NEC launches 15.6-inch Lavie laptop with mysterious Ryzen 7 4000U Extreme Edition APU

Back in May, some 3DMark database entries regarding unannounced low-power Renoir U-series APU models were spotted, and it looked like these could be a step-up from the Ryzen 7 4800U. The database entries mentioned a Ryzen 4900U SKU, as well as a Ryzen 7 Extreme Edition model, both having slightly higher boost clocks compared to the Ryzen 7 4800U. Apparently, these two unannounced versions were one and the same model, with AMD seemingly getting ready to launch the Ryzen 7 Extreme Edition later this month, as the mysterious APU was recently mentioned as a prominent feature for the freshly announced NEC Lavie N15 laptops.

Japanese OEM NEC is now offering the Ryzen 7 Extreme Edition APUs only with the top-of-the-line Lavie N1585 models. To emphasize the benefits of the new APUs, the OEM provides a series of internal benchmarks to show the performance gains of the Ryzen 7 EE over the previous gen Ryzen 7 3700U and Intel’s i7-8565U. All multi-threaded workloads depicted in these tests point to performance gains close to 100%.

As for the laptop specs, the Lavie N1585 comes equipped with a 15.6-inch 1080p screen, while the APU is coupled with 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB NVMe SSD. Also included are a silent keyboard and the Yamaha AudioEngine with two 2 W speakers. Due to the included Vega 8 iGPU, NEC believes this laptop can also be utilized for light gaming. Surprisingly enough, there is no Wi-Fi 6 support, but Bluetooth 5 connectivity is provided along with ports like USB-C 3.1, 2x USB-A 3.0, GbE jack and audio jack, plus an HD cam with face recognition features.Battery life is estimated around 6-7.5 hours and system weight is around 4.8 lbs.

The Lavie N1585 will go up for sale in Japan on July 16 for 204,800 Yen (~US$1,900, probably closer to US$1,000 if launched in the U.S., as the Japanese prices are notoriously inflated).