Computex 2014: The ASUS Zenbook NX500, a 4K/UHD 15.6” Ultrabook
by Ian Cutress on June 2, 2014 10:40 AM ESTLast 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.
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Mentawl - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
Hrm, an ultrabook with a nice screen and an 850M? As long as it's the DDR5 850M, I'd be sold :).Spuke - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
Whoa! An ultrabook that you can play BF4 on.Lonyo - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
But can it play Crysis at native res?Mentawl - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
According to Hexus, it is indeed the DDR5 model! Better start saving!http://hexus.net/tech/news/laptop/70513-asus-launc...
extide - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
Looks like an awesome package! Is the 850M a Maxwell GPU? This thing is obviously meant to go head to head with the MBPr. If it can come with 16+GB of RAM I will be very very interested!Homeles - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
According to notebookcheck, it is.nathanddrews - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
http://youtu.be/hoS1MCF8AeIMentawl - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
Yes, it is. The 850Ms are unambiguously Maxwell GPUs, the only issue is that there are DDR3 and DDR5 versions of 'em. According to Hexus (http://hexus.net/tech/news/laptop/70513-asus-launc... this is a DDR5 version, let's hope that's true!willis936 - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
This thing will cost a literal fortune. That screen alone is worth more than every dollar I've ever spent on computers.Tylanner - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
$2199 as configured