I predict a user nightmare is coming with these devices. First of all non technical will see the device as low power device with long battery life, purchase this device - and expecting to run windows x86 application including games - especially from ASUS and then first of all Windows 10 S will not allow the application and if it does run - it will run significantly slower.
This could be Windows RT all over again. Microsoft has been trying to make Windows multi-platform for decades - the original Windows NT was planned to be this which Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 have all be built on top of. Windows NT could run Risc processor and even the Dec Alpha.
On the other hand if all you need is Office and Internet - this device will be good fit - no wonder they are including LTE modem in it. I wonder how much that 1Gb Modem adds to the cost.
adds cost none-the-less. Qualcomm charges a percentage of MSRP for it's LTE modems. Other costs such as 4X antenna's for the MIMO functionality add significant cost because only certain parts of the laptop can be used for antenna mounting.
I think this will be mainly a business oriented market. Instead of having to buy a phone and a laptop or tablet for your drivers, nurses and salesmen, you can now give them an ARM laptop with a Bluetooth headset. No separate phone necessary and it can run the specific enterprise applications, which is often old Windows or even DOS software.
Your statements imply a huge lack of understanding of the product. It can run x86 applications through emulation. Windows 10 S is upgradeable to Windows 10 (pro?) in the first month or so, as skavi said the modem is part of the SoC already.
Games, it's true users would need to drop that expectation.
I am not quite sure if the binary translation between ARM and x86 works for both Windows S and Windows 10 Pro, at this point anyway. So while the upgrade to Win 10 Pro (for $49) is possible for x86 devices it might not be possible for ARM devices.
I think you'll hear these "non-technical" people on /r/PCMR and Anandtech comment threads, but not in real life. How many normal consumers buy a laptop to play games on it?
It won't be significantly slower--Qualcomm's benchmarks and demos attest to that. We'll wait on benches, but imagining it's "already a shit show" is too much "the sky is falling".
Yes. Office. Browsing. You have hit about 85% of a consumers' needs. Congratulations.
Even if just talking Office and browsing, using formula-heavy spreadsheets, or editing long documents with images and style markups will require a certain amount of graphics and processing power. Not gaming powerful, but enough that Atom equivalents don't cut it, especially not when also running a browser with a few script-heavy tabs.
Besides, business people aren't price sensitive at all, and they'll be probably going for the Ultrabooks with those 4.5W Intel processors. And I'm not sure that this offering will stack up.
One concern about this laptop - is Qualcomm creating a monopoly and this is not related to Microsoft but the 1Gb LTE Modem - which is only available on Qualcomm SOC's according to the following article.
I'm currently using a Lenovo Yoga Book running Windows Pro 64-bit on the last Intel Atom Cherry Trail 2W TDP quad core CPU (x5-z8550) with integrated LTE, 1920x1200 IPS touch panel and a footprint of 690 grams.
Intel discontinued the successors to the Cherry Trail line so I've been wondering what Lenovo would replace it with.
I think Asus' new offering is probably pointing a way for Lenovo to follow although the hinges on that NovaGo don't seem as 360-resistant as the watchband hinge Lenovo crafted.
I'm interested to hear what kind of IPC you get out of emulating x86-32 on a Snapdragon 835 and whether it's power efficient compared with the x5-8550 (which runs x64 Windows applications natively).
"The OS will be Windows 10 S. This runs a version of Windows that relies mostly on the Store for the main applications but the system does perform binary translation (or similar) for 32-bit x86 applications. 64-bit x86 apps are a no-go, so for users that have their own software setups outside the Windows 10 store, it might get a little tricky (Qualcomm doesn’t see this as much of an issue)."
Qualcomm is wrong. The Windows Store is a garbage fire. No Firefox, no Chrome, no Google Drive, no Brave, no Plex server, etc. Some of those applications might still have 32 bit versions, but they aren't going to be the focus for future development when almost every computer sold in the past decade has 64 bit support. That's also assuming the x86 emulator (or whatever) runs at a decent speed.
You're only thinking about 'you' and not beyond 'you'.
Firefox, Chrome, Google Drive (Onedrive is there), Brave and plex... Ask my Step Father if he uses ANY of those and the answer will be no. He needs Microsoft Word, the web and that's about it.
