Intel’s first Wildcat Lake laptops have hit retail, giving Job’s Mob’s cheap but borked MacBook Neo something unpleasant to think about.
The first Intel Wildcat Lake Core Series 3 laptops have entered retail, aiming straight at the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo. On paper, Chipzilla has a proper mainstream rival rather than another plastic slab with delusions of grandeur.
Chipzilla’s partners were expected to launch Wildcat Lake Core Series 3 machines this week. The first models have already turned up on retail shelves, led by the Honor X14.
The 14-inch Honor X14 uses the Intel Core 5 320 and looks aimed at buyers who want a capable laptop without selling a kidney to join the cult.
Any whiff of premium design usually shoved the price well beyond the mainstream PC segment. Wildcat Lake changes the pitch by giving OEMs a chance to build compact thin and light laptops with decent features and a nicer finish.
The Honor X14 packs the Core 5 320, a six-core chip running at up to 4.6GHz, with 6MB of cache, a 35W TDP and a two-core Xe3 integrated GPU.
It comes with 16GB of LPDDR5X-7467 memory, twice as much as the Neo. It has a 512GB SSD too, while the Neo starts at 256GB and tops out at 512GB.
Honor offers three USB ports, made up of one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C and two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports. It has HDMI, audio and PD/DP support through the Type-C port.
The X14 has a 60Wh battery, compared with the Neo’s 36.5Wh lithium-ion battery. Battery life claims will need proper independent testing before anyone starts engraving victory plaques. The Honor X14 measures 311.5mm by 215.5mm by 16.9mm and weighs 1.39kg.
The price is where things get interesting. In China, the Honor X14 is already listed for as low as 3,999 yuan, about €480, at JD.com. Honor’s official site lists it at 4,399 yuan, about €527. That works out to below $600 for the JD.com listing and about $645 officially.
A similar machine in the US could plausibly land at $599, putting it right in MacBook Neo territory. Cheaper $500 models based on entry-level Core 3 Wildcat Lake chips could make the comparison even nastier for Job’s Mob.
