ASUS ZenBook 13 UX325 review - a thin and light laptop with great capabilities - lifehacker

ASUS has unveiled a new generation of flagship ZenBook laptops. Among them there is a 13-inch version - a direct competitor to DELL XPS 9300 and MacBook Air 2020. Finding out if the new ZenBook 13 can compete with the best models on the market.

Table of contents

• Specifications
• Design
• Screen
• Input Devices
• Sound
• Speed
• Autonomy
• Outcome

Specifications

Design

The novelty did not become another copy of the MacBook and offers users its own recognizable style. The lid is polished with concentric circles and an embossed ASUS logo. There are arrows around the perimeter, emphasizing the small thickness of the laptop, and there are polished chamfers on the edges.

The body is entirely made of aluminum and painted gray. Also available in turquoise.

On the back there is a metal air duct grill and another logo. Most of the time they are hidden from view, but the designers have worked on their design and organically fit into the look of the device.

Compared to the previous generation of laptops, the device has increased in width, but it has become thinner and lighter. Its weight of 1.07 kg makes it the perfect travel solution.

The frames around the screen are small, although the bottom margin is wider than the rest - another logo has been placed on it. Such aggressive branding looks strange, previous ASUS models were cleaner.

Above is a 720p webcam and infrared front-scanning system. Recognition is fast and accurate even in complete darkness, so no fingerprint scanner is no longer critical.

But the fact that there is no hollow in the front is frustrating. Without it, picking up the lid is not so easy. At least the laptop can be easily opened with one hand. Thanks to the ErgoLift hinge, the bottom part rises, tilting the keyboard towards the user. It also improves cooling.

On the left side are two USB Type-C (Thunderbolt 3) and HDMI, on the right are USB Type ‑ A 3.2 and a microSD card reader. Both Type-C ports support charging, however, it's a pity that they weren't scattered on different sides, it would be more convenient.

There is no audio jack. Instead, the kit included an adapter for connecting headphones to USB Type-C. So, harmful trends from smartphones are gradually making their way to laptops.

Screen

The new ZenBook 13 features a 13.3-inch display with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 dots. We're testing the flagship configuration, which boasts 450 nits of brightness and only 1W of power consumption.

The surface of the screen is matte and has almost no glare, the image remains readable even in direct sunlight. The pixel density of 166 ppi is enough to not see graininess from a comfortable working environment distance. However, the picture on similar glossy displays is clearer due to the lack of the crystalline effect.

It is also frustrating that the manufacturer did not use a 16: 10 aspect ratio screen, although the laptop is large enough to fit. As a result, the novelty does not display as many lines in documents and the browser as the MacBook Air 2020 or Dell XPS 13 9300.

The image quality is at a high level, color rendering natural, 100% sRGB coverage claimed. The viewing angles are excellent, the brightness margin is really very high. The contrast level is also decent, although highlights are visible in the corners against a black background - this is a sign of imperfect assembly of the display module.

Input Devices

New to ZenBook 13 UX325 is a full-width keyboard. The keys have become larger, additional navigation buttons have appeared. Plus, the fonts are cleaner and the engraving is more contrasting.

The laptops for sale will have a Russified keyboard, but we got a test copy with an English layout. However, this did not prevent us from evaluating the convenience of printing. The clicks are clear, deep and very quiet. The scissor-type mechanism has proven itself well, there should be no problems with reliability.

You can find fault only with the layout: the power button is located in the general block of keys and is not tactilely highlighted in any way. When quick print you can accidentally press it instead of Delete, putting the laptop into sleep mode.

The same applies to the navigation buttons located in the right row. It's unusual to work with them, so at first you can't avoid erroneous clicks. It is much easier to use the arrow keys and the Fn key for navigation.

The chip of the laptop is the NumPad digital block. It lights up when you hold the icon in the upper right corner of the touchpad. Nevertheless, working with it is inconvenient due to the lack of feedback when pressing.

The touchpad itself is covered with glass, on which your finger glides perfectly. The area is sufficient for convenient control, there are no dead zones at the edges. Supported gestures Windows Precision. Clicks are crisp and firm, however, as in other Windows laptops, they only work at the bottom of the touchpad.

Sound

The ZenBook 13 UX325 was tweaked by Harman / Kardon engineers, as proudly announced by the logo below the keyboard. Despite the placement of the speakers at the bottom, the laptop produces loud and clear sound even when placed on your lap. However, the new product is far from the level of the MacBook Air: it lacks bass and volume.

But the sound quality in the headphones when connected via the supplied adapter pleased me. The adapter has a built-in DAC manufactured by ESS, the volume reserve and the study of all frequencies are excellent. It is noteworthy that when the adapter works with a smartphone, the sound becomes worse and quieter - the ability to deliver up to 100 W of power via Thunderbolt 3 affects.

Speed

The hardware platform of the ZenBook 13 UX325 is Intel Ice Lake processors made using a 10-nanometer process technology. The younger version is based on the Core i5-1035G1, while we have the older model with the Core i7-1065G7.

The processor has four cores with support for two threads. The base frequency is 1.3 GHz, but under load, the processor produces 3.9 GHz in Turbo Boost mode. The thermal package (TDP) is 15 W.

ASUS did a good job on the power management scheme. Most laptops use the Intel recommended mode with power levels PL1 (Basic) and PL2 (Performance). In this case, the system abruptly switches from one to another, guided by the temperature data.

The ZenBook 13 UX325 adjusts power between 15W and 35W to improve the performance of your laptop during extended loads. The model scores over 1,500 points in the Cinebench R20 benchmark, leaving behind Huawei Matebook X Pro based on Core i7-10510U. System metrics recorded during testing were recorded by the Intel Power Gadget.

The temperature during idle does not exceed 45 ° C, the surface of the laptop remains cold. The only problem is the noise of the fans, which constantly turn on without serious stress. This is solved by choosing a quiet mode in the MyASUS program.

There is no discrete video card here, the integrated Intel Iris Plus G7 accelerator is responsible for the graphics. Its performance is sufficient for Photoshop and simple video processing. If you need more graphics power, you can connect an external GPU over Thunderbolt 3.

The laptop is equipped with 16 GB of LPDDR4X RAM with a frequency of 3200 MHz, and the capacity of NVMe-storage is 1,024 GB. The latter demonstrates excellent read and write speeds.

Autonomy

Surprisingly, this compact design houses a 67 Wh battery - more than a MacBook Pro. Considering the energy efficient hardware, you can expect impressive runtimes.

For everyday use - web surfing and working with office programs - laptop lasted 10 hours. The result is simply excellent, most competitors are discharged in this mode in 7-8 hours.

The novelty is charged via USB Type-C, support for powerful adapters from smartphones is declared. It is convenient: you can take on a trip a single charger for all devices. The included 65-watt adapter provides 90% battery power in an hour.

Outcome

ASUS ZenBook 13 UX325 is a great laptop for work and travel. The advantages of the new items include light weight, rich set of ports, bright matte display, performance and autonomy. I would also like to see a 16: 10 aspect ratio and a more thoughtful keyboard layout, as well as AMD Ryzen 4000 chipsets. We hope that in the next generation ASUS will delight you with such options.

The cost of the tested configuration is still unknown, but it should be lower than that of the Huawei MateBook X Pro, DELL XPS 13 9300 and MacBook Air with similar hardware. So the ASUS ZenBook 13 UX325 is a strong competitor for the best models on the market.

The version with 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB of internal storage will cost 85 thousand rubles.

Buy

The author thanks ASUS for the device provided for testing. The company had no opportunity to influence its outcome.