Lenovo AMD Laptops for Remote Learning

Remote learning is a big part of education today. Students can be just about anywhere—at home, under a tree, flying on an airplane—and still join their teachers in live, interactive, virtual classrooms. Or you can watch how-to videos on a long list of topics, from making crafts to advanced mathematics. All you need a web browser and a laptop, like a remote-learning AMD laptop from Lenovo.

Laptops with AMD processors deliver the performance and features you need to get the most from distance education. Recent AMD Ryzen™ processors—the company’s most popular designs—offer from four to 12 powerful cores for smooth multitasking, like when you’re logged-into today’s class discussion while also using other software (or even a video game). They’re built to be super-efficient, too—the transistors on some AMD models are just 4nm apart, so your requests zoom through each chip using less energy (letting you run longer on battery power). And the integrated AMD Radeon™ graphics available on AMD Ryzen™ processors aren’t just a more economical graphics solution, they give you the fast, steady frame rates you need to make sure each day’s online lesson goes glitch-free.

Keep reading to learn how Lenovo and AMD are working to create the best laptops for online classes and remote learners. We’ll give some tips on what to look for in an affordable laptop for remote education, and we’ll review two recent AMD processor families you should be sure to check out. AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Series Processors and AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series Processors are ready to support remote learners, and each line-up offers exciting new capabilities for tasks that utilize artificial intelligence (AI).

What’s the Best Laptop for Online Classes?

There are several things to look for first when shopping for a laptop for remote learning and distance education. You need to know your live streaming classroom session will play smoothly, that your battery will run long enough to stay unplugged when you need it, and that you’ll be able to keep multiple programs running alongside your current learning video. Think about it, even as you’re chatting with a remote instructor, your laptop might be checking for new email, downloading the movie you plan to watch later, and a dozen other things.

The best laptops for online classes and remote learning have these essential features:

• Fast, multi-core processor: When you join a virtual classroom, your laptop has to juggle the live video stream while you’re simultaneously using your web browser (possibly with several open tabs) and possibly a word processor for note-taking and other programs.
  Multi-core processors are, as the name implies, built for this kind of multi-tasking. When shopping, you’ll typically see chips with from four to 12 cores and base clock speeds¹ from 2.0 GHz (considered low today) to up to 4.0 GHz or higher.
• Steady, speedy graphics: Virtual classrooms are lively places. Instructors move around, show experiments, and switch between showing in-class camera views and on-screen slides. If you’re visuals lag, you’ll be left behind, making your laptop graphics a big part of a good remote learning experience.
  Today, you’ll find laptops with discrete graphics cards or graphics that are in integrated with the main processor (making them less expensive, usually). Both options work for remote learning, with integrated graphics being a popular choice for shoppers looking to save money.
• Extended battery life: What good is a mobile laptop if you can’t use it for long enough periods on battery power? Part of the answer is to buy a laptop with a long-lasting battery—the laptop specifications on Lenovo.com always include estimates of typical battery run-times.
  The other part is to be sure the laptop’s processor is highly efficient, using as little energy as possible to process tasks. How can you know a processor is built for long battery life? Look at the model name. AMD, for example, identifies its ultra-low voltage chips with the letter “U” at the end, as in AMD Ryzen™ 5 8640U.

A remote learning laptop also needs to have sufficient RAM (8 GB at a minimum, with some experts suggesting 16 GB) to keep a steady flow of data to and from your software programs. You’ll need a properly-sized screen—smaller displays are best for learners who are constantly changing locations, while bigger ones work best for learners who mostly stay in one spot. And pay attention to the quality of the laptop’s webcam, microphone, and speakers—you’ll use all of them regularly in your virtual classes.

Next, we’ll review the AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Series Processors and AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series Processors. They’re both strong choices for remote learners, and each of these recent AMD processor families have taken big strides in supporting AI-related tasks—which seem to be everywhere nowadays, right?

Remote Learning with AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Processors

Part of shopping for a new laptop for school is trying to future-proof—that is, buying a system that will support not just today’s latest features and software but tomorrow’s, too. AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Series processors are just such a solution, built to pack more computing power and integrated AI capabilities than any previous AMD laptop chip. Plus, Ryzen™ AI 300 Series processors are the first to sport integrated AMD Radeon™ 800M graphics.

AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 processors are such a leap from earlier designs that the company refers to them using a new naming convention, dropping (for these models, at least) the familiar pattern of 7000 Series, 8000 Series, and so on. Instead, AMD inserts “AI” in the name to indicate that the specialized neural processing units (NPUs) in these chips—NPUs handle AI workloads and other tasks super-efficiently—are more powerful than earlier designs. For remote learners, this means a Ryzen™ AI 300-equipped laptop is ready to support a new generation of AI-supported operating systems and software programs.

