Computex 2024 is happening in Taipei all this week, and this year is turning out to be a huge one for the future of computing! What's more, we're going hands-on with the most exciting laptops, gaming handhelds, monitors, Wi-Fi 7 routers, and much more during our time here.
With the AI revolution kicking off at Microsoft Build with the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7, we're starting to see Intel and AMD join Qualcomm to build on the Copilot+ PC movement and (maybe) defeat the MacBook's dominance in performance and power efficiency.
And on top of that, we've reached the sophom*ore year of Windows gaming handhelds, and as predicted, we've seen a ton of new devices led by the Asus ROG Ally X.
So keep this page bookmarked, as we will providing 24-hour coverage of everything happening right here.
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8 new gadgets you need to see at Computex 2024
We're in the thick of it as Computex 2024 Day 3 winds to a close, and our team in Taiwan has been hard at work scoping out the most interesting and intriguing tech on the show floor.
Don't miss our latest roundup of 8 amazing new gadgets you need to see at Computex 2024, because there's everything from AI assistants to a spacious glass gaming PC case from Skytech (pictured) that has enough room to show off your favorite action figure!
Hands on with Zotac's handheld
The handheld headlines at Computex are going to the likes of the Asus ROG Ally X and the MSI Claw 8 AI Plus — but now Player Three has entered the game. This is a new PC gaming handheld called the Gaming Zone from Zotac, a company best known for making some of thebest mini PCs.
The specs are good (AMD Ryzen 7 8840U/16GB LPDDR5X-7500 RAM/512GB storage) and Zotac skipped around the clunkiness of Windows by creating its own launcher called One Launcher. Tom's Guide Editor Anthony Spadafora got some hands-on time with the Zotac at the show today, and you can read his thoughts on it here.
As for price and availability, the Zotac Gaming Zone is expected to cost around $700 to $800 and it could launch as early as August. Expect a full Tom's Guide review in the near future.
Fully autonomous AI Agents in "3-5 years"
Ok, so I know it seems like we're banging on about AI a lot — but it's clear Computex is all about it this year. And according to AMD's Senior Technical Marketing Manager, we'll have fully autonomous AI agents "in 3-5 years".
If you're not familiar with the term, an AI Agent is a program capable of helping you in all your day-to-day tasks and take action on your behalf. It learns over time and improves upon itself. Think of it like Agent Smith from "The Matrix", only more helpful and less evil.
Donny Woligroski, the aforementioned manager at AMD, told Tom's Guide: “I've never seen the industry move together in lockstep. Like it's really, really out of the box.
“That means that everybody sees the potential, and everyone's gonna move toward that potential.”
"Human Machine Interface"
This right here is the MEG Vision X AI. In a nutshell, it's a flagship new gaming PC from MSI that includes what the company calls the world’s first AI-powered “Human Machine Interface.”
The interface takes the form of a dashboard of information like clock speeds, temperature and system status that's linked with MSI's AI Engine to automatically optimise for things like performance, audio or lighting and color settings. It's all controlled with a touch screen on the front of the rig.
A lot of the AI-powered tasks are handled on-device to maintain privacy while doing things like accessing files stored on the PC.
My colleague Anthony got to try it out for himself on the show floor. But unlike Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger, he didn't get to scrawl his name all over it.
X gon' give it to ya
If Computex has been about anything, it's been about AI. But if it's been about anything else, then it would be gaming handhelds. At the opening of the show, we were getting all excited about the Asus ROG Ally X. We've known about this refresh for a little while, but Computex marked our first chance to get our hands on it.
And handle it we did. Or rather, Computing Editor Jason England did and he was mighty chuffed with what Asus had brought to the table.
You can read his full hands on review here but if you want the tl;dr version, here's what he thinks:
"Asus has taken this chance of a mid-gen refresh and run with it. The battery capacity has been doubled to 80Wh, the RAM has doubled to 24GB, and the base storage starts at 1TB over last year’s 512GB.
"All of this while keeping the weight under 700g, improving the ergonomic feel with better grips and vastly improved joysticks, and eliminating the mushiness of the D-pad."
