AMD Ryzen Mobile notebooks have finally arrived in Malaysia, and as per our earlier report, the notebooks in question are the Acer Swift 3 and the Lenovo ideaPad 720S.
Acer Swift 3
The Swift 3 that we saw at today’s event the more powerful model of the two; not only did it pack a Ryzen 5 2500U APU, but the Acer had somehow managed to fit an AMD Radeon RX 540 discrete GPU inside its machine, giving it an extra boost in the graphics department. To churn out that GPU power, the Swift 3 also comes with a 15.6″ Full HD display.
Other specs of the Swift 3 include up to 8GB DDR4 RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD (also upgradable to 512GB), and an internal battery that Acer promised would last for up to 10 hours on a single charge. The notebooks also had a healthy amount of ports on its side; by our count, the notebook had a USB Type-C port, one USB 2.0 port, two USB 3.0 ports, an SDCard reader, and an HDMI port.
Compared to its Intel and NVIDIA GPU-powered counterpart, the AMD-variant of the Swift 3 that we held in our hands today had a little more heft to it than we expected, but it was still light enough for us to carry in one hand.
Both AMD and Acer say that the Swift 3 will officially be arriving at the end of March, but stopped short of stating just how much the notebook will cost at launch.
Lenovo ideaPad 720S
The ideaPad 720S is by far, the most compact of the two Ryzen Mobile-powered notebooks at the launch. Measuring in at just 13.3″, the beating heart of this notebook is either a Ryzen 5 2500U or Ryzen 7 2700U APU, which is helped along with a meagre 4GB of single-channel DDR4 RAM. The notebook can also be fitted with up to 512GB of SSD storage.
The ideaPad 720S comes with a 13.3″ Full HD IPS display that can also be flipped open by 180 degrees; allowing users to quite literally lay it down flat of a parallel surface.
Not surprising, Lenovo has beaten Acer to the punch in terms of availability; the notebook will retail at an SRP of RM3,299, and is already available for purchase at all official Lenovo retail outlets and authorized resellers.
Further, online e-commerce sites such as Lazada have also begun selling the notebook, so you can even purchase it online and have it delivered to you.
Bonus: ASUS ROG GL702ZC
While not inherently a part of the Ryzen Mobile processor family, AMD thought it appropriate to showcase the ASUS ROG GL702ZC, a gaming-grade notebook touted as the ‘first Ryzen-powered notebook’ during Computex 2017.
We won’t spend too much time speaking since we were the first to break the news about it, but as a short recap; the GL702ZC sports a desktop Ryzen 7 1700 CPU along with a desktop Radeon RX 580 GPU 4GB inside it.
We should point out that the notebook didn’t particularly fall under any category of AMD’s grand scheme for its Ryzen Mobile notebook segment. In fact, AMD only showcased the GL702ZC at the event as a way for them to highlight its more gaming-centric and productivity-based notebook offering to the consumers looking for workhorse mobile computers that are powered by AMD components.
Also, the ASUS ROG GL702ZC is already available, and retails at RM7,099.
