5G, foldable screens, many highlights in the PC market in 2020

The year 2019 that just passed was of great significance to the PC market. The PC, which had been "suppressed" for many years, has made new breakthroughs in both shipments and product forms.

According to statistics released by IDC, global PC shipments reached 71.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2019, a record high in nearly four years. Global PC shipments increased by 2.7% year-on-year, which was the first full-year growth since 2011. This also marks that the global PC market has officially entered a recovery state. Windows 7, which was discontinued in early January, will also become a catalyst for the laptop replacement wave in 2020, which makes us look forward to 2020.

▲IDC report on the global PC market in Q4 2019

Design: Full screen and thinness are the two major directions

First, let's talk about design. From 2017 to now, especially this year, the process of thinning and lightening laptops has been accelerating. First, the full-screen design reduced the size of laptops, and now major gaming laptops have also begun to design their own thin and light gaming laptops. The original "big, black and thick" laptops are rarely seen.

What is certain is that the lightweight and full-screen design that have been popular in the past three years will still be the main direction that the notebook industry will pursue in terms of appearance design in 2020.

▲Full screen and thinness are two major directions

The concept of full screen has been extended from smartphones and has become a popular element for notebooks to reduce the size of the body and improve the visual experience. Now, the body size of a 14-inch notebook is basically only equivalent to that of a traditional 13-inch product, and the size of a 15-inch notebook is the same as that of a 14-inch body. Even the 16-inch MacBook Pro released by Apple not long ago is only the size of a traditional 15-inch body.

In the gaming laptop category, thinness and lightness have also become popular, and we have even entered the "full screen" era. Mainstream gaming laptops such as ROG Gaming Laptop Strix 3 and Lenovo Legion all have ultra-narrow bezel designs.

Overall, for notebook products in 2020, thin and light body design and narrow-border full-screen will still be popular design elements that are highly sought after.

Hardware: AMD determines performance while Intel makes computers smarter

In terms of hardware platforms, AMD and Intel will face more intense competition in 2020. Intel has long been the mainstream in mobile platforms. However, in recent years, AMD's strong development has also put a lot of pressure on Intel.

In recent years, AMD has been doing very well in the CPU field. In addition to its increasing market share in the DIY market, AMD's Ryzen processor has also expanded its business to the mobile notebook market.

▲APU Ryzen series performs strongly

At this year's CES, AMD released the APU Ryzen 7 4800U and Ryzen 7 4800H, which use 7nm process and Zen 2 architecture. Among them, the Ryzen 7 4800U is a chip positioned as a low-voltage processor, but it has a hardware specification of 8 cores and 16 threads, which also means that thin and light notebooks will also have an 8-core configuration.

In terms of graphics, the first 7nm independent graphics card Radeon RX 5500M was announced in October last year, and the first gaming laptop equipped with this graphics card, MSI Alpha 15, is now on sale.

It can be seen that AMD has been following the performance route. Almost all mainstream OEM manufacturers have launched thin and light notebooks equipped with this series of processors, and even gaming laptops.

From this point of view, whether it is the thin and light notebook market or the gaming notebook market, AMD is eyeing it and intends to further expand its territory in the notebook market. Intel may face greater pressure.

▲Intel Athena Project

Compared with AMD, Intel is more avoiding the limelight and focusing on its achievements in AI. Although Intel launched the 10th generation Core processor code-named "Ice Lake" in August last year, which uses a 10nm process, it followed it up with the 14nm 10th generation Core code-named Comet Lake. The difference between two generations of processes for one generation of Core confirms that Intel is unable to keep up with the process.

Since Intel cannot compete with AMD in terms of performance, it focuses on improving the user experience. Intel's Athena Project, launched in 2019, will be launched in 2020. In addition to certain requirements for the specifications and designs of multiple notebooks, the biggest highlight is that it will greatly promote the improvement of heat dissipation in thin and light notebooks.

