Compal Trinity ODM reference design eyes-on

Here at its AMD’s Financial Analyst day, the company had a little demo area which is where we spotted this little number — an ODM reference unit from Compal stuffed with the company’s upcoming Trinity APU. Serving as a proof-of-concept, what you’re looking at is one of several units AMD is currently shopping to OEMs in order to demonstrate its APUs power-sipping frugality and outright performance. This particular design rocks a lower voltage variant of the APU (read: not the 35W part), allowing it to fit in a diminutive 18mm shell. Unfortunately build quality wasn’t exactly what we’d call up to snuff, as it was prone to a lot of flex when we handled it — significantly more than the existing flexing champion, Toshiba’s Z830. Yet, with it scheduled to cost roughly half as much (at roughly $500 or $600), you’ll have to decide exactly how much you value torsional rigidity. Other then that, viewing angles from the demo loop were good and it didn’t disappoint in the the connectivity department, with two USB 3.0 ports, mini-DisplayPort and HDMI flanking its left side, and audio jacks, another USB and Ethernet on along its right. Thin and lights are about to get a whole lot more interesting later in the year, which, frankly is a good thing — it’s about time Chipzilla got some worthy competition.