System76 developer here. We do offer several AMD option on our Thelio line (and they're less expensive than the corresponding Intel options, generally speaking).
Most vendors will likely wait for the Zen 2 mobile offerings before choosing to offer AMD lineups. There are some right now using Picasso (Lenovo has several), but it’s a smarter play to wait for the better chips that more closely compare to consumer expectations for mobile devices next year. I believe it’ll be worth the wait.
I’m personally hoping/waiting for a Zen 2 system with full fledged USB 4 support. If newer Bluetooth and WiFi can be included, that would be awesome. Maybe a Radeon dGPU, too.
I completely understand how the current AMD APU chips are not necessarily competitive in compute or in energy efficiency (as mroche points out).
Almost all of my company's engineers develop in Linux, and several have requested System76 laptops. The frequent clunkiness and caveats around switchable graphics that we've experienced from other OEMs has led us to purchase those laptops without dedicated/switchable graphics just to avoid potential headaches.
Just to put a thought out there: If the upcoming Renoir APU line is as performance-competitive as it is hoped to be (Zen 2 plus slightly-upgraded Radeon Vega graphics), we would likely make future laptop purchases seeking that hardware. It would be great to be able to still purchase them from System76, but I do understand that is several years away.
Either way, you guys are fantastic. Please keep fighting the good fight!
That's very encouraging to hear! I hope that this does end-up extending to your laptop line. At least you're participation in this thread means S76 knows HN folks are paying attention to this detail.
eg https://altex.ro/laptop-asus-zenbook-14-um431da-am030-amd-ry...