Asus Announces VivoBook Pro 15 N580: Intel Kaby Lake CPU, up to 4K Display & GeForce GTX 1050

With Computex now in full swing, earlier today Asus took the wraps off of their latest VivoBook laptop, the VivoBook Pro 15 N580. Starting at $799, the 15-inch brushed aluminum laptop comes with an Intel quad-core processor, and NVIDIA GTX 1050 graphics, with an optional 4K display.

Of the information Asus has released so far, the company has released the base price, but not the prices of the higher-end configurations. At the $799 base model will include an Intel Core-i5 7300HQ CPU, 500 GB HDD, and a 1080p display. Meanwhile the high-end model will have a Core-i7 7700HQ, 4K full sRGB screen, NVIDIA GTX 1050 graphics, 16GB of RAM, and both a 512GB PCIe SSD and a 2TB hard drive. Asus will also be including Intel’s Optane Memory for faster storage performance (though it’s not clear if this is just for HDD models or all models).

Considering its plethora of high-end components, the VivoBook Pro’s 4.85-pound weight and 0.75-inch thickness are quite reasonable. The VivoBook Pro uses a dual-fan system to keep its powerful components from getting too hot. During a brief hands-on, the laptop felt solid and sturdy in my hands and its metal deck was pleasantly cool to the touch.

The VivoBook’s backlight keyboard felt sturdy snappy under my fingers and didn’t even have a hint of flex. Its buttonless touchpad had just the right amount of friction and resistance for each click.

Asus claims that the optional 4K screen on the VivoBook covers an impressive 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut. In my brief time with the laptop, it was difficult to tell how vibrant the colors were as the background and icons the company displayed were rather bland.

The VivoBook Pro doesn’t skimp on ports. Its left side contains an Ethernet port, a USB 3.0 connector, HDMI out and a USB Type-C port. The right side houses two more USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader and a 3.5mm audio jack. It’s a shame that Asus didn’t put a Thunderbolt 3 port on this laptop, but that would have likely added to the cost.

Asus hasn’t announced a release date for the VivoBook Pro. However, depending on just what the base configuration is like and how much the higher-end models cost, this laptop could be a great buy for design students or anyone that needs to do creative work, without breaking the bank.

Avram Piltch Contributed to this Report

Lenovo’s Legion Gets Bigger with Y920: 17-inch G-SYNC, Core i7-K, GTX 1070, TB3

Lenovo has expanded its lineup of Legion-branded gaming laptops with a model that features a 17” display, powerful audio, a mechanical keyboard, and an overclocking-capable Intel Core i7 microprocessor. The company positions its new gaming notebook for those who need maximum performance in a portable form-factor and will want to perform additional performance tuning.

For the better part of its history, Lenovo has focused primarily on mainstream and business PCs in a bid to drive volume and become one of the largest suppliers of computers in the world. However, as sales of PCs stagnated or dropped in the recent years, Lenovo has had to find a new source for its growth. One angle to this is when the company started to build gamers-friendly machines. At first they were released under the Y-series, such as the Y-700, but earlier this year Lenovo introduced its gaming PC brand: the Legion. So far, the Legion lineup has included only two 15.6” laptop models — the Legion Y520 and the Legion Y720. This month, the company is rolling out a considerably more powerful addition to the series, the Legion Y920 with a larger screen and better hardware, targeting the higher-end segment of the gaming laptop market. The Legion Y920 may not be addressing the ultra-premium part of the market, but the machine demonstrates a clear trend where Lenovo is going with its gaming notebooks.

The Lenovo Legion Y920 is equipped with a 17” FHD display with NVIDIA’s G-Sync and is powered by Intel’s Core i7-7820HK or Core i7-7700HQ processor (depending on exact SKU). The former processor features unlocked multiplier and thus can be overclocked rather easily as long as it has sufficient cooling. The laptop comes with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, it uses NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1070 graphics adapter with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory as well as a 512 GB PCIe SSD and/or a 1 TB 2.5” HDD. As for connectivity, the Legion Y920 is equipped with one Thunderbolt 3 port, Rivet Networks’ Killer 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi and GbE, four USB 3.0 Type-A headers, a card reader, an HDMI header as well as a DisplayPort.

Meanwhile, two features of the Y920 that Lenovo is especially proud of are the audio sub-system featuring two JBL speakers and a subwoofer that carries the Dolby Home Theatre badge as well as an RGB LED-backlit mechanical keyboard.

