ASUS today is announcing two new laptops set to launch in Malaysia soon. They are the new Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) and Vivobook S 15 (S5507), and both models are now open for pre-orders until July 9th.
ASUS Zenbook S 16 (UM5606)
The new Zenbook S 16 first made its debut on Computex 2024 as part of the launch roster powered by AMD’s new Ryzen AI 300 series processors; specifically, this laptop comes with the top chip in the form of Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 featuring 4+8 cores, and a beefed-up Radeon 890M with substantially more graphics horsepower compared to its predecessor. The Ryzen APU is paired with 32GB LPDDR5X-7500 RAM and up to 1TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD, plus Wi-Fi 7 support.
One of the unique selling point of the new Zenbook is the design. ASUS says this laptops is manufactured using a material called “Ceraluminum” (portmanteau of ceramic and aluminum), and the CNC milling process has shaved the overall chassis thickness down to just 11mm – just about as thick as a typical flagship smartphone these days with camera bump included. You have two color options to choose from, which are Zumaia Gray and Scandinavian White.
Under this thin chassis houses the vapor chamber cooling system that allows for 28W maximum TDP to be extracted from the Ryzen chip. It’s worth mentioning the TDP here, as AMD has dropped the old suffix that used to denote the power envelope. In this case, the 28W figure is the maximum allowed on this particular laptop (the chip maxes out at 54W), so it may use less power under standard power profiles.
All of these specs sound rather impressive, but it comes at a cost – literally. The laptop will come with one configuration at launch for RM7,999, and those who pre-order will get a free bundle that includes a 4-port 100W GaN charger plus 1-year extended warranty coverage for the laptop (worth RM698 combined).
ASUS Vivobook S 15 (S5507)
The second laptop introduced today is something we’re quite familiar with by now. The newly-redesigned Vivobook S was previously launched here packing the new Intel Meteor Lake chip (we reviewed it, too), and this is its larger sibling, with a completely different chip powering it.
Inside the new Vivobook S 15 (S5507) you’ll find not Intel, not AMD, but Qualcomm – it packs the new Snapdragon X Elite (X1E-78-100) SoC packing 12 cores at 3.4GHz, though the headlining feature of this chip is the AI capabilities. The onboard Hexagon NPU can produce 45 TOPS of compute power, which classifies the laptop as the Copilot+ PC. This new class of laptops are focusing on AI features like Recall, but we know what happened to that feature since then.
Cutting through the AI hype, and you’ll still find a decently capable laptop within. Unlike 14-inch or 16-inch laptops, you’re getting a more traditional 16:9 display here, but the resolution is still aplenty with this 2.8K 120Hz OLED panel that also features 100% DCI-P3 gamut (factory-calibrated) and VESA DisplayHDR True Black 600 certification. You also have 32GB of LPDDR5X-8448 RAM on tap, so multitasking should be very easy on this laptop. The biggest practical selling point is the battery, and here ASUS claims 18 hours via its 70Wh battery.
Like the aforementioned Zenbook, you get the same pre-order benefits which includes the 100W GaN charger and extended warranty coverage, as long as you secures the laptop before July 9th. The configuration sold here in Malaysia will cost RM6,299.
Pokdepinion: We know Snapdragon laptops have very good battery life, but I’m interested to see if AMD can keep up (Intel’s Meteor Lake got pretty close).
