Few of the tier one and two firms showed new mobiles at CES – many were waiting for MWC in March. Asus was one that did, introducing a convertible series and two new smartphones.
The Transformer Book Chi (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 37) series is a range of three convertible Windows 8.1 tablets. The largest is the T300 Chi, with a 12.5″ display and using Intel’s Core-M processor (1.2GHz); it is followed by the 8.9″ T90 Chi and 10.1″ T100 Chi (quad-core 1.46GHz Intel Atom processors).
All three tablets feature a removable (magnetic) keyboard dock and a fanless design. They are extremely thin, with the T100 claiming the title of world’s thinnest Windows tablet: 7.2mm when docked. The T90 is the thinnest 8.9″ tablet (7.5mm), while the T300 is 16.5mm.
Looking at the displays, the Transformer Books all feature IPS panels and 100% sRGB coverage. Resolution is 1920 x 1080 or 2560 x 1440 on the T300; 1920 x 1200 on the T100; and 1280 x 800 on the T90. Each has 400cd/m² of brightness.
Internally, the tablets run on 500MB (T90), 2GB (T100) or 4/8GB (T300) of RAM, with 32/64GB (T90, T100) or 64/128GB (T300) of storage. They feature micro-HDMI, micro-USB 3.0 and micro-SD slots.
The Transformer Book Chi series will be released soon, for $300 (T90), $400 (T100) and $700 (T300).
Smartphones arrived in the form of the Zenfone Zoom (ZX550) and Zenfone 2 (ZE551ML).
The Zoom directly competes with the Lumia 1020, with a focus on the camera; it features a 13MP rear camera with a 10-element lens, 3x optical zoom, optical image stabilisation and laser auto focus. The front camera is 5MP.
Android 5.0 runs on the Zoom, which also boasts a 5.5″ (1920 x 1080) display, 400cd/m² of brightness and Gorilla Glass 3. It is a 4G model with up to 128GB of storage
Following last year’s Zenfone, the Zenfone 2 is Asus’ new 4G flagship. It runs Android 5.0 on a 64-bit 2.3GHz Intel Atom processor, with 4GB of RAM. The display is identical to the Zoom. It is also one of the world’s slimmest phones, at just 3.9mm at the edges. The bezel is also a very thin 3.3mm.
Like the Zoom, the Zenfone 2 has a 13MP rear camera with an f/2.0 aperture lens, for low-light photography. The phone also features fast-charge technology, reaching 60% battery in under 40 minutes.
Asus will release the Zenfone 2 in March for $200 and the Zenfone Zoom in Q2 for $400.
