Asus Goes Big On Slim Laptops at Computex (cnet.com)

At Computex, Asus announced a range of new laptops. From a report: The new ZenBook Pro takes center stage, featuring powerful hardware in a slim form factor -- an Intel Core i7-7700HQ as well as a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, while the world's thinnest convertible ZenBook Flip S lets you play around with its 4K display. But it's not all just flagship products, Asus also announced new VivoBooks meant for the mainstream market. The new VivoBook Pro packs Intel's seventh-generation processors and comes loaded with discrete graphics in the form of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1050. The VivoBook S15 features more modest specs but still packs Nvidia GeForce GTX 940 discrete graphics. You can real the full-specifications of aforementioned laptops here.

Comments

Slim laptops

[DontBeAMoran]

So... no removable batteries and soldered RAM with no RAM slots to upgrade?

Re:Slim laptops

[Ravaldy]

Get used to it. It's all heading that way and it will make more and more sense as they continue to move in that direction.

RAM slots are only needed if the device doesn't ship with enough in the first place. Better to solve the problem at the source and simply include more RAM. It's less expensive to manufacture the hardware without the removable RAM and it shrinks the footprint.

Re:Slim laptops

[binarybum]

Dammit - I knew you guys in Portland had figured out time travel. Everyone thinks people there are so weird, but probably half them are just from the future and are misunderstood - am I right?

New competitor for the MS Surface Pro?

[Eloking]

I like the new ZenBook Flip S and I would consider it to replace my old Surface Pro (the old one). I prefer a real (keyboard included) laptop over "cover keyboard" of the Surface Pro line. And one of the most important point for me : Two (not one) USB-C port.

My problem though is that they only talk about the High-End specs (Intel Core i7-7500U) and the Low End Price ($1,099). So we have no idea how much the High-End will cost and we got now idea what are the specs of the 1100$ low-end one. Futhermore, I would personally prefer a "pro" version of the flip. A little thicker and some more power inside (in other word, dedictated graphic card).

Regular-sized laptop (15")

[CanEHdian]

How about a regular-sized laptop with:
- long life, exchangable battery with 12-16 hours of regular use
- plenty of USB ports (6 minimum)
- plenty of other useful ports
- line-out (analog) and SPDIF (digital) audio ports
- a VGA port to support old beamers.
- a physical 'off' switch for the internal microphone
- a large, very quiet chassis cooling fan
- a firmware that supports emergency recovery flashing from USB stick
- relatively easy to access and replace RAM and GPU board
- an easy way to support an external WiFi antenna
- etc.

Re:Regular-sized laptop (15")

[TeknoHog]

- a large, very quiet chassis cooling fan

While I agree with most of your points, I've had particular worries about cooling in laptops. My Thinkpad X220i doesn't have enough fan power to keep it cool during intense graphics demos (CPU + GPU), so it starts throttling down the clocks over time. It feels like a fundamental design error if you cannot actually use all the hardware -- I wouldn't mind something like extra noise at such times.

For my last gig, I hauled around a Mini-ITX machine, though I also needed more GPU power anyway. I sometimes look at gaming laptops for these purposes, but I could do without all the "gaming" extras, I just need a laptop with a strong GPU and decent display outputs.

Re:Regular-sized laptop (15")

[Ravaldy]

Sounds like you need a desktop.

Re:Regular-sized laptop (15")

[R3d M3rcury]

Indeed.

I bought a 17" MacBook Pro back in 2010 to replace my desktop and it worked out wonderfully. It was, as I called it, transportable. No, I wasn't going to use it flying in coach (I did use it once when I got bumped to business class and it worked okay). I wasn't going to whip it out in the chic little coffee shop. But it was a life-saver for getting real work done in hotel rooms and the like.

The MacBook Pro has had mostly storage upgrades--from a 5400 RPM hard drive to a 7200 RPM drive to a Flash drive. Memory came maxed out, but if I could have, I would have upgraded the memory. Plenty of ports for external devices for when I was at home or in case I needed something on the road.

I'm fine with a larger laptop which is upgradable--a transportable desktop replacement. Within certain realms of reason, I'm happy to sacrifice weight for a degree of upgradability, a large number of built-in ports, and a decent sized screen (with high-definition screens, I can get away with a smaller screen with a higher resolution as long as my eyes hold out).

I have to ask

[FudRucker]

Does it run Linux?

Re:I have to ask

[Anonymous Coward]

See my comment above about the nVidia Linux driver support...
Short answer - No, you will never get a working display under linux.
(I bought and returned two ASUS laptop trying to run Fedora and
could not get the nVidia driver to work under linux.)

CAP === 'policing'