ASUS puts discrete graphics inside its ultra-thin ZenBook
Small size, big performance.
ASUS showed off its ridiculously thin and light ZenBook 13 at CES earlier this year, but the model was missing a key component: a dedicated GPU. Now, though, the new ZenBook 13 UX331 offers the whole shebang at just 0.47-0.55 inches thick and weighing in at just 2.47lbs, with a discrete graphics card on board and a 13.3" FHD touchscreen display.
The visual grunt work comes courtesy of an Nvidia GeForce MX150 2GB GDDR5 GPU, and will provide extra performance for gaming and GPU-intensive tasks and certainly a boost over the Intel UHD cards found in ultrabook counterparts. ASUS says it's the world's thinnest laptop with a discrete GPU, and it'll no doubt play a role in bumping the brand's sales of gaming machines, which ASUS expects to increase by 33 percent this year.
The machine also features two USB 3.0 ports, a micro SD card reader, headphone-out, audio-in jack, dual band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and a 50Wh lithium polymer battery that boasts up to 14 hours of runtime. You'll get 60 percent charged in just 49 minutes, too, but then again you'd expect a quick charge time for such a lightweight machine. It's on sale now for $1,000.
