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In the middle of an advertising campaign against Apple and its M1 Macs, Intel now seems to be advertising its new 11th generation Core i7 processors with a picture of a MacBook Pro. The tricky part is that the product doesn't even exist in this form.
In a promoted post on Reddit Intel touts its Intel Core i7-1185G7 chip as the "world's best processor in a thin and light laptop." The chip is part of Intel's latest 11th-generation Tiger Lake processor family. A closer look reveals that the promotional image is a Getty Images stock photo showing a "man playing a computer game on a laptop." Despite a clumsy attempt to remove the Apple logo, the device in the image is still clearly a MacBook Pro, based on its I/O configuration and Touch Bar. The model's headphones are also clearly Beats by Dre.
Intel promotes a nonexistent product
Aside from the fact that customers can't buy a MacBook with Intel's 11th generation processor, Apple is also in the middle of transitioning its Mac line - away from Intel x86 processors and towards proprietary Apple Silicon chips. Apple's M1, by most accounts, outperforms pretty much all x86 chips currently on the market - including the Intel Core i7-1185G7. In other words, the combination of the slogan and the image may actually be accurate - but it's just not in Intel's favor. A marketing gimmick? No, not possible. So the Intel ad is probably just a marketing fail or a case of classic laziness. Whatever the case, the mistake is pretty embarrassing and is likely to cause a lot of ridicule. (Photo by tyukin.photo / Bigstockphoto)
