There are just two models with AMD and HiDPI displays:
Microsoft Surface Laptop 3,
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. It seems that the laptop market simply ignores AMD's mobile CPUs for middle-, high- end laptops.
Not HiDPI, but the ThinkPad T14 AMD is a pretty good business laptop with AMD Ryzen 7 Pro. Also with extensible memory and replaceable NVMe SSD as a cherry on top. There is also the less extendable but slimmer T14s.
Source: I own a T14 AMD. I am pretty happy with it after 13 years of MacBooks and returning a MacBook Air M1. With 8 cores it's fast for development and the fan is not very loud (nowhere near as loud as Intel MacBooks),
I recently received the ThinkPad P14s AMD (same as T14) that I ordered back in November. I only paid about $800 US for this, with some corporate discounts that most people can easily find. Comparing it to my Macbook, I'm pleasantly surprised. It's only 1080p, but I really don't mind it at all because it's matte instead of glossy. And the keyboard is pure bliss compared to just about anything.
> with extensible memory and replaceable NVMe SSD
Not only that, but there is a WWAN slot that you can add an additional NVMe drive to. You can find 512GB 2242 form factor drives on AliExpress for about $50. There are 1GB ones for about $100. That's my current experiment. Hoping to dual boot Windows and Linux.
But this thing has an ethernet port. In 2021. And all the other ports you'll ever need. Mine came with an Intel Wi-Fi 6 card installed in a slot which would appear can be upgraded or replaced as well. Just insane utility. I even like the soft feel of the case more than the cold aluminum of the Macbook.
Lenovo does not sell ANY AMD-equipped Thinkpad in Spain as of right now because they are all sold out [1]. The Ryzen 7 version in particular was sold out a mere 1 week after launch and hasn't been available since.
To add insult to injury, they have announced 5 new thinkpads (X1 Titanium Yoga, X12 Detachable, X1 Yoga Gen6, X1 Nano, X1 Carbon Gen9) but all of them are intel-based. [2]
How is Linux with it now in 2021. I'm currently not needing a new laptop, having the T25 and just replaced a US keyboard to it, it'll be great for the next 10-15 years.
But, if I need a laptop from the company, I'd definitely look into the AMD series of ThinkPads, if I could get a good Arch Linux experience with it.
Yeah I think the OEM landscape is rapidly evolving for AMD.
Before Ryzen 4000 / 2020, you could pretty much only get budget laptops with relatively cheap chassis, abysmal screens (1366x768!), low-end graphics, spinning disk HDD, that sort of thing.
Starting in 2020 Ryzen 4000 you started to get reasonably good 1080p Ryzen laptops, but they seemed quite artificially limited to RTX 2060, rarely over 300 nits, often 16GB or lower, no more than 144Hz in most cases. If you'd shuffle over to Intel, you'd find RTX 2080, 500 nits, 32GB, 300Hz screens, and QHD/4K.
Already in 2021 we're seeing (announced) QHD screens, up to 360Hz, RTX 3080, 32GB.
(I've been looking for high refresh and prefer gaming laptops, so I'm less clear on what's available in business laptops with 4K, etc.)
Even during the Ryzen 2000 generation you could find reasonably priced laptops with 1080p screens, though the compromise would be a tiny SSD or spinning rust.
I'm wondering at this point whether it's TSMC supply constraints. Intel still wins in sheer number of fabs producing their product. If you can't actually get enough AMD chips to ship your laptop...
Design is a pipeline and updated models are a large component of the pipeline.
AMD CPUs weren't really compelling for high end in mobile until the Zen2 Ryzen 4000 APUs released last year. There weren't a lot of high end models to update to put that in, so it took a while to get those chips into nicer models.
TSMC supply limitation and pandemic induced demand for computing devices doesn't help.
This probably comes off way off base but it's worth mentioning that Apple's new MacBooks also offer greater perfromance than most Ryzen 4000 chips (faster than all in single core, faster than most in multi) while offering pretty HiDPI stuff. Granted no Linux or W10. So the market clearly is there for them to hit.
