Dell and Lenovo laptops with Nvidia CPUs 'could come in the first half of this year' — so get ready for some thin-and-light gaming powerhouses (hopefully)

• New rumor suggests laptops with Nvidia's new CPUs could arrive in the first half of 2026
• These are the long-rumored N1 and N1X processors, which are Arm-based
• There'll be notebooks from Dell and Lenovo, plus other vendors, too

If you're wondering when laptops will start shipping with Nvidia's new Arm CPU inside, the latest rumor suggests the initial models will debut in the first half of this year.

A report from the Wall Street Journal (via VideoCardz) claims that Dell and Lenovo are working on laptops with Arm CPUs from Nvidia – built in collaboration with MediaTek – that "could come in the first half of this year".

That suggests an arrival in the next four months or so, and this info comes from sources in Nvidia's supply chain.

These are the long-rumored N1 and N1X CPUs, in case you were in any doubt. The report notes that the hope is that Nvidia's silicon can help to make notebooks both lighter and thinner, while maintaining a long battery life.

That, of course, fits the bill very well for an Arm chip, with these processors excelling at achieving new heights of battery longevity in thin-and-light laptops.

Dell and Lenovo are mentioned specifically, but the WSJ notes that other laptop manufacturers will be on board with Nvidia's Arm CPU, as you'd expect – though perhaps the first devices will be from the mentioned vendors.

Analysis: strong Arm tactics

While Arm has its strengths – as noted, certainly in power efficiency – these laptops have their weaknesses when running Windows 11, too. Namely, compatibility issues around some software and particularly games, though a lot of meaningful strides were taken in smoothing over gaming on an Arm notebook last year.

An Nvidia-powered Windows on Arm laptop could be pretty exciting, then, as a thin-and-light capable of coping with mainstream gaming relatively well with its integrated graphics. Because, naturally, the GPU is going to be one of Nvidia's strong points here, with previous rumors that the graphics core count could be up there with the RTX 5070. Although note that doesn't mean actual performance will be – we've got to be realistic around the scope with integrated graphics, given thermals and so forth.

There's also the issue of driver quality in Nvidia's favor, which is a shakier area for the Adreno GPUs in Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips (which will be Team Green's rival in the realm of Windows on Arm notebooks).

Regarding the rumored timing, there are concerns about the RAM crisis, which is making everything difficult in the PC world and extending to storage memory chips, too, and how that might interfere with Nvidia's launch plans.

Previous rumors suggested a Q1 2026 launch for these N1X laptops, but that never seemed all that likely, as Nvidia didn't even mention the devices at CES 2026 (and if they were close at hand, Team Green surely would have done).

I'm not sure about a launch in the first half of 2026, either, at this point. The WSJ seems rather tentative in its phrasing with the rumored timeframe, so it sounds far from certain. From a betting perspective, I'd give Q3 the same odds as Q2 here, given the current PC climate, but we shall see.

Furthermore, there are other notable questions here. What about the rumored desktop incarnation of Nvidia's new Arm CPU? And indeed, remember Nvidia's separate collaboration, away from MediaTek, in which the firm is providing integrated graphics for Intel CPUs (among other plans) – how does that fit with this Arm masterplan? 2026 is sure to be a revealing year for Nvidia, but I'm not convinced those revelations are anything like imminent yet.

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