8
Verge Score
Asus Zenbook S 16 review: AMD stays in the game
AMD stands up to Qualcomm with its new Ryzen AI chips, showing it’s nowhere near out of this race.
Can a Windows handheld beat Valve’s Steam Deck OLED? This sequel to last year’s ROG Ally answers with more storage, faster RAM, double the battery, and USB4. We’ll need more time for benchmarking and battery testing before we can publish our review, but if you can’t wait, it is available now from Asus and Best Buy.
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I’m the only one outside Asus to have touched one (don’t ask me why!) and Asus wouldn’t let me publish pics that day... but this new leaked image is exactly the device I touched, minus new texturing. The new leak also corroborates a doubled 80Wh battery — and claims it’ll last 3 hours of heavy gaming.
Microsoft’s big AI PC event is just days away, and we’re seeing more leaks of Arm-powered Windows PCs with Qualcomm’s new chips inside.
This post from WinFuture’s Roland Quandt shows that, like Dell and Lenovo, Asus’ plans include a version of the Vivobook S 15 OLED that’s ready to battle Apple’s M-series laptops.
7
Verge Score
Razer Blade 14 vs. Asus Rog Zephyrus G14: uncompromised value
Where the Blade comes ahead in performance, the Zephyrus wins on value.
7
Verge Score
Duel of the dual-screen laptops: Asus Zenbook Duo vs. Lenovo Yoga Book 9i
Small design variations make a big difference.
As we saw at CES last month, Asus’ G16 and G14 latops are sleeker and thinner for 2024, featuring a new aluminum build, OLED screens, larger trackpads, and Intel Core Ultra 9 Meteor Lake chips to go with Nvidia 40-series GPUs.
The G16 price goes from $1,999.99 to $3,299.99 and it’s available directly from Asus or Best Buy. We haven’t reviewed this one yet, but hopefully, that new look hasn’t ruined this iteration of one of our most recommended gaming laptops.
Note: If you buy something from these links, we might get affiliate revenue.
Nvidia has launched its RTX 4080 Super GPUs today, and Asus is ready with an update to last year’s RTX 4080 Noctua Edition. The Super model includes a four slot cooler with 120mm Noctua fans on top. Asus hasn’t confirmed pricing just yet, but given the $450 premium on the previous RTX 4080 model it’s probably going to be a lot more than the $999 starting price of the RTX 4080 Super.
Following its reveal at CES earlier this month, Asus has launched the absolutely ridiculous Zenbook Duo, which stacks one 14-inch display atop the other, giving you a whole 19.8 inches of screen along with a detachable keyboard. It’s on sale now for $1,499.99.
Wi-Fi 7 quietly took off while everyone was looking at AI
There may not have been any splashy router announcements, but Wi-Fi 7 hit laptops all over the place.
The show floor only just opened yesterday, but we got a glimpse at a ton of cool new products, prototypes, and features:
• Asus made a portable monitor — and a laptop — with two screens.
• Sony and Honda showed off an Afeela EV prototype that puts Fortnite on your bumper.
• Amazon announced Matter casting support for Prime Video.
• Google and Samsung teamed up to combine Quick Share and Nearby Share into a single sharing solution.
• This AI startup made a little gadget that’s supposed to use your apps for you.
There’s still more to come! Stay tuned to our coverage, and make sure to check out The Verge’s TikTok and Instagram where we go hands-on with new devices.
I would totally use the new Asus ZenScreen Fold that’s on display here at CES 2024 — if the price were right. I'd hook up my Steam Deck and work laptop. Asus did not tell me if the price was right. Any bets?
Asus is kicking 2024 off with a ROG keynote. That means it’s time for gaming laptops, monitors, and much more. You can watch Asus’ keynote below, starting at 3PM PT / 6PM ET / 11PM GMT. Stay tuned to The Verge for all the announcements from Asus at CES.
Asus’ ROG phones are about gaming, never really about cameras. But now Asus just released a shadowy teaser pic of its new ROG Phone 8, and it’s got a thick camera plateau that I can’t imagine is comfortable to hold horizontally for playing.
Judging by what’s visible, it looks like it might be a bit more subdued in its design compared to the loud and fun previous models.
It started as an April Fool’s tease, but the very real handheld gaming PC is now six months old. Along with gyro controls, a new Armoury Crate update is adding a new Feedback Hub, the ability to turn CPU Boost off, new AMD Advanced Graphics Options, and direct sharing of images and video to Discord and TikTok.
Windows Central highlights this Asus video tracking everything added since launch (we revisited our review over the summer), or you can read the changelog here.
First shown at Computex in May, the ROG Matrix Platinum comes with the “industry’s first” liquid metal thermal material on the GPU’s die, which should allow for cooler temperatures and better performance when compared to using thermal paste.
It also comes with a pretty sleek design that creates a sort of lighted frame around the card. As you might’ve imagined, this GPU doesn’t come cheap — it costs $3,199.99.
Asus says that the rumors it would discontinue the Zenfone series aren’t true. The company put out a statement in response to a report from TechNews Taiwan indicating that the Zenfone 10 would be the last device in the series. Not so, says Asus — the Zenfone and gaming-focused ROG lines are alive and well, according to its statement. That’s a little bit of good news for all my fellow small-phone-fans.
[ASUS Pressroom]