I don't doubt there are people who use none of those applications. However, those are all very common applications (except Brave), especially Chrome and Firefox. Your stepfather would be fine with a $400 laptop with an i3 and full Windows. Why spend $600+ for this one?
22 hours of battery life. Built-in LTE. An 1080p IPS screen. A good keyboard/trackpad. Decent build quality that won't creak because you're holding it. Are you blind to everything else that makes a laptop worth having...besides the motherboard inside? Step outside of the Anandtech bubble. It's scary, but we're real people out here, too.
You all keep running to the hills with "Muh IPC and emulayshunnn." Chill--most consumers, especially those buying sub-$1000 laptops, don't use laptops like you. They do want much longer battery life. They do like instant-on. They do like IPS screens. They do like decent keyboards/trackpads.
And, you're insulting his stepfather by asking him to use a $400 Intel/AMD laptop. Those are bottom-of-the-barrel CPUs trying to run full-fat x86-64 Windows. It's almost always a terrible compromise in software and hardware; it's ugly, useless compromises everywhere. I know; I've bought six laptops for friends and family on a tight budget over the past year.
There is shit. Everywhere. Smeared along every website. TN 768p screens! 5400PM hard drives! Crazy keyboard layouts with no travel! Touchpads from the 2000s. Build quality from the 1990s! Battery life no better than Memrom from 2008!
It's all shit. This is 13" of IPS + SSD + 20 hours of battery life + decent keyboard/track + decent build quality + touchscreen.
How are y'all so blind to this value proposition?....
This is far from being a good value. For $500 I can pick up a Skylake i5 with an SSD and an IPS screen. 2 FUCKING YEARS ago I picked up my HP x360 with a 6200U, IPS touchscreen, and IPS LCD for $549.
Though battery life will be a major boon on ARM the prices are insane for a beta product.
I specifically picked $400 because that's around the price for entry level i3s (still faster than an 835) and 128GB ssds. Step it up to $600-$800 like this thing costs and as negusp says, you can get a pretty good ultrabook. You're right that there is a bunch of cheap crap out there, but this thing is priced to high to address that market.
I can't argue with the battery life. That's a real distinguishing feature. If, for whatever reason, you're regularly away from an outlet for more than 10 hours, this may be the perfect laptop.
I'm extremely skeptical about a regular user buying an additional data plan to use with their laptop, especially given how fast a laptop would chew through data. It's certainly a benefit for some, but not regular users. I'd just tether my laptop to my phone.
yeah I don't see the use case here. Dell XPS 13 $799 (almost 14hrs batt life)along with your phone to tether is better than this. native x64, etc. I don't have an XPS 13 but maybe someone here does. Can you downclock it and draw out that battery life?
Phone tether: great, now you run down that battery, too, and welp: SMS and phone calls on-the-go are completely out. I know this because I live this life, my dude. The phone has always been the wrong place to get work done, anyways.
Downclocking...you've now eliminated 99% of the consumer market. Nobody's downlocking besides us, mate.
I only asked about downclocking bc I was curious how far the battery life could be extended.
@ $799 vs $799 again even for a casual user I don't see the use case here. If its LTE connectivity there are plenty of usb adapters or again tether your phone. And no it doesn't preclude SMS or phone calls. I am on the road a lot and I tether my phone when I need to get online with my laptop. Hell, lots of time I'm on the phone while tethered talking to someone in my shop trying to run down an problem.
What are you sacrificing for 40% more battery life and built in LTE? As of right now.....too much.
Way too expensive for what it offers, and even more expensive if you take into account that it uses emulation between the two instruction sets. So, no matter how efficient that emulation (sorry, I meant "binary translation") the performance is going to be poorer than that of native SD835 in the mobile space.
$599? I'm disappointed. You can get a laptop with a Core i7-7500U for that price. (Such as my own Lenovo E570.) I was hoping this would be a low-price competitor for things like the HP Stream. Approx. $200. But for $599, you can get something much more powerful.
Why are all so many of these comments so...baseless? "Much more powerful" - you have zero idea what normal consumers do laptops. You all should compare the Ars Technica comments with these. Thank goodness they have a voting system so illogical comparisons like this are shut down.
