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If you are thinking of getting a laptop or tablet as a gift, you have many options. Thanks to the latest round of hardware from Intel, Apple, AMD and NVIDIA, all of our laptops are running faster and more efficiently. This year we feature the XPS 13, ASUS Zephyrus G14, Apple MacBook Air M2, iPad, Surface Laptop Go 2, Razer Blade 15 and Dell’s G5 15 gaming laptop.
Video transcript
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DEVINDRA HARDAWAR: If you are thinking of getting a laptop or tablet as a gift, you have many options. Thanks to the latest round of hardware from Intel, Apple, AMD and NVIDIA, all of our laptops are running faster and more efficiently. Even the cheapest iPad can be a pretty decent productivity machine, and gaming laptops can almost match the power of their desktop siblings. Now is the perfect time for anyone to upgrade to a new PC, as Windows 11 has proven to be very stable over the past year.
As always, we recommend the Dell XPS 13 first. It may not sound like a broken record, but this has been one of the best Windows ultraportables you can buy for years. And this year, Dell has revamped its design to be thinner and lighter than ever. The result is a laptop that’s easy to carry around all day and a joy to look at thanks to its incredibly thin screen bezels.
It has been upgraded to a lower wattage Intel 12th Gen processor, which improves battery life without sacrificing much performance. The XPS 13 can also be configured with an OLED screen, making it a great gift for those who want a bright and colorful display. If you’re looking for more performance and an even more stunning design, Dell’s new XPS 13 Plus is also a great gift option. For most users, the standard XPS 13 will still be a fantastic laptop.
Now for the Apple alternative, we recommend the Apple MacBook Air with the M2 processor. It’s a follow-up to last year’s Apple M1 MacBook Air. And thanks to its slimmer design, larger 13.6-inch screen and rocking Quad speaker setup, we think it’s even more impressive.
If you’re a little bored with Apple’s old design, this is the refresh you’ve been waiting for. Although it’s still fanless, the M2 MacBook Air remains one of the fastest ultraportables around. It handles almost all of your productivity tasks, even a little media creation like video, audio, and photo editing, seamlessly. If you’re looking for more of a deal, Apple’s M1 MacBook Air is still a very interesting laptop, especially when it’s on sale.
When it comes to tablets, we still recommend Apple’s flagship iPad. The newest model is basically the iPad Air. It has a new flat bezel design, a faster processor and a more convenient front camera. Starting at $449, it’s significantly more expensive than the previous model, but all the upgrades make it more future-proof.
And if you pair your iPad with Apple’s new Magic Keyboard Folio, you can even handle basic typing, email, and productivity tasks. Now, if you can’t stomach the higher price, and we can’t blame you, last year’s $329 model is still a fantastic deal. It’s fast enough for most users, and there are several keyboard accessories for writers.
For something a lot cheaper, we recommend Amazon’s Fire HD 10. Now Amazon’s Fire tablets are basically video-first Android slates, but they prove that you don’t have to pay a ton to buy a useful tablet anymore. The Fire HD 10, which was still on sale last year, is slightly faster than its predecessor, with 50% faster memory and a slightly brighter screen.
And as a bonus, there’s a Bluetooth keyboard accessory that can turn it into an affordable productivity tablet. But its main selling point is the same as always. It can handle most tablet tasks with ease. And starting at $149, it really won’t cost you that much. There are also kid-oriented Fire tablets worth checking out, which come with a more durable case and two years of free replacements.
Now for the gamer in your life, you really can’t go wrong with the Razer Blade 15. You can really take all the praise you’ve had for this computer over the past few years and apply it to the latest model. Razer’s flagship gaming notebook still has a sleek, unibody aluminum body and packs the latest CPUs and GPUs, including NVIDIA’s top-of-the-line RTX 3080 Ti. And thanks to improved screen options, you can gift models with 40p displays that require less horsepower to operate than 4K screens. If you value portability more for your gift, consider the Razer Blade 14, a 4-pound laptop with AMD’s latest processors.
For another spin on gaming laptops, we recommend ASUS’ excellent Zephyrus G14. We featured this a few years ago for the holidays and it’s back. Finally, there’s a webcam, which fixes one of the big flaws of the original. The G14 remains one of the best 14-inch gaming laptops out there, powered by AMD’s Ryzen 9 6900 chip and Radeon 6700S or 6800S graphics. That’s pretty impressive for a computer that starts at just 3.6 pounds.
You can choose between 1080p, 144 Hertz or 1440p, 120 Hertz screens, both of which look fantastic. The G14 might look flashy with its LED back panel, but it can also do double duty as a nice performance PC. It’s actually a gaming machine that wouldn’t look out of place in a lecture hall or conference room, making it perfect for students or office workers who don’t want to pay too much attention while watching Twitch streams in class. .
For the perfect entry-level laptop, we recommend Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go 2. We call it a basic computer, but in our review, it says it all on the good side. It’s a $600 PC with the same design language as Microsoft’s excellent Surface Laptop and slightly lower-end specs. We love that it has a better CPU than last year, as well as faster storage and improved cooling. It’s the perfect computer for high school students who don’t need high-end components and want a durable computer that can last through a day of classes and beyond.
And if you’re looking for a great budget gaming machine, we recommend Dell’s G15 gaming laptop. We’ve been big fans of Dell’s budget G15 laptops for years, and the latest model is no exception. It starts at $900 and includes a 12th generation Intel Core I5 chip and NVIDIA RTX 3050 graphics.
You can scale it up to an i9 CPU and RTX 3070 GPU, all at a fraction of the price of many comparable gaming machines. The G15 isn’t as sleek as the Razer Blade, but it’s a solid and reliable PC that will serve any budding gamer well. If you’re looking for more laptop and tablet gift ideas, check out our reviews on Engadget.com. If you dig this video please like and subscribe.
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