After a long and long month of laptop launches, Computex 2022 is finally over. Somehow, it’s the Computex that wasn’t.
The first part of this year was an exciting time to be a portable journalist. All the companies and their mother announced that the big ideas were on their way. Absurd products abounded, from monitors to phones. LG Display (which supplied the 13.3-inch panel for Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold) featured a 17-inch foldable OLED display. We saw RGB, OLED and haptics in droves. Chip makers promised architectural innovations and performance gains. We were told they would all arrive soon.
Computex, the largest laptop-specific trade fair of the year, took place in late May. (Well, it really was the whole month of May: because a lot of global attendees couldn’t get to Taiwan, most companies just did their thing and left their launches whenever they were, but that’s another history. Or get a release date.
But we didn’t get them at Computex 2022. The show, in fact, was aggressively unimpressive. We’ve had a lot of chip blows. We have some screens with higher refresh rate. We have an HP Specter x360 with more rounded corners. (To be clear, I’m personally excited about the roundest corners, but maybe I’m the only person on the planet on this ship.)
Don’t get me wrong, incremental updates to both internal and external specifications are important. They will make a difference in people’s lives. Businesses don’t need to reinvent the wheel with every laptop they launch. But it’s worth noting that a number of devices that really seem about to expand or redefine their categories aren’t here yet (or if they are, I can’t find them for sale).
Here’s the Elite Dragonfly G3, which you can’t buy yet. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The following are some highly anticipated products announced earlier this year that have not yet reached my desktop:
- Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, originally announced at CES for the second quarter of 2022. There are 25 days left in the second quarter at the time of writing and we don’t have a confirmed price yet. This is one of the many 17-inch foldable laptops we were expecting this year: Samsung also showed one at CES, and it is rumored that HP has one. We didn’t see Computex either.
- The XPS 13 2 in 1, one of the most significant models of convertible space. Okay, this has not yet been announced, but it has been leaked, and according to leaks, Dell is likely to change this product from the traditional 2-in-1 factor and become a Surface Pro-like device. This is not talked about in May.
- The non-business version of the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook, the only device that Virgo staff has been most excited about this year. It is about to be the first Chromebook to include a haptic trackpad and Intel vPro, among other impressive new features. This was due in April when it was announced at CES. In early May, we received an update: it is now “this summer”, but it is not currently in stock.
- Speaking of HP, the also exciting Dragonfly G3, which finally brings the 3: 2 display to the high-end business line and of which we saw a prototype in January, was initially expected in March. Looking at the HP website, it looks like it won’t ship until July.
- Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 3, the 2022 release that has moved me the most personally. It is a 17-inch dual-screen device. While dual-screen devices that put the keyboard on the front of the platform can still be pretty good, their position doesn’t work for everyone. The ThinkBook Plus puts the screen on its side, keeping the keyboard in its usual position (albeit a little further to the left) and keeps the touchpad at a useful size, a layout that could be more practical for many people. It was legitimately great to use in the Lenovo CES demo area and could be a useful imagination of the dual screen form factor. It was supposed to be shipped in May, but will still “come soon” according to Lenovo’s website.
- There is also no indication of the ThinkPad Z series, a new line of ThinkPad aimed at the Gen Z, includes a haptic touchpad and a vegan leather cover, and is potentially a new vision for those who can benefit from a computer. business laptop. It was supposed to be shipped in May, but so far no dice. (The website, at the time of writing, still says “The Spring of 2022 is Coming”.
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RDNA 3, AMD’s next-generation Radeon GPU, is rumored to bring extraordinary performance improvements. The updates AMD showed were still a big announcement, but the declared single-threaded gains were disappointing in comparison.
Not all bad news. Some of the most anticipated devices of 2022 have been released on the scheduled date, including several gaming-side products such as the Asus ROG Flow Z13. And of course, companies deviate from the plans all the time. But I checked my impression with Gartner Research Vice President Stephen Kleynhans, and it seems to be true: Overall, we’re seeing delays in PC submissions, which in turn affect releases. It’s not an exclusive problem of the computer space, of course: the general industries, including the automotive field, are holding back.
Photo of Monica Chin / The Verge
These delays, Kleynhans believes, are, not surprisingly, “primarily supply chain problems,” and have a lot to do with COVID’s current situation in China, which has led to blockages at key technology centers. Kleynhans told me that “until China really opens up, which seems to be what we are seeing now, and can catch up on the backlog that has been created, we will continue to see disruptions in addition to the “The availability of computers could be disrupted” at least for the summer and the end of the year. ”
It’s not just that companies have trouble putting current-generation units in their hands, according to Kleynhans, it’s also about fulfilling state-of-the-art orders. “If you have a customer who placed an order for 1,000 machines three or four months ago, and has not yet received them, you don’t want to launch this year’s model while those orders are pending,” Kleynhans told me. . Of course, we’re also seeing delays in current models: many of Apple’s latest MacBook Pros show delivery dates in late July or later. (It is rumored that Apple has a new MacBook Air underway, and it will be interesting to see if the company is able to meet its usual availability schedule in the short term).
“We will continue to see interruptions.”
When it comes to supply chain delays, the PC market is not the most affected (or most important) sector. The world will continue to spin if 17-inch folding computers take longer than expected to ship. And laptop delays are not the most important or shocking consequence of this pandemic.
However, this situation should serve as a reminder of a fact that, frankly, is always worth remembering: computer space has so many moving parts. A lot of things had to go right to deliver the laptop you’re typing right now and the laptop I’m typing right now (it’s a Zephyrus G14, if you’re curious) to our doors. It’s fun to live in a world full of haptics, folding and 2X performance gains in the first part of the year. But the real world is more complicated and boring, and even the most interesting innovations require all sorts of logistics stars to line up.