Intel will launch a heat sink + graphite sheet cooling design for Project Athena laptops. Traditional laptops use heat pipes to dissipate heat, which is relatively concentrated. The cooling technology developed by Intel chooses to replace the traditional cooling module with a heat sink and attach a graphite sheet to it. The graphite sheet is placed behind the screen to enhance heat dissipation.

Moreover, the notebook hinge also needs to be redesigned to allow the graphite sheet to pass through to conduct heat. With the new design, it is easier for suppliers to launch fanless notebooks and further reduce the thickness of notebooks. With the support of good heat dissipation design, future thin and light notebooks will have a better balance in performance, battery life, and AI.

Innovation: Folding screen PC is still in the trial stage

In 2019, foldable screen mobile phones stole the limelight, and at the same time, PCs also followed suit. Lenovo and Microsoft both launched foldable screen PCs.

Of course, traditional laptops are also foldable, but they have a screen on one side and a keyboard on the other. But foldable laptops have screens on both sides, and can accomplish completely different things and tasks. In fact, we have seen this technology on foldable smartphones before, which also uses a single screen to fold or unfold.

▲ThinkPad X1 Fold

For now, the device that is closest to reality is Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Fold, which is equipped with a 13.3-inch OLED screen with a screen ratio of 4:3, which means that its volume after folding is smaller than most traditional laptops, just like a book. It is also equipped with a stylus. When the screen is fully unfolded, its display area is much larger than that of a traditional 13.3-inch notebook. In addition, it also supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 and 5G SIM card.

Although it's still large by tablet standards, it folds up to become a very small laptop.

▲Dell's concept machine Concept Duet displayed at CES

Dell's concept machine Concept Ori is also a new folding screen notebook product, but the folding method of this product is slightly different from the X1 Fold. It uses two independent screens connected by a special hinge and is equipped with a 13.4-inch flexible screen. After this book is folded, a virtual keyboard will appear at the bottom. The overall experience is more convenient, which is somewhat similar to Microsoft's previous Surface Neo.

It can be predicted that foldable screens will definitely be the trend of PC development in the future. At the same time, this new form will cause a stir in the notebook market.

Of course, whether it is Microsoft, Lenovo or Dell, they must be extremely cautious when developing foldable screen notebooks. Although traditional laptops have been successful, if the company rushes to launch this new form factor, no one can say that there will be problems. Lenovo once urgently stopped the launch of the X1 Fold.

▲ Samsung Galaxy Fold encountered many problems at the beginning of its launch

I believe that all laptop manufacturers have seen the difficulties that Samsung's Galaxy Fold series of foldable screen phones encountered when they were first launched on the market, including quality issues, unreasonable screen design and even high prices. These made the Galaxy Fold's first launch not very smooth.

So no one wants to repeat Samsung's mistake, which is why Microsoft announced the Surface Neo in October last year, but it won't be available until the end of 2020.

Although several products are conceptual products, they are all aimed at the future. The hinge design and lifespan of the folding part remain to be tested by time, but these are expected to be gradually resolved or improved with the evolution of technology and mass production of products.

As smartphones gradually turn to foldable screen designs, creating a stir in the entire industry, can foldable screen notebooks be favored by major OEM manufacturers? Of course, it depends on whether user demand and application scenarios can change significantly, so as a prospect, it is still worth looking forward to.

Connectivity: 5G connects mobile phones and PCs

Laptops supporting LTE are not unfamiliar to business users who pursue a mobile office experience. Compared with unreliable public WiFi and hotspots, the connection experience will be greatly upgraded after the laptop supports LTE.

▲5G is still some distance away from PC

Therefore, as 5G becomes more popular, 5G-enabled PCs are expected in the future. However, just like the folding screen, although the combination of 5G and PC is worth looking forward to, it may still be a gamble in the short term, as the 5G mobile phones next door are still struggling to become popular.

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In general, the PC market in 2020 will still be full of competition and bloody battles. All companies are actively planning for thin and light, business, gaming, and even "designer" notebooks that began to heat up in 2019. Therefore, the notebook market in 2020 will surely be more exciting.