ASUS Refreshes ROG Laptops With G752 and Liquid Cooled GX700 Series

Today at IFA ASUS is announcing some of its fall laptop lineup. As with the other vendors, they have been waiting on Windows 10 which launched at the end of July, and Intel’s Skylake processors which launched just a few hours ago. The combination of new operating system and new processor is likely going to mean there are a lot of new products coming out in the next while.

Specifically in this announcement is the refresh of the Republic of Gamers laptops. The G752 is an upgrade to the G751 that we reviewed. New of course is Windows 10 installed by default, as well as Intel’s Skylake quad-core processor. There will be two options depending on the model purchased, with the Core i7-6700HQ processor as the base. This is a quad-core, eight-thread Core i7 with a 2.6 GHz base frequency and up to 3.5 GHz Turbo on a single core. On the top tier G752 you can get the Core i7-6820HK model, which is 2.7 GHz to 3.6 GHz and bumps the L3 cache from 6 MB to 8 MB. Being a K part, it means that it is overclockable as well which may let adventurous owners squeeze some extra performance out assuming they can keep the laptop cool. The G751 that we tested actually had a great cooling system so I don’t see that being a big issue. As is usual for a mobile quad-core, these are 45W CPUs.

The G752 also keeps what is great about the G751, with the NVIDIA GTX 980M GPU available to handle the graphics duties. One of the great features from the G751 was the introduction of NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology and I am pleased to say this has continued with the G752. The big difference though is that the G752 will be offered with a 1920×1080 panel as the base model, but the top version will be available with a 3840×2160 panel for the 17.3-inch laptop.

The G752 is not just a spec upgrade either. ASUS is rolling out a new chassis with a new design. It is not a huge departure from the outgoing G751 but it does clean up the lines and make the laptop a lot sleeker in my opinion. It will also be available in three colors, with plasma copper, armor titanium, and lava red options. The keyboard is a gaming keyboard with anti-ghosting 30-key rollover and 2.5 mm of travel in the keys. Thunderbolt 3 will also be available, and clearly Intel is pushing this quite heavily now that it can be piggybacked on a USB-C port.

I quite liked the G751 but I found the chassis to be a bit dated, so these updates make it a pretty compelling gaming laptop. It will be available in Q4 starting at $1499.

The big announcement from ASUS though is a completely new gaming laptop called the GX700 series. This is a new flagship gaming laptop from the company and they have tried to pack in quite a few unique features to differentiate from the competition. Someone can correct me if I am mistaken here, but I believe this is the first modern gaming laptop to be offered with a closed loop liquid cooling system. We have seen what a dramatic difference this can make under load on the recently launched AMD Fury X GPU, and ASUS is just teasing us for the moment and will release more details about this later. It will feature a 3840×2160 17.3-inch display, and a yet to be determined GeForce GTX graphics system. The GX700 will feature the mobile K-series Skylake processors much like the G752 and will therefore support overclocking. With the water cooling system, this could make for a pretty powerful laptop. The GX700 will be released in Q4 as well but the price is not final yet.

Source: ASUS

Lenovo Launches ThinkPad Yoga 260 And 460 Models Plus ThinkCentre M900 Tiny SFF PC

In addition to the consumer PC refresh, Lenovo is updating and relaunching some of its business devices. The ThinkPad Yoga is the prosumer level version of the Yoga series, and includes the 360° hinge which allows it to be used as a laptop, or in three touch modes. Lenovo is also rolling out the ThinkCenter M900 Tiny, which is its latest rendition of the ultra-compact form factor for businesses.

The ThinkPad Yoga series started with just a single 12.5-inch model, but last year Lenovo added a couple of larger sizes as well. The Yoga 260 and Yoga 460 are the new 12.5 and 14-inch models respectively. Both are built like a ThinkPad, and include things like carbon fibre in the chassis and the ThinkPad trademark TrackPoint. The ThinkPad Yoga lineup also continues to offer stylus support.

The Yoga 260 features a 12.5-inch display with both 1366×768 and 1920×1080 offerings. The latest models are of course updated with Intel’s new Skylake-U series processors, with everything from i3-6100U all the way up to i7-6600U models available. You can outfit the laptop with up to 16 GB of DDR4 RAM and up to 512 GB of SSD storage. Battery life is rated at 10 hours on this model.

The ThinkPad Yoga 460 is the 14-inch version, and it can be had with either 1920×1080 IPS or 2560×1440 IPS panels. The processor choices are just listed as Core i5 and i7 models, but it should be the same U series as the smaller 260 mode but with an optional GeForce 940M GPU. The 460 can only be had with 8 GB of DDR3L memory, a 256 GB SSD, or a 1 TB HDD. Battery life is rated the same as the 260, coming in at 10 hours.

ThinkPad Yoga 260

Networking is now upgraded as well, likely with the Intel 8265 card which offers 802.11ac as well as Bluetooth 4.1. The 260 model offers LTE-A support as an option.

Since these are ThinkPads, they can be custom ordered, and you can get options such as smart card readers and fingerprint readers if necessary.

ThinkPad Yoga 460

For those looking for small desktop PC replacements, the ThinkCentre Tiny series has offered some interesting solutions for several years now. The M900 can be equipped with a monitor with built-in mounting bracket, and the M900 is also outfitted with Skylake processors. The small form factor device can be outfitted with up to 32 GB of DDR4 memory, and a wide selection of storage offerings including a 512 GB SSD or 2 TB HDD. There are six USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, headset jack, card reader, and even a serial port option. Wifeless is either a single stream 802.11ac option or 2×2:2 802.11ac.

The All-in-One offering is a 23-inch 1920×1080 monitor which can be had with or without touch.

I’ve been a big fan of the Yoga series over the years, and the ThinkPad Yoga seems to be a pretty well built two-in-one device. Hopefully we can get a couple of these in to test and review.

Source: Lenovo