@PaulAntill breaks down the coolest, wackiest, and genuinely exciting laptops that just got announced at CES 2026.
From rollable displays like the Lenovo ThinkPad Rollable XD Concept and the Lenovo Legion Pro Rollable that literally expand your workspace on demand, to refreshed, stealthy gaming laptops that actually make sense as everyday work machines, like the MSI Stealth 16 AI+. And yes, Dell finally did it. The XPS line feels like it’s back to its roots and fixes a lot of what didn’t land last year.
CES 2026 turned out to be a surprisingly strong year for laptop redesigns. We’re seeing real experimentation again, not just spec bumps, and it feels like a preview of the form factors we could realistically be using over the next few years. These are the laptops we had the most fun testing on the show floor, but let us know what stood out to you from this year’s announcements.
A showcase of the most innovative laptops from CES 2026, featuring groundbreaking rollable screen concepts from Lenovo, a minimalist redesign of the MSI Stealth 16 AI Plus, and a return to user-preferred physical controls for the Dell XPS 14. The video highlights a shift toward flexible form factors and a balance between high-end gaming power and professional aesthetics.
A ton of new laptops got announced at CES 2026,
and I'm sharing the coolest,
wackiest, and most exciting models that my team and I got to try out.
All right, first up, Lenovo is giving us a better look
into what a real production rollable laptop
could look like. The ThinkPad Rollable XD concept transforms
from 13.3 inches to 16
inches vertically and actually rolls up
and over to the top of the display to its backside.
You activate the rolling just by sliding your finger
on the top edge of the display, which feels very satisfying.
There's also an external touchscreen, world facing,
which may seem a little bit weird at first,
that covers the top third of the lid from the outside.
It comes complete with interactive widgets
for your AI assistant, sticky notes, weather,
and a lot more.
One of my favorite parts of this new design though
is that when fully extended out,
you can actually see the internals of the laptop hinge,
including the cables that make this magic happen.
I think if you're someone who works with a lot of large documents,
this extra screen real estate can be really useful.
And personally, I think I would use this all the time
for two apps stacked on top of each other.
This is a pretty cool concept,
and Lenovo says we're actually not that far off
from being able to configure a ThinkPad with this rollable option
sometime in the future.
My bet is on two years or less from this being a reality.
But let me know what you guys think.
The new Stealth 16 AI Plus
is the stealthiest stealth series gaming laptop MSI has ever made.
And you know, MSI pretty much pioneered
the whole gaming laptop performance without actually looking
out of place in a boardroom or office setting.
And there's a lot of great design upgrades that
they've made. So let me take you through those.
So MSI has definitely gone minimalist here,
especially on the back lid.
And when you open this up, you tell me, what does this remind you of?
Right? Kind of like a MacBook, and that's not a bad thing.
You have the large trackpad.
You've got your large speakers on the side here.
Very small bezels at the top.
A very premium gaming laptop.
And that's what I'm saying.
You're getting the gaming level performance with styling
that feels more like a premium high end ultrabook.
The other thing, it's small, but it actually goes a long way.
Come over here and check this out.
Okay, so the edges are a lot more rounded off.
And as soon as I started typing on this,
I noticed that instantly because it's not
digging into my wrist as much, so it's a lot more comfortable,
especially for prolonged typing or
gaming sessions. Inside we find up
to an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor with the Nvidia RTX 5090.
Pricing is going to start around $2,400,
and I think this redesign is going to be a big hit in
in 2026.
Don't call it a comeback.
Actually, you know what?
Maybe you should.
Because Dell is giving one of the best apologies
to fans of the XPS lineup with the new Dell XPS 14.
Believe it or not, they're actually
backtracking on the whole premium name nonsense
from last year and addressing two
of the most controversial design quirks that we hated.
Finally, they brought back a physical function row instead
of the touch bar from before that,
along with an improved touchpad that now has
a visible border around it, which
seems like a no-brainer to me.
Inside you'll find the latest Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors,
an amazingly vibrant Tandem OLED display
that can scale all the way down to one hertz,
and a redesigned 70 watt hour battery
that promises up to 27 hours of juice
with its 2K LCD display option.
Other positives include an even thinner and lighter design at
just 14.6 millimeters and around three pounds,
which is shaving off about half a pound.
Even with that, Dell gives you a 14-inch laptop
in the size of a 13-inch system,
making this one of the best Ultrabooks that you can buy in 2026.
But if you're after raw performance, the new Alienware 16 Area
51 brings a number of minor upgrades, but they really do add up.
It finally has an OLED panel, which looks stunning,
along with lower input lag, which went from 3 milliseconds down to 0.2.
Even though its design remains mostly unchanged, this is still one
of the most unique-looking gaming laptops that we've ever tested.
It features tons of ports and should
deliver really strong gaming performance
since it will pack up to an RTX 5090 laptop GPU.
Pricing is expected to be announced closer to launch,
which should be Q1 of this year.
Now, if I had to pick one laptop
that actually blew me away from this year's show,
it's got to be the Lenovo Legion Pro rollable concept.
It looks like your typical thick boy gaming laptop
at first with a 240 hertz
16 inch OLED display, but with a click of a button,
it extends its display horizontally.
up to 24 inches with a 24 by 9 aspect ratio
or if you want a slightly narrower 21 by 9 but I'm
definitely going to be maxing that baby out every single time.
I didn't get to demo any gameplay here
but this would definitely be a big step up for playing your immersive
and cinematic titles on
the go without needing to bring an external monitor
and besides gaming this should also be
a beast for productivity and multitasking letting you run two programs
or even three side by side
with plenty of screen real estate.
And can you imagine bringing this thing to a Starbucks,
unrolling it and watching the person next to you's jaw
drop in confusion like, what is this black magic?
Unsurprisingly, this is still a concept
and pricing and availability hasn't been announced yet,
but this is a laptop that's looking to shake things up
and I can't wait to test it more.
So CES has been a pretty exciting year for laptop redesigns
and is giving us a glimpse into some of
the form factors that we could see over the next few years.
Personally, if I'm getting a new laptop
this year, I'd probably want a spec'd out MSI Stealth 16
for its balance of performance, but
And inconspicuous styling, but man,
if Lenovo can actually deliver on that Legion Pro rollable
and make it thinner and not actually cost an arm and a leg,
that would be insane.
But let me know what you guys think about these new laptops.
You can find us everywhere at Tom's Guide,
and you can follow me to see what other
cool and wacky tech I'm reviewing.
And until the next one, I'll catch you later.
