Lenovo China clones the ThinkPad X1 Carbon with an old, slow, local x86 Lenovo's Chinese operation has created a premium laptop based around a slow and out-of-date x86-compatible processor – but at least it's locally designed. Chinese state media report that the machine – dubbed the Kaixian X1 G1d – weighs in at 990 grams, boasts a 2800x1800 display, three USB-C ports, one USB-A slot, and an …
Why? If it's performing at the sort of speeds of AMD and Intel from 3-5 years ago, that's not really a problem for many use cases, especially in the business or government world. Standard laptop replacement cycles in business and government is 5 years, so plenty of people in "the West" are still running that level of CPU in their laptops today.
1. Do you have any factual basis to believe China's local chip plants are producing unreasonably-low quantities of defect-free chips (which is a separate issue from the speed and effective computing power of those chips), given the process nodes those local plants are using?
2. Foreign-to-China-made computer chips are more-powerful and cheaper than their locally-made chips ... at the moment, and while China still can import those foreign chips. With various embargoes and tariffs in place, with more to come, China is trying to develop their own chip-making capabilities as a matter of self-sufficency and national security.
3. I would not buy this computer.
I read this as saying Chinese fabs have gone live (production volumes) about one generation behind western ones. That's till pretty fucking impressive. If you'd asked me in 2020 how long it would take for a Chinese manufacturer to catch up with current CPU build (not design) I'd probably have said 10 years not 5. Well done them. If they move to using RISC-V etched with their own photolith kit then they're essentially independent.
>The dragon is waking up, beware when it starts moving . . .
No it will just announce $Bn on new fabs, have lots of photos of local party faithful cutting ribbons and the completion date will be pushed back until the next economic downturn.
It sounds like a good scientific economic system in theory but just doesn't work in practice
Oh yes because that famously helped capitalist economies.
Here in the UK we outsourced everything and their dog, now nobody knows how to make things and people are not learning how to make things, because there are no jobs that could sustain living from it.
It is better to create plants and make things locally, even if it is "unproductive" initially.
"Here in the UK we outsourced everything and their dog"
And the way things are going we're outsourcing more and more food production in favour of solar farms, data centres etc. I trust it will be ministers, heads of quangos and tech CEOs who will be the first to give up eating.
> It is better to create plants and make things locally, even if it is "unproductive" initially.
One of the drivers behind the creation of a unified Europe, the current phase of the project being the EU.
Interestingly, it is worth looking at successive UK governments attitude to this as demonstrated by: wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear energy and more recently electricity pylons; just a selection from a long list…
> tests of the processor rate it as inferior to Intel and AMD desktop chips released three to five years ago.
Gee, a laptop's processor gives inferior grunt compared to even a slightly older desktop's processor. Who'da thunk?
I note that we aren't provided with any power requirements for the new device - so is it competing thermally with the desktop chips or should it be measured against, say, the Intel N100[1]? After all, you point out they came from old Via designs and those were popular due to their low power requirements.
As for the chuckle over putting it in a flashy case - why does *any* CPU get put into a flashy case? Solely so that you can put your bling in front of the sort of people who are going to be impressed by the bling. After all, who cares if the latest, greatest, CPU is cased in carbon fibre or in dull grey (or nostalgic beige) if you are actually interested in using it and not in just being a Flash Harry?
So there's your answer: this is for someone who wants to look the part. Just like anyone who buys premium-looking (and premium-priced) goods. Not really a great conundrum after all.
"But, but the insides don't live up to the packaging!". Well, ignoring how often that happens anyway, with all sorts of goods, don't forget the value of boasting that you are patriotically buying local: if that helps you seal the deal (or avoid being outcast), job done. Proudly Made in the Good Old Provinces of China.
[1] 4 cores, 4 threads; bought one in October, totally outmatched by my 2020 Threadripper box, what a surprise.
> Gee, a laptop's processor gives inferior grunt compared to even a slightly older desktop's processor. Who'da thunk?
not many, actually. Modern laptops' CPUs are just as powerful as desktop ones from time to time, these days. Take the Core i9-13980HX from Intel, it's very comparable to the 13900K on desktop, and can even beat the likes of the 12900K and older.
There isn't a lot of information about the chip, but a report suggests that it is less powerful than The Register claims but has a 15 W TDP. A couple samples have been benchmarked, though only four so it is possible these numbers aren't the best. If these are correct, a comparable 15 W chip with similar figures would be the laptop-class AMD PRO A8-8600B if I try to match multi-thread and single-thread figures although the AMD is 20% higher on single-thread.
