Panther Lake isn’t just a laptop chip. It’s Intel’s Hail Mary

I’ve reviewed lots of laptops powered by Intel CPUs over the last year, and I’ve had gripes. The Core Ultra Series 2 generation was a branding mess with its mix of Lunar Lake, Arrow Lake, and Meteor Lake architectures. But at CES 2026, Intel turned a corner. Intel Core Ultra Series 3—codenamed Panther Lake—looks like it’s actually a coherent platform to go toe-to-toe with AMD and Qualcomm.

Intel seems to have its swagger back, too. Intel had TSMC manufacture its Lunar Lake CPUs last generation...