One of the things that Samsung’s spring refresh of Galaxy Book laptops did not bring was its highly anticipated notebook powered by its own Exynos 2200 system-on-chip. Industry sources now claim that the first laptop with Exynos inside is due in the second half of the year, and the same sources say Samsung is considering using the SoC in smartphones too.
Samsung’s Exynos 2200 system-on-chip will be the company’s first SoC to use a custom GPU based on AMD’s RDNA architecture. The Exynos 2200 will be made using Samsung’s 5LPE (5nm) fabrication process and will likely rely on numerous technologies already used for the Exynos 2100. Since the Exynos 2100 uses one Cortex-X1, three Cortex-A78, and four Cortex-A55 cores, its designed-for-notebooks counterpart should feature higher general-purpose performance. That will likely come by integrating more X1 cores, or just clocking existing cores higher, as well as some other enhancements.
“The new Exynos will offer improved functions, including extraordinary computing power and battery efficiency, by utilizing a 5-nanometer processing technology,” an industrial source told The Korea Economic Daily. “It’s good for both laptops and smartphones.”
Installing a high-performance laptop-grade SoC into a smartphone has its rationale if one wants to offer ultimate performance in a handset and beat all gaming handsets available on the market today. But this is going to come at a cost and may not bring the desired result.
The Exynos 2200 is optimized for performance, so it’s expected to be considerably larger than the Exynos 2100. That means higher costs and higher power consumption. A larger die size and higher power consumption will make it harder to fit into smartphones, as it will require a more complicated power delivery, which enlarges PCB footprint. Higher power consumption also means less battery life, for the same size battery.
SoCs for notebooks are optimized for burst performance. They typically run at very high clocks for relatively short periods of time, getting the ‘heavy work’ done as quickly as possible, and then go back to sleep. Such ‘bursty’ behavior is possible because notebooks can cool their CPUs down with their relatively powerful cooling systems. By contrast, smartphones have different thermals, so running an SoC at extreme clocks isn’t possible, which to a large degree negates their advantages.
Samsung has not confirmed specifications of its upcoming Exynos 2200 or its plans for the SoC, so take all this unofficial information with a grain of salt.
Gigabyte is announcing seven new laptops featuring the hardware from Intel and Nvidia, two of which are packing Nvidia’s brand new RTX 3050 Ampere mobile GPU.
The new Gigabyte G5 and G7 are the company’s latest budget-friendly offerings for mainstream buyers. Both models are packing Intel’s 11th Gen Core processors, the eight-core i7-11800H or the hexa-core Core i5-11400H based on the Tiger Lake architecture. The G5 and G7 also use Nvidia’s newly released RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti mobile GPUs.
Both notebooks feature dual DDR4-3200 slots supporting a max of 64GB (32GB per DIMM), and dual M.2 slots supporting PCIe with one allowing up to Gen 3 speeds and the other up to Gen 4. Plus, you get one 2.5-inch HDD/SSD slot that supports 7mm (or thinner) SATA drives.
The main difference between the G5 and the G7 is display size. The G5 is a 15-inch notebook while the G7 comes in a larger 17-inch form factor. Despite the changes in size, both laptops will come with the same panel specs, with a 1080p display at 144 Hz.
For connectivity the G5 and G7 come with four USB ports of different variations: You get a single USB 2.0 Type-A, dual USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports with one being type-C, and finally a USB 3.2 Gen 1 type A port.
For wireless connectivity, the G5 and G7 come with Intel’s AX200 or AX201 wireless cards which both support WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. For storage and memory, you get dual M.2 slots with one supporting Gen 3 speeds and the other supporting Gen 4.
The line starts at $1,149 for the lowest-end G5.
Refreshed AERO 15/17
(Image credit: Gigabyte)
Gigabyte is also updating its Aero line of laptops, which are targeted towards creators and gamers alike. Gigabyte is adding two upgraded models to the Aero lineup, the Aero 15 OLED and the Aero 17 HDR with new CPUs.
The main differences between the 15 and 17 will be its size and display type (as the name implies), the Aero 15 will come with a Samsung AMOLED display so you get those very crisply visuals and stunning visuals. Unfortunately, you will not be able to get an AMOLED display for the Aero 17, so Gigabyte has opted for a 4k HDR display instead.
The upgrade you’re getting on the new refreshed Aero 15 and 17 are the CPUs; both the OLED and HDR variants get upgraded to Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake CPUs, specifically the i9-11980HK or the i7-11800H. Giving these laptops a big performance and efficiency boost over previous Comet Lake mobile CPUs.
Like the previous Comet Lake-based Aero 15 and 17, you get options for either an RTX 3070 or RTX 3080 GPU with a 105W TDP.
AORUS 17X
(Image credit: Gigabyte)
Gigabyte is also refreshing the Aorus 17X, the companies flagship gaming laptop with a 17.3 display and a thick chassis with vapor chamber cooling to cool Nvidia and Intel’s top tier CPUs and GPUs.
The 17X will come with Intel’s highest-end mobile processor you can get, the i9-11980HK with 8 cores and a max turbo frequency of 5GHz. The chip has a configurable TDP up to 65W. What we don’t know is how Gigabyte configured the TDP for the Aorus 17X.
For graphics, the Aorus 17X will come with an RTX 3080, with a whopping 165W of target graphics power.
This flagship device includes some other top-end specifications, including a 300 Hz display and a mechanical keyboard with Omron gaming switches and RGB backlighting.
This laptop is set to launch in June starting at $2,099.
Razer is refreshing its Blade 15 Advanced model with Intel’s Tiger Lake-H, its 11th Gen, 35-65W processors for gaming. The new lineup starts at $2,299 and will go as high as $3,399 when it ships in June. It’s pricey, but the previous release was one of the best gaming laptops.
The majority of Razer’s configurations will include the Intel Core i7-11800H, an 8-core processor with a 4.2 GHz max boost clock. The top-of-the-line version will use the Core i9-11900H with a 4.9-GHz max boost. None of them uses Intel’s overclockable Tiger Lake-H chips. Graphics range from the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 on the intro model and go up to the RTX 3080 with 16GB of VRAM.
Razer Blade 15
$2,299
$2,599
$2,699
$2,999
$3,099
$3,399
CPU
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i9-11900H
GPU
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (16GB)
Display
QHD, 240 Hz
FHD, 360 Hz
QHD, 240 Hz
QHD, 240 Hz
FHD, 360 Hz
4K, OLED, Touch
Storage
1TB (PCIe)
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
Memory
16GB DDR4-3200
16GB DDR4-3200
16GB DDR4-3200
32GB DDR4-3200
32GB DDR4-3200
32GB DDR4-3200
Battery
80 WHr
80 WHr
80 WHr
80 WHr
80 WHr
80 WHr
Networking
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Webcam
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
At 13.98 x 9.25 x 0.67 inches, there’s no real change in profile beyond a few fractions of a millimeter of thickness shaved off. Still, Razer claims that the CNC aluminum notebook is the smallest 15-inch gaming laptop with RTX graphics.