Stand by for the full fat review coming to Tom's Guide soon.
Clackety clack!
We're big fans of the best mechanical keyboards here at Tom's Guide. Just in the last few weeks we've reviewed the likes of the Keychron V1 and the Ducky One 3 TKL. So naturally this little number from Armygroup caught our eye out on the show floor.
This is the Mistel MD750 75% style keyboard with lovely RGB lighting, a 4,000 mAh battery and Bluetooth 5.0 handling connection duties. It's compatible with both Mac and Windows and will probably be a whole heck of fun to use at the office or at home.
But the special sauce looks to be the two-inch full color LED screen that's tucked up in the top right showing you the time, date and battery status. Right next to that is a shortcut knob you can, hopefully, map to whatever your heart desires.
I'm pretty sure our Reviews Editor will be clamouring to get his hands on this one...
Intel makes a splash with Lunar Lake
Jeff here jumping into the live blog for the next several hours. As the sun sets on another day at Computex 2024 for those over in Taipei, we here in the U.K. are just getting started on pouring over the news from the show.
In case you missed it, Intel may just float your boat with news of its new Lunar Lake laptop processors. These have been specifically made to squeeze the most out of newCopilot+ PCs that Microsoft made a big deal about back at its Build conference.
Intel says Lunar Lake chips will make their way into 80 different laptop designs spanning 20 manufacturers as the dawn of the AI laptop truly arrives.
The chip wars re-open the x86 vs arm debate
My final appointment of the day took me by AMD to speak to Donny Woligroski — Senior Technical Marketing Manager, and we had a great chat about everything the company's new Copilot+ PC-compliant Ryzen AI 300 CPU.
Namely, we're starting to see a more subtle competition play out between the x86 standard that Intel and AMD use, and the arm architecture Qualcomm religiously sticks too with Snapdragon X Elite.
For those not in the know, x86 has been the go-to architecture that gives you wider PC app compatibility, but given its history in desktop space can lead to weaker battery life. Arm on the other hand is mobile-first, and that gives it the edge in power efficiency, but there are some compatibility issues there with some software.
Sure, there's emulation, but early impressions are that this still needs a little work. What side of the fence do you sit on — better compatibility or better battery life?
"If the trade off is 'I'm not sure something's going to work' [for battery life], I don't know who would put their neck out for that," Woligroski commented. "I think that's a concern in this generation."
With Project G-Assist, Nvidia has created a full-blown AI agent!
I'll go into more detail in my full hands-on with Project G-Assist soon, but Nvidia's big Computex 2024 prototype is one of the more exciting announcements to come out of this show!
Understandably, the main question here is how does Nvidia's AI work here compare to the game hints offered by Microsoft's Copilot announced at Build 2024? Well, the key here is in G-Assist's agentic behavior — developers can tap into it like a plug-in and the system will learn key aspects of the game.
The ProArt PZ13 is Microsoft's worst nightmare
Packing Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite power and an OLED display into a convertible tablet/keyboard hybrid sounds kind of like the Surface Pro 11, right?
Well, Asus has jumped in the pool too with the PZ13, but has made some significant improvements over Microsoft's formula — a bigger battery, a bigger-barrelled pencil for better pencil input, and more ports (including a full-size SD card slot).
After going hands-on, I can safely say this is one of the low-key bangers of the show. Expect my write up soon!
What is a QTR lab?
We just saw the Quality Testing Requirement lab at Asus HQ. This is where the company puts its latest tech through durability challenges, and it’s a fascinating place!
Given the lab conditions, we were not allowed to take pictures. But I can talk about what I saw, including pneumatic drop test machines, thermal chambers that recreate different climates, water resistance testing, and various robots that test laptop hinge, port and keyboard durability.
Hello from Asus HQ!
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Welcome to the Ligong building - home of Asus! We’ll be looking around and testing the latest and greatest.
Don’t worry. The “latest and greatest” doesn’t include these throwbacks, but I feel like a kid again seeing them!
