CES 2026: PC Maker Competition is Thriving, Intel Dominates

At CES 2026, the many new chip announcements — which I already covered here — went along with a slew of announcements for new products that use those chips. In particular, this year’s CES was dominated by PCs using Intel’s new Panther Lake processors. AMD and Qualcomm made their own announcements as well, but they simply didn’t have the presence at the show that Intel did, which makes sense when you consider how hard Intel is working to turn the page for its product and foundry businesses as it tries to rebuild its leadership in the industry. Dell Returns To Form With Laptops, Desktops And Monitors At CES, Dell completely rebooted its XPS line (which it killed last year, then resurrected) with the help of Intel’s Panther Lake across the 13-, 14- and 16-inch models. The new designs address many of people’s concerns about the last generation and seem to integrate Panther Lake very well. This is a return to form for Dell, and I hope that we’ll see the company regain some share after it temporarily canceled XPS for a still-unknown reason. I am also actively working on an evaluation of Dell’s new 52-inch 6K monitor — the only one of its type in the world — that Dell also announced at CES 2026. Dell also introduced its first OLED UltraSharp monitor for professional applications (Dell’s previous OLED monitors have all been for gaming). On the gaming side, Alienware introduced new Area 51 laptops with OLED panels and updated Intel 200HX series CPUs, offering better performance and improved display tech that should be ideal for gaming. Alienware also finally embraced AMD on the desktop side, offering the X3D family on its Area 51 desktops. That said, I would still like to see Alienware refresh the Area 51 desktop design to align with the rest of the Alienware AW30 design language found in the Area 51 laptop and Alienware monitors. HP Innovates And Adapts HP introduced the EliteBook X in three different flavors, one of each from a different silicon vendor (AMD, Intel or Qualcomm), though all of them are very similar in design. The Omnibook Ultra for consumers also embraced the Snapdragon X2 Elite with its 85 TOPS NPU. The talk of the show came from two surprising announcements. The first is the EliteBoard G1a, a complete computer — including battery — built into a keyboard, enabling a unique use case for businesses wanting to easily manage devices. Among other possibilities, I could see someone buying a pair of AR glasses to attach to this keyboard to create a hyper-mobile computer with a gigantic (virtual) screen and maximum privacy. I intend to try out this use case for myself and confuse a lot of people sitting near me on some commercial flight this year. On the gaming side, HP began the unification of its HyperX and Omen lines with the HyperX Omen Max 16, along with the HyperX Omen 15 and 16 gaming laptops. Along with these introductions, HP also showed off its first 460-watt GaN charger for its high-end gaming laptops, ensuring that the laptops get the absolute maximum power they need without making the power supply unwieldy. Speaking of GaN chargers, the company also introduced its 40-, 65- and 100-watt GaN chargers, which are among the smallest I’ve seen in the industry — and which address one of the company’s biggest weaknesses in its PC business. They are among the first with configurable plugs for different regions as well. Lenovo’s Prototypes Stole The Show Lenovo wowed the whole industry with a keynote at The Sphere featuring CEO Yuanqing Yang on stage with many of the company’s partners, including Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Nvidia and Microsoft. The company also announced the Yoga Slim 7 laptop line with a model from each silicon vendor, with the Slim 7i Ultra that runs Panther Lake arguably being the sleekest version. The company also announced the Motorola Razr Fold, bringing the Fold form factor to the company’s foldable lineup, joining the Razr family of flip phones. Lenovo also showed off Qira, an operating-system-agnostic AI agent designed to exist cross-device and enable agentic user experiences. To me, Lenovo’s new Yoga AIO i Aura Edition demonstrates the power of OLED displays, while its seamless design, paired with Intel Panther Lake, make the entire computer disappear into the rear leg of the all-in-one body — so it looks like there’s no PC at all. This is one of the most elegant AIO PCs that I’ve seen to date and is likely among the most powerful to boot. Lenovo also pushed the envelope on the gaming front by adding SteamOS support to the Legion GO 2, now the second device in Lenovo’s lineup and the fastest handheld to run SteamOS, thanks to the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor. It also has an 8.8-inch OLED display. Finally, Lenovo showed off two concept rollable PCs. The Legion Pro Rollable concept turns a 16-inch notebook into a 22- or 24-inch system with the help of TCL’s OLED technology. Meanwhile, the ThinkPad XD concept has the OLED screen rolling out into the back of the display rather than rolling under the keyboard like previous rollable PCs. While it’s unclear whether either of these will reach commercial viability, both of them seem to have captured a lot of attention based on the traffic my social media videos about them have received. I would love to see both come to market, and it seems that many people in the comments agree with me. ASUS Keeps The Big Three On Their Toes ASUS was not to be outdone by the other PC OEMs as it showed off a slew of new PCs, displays and other peripherals. The Zenbook Duo is a dual-screen concept based again on Intel’s Panther Lake processor. I believe that this may be ASUS’s most refined version of this concept, with the flexibility and usability to make it competitive. ASUS also introduced the Zenbook A16, which not only is one of the lightest 16-inch notebooks I’ve ever held, but also runs on Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme processor. ASUS is also refreshing the A14 that I wrote about last year with a new Snapdragon X2 chip. Continuing down the path of innovation, ASUS was also among the first two monitor manufacturers to offer Samsung’s new fifth-generation QD-OLED technology with a new RGB stripe sub-pixel and improved durability and brightness. ASUS also introduced a new pair of AR glasses in partnership with XREAL called the R1; beyond its design changes and new appearance, there are significant performance improvements, including a 240-hertz refresh rate. Samsung Leans Into Displays Samsung also had a prolific CES, starting with the new Galaxy Book6 laptop series. The Book6, Book6 Pro and Book6 Ultra all leverage Intel’s Panther Lake processors, paired with Samsung’s latest display technology and touch capabilities, all of which means these machines run the latest Galaxy AI applications. Samsung also gave a wider audience of press and analysts demos of the Galaxy TriFold ahead of its U.S. launch. I was surprised by the TriFold’s size and durability, but disappointed that some features have gone away because of the specific folding orientation. I do believe that the TriFold is a great high-end device, but I would also expect the battery and cameras to be better than they are for the price. Huawei has shown us that it’s possible with its tri-fold phone, the Mate XT. At the First Look event, Samsung also showed its latest monitors, including the Odyssey 3D 6K gaming monitor and 130-inch Quantum MicroLED TV. (I went into more detail about the Odyssey gaming monitor lineup in an earlier piece.) The company’s fifth-gen OLED technology also found its way into MSI and ASUS gaming monitors, and I believe it will eventually find its way into Samsung’s own monitors as well. I also saw Leia showing off its latest glasses-free 3-D technology on a Samsung OLED panel, delivering the sharpest looking 3-D display I’ve seen to date, even at a lower 4K resolution. Looking at all the systems and prototypes announced at CES 2026, it seems clear that there are going to be a lot of strong contenders in many different categories. Obviously, the PC was a focal point for the show this year given Intel’s Panther Lake launch, and it is clear that PCs continue to get better and faster — and to deliver more meaningful user experiences that go beyond merely slapping “AI” on the name or a bit of AI technology into the machine. While we haven’t yet seen Microsoft’s AI vision for Windows come to fruition, it does seem like the PC OEMs are taking things in their own direction and differentiating on design and software. I think we’ll continue to see AI drive evolution in UX for both the PC and the smartphone — and I’m sure we’re only scratching the surface of the functionality that’s possible based on this generation of AI language models.