There are other technical improvements internally including faster memory clocked at 3,200 MHz and support for
PCIe
Gen 4 storage (up to 4TB). On models that don’t use the RTX 3060, there’s a second PCIe slot that lets you stack storage in the laptop’s minimal space. Finally, there’s a
1080p
webcam with IR support for Windows Hello, both of which will be welcome for those using the Blade 15 to work from home.
It’s still keeping its Choma keyboard, of course. One might argue it wouldn’t be a Razer laptop without it.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Razer)
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: Razer)
Razer has only provided information about the Advanced Model. The company did not make it clear when 11th Gen Core processors may come to the normal Razer Blade 15 or the Studio Edition.
If it’s as good as the Blade 15 has historically been, the new version will be worth looking forward to. But there are a lot of gaming laptops with 11th Gen Core and Nvidia RTX being announced today, so it will surely be in a crowded field.
HP’s first laptops to use Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake-H processors are its ZBook G8 line, which consists of four notebooks. There are two ZBook Fury laptops — one 15.6-inch and one 17.3-inch — along with the ZBook Power and ZBook Studio.
The ZBook Power is the entry-level workstation, going up to an Intel Core i-11950H CPU, using GPUs with 4GB of VRAM. The HP ZBook Studio G8, aimed at data scientists and creators, uses more powerful GPUs, with both gaming-grade GeForce RTX and workstation-grade RTX A-series cards with as much as 16GB of VRAM.
(Image credit: HP)
In an atypical move, the ZBook Studio G8 is getting an RGB keyboard, which you would typically find in gaming laptops. In fact, it will use the Omen gaming hub to make profiles. These key presets can be set per application, not just games, so you could have custom lighting for creative software.
HP ZBook Power G8
HP ZBook Studio G8
HP ZBook Fury 15.6-inch G8
HP ZBook Fury 17.3-inch G8
CPU
Up to Intel Core i9-11950H
Up to Intel Core i9-11950H
Up to Intel Core i9-11950H, Up to Intel Xeon W-11955M
Up to Intel Core i9-11950H, Up to Intel Xeon W-11955M
Graphics
Nvidia T1200, RTX A2000 or Nvidia T600 (4GB GDDR6 each)
Up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (16GB GDDR6), Up to Nvidia RTX A5000 (16GB GDDR6)
Up to Nvidia RTX A5000 (16GB GDDR6) or AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (8GB GDDR6)
Up to Nvidia RTX A5000 (16GB GDDR6) or AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (8GB GDDR6)
The Fury line, which comes in both 15.6 and 17.3-inch sizes, offers the most power, including 11th Gen Xeon processors as well as up to 128GB of RAM. These two laptops also have configurable choices with either Nvidia or AMD graphics and allow for Intel LTE to work on the go.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: HP)
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: HP)
For this round of workstations, HP is introducing its Tamper Lock system, which came from the Firefly G8, which notifies users or IT departments if the bottom of the laptop is removed. They can choose to disable the system, lock the BIOS or use Bitlocker to secure the system. Users would also know if RAM or HDDs were removed. Additionally, the laptops continue HP’s tradition of using Tile tracking to recover the notebook if it is lost or stolen.
Pricing has not been made available, but HP says it will announce that closer to the laptops’ launches.
The Mercury Research CPU market share results are in for the first quarter of 2021, which finds AMD scoring its highest single-quarter market share increase in the server market since 2006, leading to record revenue as it steals more sockets from Intel. Those share gains are isolated, though, as AMD lost share in the notebook segment and overall market share while remaining flat in desktop PC chips. Those regressions might not be as problematic as they appear on the surface, though, due to AMD’s shift to producing pricier chips that generate more profit. (We have the full breakdown for each segment at the end of the article).
“While we don’t often discuss average selling prices, we note that this quarter saw unusually strong price moves for AMD — as AMD shipped fewer low-end parts and more high-end parts, as well as shipping many more server parts, the company’s average selling price increased significantly,” said Dean McCarron of Mercury Research.
It’s clear that AMD has prioritized its highest-end desktop PC models and its server chips during the pandemic-induced supply chain shortages. These moves come as the CPU market continues to move at a record pace: Last quarter marked the second-highest CPU shipment volume in history, second only to the prior quarter. Also, the first quarter usually suffers from lower sales volume as we exit the holiday season, but the first quarter of 2021 set yet another record – the 41% on-year gain was the highest for the CPU market in 25 years.
These developments benefit both companies, but AMD has clearly suffered more than Intel from the crushing combination of supply shortages and overwhelming demand. AMD actually recently lost share to Intel in both notebooks and desktop PCs for the first time in three years, but it reminded at a flat 19.3% of the desktop PC market during the quarter, meaning it stopped the slide despite supply challenges.
However, Intel’s Rocket Lake processors landed right at the end of the quarter, and they’re particularly competitive against AMD’s Ryzen 5000 in the lower end that tends to move the most volume. Additionally, these chips are widely available at retail at very competitive pricing while AMD’s chips are still a rarity on shelves at anywhere near the suggested selling price. That will make the results of the next quarter all the more interesting.
Both Intel and AMD set records for the number of units shipped and revenue during the quarter for mobile chips. AMD couldn’t stop the slide in notebook PC chips, but as McCarron points out, the company has prioritized higher-priced Ryzen “Renoir” 5 and 7 models while Intel has grown in its lower-margin and lower-priced Celeron chips. AMD slipped 1 percentage point to 18% of the notebook PC unit share.
Most concerning for Intel? It lost a significant amount of share to AMD in the profitable server market. AMD notched its highest single-quarter gain in server CPU share since 2016 at a growth of 1.8 percentage points, bringing the company to 8.9% (a few caveats apply, listed below).
While a 1.8 percentage point decline doesn’t sound too severe, it is concerning given the typically small changes we see in server market share. Intel’s data center revenue absolutely plummeted in the first quarter of the year, dropping 20% YoY while units shipped drop 13%, but Intel chalked that up to its customers pausing orders while ‘digesting’ their existing inventory. However, AMD’s financial results, in which the company’s server and semi-custom revenue jumped 286%, imply that Intel’s customers were actually digesting AMD’s chips instead.
AMD’s strong gains in server CPU share during the quarter occurred before its newest AMD EPYC Milan chips and Intel’s newest Ice Lake chips had their official launch, but both companies began shipping chips to their biggest customers early this year/late last year. Additionally, samples of these chips are in customers’ hands long before general availability, so large volume purchases are often decided long before server CPUs hit the shelves.
AMD’s big supercomputer wins with its EPYC Milan chips foretold strong buy-in from those seeking the highest performance possible, and it appears that momentum has carried over to the broader server CPU market. Given that most of these customers already know which company they’ll use for their long-term deployments, it is rational to expect that AMD’s server charge could continue into the next quarter.
