laptop News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

May 26, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Linux 6.15 Release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.15: So this was delayed by a couple of hours because of a last-minute bug report resulting in one new feature being disabled at the eleventh hour, but 6.15 is out there now. Apart from that final scramble, things looked pretty normal last week. Various random small fixes all over, with drivers as usual accounting for most of it. But we’ve got some bcachefs fixes, some core networking, and some mm fixes in there too. Nothing looks particularly scary. And this obviously means that the merge window opens tomorrow as usual, and I see the usual people being proactive and having sent me their pull requests. It’s memorial day tomorrow here in the US, but like the USPS, “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” – nor memorial day – stops the merge window. [ Actually, thinking back […]

May 20, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Huawei Matebook Pro is the first laptop sold with HarmonyOS operating system

Huawei Matebook Pro (HAD-W24 / HAD-W32) resembles a typical laptop with a 14.2-inch display, 24GB to 32GB RAM, and 1TB or 2TB SSD storage. What’s less common is that the processor is not named, and the laptop is the first to run Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system. Those two are due to Western countries’ sanctions against the Chinese company. Huawei used to sell Intel-based laptops with Windows and Android smartphones, but they’ve not made hardware based on US technology for a while. As software support would eventually run out, they had to work on an alternative named HarmonyOS, which has been used on smartwatches, smartphones, and tablets for a while, but the Matebook Pro is the first computer sold with the new OS. While we don’t know the processor used, reports mention the Kirin X90 10-core (4+4+2) / 20-thread Arm SoC as an “Apple Silicon” solution. MateBook Pro specifications: SoC – […]

February 25, 2025February 25, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Imagination DXTP GPU promises 20% higher power efficiency compared to DXT GPU for mobile devices and laptops

Imagination has announced the DXTP GPU for mobile and power-constrained devices with up to 20% greater power efficiency than its predecessor, the D-Series DXT GPU for longer battery life for AI applications or complex games. The company says the GPU is suitable for gaming, user interfaces, graphics-rich applications, computer vision, generative AI, and other AI applications designed to run on smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, or non-safety automotive products. Imagination DXTP highlights: Two off-the-shelf configurations: DXTP-48-1536 48 GPixel/s 1.5 TFLOPS FP32 (1536 FLOPs/Clock) 3 TFLOPS FP16 6 TOPS INT8 48 ppc Bilinear 3D Textured Up to 96 ppc 2D Dual Rate Mode DXTP-64-2048 64 GPixel/s 2 TFLOPS FP32 (2048 FLOPs/Clock) 4 TFLOPS FP16 8 TOPS INT8 64 ppc Bilinear 3D Textured Up to 128 ppc 2D Dual Rate Mode Bus Interface – AXI, ACE-Lite Compression PVRIC5 Lossless and Lossy Framebuffer Compression ETC and ASTC LDR and HDR Support Microarchitecture improvement – […]

January 28, 2025March 29, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

anyon_e DIY laptop features Rockchip RK3588 SoC, 13.3-inch 4K AMOLED display, aluminum chassis

We’ve already seen several Rockchip RK3588 laptops with the Cool Pi laptop and GenBook RK3588, as well as the open-source hardware MNT Reform Next. anyon_e is another open-source DIY laptop based on Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC but with higher-end specifications compared to competitors. The anyon_e features a 13.3-inch 4K AMOLED display, a wireless QWERTY mechanical keyboard, a custom aluminum chassis that keeps the thickness of the laptop to just 18mm, and a battery good for about 7 hours. It’s based on the FriendlyELEC CM3588 core board found in the CM3588 NAS Kit. anyon_e laptop (preliminary) specifications: SoM – FriendlyELEC CM3588 SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – 4x CortexA76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x CortexA55 core @ 1.8 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU Video decoder – 8Kp60 H.265, VP9, AVS2, 8Kp30 H.264 AVC/MVC, 4Kp60 AV1, 1080p60 MPEG-2/-1, VC-1, VP8 Video encoder – 8Kp30 H.265/H.264 video encoder […]

