Last night, Asus held its Pinnacle of Performance virtual event, to tell all and sundry about its latest laptops and all the other world-leading items they have to offer. Asus even went to the trouble of lighting up the Burj Khalifa in Dubai to show just how big of a deal these things are.
What Asus is bringing to the table
This event revolved around Asus’ Zenbook and Vivobook ranges. Those are aimed at the creative and thin-and-light market segments respectively. In total, Asus has six different Zenbook devices inbound, and sixteen different Vivobooks. If those numbers seem high, don’t panic. It’s just because some models ship in different sizes and with options for Intel or AMD chips inside.
Regardless, you’ve got a lot of options here. Well, not you specifically. Only two of those Zenbook models are coming to South Africa, bringing the total we know about to four. We’ve already reviewed the Zenbook Pro Duo 14 OLED. The Zenbook Pro 15 Flip OLED, Zenbook S 13 OLED and Zenbook Pro 16X OLED have yet to arrive.
We’ve already covered two of the three, so let’s examine the 16X Pro a little more closely. This one is solidly aimed at creatives. The 60Hz 4K OLED touchscreen display and all the certifications that come with it should a creative’s job much easier. An Intel Core-i7 or i9 CPU, Nvidia RTX 3060, and up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM mean there isn’t much that this can’t handle. If the specs weren’t enough, Asus is trying something new with the keyboard. Users will get an ample touchpad and another smaller dial-like thing intended to make work in Lightroom a breeze. Or, at least, we think it will. We’ll confirm or deny that when we get one to test.
If you couldn’t already tell from the names, Asus has given pretty much every new laptop an OLED panel, barring one or two unfortunates. This is almost always a good thing, especially if you’re doing colour-accurate work. Then, the OLED panel and the numerous certificates Asus claims for its displays should make life easier. And prettier. And those benefits aren’t confined to the Zenbook range. The thin-and-light Vivobook lineup also all get OLED displays. Some of those can even flip over and be the most attractive-looking tablet you’ve ever seen for a while.
The Taiwanese company also claims to have made improvements to cooling across the range. We also saw a few more hinge designs, as seen on the Zenbook Pro Duo 14. The Pro 16X OLED looks like it also employs a hinge to elevate the keyboard slightly. We’ll have to see how that fares when we have it in-house.
Also on display? Two limited-edition versions of the Vivobook Slate OLED. World-renowned artists Philip Colbert and Steven Harrington lent their talents to Asus for the collaboration. While these might look cool you’ll have to pay a pretty penny to get them here because Asus isn’t going to do that for you. Okay, maybe if you ask nicely. And have loads of money on hand.
