ASUS held an event in Vancouver this week to present their latest computer hardware. The selection included 2-in-1 Chromebooks, Zenbooks with OLED panels that boost productivity, and powerful, portable gaming laptops. The company displayed some of this year’s amazing technology, which earned them no less than 20 Innovation Awards at CES.
Here are a few highlights of the event and technology you might want to keep an eye on if you’re in the market for a new laptop or if you want to upgrade your hardware.
Whether you’re looking for a laptop to be productive or stay entertained at home, an ASUS Chromebook might be a great option for you. Equipped with powerful processors and featuring 4 to 16 GB of RAM, they make a good family computer that everyone can use and enjoy. The Chromebook Flip series even offers a 2-in-1 experience by featuring a 360-degree hinge that allows you to use the device both as a laptop when you work, and as a tablet when you want to sit back and relax.
If you’re a student, this feature might appeal to you too as it means that you can use the Chromebook to take notes in class, but also to watch Netflix at night. Some models also come with a touchscreen for easy navigation. Chromebooks have numerous other features and advantages you can learn about in our Chromebook buying guide.
From work to entertainment, to side hustles and hobbies, there’s little you can’t do with a laptop—if you have the right hardware, that is. ASUS Zenbooks pack a punch with fast processors, powerful graphics cards, and enough memory and RAM to keep up with your passions. Zenbooks also feature beautiful OLED screens that render visuals in life-like colours and stark contrast.
Among the Zenbook line, a few models stand out to me: the Zenbook Flip, the Zenbook Duo, and the Zenbook 17 FOLD, which was announced at CES. All three models allow you to do more with the device without compromising on the specs.
Similar to the Chromebook Flip, the Zenbook Flip gives you the option of using the device as a laptop or as a tablet. The ZenBook Duo meanwhile features an ingenious secondary touchscreen above the keyboard that can boost your productivity on the go by allowing you to split your screen and open different applications on each of the two displays.
Last but not least, the Zenbook 17 FOLD offers an innovative experience by letting you take advantage of a 17.3″ touchscreen that folds to a 12.5” size for portability. You can use it as a laptop by pairing the detachable Bluetooth keyboard, or as a (big) tablet to consume content. If you’re short on desk space, you can place the keyboard on top of the screen under the fold, and it will magnetically stay in place so you can focus on what matters and stay productive on the go.
With the ROG laptops and TUF gaming, ASUS put forth powerful gaming laptops that can keep up with your most demanding games. Equipped with cutting-edge hardware such as NVIDIA graphic cards and AMD Ryzen CPUs, as well as effective cooling solutions, the ROG gaming laptops were built to win. While the ROG Strix laptops boast classic gaming design elements, the ROG Zephyrus laptops feature a soberer and slimmer profile that make them more portable, but still capable of handling graphically rich software and games.
However, this year, the show stopper in my opinion is the ROG Flow Z13. This flexible gaming laptop with a detachable keyboard won a CES Innovation Award. It packs up to a 14-core Intel® Core™ i9-12900H processor and a GeForce RTX™ 3050 Ti GPU, all in an extremely lightweight chassis that makes it a great portable gaming device. If you want more power to draw from, you can even connect the XG Mobile for a graphics boost.
For gamers on a budget, the line of ASUS TUF gaming laptops delivers an immersive, high-performance gaming experience at an affordable price. The ASUS TUF Dash F15 was also celebrated at CES 2022 for packing an Intel® Core™ i7 CPU, GeForce RTX™ 3070, and DDR5 RAM in a portable, durable design.
This is just a selection of ASUS products, but you can also shop for ASUS Vivobooks, gaming desktops and monitors, routers, and other PC components at Best Buy. In fact, Best Buy will soon exclusively carry the new ASUS ZenWiFi Pro ET12, a Wi-Fi 6E mesh system that also won a CES Innovation Award for setting a new standard for whole-home mesh Wi-Fi. Stay tuned.
Shop ASUS products at Best Buy online.