With its 17” display, the Legion Y920 does not belong to what is now called ultra-portable gaming laptops category: it weighs 4.6 kilograms and its thickness is 36 mm, which is a result of using ABS plastic as the primary material for the chassis. Large dimensions enabled Lenovo to install a 90 Wh battery and could also let the manufacturer equip the laptop with a more advanced cooling system to boost overclocking potential of the Core i7-7820HK CPU. Unfortunately, Lenovo does not disclose any details about the cooling of the Legion Y920, but large dimensions, in general, mean more air.

Lenovo’s Legion Y920 will hit the market in EMEA this month and will start from €2,599.99 (including VAT). The machine will be available in the U.S. in June for the price of $2,699.99 for the base configuration.

Gallery: Lenovo Legion Y920

Related Reading:

• Lenovo Launches Legion Branded Gaming Laptops
• Acer Announces Predator Triton 700 Gaming Laptop: Core i7, GeForce GTX 10 Series, & 1 TB SSD
• Acer Announces The Acer Predator 21 X: 21-Inch Curved Screen Gaming Notebook
• Razer Blade Gets Core i7-7700HQ, Adds 4K Touchscreen, 1 TB SSD Options

Microsoft Announces The New Surface Pro: Refined with Kaby Lake

This morning in Shanghai, China, Microsoft announced the latest generation of their Surface Pro tablet. The numbering system is gone, and it’s back to just Surface Pro, but the latest generation is a long way from the original Surface Pro that came out in 2013, and it’s a design that they’ve now morphed into its fifth incarnation. Clearly they are pretty happy with the form factor, since Surface Pro hasn’t had a huge change in design since the Surface Pro 3 launched with the 3:2 display. Microsoft has had a lot of success with Surface Pro, but the previous generation Surface Pro 4 launched way back in October 2015, so this new model has been anticipated for a while.

Despite the Surface Pro still offering the same 12.3-inch PixelSense display as its predecessor, Microsoft says that there are over 800 new custom parts inside, and they’ve managed to use up 99% of the interior of the tablet to pack it with new cooling, battery, and performance. The Surface Pro 4, despite being launched 580 days ago on October 21^st, 2015, was still the tablet to beat in this space, with a fantastic display, impressive performance, solid battery life, a great keyboard, pen support, and a brilliant design. It felt long in the tooth because it was, but what was available was still a solid system. The issue any company offering a system like this is that people know there will be a new version, it’s only a matter of when, so once Kaby Lake was launched, it would have been tough to recommend someone run out and buy a Surface Pro 4 since there had to be a new model coming soon. Well, it didn’t exactly come soon, but it’s here now, so let’s look at what’s new.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft stepped up to Intel’s 7^th generation Core processors, codenamed Kaby Lake. Kaby Lake doesn’t jump to new levels of performance, but it’s a nice step up from Skylake, and it offers a lot more power saving features as well. Just like the Surface Pro 4, Surface Pro will offer a Core m3 model, a Core i5, and a Core i7 with Iris graphics. Memory configurations are also the same, with a 4 GB base model, and up to 16 GB maximum with the Core i7, so LPDDR3 is still the name of the game here. Storage is also the same, at 128 GB up to 1 TB of PCIe SSD. This is a very incremental update for performance, but nonetheless it is very welcome. The battery life has gotten a boost as well, with Microsoft now claiming up to 13.5 hours in a charge, although that test was done with video playback, which is offloaded to fixed function hardware and takes the least energy to perform.

The display is also the same 12.3-inch 2736×1825 PixelSense panel, which works out to 267 pixels per inch. Microsoft has focused a lot on display quality over the last several years, so it would be expected that this is a solid, accurate, display, but much like the Surface Studio, Microsoft is adding a wider than sRGB color mode to the new Surface Pro, with a toggle to choose between enhanced color and sRGB. We’re not yet sure if that means P3-D65, but hopefully it does. The move to 3:2 triggered a new category of devices, so it’s difficult to blame them for not changing what already worked so well. Framing the display are new speakers though, with Dolby Audio Premium, and Surface Pro has always done a nice job of blending the speaker grilles into the frame.