January 25, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Intel floats Modular PC design proposal for repairable laptops and mini PCs

Intel has published an article proposing a modular PC design that would improve the repairability/right-to-repair of laptops and mini PCs and reduce e-waste through the replacement of motherboard, display, and M.2 or FPC add-on modules for the user-facing ports. Making repairable, modular electronic devices is not a new idea, and the Framework laptops are probably the best-known option now, but they do come at a premium. But most projects are limited success, for instance, Project Ara modular smartphone from Google eventually died off. We’ve also covered modular or open-source hardware solutions from smaller companies over the years such as Firefly Station P3D modular Arm mini PC with swappable cards, or Olimex Teres-I DIY and open-source hardware laptop. It’s good news that a large company like Intel is taking the repairable, modular PC topic seriously, but as we’ll see below it’s currently a high-level proposal with few technical details. Most laptops […]

January 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Qualcomm Snapdragon X octa-core Arm SoC to power $600+ mainstream AI PCs with Copilot+ support

Qualcomm has unveiled the Snapdragon X octa-core Arm SoC at CES 2025 designed for mainstream AI PCs with Copilot+, which should start at $600 and up. This follows the announcements of the high-end 4.3GHz Snapdragon X Elite 12-core SoC in 2023, and the Snapdragon X Plus 10-/8-core processors last year, and should make AI PCs affordable to a wider range of consumers. The new Snapdragon X is clocked at up to 3.0 GHz, still features a 45 TOPS Hexagon NPU, supports NVMe storage, up to 64GB LPDDR5, up to 2560 x 1440 built-in displays, up to three external displays at 4Kp60, and a single camera up to 36MP resolution. Systems based on the new octa-core processor can support WiFi 7, WiFi 6E, and/or 5G LTE connectivity. Qualcomm Snapdragon X (X1-26-100) specifications: CPU – Octa-core 64-bit Armv8 Oryon processor clocked at up to 3.0 GHz (2976 MHz) with 30MB cache GPU […]

December 31, 2024March 29, 2025 by Tomisin Olujinmi - 12 Comments

MNT Reform Next is an open-source, RK3588-powered modular 12.5-inch laptop (Crowdfunding)

The MNT Reform Next brings the Rockchip RK3588 processor to the modular laptop series. It retains the open-hardware nature of the older MNT Reform and introduces a lighter and more modular design, complete with a much faster processor. The MNT Reform Next separates the three port boards from the main motherboard, allowing for greater customization and modification than its predecessors. The standard processor module (RCORE) can be swapped with other modules such as the Raspberry Pi CM4, as well as NXP i.MX 8M Plus, NXP LayerScape 1028A, and AMD Kintex-7 FPGA modules. Like the classic MNT Reform and the MNT Pocket Reform, the enclosure for the Reform Next is milled from anodized, bead-blasted aluminum. Apart from being repairable and customizable, the RK3588 modular laptop is powerful enough to be a daily driver for browsing, writing, programming, gaming, graphics design, sound creation, and video editing. MNT Reform Next specifications: SoM SoC […]

December 6, 2024July 2, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Allwinner A733 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 AI SoC supports up to 16GB RAM for Android 15 tablets and laptops

Allwinner A733 is an octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor with an optional 3 TOPS NPU and support for up to 16GB RAM designed for Android 15 tablets and laptops such as the Teclast P50Ai with a 10.92-inch touchscreen display. With two Cortex-A76 cores, six Cortex-A75 cores, an Imagination BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU, and an NPU, the Allwinner A733 looks very similar to the Allwinner A736 we noted in a roadmap last year. But there’s no news about the A736, so maybe the name was dropped and the Allwinner A733 was launched instead. Allwinner A733 specifications: CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.79 GHz Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 MC1 VPU 8Kp24 H.265/VP9/AVS2 decoding (no mention of AV1) 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoding AI accelerator – Optional 3 TOPS NPU Memory 192 KB SRAM + 512 KB shared SRAM 32-bit LPDDR4/LPDDR4x/LPDDR5 interface […]