Finally, AMD lost 1 percentage point in the overall x86 CPU market share, receding to 20.7%. Again, this comes as the company struggles from pandemic-induced supply chain shortages that it is minimizing by prioritizing high end chips. Meanwhile, Intel is leveraging its production scale to flood the lower-end of the market and gain share, but that comes at the expense of profitability.
Below you’ll find the specific numbers for each segment, complete with historical data.
1Q21
4Q20
3Q20
2Q20
1Q20
4Q19
3Q19
2Q19
1Q2019
4Q18
3Q18
2Q18
1Q18
4Q17
3Q17
2Q17
1Q17
4Q16
3Q16
AMD Desktop Unit Share
19.3%
19.3%
20.1%
19.2%
18.6%
18.3%
18%
17.1%
17.1%
15.8%
13%
12.3%
12.2%
12.0%
10.9%
11.1%
11.4%
9.9%
9.1%
Quarter over Quarter / Year over Year (pp)
+0.1 / +0.7
-0.8 / +1.0
+0.9 / +2.1
+0.6 / +2.1
+0.3 / +1.5
+0.3 / +2.4
+0.9 / +5
Flat / +4.8
+1.3 / +4.9
+2.8 / +3.8
+0.7 / +2.1
+0.1 / +1.2
+0.2 / +0.8
+1.1 / +2.1
-0.2 / +1.8
-0.3 / –
+1.5 / –
+0.8 / –
–
1Q21
4Q20
3Q20
2Q20
1Q20
Q419
3Q19
2Q19
1Q2019
4Q18
3Q18
2Q18
AMD Mobile Unit Share
18.0%
19%
20.2%
19.9%
17.1%
16.2%
14.7%
14.1%
13.1%
12.2%
10.9%
8.8%
Quarter over Quarter / Year over Year (pp)
-1.0 / +1.1
-1.2 / +2.8
+0.3 / +5.5
+2.9 / +5.8
+0.9 / +3.2
+1.5 / +4.0
+0.7 / +3.8
+1.0 / +5.3
+0.9 / ?
AMD bases its server share projections on IDC’s forecasts but only accounts for the single- and dual-socket market, which eliminates four-socket (and beyond) servers, networking infrastructure and Xeon D’s (edge). As such, Mercury’s numbers differ from the numbers cited by AMD, which predict a higher market share. Here is AMD’s comment on the matter: “Mercury Research captures all x86 server-class processors in their server unit estimate, regardless of device (server, network or storage), whereas the estimated 1P [single-socket] and 2P [two-socket] TAM [Total Addressable Market] provided by IDC only includes traditional servers.”
In the past few weeks we saw a number of indicators that Razer is getting ready to launch an AMD-based Blade gaming notebook. In a rather odd-looking Twitter conversation on Thursday night that went into Friday morning, Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan and Frank Azor of AMD suggested the possibility of a collaboration.
“What do you think about making an AMD equipped Razer Blade laptop, @minglintan,” asked Frank Azor, AMD’s gaming chief in a Twitter post.
I dunno guys. What do you all think? Do you all want to see an @AMD equipped @Razer Blade? https://t.co/u6hpVPWFj3May 7, 2021
See more
“I get a ton of requests all the time to make an AMD gaming laptop,” Min-Lian Tan, a co-founder and CEO of Razer, responded shortly. “What do you guys think?” […] FWIW I think we could design/engineer a pretty awesome AMD gaming laptop. The current laptops out there don’t really push the limits of what can be done. What would you guys like to see in a Razer Blade with AMD?”
FWIW I think we could design/engineer a pretty awesome @AMD gaming laptop. The current laptops out there don’t really push the limits of what can be done. What would you guys like to see in a @Razer Blade with AMD?May 7, 2021
See more
Razer is the last major notebook brands to exclusively offer Intel-based machines, which has frustrated some gamers looking for more choice. Back in 2019, Tan told Tom’s Hardwarethat “we do have quite a number of customers reaching out to us asking us about AMD[.]”
Last month someone submitted benchmark results of two Razer machines, codenamed PI411, featuring AMD’s unlocked Ryzen 9 5900HX processor accompanied by Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 or RTX 3070 GPU with an 80W TGP. That’s a clear indicator that the PC maker was at least experimenting with AMD’s CPU.
The 3DMark submission itself does not mean that a product is coming to the market as some products do not meet certain goals that manufacturers set. But when high-ranking executives start to talk about new products publicly, it certainly suggests that some plans are being set internally.
Tan is a self-described loose cannon on social media, once telling Tom’s Hardware that “my PR team and my legal team lives on tenterhooks that I’m gonna say something stupid.” But with a partner involved, this seems like it could potentially lead to something real.
Apple executives said Wednesday that roughly 50% of the Mac and iPad sales in the second quarter of 2021 were to people who’d never owned those devices before. Much of that growth has been attributed to the M1 system-on-a-chip, the release of which led the Mac to enjoy the best financial quarter in its decades-long history.
Apple CFO Luca Maestri revealed the stat during an earnings call, 9to5Mac reported, and was followed by Apple CEO Tim Cook announcing that 66% of Mac and iPad sales in China were to new customers during that same time period. Both figures show that Apple’s products have started to appeal to new customers.
It’s not hard to guess why that would be the case for the Mac. Apple released new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini models featuring its custom silicon in November 2020. Those models were all well-reviewed and—to some enthusiasts’ surprise—actually flipped the price-to-performance ratio in Apple’s favor.
The M1 chip outperforms much of its x86 competition in various benchmarks even though it’s more power-efficient and, in the MacBook Air’s case, might be throttled if it starts to get too hot. But in many types of workloads, that combination of performance and power efficiency is essentially unrivaled in notebooks equipped with x86 processors.
The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro also feature high-resolution displays and longer-than-expected battery life. They don’t beat every notebook in every benchmark—especially when it comes to gaming—but we noted in our review of the MacBook Pro that it was “putting every other laptop on notice.” And, well, people noticed.
Even more people might consider a Mac or iPad now that the M1 is available in the latest iMac and iPad Pro models. Apple’s planning to bring the rest of the Mac line into the fold by the end of 2022 as well. Those devices are expected to offer better I/O, support for additional memory, and other power user features.
Here’s the bad news: Maestri and Cook said the global chip shortage is likely to affect the supply of its Macs and iPads in the second half of 2021. Cook said that “We expect to be supply-gated, not demand-gated,” when it comes to sales of those products later this year. That’s a testament to these products’ newfound popularity.
Intel can have Justin Long. Apple has the satisfaction of watching its longest-running product line surge in popularity—even among people who’ve never purchased it before—practically the moment it switched from x86 processors to custom silicon. And that’s all with the first chip it designed for something other than mobile devices.
