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AMD Reportedly Sold Over 200,000 Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT GPUs

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Wednesday, March 19th 2025

AMD’s Radeon RX 9000 series of GPUs spent just a few days on the retail market, and they are already sold out. If you are wondering just how many have been sold, AMD has a number for you. According to the information shared at the AI PC Innovation Summit in Beijing, AMD claims that it has sold as many as 200,000 Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards in the first wave. Current retail channels show severely constrained inventory for AMD’s latest GPUs, though supply chain forecasts indicate normalization expected by early Q2. Board partners have implemented significant price premiums across their custom-designed variants, with RX 9070 XT models commanding up to $200 above AMD’s reference pricing structure. While AMD has issued statements advocating for adherence to suggested retail figures, the company maintains a hands-off approach to partner pricing strategies, acknowledging the market dynamics of premium component allocation.

The initial allocation bottleneck should resolve as manufacturing capacity scales to meet demand, potentially stabilizing both availability and price points by mid-April. Yeston, one of AMD’s longest-standing AIBs, has suggested that “now the supply is unstable, but we will restock every week. Please don’t be frustrated if you didn’t get it. The supply will become stable and continue to be available after April.” However, we still don’t understand how AMD is counting these sales. The company noted that the first wave has been sold, and that is likely their first shipment of Navi 48 SKU from TSMC. When TSMC ships more chips, AMD distributes them to its AIB partners for assembly. That could be the second wave. As these GPUs are ordered months in advance, AMD’s AIBs are likely already shipping the next wave of GPUs to retail stores.

Update 21:00 UTC: AMD clarified for Tom’s Hardware that the initial sales claim seems to be a mistake made by the original source, BenchLife. Reportedly no sales numbers were given out the event. The report page has seen seemingly deleted by BenchLife.

Source: BenchLife.info

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(PR) Argonaut Games Announces April 2 Launch of “Croc Legend of the Gobbos” Remaster

The wait is nearly over! We’re thrilled to announce that the highly anticipated remaster of Croc Legend of the Gobbos is launching April 2, 2025! Wishlists are open for PC on GOG.com—with Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox digital storefronts following soon. Croc’s back and he’s still got the moves! Croc Legend of the Gobbos is the heartwarming journey of an endearing, humble little crocodile equipped with only his iconic backpack and a wiggly butt as he platforms his way across a series of unique worlds by running, jumping, climbing, swimming and tail spinning on his quest to rescue his adopted family of Gobbos from the grasp of the evil sorcerer Baron Dante and his impish Dantini hordes.

With its broad appeal and groundbreaking creativity, the original game quickly became a multi-million selling platforming classic, and while the Croc Legend of the Gobbos remaster delivers an authentic gameplay experience that transports players back to the golden age of gaming, it also introduces a roster of modern updates including enhanced HD graphics, modern control mechanics with an updated camera, and retro video modes to recreate the gaming experience that charmed us in the 1990s.

Dive into a beautifully recreated world filled with vibrant colors, captivating landscapes, and playful challenges which will ignite your imagination. The Croc Legend of the Gobbos remaster offers an authentic blend of nostalgia and modern gameplay, ensuring a gaming experience that pays homage to the original while inviting a new generation to discover its timeless magic.
The game features 45 levels packed with enemies and bosses, spread across 5 different worlds including volcanoes, ice glaciers, underwater caves and even more…

The Crocipedia
With the cooperation of many of the original team members, Argonaut Games spent over a year tracking down a treasure trove of long-lost development materials in order to create a painstakingly curated digital museum featuring concept character and level designs, animation tests, game design documents, rare promotional merchandise, pre-release mixes of the iconic Croc soundtrack, and also created a series of documentary interviews with many of the contributors to Croc’s development. The Crocipedia is the perfect way for superfans and game historians alike to take a deep dive into the creative process behind the game and uncover the stories that helped shape Croc’s journey to become a gaming Legend.

