Asus was not on the show floor and had an event away from the Messe. It showed a number of new products including the new ZenWatch 3 which has switched to a circular design. The watch is 9.93mm thick and runs Android Wear, although it is advertised as working with Android or iPhone devices. The case of the watch is made from jewelry-grade 316L stainless steel, said to be 82% stronger than regular steel. Battery life is two days and the unit has a 1.39″ (35.3mm) AMOLED display with 400×400 resolution (287 ppi) and two finger touch. It runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor and has 512MB of RAM, 4GB of flash. It is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth only, with no 3G version. It will cost €299.
The company also showed the ZenBook 3 which was introduced at Computex.
A new display is the ZenScreen MB16AC, claimed to be the world’s lightest and slimmest Full HD portable monitor. It features a hybrid USB Type-C (USB-C) port that supports both power and video transmission for compatibility with any laptop with a USB-C or USB Type-A port. Weight is quoted at 800g and the 15.6″ monitor is 8mm thick. It is available with a 1mm foldable case and has narrow top and side bezels. It can be used in landscape or portrait modes.
The ZenPad 3S 10 has a 9.7″ 2048 x 1536 (4:3) touchscreen and is just 5.8mm thick, being based on a case made of a single milled aluminium block. The bezel is just 5.3mm. The tablet is based on a hexa-core MediaTek 8176 processor supported by 4GB of RAM and up to 64GB of flash, while up to 128GB is supported through a micro SD card reader. Asus claims new technology to improve video scaling and play back, which it calls ‘Tru2Life’. It has a fingerprint sensor (a first for an Asus tablet) and high quality audio along with a 5900 mAh battery for up to 10 hours of video playback and using Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology that is said to deliver a full charge in about three hours.
The Transformer 3 Pro is a 12.6″ convertible PC that has a 2880 x 1920 format (275ppi) and a claimed gamut of 121% of sRGB. The processor is an Intel Core i7 processor with up to 1TB of SSD storage and 16GB of RAM. It has a Type-C connector that supports Thunderbolt 3 for professional applications and can support dual UltraHD monitors as there is an HDMI port as well as USB 3.0. There’s a 13 megapixel camera on the rear and the case is just 8.3mm thick. Asus also showed a Universal dock, an Audo Pod and a Pen option. The ROG XG Station 2 is an external graphics dock to allow gaming with a GPU, supported through Thunderbolt. It is basically a powered (680W) dock that can accept standard GPUs from Nvidia and AMD.
Asus ROG XG Station 2 connects to a convertible PC via Thundergbolt.
