My Favorite New Hardware of 2025 ⭐
- Paul Thurrott
- Dec 30, 2025
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2025 was an incredible year for PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones, Android devices, and other hardware. Even the venerable Commodore 64 made the list.
? Best of the best: HP OmniBook 5 16
In 2024, Copilot+ PCs based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chipset set my world on fire, turning Windows 11 on Arm into the obvious path forward for Windows and the PC. There is so much that goes into that, but the key, to me, is reliability. Intel- and AMD-based PCs are interesting for all kinds of reasons, but x86 is dead architecture walking at this point. I returned to this theme repeatedly in 2025 because it’s so important. Reliability matters and I love when it just works.
Qualcomm built out its Snapdragon X family of chips with X Plus and X Plus 8-core variants in late 2024, and then it introduced the entry-level Snapdragon X in January 2025, lowering prices further and giving PC makers a platform they could use to transform the critical $500 to $800 space. PC makers responded, but a May announcement by HP about a coming line of Snapdragon X-based OmniBook 5 laptops had me particularly interested. PC makers regularly send out high-end configurations to reviewers like me. But I wanted to see what the entry-level Snapdragon X could accomplish.
Just about anything, as it turns out. I bought one with my own money and fell in love. As I wrote in HP OmniBook 5 16 Review: It’s a Snapdragon Miracle, the OmniBook 5 is nearly perfect, and superior to x86 laptops that cost two, three, or even four times as much. The performance is consistently excellent, as is its reliability and efficiency. You get almost 10 hours of battery life, Windows Hello ESS security, and all the goodness that comes with every Copilot+ PC.
Since then, I upgraded my OmniBook 5’s SSD to a 1 TB unit, which went flawlessly. What I haven’t written is that I can’t stop using it. I planned to leave the OmniBook 5 behind in Mexico when we came back to the U.S. in mid-November, so I would have an excellent Snapdragon-based laptop in both homes. (My Surface Laptop 7 is here in PA.) But I couldn’t bear to be apart from it, so I flew home with the OmniBook 5. And I still can’t stop using it. I love this laptop. I’m using it to write these words, in fact.
❤️ Feel-good hardware story of the year
I’m struggling to not buy one for myself because the pull is strong, but I love that a YouTuber and Commodore enthusiast hatched a plan to bring back Commodore, somehow orchestrated the acquisition, brought back a ton of ex-Commodore luminaries to help him out, and launched a new line of Commodore 64 computers, and then started shipping the first units to customers in time for the holidays.
This is the feel-good tech hardware story of the year, and a nice reminder that not everything has to suck in this age of Big Tech enshittification and political nonsense. Every time I think about it, I just start smiling. And thinking, maybe next year we’ll get a new Amiga too. Fingers crossed.
?️ Little tech … hardware?
If you’re shopping for a smartphone or tablet, you can’t avoid Big Tech: Apple and Google dominate in this space. Ditto for the PC market, this time with Microsoft and Apple making the OS platforms, and though alternatives based on Linux are better than ever, they’re still a tiny minority. But there is one way in which even mainstream users could jam a stake into the heart of the Big Tech vampire: You can get a network attached storage (NAS) device and use that instead of Big Tech cloud service subscriptions like OneDrive, Google Drive, Google Photos, and whatever else.
That’s what I did in 2025: I purchased two Synology NASes, one for Mexico and one for Pennsylvania, and they sync with each other across the Internet. As good, the Synology Drive and Synology Photos services are so good they’re replaced Big Tech solutions on all my PCs, tablets, and phones as my primary end point for storage. I still save my data to the Apple, Google, and Microsoft clouds. For now. But I’m all-in on Synology now and I love that this Little Tech solution can work this well.
Here are my NAS write-ups from 2025. There will be more in 2026.
Online Accounts 2025: Some Early Thoughts About the NAS (Premium)
Synology DiskStation DS224+ First Impressions
Synology DiskStation DS224+ Next Steps
Online Accounts 2025: The Second NAS is an Upgrade (Premium)
Synology DiskStation DS423+ First Impressions
Online Accounts 2025: An American NAS in Mexico ⭐
✍️ My 2025 hardware reviews and write-ups
I evaluated over 30 PCs, phones, and other hardware devices in 2025, and while some of the more recent entries won’t be formally reviewed until early 2026, here’s a quick rundown of the key write-ups (minus the NAS articles noted above).
Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 (AMD) Review
Lenovo ThinkPad T16 Gen 3 Review
So, I Ended Up Getting an iPad Mini (Premium)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition Review
Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition Review
Hands-On: Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max
Hands-On: Roku Streaming Stick Plus
Surface Laptop 7: One Year Later (Premium)
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 15 Review
Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition Review
Hands-On: Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Air 11-Inch (M3)
Lenovo Yoga Book 9i Gen 10 Review
Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i Aura Edition 16 Review
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 Review
Lenovo ThinkCentre neo 50q QC First Impressions and Lenovo ThinkCentre neo 50q QC: A Quick Follow-Up
HP OmniBook 5 16 Review: It’s a Snapdragon Miracle
Paul’s Pixel 10 Diaries: Google on the TV ⭐
Lenovo ThinkPad P1 (Gen 8) First Impressions
⬆️ But wait, there’s more
I guess there’s always more. But in reviewing the nearly 2,000 articles that we published in 2025, about 260 of which were Premium posts, several hardware-related trends stood out. I’m writing a bigger year-end wrap-up and will include those there, but the health of the PC industry, the transition of Xbox hardware from console to PC, NAS, smart home, and Apple finally setting the iPad free are all on the list. It was an incredible year.
More soon.
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