We’re LIVE from Taipei!
早上好 - good morning!
Busy day ahead for us on location at Computex 2024! Keep it locked on our live blog, and here’s what you’ll see beyond the usual stream of breaking news:
- Asus’ HQ: beyond going hands-on with everything announced, we’re on the way to where the magic happens and will be taking a look around!
- Nvidia: from Project G-Assist to ACE, we’ll be testing it all.
- AMD: following all the company’s big announcements, we have a bunch of questions to ask them in an interview slot
If there is something in particular you want to see, hit me up on Twitter/X!
Coolest gadgets from Computex 2024 Day 2
We're winding down the blog here on Day 2 of Computex 2024, but before we sign off for the night make sure to check out our rundown of the coolest gadgets we've seen so far.
Our Computex Day 2: 7 exciting new gadgets you need to see round-up has it all, from new Intel chips and new gaming handhelds to a Bubble Tea PC build you have to see to believe. Don't miss it!
New AI gaming laptops are coming
There's lots of AI talk at Computex 2024, and some of it is leaching into the gaming laptop space. In fact, Asus just dropped new TUF Gaming A14 and A16 AI gaming laptops that come with all-new AMD Ryzen 300 AI chips, up to 32GB of RAM and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 laptop GPU onboard. No word on pricing yet, but we expect to hear more soon!
MSI Claw gets supercharged
MSI is showcasing a few new pieces of tech at Computex 2024, but the one we're most excited about is its gaming handheld. That's because the MSI Claw just got turbocharged with Intel's Lunar Lake chip — and it puts ROG Ally X on notice. We can't wait to get one in for testing ourselves!
Silicon wars extend to the airport at Computex 2024
Computex 2024 is all about AI, and PC vendors are here showcasing the latest and greatest chips powering what they hope will be the future of AI PCs.
You can tell Intel and Qualcomm are in a full-court press to market their new chips and get clients onboard because there are ads for their new Lunar Lake and Snapdragon X chips all over Computex 2024.
In fact, they start as early as when you get off the plane—as you can see from the photo above, our Computex team has been bombarded with ads as early as baggage claim as the silicon wars heat up. Stay tuned for our hands-on reports of how laptops packing these new chips stack up!
Lunar Lake has arrived
Intel has decided Computex 2024 is the place to unveil its latest line of processors. Now that Intel has finally unveiled Lunar Lake, with chips promising up to 48 TOPS (trillion operations per second), it's clear AI is the focus of Intel's latest release. Should Apple and Qualcomm be worried?
Get ready for an Asus deep dive
The second day of Computex is wrapping up out in Taiwan right now, and our team is getting some well-earned shut-eye after a day running around the show.
But stay tuned—we still have more stories coming hot from the show floor, including the first look at some cutting-edge new monitors and laptops. And tomorrow we're headed to Asus itself, where we'll tour the facilities and go hands-on with all the major products announced this week, including the new ROG Ally X (pictured above). And we'll live-blog the whole thing!
WiFi 7 routers from Asus
Looks like the next generation of WiFi is right around the corner. Joining Acer on the WiFi 7 front (see below) is the new lineup of routers from Asus, promising a "wire-like performance".
Pride of place goes to the company's WiFi 7 Rapture GT-BE19000 router which has been given a makeover by its ROG sub-brand. We reviewed this model earlier in the year but thanks to the new styling from Republic of Gamers it now resembles a cybernetic tarantula.
A PC shaped like a robot — what's not to like?
Part of the joy of attending trade shows like this is stumbling across wacky stuff like these custom robot PCs from ASRock. The Taipei-based company is known mostly as a creator of motherboards, but it also dabbles in graphics cards, gaming monitors, and small form factor PCs.
While having a PC shaped like the Amplified Mobility Platform (or “AMP” Suit)from Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora probably isn't practical for a home or office-based setup, it'd certainly make for a good talking point with anyone that stops by your desk.
Acer goes spatial
In case you missed this little announcement from the first day of Computex, Acer has unveiled the $549 SpatialLabs Eyes Stereo Camera. Which is interesting since you, like me, presumably thought glasses-free 3D displays were dead and buried.
