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Alienware teases new super-slim and entry-level gaming laptops at CES 2026

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After relaunching its Area-51 brand with a new 16-inch laptop in 2025, Alienware is teasing two new laptops at CES 2026 in an attempt to reach an even larger audience. Dell's gaming brand plans to launch both entry-level and ultra-slim models later this year, and in the meantime, it's rolling out updates to its existing desktops and laptops to tide people over.

Alienware isn't sharing all the details of its new laptops at CES, but we do have the highlights. The company's new "ultra-slim gaming laptop" will be around 17mm or 0.67 inches thin, and come in either 14-inch or 16-inch variants. While the 16-inch version of the laptop will feature NVIDIA discrete graphics and "new highly efficient CPUs," it's not meant to be a gaming powerhouse like the Area-51. Instead, Alienware suggests the laptop will work for gaming and also "creative projects, productivity and everything in between."

The entry-level laptop is similarly not at Area-51-levels of power, but Alienware claims it'll deliver "strong gaming performance" at its "most accessible price point yet." That should ideally put the new laptop under the $1,199 starting price of the more streamlined Alienware 16 Aurora laptop.

The updated version of the Alienware Area-51 Desktop with AMD chips.
The Alienware Area-51 Desktop will get updated with the latest AMD chips in February 2026.
Dell

On top of those two new models, Alienware is bringing new anti-glare OLED panels to a selection of its Alienware 16X Aurora and Alienware 16 Area-51 laptops, along with new Intel Core Ultra 200HX chips. The new display panels reach 620 nits of peak HDR brightness and have a 0.2ms response time for even smoother gameplay. The Alienware 18 Area-51 is also getting an upgrade to Intel Core Ultra 200HX chips, while the Alienware Area-51 Desktop will ship with AMD's new Ryzen 7 9850X3D chips.

There's currently no pricing available for Alienware's new laptops, or the updated versions of its older models. The updated Alienware 16X Aurora, Alienware 16 Area-51, and Alienware 18 Area-51 laptops will be available in Q1 2026. The update Alienware Area-51 Desktop is coming in February 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/alienware-teases-new-super-slim-and-entry-level-gaming-laptops-at-ces-2026-033000700.html?src=rss

AMD’s new Ryzen AI Max+ chips and Ryzen 7 9850X3D court desktop enthusiasts at CES 2026

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While it's nice to see desktop support in AMD's new Ryzen AI 400 chips, demanding gamers and enthusiasts will likely be more intrigued by the company's next batch of Ryzen AI Max+ chips, as well as the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D with 3D V-Cache. The former will make its way into small desktops and a handful of workhorse laptops, while the latter is another option for gamers who want the speed bump of 3D V-cache without shelling out for the $700 9950X3D. 

Last year, AMD debuted its Ryzen AI Max chips as a way to create a single piece of silicon with powerful CPU cores, GPU cores, NPUs and integrated memory, similar to Apple's home-brewed chips. At the time, AMD VP Joe Macri also noted that the existence of Apple Silicon helped make the Ryzen AI Max chips possible.

"Many people in the PC industry said, well, if you want graphics, it's gotta be discrete graphics because otherwise people will think it's bad graphics," Macri said at last year's CES. "What Apple showed was consumers don't care what's inside the box. They actually care what the what the box looks like. They care about the screen, the keyboard, the mouse. They care about what it does."

AMD Ryzen AI Max+ chip family
AMD Ryzen AI Max+ chip family
AMD

At CES this year, AMD is unveiled the 12-core Ryzen AI Max+ 392 and eight-core Ryzen AI Max+ 388. Both chips feature boost speeds up to 5GHz, 50 TOPS NPUs and GPUs capable of 60 TFLOPs. We've seen the earlier Ryzen AI Max chips in the Framework Desktop and the ROG Flow Z13, and we were generally impressed with its performance. For small systems, it was powerful enough that we really didn't miss having dedicated GPUs.

AMD Ryzen 7 9000X3D
AMD Ryzen 7 9000X3D
AMD

As for the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, it's an 8-core chip that can reach up to 5.6GHz boost speeds with 104MB of combined L2 and L3 cache. Like all of AMD's X3D chips, it uses 3D V-cache technology to vertically stack additional cache memory. In comparison, the standard 9850HX chip has 76MB of L2 and L3 cache.

