At IFA 2017, ASUS revealed two new Zenbook laptops in both 14 and 15 inch variants.
First up, this is the ASUS ZenBook Flip 14, what the company describes as the world's thinnest 2-in-1 laptop that sports a discrete graphics processor. It has a 360 degree flippable touch screen that supports the ASUS Pen active stylus, with relatively thin bezels.
With a Kaby Lake quad-core Intel i7 CPU, 16 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce MX150 d-GPU, at just 13.9mm thick, the ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 is certainly quite impressive.
ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 Specs
| Category | Feature |
|---|---|
| CPU | 1.8GHz 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-8550U quad-core (Turbo boost up to 3.7GHz) |
| Display | 14" Full HD (1920x1080) multitouch with 178˚ wide-view technology 100% sRGB / 72% NTSC color gamut NanoEdge design with 7.15mm-slim bezel and 80% screen-body ratio 300cd/m2 brightness, 1,000: 1 contrast ratio ASUS TruVivid direct-bonding technology |
| OS | Windows 10 Pro / Home |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce MX150 / Intel Graphics 620 |
| RAM | Up to 16 GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 |
| Storage | Up to 512 GB SSD |
| Connectivity | Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.2 |
| Camera | HD webcam |
| Ports | 2x USB 3.1 Type-A 1x USB 3.1 Type-C 1x HDMI 2.0 1x audio jack |
| Audio | Harman Kardon-certified ASUS SonicMaster dual-speaker audio system |
| Battery | 57Wh lithium-polymer with fast-charge technology (12 hours) |
With a 360 degree flippable hinge, the ZenBook can be used in tent mode for watching movies or browsing pictures, flat for drawing, and in a regular clamshell laptop style for word processing.
The ZenBook Flip 14 has an aluminium body with a 14-inch screen with a metallic, spun-metal finish, coming in both gold and gray variants. At 1.4kg, it's impressively light too. The ZenBook Flip 14 also comes with 12 hours of battery life with fast-charge technology, allowing you to hit 60% battery in 49 minutes of charge time.
The small bezels on the ZenBook give it a 80% screen-to-body ratio, and ASUS uses 100% sRGB color gamut and a 1000:1 contrast ratio to provide more "lifelike" colors. It also reduces blue light emissions by up to 30%, which the company says reduces eye strain. On the audio side of things, Harman Kardon certifies the ZenBook 14's SonicMaster audio system, that ASUS says reduces distortion.
For ports, the ZenBook Flip 14 has a full array of I/O features, including a USB Type-C port. There's a couple of USB 3.1 Type-A ports, a full HDMI port and a microSD card slot for maximum peripheral productivity.
Speaking of productivity, the ZenBook Flip 14 has 1.4mm key travel on a fully backlit keyboard with a glass-coated precision trackpad. The ZenBook Flip 14 also supports digital inking with ASUS' own stylus pen, which provides 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity (a significant climb down from the Surface Pro's 4096 levels). Windows Hello finger print logins are also supported, with power-on-authentication technology, allowing you to power up the device and sign in simultaneously.
You're not going to be able to do any heavy gaming on the ZenBook Flip 14's MX150 d-GPU, but it should be a boost over Intel's integrated solutions. We don't have pricing and availability just yet, but stay tuned for information as soon as we get it.
Reader comments
ASUS ZenBook 14 hands-on: The world's thinnest 2-in-1 laptop with discrete graphics
So it doesn't have power through USB-C?
And do you really get 4k at the lowest price point?
The nvidia graphics chip is soldered into the motherboard. The video says discrete graphics which does not makes sense!
Discrete graphics does not mean a removable chip. Discrete means separate from the CPU, versus integrated graphics which come as part of the CPU package. Soldered or not, the MX150 is separate from the Intel Core processor.
It's too bad these are Intel-based. I would seriously consider one if AMD were at the heart of it.