Asus releases the B23 12.5 inch business laptop

Asus sent out another brand new ultraportable computer for 2012 our way and its name is the B23. Sure, it doesn’t sound like much (the closest cool thing named like that is some military plane), but considering it’s oriented at professionals looking for a sleek and powerful computer to take along for the ride wherever they’re going, you can’t expect too much.

The requirements for a good professional laptop are the same all the time and Asus tried to live up to the moment by packing some decent hardware and other features in it. First of all, you have a fully featured, dual core Core i7-2620M processor that can deliver the punch of a desktop degree CPU, but in a 12.5 inch body.

Winging that you have at least 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB HDD, so you have on your hands a pretty solid productivity machine, although a faster booting SSD would have been nice. As for video, you have to settle for Intel’s HD 3000 integrated graphics, but that should be more than enough for pie charts, gorgeous presentations and the occasional HD movie. Heck, you can even play a decent MMORPG on that configuration.

The display is anti-glare and comes with a 1366 x 768 resolution, which is a standard configuration for a panel of this size. Considering the target audience, namely suits that might need all of the features of a regular computer, you also get a DVD burner in there, but even so the B23 ticks in at a reasonable 3.2 pound weight, although it’s almost twice as thick as most ultrabooks, namely 1.5 inches.

The B23 might not look like much, but has one helluva monster under the hood

The laptop comes with a HDMI port as well, and probably also at least one USB 3.0 port, although it’s not clearly specified on its Amazon page for the moment. One of the few downturns of the machine is that it only comes with a 3 cell battery, which will probably get drained quite fast if you use the WiFi module intensely (there’s no 3G option announced, at least for now) and the DVD drive at least a couple of times per day, but I can see Asus offering a larger battery for some extra mula.

Finally, the OS is Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, the weapon of choice for most professional laptops. The base price for the B23 is $922 and is now available for pre order on Amazon, although future discounts might be available further down the road. We’ll let you know about them, of course. Stay tuned.

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Tags: 12.5" laptops, Amazon, Asus, business laptops, Intel Sandy Bridge

Last updated: January 19, 2012 | Published: January 19th, 2012 | See the comments or add yours!