AMD says the new Ryzen AI Max+ chips and the 9850X3D will ship in the first quarter. There's no pricing information on the latter, yet, but recent leaked listings suggest it may go for around $200. Rumors also point to a massive dual-cache (192MB!) 9950X3D2 chip coming soon.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/amds-new-ryzen-ai-max-chips-and-ryzen-7-9850x3d-court-desktop-enthusiasts-at-ces-2026-033000587.html?src=rss

AMD’s Ryzen AI 400 chips are a big boost for laptops and desktops alike

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The whole AI PC trend didn't exactly set the world on fire last year, but, like clockwork, AMD is still ready to deliver a new batch of AI chips at CES 2026. The Ryzen AI 400 processors will offer some slight speed upgrades over last year's chips, and notably, they also include AMD's first Copilot+ processors for desktops. Sure, the Copilot+ program didn't really go anywhere, but as I've argued, it at least served as a template for building capable AI PCs. Now we just need some genuinely useful AI features in Windows — Recall and Copilot's voice commands aren't really compelling enough on their own.

AMD's first AI desktop chips, the Ryzen 8000G series, arrived in 2024 with relatively underpowered neural processing units (NPUs) for AI tasks. The Ryzen AI 400 chips, on the other hand, feature 60 TOPS XDNA 2 NPUs (up from the 50 to 55 TOPS in Ryzen AI 300 hardware). That places them well above the 40 TOPS NPU minimum for Copilot+ systems. For most consumers, NPU speeds don't really mean much yet, but if you're running AI models on your system you can expect slightly faster inferencing from AMD's previous chips.

AMD Ryzen AI 400 chips
AMD Ryzen AI 400 chips
AMD

The top-end Ryzen AI 9 HX 475 offers up to 12 Zen 5 CPU cores, 5.2GHz max boost speeds and up to 8,533 MT/s memory speeds. The line scales down to the four-core Ryzen AI 5 430, but even that model supports speedy 8,000 MTS RAM and offers a 50 TOPS NPU.

AMD isn't giving us many specific details on the Ryzen AI 400 chips at CES, but broadly, it claims they'll offer up to 30 percent faster multi-tasking, 70 percent faster content creation and 10 percent faster gaming than its previous chips. The company also says you'll see 70 percent better "unplugged connectivity" on Cinebench nT, which is hopefully a sign that you'll see improved performance overall on battery.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/amds-ryzen-ai-400-chips-are-a-big-boost-for-laptops-and-desktops-alike-033000635.html?src=rss

NAOX’s wireless earbuds have a built-in EEG to monitor your brain health

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French startup NAOX is at CES with a groundbreaking wearable EEG for clinics and research, but that’s not what we’re interested in today. Because it’s also here showing off a prototype of the consumer version, which incorporates its brain-scanning technology in wireless earbuds. As early as the end of this year, your earbuds could pull double-duty, pumping out tunes and keeping an eye on your brain’s health.

The product being released today is the NAOX Link NX01, an in-ear EEG designed to replace the wire-covered caps you’ve seen at a sleep clinic. It’s designed to be much more convenient for use in long-term studies, enabling people to keep an eye on their health while on the go. Don’t think you’ll be able to mess with one of these yourself as it is targeted toward clinical environments.

Of more interest is the NAOX Wave, which uses the same in-ear EEG technology from Link, but in a pair of wireless earbuds. As with the clinical model, Wave is designed to quietly keep an eye on your brain’s biomarkers as you go about your day. The company says it’ll be able to monitor your mental activity while working, relaxing and sleeping. In the companion app, you’ll get insights about your mental health, sleep analytics and cognitive performance, as well as details on your brain’s age. 

NAOX has said its version of the buds will launch towards the end of 2026, but it may not be the only name selling this tech. The company says it is interested in licensing its technology to audio companies, so we could see these EEGs popping up in earbuds from other, more established brands.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/naoxs-wireless-earbuds-have-a-built-in-eeg-to-monitor-your-brain-health-030000605.html?src=rss

Vivoo’s toilet computer keeps an eye on your hydration

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Urinalysis company Vivoo has rocked up at CES 2026 with two new products designed to keep an eye on your health. The first is the Smart Toilet, which clips onto your bowl and uses optical sensors to monitor your hydration levels.

