Intel's new laptop is designed to help small companies take on HP And Dell

Gandalf_The_Grey · Nov 19, 2020

The NUC M15 is a premium productivity laptop meant to compete with the XPS and Spectre computers of the world.

Intel is launching a new laptop. Yes, that’s right, Intel itself has a new laptop that it designed in-house and will be selling through various partners early in 2021. The NUC M15 is the latest computer in the company’s expanding Next Unit of Computing line, which is best known for making tiny desktop PCs.

You won’t actually see Intel’s name stamped on the lid, however. That’s because Intel is essentially supplying this laptop to boutique shops that will equip it with various storage configurations and brand it themselves (a process known in the industry as “white labeling”). This isn’t the first time Intel has done this: a little over a year ago, it produced the MAG-15, a gaming laptop that was sold by a number of smaller brands across the world, including Schenker in Europe and Eluktronics and Maingear in the US.

The NUC M15 is a different beast, however. Instead of targeting a gaming enthusiast crowd that is looking for impressive performance and cooling for an attractive price, the M15 is very much a premium productivity laptop. It’s got a 15.6-inch, 1080p IPS display (available with or without touch), a 73 watt-hour battery that Intel claims is good for up to 16 hours of use, and Intel’s 11th Gen Core i5-1135G7 or i7-1165G7 quad-core processor. Instead of a discrete graphics card from Nvidia, the M15 uses Intel’s Iris Xe integrated graphics. You’ll be able to get it with 8 or 16GB of RAM (soldered, so not upgradeable after purchase) and a variety of storage configurations, depending on which brand is selling it.

All of that is packed into an aluminum unibody that’s 14.9mm thick (0.59 in) and a stout 3.64 pounds (1.65 kg). The fit and finish are right up there with what you’d expect from a premium laptop, even if the visuals are a bit boring. (Intel says is it using Tongfeng as its manufacturing partner for the M15, the same one it used with the MAG-15.)

A standard, well-spaced chiclet keyboard is centered under the display with a large glass Windows Precision trackpad just below it. There are two Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 Type-C ports, two USB-A 10Gbps ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a full-size HDMI port along the sides. The two USB-C ports are on opposite sides, and you can charge from either one of them, which is convenient. The only thing that’s missing is an SD card slot.