Computex 2013: ASUS Takes on Lenovo with Pro Line of Business Notebooks
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 10, 2013 2:26 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Asus
- Trade Shows
- Computex 2013
- Notebooks
ASUS has Lenovo square in its sights with its ASUS Pro brand of business notebooks. Based on Ivy Bridge silicon (longer upgrade cycles in business, Haswell will come later), the ASUS Pro lineup is clearly designed to mimic the no-frills design of Lenovo's ThinkPad line. Although not new to Computex, this is the first time we've talked about ASUS Pro on the site.
Although you can't really tell from the photos here, the ASUS Pro systems actually look and feel great in person. I don't know if they're up to snuff with the ThinkPads for long term use, but given how far ASUS has come as a consumer manufacturer I suspect pursuing the business market with that same relentless focus will only yield good results.
The notebooks will ship with either Windows 8 Pro or 7 Pro, a clear nod to those businesses who prefer sticking with the previous generation OS. The BU400A model I checked out at Computex featured a 14-inch display, with options for 1366 x 768 or 1600 x 900 panels.
The BU400A is complete with up to a 256GB SSD, NVIDIA NVS 5200M graphics and a 53Wh battery.
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jaydee - Monday, June 10, 2013 - link
Displayport or HDMI?2xshot - Monday, June 10, 2013 - link
What is the case made out of? Magnesium alloy is a key reason to choose the Thinkpads. This is a key to durability!AstroCreep - Monday, June 10, 2013 - link
14" is too small; I'd consider a 15.4"/15.6" model (if resolution were at 1920x1080).I too would want a trackpoint. I like them a lot more than I do the touchpad.
nevertell - Monday, June 10, 2013 - link
12" X200 is an excellent road warrior. The T4xx series is excellent for most cases, as 15" laptops are just too cumbersome to carry around.But on the whole, do they have accelerometers for the hard drive? Will I be able to manually set the limits of charge level ? The keyboard seems on par with Asus's entry level/mainstream notebooks.
I believe that most people think that Thinkpads are "business laptops", because of their aesthetic design, which is an odd way of looking at an instrument/tool that you make money with. Thinkpads are reliable. At least they were. The new chiclet keyboards just don't supersede the old ones, the layout is bonkers. I don't know about you, but when I'm writing stuff/coding, I rarely use look at the keyboard, so I find the backlight useless. And the trackpoint is again, more than just preference. I can't stress enough how much the seamless transition from typing to moving the cursor/using the mouse enriches the user experience. Of course, on windows the middle-button scrolling is a bit useless, but I believe there's a way to configure it so that it emulates actual scrolling, like it does in linux. And that's another reason I'd rather go with a thinkpad- they're really well supported in linux, whilst my colleagues often have problems configuring their distros to work with their particular Asus machines.
Wow, looking over mine and most of the other comments, we do really sound like a bunch of bots sent here by Lenovo. But I really do feel that there's something more to the thinkpad line than just the extended warranty and the different aesthetic style.
marcplante - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
I've also been less than pleased with the quality and support of a pair of N series (read, not cheap) notebooks I bought from Asus last year. They have both had multiple RMAs and I have had a replacement on one. Their tech support is not very fluent in the intricacies of computer troubleshooting. I love Asus components, but their notebooks aren't ready for the Rigors of enterprise life IMO. My wife is giving up on her Asus (one of the aforementioned 2) and will likely replace it with a lenovo Y series ideapad (She wants a bit better media functionality than the Thinkpad line offers).Otunia - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
They're cumbersome because they are 16:9. A 16:10 15" laptop is as wide as a 16:9 14" one. Progress gone backward is called regress. Everybody but Apple has regressed on displays in the last 5 years, and I'm writing more about the form factor than about resolution.thejaredhuang - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
The fact that when you call Thinkpad/Thinkcenter support and some person in Atlanta picks up within 30 seconds is enough for me to buy Thinkpads for the rest of my life.n13L5 - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
Wonder if Asus knows business customers want people to talk to, when there's an issue...Asus only has a forum stacked with customer volunteers... Good luck...