The Ryzen 5 7520U, Ryzen 3 7320U, and the Athlon Gold 7220U are all members of the Mendocino lineup geared towards the affordable mainstream laptop market. The new CPUs will be featured in the Acer Aspire 3, Lenovo IdeaPad 1, and the HP 17-inch Laptop PC and should become available this fourth quarter. The Mendocino lineup of CPUs is part of AMD’s “everyday computing” focusing on affordability over power. The more powerful Ryzen 7 CPUs should arrive throughout 2023, but for now, AMD is focused on building up its affordable CPU segment, which the maker hopes will gain a more significant foothold in the market. Although AMD’s overall market share has risen to 24.8%, the company hopes that offering up more affordable, less powerful options than the gaming-centric CPUs and GPUs they’ve become known for will help them grab a bigger piece of the consumer pie. AMD’s goal is obvious, and we applaud them for it. AMD’s senior mobile processor technical marketing manager, Don Woligroski, stated, “planning to redefine the everyday laptop” with these new chips. Notebooks with these chips will last up to 12 hours, though Woligroski said those are conservative estimates. “We will not be surprised if you start to see some laptops with double that battery life,” he said. “So for a very low-cost, entry-level system, that’s a game-changer.” All three new CPUs will be paired with the Radeon 610M GPU. Woligroski also said, “AMD’s new chips will outperform the older Intel Core i3-1115G4 on several benchmarks, including app launch speed.” This is great if you’re in the market for a low-cost laptop that you for light productivity and content consumption. These laptops seem perfect for students or as a secondary device. I can’t wait to take one for a spin and see how it holds up.
