At the recent Asus Intel Performance Day in Pilanesberg, the company provided a status update from the last few years, impacted by the pandemic. Among the interesting stats shared from the consumer side for 2021, it had a 20% year-on-year growth from the EMEA region, and holds a 68% market share for OLED laptops. It sees major growth in the creator category. According to GFK, in 2021-2022, the Asus global marketshare for OLED laptops was 68% and in South Africa, it was a staggering 94%.
The event showcased its new laptops running Intel’s 12th-generation hybrid architecture that integrates two types of cores into one: performance cores and efficient cores. These chips enables the Windows devices to have performance gains for gaming, streaming, content creation and productivity.
The 12th-gen H Series processors are promising to be 40% faster, offer the best gameplay on a laptop with low-latency on WiFi 6E, and for video editing, modeling and rendering.
Asus also shared information from a Kantar survey in 2019 that says performance is the number one feature consumers are looking for in a laptop. Battery life is second most important, and display quality coming in in third place. It also said during the pandemic it has an advantage of focusing on OLED panels due to the availability of parts, which paid off as it now holds a 94% marketshare in SA for 2021/2.
As Asus focuses on the creator segment, there will be a selection of laptops on offer, in addition to gaming and productivity lines. Here’s how the line-up differs and who its aimed at:
VivoBook: the mainstream entry-level line aimed at the average consumer, typically for surfing, writing documents, and casual entertainment. Available in 14″, 15″ and 17″ versions, and a VivoBook Flip.
ZenBook: is a premium laptop for creativity combined with performance and style. It’s also thin and light, and comes various models, including ZenBook Pro, ZenBook Flip, ZenBook Duo between 13″ to 15″.
Chromebook: This runs on Google’s operating system and you can use your Google login to access everything. You will use Chrome and get apps from the Play Store, it does not run Windows apps.
ExpertBook: Aimed at the corporate and enterprise world, powered with 5G connectivity, you can work anywhere. It’s also lightweight, powerful and offers robust security.
ROG: the Republic of Gamers range are some of the most powerful gaming laptops you can buy, with top notch graphics, screen and built-in cooling. The range includes the Flow, Zephyrus, and Strix.
While Asus did not officially launch new products, it was great to go to a fun tech event, away from a work environment, network and see the line-up side-by-side. Asus were wonderful hosts who treated us to a fun cocktail (in my case, mocktail) making class where we learnt to juggle, had a delicious boma dinner and ended off with a morning game drive.
PS Did you know Asus South Africa has their own online store? Don’t forget to check out the “deals” page. You can shop the range of laptops, desktops, all-in-ones, motherboards, components, accessories, ROG and gaming via their website here: https://www.asus.com/za/store/
Nafisa Akabor
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Recharged is an independent site that focuses on technology, electric vehicles, and the digital life by Nafisa Akabor. Drawing from her 16-year tech journalism career, expect news, reviews, how-tos, comparisons, and practical uses of tech that are easy to digest. info@recharged.co.za