
Laptop OEMs – make a proper high-end AMD laptop - basilgohar
https://blog.basilgohar.com/2020/01/06/laptop-oems-make-a-proper-high-end-amd-laptop/
======
intsunny
I'm convinced there is a conspiracy that prevents laptop manufacturers from
shipping AMD chips on 13" high end laptops. Almost every (every?) AMD laptop I
find is some 14-15" clunker with a garbage screen.

I've had to put off buying a new macbook because of the shitty keyboard
situation and all laptops (mac/pc) because it appears Intel's newest CPUs are
still vulnerable to Meltdown/Spectre.

A highend 13" AMD based Linux friendly laptop would be utterly amazeballs.

~~~
DCKing
There's really no conspiracy. Hardware builders just have other requirements.
If AMD"s laptop chips were really better so far (this is actually very
debatable), they were by a slim margin for some use cases. Not enough to
offset existing business agreements with Intel, the more mature Intel laptop
platform (it's more than a CPU, but also motherboards and wireless chipsets)
and Intel's more mature - and already existing - supply chain and general
mature manufacturer support.

AMD is now very popular amongst home PC builders because they make better
chips for the money and there's not many other requirements to consider. But
AMD still has a lot of inroads to make because with premade hardware builders
- whether it's laptops, office PCs or even servers. For example, although AMD
is making way in the server space, it's not going as fast as one might expect
for them having the clearly superior server chip (for most use cases) for
quite some time now.

For hardware builders it's simply a time and money investment to start using
AMD hardware. And although AMD is convincing them to do it - having what
appears to be clearly superior chips in the laptop space is definitely a big
plus there - it's something that takes time.

~~~
fortran77
Users don't want to switch, either. I won't take a chance on an AMD machine to
save a couple of dollars.

Maybe I'm being rational, maybe I'm not, but I'm sure I'm not the only
consumer who feels this way. I want to buy the "happy path" when I'm getting a
product.

~~~
TheOperator
I'll forever be baffled at people treating one of the biggest semiconductor
companies in the world which has historically released products which easily
outlast the rest of the components in the system as some fly-by-night
alternative to Intel.

This sentiment also caused my family to get a Pentium4 over the superior
Athlon64 years back and I'm still salty.

~~~
klingonopera
...and the Athlon XP in early P4 days (Willamette and Northwood).

...and the Athlon in P3 days, but that was a closer call.

...and (IIRC?) the K6 in P2 days, but that was before my time.

In retrospect, AMD's fallout past the Athlon64- and prior to the Ryzen-era is
actually the odd one out in the company's history.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_microprocessors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_microprocessors)

------
wilhil
Intel have a great partner program - I'm a small OEM (as one arm to the
company), less than 100 units a month - but, still a nice number... Intel give
me advanced warranties, presales support, partner centre, certain privileged
information including roadmaps and samples... I couldn't imagine better.

AMD - I'm struggling to get them to return a call despite numerous chase
messages for over 3 months now.

I want to sell AMD due to Ryzen demand but literally can't find anyone... even
met an AMD rep at an industry event and he gave me his business card... non
stop voicemail and just has never got back to me.

Again, I know I'm not huge - but, it's still over 1k units a year and I'm
talking to a brick wall. When I started ~15 years ago and literally doing 1-2
a week, Intel were VERY supportive.

~~~
uyuioi
This sums up a lot of older business models. Where a call to a whine and dine
salesman is needed. Such a dead and dull way of doing business. In the age of
on demand, make a website where OEMs can just sign up and get things done.
Outside of a certain monthly sales figure. Then send in the suits.

~~~
wilhil
Which Intel had and how we got started ~15+ years ago and as our sales figures
went up, we got contacted and met with people and gradually the relationship
got better and better.

