Last year, Asus launched its ZenBook Pro line of laptops during Computex 2017 but they didn"t really offer much in the way of anything exciting. However, this year, things are different, as the newly revealed ZenBook Pro laptops offer a trackpad that can also double as a touchscreen display.
This isn"t the first time we are seeing this technology this year, as Razer showed off something similar during CES 2018. Although Razer"s product was just a concept, it looks like the Asus ZenBook Pro is the real deal. The technology being showcased at Computex 2018 is being called "ScreenPad" and as mentioned before, will give users additional screen real estate by taking advantage of the 5.5-inch display that can also be used as a trackpad.
The small display can be used as an extension of the main display, as a launcher for applications, and can even run specialized apps created by Asus such as a music player, calculator, number pad, and more. The small display will apparently offer support for browser extensions as well.
As for specifications, the laptop can be configured with Intel"s latest eighth-generation Core i5, i7, and i9 as options. The larger variant will be available with either a UHD or FHD 15.6-inch touchscreen display, up to 16GB DDR4 RAM, up to 1TB of SSD storage, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.
There is also a 14-inch version of the laptop being shown at Computex that will offer some key differences from its larger sibling, like its maximum configurable graphics option being a GTX 1050 (Max-Q) and also it arriving only with a Windows Hello infrared camera and no fingerprint reader. While there will be different configurations, apparently the 15.6-inch model with Intel"s i9 processor should be available sometime in July and will be priced at $2299 USD, while the launch date and price for the 14-inch variant is currently unknown.
Source: CNET