It’s late 2025 and Microsoft has delivered some special features. I didn’t like taking the 16″ MacBook Pro on airplanes, so I kept an eye out and got a deal on a Snapdragon X Elite laptop, $426 for a “refurbished” and “open box” HP laptop. It was a killer deal and I want to make some statements about the Copilot+ PC, because these machines are truly worth consideration.
Windows on ARM is now the most interesting platform, IMO. But now any PC that has NPU with 40+ TOPS is classified as a Copilot+ PC. The keyboard gives away the branding designation. But what really makes these laptops special?
The Camera. NPU handles data from the camera pipeline to make your face look stunning on Zoom calls. This machine is killer for Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet. Windows Hello facial authentication, natural face smoothing, and great color. Bravo!
Many Copilot+ PCs are priced to sell. Don’t buy one for the Ai features, buy it for the battery life, impressive base specs, beautiful displays or SSD upgradeability. It has never been easier to identify the latest generation of quality laptops than it is right now.
Windows 10 support is over and Microsoft actually did it. It timed product launches with OEMs for products that actually compete with MacBook Air and so far it seems these machines truly do. Look 👀 for the special Copilot key and special discounts.
Look for these word jumbles and acronyms for a superior experience:
- 2.8K or 3K display. This describes resolution and means that these displays have more pixels for sharper text and images, like what you’d see on MacBook’s Retina displays.
- OLED display. Ideal for cinema and HDR, this type of display generates light with each individual pixel, offering perfect blacks and infinite contrast. When the pixel turns off, there is no light and that’s ideal for letterbox and scary movies.
- Intel Arc 140V. This is Intel’s latest iGPU and it seems it can actually play many modern games at 1080P while the NPU can offer Ai upscaling. We like Intel’s 256V and 258V offerings.
- 120 Hz. This means the display offers a high refresh rate and opens up gaming potential or smoother animations. I’ve been surprised by how many Copilot+ PCs now offer this.
There is currently one desktop option for Copilot+ and it’s the Framework Desktop, available in Q4, it’s a compact “modular” desktop with soldered RAM and powerful AMD iGPU that can allocate up to 96 GB to the GPU. What would one do with it? 🤷♂️ Seems like an idea home theater PC.