It’s an evolution of the smart toilet product it originally announced back in 2023, which used a reactive testing strip as part of its process. Here, that feature has been ditched in favor of just collecting a small sample in its pocket-shaped cup for non-contact testing before being released.

The optical sensors in question are designed to track your urine’s specific gravity to monitor how hydrated you are. (If urine is too dense, it’s a sign of dehydration, while if it’s too thin, it’s a sign of over-hydration or something more serious, like diabetes or renal failure.)

mage of the Vivoo Smart Toilet being splashed with water
mage of the Vivoo Smart Toilet being splashed with water
Vivoo

You trigger a reading via the smartphone app, and when the test is complete the data will be pushed back to your device. The company says its battery will last for more than 1,000 measurements before you need to recharge it, too.

Vivoo doesn’t (Withings) name (Withings) names (Withings) but throws a sharp elbow toward its competitor. It boasts that its product will last for 1,000 tests on a single charge, “vastly exceeding the handful of monthly readings offered by chemical cartridge-based tests.” And that its battery pack, which sits on the outside of the toilet bowl, means you won’t need to uninstall the sensor to recharge and clean it on a regular basis. 

Image of Vivoo's FlowPad
Image of Vivoo's FlowPad
Vivoo

At the same time, the company is announcing Hygenic FlowPad, a menstrual pad infused with microfluidics. These are capable of monitoring factors such as Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSI), a marker for fertiity, ovarian health and perimenopause. Once the wearer removes the pad, they are tasked with scanning it with their phone camera to Vivoo’s app, much like many of its other at-home tests. At present, there’s no word on when FlowPad will be available to buy, but the company hopes to charge $4-5 per pad. 

Vivoo’s Smart Toilet can be ordered today, with early birds getting the gear for $99 with no need for an additional subscription, due to ship March. A second batch on the same deal arrives in June, but latecomers will have to wait until September 2026 when it goes on general sale. At that point, the price will climb to $129, plus an additional $6 a month for the subscription.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/vivoos-toilet-computer-keeps-an-eye-on-your-hydration-030000209.html?src=rss

Peacock is expanding Dolby Vision and Atmos availability for live sports

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You’ll be able to watch more live sports programming on Peacock that supports Dolby Vision and Atmos starting this year. At the moment, the only live sports offering you can enjoy with Atmos on the service is Sunday Night Football. Now, Dolby Laboratories has announced at CES that Peacock is expanding the availability of Dolby Vision and Atmos across live sports over the coming year. Peacock will add support for both technologies to Sunday Night Football, NBA and MLB live sporting events that the streaming service will offer its subscribers.

“Our partnership with Dolby ensures that whether our subscribers are streaming a thrilling playoff game, the latest Universal blockbuster, or a critically acclaimed Peacock Original, they're experiencing it exactly as creators intended — with breathtaking picture and immersive sound that brings every moment to life,” said David Bohunek, Senior Vice President of Global Video Engineering at NBCUniversal.

The companies have also announced that Peacock will start supporting Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby AC-4 starting later this year. Dolby Laboratories called Vision 2 “a groundbreaking evolution of its industry-leading picture quality innovation” when it announced the technology at IFA 2025. It was designed with today’s TV technology in mind, and it uses AI to automatically adjust your TV based on what you’re watching and where you're watching it. Meanwhile, AC-4 is a new audio format that Dolby says can deliver the highest audio quality “at a much lower bandwidth than other formats.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/peacock-is-expanding-dolby-vision-and-atmos-availability-for-live-sports-023000794.html?src=rss

Rokid introduces display-free AI smartglasses at CES 2026

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Smartglasses company Rokid has introduced new display-free AI glasses at CES 2026. Dubbed "Style", the glasses are intended for all-day use and are compatible with users' corrective prescriptions.

Style supports multiple AI engines, including ChatGPT and DeepSeek, instead of being locked to any LLM. The glasses can also work with Google Maps and Microsoft AI translation.

Style is powered by a dual-chip setup, with an NXP RT600 handling low-power, always-on tasks and a Qualcomm AR1 taking on heavier AI and imaging workloads. Rokid claims this architecture helps it reach up to 12 hours of battery life under typical use.

A 12MP camera with a Sony sensor on the front supports 4K capture. Video can be shot in three different aspect ratios, which Rokid says makes it easier for creators to make content for different platforms. Style can record up to 10 minutes of continuous footage, which Rokid is quick to point out exceeds the roughly three-minute limit on Meta Ray-Bans.

