If you’re looking for a “tough” gaming laptop that won’t set your wallet on fire, Asus introduced two new solutions under its TUF Gaming FX banner. The FX505 dons a 15.6-inch screen while the FX705 sports a 17.3-inch screen, both of which support a 1,920 x 1,080 (aka Full HD) resolution with up to a 144Hz refresh rate.
“As with all TUF Gaming products, FX505 and FX705 are built to withstand everyday abuse,” the company says. “They are put through rigorous quality and durability tests that exceed industry standards, and they have also passed the demanding military-grade MIL-STD-810G test for sudden jolts. The reinforced chassis and hexagonal design on the bottom add structural rigidity to make them even sturdier.”
Both models are based on two of Intel’s latest eighth-generation processors for laptops: The Core i5-8300H four-core chip and the Core i7-8750H six-core chip. For graphics, you will see up to a GeForce GTX 1060 discrete graphics chip from Nvidia with presumably 6GB of dedicated video memory. The laptops also support up to 32GB of system memory (DDR4) clocked at 2,666MHz.
For storage, these laptops appear to include two drives: Up to a 512GB PCI Express-based M.2 SSD as the primary drive and up to a 1TB Seagate FireCuda hybrid drive as secondary storage. Meanwhile, the port complement includes two USB-A ports (5Gbps), another slower USB-A port (480Mbps), an HDMI 2.0 port, an Ethernet port, and a headphone/microphone combo jack supporting DTS Headphone:X audio.
For wireless connectivity, the laptops provide Bluetooth 5.0 along with support for up to 1.73Gbps through a Wireless AC Wave 2 component (2×2) capable of accessing the 160MHz channels on compatible routers. Other general features rounding out these laptops consist of an HD webcam and a backlit keyboard with customizable RGB lighting. Asus says the keys have a travel distance of 1.8mm and a duration of 20 million presses.
Keeping these laptops cool is the company’s HyperCool system featuring separate fans and heatsinks for the CPU and GPU. These fans are located directly under the keyboard to prevent your fingers from playing hot potato while you’re in the heat of the on-screen action. Adding to this design is a patented trapezoid-cut lid to enable the laptop to eject more hot air from the rear. Asus says this design enables up to a 25 percent better cooling performance than the competition.
“Cooling performance can degrade over time, with dust and particle buildup impeding airflow through thermal fins,” the company adds. “Patented Asus dust tunnels help to guide dust and particles off to a separate chamber to be ejected from the system, keeping the thermal fins clear for stable long-term cooling performance.”
Both laptops will be on display during the Gamescom convention in Germany. Retail availability won’t be until sometime in September for a currently unknown “affordable” starting price.
Speech-to-text apps have flooded the App Store, making it easier than ever to type on our Macs with just our voice. I have previously covered one such app called TypeWhisper. However, there has been a dearth of good text-to-speech models, and most of the good ones are locked behind a subscription.
Ollama, an open-source app that lets you run local AI models on your computer, wants to change that. It works on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and your prompts are never stored or used for training.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).