First my reference system: black matt case, 1kg, 14” non-blinking Low Power LCD, 73Wh battery, practically no holes on the bottom, hinges opening with 180 degrees, etc.

Now let’s look on the market.

Few years ago Intel created X86S standard, where proposed removing some obsolete modes and instructions. Was it implemented? No.

In 2024 there was released Lunar Lake SoC, which could be competition in power usage area with Apple M series or Snapdragon. In 2026 we have seen Panther Lake, theoretically better (I say theoretically, because you can already find, that Panther seems not immediately return to lower power).

We have seen few interesting laptops, but:

• some known brands (mainly Dell, but not only) started experimenting with things like zelo-lattice keyboards, frameless touchpad and keys in the touch bar form – all very problematic in daily use (see Dell Thought They Were Apple...Got A Harsh Reality Check)
• (US) devices are still throttling – see for example XPS14 2026 review
• in different models there is available power hungry OLED and high-res LCD ONLY
• (especially USB-C) ports are put in one side / are very close to each other - it’s difficult to connect two devices or charger (exception: Framework devices)
• they drain battery a lot in power off / standby – this is NOT normal and refreshing DRAM is probably taking much less energy
• they’re normally heavy in America - it’s ca. 1,3kg (battery typically 50-60Wh), when Asian models are many times with ca. 1kg (battery even 73Wh)
• screens are not marked with info „no PWM” or „no dithering” (generally speaking there are used different forms of blinking and user is not informed)
• keyboards have more and more strange layouts – with small arrow keys, call button or power button next to backspace, offline button next to insert, etc. (and user doesn’t see anywhere clear pictures with layout anywhere)
• at least one (Dell Pro 13 Premium) is using very unusual M2 2230 format
• screen cover in some of them cannot be opened with one hand – see The Truth About the New XPS 14 & 16 (Unpaid Review)
• they’re using liquid metal (Asus only?) – earlier or later it’s making shortcuts
• ventilation holes on top are difficult to clean
• in many models parts are vulnerable to mechanical damages (like USB ports are connected directly to the mainboard) or overcomplicated and this is increasing risk of failure
• mechanical switches for camera / microphone are still not very popular
• ventilation holes on the bottom are not practical
• outside US it's difficult to buy majority of configurations (big companies like Dell, HP, LG are highly limiting number of configs)
• Windows support only (very risky for users in situation, when Microsoft qulity seems to be going totally down)

Let’s look, what we have in today x86 laptops:

• mainboard with CPU
• RAM and disk
• touchpad and keyboard
• ports
• Embedded Controller (second CPU, normally ARM)
• Intel ME for Intel (third CPU, ARM?)
• other CPUs in controllers? (in NVME for example)
• speakers
• battery
• screen
• case

EC is normally working the whole time and is controlling fans, disabling / enabling main CPU, charging, etc. I’ve tried to find some specs and power usage for typical chips, but it was a little difficult. Additional problem is complicated ACPI spec, which is not correctly implemented for years.

Some info:

• ASUS problems - https://github.com/Zephkek/Asus-ROG-Aml-Deep-Dive
• Modern standby on FreeBSD (S0ix) - https://obiw.ac/s0ix/
• UEFI specs - https://uefi.org/htmlspecs/ACPI_Spec_6_4_html/
• Hacking the Framework Laptop’s Embedded Controller (EC) - https://www.howett.net/posts/2021-12-framework-ec/
• Zephyr OS - https://www.zephyrproject.org/open-source-embedded-controller-firmware-development-with-the-zephyr-os/

Are current X86 laptops good in this area? Why can’t we have just mechanical switch for enabling device or resuming it from standby? Can we totally deactivate EC, when we don’t even charge device? What is power usage from keyboard and touchpad? Are they disabled with closed lid? Does haptic touchpad need more power than classic one? And finally… when these chip is so important, can be implemented in 3nm or better process? Or maybe RISC-V core would behave better than ARM?

Next question related to Intel: as far we know, Intel ME is normally working the whole time and it’s another ARM (?) CPU. How to disable it without loosing power? (old info – after deactivating device doesn’t go fully into S3 mode)

Let’s look on numbers: According to notebookcheck Macbook Air M1 13” is able to have 0.03W (off) / 0.04W (standby) / 1.9W+ (idle), with Windows laptops we have 0.18W or much more (off state, normally 0.5W), even 4W in standby (typical 0.6-0.8W) and 1.6W+ in idle (typical 2-6W+).

It’s worse or much worse in x86 and we don’t see any changes for years.

Where is this energy going? (please don’t say, it’s because Apple is controlling everything) And what is power saving after switching from SO-DIMM modules to LPDDR?

In theory new XPS14 with Panther Lake from Dell should be revolutionary (big battery, display with refresh rate 1Hz, mainboard with components upside, etc.), but in practice has got:

• throttling and short battery life in some tests (link1 and link2)
• problems with keyboard (Just Josh)
• weight
• only usb-c ports (no hdmi, USB-A or card reader)

This leads to questions – why it was even released, when it’s worse even that 13” Dells with Lunar Lake? Why Dell can’t make something so good like concurrence?

Few years ago Clevo designed my reference system, Fujitsu and Toshiba can deliver the same & currently we see more similar designs from China (maybe not working long on battery yet, but look very promising for the future; see for example Chuwi CoreBook Air or Geekom GeekBook X14 Pro) - they are eating many current American models on breakfast.

Why laptops especially from US companies are so heavy and limited? Why we have so many models with status LEDs and other stuff, which doesn’t give anything useful? Why we can’t see everywhere USB-C on both sides, USB-A, HDMI and card readers? (or Framework design) Why screen specs don’t say about PWM and other crucial elements? Why? Why? Why?

Is it because nobody cares? Or is it just connected with different life philosophy?

My opinion: today problems are not created from X86 complexity… it’s more cutting costs AND/OR doing things by incompetent people. In theory new generations should be more economical and cheaper, but too many times good components are paired with the crap. Companies are doing it again and again and instead of creating one or two good models they’re cloning many weak variants (additionally they stopped R&D and laptops are working in reality max. 10-20h).

And every system is so good like weakest element.

When I read about specs from upcoming Galaxy Book6 and 14” variants with 1,48kg, I see alternative 3rd explanation for the whole situation - new/young companies are doing something better for getting market and old one (Intel, Dell, Samsung, Lenovo, etc.) are just mainly copying “safe” old ideas, which look obsolete now. This could be confirmed by Thinkpad design for example.

...and one more thing – we can see very clear in the youtube or internet, who is creating just advertisements and who is really testing devices today.

Disclaimer: for me it’s crucial to see info about such things like throttling, bad keyboard and non consistent results (because of it I like many times for example notebookcheck).

Remember: selling crap like next world miracle gives opposite effect.

Market needs fresh breath and laptops just for writing texts or watching videos (silent, light, functional, staying long on battery, with non-blinking screens). They should be very adjustable and working not only with Windows (sorry Snapdragon). Framework has started going into this direction, but needs to do much more & in next few days probably only Apple can deliver all these with cheap Macbook (I don’t have big expectations because of the screen done probably with glass and dithering, but maybe…).

What colors? At least two standards please (one matt black like in ThinkPad, one silver like in old Macbooks)

Which companies? Maybe System76+Framework+Tuxedo working together?

And when people don’t get good US laptops… are going into other devices (tablets, phones, etc.)… or China products.

PS. NPU chips for AI could be put into M2 slot – in CPU they’re just increasing price and getting place (+producing heat).