NEC's LaVie Note Mobile 12.5" ultrabook weighs only 1.99 lbs

The lightweight LaVie Note Mobile is powered by Kaby Lake-Y CPUs that can run on passive cooling. (Source: NEC)

With the new LaVie Note Mobile, NEC manages to squeeze passively-cooled Kaby Lake-Y CPUs and batteries that could last 12 hours into an ultraslim chassis.

by Bogdan Solca, 2018/02/01

NEC does not update its notebook lineups that often, but when it does, the results are pretty impressive – at least on the portability side of things. The ultraportable LaVie family was introduced back in 2011 and NEC released a few improved models that concentrated on slim and lightweight designs in collaboration with Lenovo, but the newly announced 2018 LaVie Note Mobile is something else. Even though the CPU gets upgraded to the 2016 i7 Kaby Lake-Y models, NEC managed to raise the battery life up to 12 hours, at the same time introducing a fanless cooling system, which reduces the total weight to under 2 lbs.

The new LaVie Note Mobile ultrabook features a 12.5-inch non-glossy IPS display with 1920X1080 resolution and it is powered either by i5-7Y54 or i7-7Y75 dual-core/four-threads CPUs coupled with 8 GB of LPDDR3 RAM. The storage solution consists of one regular SSD with 256 GB capacity and an NVMe SSD with 512 GB capacity. Other notable specs include:
•   720p webcam
•   Wi-Fi + GbE + luetooth 4.1
•   2 x USB 3.0 Type-A ports
•   1 HDMI connector
•   SD card reader
•   audio jack
•   Yamaha AudioEngine + stereo speakers
•   fingerprint sensor
•   Windows 10 Home/Pro
•   pink/black/white color options
•   1.99 lbs weight

For now, the updated LaVie Note Mobile models are only available in Japan directly from NEC, with an MSRP of ~US$1330.