------
oliwarner
Good timing! ASUS are showing off a pile of their ROG-branded gaming laptops
at CES, which have 7nm, 8 core, 16T Ryzen 4000-line CPUs with RTX2060 (mobile)
graphics cards, with fast screens, all in a 14" form factor. Certainly not
workstations but still, considerably more powerful

More at LTT:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGUESEq75ZI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGUESEq75ZI)

~~~
libertine
Came here to post this, ASUS went from 8 to 80 on AMD.

------
baybal2
I will be not so easy.

Big OEMs are bound by the supply chain. Small OEMs are dependent on solution
providers.

Intel pays to solution providers to not to work with AMD in China. That's
pretty much on the record, and not a secret to anybody in the industry.

And for big OEMs, the supply chain trumps everything. Idling assembly lines
are extremely costly for them. One week idle can easily wipe out 1+ month of
profits for them.

Before AMD is ready to offer the whole BOM kits with inventory in mainland
China, and is ready to put money behind the availability guarantee, there will
be no mass transition.

~~~
scumbert
AMD is cooperating closely with Chinese firms and has them to thank in part
for its resurgence in the desktop die space.

I wouldn't be surprised if these partnerships lead to more AMD PC's from small
OEM's in the near future, perhaps only for the Chinese market.

Chinese home-grown fabrication is also at parity with AMD Bulldozer, and
likely to accelerate with acquisitions of European chipmaker technology.

Notably meanwhile China has effectively blocked Qualcomm from making similar
moves purportedly on antitrust grounds.

~~~
baybal2
> cooperating closely with Chinese firms

You can say Taiwanese ones. On mainland, AMD is almost unknown in OEM space

------
basilgohar
With AMD announcing truly Zen2-based mobile APUs, I felt it was important to
gather all the mistakes laptop OEMs have been making and call them out so that
at least a voice exists capturing these complaints. Unfortunately, you cannot
vote with your wallet if the option you want does not yet exist. Here's hoping
that they start to listen.

------
aclatuts
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 pretty much has all this. David Lee even has a
raving review about the Zephyrus.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v5IzvVTw7A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v5IzvVTw7A)

~~~
onebot
This looks like a killer laptop. Love the exterior pixels. Hope linux will run
on it.

~~~
codegladiator
I have Zephyrus gx531, ubuntu (dual boot with windows) works perfectly (had to
hack nothing), so I assume it would most probably work smoothly on Zephyrus
G14 as well

~~~
prox
Just watched the vid, that’s a pretty cool laptop!

------
deaps
Reading through the comments proves _different strokes for different folks._

It took me quite a while to find a laptop I'm completely happy with. I ended
up with a (late-2019) Razer Blade Stealth (with gtx1650). I do run the
internal screen at 1080p (at 100%) and I couldn't imagine running it at 4k. My
older 13" macbook has higher resolution, but you end up having to scale it
anyway (In reality, I think it's actually doubled, then scaled back). On a
13", a good quality 1080p screen (to me) is the way to go - anything higher
needs scaled.

~~~
IgorPartola
TIL that in 2019 people still have DPI problems with their software.

~~~
pjc50
Only Macs have really made high-DPI work properly, and especially having
multiple monitors with very different DPI.

~~~
jdashg
Mac makes most apps "just work", but it has issues: Any scaling besides the
default makes it impossible to do 1:1 device pixel rendering from within an
app.

Windows has the complete solution for non-integer pixel ratios. For instance,
on this machine, my browser's window.devicePixelRatio is `1.7647058823529411`.
For my 4k screen, this means apps should be rendering into 3840x2160 pixels,
but scale it /as if/ it were a 2176x1224 display. (2160/devicePixelRatio =
1224.0)

This allows Windows apps to handle non-integer scaling, whereas on Mac this
causes apps to get "fuzzy", since they would e.g. render into a 2176x1224
screenbuffer which is upscaled to 4k by the OS compositor.

------
rsynnott
They did: [https://www.anandtech.com/show/15213/the-microsoft-
surface-l...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/15213/the-microsoft-surface-
laptop-3-showdown-amd-picasso-vs-intel-ice-lake)

Spoiler alert; it does _not_ show the AMD chip in a good light. Will be
interesting to see if Zen 2 does better.

