The Coronavirus pandemic prompted everybody to leave the “normal” behind and adopt a completely new lifestyle. With everyone moving to the work-from-home model, the demand for new computers, phones, and other gadgets skyrocketed, bringing another crisis to our doorstep — global chip shortage.

The world’s largest chipmaker TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), announced its quarterly results this week, posting a profit of almost US$ 5 billion. This marks a 19 percent rise in profit when compared to the previous quarter. The announcement is good news for the investors, but it also highlights how long the shortage will continue.

TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said that the company hopes to offer more capacity and meet the demand by 2023. That’s two years away. And that’s after gearing up to spend a whopping US$ 100 billion in the next three years to ramp up production.

American chipmaker Intel has been plagued with production issues for the last few years and recently disclosed that it would spend US$ 20 billion to set up two new facilities in Arizona, US. However, these production sites take time to come up and can’t be just switched on in a few months.

Things aren’t looking good

Even Nvidia isn’t very optimistic about a recovery from the chip shortage anytime soon. “Overall demand remains very strong and continues to exceed supply while our channel inventories remain quite lean,” the company said in its press release. “We expect demand to continue to exceed supply for much of this year.”

Nvidia also has a brand new challenge — the demand for GPUs has skyrocketed ever since Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies started their bullish run in 2020. Cryptocurrency evangelists are constantly on the lookout for new gear, further amplifying the chip shortage.

The current state of component availability looks grim, affecting everything from the availability of new graphics cards to processors to next-gen PlayStations and Xboxes. The ripple effects of the shortage are being felt by every technology company, including giants like Apple.

The last two years were all about folding phones, and Samsung has pretty much dominated the segment. Huawei and LG tried their luck but with limited success. Though, we often forget that TCL, too, has been in the race since the beginning and still has a lot of tricks up its sleeve like a rollable phone.

Alongside a slew of affordable phones, it unveiled a concept phone that can fold and roll, and it’s literally called — Fold n’ Roll. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary phone with a 6.87-inch screen, but it can be unfolded to reveal a much bigger screen measuring 8.85-inches diagonally. Finally, if you need more screen space, you can roll out another screen from the phone’s housing to deliver an immersive 10-inch tablet.

Being a concept phone, the brand hasn’t delved deep into its specifications, raw capabilities, and software integration yet. However, it did mention that it could sport a hinge mechanism that we haven’t seen in a smartphone before.

Although considering the design’s complexity, it’ll be hard to make the phone commercially available anytime soon. While LG has also shown off a similar rolling design, it’s improbable we’ll ever see it publicly now since the company has entirely left the smartphone market.

TCL no stranger to foldables

TCL has previously unveiled multiple folding concepts, and none of them have actually made it to the mass market. The brand is constantly working on new ideas and is keen on sharing them with the world. While it’s a long journey, TCL seems to be on the right track with its overall portfolio.

The budget and midrange segment is highly lucrative due to scale, ensuring that sales continue growing. Experimenting with new technology is usually an expensive venture, but it gradually pays off in the longer run. Xiaomi has previously followed a similar strategy with the Mi MIX series, and even though it didn’t work out immediately, the brand gained valuable experience for future premium offerings.

Watch: Rollable display smartphones are coming NEXT!

We all know Huawei’s struggles in the mobile department, but their other devices are still well-made and leading the charge now are their notebooks. The Huawei MateBook 2021 lineup, in particular, has plenty for people to choose from.

Here are some of what you’re in for.

Huawei MateBook D 15 2021 11th Gen

The Huawei MateBook D 15 2021 features a 15.6-inch IPS FullView display with a TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light Certification and TÜV Rheinland Flicker Free Certification. It also has a 180-degree hinge and is equipped with DDR4 RAM to support the 11th Generation Intel processors.

In terms of connectivity, the Huawei MateBook D 15 comes with Wi-Fi 6, a USB 2.0 port, a single USB 3.0 port, an HDMI port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB type-C port, and Bluetooth 5.1.

Huawei MateBook 14 2021 11th Gen

The Huawei MateBook 14 2021, on the other hand, also comes powered 11th Generation processor, paired with 16GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM and 512GB of internal SSD storage.

This variant has 2K FullView display with 90 percent screen-to-body ratio and TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light Certification. It also equips a 56Wh battery capacity for 11 hours of long battery life and 65W super-fast charging support.

Huawei MateBook X Pro 2021

MateBook X Pro 2021 is a high-end variant in its lineup. It features 3.9-inches IPS FullView touchscreen display with a 3K resolution, 3:2 screen ratio that creates panoramic viewing effect, and offers remarkable 91 percent body ratio.

The design of MateBook X Pro has a premium metallic lightweight of about 1.33 kg with 14.6mm thickness, brings a fingerprint reader on the power button. Huawei MateBook X Pro is also able to provide up to 11 hours of regular work on a single charge and comes with ultra-light 65 W pocket charger.

All these MateBooks carry legacy smart features like the Multi-screen Collaboration, FreeTouch, and the recessed camera.

Pricing and availability

All three MateBooks are available for pre-order. Customers who will purchase via the Huawei Store, Lazada or Shopee will also get a free Huawei GT 2e (Green) worth PhP 6,990 from April 16 until April 22, 2021.

Pricing are as follows:

MateBook D15 2021

11th Gen 16GB 512 SSD — PhP 52,999
10th Gen 16GB 512 SSD — PhP 42,999

MateBook 14 2021

11th Gen 16GB 512 SSD — PhP 64,999
10th Gen 16GB 512 SSD — PhP 46,999

MateBook X Pro 2021 — PhP 89,999