The new era of CoPilot+ PCs is upon us, bursting onto the scene at your local Best Buy with a bevy of laptops all designed to do AI tasks locally. To be clear, there are two classes of these new AI PCs. All have a new, almost indescribable Copilot keyboard button (it looks nothing like a copilot on an airplane), but only Copilot+ PCs with new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite or X Plus chips are ready to perform a variety of local AI tricks and tasks.
On June 18, 2024 – the official launch day – I subwayed downtown to a huge Best Buy to see, touch, and play with all those new Copilot+ PCs. There are a lot of them. Five manufacturers are rolling out these laptops, including Lenovo , Samsung , HP, Dell, and Microsoft.
That's notable because I can't remember ever seeing so many new Windows laptops that didn't run Intel or at least AMD chips. There's considerable signable to let you know you've entered the land of Copilot PCs, but if that's not enough, each Copilot+ laptop is signified by a color placemat underneath it. You might also notice an almost "Intel Inside"-style sticker on the palm rest section of each of these portables.
Qualcomm is taking no chances here. These are ARM -based and not X86 systems. Each one of the laptops is fairly locked down in terms of the range of AI experience.
In fact, Windows Recall is listed as "Coming Soon," but you can play with Windows Creator and Windows Studio immediately. Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more..