14 DAY TRIAL // A few months ago at IFA 2014 in Berlin, ASUS introduced the new ASUS Zenbook UX305 with Intel Core M architecture.
Apart from its nifty specifications, the ASUS Zenbook UX305 impressed with its sleek frame, coming in with a profile of just 12.3mm / 0.48 inches and tipping the scales at 1.2 kg / 2.64 lbs.
Now, as revealed in a recent report to investors, ASUS is planning to extend its Zenbook portfolio by adding two Zenbook PRO models which include the UX305 and UX501 (as seen at Notebook Italia).
ASUS is working on a MacBook Pro competitor
As for the UX501, ASUS’ own CEO Jerry Shen called it a “high performance monster” which will apparently be able to put up a real fight against the Apple MacBook Pro.
The “PRO” moniker probably indicates that ASUS is planning to market these models for the enterprise and professional market. Both devices mentioned above will probably run on Intel Broadwell architecture and run Windows 8.1 out of the box.
The company will most likely ship out the two PRO models outfitted with productivity software, but this is just a guess for the time being.
ASUS also shared information about the expected launch timeline for their upcoming products. As you can see, the ZenBook PRO (alongside the Transformer Book Chi family which debuted at CES 2015) will be rolled out in Q1 (which ends in March).
New ASUS Chromebooks are also coming
They also share an interesting piece of information about their upcoming plans for the Chromebook market. It has been quite some time since ASUS hasn't done anything Chromebook-wise, but the company is looking to make a powerful comeback.
Not many details about these upcoming products have been revealed in the presentation, apart from the fact that we should expect the new models to arrive in Q2.
ASUS mentions that the upcoming devices will be a “hero product,” which brings back old memories of the company talking about their first smartwatch product that turned out to be cheaper than the competition’s.
A few months ago, rumor surfaced that ASUS was prepping an ultra-affordable Chrome OS laptop said to be hitting retail for an affordable $149 / €120. The notebook was whispered to arrive with a standard 11.6-inch display and be one of the first to take advantage of a Rockchip RK3188 chipset.
Could this be the ASUS hero Chromebook product?