Your E570 is 15.6" - a different class of laptops that almost always cheaper than 13" laptops in the sub-$1000 price range.
Let me make this short and simple because I'm flabbergasted you would ever recommend the E570 (which I looked at for my own father just two months ago!) over these new SD835 systems.
You're trying to say a spinning hard disk (instant fail), 768p non-touch (another instant fail), 5.1 pound, 7.6 hour battery life E570....is "much more powerful" than an SD835 with an SSD, 1080p touch, 3.1 pound, 20-hour battery life NovaGo?
I'll laugh for both of us and the rest of the PC community for you now. Please don't recommend 5.1 pound laptops to my family with 768p screens and spinning hard disks and dare to tell them, "this is much more powerful."
The epitome of closed-minded enthusiasts. I built a $1500 gaming system and I overclocked the CPU, GPU, and RAM to their limits on a 144Hz monitor. I can tell what performance is. But, for laptop recommendations, please: stay in your lane. You don't know what "powerful" means to a typical consumer.
I made an account just for you ikjadoon. You are quite baseless. Chuwi laptops has 1080p or even microsoft surface displays with decent power for your father (if he uses word and stuff) and decent battery life and decent eMMC. You can easily attach a SSD. It is light too. Now that is less than 300 or 400 USD!!!! Now compare that to the stupid SD835 system for 600. You got to be kidding me. At least 200 of those dollars goes into LTE which I doubt is useful on laptops anyways.
So this laptop has smaller screen than Thinkpad Yoga.... and heavier... and low powered.
I don't understand why they put so much battery for a low powered device. 10 hours of usage is enough for me - and they could make this sub-kg if they put 25Wh battery instead.
Any laptop that states 10 hours of battery is the highest it will get under certain controlled light loads.... I'd be surprised if even these arm laptops get 10 hours of normal realistic workloads, that also includes normal brightness and lte/wifi enabled. Just because YOU don't need it doesn't mean the world doesn't need more battery life. Samsung already made an i5 laptop that weighs under 1kg and has a larger battery than 25Wh...
decent laptops but they have to price is much more aggressively. $799 is enough for much better performance laptop with Intel / Ryzen mobile chips with no 64bit app limitations.
Once again they price is high because it is something new and then they are wondering why this tech (Windows on ARM will never take off). Dummies.
I have an 8" Acer tablet with Atom CPU and a Huwai HDSPA mobile module built in. It's 3 years old, so no LTE, but newer mobile modules should have LTE. So 64-bit x86 tablets and notebooks could easily be made to compete regarding connectivity. I see the longer battery life as a feature that intel or amd and will not be able to match, but on the other hand performance of 835 / 845 devices will probably be lower.
Is it not $799 for the 8GB RAM / 256GB model? Not that you're wrong, but the presentation and all other outlets are reporting $799 for 8GB RAM / 256GB.
>ASUS will offer the device for $599 ($799 for 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage) first in the US, UK, Italy, France, Germany, Mainland China and Taiwan, and
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
36 Comments
Back to Article
HStewart - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
I predict a user nightmare is coming with these devices. First of all non technical will see the device as low power device with long battery life, purchase this device - and expecting to run windows x86 application including games - especially from ASUS and then first of all Windows 10 S will not allow the application and if it does run - it will run significantly slower.This could be Windows RT all over again. Microsoft has been trying to make Windows multi-platform for decades - the original Windows NT was planned to be this which Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 have all be built on top of. Windows NT could run Risc processor and even the Dec Alpha.
On the other hand if all you need is Office and Internet - this device will be good fit - no wonder they are including LTE modem in it. I wonder how much that 1Gb Modem adds to the cost.
skavi - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
It doesn't, because it's part of the 835.Morawka - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
adds cost none-the-less. Qualcomm charges a percentage of MSRP for it's LTE modems. Other costs such as 4X antenna's for the MIMO functionality add significant cost because only certain parts of the laptop can be used for antenna mounting.Martijn ter Haar - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
I think this will be mainly a business oriented market. Instead of having to buy a phone and a laptop or tablet for your drivers, nurses and salesmen, you can now give them an ARM laptop with a Bluetooth headset. No separate phone necessary and it can run the specific enterprise applications, which is often old Windows or even DOS software.lazarpandar - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
Your statements imply a huge lack of understanding of the product. It can run x86 applications through emulation. Windows 10 S is upgradeable to Windows 10 (pro?) in the first month or so, as skavi said the modem is part of the SoC already.Games, it's true users would need to drop that expectation.