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(PR) Western Digital Names Storage Infrastructure Executive Ahmed Shihab as Chief Product Officer

Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC) announced today that it has hired Ahmed Shihab as Chief Product Officer. Shihab, a seasoned expert in cloud storage needs and requirements, most recently served as Corporate Vice President of Azure Storage at Microsoft. In this role, he led the engineering and operations teams for Object and Block storage, driving the design and development of Microsoft’s cloud storage solutions. As Western Digital’s new Chief Product Officer, Shihab is responsible for leading product strategy and engineering as the company accelerates innovation and development of HDD products and solutions.

“Ahmed joins Western Digital at a pivotal time for the HDD industry with data generation, AI adoption, and the demand for scalable storage continuing to grow. His expertise will be instrumental in driving innovation and meeting the industry’s evolving needs,” said Irving Tan, CEO of Western Digital. “Given his tenure with storage and infrastructure design and development, Ahmed is the right leader to move Western Digital forward as we help our customers unleash the power and value of data.”

With nearly 30 years of experience across product design and business leadership, Shihab has consistently delivered on the needs of the business and customers through developing a culture of quality and agile execution. Prior to his tenure at Microsoft Azure Storage, Ahmed was Vice President, Infrastructure Hardware at AWS, where he led innovation and the building and operations of AWS’s compute and storage fleet. He also served as Vice President and Chief Architect of File Systems Group at NetApp and spent more than eight years at Xyratex, a cloud infrastructure company. Shihab holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic Engineering from the University of Southampton in England.

“Hyperscalers, cloud service providers, and OEMs are looking to Western Digital to provide them with the most cutting-edge HDD technology to grow their businesses,” said Tan. “With Ahmed’s leadership, our customers can expect even more from Western Digital’s legacy of creating innovative and reliable storage solutions at scale today and well into the future.”

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This Week in Gaming (Week 12)

Time flies and as we enter the latter half of March, we have a AAA release from a popular franchise that involves murder by another name. This is followed by a rather weird party game, a 33 player co-op game (good luck finding enough friends), some casual ski resort fun, an anime based game that appears to be related to chemicals and finally some alternative 20th century strategy gaming.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows / This week’s AAA release / Thursday 20 March
Become Naoe, a shinobi Assassin, and Yasuke, a legendary samurai, as you experience their riveting stories and master their complementary playstyles. As Naoe, use stealth to avoid detection and agility to confound your enemies. As Yasuke, strike your foes with lethal precision and power. Steam link

Party Club / Monday 17 March
Seat customers, serve drinks, and manage chaos with up to 4 players! Keep the peace by considering customer types while seating them. Survive disasters, handle quirky customers, and design the perfect venue to keep the party going! Steam link 33 Immortals / Tuesday 18 March / Early Access
33 Immortals is a co-op action-roguelike for 33 players. Play a damned soul, and rebel against God’s final judgment. Pick-up and raid, cooperate to survive hordes of monsters, defeat massive bosses, and face the wrath of God in a fight for your eternal life. Octohill Ski Tycoon / Wednesday 19 March
Octohill is a casual game about building and managing your own ski resort. Mark ski trails, connect them with lifts and watch your snowmobiles rushing to rescue those daring skiers who went a little too far. Steam link Bleach Rebirth of Souls / Thursday 20 March
Awaken the blade within you and reverse your fate in Bleach Rebirth of Souls! Engage in thrilling battles with powerful sword abilities and characters from this legendary anime franchise. Steam link Kaiserpunk / Friday 21 March
Build a city to rule the world in Kaiserpunk, a grand city builder blending production-focused city building with the world conquest of strategy games in an alternate 20th century world. Manage your city, grow industries, build a military, and defeat rivals to become the greatest empire. Steam link Also launching this week: MLB The Show 25 and Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land

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Split Fiction Proves Massively Popular During Launch Week, Sells Over 2 Million Copies On Steam

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Saturday, March 15th 2025

EA’s latest RPG, Split Fiction, launched to much fanfare from critics and gamers alike, with its unorthodox gameplay style and a focus on co-op setting it apart from other recent game releases. It seems as though this early launch success has carried over to financial success for EA and the game’s developer, beating out even the massively popular It Takes Two, which also came from Hazelight Studios. As of the time of writing, SteamDB reports that Split Fiction has garnered a peak concurrent player count of 259,003 players.

