Two New Laptops: Galaxy Book Ion & Flex still no SGB12 update

That's a great piece of news. Thanks @desertlap! Do you happen to know if they will release the 16GB RAM version in US?Most of the listings out right now for US only show 8GB while listings in other countries show 16GB. I hope they don't limit to 8GB again like they did with Samsung Notebook 9 Pen in 2019.

 

I think that's still TBD though we've heard very limited numbers of configurations and likely no BTO at least initially. That's mostly due to disruptions in the supply chain because of the pandemic and Samsung will be one of many affected.

 

With the global economy tanking thanks to this corona circus, the prices of multi-media tech on eBay seems to be going up (a lot) and releases of new hardware are experiencing delays. There is, however, one seller currently moving a handful of used N9P 15's for around $850 USD per, but every other listing is asking for "New At BestBuy" prices, -while BestBuy isn't even selling them anymore. Old models are no longer in stock, and new models not yet released. So.., the world can only obtain scraps and the one or two open boxes available in the whole of North America.

I realized that to replace my N9P would cost an arm and a leg, and possibly black marketeering beyond eBay.

So, I very much hope you're all happy with your current pen computer -and that it has some decent life left in it, because the days of cheap and easy replacements may be winding down.

 

I'm surprised that there hasn't been more coverage of this in the tech blogs, but it will be a major issue in the next few months.

On most of our price lists from component vendors, along with pricing there is projected delivery times associated with them. Typical (because of volume) they will say 10-30 days. Virtually every day we are seeing more and more of those listing shift to "contact us for current information".

Apple probably better than any other company more tightly controls and manages their supply chain and in the short term they have already secured the components fro the recent releases. However they will be affected eventually as well. I think the rumors of the delay in the mini LED iPad Pro is but the first indication of that.

 

I also would chalk that up to the massive “work from home” shift. External Webcams for Zoom meetings are very hard to find....they sold out almost instantly.....but given how every Laptop more or less has a webcam built in....I’m sure many people plunked down and bought a laptop for that reason alone. Monitors have also been flying off the shelves (at least at my still open local staples) as more people embrace multi-monitor usage as they work from home....A spare/secondary laptop up and running in some cases can be more intuitive and useful then having a second monitor outright.

 

Now Galaxy Book Flex Alpha is going on sale in South Korea tomorrow. https://www.sammobile.com/news/galaxy-book-flex-alpha-around-corner-pre-sales-live-korea/

This was supposed to be the cheaper cousin to Galaxy Book Flex with an Active Pen, but from the pictures it looks like they modified the design and it now has a siloed pen. Granted that pen could still be active and probably charges when put in the slot like Lenovo's pen, but its hard to tell. Maybe they did add the s-pen even to their cheaper brand.

 

That's definitely an S-Pen. Go Wacom!

But it also looks like there's only a 13.3" version. That's a shame.

 

I'm hoping that this virus thing is going to fizzle out in a few weeks. It simply wasn't the plague everybody was hoping for; Just hype, perception management, too many nurses and docs jammed into bottleneck facilities and a bunch of sadly departed folks who had pre-existing conditions. You can only run a crisis for so long without an actual crisis. Otherwise healthy working-age people need to be dying in droves, bleeding from their eyes in order to keep that sort of thing going.

Hopefully the delay in production chains will be more akin to that time when a natural disaster wiped out that chip fabrication plant supplying most of the memory to the whole world. Likely longer and more broad spectrum, since it'll take a lot more energy to re-start the economy, but I'd imagine we'll still be able to engage in tablet talk over the coming months.

 

I'm sorry, thatcomicsguy, but I'm going to politely disagree with you here as a public service. The reason we've "only" had 50,0000+ deaths from it in the US alone in the last 4 weeks is because we're all cooped up in our houses. Just ask the 16K that died in NY, with the flood of bodies in mass graves. If people are complaining that it's not a real crisis, then that means they have the luxury of science and social distancing doing its job. If we come back to this subject in a year, and death totals have never soared over the winter, then I would be happy to be proven wrong at that point.

And yes, it looks like a Wacom pen in the Alpha. I also wish they'd make a 15.6" one too.

 

That was much to polite Steve B. I myself am truly embarrassed by a fellow Canadian uttering such Trumpian comments.

Terry