The housing contains two cameras up front with an 8MP resolution per eye and Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) that generate content for Acer’s growing line of SpatialLabs devices. These machines use cameras atop the display to track your eyes to simulate stereoscopic 3D. Is 3D back? Well...maybe.
MSI and Intel join forces
MSI has used Computex to unveil at least six new productivity laptops across its Prestige and Summit lines. We got an in-depth look at them and they're all 13-inch, 14-inch or 16-inch models rocking Intel's new line of Lunar Lake CPUs inside.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is at the show this week (he gave the company's keynote and outlined — what else — Intel's AI plans) and stopped by to see the MSI booth. He also took some time out of what is likely a very busy schedule to sign one of the laptops and thank the company for its work. Which is nice.
MSI Claw — Fallout edition
Jeff Parsons here taking over the live blog as, at time of writing, it's 5pm in Taipei and the Tom's Guide team on the ground are clocking off for a well-deserved break. Here in the U.K. the day is just beginning and I'm enviously looking at this MSI Claw Fallout edition that's been shown off on the show floor.
I'm not usually a fan of tech (or any product) looking deliberately weathered and beat up — because I'll surely do that myself over time. But here I think it looks pretty darn cool. It'll take more than just a fancy paint job and a brand tie-in to convince me to part with my cash for one of these. But it sure looks tempting.
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A bubble tea PC
Bubble tea is now popular all over the world but did you know that it was invented in Taiwan in the 1980s? Well, to celebrate this delicious drink, PNY made a custom PC with a bubble tea theme for Computex 2024.
Besides a bubble tea graphic on the power supply shroud, the reservoir for this liquid-cooled gaming PC also resembles the popular drink. There's also plenty of RGB with colored fans at the top and colored RAM on the motherboard. The Aftershock Bubble Tea PC was one of the most delicious custom PC designs we've seen yet but we're sure to see even more here on the ground at Computex over the next few days.
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Back in black
There are plenty of PC gaming handhelds on the show floor at Computex 2024 but over at Asus' booth, I got to go hands-on with the new ROG Ally X. It looks even better in black and the design tweaks Asus has made to the device really do make it feel a lot better in hand. While the ROG Ally X devices at Asus' booth only had a few games installed, I got to play a bit of Naruto X Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections. Gameplay was smooth and fluid and I really liked the ROG Ally X's new joysticks and D-Pad.
The perfect throne for musicians
If you're a musician looking for the perfect upgrade for your next jam session, then you're definitely going to want to keep an eye on the Cooler Master Throne X. The company already has a similar chair for gamers but this stool is specifically designed for musicians. The Throne X translates sonic vibrations into haptic feedback based on what you're currently playing. However, it can also be used as a metronome to help you keep the beat.
All of the Throne X's ports are located on the back so that you can easily plug in all of your equipment without having to worry about the cables getting in the way. It's also portable and its foldable stand can be broken down and stored in the included backpack for when you're traveling or even if you're touring.
Looking to the future
Lunar Lake was just revealed for the first time but Intel wasn't done there. The company showed us its roadmap for the rest of this year and even for 2025 and beyond. Arrow Lake desktop chips will be released this year and then in 2025, Panther Lake chips that use Intel's 18A node are coming.
Lunar Lake has landed
The moment we've been waiting for is here and Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger just unveiled its new Lunar Lake chips. This flagship system-on-a-chip will power the next generation of AI PCs and laptops and so far, there are 80+ designs from 20 different OEMs. Immediately after revealing its latest chips, Gelsinger was joined on stage by Asus' CEO.
AI PCs galore
AI PCs are still relatively new but at the Intel keynote, Pat Gelsinger revealed that there are already 500 different models available from brands like Acer, Asus, HP, LG, MSI, Samsung, Gigabyte, Dell and more. In fact, Intel has a display case with 24 of them up on stage.
