What should I look for in a laptop with Core Ultra X9 378H: build quality, ports, and expandability?

  The 378H is Intel's mobile flagship (16C/16T, no hyperthreading) with a soldered laptop board — there's no standalone motherboard to pick. Flagship machines are usually well-equipped on ports and expansion: USB4/Thunderbolt and HDMI 2.1 are common, so focus on whether RAM is fixed LPDDR or upgradeable SODIMM, and how many SSD slots exist.

  At this tier, machines with the same chip differ mainly in cooling (whether sustained power gets fed) and panel quality — both affect real-world experience more than the CPU name.