~~~
basilgohar
It was not the best of comparisons [0]. tl;dr they had different memory and
the AMD hardware was older generation (nothing better available, it's true)
compared to the Intel. There were other differences too.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21976211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21976211)

~~~
rsynnott
Sure, as I say it'll be interesting to see if Zen 2 improves things. However,
as things stand today, it's not surprising that AMD high end laptops are rare,
because they're not very good when they are made. Zen 2 could absolutely
change that, of course, if AMD's claims work out.

(AFAIK the memory difference was because the AMD chip used didn't support
LPDDR4.)

------
snvzz
I have no complaints about my Thinkpad x395, which I use heavily (on Linux, as
OpenBSD I can only use if an ethernet cable is at reach due to wireless chip
being too new).

I would expect a successor on 4000U series to be even better.

------
monocasa
Until AMD (well, TSMC) had process node advantage parity it didn't make sense
for AMD to compete at the high end portable market. Now they do, so they will.

------
gertrunde
Quite a few of these complaints are equally applicable to intel-based laptops
as well, particularly regarding ports/quantity of ports, and thermals/cooling.
A single thunderbolt / type-c port is nice and everything, but since there's
only a single one, that means I can only really plug a dock/hub type device in
it, or else I'm having to give up something else I need - that goes double if
the vendor supplies it with a type-c power adapter as well.

------
bb88
Thunderbolt-3 is the way of the future. People are building thunderbolt 3
external chassis with a gaming card and extra storage in lieu of having a
desktop computer and a laptop computer.

~~~
pjmlp
Or just get a laptop with dual graphics card, having a gaming/workstation
class card

I don't own a desktop since 2004.

~~~
Nursie
Such laptops are usually pretty bulky/heavy, or they have a very low-end
discrete card. They're a compromise.

~~~
pjmlp
15" Thinkpad, Asus and Dell workstation laptops are pretty alright.

~~~
Nursie
Great machines, sure, but it's still (to me) a compromise. Right now I have a
Macbook pro for portable use and a full-on workstation at home with a 20870Ti
in it for playing with ML and CUDA, and for gaming.

I love the idea of having one machine and just plugging in to an external GPU
caddy when at home for the full capability. Unfortunately MacOS and Nvidia
cards aren't friends right now...

And the laptops that have got discrete GPUs are both heavier than the ideal
(I'd like a portable machine coming in at 1kg or less) and far less capable
than the 2080Ti.

------
jszymborski
I just bought a Thinkpad T495 with a Ryzen Pro 3500U, and but for the display,
I think it hits the points made in the blog. Cooling is good, it's far from a
clunker and comes in an even slimmer model (T495s), and the battery life so
far has been a revelation (knock on wood) compared to the Dell XPS 15 9650 it
replaces.

~~~
Vrondi
How do you find the power for intense tasks compares to that XPS 15?

------
pdimitar
> _Some motherboard makers have gone ahead and included it, but so far, AMD
> laptops with Thunderbird 3 remain elusive._

I assume the author means Thunderbolt 3 here.

~~~
basilgohar
Yes. I made that typo so many times....one slipped through....

Edit: Fixed now!

------
shmerl
_> many times an AMD laptop will have ONE USB-C port and it will be used to
physically power the device, thus removing it from utility._

That's indeed annoying, especially when you need to use it also to drive
external monitors. I use USB-C hubs with DP output to work around that. Works
well with Lenovo E495 running Linux.

Example: [https://www.cablematters.com/pc-899-126-usb-c-multiport-
adap...](https://www.cablematters.com/pc-899-126-usb-c-multiport-adapter-
with-4k-60hz-displayport-2x-usb-20-fast-ethernet-and-power-delivery-
thunderbolt-3-port-compatible.aspx)

------
blitmap
I would like the [new] Dell XPS 2-in-1 with the 3840x2400 screen, as an OLED -
using an AMD processor. There's been a lot of complaints about the keyboard
but i find it strangely fantastic. Yes it takes getting used to, but I can
type faster on _reliable_ low-profile keys. Wish the SSD weren't soldered in.
Seriously, I've waited forever for 3840x2400. I like the Surface laptops but I
need at least >= 2160 in the vertical so i can watch a 1080p movie at native
resolution and have it take up a quarter of the screen while I
websurf/program. :(

------
Danieru
Something no one has mentioned but I think is important to note is how the
volume in laptops comes from that medium to low end range. Sure a high end
thinkpad is a fantastic laptop, but it is never going to see two hundred units
at the local walmart.

AMD needs to improve margins and take market share. Low end laptops bring that
market share. The margins will follow once Intel cannot rely on moving the
majority of chips. Until then Intel has the upper hand for low margin cheap
laptops, that is the critical market.

------
jankotek
> Ultramobile, slim, and desktop replacements

No! I want proper thick modular 17" desktop replacement with 256GB RAM.
Platform that would replace old Thinkpads.

