Most laptops with discrete graphics are premium gaming machines or mobile workstations aimed at folks that need a high-performance GPU for graphic design, video editing, or gaming. And then there’s the T-bao Tbook Pro X86.
It’s a $299 laptop with an NVIDIA graphics card and a low-power Intel Celeron Apollo Lake processor.
Is it the best laptop money can buy? Certainly not. But it’s one of the most affordable laptops I’ve seen to feature discrete graphics.
As spotted by CNX-Software, the Tbook X86 Pro is available from Geekbuying for $300. Gearbest is selling the same laptop for $360.
The notebook has a 15.6 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display, a 10 watt Intel Celeron J3455 quad-core processor, NVIDIA GeForce 920M graphics, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of solid state storage.
Other features include Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI and headset jacks, a USB Type-C port, and two USB 3.0 ports. The notebook has a 9,000 mAh battery.
It measures 14.1″ x 9.3″ x 0.71″ and weighs about 3.7 pounds.
The laptop has a rather old GPU and a relatively low-power CPU, so it wouldn’t exactly be my first choice for a gaming or graphic design machine. But the GPU should offer a pretty serious boost in graphics performance over what you’d get from most Apollo Lake-powered laptops.
It’s also interesting that the Tbook Pro X86 has a 10-watt Celeron J-series processor rather than a 6 watt N-series chip, which is more commonly found in laptops.
Does this have USB-C Charging?
It’s nice to see a $299 laptop with more than 32gb of storage for a change.
I love this. A fanless with discrete gfx is exactly what I’ve dreamed of. The only thing I can’t wrap my head around is why the older generation everything? I would happily pay more to get the n5000 gemini lake cpu, Nvidia mx150 chip, and a tb3 port. And preferably bigger battery. Man, I’d kill for that.
Weird. Counterfeit NVIDIA GPU maybe 😉
Why not Gemini Lake already launched? CPU-wise Gemini Lake much faster. First real world test https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Intel-Celeron-J4105-Gemini-Lake-legt-eine-Schippe-drauf-3962770.html almost 50% faster than old Apollo Lake. Maybe the price due to cheaper outgoing Apollo Lake and older mobile GPU. Probably using 4x out of 6x PCI Express lanes for discrete GPU. Using desktop 10W version instead of mobile 6W one is a strange choice.
Next month is my month to upgrade mine NUC6CAYH 😀
As enticing as the price of this looks, this is a really silly outcome of Intel’s pricing. This combination has lower specs than a more expensive 8th Gen Intel Core-series CPU alone (the Intel UHD 620 is more powerful than the 920M). However it is a good upgrade from the greatly underpowered GPU in the Apollo Lake series.
This really exposes the big gap in cost and performance between Apollo Lake and the Core series. Apollo lake is too weak, and Core is too expensive. It is obvious that either the Core series needs more high-end GPUs at the lower end of their pricing model, or that Apollo Lake needs more high end GPUs at their higher-end.
I think a better solution is an Apollo Lake “APU-like” product. Something more powerful than the Pentium J5005, and with a GPU similar to a GTX 1050TI. If a Mini-ITX motherboard with an integrated CPU/GPU could be priced around $200, it would fit a sweet-spot where small form-factor PC game consoles could be priced effectively.
An interesting combination for a decent price.
What an odd beast – anything the discrete GPU (no matter how low-end, it’s still a lot better than the Celeron’s basic integrated graphics) could be used for is going to hit a wall due to the CPU coupled with it.
The CPU and GPU of Intel chips that aren’t “Core” inside are pretty pathetic.
However, outright “Core i” chipsets are too expensive.
This combination above doesn’t work/make sense, as a Core i3 would probably work better.
So me thinks, this is the market AMD should break into. Even if it causes AMD to break even and marginally improve sales figures…. what it would mean is that much fewer Intel systems sell and at a much smaller profit margin. This cycles back to less R&D/Marketing for Intel, and makes the next generation race between the two companies much closer.
That is, if AMD aren’t thinking of an exit strategy from the consumer electronics sector (because they are showing signs towards this approach).