The Consumer Electronics Show is alive; Dell and Lenovo refresh top-of-the-line laptops

Dell XPS 13

It's been a long time coming and Dell has finally listened to the consumers. The company is finally updating the 'tired' design to one of the best Windows laptops - XPS 13 - of the past few years. Dell's laptop comes with a new look, slightly different and shiny new ports. There is a brand new white-and-gold colour option, and for those of you worried, this one is stain-resistant.

The changes may be subtle, but they do jump out at you once you get your hands on the laptop. The Dell XPS 13 adopts the same 2-in-1 - a convertible laptop with a touchscreen - that was introduced last year. This years model is slimmer and lighter. The most important change is about the placement of the webcam. It moves from the lower left side of the bezel to the middle of the lower bezel.

There are three USB-C ports on the laptop but no more any USB 3.0 ports. There isn't an SD card reader anymore. That has been replaced by a MicroSD card reader. The palm rest may get dirty and Dell is aware of this. The company is claiming that if permanent marker, mustard, and other staining materials are present on the white surface, they'll be wipable within a week without any issues.

Last but not the least, there is a fingerprint sensor also.

The internals is pretty much a standard upgrade for any new laptop. It comes with i3, i5 or i7 8th generation Intel processors, 4-16GB RAM, 128GB-1TB of storage and a 1080p or 4K display. Furthermore, Dell is saying that the processor will run faster due to a new cooling system. Overall it should result in a significant performance boost. The laptop is going on sale in the USA first, at a starting price of $1,000 (Rs 63,500 approximately).

Lenovo ThinkPad

Lenovo is refreshing its X, L & T series laptops. While the X1 Carbon and X1 Yoga haven't gotten a mention yet, they are sure to be refreshed at some point in 2018. Nonetheless, the new X280 and X380 Yoga refreshes are exciting. They come with Intel's latest 8th-generation Core i7 processors, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of SSD storage.

The Yoga line of laptops from Lenovo features the hinge that converts the laptop into tablet mode. This time, there is a stylus that is being included. Apart from this, there is also USB-C power adapters. These new laptops are, of course, thinner and lighter.

The X280 comes with an all-new "ThinkShutter" physical webcam cover. This is for extra privacy control. It slides across and disables the webcam. This one does feature in the ThinkPad T series as well. The X380 Yoga misses out on this but does have an IR camera that allows for Windows Hello face recognition.

The ThinkPad T - T480, T480s & T580 - also include the ThinkShutter webcam cover. The T480 and T580 come with the Windows Hello camera as well. The T480comes with dual batteries (one internal and one removable) for a total of up to 14.5 hours of battery life!

The L series is the most budget-friendly of the lot. The three models - L480, L580 & L380/L380 Yoga - come with eighth-gen Intel Core processors. The L480 & L580 are available with integrated Intel UHD 620 or discrete AMD Radeon 530 graphics. These laptops include two USB-C ports and a USB-C power adapter.

All these ThinkPads arrive in late January. Price in the USA are as follows:

• L380 for $609
• T480 for $989
• X280 for $999
• X380 for $1,459