Asus has unveiled its new touchscreen ultrabook, the Zenbook Infinity, which comes with a Gorilla Glass 3 lid to avoid scratches and dents on the outside of the case, rather than just the inner.

During its Computex 2013 press conference in Taiwan, the company revealed that as well as making the outer case more resilient, the Gorilla Glass also helped make the Zenbook Infinity superthin - only 15.5mm at its thickest point. If aluminium had been used, it would be too thin to avoid bending or damage.

The display is touchscreen and the keyboard is backlit. It has two USB 3.0 ports, SD card slot, micro HDMI out, and we expect it to have a LAN port of some kind.

No prices or release dates have been revealed so far, but that didn't stop us having a goggle at the Asus press conference at Computex.

The Asus Zenbook Infinity was displayed rather dramatically in an angled case at the Asus press conference making photographs difficult, however Pocket-lint was lucky enough to manage to grab an in-hand shot as the display was dismantled and we have to say it looked even more eye-catching out of the craftily lit Perspex.

The Zenbook Infinity has the rather distinguished concentric brushed circle finish that graces other top-end Asus devices but instead of the customary aluminium finish the Zenbook Infinity is topped with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Despite this, the surface glows with a very futuristic-looking steel-blue hue.

One concern with a glass top, of course, is the risk of it being hard to keep its sheen as fingerprint smudges accumulate. Asus have tried to overcome this by using an industry-grade fluorine compound coating. As the device was more or less being handled with kid gloves it’s hard to say if this is effective. So we’ll have to wait for a chance for a hands-on to confirm this.

The Zenbook Infinity is a 28-watt Ultrabook, running 4th-generation Intel Core processor, or Haswell, on core i7. All of this points towards a good long battery life although no estimates were offered by those we asked.

With a thickness of just 15.5 mm 14 per cent has been trimmed off previous Zenbook models, most likely because of the smaller cooling system made possible by the switch to the Haswell processor. Logically the thinner form should also offer a reduction in weight from the Zenbook Prime’s 2.3Kg.

All in all the Zenbook Infinity looked pretty promising based on our brief encounter, and we look forward to getting our grubby hands on one - not least so we can tell you if that coating is as effective as Asus hopes.