AMD crushed expectations with its first quarter 2021 financial results today with a record quarterly revenue of $3.45B, an increase of 93% year over year (YoY). AMD grew in every segment of its businesses despite constant product shortages for its consumer CPUs and GPUs at retail, a byproduct of record demand and pandemic-spurred supply chain disruptions.
It’s no secret that AMD has been plagued by shortages of consumer CPUs and GPUs, but the company is obviously selling every piece of silicon it can punch out. AMD raked in $2.1 billion for the computing and graphics segment (Consumer CPUs and GPUs), a 46% improvement over the prior year, driven by Ryzen and Radeon sales.
AMD’s Ryzen processors set records for revenue and average selling prices (ASPs), and AMD says it has increased its desktop PC market share again, an encouraging sign for the company after Intel stole back some desktop PC market share last quarter. However, Intel reported last week that it suffered a sharp decline in ASPs for both its notebook and desktop PC chips due to a shift in its sales mix to lower-end processors. That shift is likely due to AMD’s continued performance lead with its Ryzen 5000 processors and strong sales of its higher-end models. AMD CEO Lisa Su remarked that AMD remains firmly focused on its high-end products.
AMD is also doing well in the notebook segment, with Su remarking, “We delivered our sixth straight quarter of record mobile processor revenue based on sustained demand for Ryzen 4000 series processors and the launch of our new Ryzen 5000 series processors.” Notably, Intel also sold a record number of notebook PC chips last quarter, but it suffered a sharp 43% decline in average selling prices.
Su also said that the company had doubled sales of its Radeon 6000 GPUs over the prior quarter and that GPU supply will improve in the next quarter.
Image 1 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 2 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 3 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 4 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 5 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 6 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 7 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 8 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 9 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 10 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 11 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 12 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 13 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 14 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 15 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 16 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 17 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
Image 18 of 18
(Image credit: AMD)
AMD’s Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom (EESC) group, which covers data center chips and game consoles, was up an incredible 286% over last year as it raked in $1.35 billion, largely driven by strong EPYC processor sales that more than doubled (consoles declined slightly during the quarter).
Notably, during its last earnings report, Intel claimed that its data center processor business suffered from the second quarter in a row of cloud “digestion,” meaning customers were still working through their existing inventory of chips, leading to a massive drop in its own revenue for this important high-margin segment. On the surface, it appears that some of that drubbing took place at the hands of AMD’s EPYC Rome and Milan chips. AMD’s data center revenue accounted for a ‘high-teens’ percentage of the company’s revenue.
AMD reported gross margins of 46%, which is flat for the year. The company has also raised its guidance for the year by $1.3 billion dollars, indicating that it expects the impressive performance will continue throughout the end of the year. That’s an increase from the previously-projected 37% annual growth to a projection for 50% annual growth. Su commented that this increased projection is due to increased demand in both the data center and consumer markets.
Overall, AMD posted an almost flawless quarter, especially in light of the current state of the global market. AMD also guides for an impressive $3.6 billion next quarter, an impressive 86% YoY gain during what is historically a slower quarter.
Apple is on track to transit most of its new PCs to system-on-chips (SoCs) with its own graphics processing units (GPUs) in the coming months, but before this happens, it appears that the company will use AMD’s latest RDNA2-based high-end graphics cards with Macs. Recently Apple added support for the Radeon RX 6800/6900 graphics cards to MacOS.
Apple lists compatibility with AMD’s Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT, and Radeon RX 6900 XT among the MacOS Big Sur 11.4 Beta features. Meanwhile, the documents don’t say which Macs now support AMD’s latest graphics boards.
(Image credit: Apple)
Being a notebook-centric PC maker, Apple offers only one PC that can accommodate a standalone graphics card, the Mac Pro. Right now, these workstations come equipped with Intel’s Xeon W ‘Cascade Lake’ CPUs with up to 28 cores as well as AMD’s Radeon Pro graphics cards based on the GCN 4.0/Polaris, GCN 5.1/Vega, and RDNA architectures. Apple uses are proprietary MPX modules with Mac Pro, and not the typical add-in-boards we’re used to. The system can still house an off-the-shelf graphics card, though.
It is unclear whether Apple plans to change its policy and begin equipping its Mac Pro with non-professional graphics cards in a standard FHHL form-factor, or if the company just added RDNA2 support to allow users to upgrade the Mac graphics subsystem to play games. After all, it is possible to equip a modern MacBook Pro notebook with a graphics card using an eGFX box with a Thunderbolt 3 interface.
It is unlikely that Apple will equip its workstation with a graphics card that is not certified by the developers of professional applications, so RDNA2 support is likely aimed at gamers. Meanwhile, the depicted card is not necessarily a Radeon RX, but rather a yet-unannounced Radeon Pro powered by the RDNA2 architecture.
In any case, Apple’s upcoming macOS Big Sur 11.4 will support AMD’s latest Radeon RX 6800/6900 graphics cards, which is good news for gamers.
Intel’s new CEO Pat Gelsinger helmed his first full earnings call for the company yesterday, echoing other industry leaders in saying that the ongoing industry-wide chip shortages could last several more years. Intel also reported that it set a quarterly record for the most notebook PC chips sold in its history, but also reported a sudden slump in data center sales that found revenue dropping 20%, a record for the segment, as the number of units shipped and average selling prices both declined dramatically. Intel also posted its lowest profitability for its server segment in recent history, which surely is exacerbated by AMD’s continuing share gains and Intel’s resultant price cuts.
Intel’s first-quarter 2021 results were strong overall; the company raked in $18.6B in revenue, beating its January guidance by $1.1B (and analyst estimates). However, the impressive quarterly revenue is tempered by the fact that gross margins dropped to 58.4%, a 6.1 ppt decline year-over-year (YoY).
Chips shortages are top of mind, and Gelsinger said he expects the industry-wide chip shortages to last for several more years. A shortage of substrate materials and chip packaging capacity has hamstrung the industry, and Gelsinger said that Intel is bringing some of its chip packaging back in-house to improve its substrate supply. That new capacity comes online in Q2 and will “increase the availability of millions of units in 2021.”
Image 1 of 5
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 2 of 5
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 3 of 5
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 4 of 5
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 5 of 5
(Image credit: Intel)
Intel’s Client Computing Group (CCG), which produces both notebook and desktop PC chips, posted record notebook PC sales that were up 54% YoY. However, average selling prices (ASPs) dropped a surprising 20% YoY, which Intel chalked up to selling more lower-end devices, like low-end consumer and education (Chromebooks). Competitive pricing pressure from AMD’s Ryzen 5000 Mobile processors also surely comes into play here.
Meanwhile, desktop PC volumes dropped 4% YoY while average selling prices dropped 5%, a continuation of an ongoing trend that’s exacerbated by tough competition from AMD’s Ryzen 5000 processors. All told, that led to CCG revenue being up 8% YoY. Intel’s consumer chips now account for 59% of its revenue.
