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At the Qualcomm Snapdragon Technology Summit today, alongside Qualcomm officially announcing the Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC platform, several partners got up on stage to promote their upcoming wares. The main headline device was from ASUS. CEO Jerry Shen announced the ASUS NovaGo (TP370) as the world’s first Gigabit LTE capable laptop, supported by the SD835 chip and its inbuilt X16 LTE modem.

The key factor of these devices that ASUS (and Qualcomm) want to drive home is the always-on connectivity (provided by the built-in modem) as well as the battery life. To that end ASUS is listing the new NovaGo as having up to 22 hours of battery life and 30 days of modern standby. The idea is that the user can pick up the notebook in the morning and not need to charge it all day until they get home, or in the case of one speaker’s experience, charge it once a week.  The battery is rated at 52 Wh.

On the connectivity front, ASUS has bundled the X16 LTE modem with enough hardware support for 4x Carrier Aggregation and 4x4 MIMO for up to gigabit LTE speeds, and 2x2 802.11ac for standard wireless connectivity. The LTE data flow can be accessed by eSIM or nanoSIM, allowing users to activate local data plans from the Windows Store immediately coming off the plane.

The base specifications have the device at 4GB DRAM and 64GB of UFS 2.0 storage, or there will be an upgraded model with 8GB of DRAM and 128GB of storage for an extra $200. ASUS lists the storage as capable of 1.4 Gbps, although it will be interesting to see how that translates when we get the devices on hand. Ports on the NovaGo include two USB 3.1 (5 Gbps) Type-A ports and an HDMI port, with a 3.5mm jack.

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). Applications like Office365 will have their own optimized versions for the SD835 Mobile PC devices.

The NovaGo is a full 360º hinge design, with a 14.9mm z-height and weighing in at 1.39 kg with a sandblasted Sky Grey finish. The 13.3-inch 1080p NanoEdge display has a 78% screen to body ratio and supports 10-point multitouch as well as ASUS Pen support with 1024 pressure levels. ASUS also cites 178º viewing angles and 100% sRGB gamut, with ASUS Eye Care and Tru2Life video technology.

Arrangements are already in place with T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, TIM, China Telecom and Chunghwa Telecom, while other providers in the main first wave of countries (US, UK, Italy, France, Germany, China, Taiwan) are in discussions with ASUS.

Pricing for the device gives the base 4/64 model as $599, and the upgraded 8/128 model as $799. That puts it in the realm of a large number of good Intel-based clamshells, including those from ASUS, although without always-on connectivity.

Availability will be region dependant, though we did not get any other information. ASUS say they are the first, and with a bunch of devices coming at CES, it would be before the others (HP says Spring 2018).

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