Not bad, but it'd be nice of the specs of the 13 inch version had 16GB RAM as an optional upgrade and some sort of dGPU like the recently announced GeForce MX150. That'd probably pose a significant engineering problem due to space and heat constraints, but even Dell managed to cram a decent GPU into their 11 inch Alienware notebook.
Currently, yes. However, they sold and 11.6 inch gaming laptop in the past. Anandtech covered all three iterations of it. Here's a link to the last version:
I only wish the industry would finally walk away from the stupid, horrid "keyboard at the bottom in tablet mode" design. There are at the very least 3 solutions to achieve it in a "non detachable display" design. A swivel, a slider, or sliding side hinges.
Also scrap the touchpad at the bottom design, that just gets in the way. Move the keyboard down and if even necessary in a touchscreen product, add a touch enabled bar on top of the keys to fill the rest of the base.
Now if you were to also backlight it with an e-ink display so aside from a touch pad it can also be used as a programmable application specific shortcut bar you might just actually make something not only new, but also extremely useful. And I don't mean the thin slit apple did in lieu of function keys, I mean a good 2-3 inch of height that actually offers useful display real estate.
Samsung - have one of those with a quad core zen apu and better screen 6 months from now!
if this laptop allows ram and ssd user-upgradeable then it is almost perfect for me were it not for the damn dedicated video card. don't need it for my use case and i prefer the saved battery life and lower temperature. i would have much rather used that extra space and weight for bigger battery.
Same thing. Why this dedicated card is even necessary? And 256GB of SSD is pathetic, it should not even be an option when you can buy 512GB SSD for $150 retail.
So, this is close to what I am looking for. I want a 'jacked' surface pro (I have the SP3) with a docked pen and MS aren't making it. Couple questions .
Is the CPU Quad Core on the 15" ? How's the GPU compared to say a 1050 ? and just to confirm, the pen docks in the tablet ? cause I love the pen on my SP3 but never have it with me when I want to use it !!!
I try and use my SP3 for Affinity Designer, Photoshop and mostly Lightroom and it's so slow it's unusable, and the screen is just that bit to small... so I end up using it as a glorified, overpriced tablet only, 90% of the time. So I was thinking of this in the 15" form factor and a yet to be released Note 8 (that hopefully doesn't explode) as the glorified tablet (and phone).
"Is the CPU Quad Core on the 15" ?" No, there is no Kaby Lake (or any Intel) quad core CPU at the 15W TDP range. According to Intel their upcoming Coffee Lake (also at 14nm, not to be confused with the 10nm Cannon Lake that will come a bit later) CPUs will be able to boast 4 cores / 8 threads at 15W TDP *and* at a higher base and boost clock. Provided that the base clock can be sustained on all 4 cores that means more than doubling of the power efficiency at the same process node, so let's say I am quite skeptical. They actually benchmarked a 15W 4C/8T Coffee Lake running at... 4.0 Ghz boost clock against a i7-7500U (the CPU of these two laptops). They did not disclose the base clock, but there is no way it is 2.7 Ghz, it should be at least 3.0 Ghz.
"How's the GPU compared to say a 1050 ?" Take a look yourself. I did not find an RX 540 with 2 GB, but this RX 540 4 GB against a 1050 with 2 GB should not be very far off the mark. If Samsung clocked the RX 540 lower than 1.2 Ghz (and presumably they did, since at 1.2 Ghz RX 540's TDP is 64W) the differences should be even wider : http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-RX-540-vs-GeForce-G...
Really? Clocked how low though, at ~2 Ghz? If the 4-core mobile Coffee Lakes manage to sustain 2.8 - 3 Ghz at 15W (I still need to wait to see that, benchmarked and all, to believe that. I cannot for the life of me think how Intel could double power efficiency at the same process node, which has already been optimized to hell in Kaby Lake - maybe Intel pulled a trick like turning off the iGPU and the base clock is actually at <2.5 Ghz, which is why they only mentioned the 4 Ghz turbo clock. If that's the case the boost clock will only be able to be sustained for a few seconds at a time, aka a mere marketing trick) then AMD might be in big trouble.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
16 Comments
Back to Article
BrokenCrayons - Friday, June 2, 2017 - link
Not bad, but it'd be nice of the specs of the 13 inch version had 16GB RAM as an optional upgrade and some sort of dGPU like the recently announced GeForce MX150. That'd probably pose a significant engineering problem due to space and heat constraints, but even Dell managed to cram a decent GPU into their 11 inch Alienware notebook.Morawka - Friday, June 2, 2017 - link
dell only has a 13" and it's pretty damn thick.Morawka - Friday, June 2, 2017 - link
i meant alienware, but same thing!BrokenCrayons - Friday, June 2, 2017 - link
Currently, yes. However, they sold and 11.6 inch gaming laptop in the past. Anandtech covered all three iterations of it. Here's a link to the last version:http://www.anandtech.com/show/4505/alienware-m11x-...
ddriver - Saturday, June 3, 2017 - link
I only wish the industry would finally walk away from the stupid, horrid "keyboard at the bottom in tablet mode" design. There are at the very least 3 solutions to achieve it in a "non detachable display" design. A swivel, a slider, or sliding side hinges.Also scrap the touchpad at the bottom design, that just gets in the way. Move the keyboard down and if even necessary in a touchscreen product, add a touch enabled bar on top of the keys to fill the rest of the base.
