As manufacturers come up with innovative technology, we look forward to amazing new features applied to their upcoming products. Apple recently upgraded its MacBook range of computers with the Touch Bar strip. It replaces the conventional function keys of the keyboard. We’ve heard talk that not a lot of users really found it intuitive and prefer to have the original keys back. Meanwhile, the 2018 Asus ZenBook Pro 15 also applies a secondary touchscreen to its laptop, but in a different way.
The premium notebook integrates a touchscreen into the built-in touchpad, which in our opinion is a great location and should feel more natural to use than the one of the MacBook Pro. Asus calls it the ScreenPad and activates via a dedicated function key. Compared to the Touch Bar, the bigger space adds more versatility. The secondary touch display can show control buttons for supported apps, it can function as a numeric keypad, calculator, calendar, and so much more. However, we found it odd that you can set the 5.5-inch module to mirror the main screen.
Moving on to its other relevant features—the laptop’s metal body measures only 18.9 mm when closed and weighs 1.88kg. It also sports the same elegant chamfered edges that are set in a different tone than the notebook’s color. The 15.6-inch NanoEdge 4K UHD display delivers the minute details and accurate colors.
Audio reproduction is also top-notch with its Harman Kardon tuned SonicMaster speakers. The premium configuration uses an Intel Core i9-8950HK CPU alongside an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Ti GPU and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. Internal memory maxes out at 1TB via a PCIe SSD. The 2018 Asus ZenBook Pro 15 provides up to 9.5-hours of usage on a single charge.
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Photos courtesy of Asus