Reading this, you may be wondering where the 800 new parts fit in, if it’s an incremental update on the CPU side, with the same display. Rest assured, there’s still a lot new to the Surface Pro. First up is cooling, and the new Surface Pro now extends the fanless capabilities to the i5 model as well, despite the U series CPU having a 15-Watt TDP. When the Surface Pro 4 launched, I was talking to one of the engineers at the launch event who showed off the new cooling, and was told at the time, it would be able to handle the entire 15-Watt passively if needed, but with another 19 months under their belt, they’ve clearly tweaked it a bit more to make the i5 fanless as well. The i7 will continue to offer a fan, despite the same TDP as the i5, but the main difference is that the i7 offers Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640, which will be able to stress the system much more than the HD Graphics 620 that ships with the i5 model. The m3 gets HD Graphics 615, and with just a 4.5-Watt TDP, there’s no question it can be run fanless.

Microsoft is also evolving the hinge, again. The kickstand can now tilt back all the way to 165°, compared to 150° of the Surface Pro 4, and the reason for the hinge change is undoubtedly because the Surface Pro ships with support for the Surface Dial, which launched with the Surface Studio. Support will be added for on-screen use of the Dial through firmware for existing Surface Pro 4 users, but they won’t get the “studio” mode the new hinge provides.

There’s also a new pen, except it’s no longer included with the device. The new pen now offers 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity, and lower latency than the previous model, with Microsoft tagging latency at 21 ms. It also supports tilt, which is something that wasn’t available on the previous model and was something it was often compared against. I really like the last Surface Pen, with its changeable tips, and it offered great on-screen traction and feel, so I’m excited to see the new, improved model. It’s no longer included, but you can buy it for $60, and the cheapest m3 model is now $100 less than when the Surface Pro 4 launched. Plus, it’s available in several colors to match the new keyboards.

The last generation keyboard will still work, and likely be available, but Microsoft is touting the new Signature Type Covers, which offer Alcantara fabric over the keyboards for a softer feel, and they are available in Platinum, Burgundy, and Cobalt Blue, which happens to coincide with the colors of the new pen, if you’re into matching sets. The Alcantara is covered in a polyurethane coating to provide protection from liquids and oils, so hopefully they will hold up well. The Alcantara on the Surface Ergonomic keyboard has been pretty decent so far.

There’s a lot that’s new, but there’s also some things that haven’t changed at all. The I/O ports on the Surface Pro are exactly the same as the Surface Pro 4: Full-sized USB 3.0 (Type-A), microSD, Surface Connect, Headset, mini DisplayPort, and the keyboard cover connector. What’s missing is USB-C, and Microsoft seems to be taking a hard stance here about supporting a future standard. Their concerns over USB-C are that the port is too open to interpretation, with quite a few different capabilities that could or could not be available, leading to customer confusion. It’s hard to argue with that since it is 100% true, and USB-C has kind of shot itself in the foot by being too open. Some ports support power, some don’t, and some have Thunderbolt 3, and some don’t, and just today Huawei launched a new MateBook X with two USB-C ports, and it can only charge on one of them. This kind of confusion is not ideal, and USB likely needs to come up with a good solution, soon. In an apparent attempt at humor, Microsoft will be releasing a dongle which supports USB-C, for those that need it.

Even though they do have reasons to question USB-C in the marketplace, and the fact that, today, you need to use adapters for most things, there’s still the main issue in that the Surface Pro ships with a mini DisplayPort video output. To hook up practically anything to mini DisplayPort, you need either a dongle, or a DisplayPort to mini DisplayPort cable, meaning you already need a dongle to use the port that’s there. They could have swapped that for a fully functional USB-C with Thunderbolt 3 and Power Delivery, and it could have handled the DisplayPort natively (with a dongle, of course, just like mini DisplayPort. If they included everything that USB-C can do, there also wouldn’t ever be the scenario where a customer buys something and it wouldn’t work in the Surface Pro. So I don’t fully buy their argument, but it’s also not invalid either.

Other than the lack of USB-C, the new Surface Pro does offer everything that would have been expected in an update like this, with a new CPU, a slightly updated design, a new kickstand, and better battery life. Hopefully by dropping the number from the end of the name, it won’t take 19 months until the next refresh can occur, since if it’s just a CPU refresh, it should be able to be handled with little fanfare.

The Surface Pro is available for pre-order today, and ships June 15^th, which is the same day the Surface Laptop will be shipping. Availability is listed as “worldwide” as well, so those that had to wait for the Surface Pro 4 to become available in their region shouldn’t have to wait any longer.

Source: Windows Blog