Computex 2014: The ASUS Zenbook NX500, a 4K/UHD 15.6” Ultrabook
by Ian Cutress on June 2, 2014 10:40 AM EST
Last year at Computex we were excited by all the news revolving around 4K/UHD monitors coming to market. At that time I believe we were discussing 32” panels and waiting for something smaller to come along. Fast forward a year and that 32” is reduced to 15.6” in the form of an Ultrabook, in the NX500 from ASUS. For specifications, models up to Core i7 and GTX850M graphics were discussed, which marks a shift to discrete GPUs over the Zenbook UX301 we saw last year, which has (only) a 1440p display in a 13” form factor.
The NX500 will also be equipped with a Broadcom 3-stream 802.11ac solution, as well as PCIe x4 or RAID-0 SATA 6 Gbps storage options. The display is reported with a wide color gamut (100% NTSC, 108% Adobe RGB) with a factory calibrated color temperature. Audio gets the Bang&Olufson treatment, with ICEpower and SonicMaster technology over titanium-film speakers. The internal battery is listed as 96 Wh, compared to the 50.6 Wh in the UX301.
Again, no official word on actual processor numbers, release date or pricing yet.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
15 Comments
View All Comments
Clorox Hex - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
Is it IPS?evilspoons - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
My boss bought a couple of last year's model Asus laptops with 15.6" 1920x1080 screens and the Bang & Olufsen ICEpower audio... what an incredible disappointment. It sounds like every other shitty laptop I've ever played until you plug the weird "subwoofer" thing in, and then it sounds like a shitty laptop with a bit more bass. Not a good use of a famous brand name.Impulses - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
What'd you expect? It's no different than any time Beats, Harman Kardon, etc pimp out their brand to a dock, phone, or what have you (never mind that many of these aren't even all that great as audio brands anymore, or never were, like Beats)... Speakers are one thing that will always be severely constrained by physics and larger is almost always gonna perform better (up to a point obviously).tuxRoller - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
If this had radeon graphics it would've been a sure buy for me.I run Linux, and hybrid graphics with the blob aren't great, and might never be great, while the oss radeon driver can work perfectly with the Intel driver.
...such a massive battery... that's how you get applelike runtimes.
So close..
dragonsqrrl - Thursday, June 5, 2014 - link
Really wish this had the 860m. I guess you can't have everything.