ASUS drops new range of AMD AI laptops for Australian market

Taiwan's ASUS has released a range of new laptops based on chips made by AMD, and which offering artificial intelligence (AI) support in hardware.

The laptops target four different use cases: creating, productivity, learning and gaming.

ASUS new laptop line-up include the following models:

Configurations vary; resellers include JB HiFi, Harvey Norman, PB Technology, Officeworks, and the ASUS e-Shop.

AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with Zen5 cores processor powers the new ASUS laptops, which use the manufacturer's Lumina OLED displays for lifestyle products and Nebula Display for gaming.

The AI neural processing unit in the AI 9 HX 370 chip provides 50 tera operations per second.

For business users, the ultrathin (just 1.1 cm) and lightweight at 1.5 kg ASUS Zenbook S 16 has a 16-inch screen. and promises 22 hours of battery life, with 78 Watt-hours capacity.

The Zenbook S 16 has an all-metal chassis with an outer lid made from Ceraluminum, a new material made by ASUS that the company says combines the tactile qualities of ceramic with the strength of aluminium and is durable at the same time.

ASUS said the 3K resolution Lumina OLED 16:10 displays can do a 120 Hz refresh rate, has NanoEdge bezels, and a 90 per cent screen-to-body ratio.

The laptop can be configured with up to 32 gigabytes of LPDDR5x RAM, and a 2 terabyte PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD storage.

Two USB4, one USB 3.2 Type-A, HDMI, an audio jack, and an SD card reader are included for I/O.

A six-speaker sound system is built into the Zenbook for immersive audio, while AI Noise Cancellation helps deliver clear conference calls. 

New Vivobooks "everyday laptops"

ASUS has added to the Vivobook range, with two models featuring AMD AI processors. 

These are the Vivobook S 16 (M5606) and Vivobook S 14 (M5406) with OLED displays. Although ASUS targets the educational market with the new Vivobooks, the company also believes the new models are suited as everyday laptops for users.

The Vivobook have slimmed down, with an all-metal chassis that starts at 1.39 cm thick and weigh as little as 1.3 kg.

AMD's latest Radeon graphics units are built in, and the Vivobooks can be equipped with up to 32 GB LPDDR5X memory, and fast up to 1 TB PCIe 4.0 SSD storage.

Enhanced cooling comes courtesy of the ASUS IceCool thermal technology, that now feeatures two heat pipes, two 97-blade IceBlade fans, and two air vents.

There is also a dedicated Copilot key, new colours, a 180° hinge, an IR camera with a physical shutter, full I/O ports, and Harman Kardon-certified Dolby Atmos audio to round up the spec list.