In the Ryzen 7000 series, so far, there’s not a single 7440U-based laptop. The 7540U laptops are also not available, maybe except for the HP Pavillion Plus 14". There’s also Framework, but it isn’t available everywhere in the world. The new Thinkpad E14 Gen 6 and E16 Gen 2 (AMD) came out, and I’ve been so disappointed by their choice of upgrading from 7030 to 7035, and not the 7040. Similar story for other manufacturers.
In the Ryzen 8000 series, there’s news of a few 8040 devices out from Acer, Asus, and a few other competitors - mostly in the form of heavy workstation and gaming laptop form-factor. Again, they’re too expensive, and not available all around the world. Again, no news about the cheaper 8440U and 8540U.
So far, there’s not any good budget, business-and-programming-specific modular, light-weight devices in 7040/8040 series. Devices that usually pair with an iGPU, have decently thin build and can be repaired. The only exception here is the Framework laptop, that’s it.
The Thinkpad E14 Gen 6 and E16 Gen 2 Intel edition released earlier, is also twice as expensive as the AMD version, and rightfully, with the latest tech - this applies not just to Lenovo, but also other manufacturers, where they provide AMD’s budget-friendly faux-7000.
What is wrong with the market not catering to modern, budget-friendly laptop with the latest Zen 4/RDNA3 combo?
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I wouldn’t exactly call the Framework budget friendly. Maybe in the long run if you plan to upgrade frequently, but certainly not the upfront cost.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad E series is pretty much a budget offering (relative to other ThinkPad product lines anyway), so they opt for budget processors, which are the Zen 3 parts you mentioned. If you want to have a fair comparison in terms of price to the Framwork, you’re looking at T or P series (T14s for example), which is available with a 7540U or 7840U.
The cheapest you are gonna find Zen 4 parts in are probably handhelds, which often use a 7840U or the equivalent Z1 Extreme.
