Asus Vivobook S15 and ZenBook UX430 in India

Taiwanese tech giant Asus has expanded its laptop lineup in India with the launch of two new laptops. The company has launched Vivobook S15 and ZenBook UX430 at Rs 59,990 and Rs 74,990 respectively. While the former will be available starting first eek of Octobe, the latter is already available. Both these laptops will be selling across all online and offline retailers and partners.

The Asus VivoBook S15 features a 15.6-inch a full HD (1920 x 1280) resolution with 178° wide-view technology and NanoEdge display and giving it an 80% screen-to-body ratio. Powered by an 8th Generation quad-core Intel Core i7-8550U and i5-8250U processor with up to 16GB DDR4 2133Hz memory, the laptop has dual storage drives, with a 1TB hard disk drive (HDD) and a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD). It also houses NVIDIA GeForce MX150 graphics card.

For the purpose of connectivity, it offers a reversible one USB Type-C port, one USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports, one HDMI port, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2. The laptop boasts of a "SuperBattery" technology that is claimed to give it three times the battery lifespan of conventional laptop batteries. The Asus VivoBook S15 measures 361 x 243.5 x 17.9mm and weighs 1.7 kg and has 7.8mm thin bezels.

The ZenBook UX430 is the company's thinnest ever ZenBook with a discrete graphics card. This laptop sports a 14-inch full HD (1080x1920 pixels) also with NanoEdge display. The company says that the canvas is 13-inch but the display it includes is of 14-inches. ZenBook UX430 is powered by Intel 8th Generation Core i7 processor with the main memory of 16GB DDR4 (2133MHz) and up to 512 GB storage. The laptop includes a Type-C USB 3.1 Gen.1 port, Type-A USB 3.1 port, USB 2.0 port, Micro HDMI and a SD card reader.

Acer unveils world's thinnest laptop Aspire S5

Acer has unveiled the world's thinnest laptop computer as an array of "ultrabook" rivals prepared to debut this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Taiwan-based computer titan will begin shipping Acer Aspire 5 models in the second quarter of this year, with prices to be disclosed in coming weeks.

According to analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, "That S5 is quite significant. It looks like the thinnest and lightest, and it sets the bar for the rest of the ultrabook vendors".

The Aspire S5 has a 34-cm (13.3-inch) screen and is 15 mm at its thickest point. The ultrabook weighs slightly less than 1.35 kg (three pounds).

"We are committed to evolving this technology," said Acer chief executive J.T. Wang. "By the second quarter of this year we will have four models of ultrabook and more to come."

Ultrabooks powered by Windows 8 will be released by Acer after Microsoft releases the new version of its computer operating system later this year.

Mr. Wang estimated that ultrabooks would make up at least 35 percent of the Acer product line by the end of this year.

Since Aspire S5 is Windows based it is not likely to be a direct challenge to MacBook Air laptops, which have been winning converts to the sleek machines powered by Apple software.

"The real battle is not with Apple, it is with all the other vendors coming out with Windows ultrabooks," Bajarin said.

"Apple will still do great with MacBook Air, but in the Windows world it is great news that five years after Apple set the tone the industry is finally getting something equal," he continued.

Acer also announced plans to launch a free service that will let users of its computers store video, photos, music, and documents in the Internet "cloud" and access files from any Windows 8 or Android software powered gadgets.

"We believe Microsoft will take care of Windows devices; Google will take care of Android devices, and Acer will take care of in between," Wang said.

"We will make Windows work very well with Android and other platforms too."

Bajarin described Aspire S5 as the first viable Windows equivalent of popular MacBook Air laptops built by California-based Apple.