Acer and Dell have already revealed their latest laptops and peripherals at IFA 2018, and now it's ASUS' turn in the spotlight. The company today took the wraps off of the latest refreshes to its popular ZenBook lineup, revealing new entries in the standard ZenBook, ZenBook Flip, and ZenBook Pro series.
ZenBook 13, 14, and 15
First up is the base ZenBook lineup, whose 13-inch, 14-inch, and 15-inch variants are all seeing a refresh. The biggest change with this year's models is that they feature a new "NanoEdge" display, bringing incredibly slim bezels on all four sides of the screen. According to ASUS, this gives the screen a "near-borderless viewing experience," packing a 95-percent screen-to-body ratio. A refreshed design also gives the ZenBook line the world's "smallest footprint in its class," according to ASUS.
Getting down to raw specs, ASUS has packed in Intel's latest 8th Gen Core CPUs with Gigabit WiFi, with Core i5-8265U and Core i7-8565U options available. Each model can also be equipped with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of SSD storage. On the graphics front, the 13-inch and 14-inch models offer discrete NVIDIA GeForce MX150 graphics, while the 15-inch model offers optional an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q.
All three models include a 3D IR camera on board, enabling quick login via Windows Hello. If you're interested in the 13-inch or 14-inch models, ASUS has included an interesting new LED-illuminated numeric keypad on the touchpad. The ZenBook 15, meanwhile, includes a standard physical numeric keypad.
The new ZenBooks are expected to launch in Q4 with pricing and exact availability to be announced at a later date.
ZenBook Pro
Also new to the lineup is a 14-inch version of the ZenBook Pro, which includes ASUS' interesting new ScreenPad tech. The ScreenPad combines the usual touchpad with a high-res, full-color 5.5-inch touchscreen that offers a novel, customizable second-screen experience for interacting with your PC. ScreenPad features its own set of apps that can switch based on the context of what you're currently working on, and it is closely integrated with select desktop apps like Word and Excel.
Once again, Intel's Core i7-8565U and i5-8265U processors are available here with Gigabit WiFi. The 14-inch display also features relatively thin bezels at 5.2mm. The laptop comes with NVIDIA GeForce 1050 Max-Q graphics, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of storage.
An IR camera is on board with support for Windows Hello, and voice recognition can be used to interact with both Cortana and Amazon Alexa.
The new ZenBook Pro 14 is expected to launch sometime in Q4, with pricing and exact release details to be revealed at a later date.
ZenBook Flip 13 and 15
Lastly, ASUS' ZenBook Flip convertibles are also seeing a refresh of their own. Both the 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch models include ASUS' "NanoEdge" displays for super-thin bezels, which shrinks their footprint by 10 percent, according to ASUS.
One of the highlights of these new models is that they now include world-facing cameras, which is designed to work with mixed reality applications, projecting 3D objects onto the real world. Also included is the same LED-illuminated NumberPad present on the standard ZenBook models.
On the inside, both models once again opt for Intel's Core i7-8565U and Core i5-8265U processors. While the smaller of the two includes Intel's integrated UHD Graphics 620, the larger one can be equipped NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q GPU. The 13.3-inch model includes both 8GB and 16GB RAM options, while the 15.6-inch model comes standard with 16GB of RAM. In terms of storage, several options are available, ranging for 512GB or 256GB of PRIe SSD or SATA3 SSD. On the larger model, you can opt for 2TB of SATA HDD storage at 5400RPM as well. And, yes, Windows Hello is supported with an integrated IR webcam.
Like its siblings, the new ZenBook Flips are expected to launch in Q4, with pricing to come at a later date.
