Tecno’s New MacBook Rival is Paper-Thin Despite Powerful Specs

Tecno Megabook S1 laptop was launched by the company this Wednesday. The company explains details about its flagship notebook at a global launch event alongside the Tecno Phantom X2 series of smartphones. The Megabook S1 is Tecno’s second entry in the laptop space; the Shenzhen-based manufacturer launched the Megabook T1 back in September. The laptop comes with a 12th Gen Intel processor and also packs 16 GB RAM and up to 1 TB SSD storage. The thin and light laptop weighs 1.35 kg, and sporting a magnesium alloy body. This configuration is expected to cost US$1600. The 35 W i7 CPU could be the 12700HL SKU. No Thunderbolt 4 connector here, unfortunately, but there is a miniSD card reader.

The launch promo does not mention the exact processor SKU, but, looking over the available Alder Lake mobile SKUs, this can only be an i7-12800HL or 12700HL with 6 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. It might be the latter, as the S1 chassis has an even thinner profile of just 0.53-inch and the weight is down to just 2.97 lbs. In any case, the processor is quite powerful for such a thin build and it is complemented by 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM plus up to 1 TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD storage.

Tecno Megabook S1 specifications, features

The Tecno Megabook S1 runs on Windows 11 out-of-the-box and sports a 15.6-inch display, with 3.2K resolution and 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio. The screen features up to 450 nits of maximum brightness, which is brighter in comparison with its predecessor, the Tecno Megabook T1’s peak brightness of 350 nits. The Megabook S1’s display panel also features a 120Hz high refresh rate and 100 percent coverage of sRGB colour gamut.

Other features include a 6-speaker sound system with DTS X Ultra certification, AI-powered webcam and dual mics, as well as NFC pairing with Tecno’s phones. There is also a 70 Wh battery. According to GSMArena, the MegaBook S1 will soon be released in select markets from Asia and Africa. The 512 GB storage model is expected to cost US$1500, and the 1 TB one should be available for US$1600.