The beautiful ASUS Zenbook Z305, powered with the new Intel Core M CPU, will launch at €799 according to NotebookItalia. This 1.2KG Ultrabook with a 2K display, 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD should be available in December.
ASUS UX305
We always though that ASUS would break into a new price point with this superlight but 799 euro (which is likely to translate to $799 pre-tax in the USA) is better than we expected.
The Core M 5Y10a CoC inside has an 800Mhz base clockrate but can automatically overclock (Turbo Boost) to 2.0Ghz given the right conditions. We’ve seen it in test though and based on those tests we can’t say that the UX305 is going to out-perform any existing Haswell Ultrabook based on the U-Series processor. It will, however, provide a huge boost over what we’ve seen on Haswell Y-series Ultrabooks and 2-in-1’s like the Lenovo Yoga 11S. It’s fanless and has space inside for a 45Wh battery which should get you 10-hours of video watching. 6 hours of web-working should be possible too.
I’ve written about Core M and up-coming products here.
For 799-Euro you can get a more powerful Windows laptop but will it be 1.2KG in weight, have a 2K screen and be fanless? No.
The ASUS Zenbook UX305 will also be available with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD.
Have a look at the ASUS Zenbook UX305 in the hands-on video made at IFA earlier this month.
Source: Notebookitalia
This is actually slightly disappointing. Intel originally said the Chi would start at $799. The Chi weighs less than 1kg even with the keyboard.
“45Wh battery which should get you 10-hours of video watching. 6 hours of web-working should be possible too.”
Broadwell is noticeably more efficient than Haswell, by something around 30%. The Llama Mountain reference design they were talking about 8 hours on a 32WHr battery.
Also I think some designs may opt for eMMC storage to bring the price down significantly. SSD storage is still very expensive.
Does Core M have a built-in eMMC controller? I know it has a SATA controller. If not, do you think OEMs would move away from Intel’s reference designs to add eMMC capability or does the reference designs actually include an eMMC controller?
I’m only going by what I read here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8475/intels-core-m-strategy-cpu-specifications-for-9mm-fanless-tablets
Yes, it doesn’t look like Core M has native eMMC either.
But eMMC has significant advantages in cost and probably power consumption based on that *ALL* Atom-based Tablets use eMMC. It’s probably cheap as a hard drive in cost/GB.
With SSDs you can get away with some low quality controllers and firmware where the power management doesn’t kick in as ideally says on datasheets because that’s how PC is. But eMMC is different.
For what its worth if you want super portable super responsive device and want to run relatively recent but not cutting-edge applications Core M + eMMC makes perfect sense to me.
OEMs would need to add an extra eMMC controller chip which would drive design costs up. Looking at the past ultrabooks, most OEMs just directly use Intel’s reference designs and only make changes when they drop features. Atom devices have even less variation where most use pretty much the exact same design and components (possibly to meet the strict Connected Standby requirements where Intel already did the design work).
I guess if eMMC prices are low enough to warrant the extra design costs (I assume PCIe to eMMC controller chips are cheap too) then it would make sense for OEMs to use eMMC storage. Of course, I have no idea and maybe it does have a net lower cost if the ASUS Transformer Book V with it’s Core M + eMMC combo comes out.
If we’re only using what Intel has publicly made available about the Core M chips then it doesn’t directly support eMMC and would require an extra controller chip. Core M does support SATA III.
If we’re talking about the ASUS Transformer Book V that supposedly uses eMMC and a Core M chip then their slides either had a mistake or they’re using a possibly lower end chip Intel hasn’t announced.
Too bad ASUS is still using that ugly shiny swirly lid on their ultrabooks.