Lenovo Announces New ThinkPads With AMD APUs

For the many of you Linux users that have been desiring an AMD laptop, things could get interesting with Lenovo having just announced the ThinkPad A-Series.

The ThinkPad A-Series is powered by AMD PRO hardware and initially consists of the ThinkPad A275 and A475. The A275 comes in at 2.9 lbs / 1.31 kg with a 12.5-inch display while the A475 is at 3.48 lbs / 1.57 kg with a 14-inch display. Both models offer up to 512GB NVMe SSD or 1TB HDD, USB Type-C, and other modern features.

But before getting too excited right now, the initial A275 and A475 models are powered by "7th gen AMD PRO A12 processors with AMD Radeon R7 integrated graphics." Yes, the Carrizo APUs of 2015 with Excavator CPU cores. A bit unfortunate considering the Raven Ridge launch with Zen cores and Vega graphics should just be months away. Presumably though this is Lenovo getting comfortable with AMD-powered ThinkPads and to test the waters: I definitely hope they will be timely releasing a Raven Ridge laptop and I may be interested myself in getting such a laptop.

For those interested in these 7th Gen AMD PRO laptops, the A275 pricing begins at $869 with shipping in October while the A475 starts at $849 and shipping this month. The laptops will be loaded with Windows, but at least in these current models being based off Carrizo PRO, they presumably should play nicely with modern Linux distributions.

More details at Lenovo.com.