German Linux hardware manufacturer TUXEDO has announced the launch of its new InfinityBook Max 15, a 15.3-inch business ultrabook that blurs the line between professional workstation and gaming laptop.
Despite its thin, all-metal aluminium chassis and weight of just 1.95 kg, the InfinityBook Max 15 delivers serious computing power. It is powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series of processors, including the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (12 cores) and Ryzen AI 9 365 (10 cores), as well as the entry-level Ryzen AI 7 350 (8 cores).
Aren’t these just white labeled Chinese brands?
They are rebranded (and expensive) Clevos, but they are manufactured (or configured, or integrated - those all amount to the same thing) in Germany.
To be fair to them this applies to many, many other Laptop brands. Including pretty big ones like MSI.
Clevo, yes, thank you! My search shows they’re Taiwanese. So they engineered in Taiwan and produced in Germany? Because that sounds backwards as hell!
Hardware development is just extremely difficult. The smallest company that I’m aware of that has their own laptop design is Framework, but their laptops are also about twice as expensive as equivalent models from other brands.
In addition, since basically all modern computer manufacturing has to go through Taiwan due to TSMC’s near-monopoly on competitive semiconductors, it makes sense to outsource design to Taiwan too. They already have the industry for it, and there’s no reason to have a random American company add their own profit margin to the price for no reason.
Eh, I just ran some comparisons and Framework is only about $100 more than the cheapest equivalent in another brand with the same CPU/Memory. $200 more with Windows.
Not sure how you’re arriving at that low of a difference unless the US pricing is wildly better than in the EU.
If I follow the most obvious user flow on the Framework website (except for removing components that aren’t required) then I end up with a preorder for a Framework 16 with a Ryzen AI 7 350, 8 GB of RAM and no storage for 1,724 €. I can get the same CPU in a Gigabyte Aero X16 with the same CPU and 32GB RAM and storage and an RTX 5060 on top for 1,129 €. If I try to configure the Framework to be actually competitive with that model I end up at 2,384 €. It’s not just the Ryzen AI model that’s like this either, I did the same comparison with an older Ryzen CPU and it was in the same ballpark.
I’m sure the Framework is nicer in many aspects that don’t show up on data sheets like chassis finish and build quality (and of course Linux support) but that’s a lot of money.
Idk how big they are compared to Framework, but Starlabs makes their own laptops.
Cool, thanks! UK based, if anyone was wondering
From their website:
I wanted to buy a laptop years ago but was let down by their sales guys. Individually… is a joke. One company to avoid
I was thinking of getting my next desktop from them. Can you elaborate?
I could’ve sworn I saw something about this elsewhere recently. I wouldn’t necessarily trust what they say on their site.
Some of them like to play stupid semantics games to make their product sound more legit than it is.
I’m pretty sure the individual componentens come from China… But good luck finding any electronic manufacturer that doesn’t use Chinese components. Don’t know what classifies as white labeled for you.
I really don’t understand why so many people are confused about Chinese brands vs. “Made in China”.
“White labeled” means they take an existing product that’s already being sold and do nothing but slap their branding on it and sell it in a different store.
We should call it Brand Slapping
They do develop Linux drivers for the laptops they sell, so they’re not adding literally zero value. Though they also tried to prevent upstreaming with an incompatible (illegal) license so there’s that…
Oh I mean I’m maining Pop OS Beta right now (it’s awesome!) so I know the value they’re giving there, if nowhere else. But I would rather just make a donation than buy a generic laptop…