Hazelight Studios today also announced that it had sold over 2 million copies of Split Fiction in the game’s first week. For comparison, this is twice as many sales as the recently cancelled Price of Persia: The Lost Crown managed in the year since it released. Hazelight’s previous co-op hit, It Takes Two, peaked at just over 70,000 concurrent players nearly three years after its initial launch. Compared to other Steam games, Split Fiction currently sits in 51st place when it comes to peak concurrent player counts, just behind Rust but ahead of The Finals. It’s worth mentioning that Split Fiction is also a full price game, coming in at $49.99 on Steam, while the majority of the other games in the top 50 ranking are free-to-play.

Sources: SteamDB, Steam

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(PR) Ubisoft Summarizes Rainbow Six Siege X Showcase, Announces June 10 Release

The next evolution of Rainbow Six Siege was revealed today at the Siege X Showcase. Launching on June 10, Siege X will introduce Dual Front, a dynamic new 6v6 game mode, as well as deliver foundational upgrades to the core game (including visual enhancements, an audio overhaul, rappel upgrades, and more) alongside revamped player protection systems, and free access that will allow players to experience the unique tactical action of Rainbow Six Siege at no cost. Plus, from now through March 19, a free Dual Front closed beta is live on PC via Ubisoft Connect, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, giving players a first chance to play the exciting new mode. Read on to find out how to get into the beta and try Dual Front for yourself.

Dual Front
Taking place on an entirely new map called District, Dual Front is a new mode that pits two teams of six Operators against each other in a fight to attack enemy sectors while defending their own. Players can choose from a curated roster of 35 Operators—both Attackers and Defenders – that will rotate twice per season. During each match, two objective points are live at all times, one in each team’s lane; teams must plant a sabotage kit (akin to a defuser) in the opposing team’s objective room and defend it in order to capture the sector and progress towards the final objective: the Base. Sabotage the Base to claim victory, but don’t forget to defend your own sector, lest your foes progress faster than you and beat you to it.

For the first time, players can have attacking and defending Operators on the same team, opening up new possibilities for gadget combinations and ingenious tactics. Dual Front also allows respawning, creating more opportunities for strategic experimentation and mid-match adaptation. The expansive map (compared to existing Siege maps) is full of new angles to discover and flanking opportunities to exploit, and the neutral sector in between the two objective lanes offers a place to do just that, allowing players to roam freely and set up ambushes or reposition into the other objective lane to reinforce their allies. Furthermore, time-limited assignments will appear in the neutral sector and offer rewards to the team that completes them, creating another strategic moment to outwit and outplay your opponents.
The Dual Front beta is live now until March 19 on PC via Ubisoft Connect, PS5, and Xbox Series X. Players are not required to own Rainbow Six Siege to access the beta. Note that Dual Front will be permanently available only on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, as well as included in free access, when Siege X launches on June 10.

Siege X Core Improvements
The myriad upgrades, revamps, and additions coming with Siege X will not only affect Dual Front, but the core 5v5 game mode as well. Here’s a quick rundown of the extensive updates driving Siege forward.

  • Modernized 5v5 maps boast new lighting and shadows (including your own, so don’t give away your position!), with double the texture resolution and an optional 4K texture download on PC. Destructible materials have been revamped as well, enhancing the game’s signature environmental destructibility. At launch, five maps will be modernized – Clubhouse, Chalet, Border, Bank, and Kafe – with three more map modernizations coming each season.
  • Destructible ingredients offer new tactical opportunities in the environment. Red gas pipes will spout a progress-inhibiting jet of fire when damaged, and eventually explode with area-denying flames. Fire extinguishers will burst with a thick cloud of lingering smoke, concussing any Operator who happens to be close by. Metal detectors are now interactable and can be smashed or temporarily disabled with EMPs.
  • Rappel navigation has been upgraded with new motion capture so players can move more fluidly, sprint horizontally on rappel, and maneuver around building corners.
  • The audio overhaul is a complete rework of audio propagation and reverberation, better enabling players to gather intel about other Operators’ positions, movements, and actions.
  • A new communication wheel better facilitates non-verbal callouts, allowing players to place different pings in the environment to better strategize with teammates.
  • Weapon inspect allows you to take a closer look at the cosmetic customization of your weapon while in a match.
  • A new pick and ban system for Ranked matches will have teams make simultaneous choices to accelerate the process, and make a fresh round of choices when teams switch between attacking and defending sides, allowing for more strategic adaptability.
  • A new onboarding flow of tutorials and skill trainings will help players master the basics and get prepped for competitive matches.