Santoval - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
I am not quite sure if the binary translation between ARM and x86 works for both Windows S and Windows 10 Pro, at this point anyway. So while the upgrade to Win 10 Pro (for $49) is possible for x86 devices it might not be possible for ARM devices.ikjadoon - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
I think you'll hear these "non-technical" people on /r/PCMR and Anandtech comment threads, but not in real life. How many normal consumers buy a laptop to play games on it?It won't be significantly slower--Qualcomm's benchmarks and demos attest to that. We'll wait on benches, but imagining it's "already a shit show" is too much "the sky is falling".
Yes. Office. Browsing. You have hit about 85% of a consumers' needs. Congratulations.
numberlen - Thursday, December 7, 2017 - link
Even if just talking Office and browsing, using formula-heavy spreadsheets, or editing long documents with images and style markups will require a certain amount of graphics and processing power. Not gaming powerful, but enough that Atom equivalents don't cut it, especially not when also running a browser with a few script-heavy tabs.Besides, business people aren't price sensitive at all, and they'll be probably going for the Ultrabooks with those 4.5W Intel processors. And I'm not sure that this offering will stack up.
But sure, let's wait for the benchmarks.
HStewart - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
One concern about this laptop - is Qualcomm creating a monopoly and this is not related to Microsoft but the 1Gb LTE Modem - which is only available on Qualcomm SOC's according to the following article.https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/qualcomm-p...
the big question will they allow other CPU platforms access to this technology - and if they do will they only allow certain platforms.
shabby - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
Amd just announced a laptop with Ryzen and a qualcomm lte modem so all is well.Diji1 - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
What? Why wouldn't someone else just integrate a gig modem somewhere else other than the CPU if they wanted it?thecoolnamesweretaken - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
I'm currently using a Lenovo Yoga Book running Windows Pro 64-bit on the last Intel Atom Cherry Trail 2W TDP quad core CPU (x5-z8550) with integrated LTE, 1920x1200 IPS touch panel and a footprint of 690 grams.Intel discontinued the successors to the Cherry Trail line so I've been wondering what Lenovo would replace it with.
I think Asus' new offering is probably pointing a way for Lenovo to follow although the hinges on that NovaGo don't seem as 360-resistant as the watchband hinge Lenovo crafted.
I'm interested to hear what kind of IPC you get out of emulating x86-32 on a Snapdragon 835 and whether it's power efficient compared with the x5-8550 (which runs x64 Windows applications natively).
cfenton - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
"The OS will be Windows 10 S. This runs a version of Windows that relies mostly on the Store for the main applications but the system does perform binary translation (or similar) for 32-bit x86 applications. 64-bit x86 apps are a no-go, so for users that have their own software setups outside the Windows 10 store, it might get a little tricky (Qualcomm doesn’t see this as much of an issue)."Qualcomm is wrong. The Windows Store is a garbage fire. No Firefox, no Chrome, no Google Drive, no Brave, no Plex server, etc. Some of those applications might still have 32 bit versions, but they aren't going to be the focus for future development when almost every computer sold in the past decade has 64 bit support. That's also assuming the x86 emulator (or whatever) runs at a decent speed.
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
You're only thinking about 'you' and not beyond 'you'.Firefox, Chrome, Google Drive (Onedrive is there), Brave and plex... Ask my Step Father if he uses ANY of those and the answer will be no. He needs Microsoft Word, the web and that's about it.
cfenton - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
I don't doubt there are people who use none of those applications. However, those are all very common applications (except Brave), especially Chrome and Firefox. Your stepfather would be fine with a $400 laptop with an i3 and full Windows. Why spend $600+ for this one?ikjadoon - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
22 hours of battery life. Built-in LTE. An 1080p IPS screen. A good keyboard/trackpad. Decent build quality that won't creak because you're holding it. Are you blind to everything else that makes a laptop worth having...besides the motherboard inside? Step outside of the Anandtech bubble. It's scary, but we're real people out here, too.You all keep running to the hills with "Muh IPC and emulayshunnn." Chill--most consumers, especially those buying sub-$1000 laptops, don't use laptops like you. They do want much longer battery life. They do like instant-on. They do like IPS screens. They do like decent keyboards/trackpads.