The glasses weigh 38.5 grams and sport ultra-thin lenses with anti-scratch coatings. Style is a bit lighter than the Rokid smartglasses that we reviewed earlier this year, which include a display. The company also offers transition lenses in a variety of colors and the frames are offered in two.

Style is available for reservation now with a one dollar deposit and will officially release globally January 19. The AI smart glasses will retail for $300. Glasses purchased for a vision-impaired user will receive a 20 dollar subsidy from Rokid.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/rokid-introduces-display-free-ai-smartglasses-at-ces-2026-010017906.html?src=rss

This tabletop sleep device and sunrise alarm clock aims to help you put your phone away before bed

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"Relaxing" isn't a word anyone is likely to associate with CES. If anything, it is the antithesis of CES, an exhausting and wildly overstimulating marathon event that takes place in the already exhausting and wildly overstimulating Las Vegas. But a demo of Ambient's bedside device, Dreamie, ahead of its appearance at CES-adjacent Pepcom had me properly lulled and ready to go right back to bed. Dreamie is a smart sunrise alarm clock and nighttime wind-down device that has a built-in podcast player, a catalog of green, pink and brown noise sound masks, guided breathing programs, contactless motion sensors to provide insights into your sleep habits, dynamic lighting with simulated sunrise wake-ups and Bluetooth connectivity for headphones.

But most importantly for anyone trying to avoid using their phone immediately before bed, it's a standalone system in which all controls, features and scheduling options as well as data storage are on-device. And there's no subscription. 

The goal of Dreamie is "to help you separate from your phone while providing a lot of the conveniences that you would normally have," said CEO and co-founder Adrian Canoso. You can set multiple alarms on different schedules, access soothing content to fall asleep to and customize how gradual your sunrise wakeup is. There are environmental sensors to clue you in on the humidity, temperature and lighting conditions over the course of the night, to give you a better idea of how these things may be affecting your sleep. 

Dreamie is a relatively small device compared to other sunrise-style clocks, with a truncated pill-shaped body and a sleek circular touchscreen. Around the display is a hidden dial for volume control, and it feels great to rotate, with just the right amount of resistance. There's also a touch strip on top of the device to easily adjust the dimness of the light by dragging your finger along it. From the display, you can even change the direction the light is pointing so you don't blast yourself (or your partner) with it when your eyes aren't ready, casting the light off to the back instead. 

The Dreamie alarm clock is pictured displaying its brightness controls, and is glowing warm light
Dreamie's brightness controls
Cheyenne MacDonald for Engadget

Its 20-LED array can go from a soft, warm orangey glow to cool and bright blue-white, and certain programs, like the aurora borealis soundscape, will trigger other colors of the rainbow, throwing soothing green, blue and magenta. More impressive is the rich sound that comes from its 50 millimeter speaker. Dreamie has a 360-degree speaker grille on the bottom of the device that sends sound in all directions to create more immersive ambient sound. 

When a speaker is pointing toward you, "it's almost like a laser beam coming at you," which isn't exactly the most relaxing experience, explained Canoso, who previously worked in industrial design and robotics, and before that, as a studio recording engineer. "[Dreamie] projects the sound all the way around… So when you put it next to you on a night table, it sounds more diffused. It's not the loudest speaker out there because we've optimized it for rich sound quality at lower volumes. We don't need it loud. We just need it to sound good." 

And sound good, it does. It's seriously got me thinking I may finally have found the thing to replace the Philips Wake-Up Light I've been clinging to for close to 10 years now that has decent lighting but absolutely abysmal sound quality.

Dreamie, which costs $250, recently started shipping after a successful crowdfunding campaign, and certain features — including podcasts and sleep insights — haven't launched just yet (though I did get to see the podcast library during the demonstration, so it is a real thing, and it’s expected to roll out later this month). Those and other future features will arrive via free over-the-air updates. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/this-tabletop-sleep-device-and-sunrise-alarm-clock-aims-to-help-you-put-your-phone-away-before-bed-004751464.html?src=rss

Dell revives its XPS laptops after a boneheaded rebranding

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Last year, Dell killed off all of its PC brands, including the iconic XPS lineup, and replaced them with a simplified naming scheme. It was a move meant to make it easier for people to discern between the company's many brands, but in reality, it just just made the company's lineup even more confusing. We called it an unforced error at the time, but after seeing how much Dell's PC market share fell over 2025, it's fair to say that rebranding was an absolute marketing disaster.

