Irecently reviewed the Alienware 16X Aurora (with its Arrow Lake-based processor) and the Alienware 16 Aurora (with its Raptor Lake-based processor), and both were branded as “Series 2” chips— neither were Lunar Lake ! That started me down a rabbit hole: What exactly does Intel’s “Series 2” CPU branding mean these days?

Turns out, not a whole lot.

When Intel unveiled simple branding for its “Series 1” CPUs, it was clear what we were getting. With “Series 2” and the launch of Lunar Lake, I thought Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPUs were going to be AI PCs with long battery life and NPUs capable of running Copilot+ PC features … but that’s not true anymore. It’s more confusing than that.

Intel’s “Series 2” branding doesn’t tell you much. You need to dig into model numbers and CPU

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