240Hz and touchscreen: Asus announces portable gaming monitor

By Sam Byford || 345triangle || www.theverge.com

Meet portable gaming monitors the ZenScreen Touch and the ROG Strix XG17

Asus was one of the first companies to release portable USB-C monitors, and at Computex this year it’s releasing two unique new designs.

First up is the ZenScreen Touch (pictured above), a 15.6-inch 1080p touchscreen designed to be hooked up to smartphones or laptops. The primary use case demonstrated at an event ahead of Computex Taipei this week was for productivity-focused smartphone apps with complex UIs that are easier to operate on a larger canvas.

The ZenScreen Touch has a 7,800mAh battery, comes with a protective case that folds up into a kickstand, and it also has Asus’ trademark hole in the corner that lets you prop the screen up with a pencil in a pinch.

The ROG Strix XG17 is another portable 1080p monitor, but the focus couldn’t be more different: this one is all about gaming. It’s the world’s first portable 240Hz gaming monitor, Asus proudly proclaims, and it has a 17.3-inch IPS panel that supports variable refresh rate.

This monitor also has two USB-C ports, Micro HDMI, and a 7,800mAh battery, which Asus says should be good for 3 hours at 240Hz. It’ll last longer at lower refresh rates, though, which you’d probably want to set it to if you were using it with a Switch like in these photos. The more demanding options are aimed at competitive players of games like League of Legends or CS:GO, which can be run at super-high framerates on laptops that might not have high refresh rate screens built in.

No word on pricing just yet for either of these models, but the ZenScreen Touch should be out next month.


Do you want one? Call us to order