Asus Zenbook 15 Ultra Slim Compact Laptop Review

No one's ever going to telephone call a 15.6-inch laptop an ultraportable, but that doesn't mean it has to exist a king-size slab. At 0.7 by 13.9 by 8.vii inches, Asus claims, the ZenBook 15 ($i,349.99 equally tested) is the smallest system in its course, coming in nether even relatively compact models similar the Dell XPS fifteen (0.66 by 14.1 by 9.3 inches). Information technology's likewise one of the lightest 15.6-inch notebooks we know of, tipping the scales at 3.73 pounds (though the LG Gram fifteen holds the record at 2.41 pounds). Its size makes the ZenBook worth a look from users who need their desktop replacements to exist mobile, but it merely misses Editors' Choice consideration—spending a little more can get you lot faster graphics and a half-dozen-core instead of quad-core processor, for case.

Circles Within Circles

Formally known as the ZenBook UX533 (my test unit's model number is UX533FD-DH74), the ZenBook xv is positioned below the flagship ZenBook Pro. It's congenital around a 1.8GHz (4.6GHz turbo) Intel Core i7-8565U processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB solid-land drive, a total Hard disk (one,920-by-1,080-pixel) non-touch screen, and the bottom rung on the Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics ladder, the Max-Q version of the GTX 1050 with a skimpy 2GB (not 4GB) of display memory.

Our Experts Have Tested 130 Products in the Laptops Category in the By Year

Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you lot make better buying decisions. (See how nosotros test.)

Like Products

Similar other ZenBooks, the organization flaunts an aluminum lid—a handsome Imperial Blueish, in this instance—with a pattern of concentric circles radiating out from the gilt Asus logo in the centre of the lid. There'due south too a gilded accent bar above the keyboard. What Asus calls an ErgoLift hinge is located just behind and swings under the keyboard deck to prop the keyboard at a slight typing bending when opened. The company says the gap between the trunk and your desk improves cooling and sound performance, too, though the Harman/Kardon speakers are located at the front underside instead of the rear.

The laptop has passed MIL-STD 810G torture tests for things like vibration, altitude, and farthermost temperatures. In that location'due south no flex if you grasp the screen corners, and only a little if yous mash the eye of the keyboard. Stylishly thin screen bezels—3mm at the sides, 4.5mm at the bottom, and half-dozen.4mm at the tiptop to concur the IR webcam—contribute to the ZenBook'southward trim footprint.

On the system'south left side, you'll find a USB 3.0 Type-A port and an audio jack. USB 3.1 Type-A and Type-C ports are on the right, along with an HDMI port, an SD bill of fare slot, and the connector for the AC adapter. There'due south no Thunderbolt 3 port, which is a disappointment in an over-$1,000 laptop. The SD slot leaves cards protruding to snag on stuff in your briefcase instead of swallowing them whole.

Sights and Sounds

The ZenBook 15's sound isn't the loudest I've heard, just it packs plenty of volume to fill a room without distortion or roughness. You lot won't hear deep bass, but will enjoy clear highs and midtones. Supplied AudioWizard software lets you lot cull amid music, movie, gaming, recording, and speech presets (which seem to brand merely a modest difference) or tinker with bass, treble, and loudness controls.

The 720p webcam performs confront recognition for Windows Hello sign-ins. (In that location is no fingerprint reader.) It captures averagely sharp and well-lit images without much racket or grain, though its colors looked a piddling flat or sepia to me.

Full Hard disk or 1080p resolution looks a little pixelated on a xv.6-inch screen, just what the ZenBook's glossy panel lacks in sharpness information technology makes upward for with wide viewing angles and more-than-acceptable effulgence. Contrast is adept, with nicely white instead of off-white backgrounds, and colors are vivid and well-saturated. Photos, videos, and games all looked fine.

The keyboard offers iii levels of backlighting, a numeric keypad with slightly smaller keys than the chief area, and dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys. (The last iv are F9 through F12 in the top row of small office keys.) The cursor-pointer keys are petite only in their proper inverted T rather than an HP- or Apple-fashion row. Travel is a little shallow (Asus says 1.4mm), but the keyboard has a smooth, pliant typing experience with quietly clicky feedback. The midsize, buttonless touchpad glides and taps easily.

Desktop Replacements on the Exam Demote

I compared the ZenBook 15's operation to that of four other 15.six-inch portables with Core i7 processors and a diversity of discrete graphics options. The Microsoft Surface Volume two and Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-i accept quad-cadre CPUs like the Asus organisation's, while the Dell XPS 15 and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme have beefier hexa-core processors. The contenders' base specifications appear in the table beneath.

Overall, the Asus acquitted itself well in our productivity and battery-life tests, though information technology'll disappoint anyone hoping to play the latest games at high frame rates. Information technology fifty-fifty scored an upset victory in our Adobe Photoshop benchmark, though I doubtable gorging photo editors will invest in a laptop with a 4K display instead of a modest 1080p panel.

