The Titan 18: A 14v gaming-laptop-rgb-ces2024 price-specs laptop with an RGB trackpad

Everything about the Titan is very Extra, as its name implies it very well should be. I don’t have a clue who buys the halo laptops that are made for people with high incomes, and aren’t very computer-like. The days of laptops such as the ridiculous Acer Predator 21 X are long gone.

Compared to last year’s very formidable Titan GT77 HX, the 2024 Titan is capable of 270W power output over the GT77’s 250W. The Titan 18 also has a display that’s bigger / taller by 0.7 inches but with a slightly slower refresh rate (120 versus 144Hz). That may be a good compromise for the MiniLED panel since it uses a 16:10 aspect ratio compared to the last-gen’s 16:9 screen. The new model also has Wi-Fi 7, and while its battery is still a four-cell Li-polymer setup with 99.9Whr of capacity, its power supply is a whopping 400W brick for faster charging — yet it’s a little smaller than the previous 330W version.

Source: MSI made a $5,000 laptop with an RGB trackpad

The Zephyrus G14 and G16 Boat Anchors: High Performance Integrated Graphics Processors, Keyboards, Adapters, Soundpads and Lighting

There’s plenty of space for ports with a full-size SD card reader, as well as three Type-A ports, HDMI 2.1 and two Thunderbolt 4 /USB-C ports. While all of this costs an eye-watering $5,000, it also weighs a shoulder-tiring 7.94 pounds / 3.6kg. And like other new MSI laptops, it has AI-based performance profiles that promise to optimize settings based on whether you’re gaming or doing other tasks like video conferencing. It will not be moved around or do much else other than play games with it. It’s meant to live in one spot and mostly be used for games, as it lets the colorful feathers of its lighting shine.

The Titan 18HX A14V, a boat anchor of a gaming laptop that costs as much as a beater car, is one of the hottest new laptops in the world, and will be on display at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next year.

What isn’t new for the Zephyrus G14 and G16 are their GPUs, which are still using last year’s class of Nvidia discrete graphics cards. The G14 and G16 are able to be configured with an RTX 4070. We will be waiting a while for laptops with the 40-series Super GPUs and the quality-of-life benefits of the Zephyrus to outweigh most year over year chip improvements. The 40-series cards in both laptops support DLSS 3.5, Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction.

The screens on the laptops are large enough for the vivid colors on them. The speaker array came from a 14-incher and they sounded really good. The keyboards were quite good before, but now they feel like some of the best around. The trackpads are very good — they’re large and spacious, if still a little stiff and not very clickable toward the top third. The slash lighting on the lid, which is turned off when the battery isn’t enough for you, can be changed in the built-in Armoury crate software. It’s a nice bit of flair that isn’t too attention-grabby, and I’d wager you could even sneak through some in-office meetings without anyone noticing you’re on a gaming laptop (unless, of course, someone looks close at the REPUBLIC OF GAMERS stamp at the bottom of the lid).

The G14 and G 16 are both 0.76 inches / 1.64cm in thickness and the port selection is more than adequate, especially for such thin laptops. The G14 has one left-mounted USB 4 port (which you can use to charge at slower speeds), one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 on the right, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 (one on each side), HDMI 2.1, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a microSD card slot. The G16’s left- and right-sideUSB ports are the same, but its card slot is full-size, it also has Power Delivery, and it has a Thunderbolt 4 port, just not on the right side.

At the press conference I heard about the laptop opting to use a proprietary charge port instead of a barrel plug, but as someone who dislikes the barrel plug I am okay with the slim and Reversible power cord here. I have mostly been using USB-C for charging both laptops when just doing work or browsing on them anyway, and that’s been totally fine. The chunky 180W and 240W power bricks can be kept on reserve until it’s time to fire up some graphically demanding games.

In Republic of Gamers land, Asus is giving a more modest update to the Strix. The new 2024 Strix and Strix Scar, each with 16-inch and 18-inch models, respectively, are now equipped with 14th Gen Intel processors up to the 14900HX. They’re otherwise much the same as last year’s models, with 16:10 QHD screens that hit 240Hz and Nvidia GPUs configurable up to an RTX 4080 (Strix) or 4090 (Strix Scar). The 16 inch and 18 inch Strix Scar laptops are launching later in January with prices starting at $2,899.99 for a 16-inch and $2,999.99 for the 18-inch. It can be specced to the stars and back to prices as high as $4,000. (Asus did not share pricing for the ROG Strix before publishing time.)