Lenovo to Launch a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Laptop with 5G
by Ian Cutress on February 25, 2019 5:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Lenovo
- Qualcomm
- Trade Shows
- Snapdragon 855
- X55
- MWC 2019
At Qualcomm’s press event today at Mobile World Congress, Lenovo representatives came on stage to confirm that the company will be building a new laptop using the Snapdragon 8cx that was announced at Qualcomm’s Tech Day in December. As an added bonus, the device will also use the X55 modem, enabling 5G connectivity.
Lenovo has always been a key primary partner for Qualcomm in its quest to bring smartphone hardware to the traditional laptop market in the form of always connected PCs that enable all-day battery life. We’ve seen devices like the Lenovo Yoga 630 use the latest Snapdragon 850 chip for notebooks, running with Windows on top and support for translated 32-bit x86 applications as well as those natively compiled (32 or 64-bit) for the processor. In fact I’ve been testing the 630 for a couple of months, so expect a review soon. However, one of the key markets for Qualcomm is going to be the commercial market. One of the biggest players in that market, is Lenovo.
Lenovo’s Thinkpad series is seemingly ubiquitous in North America and Western Europe as the laptop of choice for serious business users (for those that don’t have anything from Apple). It’s hard to be on a train and not see one. At a trade show, they are everywhere. We spoke to Lenovo’s representatives at Qualcomm’s event in December, and while they didn’t comment on the push into Thinkpad, it was clear that for both Lenovo and Qualcomm, for these types of devices to succeed, this was a device win that Qualcomm needs to get.
On stage at MWC, it wasn’t stated what sort of device Lenovo was preparing with the Snapdragon 8cx and the X55 modem, however given the increased price of 5G, the hardware, the antennas, it makes sense to go into a premium commercial device like the Thinkpad.
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PeachNCream - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
Why not? Let's get more competition for x86 processors and see what the industry can do to innovate under additional pressure.bigvlada - Tuesday, February 26, 2019 - link
Well, the dead x86 killers society always accepts new members. Existing ones are by now bored to death with Alpha's and PowerPC's tales of superiority.blu42 - Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - link
For an invincible ISA there seem to be too many x86 copses around -- GPU-x86, mobile-x86 and IoT-x86 all say hi from their graves.HStewart - Thursday, February 28, 2019 - link
Not with LakefieldHStewart - Thursday, February 28, 2019 - link
I think Lakefield is going to be perfect competitor to this platform related to Battery Life, connectively and power - but with one extreme advantage full Native PC speed of Sunny Cove full speed processor along with 4 smaller low power cores for less power. Combine with Gen 11 GPU with decent Discrete like performance.In my book there is no need for these emulators - but I would think and don't understand they would make perfect Chrome book machines.
HStewart - Thursday, February 28, 2019 - link
And with CPU all in size that will fit on tip of your finger - include IO and RAM. Lakefield sounds like it could even be in Phone industry.blu42 - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
Next two years will surely be interesting in the notebook sector.IGTrading - Tuesday, February 26, 2019 - link
Intel has lost the notebook performance and price battle on the notebook front, the day AMD has launched the Ryzen Mobile, but they still held on the battery life front.Now that Qualcomm brings sufficient performance with extreme battery life, Intel's life is getting harder and harder.
I remember #AMD had a collaboration with Qualcomm on bringing 4G LTE enable notebooks to the market. I hope that's still ongoing.
I know Intel is working on its own 5G modem, and they plan to integrate different chips on the same package (as demonstrated previously) so they will likely be able to compete well with Qualcomm on connectivity.
But I hardly believe in Intel's chances to bring better performance than AMD, or better prices than AMD or better battery life than Qualcomm.
Competition is lovely , but expect Intel to play dirty, like they usually do.
HStewart - Thursday, February 28, 2019 - link
No low end, Intel has lakefield and AMD is Lacking in higher end - with Sunny Cove coming - AMD has absolutely no chance in the race.