Asus refreshed one of its most popular 2-in-1 laptops, and despite upgrading its processor to a hugely sought-after AMD CPU, the price has barely budged.
Asus revealed its latest VivoBook Flip 14, and it comes packed with AMD's Ryzen 5000 series processors at prices as low as $599.99. That's exactly the same price as last year's model but this unit is now even better.
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Spotted on Asus' main site, the new VivoBook Flip 14 will soon be available via the Asus store, Amazon, Newegg, and Walmart. For now, all of them are either "out of stock" or "coming soon."
Compared to the last VivoBook Flip 14 we reviewed, the only notable difference is the laptop's new configurations, which include AMD Ryzen 5 5500U CPU and the Ryzen 7 5700U CPU options. The AMD Ryzen 7 4700U in the 2020 model turned it into a mighty mid-range laptop, so we're excited to see how the upgraded CPUs fair against other sub-$1,000 laptops.
The Ryzen 5 5500U has a max boost clock of up to 4GHz, with six CPU cores, and up to 12 threads — double the amount of the Ryzen 5 4500U.
In terms of other specs, you'll find it still has the same 512GB SSD and 8GB of RAM, along with its 14-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel display packed in a 13-inch chassis. The higher-end configurations boast 16GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe SSD, but these will go well beyond the $600 price point.
AMD Ryzen 5000 series takeover
Asus isn't the only brand adopting AMD's powerful Ryzen 5000 series processors, as Dell recently revealed it will be bringing Ryzen 5 5600H and Ryzen 7 5800H CPUs to its new line of Dell G15 Ryzen Edition gaming laptops.
Rumour has it that AMD's Ryzen chips will also be used in the upcoming Microsoft Surface Laptop 4. Even Razer is expected to release a 14-inch AMD-based gaming laptop, which will be the first time it leaves Intel out of its devices.
Alienware, known for its spectacular gaming laptops, is soon bringing out its m15 Ryzen Edition R5 — the first Alienware powered by an AMD processor in over a decade. AMD's latest processors are clearly a hot commodity while Intel's 11th Gen Tiger Lake CPUs might have some catching up to do.
(h/t Digital Trends)