~~~
jiggawatts
We're the "nonexistent" market of IT consultants with high incomes that _need_
a high-end laptop. As a third-party to my clients, I _cannot_ rely on the
availability of external monitors, keyboards, docking stations, or WiFi.

I lug around a heavy Clevo laptop with a 17" 4K screen, 2x RJ-45 ports, quad-
core 4 GHz CPU, and 64 GB of memory.

These are my minimum requirements, and practically nothing meets it any more!

Clevo has largely stopped making 17" 4K screens in favour of 144 Hz gaming
screens.

Most laptops have _tiny_ keyboards that are uncomfortable to type on for any
length of time, and are particularly irritating if you do programming.

Most laptops are 14" or smaller, which makes my eyes hurt after an eight hour
day.

Most laptops focus on battery capacity and low power operation, which doesn't
affect me because I work plugged in 99% of the time.

Most laptops assume "everything is wireless" and no longer have RJ-45
connectors, let alone two, but all too often _guests_ can't get on the main
corporate network on WiFi, but can plug in to the LAN just fine.

Most laptop manufacturers are in a race to the bottom. I paid $6,000 for my
laptop because it's a tax writeoff, and I'm willing to go as high as $8,000 if
I get what I want.

Apparently though people like me are "too low margin to bother with" as a
market...

~~~
roel_v
I've thought about making (well, more about 'having' it to be honest) a 'semi-
portable' computer for people like us. Basically a briefcase that when folded
open would 'swing out' two screens. Maybe you would fold it over so that the
rest of the case (where the mobo etc are are in) would work as a stand for the
monitors. You wouldn't be able to use it on a couch or plane but it would give
you a vastly superior experience when at a desk. Sort of like a portable
office. Ideally the whole inside would be 3d printed (maybe some of the
display panel mounts would be metal and the rest custom) so that you can make
it fit for any briefcase and any hardware you want to put in it.

~~~
jiggawatts
There are vast untapped markets that are being totally ignored. As in, you
can't vote with your wallet because there's literally nowhere to put your
money.

Very few laptop manufacturers allow key customisation (e.g.: using laser
engraving). None allow a choice of keyboard (e.g.: with or without a keypad,
with or without dedicated ins/del/home/end/pgup/pgdn keys, separate arrow
keys, [fn] button left or right of [ctrl] etc...)

Nobody makes laptops with really good HDR screens _and_ HDMI _inputs_ capable
of RAW recording. There's production crews out that there that will happily
drop north of $10K for something like that.

Similarly, there's only a handful of laptops with non-key inputs, such as
shuttle/jog wheels and the like.

I don't think anyone on the planet makes OLED 4K screens in the 16 to 20 inch
range. They're just not made, for any purpose, let alone laptops.

I've never seen a 17 inch or larger laptop with a narrow bezel. They _all_
seem to add an extra inch on both sides just to waste precious space.

There are telco engineers out there who would appreciate a laptop with a
built-in QSFP+ connector. In general, laptops with > 1 Gbps wired network
connections are very rare or borderline non-existent.

Very few laptops have built in GPS, although this is slowly becoming more
common.

I bet there's a lot of field engineers (think oil exploration, forestry work,
etc...) who would appreciate a large, capable laptop that's _semi_ ruggedized.
As in, not a shoebox with bumper bars designed to hammer nails in, but merely
rainproof. Think cooling fans but with the fans _outside_ a sealed electronics
compartment so the water isn't sucked in.

I'd like to see internal power-supply as an option to replace the battery.
Alternatively, the option to switch between two batteries _or_ one battery
plus integrated PSU.