As with most processors, there are people who can work with rather little performance, including many of us, who can make this work. Others are going to find this less speedy than they're used to and can't get around it.
It doesn't seem that confusing to me. $1500 per government employee is a lot of money and, for anyone told to buy local*, it's not like this has a lot of competition. Maybe the Huawei Qingyun line, but that isn't really designed to run the same OS that they're already running, and it doesn't matter whether they were running Windows or Kylin or Ubuntu. The Zhaoxin model would run any of those and the Qingyun would require some hacking. Meanwhile, Lenovo doesn't have to spend much money if they can use as much of the X1 production line as possible with just a different board. Producing one such model seems a reasonable commercial choice to me.
* Buy local, or at least just don't buy from a few easily identified massive corporations. If there are a bunch of Korean components in there, it's fine as long as nobody really talks about it.
There are modules on modern AMD and Intel chips that are a big security concern for those with big secrets to protect.
The FSB(KGB) in Russia was rumoured to have gone back to typewriters. The CCP is many steps ahead. Sure, this Lenovo might be slowish, but it will get the job done.
I imagine it is designed to be used by senior party officials, hence the premium packaging. It will be used for comms and office tasks, not number crunching or gaming.
>” $1500 per government employee is a lot of money”
That market segment is probably sufficient for Lenovo to produce a laptop for and cloning the Thinkpad lends it some of the kudos of that brand, something the Chinese government may be wanting when they get their laptop out at international get togethers…
If they were going to do that, it probably would be a little more hidden than that. A firmware component that connects to the internet is possible, but shouting out that it exists would break the intent. Also, if they were going to do that, they wouldn't only do it for the Zhaoxin model unless they're trying to spy on Chinese government users, who are the only people who will buy it. You are welcome to try. In fact, I'm happy to try, although I'm not going to buy one, but I would do the analysis if someone asked. But I doubt you'll find it as interesting as you expect.
So probably as quick, or quicker, than this 2018 Dell Latitude? Which doesn't seem to have any issues running anything I've thrown at it in the last few years (including hardware and software development, but I don't do games so can't comment there).
I wonder if it runs Linux?
Of course it runs Linux. They've intentionally matched as much of the X64 interface as possible, including typical firmware. Compatibility is the point of Zhaoxin, which is partially why their efficiency is lower. Drivers are always a possible problem, but most of them are probably the same as the Intel and AMD-equipped X1s and I'm guessing there are Linux drivers for anything else in there because at least some of the people who are willing to buy a Zhaoxin-equipped laptop are going to run Kylin on it and those drivers would work on other distros.
...and since Lenovo have been using a bootable Linux based diagnostics toolset for years now, they have very good driver support for the hardware. It's a free download from their support website, not a sooper sekrit internal tool.
I work in the industrial heartland of "the West" and my workstation options are an 11 year old Intel desktop or a 5 year old Intel laptop, with no money to replace either unless they break and performance about equal between them. Given how little hardware refresh most companies around me have done since Covid, and the opportunity for local supply chains you only get in China, this kind of machine looks pretty sensible - and you avoid all the AI processor slop being forced at you by big red and big blue. Sign me up for an import!
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I imagine it cannot meet the Win11 minimum hardware requirement of a 9th(?) generation processor.
Actually precluding Windows isn't such a Balderick of an idea after all.
I imagine it might run a locally grown Linux distro reasonably well.
A bit of forward planning might mean that a decent risc-v might be later slotted into the design replacing the x86 CPU.
According to my research, the processor itself can run Win11 fine (HVCI, MBEC and all the goodies), but the integrated graphics can not (no DX12).
Probably lenovo would have to tap either innosilicon or mooore thread for a discrete laptop class GPU with DX12 and WDDM 2.x drivers.
Having said that, china is de-emphasizing Windows, for their homegrown linux desktop,so there is that.
> “Cunning plan?
I imagine it cannot meet the Win11 minimum hardware requirement of a 9th(?) generation processor.”
Well China is big enough to make MS sit up, so perhaps this might be a good move; would not be surprised if Win 11 mainland China edition has a lower hardware requirement (no CoPilot and other junk) than other editions….
Even with Gbit internet, I see cpu's of PC's hardly sweat in the last few years.
The average user will hardly notice the 1.5GHz difference, many in the West are also trained by marketing of Big Tech that they constantly need the latest and greatest to be able to breath.
If you aren't gaming or doing high-end tasks, a 5yr old CPU is more than enough. My desktop is a 4th gen i7 and my laptop a 5th gen i5 both are a lot older than five years. It's impressive that China has closed the gap, it won't be too long before they pass the west. After all they consistently make the fastest supercomputers in the world.
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