AMD's new budget laptop has premium features at lower price points.
Today at Computex 2022, AMD has announced Mendocino, a new breed of chip that aims to redefine the everyday laptop.
It's a budget machine with decent battery life at around 10 hours of battery life on charge, according to The Verge.
AMD promises a new series of Ryzen laptop chips that combine four last-gen Zen 2 CPU cores with the latest RDNA 2 graphics on TSMC's 6nm process to deliver over 10 hours of battery life, all for a lower cost of between $399 and $699.
What Does the New Mendocino Offer?
With Mendocino, however, AMD chose to roll with the Zen 2 microarchitecture instead but kept the RDNA 2 solution.
Mendocino take advantage of TSMC's 6nm manufacturing process. The 6nm "N6" process node delivers up to 18% higher logic density with an identical power and performance level in comparison to the 7nm "7N" process node, as per Tom's Hardware report.
According to AnandTech, Mendocino's basic specifications are an interesting mix of hardware. On the CPU side, it's 4 Zen 2 CPU cores and on the GPU side, the chip will come with an integrated RDNA2 architecture GPU.
One of Mendocino's strong selling points is its battery life. Based on mixed usage, AMD estimated a minimum of 10 hours of battery life.
While there are better AMD mobile Ryzen chips, Mendocino will power laptops that cost between $399 and $699. At that price range, most consumers should only expect a battery life between four to six hours, not over 10.
Across the different segments, AMD has big plans for its Ryzen-powered notebook expansions.
According to Tom's Hardware, AMD has forecasted over 60 enterprises, 50 high-performance, and 90 ultra-thin designs for what is left of 2022. Regarding Mendocino, it is expected that they will develop devices with the new 6nm mobile APUs in the fourth quarter of the year.
Read Also: Windows 11 AMD Bug Causes Slow Performance: How to Fix Major Issue
What Are the Other AMD Powered Laptops?
This year, Corsair launched its first-ever gaming laptop, the Corsair Voyager, an AMD exclusive.
According to AMD gaming boss Frank Azor, it's the "first laptop ever designed to be a truly mobile streaming solution," with a 16-inch main display and 240Hz panel with FreeSync Premium.
Another one is the new 16-inch Lenovo Legion Slim 7 with a 99.99Wh battery at 17mm thick, a non-slim version with force sensors built into its WASD keys.
A new version of the HP Omen 16 is the first laptop to ship with a feature called AMD SmartShift Eco that can automatically shift to integrated graphics for longer battery life in a game, according to The Verge.
The Verge reported that a fine print suggested that AMD cheated a tad there. To get the result, there is a need to drop the graphics down to medium and set the laptop to "Best Battery" mode (compared to high specs and "Best Performance").
AMD, similarly, promoted earlier in the presentation that the 2.2-pound ultralight Asus ZenBook S13 "can play triple-A games at 60fps average at 1080p."
Related Article: AMD Confirms the Arrival of Ryzen 7000 and Zen4
