor family, led by the launch of the new flagship Intel Core i9-13980HX – what the company calls “the first 24-core processor for a laptop.” The new H-series processors push the computing possibilities for gamers and creators with up to 5.6GHz turbo frequency – the highest clock speed available for the laptop market. In another first, select designs based on these processors will feature the Intel Movidius vision processing unit (VPU). Intel co-engineered this with Microsoft on its new Windows Studio effects so that AI heavy tasks required for professional-grade collaboration and streaming can be offloaded to the VPU, freeing the CPU and GPU for other workloads or multitasking.
NVIDIA announced its largest generational leap in performance ever with its GeForce RTX 40 Series laptop graphics processing units (GPUs) that run on Windows 11 and include DirectX 12 Ultimate. Gamers and creators will find plenty of appeal with DLSS 3, which boosts performance and creates additional high-quality frames using AI. This builds upon NVIDIA RTX, a platform for ray tracing and AI technologies that more than 250 top games and applications use to combine realistic graphics with fast performance.
AMD announced additional 7000 Series Mobile processors with the new Ryzen 7045HX Series processors bringing improved gaming experiences to the mobile platform. AMD also previewed the 7040 Series processors, the first AMD CPU with a dedicated AI engine in an X86 processor, ushering in the future of laptop computing with powerful new capabilities in video collaboration, content creation and productivity, gaming and security.
Find out more about all of these partners and their CES 2023 announcements at Microsoft’s CES microsite.
*Xbox Game Pass Ultimate not available in all regions. Learn more about supported regions at https://www.xbox.com/regions.