We had a meetup with ASUS Global Technical PR Mr. Andrew Chan before the quarantine period (thank goodness!) and he showed us the latest notebook in the ASUS Expert Series line. The ASUS ExpertBook B9 is the ideal laptop for Corporate Executives who need a powerful laptop they can use at the office, at home or during business trips.
The ASUS ExpertBook B9’s sleek form factor and ultra-lightweight body has produced negative notions about these kinds of laptops. Mr. Chan debunked each of these negative notions by showing us a disassembled ExpertBook B9 showing the parts and innards of the machine.
NEGATIVE NOTION – THIN AND LIGHT LAPTOPS ARE FRAGILE
This notion is common among laptops being marketed as thin and light. The ExpertBook B9 is definitely thin and light, but it is absolutely not fragile. Mr. Chan explained that the B9 is made of Magnesium-Lithium Alloy Chassis is stronger than Magnesium-Aluminium or Aluminium Alloy and is difficult to work with. ASUS’ Engineers managed to computer-milled the material to make the chassis of the laptop. This was one of the reasons why it received a Military Standard 810G certification.
The second reason are the B9’s hinges. Opening and closing laptops causes wear on the hinges so ASUS made some enhancements. It’s larger than usual laptop hinges and are reinforced with screws.
Third, I/O ports like USB also experience wear and tear since users would always plug USB peripherals, especially for storage. ASUS also reinforced these ports with thick stainless steel brackets and screws for stability.
The last reason is the placement of rubber feet on the motherboard to absorb shocks in case the laptop falls on a surface.
NEGATIVE NOTION – THIN AND LIGHT LAPTOPS ARE WEAK, UNDERPOWERED
Some manufacturers are compromising the power of a laptop in exchange of its thin and light form factor. ASUS debunked this again by including the latest Intel 10th Gen Core i7 processor and contains two slots of M.2 NVMe SSD slots, which is rare for a laptop for this size.
The fan of the B9 has been reduced to 25% and it still achieves the same cooling airflow. It also has a slant design that allows smoother centrifugal airflow.
The black surface on the chassis are Graphite Sheets. They are used for heat dissipation on hot areas like the CPU, RAM, and VRAM.
NEGATIVE NOTION – THIN AND LIGHT LAPTOPS HAVE SMALL BATTERIES
Mr. Chan also debunked this negative notion by showing the battery of the ExpertBook B9. He explained that the lighter B9 which weighs 870 grams is equipped with a 33Wh battery and it can last 12 hours, while the heavier one with 995 grams has a 66Wh battery and it can run up to 24 hours. It can be charged with a small 65W AC adapter with USB Type-C.
THIN AND LIGHT LAPTOPS WITH A LOT OF PORTS
Thin and Light laptops like the popular MacBook Air have minimum ports, forcing the user to buy a USB hub for his peripherals. ASUS tries to avoid that by still including these much needed ports. It has one USB Type-A, two Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, headphone jack and a LAN port in a form of a Micro USB. The Thunderbolt 3 ports can be used with two 4K monitors at the same time along with the laptop’s display.
ASUS included an RJ45 dongle in the B9 package. It’s actually a “Dumb RJ45” which means there is no controller in the dongle. It allows any enterprise network to identify the laptop by its own network address. That’s an added security feature.
The ExpertBook B9 is excellent for conference calls. Despite of its small bezels, ASUS managed to include an HD Camera with 4 microphones and loud speakers on the keyboard.
Proof that the ExpertBook B9 is really lightweight!
Check out our Walkthrough Video of the ASUS ExpertBook B9 with Mr. Andrew Chan:
The ASUS ExpertBook B9 will be available in the Philippines this Q2. We will be reviewing this unit very soon!