Player Protection
Creating a safe and fair environment for players remains one of the Siege team’s top priorities, and they are building on recent successes in the fight against cheating and toxicity. Over the course of 2024, they tripled the size of their anti-cheat team, eliminated a number of cheat makers from the scene, and sped up anti-cheat response time by 150%. As a result, cheat reports are down 30% since this time last year.
With the launch of Siege X, the tools that the team has developed over the years—Cheat Detection, Mousetrap, QB, and Binary Hardening—will be unified under one name: R6 ShieldGuard. R6 ShieldGuard will unify the current anti-cheat initiatives and introduce new anti-cheat solutions, such as live security updates that don’t require scheduled maintenance and help inhibit cheat creation. Furthermore, anti-toxicity initiatives like the Reputation System will impact players’ access to certain playlists as the team forges ahead with the next generation of anti-cheat for Siege.

Free Access
Rainbow Six Siege will be free to access starting with Season 2 of Year 10 (it is currently Season 1—Operation Prep Phase). Players who take advantage of free access will have 10 Operators available from the start and can expand that roster to 26 Operators through in-game progression. Free access includes many of the more approachable modes of Siege, including Unranked, Quick Play, and Dual Front.

Upgrading to premium access will unlock Ranked mode and Siege Cup – providing the player has reached the required player level of 50 – and will immediately grant access to more Operators. If you already own Rainbow Six Siege, not only will you retain all of your previously unlocked content (game modes, Operator roster, inventory, progression), you will also receive exclusive veteran rewards to help show off your status as a thank you for being a part of the first ten years of Siege.

Rainbow Six Siege is available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC via Ubisoft Connect, Steam, and Epic Games, as well as with a Ubisoft+ Premium subscription.

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(PR) Ubisoft Releases Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Cinematic CGI Launch Trailer

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is just around the corner, launching on March 20 for Steam. To celebrate, the team released a new CGI trailer teasing Naoe and Yasuke’s motivations on their journey through feudal Japan. Check it out below. Wishlist Assassin’s Creed Shadows or pre-purchase it today! Everyone who pre-purchases the game will receive free bonus content, including the Thrown to the Dogs quest at launch, and the Claws of Awaji expansion when it releases later this year. You can also check all our recent Steam news, including more details about the Steam achievements and badges + trading cards available day one!

ENTER FEUDAL JAPAN
Explore the captivating open world of feudal Japan, from spectacular castle towns and bustling ports to peaceful shrines and war-ravaged landscapes. Adventure through unpredictable weather, changing seasons, and reactive environments. Become Naoe, a shinobi Assassin, and Yasuke, a legendary samurai, as you experience their riveting stories and master their complementary playstyles. As Naoe, use stealth to avoid detection and agility to confound your enemies. As Yasuke, strike your foes with lethal precision and power.

Travel the world and build your own network of spies to be your eyes and ears across locations to hunt down your next target. Along the way, recruit new allies with unique abilities to help accomplish your missions.
Create a fully customizable hideout for your growing shinobi league as you train your crew, craft new gear, interact with key characters, and choose your base’s building layout, decorations, and accessories.

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Oracle Plans to Use 30,000 AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs for AI Cloud

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Tuesday, March 11th 2025

AMD’s Instinct MI355X accelerators for AI workloads are gaining traction, and Oracle just became one of the bigger customers. According to Oracle’s latest financial results, the company noted that it had acquired 30,000 AMD Instinct MI355X accelerators. “In Q3, we signed a multi billion dollar contract with AMD to build a cluster of 30,000 of their latest MI355X GPUs,” noted Larry Ellison, adding that “And all four of the leading cloud security companies, CrowdStrike, Cyber Reason, Newfold Digital and Palo Alto, they all decided to move to the Oracle Cloud. But perhaps most importantly, Oracle has developed a new product called the AI data platform that enables our huge install base of database customers to use the latest AI models from OpenAI, XAI and Meta to analyze all of the data they have stored in their millions of existing Oracle databases. By using Oracle version 23 AI’s vector capabilities, customers can automatically put all of their existing data into the vector format that is understood by AI models. This allows those AI models to learn, understand and analyze every aspect of your company or government agency, instantly unlocking the value in your data while keeping your data private and secure.”

