Kernelcom’s Bold Move: A Laptop with An Old-School Twist

On the laptop market, there’s almost nothing truly unique left, and the company Kernelcom has introduced just such a device. It does, indeed, resemble some older Sony Vaio P laptops, but nowadays there’s nothing like it.

As can be seen in the photo, the Kernelcom laptop stands out with its form factor. It is equipped with an ultra-wide screen. More precisely, it uses a 12.5-inch diagonal panel with a 24:9 aspect ratio, even more elongated than the already quite familiar 21:9 monitors. The resolution is 1920 x 720 pixels, which is modest, but it’s a touch OLED panel, and it also has a 75 Hz refresh rate.

Another unusual feature of the novelty is the mechanical keyboard. Laptops with such a feature exist on the market, but these are usually large gaming models, and here is a very compact solution. As you can see, due to such a keyboard, the laptop’s lid attaches not to the base itself but to a protruding frame, as the keys of such a keyboard are much higher than usual.

Regarding specifications, here too everything is quite intriguing. There is a basic model, expectedly based on the “atomic” Intel Processor N150. Then there’s an older version equipped with a quite powerful Ryzen 7 8840U APU, which, as we recall, offers a powerful Radeon 780M iGPU. This means that you can also play games on such a laptop. Both versions have 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD, yet there are other differences. For instance, the basic one is equipped with a 38 Wh battery, while the older one got a 57 Wh. Furthermore, the basic model offers a set of ports from USB 2.0, USB 3.2 (x2), and USB-C 3.2, while the older model has instead USB4.

There’s more. The set of wireless interfaces is different too: Wi-Fi 6/Bluetooth 5.4 versus Wi-Fi 7/Bluetooth 5.4. The dimensions are identical: 321 x 140 x 36 mm, but of course, they weigh differently: 1.24 and 1.43 kg. As for prices, the basic version within the Kickstarter campaign is sold for just $290, and the older one can be bought for $590. In retail, prices will be $390 and $790, respectively.