2024 was an eventful year for laptops. With the release of the first Snapdragon X Elite-powered notebooks, we finally got Windows 11 laptops that matched the performance and efficiency of the best MacBooks. And while laptops packing Qualcomm, Intel and AMD silicon didn’t exactly deliver an AI revolution, it’s clear that on-devive machine learning is here to stay. The state of laptops is many things, but boring isn’t one of them.
With CES 2025 only a couple days away, I’m preparing myself for the eventual torrent of new laptop announcements. Nothing is official yet, but I expect we’ll see the first laptops featuring the rumored Nvidia RTX 50-series mobile GPUs and next-gen CPUs from Intel, AMD and Qualcomm. It’s hard to say if these machines will be substantially different from what’s currently available, but the prospect of stronger performance, longer battery life and perhaps unique form factors is exciting.
Here are some of my CES 2025 laptop predictions.
AMD and Qualcomm Challenge Intel, first rollable laptop
Microsoft and its partners have pushed the idea of Copilot+ PCs for over a year and I expect that to continue at CES 2025. We’ll hear the usual lines about how AI on laptops can help us be more productive or aid us in our everyday lives. Given how these lofty promises didn’t exactly come to pass, I don’t think we’ll suddenly see AI become a must-have feature on laptops. However, 2025’s laptops could be more beneficial in other ways.
There’s a high probability we’ll see new AI-focused processors from Intel, AMD and Qualcomm. And though I expect the usual song and dance I described above, I want to see how much more powerful and energy-efficient these chips could be. After all, the most beneficial thing Snapdragon X chips delivered was battery life comparable to MacBooks. They also offer excellent performance for everyday work. These are the things that laptop users actually notice.
For CES 2025, we’re sure to hear promises of better performance and endurance. We might also see laptops with CPUs that can dish out performance equivalent to an RTX 4060 like we heard about the rumored AMD Strix Halo chip. A laptop packing that kind of power without a discrete GPU would be a game-changer. And if these machines have 20+ hours of battery life as we’ve seen with Snapdragon X Elite laptops like the Dell XPS 13, that’ll just sweeten the deal.
Lastly, I’m sure we’ll see laptops with different form factors. Companies have tried their hand at foldable display/dual display laptops for some time—with machines like the Asus Zenbook Duo and HP Spectre Fold. I’ll keep an eye out for laptops like those and the rumored Lenovo “rollable laptop” during my time at CES.
The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 is interesting because the display would be able to grow to the point where you have two screens on top of each other. The previous Lenovo rollable laptop concept we saw at MWC featured a 12.7-inch display that was able to extend upwards into a 15.3-inch display — with an aspect ratio of 8:9. That's basically two 16:9 displays stacked.
Gaming laptops
As with productivity laptops, I also expect 2025’s gaming laptops to sport the latest CPUs and GPUs. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to make that prediction, but as a gamer, I salivate over the prospect of what next-gen components can do for performance and graphics. Beyond spec bumps, there are other trends we should see for gaming laptops.
I’ve noticed a trend of vendors releasing gaming laptops with understated designs that make them look like average notebooks. This includes elegant-looking machines like the HP Omen Transcend 14 and Asus Zephyrus G14. It won’t surprise me to see similar gaming laptops at CES 2025.
Customization is a big component of PC gaming, and I don’t just mean hardware-wise. Over the years, I’ve seen apps like Legion Space and the Omen Gaming Hub offer folks greater control over how their gaming laptops allocate resources when gaming (and not gaming). The same is true for RGB lighting controls. I think we’ll see updated versions of these apps that’ll allow us to better optimize our gaming experiences.
In terms of GPUs we expect to see Nvidia's powerful new lineup. PC gaming company Zotac accidentally posted the GeForce RTX 5090, 5080 and 5070 GPUs on its website.
The key spec of the RTX 50-series is its use of GDDR7 memory over the GDDR6 you saw in the likes of the 4090. This means accessing important data on the fly could be up to 60% faster, while potentially using roughly 20% less power.
Outlook
The Tom’s Guide team will be on the ground at CES 2025 to scope out all the latest and greatest tech coming next year and beyond. That’s where I’ll learn everything I can about 2025’s laptops and see if they offer worthwhile upgrades. As a tech journalist and hardware enthusiast, I’m excited at the prospect of what I’ll see.
Even if there are no groundbreaking announcements, I still expect to find a decent amount of upgrades — from everyday work to hardcore gaming.
