Asus announces new kids laptop under $600 and refreshed Expertbook B9 with 14" display

ASUS has announced two new laptops joining their lineup, with a refreshed Expertbook B9 (B9400) – the worlds’ lightest 14” business laptop and the BR1100, a laptop specifically designed for kids.

ASUS BR1100

First off the block is the ASUS BR1100, a new education-focused Windows 10 laptop designed to stand up to the rigours of a kids lifestyle.

The convertible includes a convertible hinge with an 11.6-inch display – certified by TÜV Rheinland for low blue-light emissions – in the convertible body which can be positioned from clamshell through to tablet mode.

The BR100 is built tough with a MIL-Spec (MIL-STD-810H) rating supported by an all-round rubber bumper as well as a tamper and spill-resistant keyboard. For any components that do need replacing, the laptop has a modular construction which allows parents, teachers or anyone to replace the keyboard, battery, thermal module and I/O ports in minutes using simple tools.

The ASUS BR1100 will be available with either an Intel Celeron (N4500) or Intel Pentium Silver (N6000) Processor with up to 16 GB DDR4 2400 MHz RAM and with up to 1TB SSD storage on-board. As a nod to the long school day, the battery is rated for up to 10 hours – with 45 W Type-C charger included. Students will also get more options to create with an integrated stylus that includes up to 4,096 pressure points and can be stored inside the laptop.

Students will be able to capture video and images with a ‘world-facing’ camera positioned just above the keyboard with the convertible hinge letting them position the camera as needed. Another interesting inclusion for teachers is a status LED that can indicate when a students laptop is facing power or connectivity issues.

When can you get your hands on the BR100? Well, ASUS says the new BR1100 will be launching in Australia on May 28th from $559.

Expertbook B9400

Next up, ASUS is refreshing their Expertbook B9 laptop series – the world’s lightest business laptop which I reviewed last year and quite liked. The new B9 has been updated with all new 11th gen Intel Core processors including Iris Xe graphics, WiFi 6, Thunderbolt 4 and all-day battery life.

The new ASUS Expertbook B9 (B9400) has a thin chassis and is very light weight, clocking in at just 1.05kg while still including a full-sized USB and HDMI ports as well as USB-C and more. The B9400 includes a Mil-Spec (MIL-STD 810H) rating for durability.

As far as power is concerned, ASUS is offering 11th gen Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processors, up to 32GB 4266MHz LPDDR4x RAM and options for Dual M.2 NVMe PCIe® 3.0 x4 SSD up to 2TB with support for RAID 0 / RAID 1 – to ensure you get the best performance, or data reliability.

There’s also proximity detection on the Expertbook B9, which works in concert with the IR enabled Windows Hello facial recognition. The laptop can sense when you walk away and lock, then unlock instantly when you return.

ASUS is also including their AI noise-cancellation technology on the B9 which offers much improved audio quality on video conferencing. ASUS says their AI noise-cancellation technology can ‘filter out ambient noise and, in Multi-presenter mode, normalise all individual voices from different positions for optimum group conference-call quality’.