PC Refresh Summer: Lenovo, Dell, Microsoft Roll Out New AI Laptops

Lenovo and Google teamed up on the most powerful Chromebook yet, Microsoft Surface went light and nimble, while Dell is powering up with Nvidia Blackwell RTX 5000 chips.

The summer of the PC refresh is here, as Lenovo, Microsoft and Dell Technologies have debuted new laptops to capture what manufacturers hope is a wave of new device purchases before the fall.

Windows 10 users are pressed for time to move off older devices before Microsoft imposes its October end of life forcing upgrades to the new operating system, and a growing number of AI capabilities are driving a renewed interest in the humble PC.

“How many times over the years have we all heard the PC is dead?” said Bob Venero, CEO of Future Tech, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Dell Global Titanium partner. “When I sit down with with top leaders in the Fortune 100 companies and I ask them, ‘What do they think their most important asset is in their company besides their people?’ They all say their ERP systems, manufacturing systems, their AI systems. With any of those things, I’m like, ‘Great. How do you get access to those?’”

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Dell debuted a simpler naming convention in January and is now filling its lineup with new products. The Dell Pro Max line has new AI PC offerings, including an 18-inch, 7.17-pound behemoth that—with maxed-out specs—runs on a 280-watt power brick to fuel the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H with 128 GB of memory and an Nvidia RTX Blackwell 5000 chip that runs at 24 GB.

Venero said devices like this—which are meant for heavy AI workloads—are capable of saving organizations money.

“If you can move stuff to the edge, the compute, the GPU, all of those things, you’re going to have more productivity,” Venero told CRN. “And you’ve got cost savings that’s associated with it, versus, ‘Hey, I'm going to stand up an AI factory for millions and millions and millions of dollars.’ If I can move that to the edge, I'm going to save a ton of money and get more efficiencies and be more nimble as a company. So I see that absolutely taking off.”

For their part, Lenovo and Google teamed up on the most powerful Chromebook yet that runs a Gemini model on the device and comes with 2 TB of included cloud storage among other cloud features.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft has a new line of Surface PCs that deliver 40 TOPS or better NPU performance in a thin, light chasis that weighs 1.5 pounds with up to 17 hours of advertised battery life.

Here is a rundown of five new AI PCs hitting shelves this summer.

Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14

Google calls this “the most advanced Chromebook yet” and it comes off the shelf with the ability to run Google’s Gemini Nano 2 model locally.

This Chromebook is the first to run an ARM processor and has a discrete NPU chip, the MediaTek Kompanio Ultra Chip, which is capable of pushing the machine to 50 TOPS. It comes with an optional OLED touch screen with up to 16 GB RAM of processing.

Google also incorporated a 17-hour battery life, making it the longest-running Chromebook on the market so far.

The device comes with 12 months of Google AI Pro Plan. Google said the plan includes access to Gemini, Veo3, Gemini in Mail, Notebook LM and 2 TB of cloud storage.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 5G

This device is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor with “built-in” NPUs that can run AI workloads at up to 48 TOPS.

The Surface Laptop 5G has a 13.8-inch Gorilla Glass touch screen, anti-reflective display with a maximum resolution of 2,304 x 1,536 and a maximum 600 nits of brightness. It has two USB-C ports, one USB-A port and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The laptop has an integrated 5G connectivity and a dynamic antenna system. This system has six “strategically placed” antennas so the device can automatically adjust signal paths and power based on how it is being held. The feature ensures strong connectivity when it is needed, Microsoft said. The native 5G capability can also be used as a hotspot for sharing between devices when Wi-Fi is not available.

Microsoft Surface Pro

This is a kickstand PC, meaning there is no hinge to support the screen. As one IT department has told CRN, users either love them or hate them, but it can be a fit for anyone looking for a lightweight machine capable of cranking up the NPUs.

Micorosoft calls this Surface—which weighs 1.5 pounds—the lightest and most flexible Copilot+ PC on the market. It comes with a Snapdragon X Plus processor and a discrete NPU powered by a Qualcomm Hexagon chip that is capable of delivering 45 TOPS. It comes in memory options up to 24 GB of RAM and has up to 1 TB of storage.

The kickstand supports a 12-inch display that has a range of motion of up to 165 degrees.

On the Surface Pro, users have the ability to interact with the PC through touch, voice, pen and a 12-inch detachable keyboard. It has an all-day battery, meaning up to 16 hours of video playback, and support for fast charging with a 45W charger via one of the two USB-C ports.

Dell Pro Max 16 Premium

These laptops are designed for heavy graphics workloads and provide a significant 23 percent boost in graphics performance over the previous generation, Dell said.

The newest version of this series of laptops is built around Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285H Enterprise chips and come ready to work with up to 64 GB of RAM. Users can configure the devices with up to 4 TB of flash storage and Nvidia’s RTX Pro 3000 chip that has 12 GB of video RAM.

It can be purchased with a 4K UHD touch screen, tandem OLED display—for more vibrant colors and deeper blacks—that refreshes at 120MHz. For connectivity, the device has two USB C Thunderbolt 5 ports, one USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port, one HDMI port and a global headset connection.

Dell Pro Max 18 Plus

Dell bills this laptop as offering a “desktop-like” performance, with a built-in Intel Core Ultra 9 285H that can be configured to 128 GB of memory on 24 cores running at 5.5GHz. It also can be configured with an Nvidia RTX Pro 5000 GPU that runs at 24 GB.

Dell says this device has 44 percent graphics improvement over the previous generation and is capable of completing advanced AI tasks such as model training, deep learning and large-scale data analytics on-premises.

With maxed-out specs, the 7.17-pound device can be powered by a 280W USB C adapter and has an internal six-cell, 96-watt battery. Dell did not offer battery life estimates for this laptop.

It has a nontouch, 18-inch QHD display that refreshes at 120MHz. There are several connections available on the PC, including two USB-C Thunderbolt 5s, one USB-C Thunderbolt 4, two USB-A 3.2 ports, one HDMI port and a global headset port.