Lenovo offers multiple laptops with AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 processors. So let’s take a deeper look at what makes them so special:

• AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 processors are built on the incredibly efficient AMD “Zen 5” microarchitecture. Compared to earlier AMD designs, “Zen 5” fits more transistors on each chip die—they’re now just 4nm apart—and uses less energy to process tasks. AMD calls it “best in class” CPU, GPU and NPU performance,^2,3 giving you raw multi-tasking power at the library, in the lab, or back at the dorm room.
• The XDNA™ 2 NPU in AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Processors delivers up to 50 TOPs of AI processing performance.⁴ That might not sound like much—unless your last distance-learning class taught you that TOPS stands for “trillions of operations per second”—illustrating just how much work the Ryzen™ AI engine can handle.
• For intense visual work and gaming (sorry parents—even dedicated students play video games), AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Processors feature console-class integrated Radeon™ 800M graphics, with 33% more graphics cores than previous-gen AMD integrated solutions. In fact, when the chips were announced, AMD projected that the Radeon™ 800M technology would deliver “the best” gaming performance on so-called “ultrathin” laptops.⁵
• Extended battery life for longer time unplugged—and, after all, what good is a school laptop if you keep having to recharge it? That’s right. Even with all their advanced functionality, the super-efficient architecture of AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 processors help them consume less energy than many earlier AMD designs.
• For remote students on the go, there’s support for advanced connectivity options such as WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. [NOTE: Different laptop manufacturers may or may not activate all supported connectivity options, so always check the specs of any device you’re considering.]

Table 1 lists some high-level specifications of AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Series Processors. [NOTE: The list shows all AI 300 Series processors announced by AMD, but not every manufacturer builds laptops with every available processor. When laptop shopping, always read the specs of each model you’re considering.]

Table 1 Specifications of AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Series mobile processors

As you can see, there’s a lot for students (and parents) to love about remote learning using a laptop powered by AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 processors.

AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series Processors for Remote Learning

Millions of remote learners use laptops with AMD processors, which have been gaining fans for years and are known for offering a lot of processing power for the money. And with AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series Processors, the popular chip-maker set a new standard, with more models than ever offering the advanced neural processing called AMD Ryzen™ AI, built on AMD XDNA™ architecture. But before we get into the details, let’s talk briefly about how today’s processors work.

For the AI generation, the best processors—even affordable laptops for remote education—include both central processing units (CPUs) and specialized neural processing units (NPUs). NPUs accelerate your work by performing AI-related tasks locally instead going back-and-forth with a cloud-based tool. While the CPU speedily handles everyday tasks, the NPU does the intense parallel processing that makes AI so fast and amazing. And there’s deep coordination with your PC graphics, whether they're integrated with the CPU (a great way to save money) or performed by a discrete graphics processing unit (GPU).

AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series mobile processors offer awesome AI performance thanks to the on-chip AMD Ryzen™ AI NPU (available on select models), which delivers up to 1.6 times better AI processing performance than earlier AMD designs.⁷ So whether you're using a simple, AI-based photo editing app or taking a remote class in AI-enhanced software coding, you can do it faster and easier on a laptop with AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series Processor with AMD Radeon™ 700M Series graphics. And because the work is performed so efficiently, you’ll get incredible battery life to extend your time unplugged.

With a Lenovo laptop powered by AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series processors, distance-learning students can…

• Get it done: With a processor this efficient, you can multi-task virtually all day long—from just about anywhere.
• Get creative: Whether your jam is musical, visual, or multi-media, the AMD Ryzen™ AI engine is ready to help.
• Get the win: Lift your video gaming with massive boost speed (up to 5.2 GHz⁶ on AMD Ryzen™ 9 8945HS).

Best of all, there’s an AMD Ryzen 8000 Series Processor for every kind of distance learning laptop user. Just look for the sub-series ID at the end of each processor name. Chips in the HS-Series (AMD Ryzen™ 7 8840HS, for example) are built for aggressive PC users like those in science and engineering courses, or students who are also highly competitive gamers. U-Series models, such as the AMD Ryzen™ 5 8640U, still support advanced computing and gaming, but are built more for everyday users and deliver additional battery life and economy.

Which AMD Ryzen 8000 Series processor is right for you (or your student)? You can shop for one now. Or start your search by taking a quick look at the specifications shown in Table 2. [NOTE: The list shows every 8000 Series processor. But not every manufacturer builds laptops with every available processor. So when shopping, always read the specs.]

Table 2 Specifications of AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series mobile processors

There you have it. Whether you’re joining your virtual classmates in a remote lab experiment, drafting a term paper, or playing the latest AAA video game, laptops with AMD Ryzen™ 8000 Series Processors or laptops with AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 Series Processors can handle everything today’s students need to do—for class, for fun, and everything in between.

The information contained herein is for informational purposes only and is subject to change without notice. "Zen," "Zen 2," "Zen 3," "Zen 4" and "Zen 5" are codenames for AMD architectures and are not product names. (GD-122)

AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Ryzen, Radeon, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.