And, you're insulting his stepfather by asking him to use a $400 Intel/AMD laptop. Those are bottom-of-the-barrel CPUs trying to run full-fat x86-64 Windows. It's almost always a terrible compromise in software and hardware; it's ugly, useless compromises everywhere. I know; I've bought six laptops for friends and family on a tight budget over the past year.
There is shit. Everywhere. Smeared along every website. TN 768p screens! 5400PM hard drives! Crazy keyboard layouts with no travel! Touchpads from the 2000s. Build quality from the 1990s! Battery life no better than Memrom from 2008!
It's all shit. This is 13" of IPS + SSD + 20 hours of battery life + decent keyboard/track + decent build quality + touchscreen.
How are y'all so blind to this value proposition?....
negusp - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
This is far from being a good value. For $500 I can pick up a Skylake i5 with an SSD and an IPS screen. 2 FUCKING YEARS ago I picked up my HP x360 with a 6200U, IPS touchscreen, and IPS LCD for $549.Though battery life will be a major boon on ARM the prices are insane for a beta product.
cfenton - Thursday, December 7, 2017 - link
I specifically picked $400 because that's around the price for entry level i3s (still faster than an 835) and 128GB ssds. Step it up to $600-$800 like this thing costs and as negusp says, you can get a pretty good ultrabook. You're right that there is a bunch of cheap crap out there, but this thing is priced to high to address that market.I can't argue with the battery life. That's a real distinguishing feature. If, for whatever reason, you're regularly away from an outlet for more than 10 hours, this may be the perfect laptop.
I'm extremely skeptical about a regular user buying an additional data plan to use with their laptop, especially given how fast a laptop would chew through data. It's certainly a benefit for some, but not regular users. I'd just tether my laptop to my phone.
Wlkn - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
No USB c to charge? Can't tell from photos, only one side is shown. USB C all the thingswr3zzz - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
$799 for a glorified Chrome Book is not a good value proposition.Manch - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
yeah I don't see the use case here. Dell XPS 13 $799 (almost 14hrs batt life)along with your phone to tether is better than this. native x64, etc. I don't have an XPS 13 but maybe someone here does. Can you downclock it and draw out that battery life?ikjadoon - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
14 hours doing what?...Phone tether: great, now you run down that battery, too, and welp: SMS and phone calls on-the-go are completely out. I know this because I live this life, my dude. The phone has always been the wrong place to get work done, anyways.
Downclocking...you've now eliminated 99% of the consumer market. Nobody's downlocking besides us, mate.
Manch - Friday, December 8, 2017 - link
I only asked about downclocking bc I was curious how far the battery life could be extended.@ $799 vs $799 again even for a casual user I don't see the use case here. If its LTE connectivity there are plenty of usb adapters or again tether your phone. And no it doesn't preclude SMS or phone calls. I am on the road a lot and I tether my phone when I need to get online with my laptop. Hell, lots of time I'm on the phone while tethered talking to someone in my shop trying to run down an problem.
What are you sacrificing for 40% more battery life and built in LTE? As of right now.....too much.
WJMazepas - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
I would be much more interested if this device came with Ubuntu or even ChromeOS.Pretty sure the performance would be bigger and would be able to do everything this Windows 10S emulated do
Santoval - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
Way too expensive for what it offers, and even more expensive if you take into account that it uses emulation between the two instruction sets. So, no matter how efficient that emulation (sorry, I meant "binary translation") the performance is going to be poorer than that of native SD835 in the mobile space.Mikewind Dale - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
$599? I'm disappointed. You can get a laptop with a Core i7-7500U for that price. (Such as my own Lenovo E570.) I was hoping this would be a low-price competitor for things like the HP Stream. Approx. $200. But for $599, you can get something much more powerful.ikjadoon - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
Why are all so many of these comments so...baseless? "Much more powerful" - you have zero idea what normal consumers do laptops. You all should compare the Ars Technica comments with these. Thank goodness they have a voting system so illogical comparisons like this are shut down.Your E570 is 15.6" - a different class of laptops that almost always cheaper than 13" laptops in the sub-$1000 price range.
