Asus is known best for their Republic of Gaming line of notebooks and their Zenbook Ultrabooks. Their workstation laptop line isn’t as well sought after as Lenovo’s Thinkpad or Dell’s Precision laptops. However, recently they’ve released a compelling workstation product that might change the company’s reputation as a workstation lightweight.
Enter the Asus StudioBook S 17 – an ultralight workstation-grade laptop with both the build quality and power that you would ever need in a workstation laptop. It may just be able to rival and maybe even surpass the appeal of the products from Lenovo and Dell.
Aesthetics and Build Quality
For a workstation, the StudioBook S 17 is sleek like an Ultrabook. Just by the looks of it, it’s pretty obvious that it’s one of the thinnest 17-inch notebooks around so far. When you open it up, the thin bezels of the 17-inch screen also add to the luxurious vibe of the entire machine. It’s also pretty edgy in the literal sense which reinforces its industrial design aesthetics. There’s barely a curved edge. Overall, the straight line gives it a very clean and carefully crafted aesthetic philosophy that would go well with both the boardroom table and a drafting table.
As for the build quality, the machined aluminium outer-shell looks sturdy enough for the bump and grind of travelling for work often. It’s MIL-STD-810G rated so you even some dust, pressure, and temperature resistant which are all factors if you travel with your laptop a lot.
If you intend to make it a semi-permanent fixture of your home, it would also do just fine because of its extremely luxurious aesthetics. However, putting that same finish on the palm rest doesn't make a lot of sense and left it plain matte coloured would have made more sense.
Connectivity Fit for a Real Workstation
Work has many different demands - from displaying images and videos to a bigger screen to needing to get data off the internet quickly. Which is why the connectivity arsenal on this machine is quite pleasing. Suffice it to say that it's got everything that's relevant to creative and administrative work you can think of.
As for ports, it has a USB-C with Thunderbolt 3 port for powerful peripherals, full-sized HDMI 2.0 for easy audio-visual data transfers to a larger system, and 3 USB-A 3.1 ports for whatever peripheral you'd wish to use. There’s also a 3.5mm audio jack should you wish to use high-fidelity headphones for editing videos, watching movies, or just listening to music. To make it a little bit juicier for creatives, Asus equipped this machine with an SD card reader that can pull and read data at 350MBps which is one of the fastest in the market. All of these helps you chuck the cumbersome dock when you go to work. The only thing that you might miss is an ethernet port.
Since you might be working on-the-go a lot with the StudioBook, the Kensington lock might be a welcome addition as well. It’ll keep your device from getting stolen if and when you need to take a quick bathroom break from at the coffee shop or co-working space.
Asus probably thinks that who needs an ethernet when you’ve got one of the most advanced wireless cards. It boasts an 802.11ax wireless card that ensures stable gigabit connection where available.
Creative Powerhouse
Asus has a slight difference with Lenovo and Dell in their targeting with this laptop. Instead of just business people who work with Excel and Powerpoint, the Taiwanese giant targets professional creatives who work with more comprehensive programs. Therefore, it has to have powerful components to run these programs with no hiccup.
The base processor is an 8TH gen Core i7 with six cores. This is already plenty powerful for image processing and video editing but you can also opt for a more powerful Xeon E 2176M chip.
As for graphics buyers can only have Nvidia Quadro which isn’t a gaming beast but by no means a slouch when it comes to movie editing and other productivity-related graphics work.
Furthermore, the 64GB of DDR4 RAM with 4TB of NVME is definitely going to ensure that everything runs smoothly. You can open all the web browsers and applications you want at the same time and you're probably not going be able to make this lag.
The hardware on the StudioBook S 17 is definitely geared towards more professional creatives on-the-go. YouTubers, 3D modellers, and other content creators would definitely love the combination of sturdy design, portability, and optimized performance.
Colour Accurate Screen For the Perfect Image or Movie Processing
One of the things that set aside a gaming laptop from workstation laptops are the screens. Gamers prefer screens with an optimized refresh rate while creatives crave for colour accuracy and sharpness.
The StudioBook S 17 is definitely a workstation in this regard. The screen on this machine is top notch. For one thing, the Pantone-certified matte panel covers 97% of the DCI-P3 gamut which pretty much means that what you see in the real world is what you’re going to get.
It also doesn’t hurt that the almost borderless screen looks absolutely stunning. It doesn’t only add to the device’s sleekness, it also helps to put the image you’re working on in focus as you work.
Input Innovation
Creatives in the visual field aren’t the only ones who are going to love this device. The keyboard is absolutely great enough to make writers swoon. The 1.4mm key travel would definitely help if you’re typing up a long script or a full novel. They’re also spacious enough to minimize your typing errors. Overall, the keyboard itself is a solid-but-nothing-special feature on the StudioBook.
What's truly innovative is the number pad hidden underneath the touchpad. This is a necessity because, in order to fit the spacious keys into the chassis of a 15-incher, the number pad had to go. Since work can oftentimes involve a lot of number crunching too, this move from Asus is a welcome addition. However, it doesn’t work the same way as a dedicated number pad it’s okay at best but it’s still a compromise.
