This weekend brought us an invasion of Intel Coffee Lake-based notebooks, coming in all shapes and sizes, from the likes of Acer, ASUS and HP. Let’s see what we’re dealing with and what the standard midrange laptop of late 2017 is going to be like.
HP Envy 13 is among the most famous new releases of the kind, together with the Acer Swift 3. ASUS is also prepping a model with Nvidia graphics. The Envy 13 from HP has just leaked via a service manual, that reveals the presence of an 8th gen Intel Core Coffee Lake processor. Options include an Intel Core i5 1.6 GHz CPU and an Intel Core i7 with 1.8 GHz base clock speed.
Full HD and 4K display options are mentioned, plus support for up to 16 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage. Then comes the Acer Spin 5, a convertible notebook with a 13.3 inch screen and a 360 degree hinge, that lets you flip the machine all the way back. Full HD screen, Core i7 and 8 GB of RAM (or 16 GB) are all here, plus HDMI and WiFi ac.
A more affordable Acer Spin 5 (NX.GR7EV.001) is going to bring a Core i5 CPU, 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. Then comes the ASUS S410UN-EB025T, with a Core i5-8250U quad core CPU, Nvidia GeForce MX150 graphics and Full HD screen. Add 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB M.2 SSD and you get the picture. HP Pavilion x360 14m is among the newcomers , as a convertible notebook with a 14 inch screen, sporting a Core i5 or Core i7 processor.
Some variants of this machine may come with NVIDIA GeForce 940MX graphics, while others opt for integrated graphics. HP 15 laptop and HP Envy 17m also fit this niche and there should be at least an affordable model with a 768p res. So much choice, with the proper pricing could kill some Chromebooks…