Now if you were to also backlight it with an e-ink display so aside from a touch pad it can also be used as a programmable application specific shortcut bar you might just actually make something not only new, but also extremely useful. And I don't mean the thin slit apple did in lieu of function keys, I mean a good 2-3 inch of height that actually offers useful display real estate.
Samsung - have one of those with a quad core zen apu and better screen 6 months from now!
XZerg - Friday, June 2, 2017 - link
if this laptop allows ram and ssd user-upgradeable then it is almost perfect for me were it not for the damn dedicated video card. don't need it for my use case and i prefer the saved battery life and lower temperature. i would have much rather used that extra space and weight for bigger battery.peevee - Monday, June 5, 2017 - link
Same thing. Why this dedicated card is even necessary? And 256GB of SSD is pathetic, it should not even be an option when you can buy 512GB SSD for $150 retail.Ubiqutious - Friday, June 2, 2017 - link
So, this is close to what I am looking for. I want a 'jacked' surface pro (I have the SP3) with a docked pen and MS aren't making it. Couple questions .Is the CPU Quad Core on the 15" ?
How's the GPU compared to say a 1050 ?
and just to confirm, the pen docks in the tablet ? cause I love the pen on my SP3 but never have it with me when I want to use it !!!
I try and use my SP3 for Affinity Designer, Photoshop and mostly Lightroom and it's so slow it's unusable, and the screen is just that bit to small... so I end up using it as a glorified, overpriced tablet only, 90% of the time. So I was thinking of this in the 15" form factor and a yet to be released Note 8 (that hopefully doesn't explode) as the glorified tablet (and phone).
Santoval - Friday, June 2, 2017 - link
"Is the CPU Quad Core on the 15" ?"No, there is no Kaby Lake (or any Intel) quad core CPU at the 15W TDP range. According to Intel their upcoming Coffee Lake (also at 14nm, not to be confused with the 10nm Cannon Lake that will come a bit later) CPUs will be able to boast 4 cores / 8 threads at 15W TDP *and* at a higher base and boost clock. Provided that the base clock can be sustained on all 4 cores that means more than doubling of the power efficiency at the same process node, so let's say I am quite skeptical. They actually benchmarked a 15W 4C/8T Coffee Lake running at... 4.0 Ghz boost clock against a i7-7500U (the CPU of these two laptops). They did not disclose the base clock, but there is no way it is 2.7 Ghz, it should be at least 3.0 Ghz.
"How's the GPU compared to say a 1050 ?"
Take a look yourself. I did not find an RX 540 with 2 GB, but this RX 540 4 GB against a 1050 with 2 GB should not be very far off the mark. If Samsung clocked the RX 540 lower than 1.2 Ghz (and presumably they did, since at 1.2 Ghz RX 540's TDP is 64W) the differences should be even wider :
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-RX-540-vs-GeForce-G...
Lolimaster - Saturday, June 3, 2017 - link
We have to wait for Ryzen 4 cores. It has a nasty efficiency at lower clocks8 Core Ryzen 7 delivers 800point in CB 15 with just 30w of power consumption.
Santoval - Saturday, June 3, 2017 - link
Really? Clocked how low though, at ~2 Ghz? If the 4-core mobile Coffee Lakes manage to sustain 2.8 - 3 Ghz at 15W (I still need to wait to see that, benchmarked and all, to believe that. I cannot for the life of me think how Intel could double power efficiency at the same process node, which has already been optimized to hell in Kaby Lake - maybe Intel pulled a trick like turning off the iGPU and the base clock is actually at <2.5 Ghz, which is why they only mentioned the 4 Ghz turbo clock. If that's the case the boost clock will only be able to be sustained for a few seconds at a time, aka a mere marketing trick) then AMD might be in big trouble.ddriver - Saturday, June 3, 2017 - link
So you make a baseless speculation and then compare octa core to quad core, then pretend you just made a point?According to this:
http://www.bitsandchips.it/recensioni/9-hardware/8...
an 1800x undervolt and underclocked to 3 Ghz shaves off a total of more than 70 watts of power compared to stock. According to this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-18...
at stock the CPU pulls 95 watts in Blender and 112 watts in the luxrender, which is pretty much a torture test.
So I'd say that 30 watts for EIGHT cores at 3 GHz. Cut this by half and you get 15 watts for a quad core.
800 points at CB15 is actually very good, that's marginally more than an i5 7600k - and that's kaby lake 4 cores at 3.8 Ghz.
Having that amount of performance in 15 watts and the enabled for factor will be unprecedented.
Ubiqutious - Saturday, June 3, 2017 - link
Thank you kind internet stranger :)If I am reading the gpu benchmarks correctly, the 540 is a distant 2nd...unless the benchmarks are being gamed by Intel ?
Based on all that, I will live with what I have until a Coffee Lake iteration comes about... and see if it lives up to their 'claim'
Unless my Surface Pro 3 dies first.
ied - Friday, June 2, 2017 - link
Argh. Why do so many new machines toss thick borders along the bottom. Ugly & useless. Why not useful screen real estate??TimeShifter - Saturday, June 3, 2017 - link
Are the screens LCD or AMOLED?CedarWind - Saturday, June 3, 2017 - link
They should have used the display from their Chromebook plus. 1440 resolutin and NOT the horrible 16:9 aspect ratio