It’s been a few years since Japanese electronics company has offered personal computers in the US market. But that changes this year, with two new laptops and a new all-in-one desktop set to go on sale in the United States in March.
The NEC LaVie Pro Mobile is a 1.85 pound notebook with a 13.3 inch display and an 8th-gen Intel Whiskey Lake processor, while the NEC LaVie Vega is a 4 pound notebook with a 15.6 inch 4K OLED display and support for up to a 9th-gen Intel Core i7-9750H processor.
They’re expected have starting prices of $1600 and $2100, respectively. Meanwhile, the NEC LaVie Home is an all-in-one desktop PC with a 27 inch display, an Intel Core i7-10510U Comet Lake processor, and a $1800 starting price.
NEC Personal Computers is actually a joint venture between Lenovo and NEC… although Lenovo has a controlling stake. So the last time an NEC laptop made it to US shores, it was actually a Lenovo-branded product (Lenovo slapped its name on the existing NEC LaVie Z in 2015).
This time NEC’s laptops will be sold under the company’s own name… for better or worse. While NEC has continued selling laptops in its home market of Japan, it’s been a long time since an NEC-branded PC went on sale in the United States. That could make the relatively high price tags for these new models a bit tough to swallow.
Anyway, here’s an overview of some key specs for each new model.
NEC LaVie Pro Mobile
- 13.3 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS display (300 nits)
- Intel Core i7-8565U
- 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM
- 512GB of solid state storage
- 49 Wh battery
- 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C
- 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C
- 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A
- HDMI 1.4b
- 3.5mm audio
- microSD card reader
- 2W stereo speakers
- Dual microphones
- Fingerprint reader
- 720p camera
- 802.11ac WiFi
- Bluetooth 5.0
- 12.1″ x 8.5″ x 0.6″
- 1.85 pounds starting weight
NEC LaVie Vega
- 15.6 inch, 3840 x 2160 pixel OLED display (400 nits)
- Intel Core i7-9750H
- 8GB DDR4 RAM
- 32GB Intel Optane storage
- 512GB SSD
- 80 Wh battery
- 2 x Thunderbolt 3
- 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C
- 3.5mm audio
- microSD card reader
- 2W stereo speakers
- 4 x microphones
- 720p webcam with IR camera
- Corning Gorilla Glass lid
- 14.2″ x 9.6″ x 0.7″
- 4.1 pounds
NEC LaVie Home
- 27 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS display (250 nits)
- Intel Core i7-10510U processor
- 8 GB of DDR3-2666 memory
- 256GB SSD
- 3TB HDD
- 720p webcam
- 2.7W stereo speakers
- 4 x microphones
- 802.11ax WiFI
- Bluetooth 5.0
- Gigabit Ethernet
- 3 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A
- 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A
- 3.5mm audio
- mciroSD card reader
- 24.2″ x 13.5″ x 11.3″
- 23 pounds
via PRNewswire, AnandTech, and Notebook Italia
The ultrabook market is pretty crowded. (MS Surface, Dell XPS, HP Envy, Asus Zenbook,…etc.) I wonder what NEC thinks their selling point here is? Personally, I don’t see it.
In your introduction you described the NEC LaVie Pro Mobile as an 18.5 lb notebook. 🙂