Intel’s launching a notebook next year. They… don’t normally do that. Called the NUC M15 (NUC stands for Next Unit of Computing), the machine is what’s known as a whitebox laptop. Basically, Intel is going to let smaller companies brand and sell these machines, driving competition with the bigger manufacturers without needing the R&D budget that Dell and HP have.
This is the NUC M15
The project — formerly known as ‘Bishop County’ — isn’t exactly outlandish, even if Intel’s not exactly known for creating its own (complete) hardware. But, based on the specs that the M15 features, maybe they should.
The NUC M15 will launch with two variations — one will include a Core i5-1135G7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, Intel’s WiFi 6 AX201 and a single m.2 NVMe SSD slot (for those SSDs that look kinda like a stick of RAM). The larger of the pair has the same WiFi and storage slot but includes a Core i7-1165G7 and 16GB of RAM. The storage options are intended to be decided by the company selling these whitebox machines and they’ll probably vary heavily based on the final price.
No matter what the final internal configuration, they’ll each feature a 15.6in display and a 73W/hour battery that should offer up to sixteen hours of video playback before conking out. In terms of ports, Intel’s including USB-A, Thunderbolt 4 and headphone options.
Pricing isn’t known, yet, because you won’t be able to buy these from Intel. But, for example, Incredible Connection might buy a bunch, populate them with drives and its own packaging and then set a price for ’em. So we’ll only know what pricing is when (and if) these become available here. And that’ll be some time — the NUC M15 will become available from Intel’s various partners in 2021.
Source: The Verge