AMD’s Instinct MI355X accelerator introduces the CDNA4 architecture on TSMC’s N3 process node with a focus on AI workload acceleration. The chiplet-based GPU delivers 2.3 petaflops of FP16 compute and 4.6 petaflops of FP8 compute, marking a 77% performance increase over the MI300X series. The MI355X’s key advancement comes through support for reduced-precision FP4 and FP6 numerical formats, enabling up to 9.2 petaflops of FP4 compute. Memory specifications include 288 GB of HBM3E across eight stacks, providing 8 TB/s of total bandwidth. Production timelines place the MI355X’s market entry in the second half of 2025, continuing AMD’s annual cadence for data center GPU launches. By second half, Oracle will likely prepare data center space for these GPUs and just power them on once AMD ships these accelerators.

Source: Oracle Earning Transcript

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(PR) Level-5 Details Recent Studio Restructuring, Following Keiji Inafune’s Mid-2024 Exit

Hello, this is Akihiro Hino, CEO of LEVEL5. For LEVEL5, 2025 is both a year of challenges and a year of great strides forward: yes, we are set to release three major titles! I know that many of you may be wondering: “Will they really be released on time? Won’t there be delays again?” To address these concerns, I wanted to create a space where we could regularly update players on the progress of our game development. Throughout this journey, there will be exciting breakthroughs, but also unexpected obstacles. I want to use this blog to share as much as possible about what’s happening behind the scenes—both the good and the challenging. More importantly, I hope that by doing so, we can move forward together with our fans, step by step, toward the completion of all our games.

Of course, not everything can be shared publicly. That said, I still want to convey my thoughts and experiences from the process with everyone—even if only on a personal level. For moments like these, I plan to use this blog as a way to share updates from a more “unofficial” point of view. It might sound a bit strange for a company president to say “unofficial,” but the reality is that my perspective as the CEO and my perspective as a creator can sometimes be very different. In such cases, I want to walk that fine line and share as much as I can with our players, making the lead-up to these games exciting rather than just a long wait. I appreciate your support, and I hope you enjoy following along!

Fantasy Life i: A Bold Evolution!
Fantasy Life i is now in its final stage of development! All game data has been completed, and we are currently making the final balance adjustments. Compared to the version shown at Tokyo Game Show 2024, it has become even more fun. After release, I’d love to jump into online play and enjoy it together with everyone! I believe that once you try the full version, you’ll find yourself thinking like: “Oh? This is even more fun than I expected!” → “Wait, this is seriously amazing!” → “Wow?! So many things to explore!”
In terms of content volume, this is the largest Fantasy Life game yet in every aspect. I apologize for the delay in the release, but this extra time has allowed us to bring full multi-platform support, Cross-Save (so you can carry your save data across different consoles), and Cross-Play (letting players on different platforms enjoy online multiplayer together). We’ve also made major UI improvements, ensuring a more polished and seamless experience. Now, we’re finally bringing this game to completion in the best possible form. Please look forward to it!

Behind this Project…
In mid-2024, Fantasy Life faced an unexpected challenge. At that time, producer Keiji Inafune left the company, and we had to reassess and restructure the project. Meanwhile, internal test players had given the game harsh evaluations, making it clear that major revisions were necessary. In response, I decided to take on the role of producer, shifting the core development team from Osaka to our headquarters. While the Osaka team had been dedicated from the start, the project evolved into a collective effort across our whole company—with developers from Fukuoka, Tokyo and beyond, we were able to significantly strengthen our development capabilities. This restructuring allowed us to expand the team and create an environment where we could focus on fine-tuning the game’s quality right up until the very end.