Enter the Asus StudioBook S 17 – an ultralight workstation-grade laptop with both the build quality and power that you would ever need in a workstation laptop. It may just be able to rival and maybe even surpass the appeal of the products from Lenovo and Dell.
Aesthetics and Build Quality
For a workstation, the StudioBook S 17 is sleek like an Ultrabook. Just by the looks of it, it’s pretty obvious that it’s one of the thinnest 17-inch notebooks around so far. When you open it up, the thin bezels of the 17-inch screen also add to the luxurious vibe of the entire machine. It’s also pretty edgy in the literal sense which reinforces its industrial design aesthetics. There’s barely a curved edge. Overall, the straight line gives it a very clean and carefully crafted aesthetic philosophy that would go well with both the boardroom table and a drafting table.
As for the build quality, the machined aluminium outer-shell looks sturdy enough for the bump and grind of travelling for work often. It’s MIL-STD-810G rated so you even some dust, pressure, and temperature resistant which are all factors if you travel with your laptop a lot.
If you intend to make it a semi-permanent fixture of your home, it would also do just fine because of its extremely luxurious aesthetics. However, putting that same finish on the palm rest doesn't make a lot of sense and left it plain matte coloured would have made more sense.
Connectivity Fit for a Real Workstation
Work has many different demands - from displaying images and videos to a bigger screen to needing to get data off the internet quickly. Which is why the connectivity arsenal on this machine is quite pleasing. Suffice it to say that it's got everything that's relevant to creative and administrative work you can think of.
As for ports, it has a USB-C with Thunderbolt 3 port for powerful peripherals, full-sized HDMI 2.0 for easy audio-visual data transfers to a larger system, and 3 USB-A 3.1 ports for whatever peripheral you'd wish to use. There’s also a 3.5mm audio jack should you wish to use high-fidelity headphones for editing videos, watching movies, or just listening to music. To make it a little bit juicier for creatives, Asus equipped this machine with an SD card reader that can pull and read data at 350MBps which is one of the fastest in the market. All of these helps you chuck the cumbersome dock when you go to work. The only thing that you might miss is an ethernet port.
Since you might be working on-the-go a lot with the StudioBook, the Kensington lock might be a welcome addition as well. It’ll keep your device from getting stolen if and when you need to take a quick bathroom break from at the coffee shop or co-working space.
Asus probably thinks that who needs an ethernet when you’ve got one of the most advanced wireless cards. It boasts an 802.11ax wireless card that ensures stable gigabit connection where available.
Creative Powerhouse
Asus has a slight difference with Lenovo and Dell in their targeting with this laptop. Instead of just business people who work with Excel and Powerpoint, the Taiwanese giant targets professional creatives who work with more comprehensive programs. Therefore, it has to have powerful components to run these programs with no hiccup.
The base processor is an 8TH gen Core i7 with six cores. This is already plenty powerful for image processing and video editing but you can also opt for a more powerful Xeon E 2176M chip.
As for graphics buyers can only have Nvidia Quadro which isn’t a gaming beast but by no means a slouch when it comes to movie editing and other productivity-related graphics work.
Furthermore, the 64GB of DDR4 RAM with 4TB of NVME is definitely going to ensure that everything runs smoothly. You can open all the web browsers and applications you want at the same time and you're probably not going be able to make this lag.
The hardware on the StudioBook S 17 is definitely geared towards more professional creatives on-the-go. YouTubers, 3D modellers, and other content creators would definitely love the combination of sturdy design, portability, and optimized performance.
Colour Accurate Screen For the Perfect Image or Movie Processing
One of the things that set aside a gaming laptop from workstation laptops are the screens. Gamers prefer screens with an optimized refresh rate while creatives crave for colour accuracy and sharpness.
The StudioBook S 17 is definitely a workstation in this regard. The screen on this machine is top notch. For one thing, the Pantone-certified matte panel covers 97% of the DCI-P3 gamut which pretty much means that what you see in the real world is what you’re going to get.
It also doesn’t hurt that the almost borderless screen looks absolutely stunning. It doesn’t only add to the device’s sleekness, it also helps to put the image you’re working on in focus as you work.
Input Innovation
Creatives in the visual field aren’t the only ones who are going to love this device. The keyboard is absolutely great enough to make writers swoon. The 1.4mm key travel would definitely help if you’re typing up a long script or a full novel. They’re also spacious enough to minimize your typing errors. Overall, the keyboard itself is a solid-but-nothing-special feature on the StudioBook.
What's truly innovative is the number pad hidden underneath the touchpad. This is a necessity because, in order to fit the spacious keys into the chassis of a 15-incher, the number pad had to go. Since work can oftentimes involve a lot of number crunching too, this move from Asus is a welcome addition. However, it doesn’t work the same way as a dedicated number pad it’s okay at best but it’s still a compromise.