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 2 of 3
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 3 of 3
(Image credit: Intel)
Intel’s Data Center Group (DCG) results were far less impressive. The unit’s $5.6B in revenue was down 20% YoY, and Intel also shipped 13% fewer units than last year. Intel chalks this up to cloud inventory digestion, meaning that companies that ordered large numbers of chips in the past are still deploying that inventory. This is the second quarter in a row Intel has cited this as a reason for lowered revenue.
Intel formally launched its Ice Lake Xeon processors earlier this month, and it isn’t unheard of for large customers to pause purchases in the months before large product launches that bring big performance and efficiency gains. A complex mix of other factors could also contribute, like cloud service providers moving to their own chip designs and possible continued market share gains by AMD. Still, Intel expects its server chips sales to rebound in the second half of the year. We’ll learn more when AMD releases its results, also with the market share reports that will arrive in a few weeks.
Intel’s average selling prices for its server chips also dropped 14%. Intel cites an increase in sales of lower-cost networking SoCs as a contributor, but the company has also cut pricing drastically to compete with AMD’s EPYC processors, which ultimately has an impact.
DCG operating margins weighed in at 23%, a record low for a segment that typically runs in the 40% range, with Intel citing the impact of its 10nm Xeon ramp as a contributor. It’s also noteworthy that 10nm is less profitable than Intel’s 14nm process, so moving from 14nm Cascade Lake to 10nm Ice Lake will further impact margins.
Image 1 of 7
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 2 of 7
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 3 of 7
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 4 of 7
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 5 of 7
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 6 of 7
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 7 of 7
(Image credit: Intel)
Intel is moving forward with its plans to invest $20 billion this year as it expands its manufacturing capacity, with a good portion of that dedicated to its Intel Foundry Services (ISF) that will make chips for other companies, much like we see with other third-party foundries like TSMC. Gelsinger says Intel is engaging with 50+ potential customers already.
Gelsinger also noted that Intel has onboarded 2,000 new engineers this year and expects to bring on “several thousand” more later in the year. However, he didn’t provide a frame of reference as to how that compares to Intel’s normal hiring rate, which is an important distinction in an engineering-heavy company with over 110,000 employees.
Intel expects to ramp up its investments, and noted that it would reduce its stock buybacks as it plows more money into its investments. Intel guides for a 57% gross margin for the second quarter on $17.8B and a $1.05 EPS.
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is just half-inch thick computer that lags behind similarly priced competitors on productivity, but is supremely classy and convenient.
For
+ Extremely thin
+ Looks and feels classy
+ Great webcam
Against
– Priced for business, so more expensive
– Haptic touchpad can feel unresponsive
When it comes to portability, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga ($1,684.99 to start) is all business. It’s an enterprise notebook that puts thinness above all else, including power.
This is a smaller than half-inch convertible that still manages to stay within spitting distance of other similar competitors on productivity while being even smaller than some detachables (with their keyboards attached, to be fair). Combine that with Lenovo’s excellent keyboard and a classy design that’s easy to feel proud of, and it’s clear how the Titanium Yoga could become a respectable daily driver for casual users or certain trendy businesses that don’t require heavy computing from their employees.
But for the price of the unit we reviewed, which had an Intel Core i5-1130G7, you could easily get a speedier competitor equipped with a Core i7 but without the business trappings of ThinkPad. You’ll have to choose if power or portability is more important for your money, as well as whether you need enterprise features like extra durability and security.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Specifications
CPU
Intel Core i5-1130G7
Graphics
Intel Iris Xe Integrated Graphics
Memory
16GB LPDDR4x-4266
Storage
512MB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display
13.5 inch, 2256 x 1504, IPS, Touchscreen
Networking
Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 11ax, Bluetooth 5.1
Ports
2x Thunderbolt 4, 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo jack
Camera
720p
Battery
44.5 Wh
Power Adapter
65W
Operating System
Windows 10 Pro
Dimensions(WxDxH)
11.71 x 9.16 x 0.45 inches (297.5 x 232.7 x 11.5 mm)
Weight
2.54 pounds (1.15 kg)
Price (as configured)
$1,684.99
Design of Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
Image 1 of 9
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 9
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 3 of 9
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 4 of 9
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 5 of 9
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 6 of 9
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 7 of 9
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 8 of 9
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 9 of 9
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
From its silver color to its textured faux leather lid to its titanium, carbon and magnesium chassis, the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga exudes class. Like a geeky version of a Rolex, this computer is clearly aiming to be a statement piece as much as a genuinely useful device, and for the most part, it succeeds.
That faux leather lid feels soft to the touch, and its texture almost gives the convertible a subdued glittery appearance. The lid’s detailing also makes the ThinkPad feel somewhat like a fancy moleskin journal, both to the eye and to the touch.
Decoration is otherwise minimal, with light ThinkPad branding on the lid and keyboard deck’s outer corners standing out the most. This serves to accentuate the case’s sturdy and solid build quality, which emphasizes the Titanium Yoga’s premium status.
The Titanium Yoga is also thinner than other Intel 11th generation convertibles we’ve tested, coming in at under half an inch of thickness. At 11.71 x 9.16 x 0.45 inches, it’s smaller than the HP Spectre x360 14 (11.75 x 8.67 x 0.67 inches) and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 (11.69 x 8.15 x 0.56 inches). It’s even smaller than the recent ThinkPad X12 Detachable with its keyboard attached, which sits at 11.15 x 8.01 x 0.57 inches.
This small form factor extends to weight as well. The Titanium Yoga is 2.54 pounds, whereas the Spectre x360 14 is 2.95 pounds, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is 2.9 pounds and the X12 Detachable is 2.4 pounds.
The small form factor approach doesn’t come without sacrifices, though. The Titanium Yoga is woefully low on ports, with the left side housing two Thunderbolt 4 connections and the right side simply giving you a single 3.5 mm combination microphone/headphone jack. The device doesn’t come with any dongles, so you’re either going to need to buy them separately or pick your accessories carefully.
The Titanium Yoga also comes with a Lenovo Pen, which magnetically attaches to the right side of the display. This is a secure fit, though it might take you a while to figure out that it can actually attach to the device if you don’t read the manual.
Finally, the Titanium Yoga has MIL-SPEC certification, meaning it can take a tumble or five. This isn’t always found on non-business laptops, giving the ThinkPad an edge up when it comes to durability.
Productivity Performance of Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
Image 1 of 4
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 4
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 3 of 4
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 4 of 4
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Despite its stylish exterior, our review configuration of the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga packs lackluster performance compared to similarly-priced 11th generation Intel convertibles. The Intel Core i5-1130G7 processor is the same one you’ll find in the tablet based ThinkPad X12 Detachable, and it’s outclassed by the Intel Core i7-1165G7 that powers both the HP Spectre x360 14 and the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1. Our configuration also only came with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
It’s not too uncommon to see ThinkPads costing more, however, due to their business classification. And, you can configure the ThinkPad X1 Titanium with a Core i7, if you’re willing to pay a bit more.