Let me make this short and simple because I'm flabbergasted you would ever recommend the E570 (which I looked at for my own father just two months ago!) over these new SD835 systems.
You're trying to say a spinning hard disk (instant fail), 768p non-touch (another instant fail), 5.1 pound, 7.6 hour battery life E570....is "much more powerful" than an SD835 with an SSD, 1080p touch, 3.1 pound, 20-hour battery life NovaGo?
I'll laugh for both of us and the rest of the PC community for you now. Please don't recommend 5.1 pound laptops to my family with 768p screens and spinning hard disks and dare to tell them, "this is much more powerful."
The epitome of closed-minded enthusiasts. I built a $1500 gaming system and I overclocked the CPU, GPU, and RAM to their limits on a 144Hz monitor. I can tell what performance is. But, for laptop recommendations, please: stay in your lane. You don't know what "powerful" means to a typical consumer.
shadowninjazx - Monday, December 18, 2017 - link
I made an account just for you ikjadoon. You are quite baseless. Chuwi laptops has 1080p or even microsoft surface displays with decent power for your father (if he uses word and stuff) and decent battery life and decent eMMC. You can easily attach a SSD. It is light too. Now that is less than 300 or 400 USD!!!!Now compare that to the stupid SD835 system for 600. You got to be kidding me. At least 200 of those dollars goes into LTE which I doubt is useful on laptops anyways.
eSyr - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
But will it run NetBSD?Lord of the Bored - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
If it doesn't yet, it will in six months.nerd1 - Tuesday, December 5, 2017 - link
So this laptop has smaller screen than Thinkpad Yoga.... and heavier... and low powered.I don't understand why they put so much battery for a low powered device. 10 hours of usage is enough for me - and they could make this sub-kg if they put 25Wh battery instead.
nerd2 - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
Any laptop that states 10 hours of battery is the highest it will get under certain controlled light loads.... I'd be surprised if even these arm laptops get 10 hours of normal realistic workloads, that also includes normal brightness and lte/wifi enabled. Just because YOU don't need it doesn't mean the world doesn't need more battery life. Samsung already made an i5 laptop that weighs under 1kg and has a larger battery than 25Wh...beginner99 - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
With that price I can just as well get an Intel/AMD based laptop. 8 hrs battery life is mostly enough.milkod2001 - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
decent laptops but they have to price is much more aggressively. $799 is enough for much better performance laptop with Intel / Ryzen mobile chips with no 64bit app limitations.Once again they price is high because it is something new and then they are wondering why this tech (Windows on ARM will never take off). Dummies.
we - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
I have an 8" Acer tablet with Atom CPU and a Huwai HDSPA mobile module built in. It's 3 years old, so no LTE, but newer mobile modules should have LTE. So 64-bit x86 tablets and notebooks could easily be made to compete regarding connectivity. I see the longer battery life as a feature that intel or amd and will not be able to match, but on the other hand performance of 835 / 845 devices will probably be lower.ikjadoon - Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - link
https://imgur.com/a/6AehPIs it not $799 for the 8GB RAM / 256GB model? Not that you're wrong, but the presentation and all other outlets are reporting $799 for 8GB RAM / 256GB.
>ASUS will offer the device for $599 ($799 for 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage) first in the US, UK, Italy, France, Germany, Mainland China and Taiwan, and
https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/05/hp-envy-x2-asu...
>$799 for 256GB/8GB version
https://www.cnet.com/products/asus-novago/preview/
>A model with 4GB RAM and 64GB SSD will be available for $599, and you can get one with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $799.
https://www.neowin.net/news/the-asus-novago-is-the...
>Asus says an entry-level model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage should sell for about $599, while an 8GB/256GB model will run $799.
https://liliputing.com/2017/12/asus-unveils-novago...
>The Asus NovaGo price starts at just $599 for the 4GB of RAM with 64GB of storage variant, while you’re looking at $799 for the 8GB/256GB model.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/asus-novago