At a content creator-focused launch event today, Asus announced their new line-up of laptops for the Australian market, with a heavy emphasis on features and tools to support those in creative industries. Fronted by artist mentors Serwah Attafuah, Jess Johnson and Dave Court, Asus unveiled the ‘Asus Creator XChange‘, an open source online platform for creatives to collaborate and share work and ideas.

The big features included across the various laptops are 4K HDR OLED panels, included for better colour accuracy and performance, ScreenPad displays (secondary displays included on the laptop themselves) and a new Dial or DialPad on certain models, allowing finer control and compatibility with Adobe applications.

The new laptop range includes

• ProArt Studiobook Pro 16 OLED (W7600) | From AUD $9,999 | Available 2022

• ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED (H5600) | From AUD $4,399 | Available 2022

The ProArt Studiobooks feature the ASUS Dial, a physical rotary control just under the keyboard and next to the touchpad, which works with After Effects, Photoshop Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Premiere. It’s configured through the included Creator Hub app, and potentially includes a great deal more fine control for creators who are used to scrubbing timelines.

The OLED versions of these laptops feature 4K OLED HDR 16:10 550-nit displays, 60 Hz, with a cinema-grade 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, PANTONE Validated and Calman Verified certifications, along with factory-calibrated Delta-E < 2 colour accuracy and VESA DisplayHDR 500 True Black accreditation for a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

The W7600 model is powered by 3rd-gen Intel Xeon processors, while the H5600 has Ryzen 5000-series with an Nvidia RTX 3070.

• Zenbook Pro Duo 15 OLED (UX582) | From AUD $4,499 | Available Now

• Zenbook Duo 14 (UX482) | From AUD $2,999 | Available Now

The Zenbook Duos feature two screens – a primary display and a secondary ‘ScreenPad’. On the Zenbook Prod Duo 15 OLED, this is a ScreenPad Plus, which is a 14-inch touchscreen display.

The laptops feature up to eight-core Intel i9 processors, and Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics cards.

• Vivobook Pro 15 OLED (K3500) | From AUD $1,499 | Available Dec 2021

• Vivobook 15 Pro OLED (M3500) | From AUD $1,499 | Available Dec 2021

• Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (M7600) | From AUD $2,499 | Available Jan 2022

Finally, the Vivobooks are aimed at casual creators, with OLED options also available up to a 16-inch 4K OLED HDR 550-nit 16:10 display in the 16X model, with an ultrawide 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, with VESA DisplayHDR True Black 600 certification. They are also PANTONE® Validated for professional-grade colour accuracy, and TÜV Rheinland-certified for low blue-light emissions.

Eequipped with AMD Ryzen™ 5000 H-Series Mobile Processors, and up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics, they also feature a dual-fan cooling system with ASUS IceCool Plus technology.

While there’s no ASUS Dial on these models, there is a virtual ‘DialPad’ which seeks to replicate the function using the touchpad and software.