On Geekbench 5, a synthetic benchmark for testing PC performance, the Titanium Yoga fell behind each of its competitors. It scored 1,328 on single-core tasks and 4,747 on multi-core tasks. That’s only slightly less performance than you’ll get from the ThinkPad X12 Detachable (1,334 single-core/4,778 multi-core), but other convertibles provide more serious competition with the higher-end chips. The HP Spectre x360 14 hit scores of 1,462 on single-core/4,904 on multi-core, while the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 hit 1,532 on single-core/4,778 on multi-core.
The Titanium Yoga was largely on par with competition when we tested its file transfer speeds, where we tracked how quickly it transferred 25GB of data across its SSD. Here, it hit speeds of 409.26 MBps, which is slightly above the XPS 13 2-in-1’s 405.55 MBps and the X12 Detachable’s 408.39 MBps on the same test. The HP Spectre x360 14 was an outlier here, transferring its files at a speed of 533.61 MBps.
On our Handbrake benchmark, in which we use the free program to track how long it takes a computer to transcode a video file down from 4K to 1080p, once again saw the Titanium Yoga fall towards the bottom of the pack. It finished the task in 20:57, which was faster than the X12 Detachable’s 24:12 but slower than other convertibles. The Spectre x360 14 finished its transcode in 18:05, while the XPS 13 2-in-1 did so in 15:52.
We also ran the Titanium Yoga through Cinebench R23 for 20 runs in a row to simulate an extended intensive work session. Its average score was 3,397, while its CPU ran at an average clock speed of 2.1 GHz. During this time, the CPU hit an average 64.75 degrees Celsius (148.55 degrees Fahrenheit).
Display on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Like plenty of other recent ultraportables, the Titanium Yoga has a 3:2 aspect ratio screen, which means an image with more vertical headroom. This means more letterboxing on 16:9 content, but it also means you’re expanding your vertical resolution to display more, which is particularly useful for reading webpage content. The Titanium Yoga’s IPS touchscreen in particular has a 2,256 x 1,504 resolution image. That’s more detail than you’ll get on the more common 1920 x 1280 resolution found in the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable, but less detail than the HP Spectre x360 14’s 3000 x 2000 resolution.
When I watched the trailer for Nobody on the Titanium Yoga, I was impressed by how deep the blacks were, but not by much else. The screen was bright enough that I didn’t have to strain to view it, and while colors were accurate, they were not vivid. Viewing angles were also restrictive in a well-lit room, and I had to sit almost directly in front of the laptop to have a workable image. Turning off my lights solved this problem, but that’s not an applicable solution all of the time. I also noticed a mild glare on the screen even when holding it away from heavy light, but it was easy enough to ignore.
Of course, the Titanium Yoga’s aspect ratio is meant more for surfing the web or working on documents than watching a movie. In that respect, the Titanium Yoga exceeded, especially in tablet mode. Reading on it feels almost like browsing through a well put-together coffee table book.
Our testing found that, when it comes to color, the Titanium Yoga is roughly on par with competition. It covers 71.1% of the DCI-P3 color spectrum, which is about the same as the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1’s 70% DCI-P3 rating and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable’s 74.9% rating. The HP Spectre x360 14 stands as an outlier, hitting a vibrant 139.7% DCI-P3 rating.
The Titanium Yoga had a higher average brightness than most competitors in our testing. It registered at an average 425 nits, with only the XPS 13 2-in-1’s 488 nits beating it. The X12 Detachable had 376.2 average nits of brightness, where the HP Spectre x360 14 was the dimmest at 339 nits.
Keyboard, Touchpad and Stylus on the LenovoThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga doesn’t make any changes to the classic ThinkPad keyboard design, which makes it a great typer, but its unconfigurable haptic touchpad leaves it feeling unresponsive elsewhere.
The ThinkPad style keyboard is an old favorite among techies, and it works well on the Titanium Yoga. This keyboard has concave keycaps to help you easily touch-type without having to look at its buttons, which feel like they have reasonable travel distance for such a thin machine. I regularly hit between 80 – 85 words per minute on this keyboard, which is between five to ten points higher than I usually score.
The trackpoint nub is also back here, and you can press on it like an analog stick to move your mouse cursor. It’s kind of an old-fashioned solution, but it works well and is decent if you don’t like taking your fingers off home row. I even found myself using it a few times, despite generally preferring touchpads, since I found the Titanium Yoga’s touchpad lacking.
While my finger smoothly glides around the Titanium Yoga’s touchpad and multi-touch gestures are easy to perform thanks to its precision drivers, the touchpad uses haptic feedback and has no travel when you press it in. We’ve seen this option before on MacBooks and certain other PCs, but it’s unconfigurable here, and the amount of force I needed to actuate the touchpad feels awkward to me. Sometimes presses register, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I right click when I mean to left click, and vice versa.
There are physical left, right and even middle click buttons above the touchpad, though those exist more for trackpoint users and are inconvenient to reach for when using the touchpad. Additionally, the 3.5 x 2.5 inch touchpad dimensions leave it feeling a little small, and it wasn’t uncommon for my finger to bump up against its sides.
The Titanium Yoga also comes with a Lenovo Pen, which tracks writing well and has three programmable buttons. One of those buttons is where you’d normally place an eraser, but unfortunately isn’t touch sensitive. Palm rejection is impressive here, as I could fully place my palm on the display while writing or drawing with the pen without having the ThinkPad pick it up. The only time palm rejection failed was when I tried to use Windows’ built-in feature that translates handwriting to text when you click on a text box with your stylus. In these situations, my cursor bounced all over the place.
Audio on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
Audio on the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is loud and accurate, if not what I’d use to DJ my first post-lockdown party. The convertible has two top-firing speakers, one on each side of its keyboard, which I tested by listening to Leave the Door Open by Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak and Silk Sonic.
This song’s full of drum beats and smooth vocal performances all over the pitch spectrum, but despite that, nothing sounded inaccurate, tinny or dropped on the Titanium Yoga. It could have sounded richer or fuller, but for such a thin device, not losing the bass tracks is enough for me.
As for volume, I could understand the song’s lyrics across most of my 2-bedroom apartment, though they did become muffled at the very edges of my space. When just sitting by myself in front of the Titanium Yoga, I tended to keep the volume at around 60%.
Upgradeability of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is easy to open, though there’s not much point to doing so. All you have to do is loosen, but not remove, the six Phillips head screws on the convertible’s underside and gently lift off the case. Inside, you’ll see the battery as well as the networking chip. The M.2 SSD is hidden under a black flap, though it’s in an uncommon size (it looks like a 2242 form factor to us, though we don’t have official word on that) and there’s no slot for a second SSD.
You may be able to change out your SSD in the future, but for the other components, consider that you won’t be able to replace them.
