Asus StudioBook S Hands-On: A Laptop for Creators
Asus StudioBook S Hands-On: A Laptop for Creators
Video Transcript
CHRIS VELAZCO: For years, if you wanted a solid ASUS laptop, you had plenty of options. we had Vivo Books, we had Zen Books. But if you really wanted to get some work done or, more specifically, really get down and dirty with your content, you were sort of out of luck. Not so much anymore, ASUS has just unveiled this, the new Studio Book S. And it's a full fledged creative work machine in a surprisingly svelte body. Let's take a closer look.
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CHRIS VELAZCO: First things first, we need to talk about what's inside. And on some level, it's not hard to compare something like the Studio Book S to a Dell Precision or a Lenovo ThinkPad. These are, of course, all work machines, but ASUS has really work to make this a very media-friendly device. So depending on what you're looking for, you can trick this thing out with either a Hexa-core Intel Core i7, a Hexa-core Intel Xeon, up to 64 gigabytes of RAM, up to 4 terabytes of NVME storage, not to mention Nvidia Quadro graphics.
So right off the bat, this is a remarkably powerful machine. But here is the thing. ASUS understands that if you're out there crafting your 3D worlds, or working in VR on a machine like this, you probably have some business things to take care of, as well. So you have hot keys to very quickly turn off your microphone, or your webcam, for example, which should come in really handy on those very long, very tedious conference calls. We haven't spent a ton of time with this machine so far, but based off of my limited experience with it, this is a definite contender if you need to get things done.
And this is coming from a person who does a lot of what ASUS is targeting on a MacBook Pro that just frankly isn't cutting it all the time. So yeah, there is a lot of power here, but let's not forget all of the rest of the package. We do have, for example, a very, very nice keyboard with quite nice key travel, but that's nothing new for ASUS. I do want to spend a little time talking about this display, though. A machine like this is surprisingly portable. It weighs in at just 2.4 kilograms, but we are actually working with a machine that has a full 17-inch inch matte display, running at 16 by 10, in a body that really doesn't feel that much bigger than a traditional 15-inch notebook.
And this screen, by the way, is no joke. As I've said, it's matte, which is just personally very nice. But it does support 97% of the DCI P3 color space, which is huge if you're working in video, if you're working in graphics. This is sort of the Hollywood standard, and that's what you need when you're actually out there putting your best foot forward with your media. I should also point out this is a fully Pantone-validated display. So for once, you get to look at a screen and know that the colors you're looking at are the colors you're supposed to be looking at.
Beyond that, we do have some pretty sleek bezels around the side. They come in at just about 5.3 millimeters. It leaves just enough room up top for a webcam, just in case do you have to do that business stuff, too. And we can't fully lust after a computer like this without taking a quick look around and checking out these ports. We do have three full-sized USB-A ports, a Thunderbolt USB-C port, and an SD card reader, which is crucial for me. It's probably crucial for some of you, too. I should point out that this supports the SD 4.0 standard.
So you're going to get data transfer speeds of up to 300 megabits per second. So if you're pulling data off of your cards, raw footage, raw images, it's going to happen real quick. So that's really important for the target audience here. And to round this thing out, we do have Wi-Fi 6, a.k.a. 802.11ax. That means, in the best possible scenario, you could theoretically get speeds of up to 2.4 gigabits per second. If you are experiencing that, please, let us know so we can move to where you live. Oh, and by the way, just check out this trackpad.
It's a normal trackpad until you hit this tiny calculator button in the corner, and then you get the full number pad, fully usable for whenever you have to dial stuff or whatever you got to do with numbers. I don't know.
Frankly, I'm really impressed that this exists in the first place. In some vague way, it's analogous to some of the workstations we've seen from other companies, but this focus on creativity is a refreshing change of pace for ASUS. Beyond this, we generally see them focus really heavily on gaming, and if you are creative, then you were sort of out of luck. Whether or not that pans out in the long term remains to be seen, but hey, it's still early days. I'm liking what we're seeing so far, and stick around for more from Engadget at CES 2019.
I'm going to play with this thing more in the meantime.
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