AMD Launches Ryzen 5000 Mobile: Zen 3 and Cezanne for Notebooks
I have three requirements that I would like to satisfy in a new laptop:<p>1. AMD Ryzen, Zen 2 or later (meaning 3000 desktop, 4000 mobile or 5000 any). At this point assume that I’m not concerned about class of processor, though I think H-class is probably my ideal.<p>2. Minimum screen resolution of 2560×1440, preferably 4K or similar. (And since I’m talking, ideally a squarer aspect ratio like 3:2, but those are so rare I won’t even bother looking. But I do really like my Surface Book’s 3000×2000 display.)<p>3. No NVIDIA GPU, because I want to use Linux and NVIDIA hates Linux, and I want to be able to run Wayland also. So either integrated graphics only (with a U-class or H-class APU), or an AMD dGPU (which would be the only option on the higher-end desktop CPUs). Sure, with U-class or H-class I could just disable the NVIDIA GPU, but the dead weight and giving money to NVIDIA for something I will never use galls, quite apart from the mild nuisance of figuring out how to disable it.<p>I looked through all the manufacturers I could find in Australia, and all the Clevo OEMs I could find worldwide.<p>I have not found a single device that satisfies all three of these requirements. Any two, sure, but not all three.<p>A related peeve lies with the H-class APUs: why can’t I get one without an NVIDIA GPU? I have found only one place selling laptops with H-class APUs and no dedicated NVIDIA GPU: TUXEDO, in their Pulse 14 and Pulse 15. But even then, they’re only available on paper—order now and you won’t get it for over three months since they’re currently out of both 4600H and 4800H APUs. (For myself, I rule TUXEDO out for not shipping to Australia, anyway; any forwarding service arrangement would be a bother and probably expensive, and leave me with a useless warranty.) But you’d think that more than one manufacturer would look at how light yet powerful a laptop they can make this way and do one without a discrete GPU. Look, the Pulse 15 with its 91Wh battery even advertises <i>over 20 hours</i> of battery life when idling at minimum brightness (and the Pulse 14’s 47Wh battery, 12 hours).<p>These things make me sad. I hope the portfolio expansion mentioned here will include something to satisfy me.