i regard and praise the effort
The majority of these experiments do not stay for long, however who understands.
Acer’s Nitro Blaze 11, which takes the “portable” out of “portable handheld gaming PC.”
Credit: Acer
The Consumer Electronics Show is a reputable source of statements about iterative updates to PCs and PC elements. A few of those statements are considerable enough in some method that they break through all that sound– Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs and their lofty guarantees about AI-generated frames did that this year, as did Dell’s choice to eliminate several decades-old PC brand names and change them with a dull series of “Pro/Premium/Plus” tiers.
CES is likewise a location where PC business and device makers get a little odd, taking some larger (and sometimes doubtful) swings together with a huge batch of more foreseeable incremental refreshes. As we’ve covered the program from afar this year, here are a few of the more noteworthy things we’ve seen.
Put an E-Ink screen on it: Asus NUC 14 Pro AI+
The strangest CES PCs are typically the ones that attempt to retreat from “a single screen attached to a keyboard” in some method. Often, those PCs have a 2nd screen stowed away someplace; in some cases, they have a screen that extends; in some cases, they eliminate the keyboard part and extend the screen down where you anticipate that keyboard to be.
Asus is presently the keeper of Intel’s old NUC small PC line, and this year it’s upgrading the NUCs primarily by putting brand-new processors in them. The Asus NUC 14 Pro AI+ likewise chooses to spice things up by including a color E-Ink screen on top, one with images that can show constantly even when the gadget is off.
While other PCs with shoehorned-in E-Ink screens have at least attempted to do something practical– older laptop computers in Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus series might be utilized as E-Ink tablets when they were closed– the screen on the NUC 14 Pro AI+ appears strictly decorative. Asus provides couple of information about how it works: “users can generate AI images through the built-in app, allowing them to create unique personal identification designs that continuously display content without being plugged in, consuming no power.”
All of Asus’ item shots reveal the NUC with the very same pattern of abstract triangles showed on the top, so it’s uncertain whether users will have the choice to utilize custom-made non-AI-generated images, or if they’ll have the ability to utilize the screen to show any other type of system info. It’s distinct, a minimum of.
Extending: Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable
We blogged about the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable currently today, so we will not devote a lots of additional area to it here. Its elastic screen, which broadens vertically from 14 inches to 16.7 inches, is a fascinating riff on the “one laptop, multiple screens” concept. Some photos of the laptop computer appearance slightly Photoshopped, like somebody got the top of the screen and extended it out.
Other laptop computers have actually put a 2nd screen below the hinge under a detachable keyboard and a 2nd screen that folds out horizontally. The brand-new ThinkBook keeps the picture orientation, however it has a standard non-removable keyboard in the base. One day, possibly Lenovo will strike a ThinkBook Plus screen concept that it likes well sufficient to keep for more than a generation or 2.
A time for reflection: InWin Prism PC case
Seeing what pre-built weirdness the PC business can develop is constantly enjoyable, however I live for the PC case concepts that business give CES. Possibly you’re utilizing odd products like material or wood paneling. Possibly you’re making a case that appears like a shark, or a huge shoe. I most likely will not purchase any of these things, however I sure simulate taking a look at them.
The most captivating entry into this category from CES 2025 is from InWin, which has actually likewise offered us hits like this case with addressable RGB lights all over its whole front panel. The InWin Prism midtower utilizes two-way mirror panels on its sides– if you’ve currently got a PC filled with hectic RGB lights, the Prism makes things look even busier by likewise showing whatever in your space back at you.
The beautiful press shots of this one do not actually do it justice; images from Tom’s Hardware of the case on the program flooring do a much better task of communicating simply how disorderly this thing searches in individual.
Feeling exposed: MSI Project Zero X case
If the Prism is a PC case that looks a littletoo noticeable, MSI’s Project Zero X is the opposite, with glass that twists around the back, front, left side, and top of the case to flaunt whatever inside to an even higher degree than the majority of windowed cases.
This is a follow-up to the initial Project Zero idea case, which wasn’t rather as glassy. The (fairly) special feature of both cases is that they’re developed around motherboards with all their different ports on the rear end– frequently described as “back-connect” motherboards. The power plugs, fan and USB headers, power button, and whatever else you require to plug cable televisions into when you set up a motherboard are all dealing with the opposite instructions from your CPU socket, RAM slots, and PCI Express cards.
The point is to make it simpler to produce tidy, show-off-able builds without as much cable television management inconvenience, which is why you ‘d integrate it with a case that reveals your motherboard off from every side however the back.
A roomie for your video gaming PC: MSI MEG MAESTRO 900L PZ
MSI likewise makes it for the MEG MAESTRO 900L PZ. This is a hulking monstrosity of a PC case that can, for some factor, fit an E-ATX motherboard, an ITX motherboard, and the power materials, fans, and GPUs for both systems in the exact same case at the very same time.
Possibly it’s a good method to bring an extra or loaner system with you to a LAN celebration or an e-sports competitors? It looks and sounds like the kind of thing that needs group lifting to move around.
Developing a larger Steam Deck
Clones of Valve’s portable Steam Deck video gaming PC have actually ended up being an item classification unto themselves, and business like Asus and Lenovo are currently a number of generations deep into their own variations. Among Lenovo’s is the very first non-Steam Deck to formally run Steam OS, an indication that Valve might when again be all set to make a relocation versus Windows.
And when the PC business see what they consider a brand-new market chance, the race for distinction starts, with periodically ridiculous outcomes.
Get In the Acer Nitro Blaze 11, which appears like a primarily traditional portable with Nintendo Switch-style removable controllers however with a big 11-inch screen (the OLED Steam Deck is 7.4 inches, and other Deck-alikes primarily land in between 7 and 9 inches). At 2.3 pounds, the Blaze 11 presses the limits of what can fairly be thought about “handheld.” It likewise has a Switch-style kickstand for propping it up on a desk or table, which seems like an admission that you may not wish to be holding the important things all the time.
All of that stated, “take a thing people already like and make it bigger/smaller” has actually been a relatively reputable course to success in PCs, phones, and other tech over the last number of years. Perhaps an 11-inch “handheld” will not appear so odd a couple of years from now.
A “keyboard for authors”
This one’s for all the authors out there who think that they’re simply one devices purchase far from having a best, efficient, distraction-free composing setup.
Freewrite is understood mostly for its clever typewriters, keyboards that are connected to little monochrome LCD or E-Ink display screens that guarantee to be “dedicated drafting tools” that “optimize your efficiency.
This year, they’ve revealed a PC keyboard billed as “the first mechanical keyboard designed for writers.” The Wordrunner has a function row of faster way secrets that will work to authors browsing their method through a file, plus an integrated timer and word counter for the times when you simply require to pull words out of your brain and you can return and modify them into cohesive ideas later on.
I do take pleasure in a keyboard with extraneous knobs and doodads, that makes the mechanical “wordometer” especially attracting me. As of this composing the Wordrunner is still in a prehistoric, pre-Kickstarter state of advancement. If you’re interested, you can put down $1 now, so you can get early riser Kickstarter rates in February, and you may get a keyboard eventually numerous months or years in the future. Freewrite is, a minimum of, a recognized business with a number of items under its belt, so we would not betoo anxious about this job disappearing without a trace as a lot of Kickstarter efforts do.
Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a concentrate on customer tech consisting of hardware and extensive evaluations of running systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew resides in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue.
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