Intel and AMD's combined work on the Kaby Lake-G hybrid CPU-GPU package is impressive. The combination already demonstrated considerable gaming capability in Intel's Hades Canyon NUC ultra-small gaming PC and promises to deliver similar performance in upcoming laptops. Dell's promoting its upcoming lineup of Precision 5530 2-in-1 mobile workstations, and buried in the press materials is a little nugget suggesting professional aspirations for those chips' integrated Vega graphics.
To date, every time we've seen the product names Core i5-8305G, Core i7-8705G, and Core i7-8706G, the phrase "processor with Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics" has followed. However, the verbiage in Dell's press materials for the Precision 5530 2-in-1 instead calls those chips "processor(s) with Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL graphics." We can't recall any mention of Kaby Lake-G and the term Radeon Pro WX in the same sentence. Given that Dell writes the chips' names unchanged, we suspect the difference between "Radeon RX Vega M GL" and "Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL" graphics processors comes down to differences in the driver packages. The Radeon IGP peeks and pokes at its own 4 GB of on-package HBM2 memory whether it wears RX or Pro WX badging.
Dell calls the Precision 5530 2-in-1 the world's smallest 15" 2-in-1 workstation. The machine's 360° hinge connects a 15.6" 1920×1080 or 3840×2160 slim-bezel multi-touch displays to a chassis containing an Intel Core i5-8305G, Core i7-8705G, or Core i7-8706G chip, up to 32 GB of 2400 MT/s DDR4 memory, and an NVMe SSD as large as 2 TB. Dell says the 1920×1080 screen has a 1500:1 contrast ratio, maximum brightness of 400 cd/m², 100% coverage of the sRGB color space, and wide 178° viewing angles. The only spec listed for the optional 4K display was an impressive 100% coverage of the Adobe RGB color space.
The screens support 10-point multi-touch input and work with an optional active pen with 4096 levels of pressure and tilt-sensing support. The keyboard has a maglev switch design that Dell says reduces overall key thickness. The camera supports Windows Hello biometric login.
The Precision 5530 2-in-1 measures 13.9" wide, 9.2" deep, and just 0.63" thick (35.3 cm x 23.4 cm x 1.6 cm) . The machine tips the scales at 4.36 lbs (2 kg), a figure that includes a 75-Whr battery. The included AC adapter supplies up to 130 W, which should be plenty to run the machine at full-tilt and get a reasonably-rapid charge simultaneously. The sides of the machine sport a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports for peripherals, external displays, and charging. Users can connect to Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth peripherals with Killer 1435 or Intel 8265 adapters.
Dell didn't have a launch date or pricing information for the Precision 5530 2-in-1 laptop, so we'll have to keep our ears to the ground for future details. The manufacturer says it will sell the machines with Windows 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5, or Ubuntu Linux 16.04 pre-installed.