Every year that I cover ASUS’s new laptops at CES they’re always pushing the boundaries and
innovating, trying new things that other companies aren’t even attempting. So when
ASUS wanted to sponsor this video for me to show you three of their new laptops coming this year,
I was more than happy to find out what’s coming!
Let’s start out with the ASUS ProArt Studiobook 16 3D OLED!
This laptop goes up to Intel’s latest 13th gen Core i9 HX series CPUs,
so up to 24 cores and 32 threads. Along with Nvidia’s new RTX 40 series GPUs and a 150
watt power limit for both the CPU and GPU with liquid metal to keep it cool. Not to mention the
16 inch 120Hz OLED screen, which sounds like an epic combination for both creators and gamers!
Of course I know that it’s not designed to be a gaming laptop, but with a MUX switch there’s
absolutely no reason that you can’t play some games once you’re done with the day's work.
What I’m most interested in though is the new glasses-free 3D OLED screen, which allows
you to view 3D photos, videos, or even games without the need to wear some kind of headset.
This is made possible using a lenticular lens and advanced eye tracking camera tech,
all found above the screen, enabling the display to weave distinct images
for each eye, resulting in a viewable 3D image.
It works by cutting the resolution of the screen into half, which isn’t too bad given the 3200 by
2000 screen. Your left eye sees half and your right eye sees the other half. Right
now it only works for one person viewing the screen as it has to track your eyes,
but it should technically be possible to track more than one user in future.
Doing this requires extra layers on the screen,
but ASUS tells me that it still looks like a regular OLED screen with no drawbacks,
as you’ve got the option of switching between 2D and 3D content seamlessly through software.
I could definitely see this being useful for creators of 3D objects or effects to
get a better idea of what they’re working with, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to get my
hands on an early engineering sample just yet. So I haven’t been able to try this out for myself.
My first thought when I heard of this new tech was of course with 3D TVs, which basically just
turned out to be a gimmick and have since mostly disappeared. Generally those did require you to
wear some kind of glasses and there also just wasn’t a whole lot of 3D content available.
By not requiring any sort of glasses or headset, ASUS are reducing the barrier to entry here. But
ultimately, only time will tell as to how good the 3D effect actually looks in person.
Support for popular platforms, 3D applications and common 3D file
formats also helps reduce another barrier, by helping make 3D content become more widely
available. Not to mention software that can automatically recognize when these
applications or files are loaded and swap the screen to 3D mode for you.
At the end of the day, I think it’s more about getting this technology out there
so people can start making more 3D content. Otherwise you just end up
with a kind of chicken and egg problem where one needs to come first. Which comes first,
the 3D content, or a practical way to actually view it? So at least this way
ASUS are providing the 3D screen and then we just need more 3D content to follow.
If you’re not interested in the 3D screen aspect, don’t worry, there’s still a traditional 2D
OLED touchscreen option. Unfortunately, the 3D screen does not support touch,
but that laptop has a haptic touchpad with stylus support for drawing. They had to make the touchpad
the same aspect ratio as the screen so that this doesn’t cause any issues when drawing,
and the screen can also bend the full 180 degrees back for sharing,
and with the touch screen model, obviously this would also help improve drawing.
Regardless of whether you’re going for 2D or 3D OLED screen,
it uses a 16” 16:10 120Hz OLED screen which gets bright, offers excellent color gamut,
and with a pantone validated screen and average delta E of less than 2,
perfect for content creation and it’s going to look excellent for anything else you do too.
Other creator specific features include the physical dial found to the left hand
side of the touchpad, which they did also have last year too. This lets
you quickly change between options in software like Adobe Photoshop.
And there are plenty of ports for connectivity, including Thunderbolt and SD card slot with SD
Express 7.0, so up to 985mb/s of SD card transfer speeds - also ideal for creators!
The next new laptop from ASUS we’re going to check out is their Vivobook Pro 16X 3D OLED,
which comes in cool silver or 0 degree black finishes.
Basically ASUS have the Studiobook that we just covered as their highest tier option,
then the Zenbook series comes in next, with the Vivobook below that. So based on that,
compared to the Studiobook that we just looked at,
I would expect the Vivobook to be a bit more budget friendly comparatively.
The Studiobook is higher end and has a metal finish,
while the Vivobook has a plastic finish. It just doesn’t have all the nice extras, like
that physical dial. But it’s still got a touch version of this built in next to the touchpad.
It’s still got plenty of ports with two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports and SD card slot,
though the max speed isn’t as fast as the higher tier studiobook.
But as you can probably tell from its name, the Vivobook still has
the same 16 inch 3D OLED screen as the Studiobook. Along with Intel’s latest
13th gen HX processors and Nvidia’s latest RTX 40 series graphics. Again, with a MUX switch,
so great for someone that might do a mix of content creation as well as gaming.
Compared to last year’s version, we’re getting faster CPU and GPU
options with more power and twice the Thunderbolt ports for even more expansion.
The third laptop that I want to talk about is the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED.
This one comes in two colors, sandstone beige or inkwell gray.
And as you can probably tell by the name,
this one is a smaller 14 inch laptop compared to those two 16 inch models
that we just looked at. And this also means that it also does not have the 3D screen.
Still though, it’s got a 14.5” 2.8K 120Hz OLED touch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio,
high color gamut, good brightness, and fast response time. In short,
all the usual nice features that make OLED screens excellent for laptops.
The smaller size means we’re looking at Intel’s 13th gen H series processors
rather than the beast mode HX stuff from the previous 16 inch laptops, but that’s fine,
because up to 14 cores and 20 threads from the i9-13900H is still a lot of power in a 14” device.
The GPU goes up to Nvidia’s RTX 3050 series graphics. And let’s be real, this is a massive
upgrade compared to last year’s Zenbook 14X OLED which only had Intel integrated graphics.
With up to 32 gigs of LPDDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD and a 70Wh battery,
which is 11% bigger compared to last gen, this small laptop is packing in a lot.
And despite the minimal design, we can still see that the right has two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports,
a 3.5mm audio combo jack, and a HDMI 2.1 output, while the right has a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port,
so a decent port selection considering the smaller 14 inch size, and of course
those Thunderbolt ports also allow you to expand with a dock. So if you want to add
other things like high speed ethernet or fast SD card slot then that’s possible. But again,
even without the dock the Zenbook 14X OLED is packing in a lot for the smaller 14 inch size.
Compared to last year’s Zenbook 14X OLED, this year’s is offering a bigger,
faster screen, with far more GPU power and a bigger battery.
There’s also the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED and Pro 14 OLED models if you’re after
either dual screens or the dial pad while staying at this smaller more portable size.
You can check out all of ASUS’s new laptops coming out this year with the link below the video.
ASUS also have a bunch of gaming laptop updates coming this year,
like a 14 inch laptop with an RTX 4090 GPU inside! You’re definitely going to want to
check out all of these improvements in this video over here next! I’ll see you in that one!