Battery Life of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga hit just under 10 hours of battery life in our testing, which while not the absolute minimum for an ultraportable, does put it behind most of its similarly powered competition.
Specifically, the Titanium Yoga had 9:58 of life on our battery benchmark, which continuously streams video, browses the web and runs OpenGL tests at 150 nits of brightness. That’s about an hour less life than we got on both the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310, which hit 10:52, and the ThinkPad X12 Detachable, which hit 11:05.
Heat on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
For such a thin device, the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga impresses on cooling. After 15 minutes of streaming video, the device’s touchpad only registered 73.4 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees Celsius), while the center of its keyboard in between the G and H keys only hit 81.5 degrees Fahrenheit (27.5 degrees Celsius). Its underside was just slightly hotter at 84.6 degrees Fahrenheit (29.22 degrees Celsius).
The only part of this laptop that even came close to pushing any boundaries was the keyboard deck, right above the f5 key. This hit 93.6 degrees Fahrenheit (34.22 degrees Celsius), which typically isn’t too concerning, but could get warm to the touch after a few seconds here.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Webcam
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga comes with a single front-facing 720p webcam that’s usually color accurate and tends to avoid artifacting, but doesn’t always hold up to dark or overly lit rooms.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
During late afternoon in my office, the Titanium Yoga’s camera captured my face with no visible grain and no major alterations to my natural skin tone. All aspects of the photo are properly in focus, as well.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
In my much dimmer hallway, shots lost focus and fidelity and heavy grain started to appear. Colors still appear accurate, however.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Colors started to take a hit when I stood in front of my office’s window. Here, my face appears much paler than in real life. You also can’t see much of the scenery outside my window, though artifacting seems to be at a minimum.
Overall, that’s pretty impressive performance for a laptop webcam — no 720p webcam is going to perform perfectly under dim conditions or heavy light. And of course, the typical ThinkPad physical camera shutter is also here on the Titanium Yoga.
Software and Warranty on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga
The ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga is mostly free of bloat, excluding typical Windows pre-installs like Skype and the Microsoft Solitaire Collection. Otherwise, the Titanium Yoga’s built-in software suite largely focuses on genuine utility.
Most of the Titanium Yoga’s functions are inside Lenovo Commercial Vantage, which is where you’ll update your BIOS and drivers, check your warranty, view your storage and RAM usage, find documentation and check Wi-Fi security.
There’s also Lenovo Pen Settings for programming various aspects of your Lenovo Pen, as well as Dolby Access, which lets you choose between equalizer and postprocessing presets for your display and audio settings.
The one program that does feel excessive here is Glance by Mirametrix, which you can turn on to try to get your computer to move windows to where your eyes are looking or go to sleep if someone looks over your shoulder.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Configurations
Our configuration of the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga came with an Intel Core i5-1130G7 CPU (with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics), 16GB of LPDDR4x-4266 RAM, a 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD and a 13.5 inch 2256 x 1504 IPS touchscreen. All of this currently costs $1,685 on Lenovo’s website.
That $1,685 is also the current starting price for this unit, though other configurations can reach up to $2,429. For these other configurations, your display will stay the same, but you’ll be able to select CPUs up to the Intel Core i7-1180G7 with vPro and RAM capacities ranging from 8GB to 16GB. Storage options range from 256GB to 1TB.
All configurations also come with the Lenovo pen.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga Bottom Line
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium’s focus on size and aesthetics makes this device especially appealing to casual users, but puts it behind other, similarly-priced convertibles when it comes to productivity.
In our performance tests, our Core i5-powered X1 Titanium Yoga fell behind some non-business competitors that have Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPUS and sell for similar prices (you can also get the Titanium Yoga with Core i7 for more money). These rivals also had thicker chassis, which allowed for longer battery life.
But that thickness does count harm portability, and the Titanium Yoga has the advantage of being a business-class device while those rivals are not. That means it comes with added durability, like MIL-SPEC certification, plus extra security and manageability features like vPro.
It also comes with an included stylus. While the HP Spectre x360 14 also has an included pen, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 does not. You also get Lenovo’s excellent keyboard with the Titanium Yoga, plus a fashionable design and a moleskin-like finish.
Those features make the Titanium Yoga a great casual usage device, though thanks to its aesthetics, it will look equally at home in the boardroom, the classroom or the living room.
We might learn more about Apple’s latest products sooner than expected. BleepingComputer has reported that a cybercrime group called REvil is threatening to leak “stolen product blueprints” unless it’s paid a $50 million ransom by April 27.
The report was published mere hours after Apple revealed a completely redesigned iMac that has USB 4 support, the first iPad Pro models to feature its M1 chip, and other new products. That probably wasn’t an accident—this way REvil can take advantage of all the hype.
BleepingComputer reported that REvil stole the product blueprints from Quanta Computer, the second-largest notebook original design manufacturer in the world, alongside what the cybercrime group described as “a lot of confidential data.”
Right now, it seems like the information stolen from Quanta Computer was limited to the MacBook line, which likely includes the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models (the current MacBook Pro made our list of best ultrabooks and premium laptops), but the company may have had blueprints for other Apple devices as well.
REvil has already published “over a dozen schematics and diagrams of MacBook components on its dark web leak site,” according to the report, but “there is no indication that any of them are new Apple products” at the time of this writing.
The group has given Quanta Computer—or, presumably, Apple—until April 27 to pay a $50 million ransom in exchange for the stolen data. That ransom will double after the deadline expires; it’s not clear when the affected files might actually be leaked.
Neither amount would be significant to Quanta Computer or Apple. The former reported $709 million in annual profit as of September 2020, according to Fortune, and Apple’s market cap is well over $2.2 trillion. They can afford it.
The problem is that paying a ransom, or even negotiating with a group like REvil, can make a company a more appealing target in the future. It’s kind of like the “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” rule cited by politicians in every modern action movie. Except, you know, with product blueprints instead of some kind of deadly weapon.
Demand for PCs in the second quarter continues to be high amid chip shortages, which constrains manufacturers’ ability to fulfill orders. A new report from Taiwan indicates that some vendors are projected to see shipments fall short of orders by 30% to 50% in Q2 2021.
According to an IDC report, sales of PCs increased by over 55% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2021. Large PC makers have increased their unit sales by well over 50% (with Apple’s shipments increasing by 111.5% YoY). In contrast, smaller makers enjoyed ‘only’ 50% growth, which is explainable as it is easier for large PC makers to procure components that are in short supply due to their volume of scale and buying power.
But apparently, demand for PCs is so high that some notebook makers expect their shipments to fall short of orders by 30% to 50% in the second quarter, according to DigiTimes. Manufacturers naturally prioritize higher-end models, so supplies of inexpensive machines, such as entry-level Chromebooks for education customers, will remain constrained in the second quarter. Meanwhile, 43.8% of Japan’s GIGA School project shipments were Chrome OS-based, followed by Apple MacOS and Microsoft Windows-powered machines.
