A day ahead of the opening of Computex 2016 in Taipei, Taiwanese electronics major ASUS has set the ball rolling with a slew of product announcements, including the Zenbo — a robot that has the ability to move independently and understand and respond to spoken commands.

The company also unveiled a new generation of its Zenfone series of smartphones and Zenbook line of ultraportable laptops in addition to new versions of the Transformer 2-in-1 portable computing devices.

In addition to the usual array of functions offered by digital assistant devices such as streaming audio, video and intelligent web search, the Zenbo is intended to be a ‘home care assistant' for the old and the invalid. It can provide verbal reminders of medicine and exercise schedules and monitor the home for emergency situations and send out alerts to specific smartphones. This feature can also double up as a connected security camera when the home is empty.

“Our ambition is to enable robotic computing for every household,” said ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih .

ZenFone Headlining the new smartphones launched by ASUS is the flagship ZenFone 3 Deluxe. Featuring an aluminium unibody, the 5.7-inch handset has a Full HD AMOLED display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset with 6GB of RAM. It has a 23MP rear camera with an f/2.0 aperture lens, 4-axis optical image stabilisation and the new ASUS TriTech autofocus system that automatically switches between laser, phase detection, or continuous autofocus.

ZenFone 3 has a 5.5-inch Full HD Super IPS+ display and runs on a Snapdragon 600 series chipset with 4 GB of RAM. It has a 16 MP rear camera that is also assisted by TriTech autofocus.

The Zenfone 3 Ultra, the third smartphone unveiled by ASUS at the event, features a 6.8-inch Full HD display. The multimedia-focused phablet boasts of Tru2Life+ video technology and dual five-magnet stereo speakers with a NXP smart amplifier. The device is powered by a Snapdragon 653 octa-core processor and has 4 GB of RAM. Its 4600 mAh battery supports Quick Charge 3.0 and can also act as a power bank with 1.5A output.

Laptop ASUS also unveiled their new flagship laptop, the Zenbook 3. Featuring a 11.9mm-thick aluminum alloy chassis that weighs less than 910g, the highest-end variant of the device runs on an Intel Core i7 processor with 16 GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It offers up to 9 hours of battery life and has a 12.5-inch high-res display, a full-size backlit keyboard, a glass-covered precision touchpad and a built-in fingerprint reader.

Upgraded versions of the Transformer series of 2-in-t tablet-computers were also announced by the company. The new Transformer 3 has a sleeve keyboard that doubles as a display stand while the Pro edition features an integrated kickstand with 170-degree viewing angles and a detachable backlit keyboard. Transformer supports up to 512 GB of solid state storage and 8 GB of RAM whereas the Pro is powered by an Intel Core i7 processor and can support up to 1TB of solid state storage and 16GB of RAM.

Both devices also feature Thunderbolt ports through which they can be paired with a number of external accessories including the ASUS Universal Dock for extended connectivity, the ASUS Audio Pod for better sound output and the ROG XG Station 2 for extra graphics processing power. There is also a 10.1-inch Mini edition of the Transformer which, according to ASUS, is the world’s lightest 2-in-1 PC. It features an integrated stepless kickstand and a built-in fingerprint reader.

(The writer is in Taiwan at the invitation of ASUS)

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