Asus quietly unveiled a brand new Intel Gemini Lake powered laptop a couple days back. The device – namely called Asus E406MA – is now listed on the official website in various interesting configurations.
The Asus E406MA is indeed available with either Intel Celeron N4000, N4100 and Intel Pentium Silver N5000 CPUs, along with 2GB or 4GB of RAM and 32GB, 64GB or 128GB of eMMC storage. Integrated graphics instead go from an Intel UHD 600 to a slightly more powerful UHD 605.
Displays also vary in three types depending on the variant, albeit they all sport 7.8mm “NanoEdge” bezels:
- 14.0″ (16:9) LED-backlit FHD (1920×1080) 60Hz Anti-Glare Panel with 45% NTSC with wide 178° viewing angles
- 14.0″ (16:9) LED-backlit HD (1920×1080) 60Hz Anti-Glare Panel with 45% NTSC
- 14.0″ (16:9) LED-backlit HD (1366×768) 60Hz Anti-Glare Panel with 45% NTSC
What they all have in common are the 3-cell 56Wh battery (for up to 14 hours of web browsing, can be charged to 60% in 49 minutes), chiclet keyboard, VGA Web Camera and AC WiFi. Ports wise we find an audio jack, two Type A USB3.0 USB3.1 GEN1) ports, an HDMI 1.4 output and a microSD card reader.
The Asus E406MA is fanless, so we can’t expect to get too much out of it, on the plus side it’s slim at 17.6mm of thickness and only weighs 1.3kg. The laptop in the Intel N5000, 4GB RAM & 128GB storage configuration can be found on Canadian retails stores for $399.99 CAD, which is around $306 US.
No tengo
Can you add SSD?
Hank
Just picked up one of these in Canada. The battery just goes and goes. Nice IPS 1080p screen. The N5000 is pretty decent and a step-up over an N3450 in a lower spec laptop I had previously. Overall, a nice laptop for the price. In Canada, newegg.ca is selling open box for about $250 USD.
Sx C
The only reason i’ve not bought any of these cheap bottom rung notebook or tablets from these major manufacturers is that they usually comes with a horrible TN panel. Now that they have started using IPS panels there really is no reason to buy from the chinese companies, if you factor in the warranty and whatnot it is actually cheaper than the chinese offerings.
anobee
Yeah most of those vivobooks comes with TN panels to not compete with their own zenbook line-up . Wait to see actual pricing in store . I got the feeling that IPS panels will be market specific only like in the US but not in Europe and for a higher price (500$)
Sx C
Yes for some reason asus is hell bent on making the vivobook as bad as possible so as not to compete with their zenbook lineup. I was looking for a notebook for my sister a few months back and while i did fine a few model with IPS panel they will definitely have some other compromise like a 37wh battery etc.
End up paying a few hundreds more for a ux331 but if my sis had not insisted on asus i would have bought from their competitors.
Hopefully they have wised up now and is making each notebook as good as possible.
Brad
From my reading of the test data (that’s out there so far) the Pentium “Silver” N5000 performance looks like it’s not any better than the Celeron N4100, or if it is better it’s marginally so. Is there a reason to pay more for the N5000? So far, I’m not seeing any reason. Perhaps a little better graphics performance?
Chris G
The best part of this laptop is that battery size, normally the Chinese go with 37Wh, but this is 56Wh so the battery should definitely be over 10 hours. Windows hello support on that front camera too. If I can I would like to review one of these.
Chris G
But the 1080p 4GB model.
filn
yes 4GB Unfortunately.
The cost of memory will normalize sometime in mid 2019 according to a 2017 forecast.
Maybe will see lots of 8GB RAM options before the end of the year.
Alex
Agreed, 4GB is very unfortunate.
Jonathan
Hopefully the screen is IPS Chris and not TN.
Jonathan
The price starts from 400 US dollars. So the higher end model like 1080p 4GB might reach around 500 USD.
Jonathan
This website offers the the fastest CPU listed at $399 on pre-order but only 64GB eMMC with no description of Screen Resolution
https://www.londondrugs.com/asus-e406ma-laptop—14-inch—intel-pentium—e406ma-db21/L0176946.html
Fionn MacNamara
That model number (E406MA-DB21) is listed on Newegg showing a 1080p panel.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834234981