Lenovo continues to build on the success of its ThinkPad line with new laptops bearing a top microprocessor design from AMD.
Today, Monica Chin at The Verge lists features and components of the new Lenovo ThinkPad models, such as a touch fingerprint reader, an optional infrared camera, dual-array far-field microphones, Wi-Fi 6 support, and MS Teams/Skype hotkeys, also noting that the company has chosen to use AMD Ryzen 7 4700U chips.
Touted as a more cost-effective approach to a competitive microprocessor, the Ryzen chip is hot right now. Some have compared AMD’s Ryzen chips to Intel’s multicore line, suggesting that while Intel has the edge on cores, AMD beats Intel on price per core.
Another interesting part of this microprocessor battle is the emerging relationship between AMD and Chinese telecom company Huawei, where AMD Ryzen chips are baked into the motherboard of Huawei’s MateBook computers.
Last year, the U.S. government tried to blacklist Huawei from trading with American microprocessor firms. Since then, both Intel and AMD have been reconnected with Huawei with gusto.
“Huawei is the world’s biggest telecommunications equipment maker and one of the leading players in the next-generation mobile networks known as 5G,” wrote Arjun Kharpal at CNBC last October. “It is seen as central to China’s ambitions in becoming a dominant player in 5G … (Huawei) has also become a contentious point in the U.S-China trade war. Trump has said in the past that Huawei could be included as part of a broader trade deal.”
Since then, the applications to trade with the Huawei firm kept coming. There was quite a bit of easing, leading to today, where AMD and Intel are both shipping goods to China. But more recently, new indicators suggest there may be a bigger crackdown emerging in 2020.
“The Trump administration is constructing its own walls around American technology, reducing access to the lucrative Chinese market out of security concerns,” wrote Ana Swanson and Cecilia Kang for NYT in January. “It is restricting exports of sensitive technologies, barring sales to certain Chinese companies and blocking Chinese entities from investing in the United States. The administration is considering further restricting sales to Huawei, the Chinese telecom company that relies on components from Micron and other American suppliers. And the China trade deal leaves tariffs on more than $360 billion in Chinese goods in place as Mr. Trump tries to push American companies to bring manufacturing back home.”
We’ll see what happens to the global economy. Meanwhile…
Look for the functionality of AMD’s microprocessor line and more in Lenovo’s new laptops coming to Best Buy shelves near you.
