Microsoft has just officially unveiled its Windows 10 Creators Update, and with it comes a new approach to its mixed reality platform HoloLens. During Microsoft's event, the company announced that HoloLens will be getting support for the 3D community features that will be included in the update, but perhaps the more surprising announcement was that of Microsoft's new focus on virtual reality.
Chromebooks are back! Or at least hardware makers are showing interest in them again. Whether the trend remains for good this time remains to be seen, depending on whether Chrome OS even exists in a year or so. That uncertainty, however, isn’t stopping manufacturers like Samsung or ASUS from betting on the platform. In fact, ASUS is expected to soon announce the Chromebook C302CA, which gives the Chromebook yet another version of the Yoga-like 360-degree folding form factor. Unlike most Chromebooks, however, this ASUS slate seems to be really designed for maximum productivity.
The unexpected success of Microsoft’s Surface tablets inspired OEMs to give the nascent 2-in-1 form factor their own spin. But some manufacturers aren’t too shy about being inspired by the same design as well. The ASUS Transformer Mini, formally the Transformer Book T102HA, unabashedly looks like a Microsoft Surface, close enough to a non-Pro Surface 3. But ASUS’ Windows 10 tablet, which is now available for pre-order, has a few things over Microsoft’s flagship tablets. It is, on paper, lighter, not to mention a whole lot cheaper too.
Verizon has announced the launch of the ASUS ZenPad Z10, a tablet exclusively available through the carrier. All things considered, the slate is impressive, boasting a metal unibody, 2k-resolution display, and support for Verizon’s 4G LTE network. The ZenPad Z10 won’t be available to buy in physical Verizon stores until October 13, but you can order one now from the carrier’s website if you’re so inclined.
Many Chromebook users have long dreamed of the day when they could natively run Android apps on their machine. And for some time now they have been, but only for early adopters and those that use the dev and beta channels of the software. But the time has finally come when Google has released a new stable version of Chrome OS that offers access to the entire Play Store library.
Last May, ASUS unveiled its new flagship ZenFone 3 family of Android smartphones, one of which included what the Taiwanese manufacturer boasted to be the first commercially available smartphone with the Snapdragon 821 processor. Now it is bringing two of those devices to the US market via Amazon, sitting on two opposite ends of the smartphone spectrum. On one end, you have the ASUS ZenFone 3 Laser, a moderately lower end phablet. While on the opposite end you have the beast that is the ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe.
ASUS' big announcement today may have been the ZenWatch 3, but if it's a secondary screen for your ultrabook not your smartphone that you're interested in, there's something new for you too. The ASUS ZenScreen is, as the name suggests, a portable display: effectively just the top-half of a notebook with a USB-C connection.
The Asus announcements at IFA 2016 continue with the debut of the company's latest flagship tablet, the ZenPad 3S 10. With a simple, clean design, the latest ZenPad features a 9.7-inch touchscreen display (2048 x 1536) and its chassis comes from a single piece of aluminum. It's easy to see a resemblance with the iPad Air 2, but the ZenPad 3S 10 beats Apple's tablet in thickness, measuring just 5.8mm.
Just as they had previously teased, Asus has unveiled its new ZenWatch 3 smartwatch at the IFA 2016 show in Berlin this week. Like last year's model, the ZenWatch 3 remains powered by Android Wear, but the obvious difference is that it sports a round casing, offering a more handsome, traditional look to the watch than the squarish, utilitarian face of the ZenWatch 2.
ASUS indeed has a round, hopefully still Android Wear, ZenWatch 3 coming next month and the company has all but confirmed it. That is, if we're reading the signs right from its teaser for an announcement scheduled at the end of the month. While it reuses its favorite "incredible" word yet again, its wording and even the imagery does seem to hint at a round smartwatch coming really soon. What other features the smartphone will have, however, remains mostly a matter of guesswork and wishes.
Earlier this summer, some posts on Reddit surfaced pointing toward a new ASUS Chromebook C301SA model with decent specs and a very nice price tag. ASUS pulled the product page shortly after it drew attention, though, and there’s been no update on it since…until today. Someone has spotted that model Chromebook up for preorder through an online retailer, though it still hasn't reappeared on ASUS' own website.
Smartwatches aren't dead yet. At least that seems to be the case if the recent train of news and leaks are any indicator, from speculation about two Apple Watches to the upcoming availability of two Fossil Q Android Wear timepieces. Here's one more: ASUS has a new smartwatch coming. And while that might not exactly be out of the ordinary, a sighting at the FCC hints that, for the first time, an ASUS ZenWatch, to be called the ZenWatch 3, of course, will be round.