Taiwanese PC makers now expect supply constraints to persist in the second half of the year as the PC industry has to compete against cars and smartphone producers that also need chips and other components, which will naturally increase the prices of computers.
Interestingly, to secure the supply of hard-to-find components, some vendors even acquire stakes in their suppliers. For example, Acer Group recently invested $53 million in display driver IC supplier FocalTech Systems and now holds a 3.58% stake in the company.
There’s an Apple event next week, and it’s looking fairly likely that we’ll see updated models of the iPad Pro and perhaps the iPad Mini.
Which is great, because it made me think about the Eee PC, which was either one of the greatest short-lived success stories in tech history or a collective delusion shared by a handful of late 2000s tech bloggers that never actually happened.
The Eee PC 701SDX. It had an SD card slot, and an X.
There were two products that arrived in 2007 that fundamentally changed computing: one, of course, was the iPhone. The second, obviously more important product was the $399 Eee PC 701. It originally ran a custom Linux operating system that reviewers loved (Laptop Mag’s Mark Spoonauer said it was “ten times simpler to use than any Windows notebook”) and was generally heralded as a new kind of computer with tremendous mass appeal. Spoonauer: “Pound for pound, the best value-priced notebook on the planet.”
Again, this was a weirdo little two-pound plastic laptop that ran a custom Linux distro that was basically a front for various websites. (We hadn’t invented the phrase “cloud services” yet.)
Windows getting shown up by Linux was not allowed, so Microsoft did some Microsoft maneuvering, and by January 2008 the Eee PC was running Windows XP instead. It was also part of a larger category called “netbooks,” and we were all made to know what netbooks were.
This Eee PC ran a “Pine Trail” processor so Joanna photographed it with pine branches. This was state-of-the-art tech blogging in 2009.
A little later, Microsoft created something called Windows 7 Starter, which was a hilarious cut-down version of Windows just for netbooks — you weren’t even allowed to change the desktop background! — and the netbook explosion was unstoppable. My friend (and Verge co-founder) Joanna Stern built the early part of her career obsessively covering netbooks, first at Laptop Mag, then Gizmodo, and then with me at Engadget.
And there was a lot to cover: at one point Joanna noted that Asus had put out at least 20 different models of Eee PC in 2008 alone. And that was just Asus! Dell, HP, Lenovo and others all chased after the netbook idea furiously. Do you remember when the Nokia Booklet 3G was going to reinvent Nokia? You do not, because it didn’t. It was very pretty, though. I asked Joanna about this moment in time, and this is what she sent me:
“I was basically Bono in this ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ video. Eee PC after Eee PC. MSI Wind after MSI Wind. Toshiba whatever it was called after Toshiba whatever it was called. I was constantly looking for a netbook that had a keyboard that didn’t require doll hands, a trackpad that didn’t leave a blister on my thumb, a hard drive that didn’t take three days to open Microsoft Word. It was a constant search for the perfect blend of price, portability and power.”
Joanna then demanded I embed the actual YouTube video of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” which is exactly the sort of “wow that was really important once” energy this blog post needed.
The netbook explosion was all the more odd because every netbook had the same basic specs, as Microsoft charged more for a standard non-Starter Windows license if a computer had anything more than a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. So it was all colors and screen sizes, really. All to run a deeply-annoying version of Windows, on a computer that no one was even remotely claiming could replace a primary PC. By the end of it all, as the chips inevitably got more powerful, enough laptop vendors were telling Joanna that their new netbook-like computers weren’t netbooks that she started calling them “notbooks.”
And then the iPad came out in 2010, and netbooks were inexplicably such a part of the computing vocabulary that Steve Jobs introduced the iPad by explicitly saying that netbooks were bad. “The problem is netbooks aren’t better at anything,” is a real thing Steve Jobs said on stage, in order to clearly distinguish the then-new iPad from netbooks. It was important to him!
Steve Jobs looking forlorn about netbooks while announcing the iPad in 2010
Did any of this even happen? Is this real? I remember it all, but I can’t tell if it meant anything, or if we all just believed Microsoft and Intel were so mysteriously powerful that we had to live in their product frameworks and 160GB of maximum hard drive space. Did anyone actually buy a netbook? The only people I ever met who had netbooks were other tech writers; at one memorable trade show my colleague Adi Robertson showed up with both a gigantic gaming laptop and a tiny netbook, two laptops both perfectly ill-suited for the tasks at hand.
I asked Joanna, who is now a senior personal technology columnist at the WSJ, about all this, who replied: “Let’s be clear here. Apple’s coming event this week is actually about netbooks. The iPad Pro is an outgrowth of the netbook movement a decade ago.” Was she joking? I don’t know, and she wouldn’t tell me.
Now, of course, there aren’t any netbooks, but everything is a netbook. The iPad is the iPad, with multiple models at various sizes and price points, and a furious ongoing debate about whether it can replace a laptop. (See? It’s a netbook.) We are surrounded by appliance-like cheap computers that run goofy custom interfaces to cloud services on top of open-source operating systems — that’s an Echo Show, or a Google Chromecast, or even an Oculus Quest 2. Netbooks. Intel is badly in need of a reinvention and Windows itself is diminished; Microsoft would happily call its operating system “Azure Edge” if anyone would go along for that kind of ride.
It seems that Realtek has joined the long list of supply chain bottlenecks. DigiTimes today reported that the company is struggling to meet demand for the various chips manufacturers use in their notebooks, automobiles and other kinds of devices.
In the story, DigiTimes remarked that Realtek has extended their delivery lead times to 32 weeks as the capacity of the foundries is currently tight and there are shortfalls in the supply of the necessary raw materials.
Those chips are found in a wide variety of products. The audio+LAN chips are used in notebooks, for example, and the xDSL chips are being used in “smart city projects” by Samsung. But the shortage of networking equipment might be most worrisome.
Realtek is reportedly falling short of demand for wired networking (Ethernet chips and switches) and wireless communication chips such as Bluetooth. There are alternative solutions, of course, but Realtek is said to supply 70% of the audio+LAN chips used in the global notebook market. Manufacturers can’t just find alternative suppliers for all those notebooks—especially during a global chip shortage.
All of this means that Realtek’s problems are in many ways the rest of the world’s problems. DigiTimes said the company’s supply issues have caused production delays for notebook makers, the automotive industry and other sectors.
DigiTimes reports that Dell, HP, and other notebook manufacturers have raised concerns with Realtek, exerting pressure to ship more chips to meet the demand. But with supply issues extending even to Apple, the world’s most valuable company, the relaying of concerns seems unlikely to solve the issue.
Those companies will just have to wait for Realtek’s chips. Many will also be looking for improved supplies of other chips, display panels, display drivers, and many other components besides. Just don’t expect those shortages to be addressed overnight.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
