We are in CES 2020 week and Asus launched a number of interesting products and importantly a refresh of their lineups.
Last year, we reviewed a number of Asus laptops and some of them have been refreshed this year with new generation Intel chips and more.
VivoBooks
Asus unveiled their latest VivoBook S series laptops. They now feature 10th Gen Intel Core processors, WiFi 6 connectivity, upto 16B RAM and you can get models with NVIDIA GeForce GPUs.
They also feature backlit keyboards and a number of ports (USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type C and HDMI). The VivoBook S will be available in either 13 inch, 14 inch or 15 inch variants in a variety of colours that includes Resolute Red, Gaia Green, Dreamy White and Indie Black. They are also pretty light ranging from 1.2kg for the S13 and 1.4kg for the S14.
Some variants of the S13 and S14 faeature the optional NumberPad 2.0 which is an LED illuminated numeric keypad on the touchpad for quick number entry. They also have larger keycaps for a better typing experience.
Asus also featured more regular VivoBooks, starting with the VivoBook 14 (K413) and the VivoBook 15 (K513) which both sport metallic lids that give them a premium feel. The lid is availble in either Indie Black, Hearty Gold or Transparent Silver. The VivoBook 15 (K513/X513) has a 15.6 inch screen and as dual storage arrays for the speedy PCIe SSDs and a bay for a hard disk drive. There is also a microSD card reader. The VivoBook 14 models still sport the same processor models as the 15 inch models and their storage options go upto 1TB of PCIe SSDs and you also get a microSD card reader.
New Zenbook Pro Duo
Last year, Asus shocked everyone with their cool Zenbook Pro Duo. The laptop featured top of the range processors, a healthy 32GB of RAM, 1TB of PCIe SSDs and the headlining dual 4K displays.
In 2020, Asus has unveiled a new Zenbook Pro Duo (UX481) but this one is smaller and has less powerful specs than its bigger brother.
The secondary “ScreenPad Plus” display is now 12.6 inches, down from 14 inches of its bigger brother. The Main display is a 14 inch FHD display and is not OLED like last years model.
It features upto a 10th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, upto 16GB of RAM, upto 1TB of PCIe storage and an NVIDIA GeForce MX250 GPU.
This laptop is also considerably lighter than last year’s Zenbook Pro Duo (1.5kg vs 2.9kg) so it is geared to be more portable.
We really liked the Zenbook Pro Duo because it was unashamedly a powerful laptop with a unique selling point of offering a dual screen experience that can be useful for many things. However, its sky high price of around $2,500 meant that not most people could get it, but from specs alone, it made sense.
It seems the 14 inch Zenbook Pro Duo is geared to be more portable and use less power than last year’s model but also feature that unique featureset of offering dual screen productivity.
Pricing
The Vivo Book 14 (X413/K413) and the VivoBook 15 ( X513/K513) will be available from May 2020 in Asus retailers in Kenya starting from Kshs 60,000. The VivoBook S (S333/S433/S533) will be available from the second half of 2020 and the price will be communicated later on.
The Zenbook Duo (UX481) will be available from February 2020 in key Asus retailers in Kenya and it starts from Kshs 235,000.