Attack of the robots
PNY may be known for its storage and graphics cards but at Computex 2024, it brought several robots to the show floor. The one seen here uses a special webcam along with RTX graphics from Nvidia to mimic your movements. There was also another robot that looked a bit like WALL-E.
A surprise visit
Down on the show floor at Computex 2024, everything stopped for a few minutes and it was almost impossible to leave but I managed to get out and make my way to the Intel keynote. Meanwhile, my colleague Paul Antill stayed there and got to see the arrival of Taiwan's president Lai Ching Te. Apparently, he was there visiting the booths of local businesses and making the rounds.
It starts with Intel
We're here at the Intel keynote at Computex 2024 where Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is on stage showing off company's latest chips including Lunar Lake and more. As you'd expect, AI has been a big part of his presentation so far. We've seen the latest Intel Xeon chips and Lunar Lake will probably be shown off later on in the presentation.
Snapdragon X laptops are here
And here's the new Dell Latitude 7455 coming later this summer with Snapdragon X chips inside. On-screen you can see a resource monitor showing the Snapdragon NPU freeing up the onboard CPU to focus on other tasks, which is one of the key promises of these new Copilot+ laptops: better performance and better battery life, because your CPU and GPU will be aided by the new NPU.
Here you can see the new Snapdragon-powered Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 running an app that taps the power of the NPU to edit images in real time.
And here's the Acer Swift X running a demo of how the NPU in the Snapdragon X chips can help out with advanced camera tricks, from auto-blurring your background on video calls to helping you use face and hand gestures to control your PC.
Copilot+ PCs won't just be laptops
It's not just laptops that are getting these new Snapdragon X chips; there will be desktops as well.
Here you can see a developer build of a Snapdragon X PC that's pared down for developer use and slated to start shipping for $899 later this year. For that you get a small black box packing a Snapdragon X Elite chip, 32GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
Qualcomm's all in on AI PCs
I just got back from a Qualcomm Computex 2024 event where I saw some of the Copilot+ laptops coming June 18 running on the new Snapdragon X PlusandSnapdragon X Elitechips.
These are the first laptops which meet Microsoft's minimum specs for a Copilot+ PC (16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 40+ TOPS NPU), and we're getting live demos of apps taking advantage of the NPUs onboard these new machines. Here you can see someone using the DJay Pro app to isolate sources of audio in a music track, and it's being done entirely on the NPU of an HP OmniBook.
Project G-Assist from Nvidia
No computing show would be complete without a visit from Nvidia and for Computex 2024, Team Green has revealed Project G-Assist. This is an AI assistant designed to use generative AI techniques to help players in games.
The company partnered with Studio Wildcard to develop a demo here in Taipei showcasing Project G-Assist running in Ark: Survival Evolved. In a nutshell, it'll take text or voice input from the player and use a large language model (LLM) to try and answer questions about the game. Think of it like a friendly AI helper that's specifically tailored to help you get through tricky spots during your game.
For the tinkerers among us, the Project G-Assist toolkit also includes AI-powered methods to help players optimize their PC settings for a given game.
Wi-Fi 7 for the masses
While the likes of new gaming laptops and AI developments are always going to draw the eye, Computex is about much more than that. Those looking to upgrade their home network may be interested in the new Mesh 7 router from Acer that utilizes the latest Wi-Fi 7 technology.
This router comes packing a 2.5GHz and 5GHz wireless network as standard, alongside an optional 6GHz signal. We’re looking at speeds up to 6,400 Mbps, with Acer promising “exceptional” reliability and latency. We'll wait to test ourselves before we comment on those claims.
R.I.P. Steam Deck?
Ok, one more thing to mention and then we'll take a break from Asus, alright? Well, the company has finally officially announced theROG Ally X. This will take up the mantle from last year’s decent but not class-leading handheld and hope to give Valve's Steam Deck a run for its money.
Asus has decided to stick with the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor of its predecessor, but the the Windows 11-powered ROG Ally X boasts some new tricks, including a Full HD screen with a refresh rate of 120Hz that’s capable of reaching 500 nits of brightness; a new 80wh battery that offers a claimed 200% battery boost and a few more goodies we've covered here.
