The laptops at IFA 2019 are geared towards speed

It was a strange IF A for laptops. IFA is normally a very popular show known for its ads such as "the world's thinnest laptop"And while many new versions of general-purpose laptops had been released by companies such as Acer, Asus and Dell, the majority of them were in the ho-hum-Comet-Lake-refresh category – the existing designs integrating Intel processors of 10th generation, less interesting.

Instead, the big debut was for notebooks targeting a much smaller crowd, highlighted by a host of models featuring GPU chips for Nvidia Quadro RTX workstations. advanced graphic work to an extreme, and gaming laptops with 300 MHz refreshed screens, which for the moment only seem to be needed by esports players. IFA is not the first show that draws me into the minds of both groups.

Intel has made much of these updates to Comet Lake by promoting its Athena Project certification program for laptops with long battery life and fast awakening. But almost all the systems advertised with this certification already met the criteria, such as the Dell Inspiron 14 5000, the Dell Latitude 7400 2 in 1, Dell XPS 13 2- in-1, HP EliteBook x360 1040, HP EliteBook x360 1030 G4, HP EliteBook x360 830 and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. So, basically, Intel was promoting a sticker.

the innovative designs that Intel has related to Athena and Ice Lake are still not available, which may explain how quiet IFA was with regard to general purpose laptops; HP has not even brought anything new this year. We are essentially waiting.

Of course, we still have hyperbole because Acer has declared its Swift 5 "the world's lightest 14-inch notebook" at around 2.2 pounds (990g). Using the Intel 10nm Ice Lake i7-1065G7 Processor, it still retains discrete graphics with the MX250 (although the performance gains of the MX250 are not huge compared to the G7 level Iris Plus cards). Razer has also integrated this processor into its 13 inch Ultrabook Stealth Blade, but with only the integrated GPU.

The most innovative beginning was the Asus ProArt StudioBook One, which is part of the company's ProArt line of professional graphic gear (such as the 4K HDR monitor with outstanding sound with a maximum brightness of 1,600 nits) It was launched in conjunction with Nvidia's new Quadro RTX 6000 GPU chip, which the company claims gives a normal-sized laptop computer desktop-like performance without the need for limitation to keep it cool. To do this, it uses a new concept that places most of the components generating heat behind the screen to prevent them from burning your fingers or knees. Asus also brought its Screen Pad 2.0 from the ZenBook Flip 15 in the ProArt directory with the 17-inch StudioBook Pro X.

Acer has also dropped a ton of Quadro laptops as "pro" variants of its Concept D range for intensive graphic work with a new entry-level Concept D 3 model starting at $ 1,000. Like Asus laptops, they fall under the umbrella of The RTX studio of Nvidia.

Asus and Acer also happen to be the companies that bring us gaming laptops with 300 MHz displays; The fast refresh improves synchronization for games running at high frame rates, to avoid artifacts such as rips. Unless you are a sports player, it is rather rare to get a rate higher than 240 fps to exceed current screens at 240Hz. If you have enough leeway at this point, you will probably want to improve your quality settings a lot for many games. You can get the Asus ROG Zephyrus S GX701 with the display in October but the Acer Predator Triton 500 equipped with it is available now.

In addition, Asus now offers the ROG Zephyrus S GX502, Zephyrus M GU502 and Strix G G531 and G731 in a new ice blue very original but interesting.