Kunal Khullar / Digital Trends

We ’re in an unprecedented moment right now in the world of laptops , and Intel is try its best to not get lost in the shuffle .

At its keynote atComputex 2024 , Intel announced apreview of its upcoming Lunar Lake buffalo chip . They ’re come early in the cycle — at least a few months ahead of when they normally would have . But Intel does n’t have a selection . Its mitt has been forced by Microsoft , Qualcomm , and AMD — and it was n’t about to be left in the dust .

But among the sparse details aroundLunar Lake , Intel had at least one very solid laptop to show off that ’s wait for the fresh chip .

A stunning Zenbook

Among the laptops revealed that are being held for the launching of Intel Lunar Lake , only one really stood out . Theaddition of the MSI Claw 8was a squeamish surprise , even if the original was a bit of a bomb . But at least as of now , the only Lunar Lake laptop that digest out was the Asus Zenbook S 14 .

This is a surrogate of theZenbook S 13 , that comes with a slightly larger OLED blind and some new optical dash . I have to say — this is the best - looking Zenbook ever made . The hat has the lines of the monogram Asus logo , now with a “ ceraluminum ” finish that looks corking .

Inside , it ’s got thin bezels around the CRT screen , a massive tactile feedback trackpad , and a unequaled “ geometrical grille pattern ” across the top . Both the dark and light-headed color option expect orca too . In a mountain of ways , it feel like it ’s memorize a bit from the success of the recentROG Zephyrus G14 redesign .

Now , the Zenbook S 13 was already one of the very thinnest laptops you could bribe at 0.43 inch . That ’s marginally thinner than the MacBook Air , making it the laptop to bewilder in terms of portability . This is a really important thing for Intel to have on to due to how much the efficiency of the Snapdragon X chips has been babble out about . The Zenbook S 13 seems like it would have been the perfect good example for Qualcomm ’s platform , but the fact that Asus saved it for Intel ’s launch says a lot .

That ’s not to say we ’ll never see a Qualcomm or AMD version of this machine . Interestingly , Asus ’ launches around support of the Qualcomm - free-base Copilot+ PCs was rather quiet . It only had theVivobook S15to show , and that ’s a particularly old - school and budget - friendly equipment that was at odds with the more exchange premium devices its competitor were showing off . The plus of thenew ProArt PZ13 2 - in-1announced at Computex firms up the society ’s loyalty to Qualcomm , but the fact that it ’s saving a gorgeous redesign of its flagship laptop for Intel Lunar Lake feel significant .

And yet , the fact that impressions of Intel ’s positioning right now rely on just a individual laptop are n’t necessarily a good sign of the zodiac .

A race to the finish

Dell , Asus , Acer , Lenovo , and Samsung all just herald their sharpestnew laptop computer at Microsoft ’s Copilot+ PC eventand they all support Qualcomm . HP even took the opportunity to rebrand its entire batting order of laptop . Importantly , it came in the middle of the year at an strange time for laptop computer tone ending .

There ’s no way to say it nicely — Qualcomm ’s new Snapdragon X chipping have commanded a lot of regard in the preceding month . With the push for neuronic processing units ( NPUs ) , Arm , andCopilot+ , the table have flipped on x86 laptop . AMD and Intel are being forced to vie for the attending of thebig laptop blade . Just look at Microsoft itself , which launch the latest Surface Laptop and Surface Pro entirely for Qualcomm . That hurts . And since Intel ’s next - gen chips are last in line , it ’s hard not to finger like it ’s at the back of the large number correctly now .

AMD at least had the welfare of being the first to respond at Computex . But even there , as great as thenew Zen 5 chipslook , there were n’t a net ton of new laptops to support . There weresome new gambling laptops of interest , while the Asus ProArt P16was perhaps the most impressive accomplishment . It ’s packing the 50   tera operation per second ( TOPS ) of the NPU with the improved performance of the Ryzen AI 300 chip , and up to an RTX 4070 graphics . That ’s something no Qualcomm laptop computer usable the right way now can do . When it comes to raw performance in AI workloads , it certainly looks to be as honest as it gets .

But in general , Ryzen AI 300 could scarce be consider a vast liberation . AMD depend a lot on play laptops , and those are in all likelihood waiting for a new generation of Nvidia computer graphic before it releases a refresh . Without them , it was fairly slim picking .

I ’m certain Intel ’s office will look a circle more promising by the end of the year . There ’s no style companies like Dell , HP , and Lenovo , which depend so much on Intel ’s name realization to sell laptops , can ignore it . That ’ll remain lawful throughout 2024 and beyond . In fact , it ’s the intellect it ’s always been so hard for AMD to gain any ground against Intel over the days , peculiarly in mainstream laptops .

But the tide is turning . At least from the advantage item of Computex , the pressure is on Intel to deliver big with Lunar Lake to stay in good favour with its laptop partners . Without them , Intel ’s in trouble .