I'd like to see high-wattage PSUs optimised for _weight_ instead of _cost_. My
130W PSU is a literal brick in size, shape, and weight. It doesn't _have to
be_ , and Apple has demonstrated that this is possible, albeit at a _slightly_
higher cost.

Again... the race to the bottom is fine if selling laptops for Moms and Dads
that need to buy their kid _something_ for school, but it's not okay for the
high-end that professionals are looking for.

~~~
iagovar
There has to be small manufacturers in the US. In Spain I know this two guys:
[https://www.mountain.es/en](https://www.mountain.es/en) and
[https://slimbook.es/en/](https://slimbook.es/en/) and I've been pretty happy
with their products.

~~~
sct202
Most small laptop manufacturers sell Clevo based laptops with some
customization, so there's a limit to what they can customize on the Clevo base
model.

~~~
iagovar
I'm not sure with Slimbook,it could be, but Mountain seems to be more custom
than that.

------
mister_hn
what about an amazing 14" with the quality screen of a MacBook, a newer Ryzen
7 4800U/H, 32/64GB RAM and a PCIe 4.0 Drive.

And no RAM/SSD is soldered

~~~
kkwak
As much as I hate it, I think it makes business sense for vendors to solder.
You can "upgrade" by buying new. I can't imagine the business value of such a
laptop - esp now that hardware improvements are slowing down (for the typical
use case)

~~~
mister_hn
What about dead SSDs or RAM defects? You swap an entire machine just for those
components? And what if that 512GB drive doesn't fulfills the requirements
anymore?

------
jotm
For some reason, I do not expect Dell or HP or anyone big to release a decent,
high quality workstation with AMD inside. HP has consumer laptops with Ryzen,
and they're the cheapest sheet possible, as expected. I believe Dell does the
same.

By decent and high quality I mean socketable CPU, GPU and RAM, as well as a
good selection of ports (forget TB if it's not possible, give me eSata) and
high quality displays (even if 1080p). Could not care less about the
weight/size.

The only ones I can see doing that are Clevo/Sager/Eurocom, or someone with a
good business plan and a well funded Kickstarter...

~~~
basilgohar
Some of the better pieces of hardware have been gaming laptops that feature
desktop parts, which I believe are also socketable/replaceable. Not sure how
far you can get with them, but that's one area I also hope to see growth in
AMD-powered offerings.

------
johndubchak
Excellent challenge to the big OEM's. I doubt many will give it a second
thought.

What I'd love to see is some of the gifted and talented Makers we've seen in
2019 whip out their dremels and 3D printers and say, "THIS is what I want!"

Couldn't you take a chassis with a high-end screen and fabricate a mount that
would accommodate securing an AMD board to the existing mounts of a previous
Intel board?

I know I sound naive, but I haven't looked into it yet. It certainly seems
possible from a basic engineering standpoint.

 __EDIT: my horrific grammar

~~~
big_chungus
At least part of the problem is getting said board; laptop motherboards are
often specially manufactured for each chassis, and there is no standard form
factor like there is for desktops. It might be possible to buy one from a
different model, but most boards aren't socketed for AMD chips so that's out,
and it's not really feasible to just build your own motherboard.

~~~
johndubchak
Very true and. I understand your point. I was trying to suggest that you cou
take an AMD motherboard and 3D print some sort of adapter that would adapt its
form factor to fit the particular form factor of the existing chassis.

At least as a PoC.

------
stuaxo
FFS, I hope they do this. I waited almost a year for a Lenovo that came out
with single channel RAM, and got an HP instead.

Screen was only FHD, and keeping Linux working on it has been painful.

------
wyxuan
Microsoft recently offered a model of the surface lineup with a ryzen mobile
processor. That can't count for nothing right?

~~~
mister_hn
It's not high-end at all.

Only 8GB Ram, no dedicated GPU, no PCIe 4.0 drive..

