Lenovo made a ThinkPad X1 Carbon clone in which an old, slow, local x86 processor was installed, which is not only not up to par with the current, but also with the age-old AMD and Intel chips.
Lenovo’s Chinese plant has produced a premium laptop based on a slow and outdated x86-compatible processor – but at least it was designed locally. Chinese state media according to his report the machine named Kaixian X1 G1d weighs 990 grams, boasts a 2800×1800 display, three USB-C ports, a USB-A socket and an unspecified capacity of DDR4 memory. The Zhaoxin KX-6000G chip that drives the laptop contains only four cores and runs four threads. The processor is made by Shanghai Zhaoxin Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd. made based on technology derived from an x86 license obtained from Taiwan’s Via Technologies years ago. Although Lenovo appears to have overclocked the 3.6GHz processor to 3.8GHz, it’s still weaker than Intel and AMD desktop chips released three to five years ago, according to tests.
* Lenovo, however, used a premium packaging similar to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which has long been the PC maker’s flagship business laptop. The price of the product starts around 1,500 dollars, but it is not sold in the company’s own store on Lenovo.com.cn, only through external partners. Lenovo China’s own online store is full of machines with newer and more powerful Intel and AMD processors.
Why did Lenovo create – and hide – a premium-looking laptop with a weak processor? To answer this question, you need to know that the state party wants locals to use more technology designed and manufactured within its borders. Beijing earlier this year excluded AMD and Intel from its list of authorized CPU manufacturers and emphasizes the use of locally developed operating systems. The Chinese media is hailing this laptop as the first time products from the chip design company Zhaoxin have made it to Lenovo. Zhaoxin already presented a chip faster than the KX-6000G, the KX-7000 series processors announced last week are installed in its desktop computers by the local Tongfang Computer.
Source: sg.hu