It's available to buy right now in the U.S. and will set fans of thebest PC gamesback $799. If you’re reading this in the U.K. you’re going to have to be a little more patient, it's not launching here until June 22, when it will launch at £799.
Game time with Asus' new laptops
As well as the creator-focused ProArt laptops, Asus has also unveiled three new gaming laptops and each one will come packing the new AMD Ryzen AI 3000 NPU chipset — capable of handling 50 million TOPS per second.
Top billing goes to the ROG Zephyrus G16, which offers an OLED display with 2.5K resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate backed by an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. Bringing up the rear are the TUF Gaming A14 and A16 laptops, complete with 2.5K resolution displays, 165Hz refresh rates, RTX 4070 graphics cards and up to 32GB of RAM.
We'll know more about these devices once we've gone hands-on at the show, so stay tuned for our thoughts later this week.
Asus steps into the arena
Asus has used Computex as the launchpad to announce a new line of ProArt laptops, utilizing both the AMD Ryzen AI 300 and the Snapdragon X Elite chipsets to make them full-featured Copilot+ PCs.
The lineup consists of two 13.3-inch devices and a 16-inch one, the PX13, PZ13 and P16 respectively. All three come with over 40 TOPS of NPU performance for turboboosting those AI tasks and, crucially, all three come with a ton of free software.
These computers are aimed at creators, which is why Asus is bundling in a 6-month free subscription to CapCut and three months of Adobe Creative Suite. You can read more about these laptops (and get a breakdown of the specs) right here. All we'll say is: watch out Surface Pro 11!
The chips are down
A lot of the talk at Computex is going to be focused around AI computing. The question of what's powering the new slate ofCopilot+ PCs is a a big one for anyone thinking of making a purchase.
We've already seen Qualcomm take the wraps off the Snapdragon X Elite and now AMD has stepped up on the eve of Computex to announce its new laptop-focused Ryzen AI 3000 Series chip. The company claims it's the “world’s best processor for Copilot+ PCs,” and it will sit alongside the Ryzen 9000 series of desktop CPUs offering, you guessed it, a focus on executing AI workloads.
You can read the full story on the Ryzen AI 3000 Series right here but rest assured we'll be doing our best to get hands on with anything AMD can offer us at this year's show.
It's all coming together
The show floor at Computex won't officially open until tomorrow in Taipei but we got to take an early look at some of the booths. Asus, MSI, Intel and all of the other big players were out in full force but we also got a chance to see the booths of some of our favorite accessory makers like UGREEN and NuPhy.
As we were walking around the show floor at Computex, many of the displays were still being built. There were even trucks, cranes and a few bicycles whizzing past us as we got the lay of the land. Besides new PCs and laptops, we also saw quite a few SIM racing rigs as well as some impressive multi monitor setups. We'll be back on the show floor first thing tomorrow, so stay tuned for our latest on the ground coverage from Computex 2024.
Not your typical laptop
Before we even had a chance to go check out the show floor at Computex, we came across a unique laptop with a very interesting design. While other laptops use some recycled components, this one at the registration desk has a chassis made entirely from post consumer recycled plastic. Apparently it's an Acer Aspire Vero with an Intel Evo chip under the hood.
I had a chance to test it out while we were waiting for our press badges and unlike the aluminum frames you find on other laptops, the recycled plastic felt really soft on the palms of my hands. However, the laptop's bezels were quite large and the E and R keys were reversed. It turns out these eco-themed R and E keys on the 50% post consumer recycled plastic keycaps reinforce the call to Reduce, Reuse & Recycle according to Acer. What I liked most about this Acer Aspire Vevo laptop is how the bits of white really stand out on its recycled blue chassis.
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We've made it to Taipei
Tom's Guide is on the ground in Taipei and ready to check out all of the latest tech at Computex this year. Even though things don't actually kick off until tomorrow, it's clear that AI and specifically AI laptops will be a big focus of this year's show. We're heading inside now to get our press badges and to see what's been set up so far.
