About
Sam Iyengar reviews laptops, monitors, and personal-computing accessories. They joined The Review Bench out of journalism school and lead our long-term reliability tracking project, where each laptop in our test pool is followed for at least twelve months past launch.
Areas of expertise
- Laptops and ultrabooks
- External monitors
- Long-term reliability testing
Bylines at
- LaptopMag (contributor)
- Tom's Hardware (freelance)
- XDA Developers (occasional)
Recent reviews
Framework Laptop 13 (AMD, 2026) review: the laptop you can keep alive
The 2026 Framework Laptop 13 with the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 is the company's fifth real iteration on a modular, repairable laptop. Twelve months of long-term reliability tracking show real strengths in the company's parts availability, repair documentation, and DIY-friendly architecture — and a few persistent weaknesses in build quality and battery performance that have not improved as much as I'd hoped. For the right buyer, this is the laptop I would recommend over a MacBook Pro or a Dell XPS. For most buyers, the trade-offs are real.
Dell UltraSharp U3225QE review: a 32-inch 4K productivity monitor that nearly justifies its price
The Dell UltraSharp U3225QE is a 32-inch 4K IPS Black productivity monitor with a built-in Thunderbolt 4 dock and a clean, well-calibrated panel. After five months of daily desktop use I think it is the best monitor in its category for users who want a dock-and-display in one device — but the $1,049 price tag is steep for a non-HDR panel, and Dell's 'AI features' built into the on-screen menu are useless and quietly disabled. With those caveats, it earns a recommendation as a productivity workhorse.
M4 Pro MacBook Pro 14-inch review: the laptop most professionals should still buy
The M4 Pro MacBook Pro 14-inch is the iterative upgrade you'd expect from Apple's annual cadence — meaningfully faster than the M3 generation, with the same chassis and a few small refinements. After six months as my primary machine, I think it remains the best laptop most working professionals can buy in 2026, with the caveat that it is not the right machine for users who value repairability, port flexibility, or running anything other than macOS. The performance and battery life are genuinely class-leading. The price has finally stabilised.
Reach Sam via editorial@thereviewbench.com with the subject line "Attn: Sam".