Gadget or innovation? Asus has integrated a mini-touch screen instead of the touchpad of its ZenBook Pro 15
Like most other laptop builders, Asus has one goal in mind: to compete and even outperform Apple's laptops. And for its new ZenBook Pro 15 - of course competitor MacBook Pro - Asus has devised a curious alternative to the Touch Bar Apple simply replacing the touchpad with a mini-touch screen called the ScreenBar.
Casually, Lenovo has managed the feat of integrating a 5.5-inch Full HD screen instead of the traditional touchpad. While it can of course be used this way, it can like the Macbook Pro's Touch Bar be used to launch programs through a dedicated interface or use shortcuts in some applications like Word or Excel. But it can also be used as a second screen! So we can technically watch a movie on it, but since the main screen of 15.6 inches is also Full HD, it is more of a gadget.
Side look however, Asus preferred to play the card of classicism than that of innovation. The Pro 15 incorporates the lines of the Zenbook Pro range with a thin and light rounded shell (less than two kg and two cm thick) with a metallic finish (blue or pink gray). On the slices, there are two USB-C ports, two USB 3 ports, a microSD player, an HDMI output and an audio jack output.
Under the hood, there is a particularly spirited engine: Intel Core 8th generation (choice of Core i5, i7 or even i9) with 8 or 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. The user will have the choice for storage between SSDs ranging from 256 GB to 1 TB. For sound, Asus continues to trust its Harman-Kardon certified audio system and has chosen an NVIDIA® card GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti for the graphic part. Finally, the battery 71 Wh has a range of 9:30 ... which falls at 6 am with the use of two screens.
For the moment, Asus announces a release for the summer, including for Europe and France. The price in euros is not yet known, but a price of $ 2,299 for the basic configuration has already been mentioned. The high-end has a price, and it is necessarily high.
