When Intel unveiled its Tiger Lake family of 11th Gen Core mobile processors back in September this year, the company likewise rolled out its new Evo branding, in collaboration with different laptop computer OEMs. Referred to as “co-engineered and confirmed styles,” Intel declared Evo branded laptops from the majors would provide best-in-class performance and premium experiences.
“11th Gen Intel Core processors with Intel Iris Xe graphics are a major leap forward in genuine- world processor performance and are the very best laptop computer processors we have developed,” declared Gregory Bryant, Executive VP and GM for Intel’s Customer Computing Group.
And without concern, Intel’s 11th Gen Core series processors, based on the company’s Tiger Lake CPU architecture platform, provide a solid efficiency uplift on all essential metrics, from efficiency to content development and even a healthy bump in video gaming, thanks to Intel’s powerful new Iris Xe incorporated graphics core.
Nevertheless, what surprised me personally is that, in addition to this efficiency uplift, we’re likewise witnessing some really terrific price points for Intel Evo-branded devices from a number of the significant laptop OEMs.
In reality, there are multiple examples of this presently, like Lenovo’s Yoga 7i. The Yoga 7i is a 14-inch hybrid 2-in-1 convertible laptop with the company’s signature 360-degree hinge style, its usual high-quality keyboard and a decent sounding Dolby Atmos-enabled speaker system.
Nevertheless, under the hood, what you get for its modest $750 price is where it’s at. Particularly, the maker is powered by an Intel 11th Gen Core i5-1135G7 Tiger Lake quad-core CPU, 12GB of DDR4-3200 memory and a 512GB NVMe SSD that installs over 2GB/s of reading and over 1.3 GB/s of composing bandwidth. Again, for the cash, this sort of setup was previously nearly unheard of.
Not just do we have an effective brand-new Intel mobile platform on board, but this Evo-branded machine is well geared up elsewhere in all the ideal locations as well, and likewise sports the current in IO and networking connectivity, like Thunderbolt 4 and WiFi-6.
It also installed practically 8 hours of constant usage, HD video playback in battery life testing for HotHardware’s deep-drive review. Once again, with its versatile 2-in-1 design, quality touch screen, excellent backlit keyboard, the piece de resistance and battery life, the new Lenovo Yoga 7i is quite much a slam-dunk, if you’re looking to remain well under $1K for a new laptop computer.
Beyond Lenovo, you can likewise find multiple examples of comparable Intel Evo-branded configurations and designs, like Dell’s outstanding new Inspiron 7000 series, HP’s Structure X360, and the ASUS VivoBook S14, all of which also share the exact same Intel 11th Gen Core family tree, come with similarly husky configs and weigh in at a svelte 3 pounds or less. It’s almost like Intel got together with these OEMs and said, “let’s hit a sub-$ 800, midrange price point and provide high-end ultrabook specs and experiences.”
It’s not every year that we’re witness to unquestionably much better price/performance alternatives like these in the market, thanks to brand-new technology innovation.
Nevertheless, this year, 2020’s pressing demand for brand-new work-from-home (and play) tools has been answered by a few key gamers like Intel, which has stepped-up its mobile CPU offering competitively. I suspect AMD will have a Zen-3 based answer in the laptop market also, in the not so far-off future perhaps, as we roll into the now virtual CES 2021 program in the second week of January.
Although, undoubtedly, I haven’t heard lots of rumblings on this front. Regardless, this new breed of Intel Evo laptop computers is here and now, and they represent an excellent opportunity if you’re in the marketplace for a thin and light maker.