Productivity, Storage, and Media Tests

PCMark 10 and PCMark 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the PC criterion specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark 10 test we run simulates dissimilar real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We apply it to assess overall system operation for function-centric tasks such as give-and-take processing, spreadsheeting, Web browsing, and videoconferencing. The test generates a proprietary numeric score; college numbers are better.

PCMark viii, meanwhile, has a Storage subtest that we use to assess the speed of the storage subsystem. The result is also a proprietary numeric score; again, higher numbers are better.

Though it was next to last in PCMark 10's productivity practise, the ZenBook easily topped the 4,000-indicate score that we consider excellent. None of the laptops' solid-country drives had any trouble with the storage subtest.

Adjacent is Maxon's CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 examination, which is fully threaded to make use of all bachelor processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to return a circuitous epitome. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads.

The notebooks with six-cadre CPUs were way out in forepart, but the Asus won the quad-cadre category in this upshot. It's not a mighty 3D-rendering or video-editing workstation, but information technology won't plummet when asked to run a few numbers.

We also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing criterion. Using an early 2018 release of the Creative Deject version of Photoshop, we apply a series of ten circuitous filters and furnishings to a standard JPEG exam prototype. We time each functioning and, at the end, add upwards the total execution fourth dimension (lower times are better). The Photoshop examination stresses the CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, merely it can too take advantage of almost GPUs to speed upward the process of applying filters, and so systems with powerful graphics chips or cards may meet a boost.

The Lenovo was unexpectedly off the footstep while the ZenBook squeaked past the Dell to claim first place despite its relatively humble CPU and GPU.

Graphics Tests

3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Burn down Strike, which are suited to different types of systems. Both are DirectX xi benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more demanding and made for high-stop PCs to strut their stuff. The results are proprietary scores.

You could have predicted the outcome of this event past reading Nvidia'southward parts list: The Asus and its GeForce GTX 1050 surpassed the barely-better-than-integrated-graphics GeForce MX150 of the Inspiron, but it finished behind the ThinkPad and Dell XPS 15 ($999.99 at Dell) with their adjacent-step-up GeForce GTX 1050 Ti silicon. The Surface Book ii and its GTX 1060 led the pack on the Burn Strike test; the Sky Diver test showed some CPU limitation, and the U-series CPU in the Surface Book 2 conspicuously held dorsum the GTX 1060 on that exam versus the H-series chips in the 2 laptops to its left.

Adjacent upwards is another synthetic graphics exam, this time from Unigine Corp. Like 3DMark, the Superposition test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene and measures how the arrangement copes. In this case, it's rendered in the visitor's eponymous Unigine engine, offering a unlike 3D workload scenario than 3DMark, for a 2nd opinion on the motorcar'south graphical prowess. We present two Superposition results, run at the 720p Low and 1080p High presets.

At least at 1080p, the same thing happened in Superposition as in 3DMark: The Microsoft car was an easy winner, while the ZenBook 15 posted results that brand it, at best, a borderline pick for serious gaming. Coincidental and light gaming will be your best bets.

Real-world 1080p game trials underlined that conclusion. In Rise of the Tomb Raider in DirectX 12 mode, the ZenBook managed 39fps at the Medium quality preset—with several segments falling below the 30fps threshold for smooth gameplay—and simply 23fps at the Very High preset. Things were even worse in Far Weep 5: 27fps and 20fps at the Normal and Ultra presets, respectively.

Video Playback Battery Rundown Test

Afterwards fully recharging the laptop, nosotros set up the automobile in power-save mode (as opposed to balanced or high-performance mode) where bachelor and make a few other battery-conserving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video rundown test. (We also plough Wi-Fi off, putting the laptop into airplane manner.) In this test, nosotros loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the open-source Blender demo movie Tears of Steel—with screen brightness gear up at l percent and volume at 100 percent until the arrangement conks out.

The Surface Book 2 cheated to win—it has two batteries, one backside the screen and one in its keyboard base. The ZenBook's 73Whr battery showed an impressive 14 hours and 47 minutes of stamina, far outlasting the other three contestants.

Sleek But No Slam Douse

At that place'due south a lot to like about the ZenBook xv, from its size (barely bigger than some 14-inch laptops) to its pleasing keyboard, sound, and battery life. But I wish Asus had given its graphics a boost—a 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti would provide a lot more gaming cred—or possibly trimmed its price just a flake. Every bit is, I find myself thinking that only $180 more tin get yous a Dell XPS 15 with 2 more processing cores, superior graphics, and a Thunderbolt 3 port.

Withal, the ZenBook 15 fills a sensible niche below the ZenBook Pro and does it with some fashion and flair. If you'd like thin bezels on a upkeep, check it out.

Asus ZenBook xv (UX533)

The Bottom Line

The Asus ZenBook 15 is a space-saving desktop replacement with skinny screen bezels and a comfy tilted keyboard, but its graphics performance will leave would-exist gamers wanting more than.

Similar What You're Reading?

Sign up for Lab Report to go the latest reviews and height product advice delivered right to your inbox.

This newsletter may contain advertizing, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Utilize and Privacy Policy. Yous may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.

craftprours.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/asus-zenbook-15-ux533