So, with its tail between its legs, Dell has returned to CES some welcome news for its fans: XPS lives! And the company plans to double-down on the brand in ways it never did before. Today, Dell revealed the new XPS 14 and 16 notebooks, which feature a more practical design than the previous models. There's a new function row with traditional keys, instead of the odd capacitive buttons that disappeared in sunlight. And while the company is sticking with its "invisible" trackpad, which sits flush alongside the wrist rest, there's now a light border around the edges that lets you feel exactly where the trackpad begins and ends.

So, in short, Dell seems to have solved most of our recent complaints about the XPS lineup. To signify its commitment to the brand, it's also emblazoning the XPS logo on all of these new machines, replacing the previous Dell name. That’s something I could never imagine a less humbled Dell doing.

The redesign also gave Dell room to shave off some weight and thickness from both machines. The XPS 14 weighs around three pounds now, a half-pound lighter than the previous generation, while the XPS 16 weighs 3.6 pounds, a whole pound lighter than before. The new cases make both machines look a lot more like Microsoft’s extra-subtle Surface Laptop, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Both systems are powered by Intel’s new Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 chips, and they also offer tandem OLED display options.

Dell also briefly teased the return of a new XPS 13 later this year, which is set to be the company’s thinnest and lightest notebook ever. Dell says it’ll be cheaper than the XPS has been in the past.

The new XPS 14 and 16 will be available on January 6, starting at $2,050 and $2,200, respectively. A Dell representative tells us these aren’t entry-level configurations, instead we can expect to see cheaper prices with lower specs in February.

Update 1/6/26, 12:30p: Pricing updated to reflecrt new numbers from Dell. Originally, we were told they would start at $1,650 and $1,850.

Update 1/12, 3:00p: Added a mention of lower entry-level configurations coming eventually.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/dell-revives-its-xps-laptops-after-a-boneheaded-rebranding-001028029.html?src=rss

CES 2026: Intel hopes its Core Ultra Series 3 chips are the start of a comeback

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Intel turned up to CES 2026 to herald the birth of the Core Ultra Series 3, a new range of chips offering “exceptional performance.” It says the mobile processors, formerly known as Panther Lake, deliver great graphics and battery life alongside the aforementioned grunt. And that, for the first time, the silicon has been certified for embedded and industrial use cases, including robotics and smart cities. But, like so many stories about Intel these days, the launch is loaded with so much subtext you’ll need a copy of Cliffs Notes to understand it.

On the face of it, these are just some snappy flagship chips, available in Core Ultra 7 and 9 ranges as well as Core X7 and X9, which ship with 12 Xe graphics cores over the usual four. Almost all of them offer 16 total cores and threads, and all bar two have total NPU performance of 50 PTOPS.

Image of the Core Ultra Series 3
Image of the Core Ultra Series 3
Intel

These chips are going to be famous for two key reasons: First, Intel claims they’re the most advanced chips ever manufactured in the US. Second, they’re the first to be made using Intel’s long awaited 18A process, which has dogged the company for several years. 18A was a key plank of former CEO Pat Gelsinger’s rescue plan to restore Intel to the top of the chip world. But sadly that comeback didn’t come fast enough to prevent the CEO from being (unfairly, in my mind) deposed at the end of 2024. It didn’t help that, for all of the money spent on 18A, as recently as August 2025, the company was reportedly still suffering from low yields and high defect rates.

18A is short for 18 Angstrom, a measurement that’s far smaller than the nanometers we currently use to denote transistor size in chips. 18 Angstrom is roughly equivalent to 1.8 nanometers, putting it on the same rough level as the most advanced manufacturing process — N2 — available at TSMC in Taiwan. At CES, Intel’s new CEO Lip Bu-Tan said the company was now ahead of schedule for ramping production on 18A, which could mark an important shift in the global chip market. 

You should expect to see these chips show up in laptops from all the usual suspects, including HP, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Samsung and the rest across this year. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/ces-2026-intel-hopes-its-core-ultra-series-3-chips-are-the-start-of-a-comeback-000155611.html?src=rss