It’s not just the iPhone that Apple’s rivals try to beat by copying. Apple also sets design standards for laptops, and everyone else is trying to come up with devices that feature MacBook-grade build quality and design.
Asus is the latest company to come up with a Retina MacBook killer, the brand new ZenBook 3. The device is clearly meant to compete against the 12-inch MacBook and the MacBook Air family, as the two devices were even mentioned on stage during Asus’s recent keynote.
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The ZenBook 3 is supposed to be thinner, lighter, and more powerful than Apple’s ultraportable devices. The laptop has an 11.9mm profile and weighs just 910g. The device is built from aerospace-grade aluminum alloy, “a premium material that is 50% stronger than the standard alloy used in laptops.”
The laptop is supposed to be “the world’s most prestigious laptop” and offer “unprecedented performance,” according to Asus. The ZenBook 3 is thinner and lighter than Apple’s most portable laptop, and more powerful than the MacBook Air, Asus said at Computex.
The Windows 10 laptop has a 12.5-inch display and the highest screen-to-body ratio in Asus’s entire lineup of laptops: 82%. The screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 4, and the laptop has other interesting features, including a glass touchpad, a fingerprint sensor, a full-size keyboard, and the world’s thinnest fan that measures just 3mm.
The ZenBook 3 will ship in the third quarter of the year, priced at $1,499 (512GB SSD) or $1,999 (1TB SSD), and will be available in three colors, including Royal Blue, Rose Gold, and Quartz Grey. Other specs include 16GB of RAM, up to Intel Core i7 processor, USB Type-C connectivity, and up to 9 hours of battery life. The laptop also features fast-charging technology, reaching 60% of capacity in just 49 minutes.
