CES is always jam-packed with new laptop announcements, acting as a barometer for the year’s upcoming releases. The proofs of concept at the show display what could potentially come further in the future. 2026 will soon bring us new chip options from Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. While I’m excited to see how the latest horse race shakes out, some of the new designs and form factors displayed at the show are easily more compelling.
There was a myriad of new models shown from Asus, Lenovo, Dell, MSI, Acer, and HP. Here’s my shortlist of all the ones I’m most looking forward to testing — or hoping that there will even be an opportunity to test in the future.
I love OLEDs and I enjoy a good gaming laptop. The Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo is a gaming laptop based on the excellent Zephyrus G16, but with two full-size OLED displays. Sign me up.
The original Zephyrus Duo was a strange experiment for a laptop with two screens. The lower display was a decently sized strip across the bottom, but now for 2026 the second screen is the whole dang bottom half of the laptop like it should have always been. Asus basically took the dual-screen design it established a couple years ago with the productivity-focused Zenbook Duo and translated it into a Zephyrus gaming laptop. It’s going to make tradeoffs, because the new Zephyrus Duo is likely going to cost more than the standard Zephyrus G16 while not being as powerful, but in exchange you get two 16-inch OLEDs with a 120Hz refresh rate for a multi-monitor setup you can take on the go.
The 2026 Zephyrus Duo looks very promising as a combination gaming laptop and power-user-friendly multiscreen workhorse. There’s really nothing else quite like it. Now let’s cross our fingers that this unique laptop doesn’t get a uniquely high price to match.
Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable concept
I was instantly a fan of rollable laptops when I got to see Lenovo’s concept become a reality at last year’s CES, and its usefulness was proven once I reviewed it. But I, and I wager many of you, wondered if a laptop screen that extended horizontally might be even better. Lenovo’s Legion Pro Rollable concept proves there’s something to that, as I couldn’t help smiling once I saw this gaming laptop extend from 16 inches to an ultrawide 24 inches before my eyes.
This concept was still rough around the edges, with noisy motors that occasionally stuttered, resolution that didn’t adjust to the screen’s changing size, and a massive panel gap in the lid. But if all that gets ironed away, and I expect that it will if it ever comes out, this could be my ideal gaming laptop. You get the immersion and multitasking benefits of an ultrawide monitor on demand, and you get to tuck it away and take it with you. It’s unlike anything else, and I’m really rooting for it to make it past the proof-of-concept stage. I want another moment like last year where we get to say, “and you can own this if you’d like.” I still do shudder to think what it may cost, though.
I wasn’t fond of haptic trackpads and their simulated clicks when Apple started putting them in MacBooks around 10 years ago, but at some point I came around to them and the ability to click anywhere on their surface from corner to corner. Now, Acer’s new Swift 16 AI has the largest haptic trackpad around, complete with stylus support, and it’s instantly one of Acer’s most interesting offerings at CES because of it.
We don’t know how much the Acer Swift 16 AI will cost (an unfortunate trend for some laptop companies at CES 2026), but I’m intrigued to see where this model in particular lands. That football field of a haptic trackpad, combined with a generous port selection (which the Swifts are typically known for) and an OLED display, has a lot of potential if the price is right.
I’m so relieved that Dell caved to the pressure from last year and resurrected the XPS line. I don’t want to give too much credit, as I found many faults in the last XPS model I tested. But things already look much more promising in the new XPS 14 and 16 (they even have nice new lid logos). The physical function row is back, the seamless haptic trackpad now has some nice etched lines to inform you of its boundaries, and these machines are freaking thin. The thinness makes me a little nervous, as there have been many XPS laptops in the past that struggled with heat, but we’ll have to see when the time comes for testing.
The new XPS models also have a unique feature: variable refresh rate screens that go as high as 120Hz and as low as just 1Hz. That’s the kind of tech that has helped phone screens remain buttery smooth during scrolling while saving battery life when viewing static elements like a document. And this feature will be on the base-model XPS 14 and 16 with lowly IPS displays, as well as fancier configurations with bright tandem OLEDs. I’m tempering my expectations, especially since there are no discrete GPU options like previous XPS generations, but much of this XPS resurgence looks good.
Lenovo ThinkPad Rollable XD concept
It’s another rollable Lenovo concept, yes, but a ThinkPad with a rollable screen is a big deal. This is Lenovo’s bread-and-butter business laptop line, and the concept here isn’t to reinvent the wheel but to potentially augment its offerings. That flexible OLED screen you see there, wrapping around its own lid, extends upward from a standard 13.3 inches to an extra-tall 15.9 inches.
I agree with commenters that the exposed screen on the outside could make a workhorse laptop feel much more fragile, even with something as simple as throwing it into your bag. But the exciting thing here is that Lenovo continues to tinker with how it can deliver the rollable form factor. Since the ThinkPad Rollable XD keeps the motors and flexible OLED contained in the lid, it could one day be offered as a display configuration for regular ThinkPads. Anything that means rollable form factors could become more common (and ideally, cheaper) sounds good in my book. And that seethrough lid that shows the mechanics of the extendable screen at work? Chef’s kiss!
It’s likely obvious to you that I love big displays, and at 2.65 pounds the Asus Zenbook A16 is one of the lightest 16-inchers around. It’s also got another thing that’s near and dear to my heart: a full-size SD card reader. That’s a rare find these days in thin-and-light devices, and it makes the life of a photographer like me much easier.
But there are other compelling factors to the A16 other than my personal love for card slots: It’s got an OLED with 2880 x 1800 resolution and 120Hz refresh, a solid selection of ports, and it can be configured with Qualcomm’s highest-end Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme chip. I imagine that’s going to be a pricey spec, but it could be worth it for someone in need of a big Windows laptop that doesn’t feel big — and one that should have equally large-and-in-charge battery life.
MSI really shook things up in the looks department this year for its non-gaming laptops. The new Prestige models look like something you wouldn’t be embarrassed to bring to an office, and they’re really quite sleek overall. The refined design of the new Stealth 16 creator / softcore gaming laptop also looks great (even if it could stand to be just a little stealthier). It’s got some wannabe MacBook Pro vibes, but it offers plenty of ports (including ethernet). It also comes standard with a 240Hz OLED display, Intel’s new Panther Lake chips, and Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs. Last year I tested the absolutely over-the-top MSI Titan, and I’m eager to review something from MSI that’s more subdued than its usually garish gaming laptops.
Asus’ TUF line is the lower-cost rung of its gaming laptop offerings. They’re designed to be as cheap as you can get an Asus laptop with a discrete Nvidia GPU. But there’s a new TUF A14 coming with AMD Strix Halo — yes, integrated graphics. And it looks very intriguing.
Last year’s Asus ROG Flow Z13 proved that integrated graphics can be great. Now in 2026, we’ll see a TUF with integrated graphics in a fairly compact chassis. Ideally, it should be an affordable (well, affordable-ish) gaming laptop that’s also good at other laptop-y things like battery life. But Strix Halo is not known for being an affordable chip. Maybe the new versions AMD is making will help, but we’ll have to hope Asus is able to land on a price that makes sense for this little guy.
The Eliteboard G1a “keyputer” is essentially a headless laptop put into an unassuming HP keyboard. I was so ready to write it off as just a fun oddity for boring suits and IT folks — even if it does sort of harken back to the olden days of the Commodore 64. But I’ll level with you guys: I have no idea why our silly little video on this thing absolutely blew up on social media. (Is it my shirt? Tell me it’s my shirt.)
Should I review the Eliteboard once it’s available? Something tells me I’ve already answered my question as I type this.
Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / noti.group
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