~~~
nrp
It’s worth noting that neither AMD nor Intel’s latest notebook CPUs support
PCIe 4.0. I imagine that won’t be coming until the next generation. Also, you
can configure the Surface Laptop 3 being referred to with up to 32GB of RAM:
[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/configure/Surface-
Lapt...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/configure/Surface-
Laptop-3/8VFGGH1R94TM?crosssellid=drawer2&selectedColor=CBB1A0&preview=&previewModes=)

~~~
mister_hn
the Ryzen 4th gen will support PCIe 4.0

~~~
mastax
Not on laptops, according to the anandtech article.

------
novaleaf
not high-end, but I bought a couple of $300 AMD laptops (Acer Aspire 5) and
they are great: 15" 1080p screens and faster than my "high-end" laptop from 5
years ago.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RF1XD36](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RF1XD36)

------
t0ddbonzalez
Acer Predator Helios 500?

[https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-series-
featur...](https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-series-
features/predatorhelios500)

~~~
basilgohar
The AMD variant does not have more than a 1080p screen. Also, seems to be no
longer available when you go to the "Models" link.

------
psds2
It simply takes time to develop everything to make this happen. These high end
ultrabooks require more time to engineer. One thing is certain, anyone
developing this would surely not announce it in advance. Why piss off Intel
until you have to?

------
psim1
3:2 display? I know it harks back to CRT specifications, but 4:3 was _just
right_ for pretty much all computing purposes other than watching wide movies.
Even better? 3:4, a 90-degree rotated tall screen.

------
Illniyar
"For as long as I can remember, AMD-powered laptops’ potential have been
intentionally shortchanged by OEMs for any number of reasons – perceived lower
value, kickbacks from Intel, or sometimes legitimate performance limitations."

Seems to be a reason missing from that least - very-low demand.

There are clunky low-end intel laptops just as much as there are AMD laptop
ones. If enough people show they are willing to buy these than high-end AMD
laptops will sprung up a few minutes after.

~~~
basilgohar
This is patently untrue, as I also called out in the article. Voting with your
wallet is not possible if the option to buy what you want is not even
presented. Moreover, the self-fulfilling cycle of offering sub-par AMD systems
and then people not wanting those, and then the OEMs say, "see, we offering
(lousy) AMD systems and no one got them".

The problem is there are very few DESIRABLE AMD offerings, and moreover, the
vast majority of people don't even care what's inside, they are looking at
price.

This is all before even mentioning that AMD systems, even when performant,
have been positioned as value or low-end systems, just to differentiate
between them and the Intel offerings.

It's also already heavily covered elsewhere in the thread, but Intel has been
furiously and notoriously working to undermine AMD with backdoor deals to keep
them from a greater marketshare.

------
sfshaw
With all these CES announcements, it's sadly too late to save devices shipping
later this quarter. :(

~~~
basilgohar
You're right, but it's a good time to highlight the problem with all the
attention on AMD products now. Hopefully someone's listening and can point to
this to influence, however slightly, opinions in a constructive manner.

------
Vrondi
Yes, please!

------
kstenerud
"There needs to be display options well above FHD/1080p."

With a 13 inch screen, 1920x1080 is at the pixel density (150) where someone
with 20/20 vision won't notice pixellation from a distance of 24 inches. Even
with a 15 inch display (density = 128) you're still pretty damn close.
Realistically, it would make no difference in usability to go beyond
2560xwhatever in resolution on a laptop, and even that's already getting
excessive. Most people with high res displays are already using magnification,
which defeats the purpose of such high resolution.

I'm using the new Honor Magic Book with Ubuntu Mate installed and am quite
pleased with it. Lightweight, good battery life, good screen, good touchpad
(SUPER IMPORTANT), USB-C (only one port, unfortunately), dongle-free HDMI, and
enough power for development. And the price can't be beat.

~~~
naniwaduni
People use laptops at far closer than 24 inches, though?

Not all the time, sure. But it's kind of half the point of a laptop to be able
to use them where you can't just clear out two feet to put between your face
and the screen.

You can get that much space in an economy seat if you don't have a head,
maybe.

~~~
kstenerud
When my laptop is in my lap, the screen is about 60 cm (24 inches) from my
eyes. I could move my face 10cm closer, but not for long without being
uncomfortable (any closer and my elbows would be behind my back).

When it's on a desk, the screen is at a similar distance.