From that point onward, we undertook a complete overhaul of the game: adding open-world exploration and parkour-style actions, restructuring the system’s progression flow, improving the core mechanics, and refining the scenario to be even more emotionally impactful. Thanks to the solid foundation of the game’s core mechanics, these additions didn’t just fit in—they enhanced what was already great about the game, making the experience significantly more enjoyable. The improvements received high praise from our internal testers too, marking a major milestone: Fantasy Life i was finally nearing completion after its long development journey. For us, watching Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka (and Hokkaido, too!) come together as one to push the game’s quality to a higher level was a powerful reminder of the true joy in creating a large-scale game. The day that we can deliver the ultimate Fantasy Life experience to all of you is almost here! Get ready for it!

Inazuma Eleven V: Release Date & Final Specs Announcement Coming Soon!
Next up, let’s talk about Inazuma Eleven V, our next big release. And honestly, we’ve gone all out with this one! There are so many features packed into the final version that if we tried to fit them all into a promotional video, it would be way too long. So, we decided to host a special showcase instead. We’re calling it “Inazuma Eleven V Heroes Showcase 2025,” and it will be streamed on April 11th—which can be read as “Good Eleven Day” (Yo-i Eleven Day) in Japanese, haha! Internally, we originally referred to this as the “Final Specs Presentation,” and that’s exactly what this showcase is: a full rundown of the official release date and everything included in the final version of Inazuma Eleven V. Don’t worry, though, we won’t be spoiling the story or any other surprises best experienced through gameplay! Also, pre-orders for certain platforms will become available not long after it. As for the release date, well…let’s just say it might slip just a tiny bit due to the ripple effects of Fantasy Life i. I’m sorry. But rest assured, we believe the final date will be one that players can look forward to.

  • Stay tuned!

Maybe some of you are thinking: “They’ve already shown so much in the demo, what else could there possibly be?” To those with such concerns, prepare yourselves to receive a relentless, “training under a waterfall” style barrage of Kinniku Busters! (Anyone get the reference?) We’ve made major improvements to the gameplay systems revealed in the 2024 demo, refining every aspect so that both competitive players, who love the thrill of matches, and players who want to immerse themselves in character growth and story will be fully satisfied. Taking all that into account, Inazuma Eleven V is now officially the largest title in LEVEL5’s history. The final stages of development involve a truly massive workload, but the team is tackling it with full force, confident that this game will make a real impact both as an RPG and as an online competitive experience. We’re giving it everything we’ve got to bring this new era of Inazuma Eleven to life—so please hang in there just a little longer! Thank you!

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Dynabook Protege Z40L-N Launched With Lunar Lake Chops and Removable Battery

Dynabook recently made headlines with its X30W laptop, which was claimed to be one of the lightest laptops available on the market. Now, the company has introduced the Z40L-N laptop, also with Intel’s Lunar Lake-equipped internals and an impressively lightweight chassis. However, the Z40L-N packs yet another trick up its sleeve – the laptop boasts a battery that is relatively easy to replace, at least by modern standards. At its core, the Z40L-N laptop is powered by Intel’s Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake CPUs, up to the Core Ultra 7 258V with 32 GB of onboard memory. Clearly, the laptop packs plenty of computing horsepower, and the integrated Arc 140 V GPU should be enough for non-intensive workloads and casual gaming.

At the front, a 14-inch display with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 is on offer. With a sub-1-kg (~2.2 lbs) weight, the 14-inch laptop is effortless to carry around in a backpack, and the 56 Whr battery should provide for decently long runtimes away from the wall. As stated previously, the battery is not glued to the chassis, and is therefore relatively easy to replace simply by removing the back panel and then the battery itself. The base configuration starts at $1,699, and ships with the Core Ultra 5 226V CPU with 16 GB of memory and a 512 GB NVMe SSD. There are a plenty of ports on offer, including a selection of USB-A and USB-C (including Thunderbolt 4) ports, microSD slot, audio jack, as well as a RJ45 gigabit LAN port. For wireless communication, Wi-Fi 7 as well as Bluetooth is present. The higher-end variant with the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU with 32 GB of memory commands a $500 premium over the standard variant, which is to be expected.