Asus ZenBook 14 (UX425JA) Evaluate

The Asus ZenBook 14 (begins at $799.99; $899.99 in fashion UX425JA we examined) is a graceful and strangely reasonably priced ultraportable. It packs a crisp 14-inch show in a trim aluminum chassis with ultra-thin display screen bezels and a hinge that gives a delicate however preferred carry to the keyboard. Within, it provides a tenth Era Intel Core i7 “Ice Lake” processor, 8GB of RAM, incorporated Intel Iris Plus graphics, and a 512GB solid-state power. Getting this part combine in an all-metal ultraportable for lower than $1,000 is a scouse borrow, and I have not even discussed the ZenBook’s all-day battery lifestyles. And but we will be able to’t be offering a full-throated advice for the fashion UX425JA in spite of its enchantment. How is that this so? Timing, they are saying, is the whole lot. 

12 months of the Tiger

Regardless of the ZenBook 14’s enchantment, it is tricky to suggest an ultraportable in line with an “Ice Lake” CPU when ultraportables with Intel’s eleventh Era “Tiger Lake” chips are simply now hitting the streets. However Tiger Lake processors are particularly adapted for ultraportable laptops and can ship delicate synthetic intelligence processing and a spice up to the features of incorporated graphics with Intel’s next-gen Iris Xe graphics. 

Asus assures us that this ZenBook 14 fashion will probably be in the marketplace for some time but. Then again, Asus has already introduced the new-CPU successor to this fashion—the ZenBook 14 (UX425EA)—and is predicted to unencumber it later this month. The corporate is mum on pricing, however Tiger Lake laptops are anticipated to price little greater than their Ice Lake predecessors. And if that is the case right here, you most likely need to move at the UX425JA—until it receives a considerable value lower when the recent ultraportable arrives.

For now, Asus sells two fashions of this ZenBook 14. The bottom model (UX425JA-EB51) prices $799.99 and includes a tenth Era Core i5-1035G1 processor, 8GB of reminiscence, incorporated Intel Iris Plus graphics, and a 512GB SSD. We reviewed the $899.99 fashion (UX425JA-EB71) that steps as much as a Core i7-1065G7 CPU. Each fashions characteristic a 14-inch, 400-nit non-touch show with complete HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) answer.

When Skinny Would possibly Be Too Skinny

Measuring 0.54 via 12.5 via 8.18 inches (HWD) and weighing a scant 2.6 kilos, the ZenBook 14 UX425JA is extra compact and lighter than many 13.3-inch ultraportables. The Dell XPS 13 has a smaller footprint at 0.46 via 11.9 via 7.8 inches, however is just about a complete pound heavier at 3.5 kilos. And the Apple MacBook Air measures 0.63 via 11.97 via 8.46 inches and weighs 2.8 kilos. 

The ZenBook 14 is so compact largely as it options slim display screen bezels on all 4 aspects of the show. Many laptops—even the ones whose makers flog the thinness in their bezels—have a backside bezel that is wider than the opposite 3 aspects. With the ZenBook 14 UX425JA, the display screen takes up virtually all the house—the machine has a 90 p.c screen-to-body ratio, in step with Asus, and that determine turns out low when you’re seated in entrance of the pc.

Like different ZenBooks, this fashion options Asus’ ErgoLift display screen hinge. Now not best does this hinge design have the impact of creating the ground display screen bezel seem even thinner via lifting the again fringe of the keyboard deck a smidge, but it surely additionally creates a extra at ease attitude for typing and lets in for higher airflow beneath the pc to help cooling.

Maximum under-$1,000 ultraportables characteristic plastic chassis, or mixtures of steel and plastic the place the lid and keyboard deck are steel however the backside panel is plastic. The ZenBook’s aluminum chassis lends a graceful, sumptuous glance to the pc, however whilst you pick out up the gadget, the lid and backside panel flex to your grip, and whilst you sort, the keyboard deck flexes beneath the drive of your fingertips. The ZenBook 14 is not just about as inflexible as different all-metal ultraportables. I might gladly settle for a couple of further oz of weight and a somewhat thicker design if it supposed the pc’s steel surfaces felt more potent.

Whilst the chassis flex is not best, I must notice that the Asus must nonetheless have the ability to maintain the abuses heaped upon it throughout day-to-day trip. The machine has handed MIL-STD 810G checks for surprise, vibration, temperature extremes, and different environmental hazards.

The Case of the Lacking Jacks

Apart from the flex when typing, the ZenBook 14’s keyboard is roomy and at ease. The keys be offering shallow trip however really feel snappy sufficient beneath your hands. They’re the polar reverse of “clacky” keys and create a hushed typing enjoy. No keys had been shortened to suit the keyboard within the compact chassis. If truth be told, Asus discovered room for a column of helpful, full-size keys alongside the proper edge for continual, House, Web page Up, Web page Down, and Finish, along side the right-arrow key.

The pc options Asus’ distinctive touchpad that doubles as a bunch pad. Press the icon within the best correct nook of the touchpad, and an LED numeric pad lighting up. This will lend a hand with spreadsheeting chores and turns out to be useful when you want a calculator for speedy tabulations. Even if in number-pad mode, it nonetheless acts as a touchpad to permit you the facility to swipe and click on to navigate Home windows.

As discussed, the 14-inch non-touch show combines 1080p answer with 400 nits of brightness. At the back of its anti-glare coating, the picture appears to be like crisp and vivid and reveals extensive viewing angles. The display screen’s 16:9 side ratio is a smart are compatible for observing films however offers slightly much less vertical house than the 16:10 Dell XPS 13, because of this extra common scrolling thru internet pages and Excel sheets.

The ZenBook 14 has a couple of downward-firing audio system that suffice for YouTube movies however lack the bass reaction for tune playback. You will want to stay a couple of wi-fi headphones within reach for those who like to hear tune when you paintings.

Why wi-fi ones? Since the ZenBook does not have a headphone jack. As an alternative, Asus features a dongle (changing a USB Kind-C port to a three.5mm audio jack) for customers who need to use stressed out headphones, however if you’re like me, the dongle’s prone to disappear mere hours after you open the field. You can additionally want to stay observe of a 2nd dongle if you wish to connect with a stressed out community—the pc lacks an Ethernet port and as a substitute comes with a USB Kind-A to LAN adapter. The excellent news at the port entrance is that the machine’s two USB-C ports reinforce Thunderbolt 3. As well as, you’ll be able to to find one USB-A port, a full-size HDMI port, and a microSD card slot.

Trying out the ZenBook 14: A Sturdy Performer, However Trails the Tiger

The Asus ZenBook 14 (UX425JA) includes a quad-core, eight-thread Intel Core i7-1065G7 CPU with a base clock velocity of one.3GHz and turbo frequency of three.9GHz. Energy customers may grumble at its 8GB quite than 16GB of RAM, however they must be glad with its 512GB SSD. The ZenBook felt peppy throughout normal Home windows use and treated quite a lot of multitasking situations very easily.

For our functionality benchmarks, we matched the Asus ZenBook 14 towards 3 different laptops with tenth Era Core chips—the Core i7-based Acer Swift 3 and Dell Latitude 7410, and the Core i5 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8—and one of the most first we’ve got examined with a Tiger Lake CPU, the Asus ZenBook 13 (UX325EA). You’ll be able to see their elementary specifications within the comparability desk above.

Productiveness, Garage, and Media Assessments 

PCMark 10 and eight are holistic functionality suites advanced via the PC benchmark consultants at UL (previously Futuremark). The PCMark 10 check we run simulates other real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows. We use it to evaluate total machine functionality for office-centric duties reminiscent of phrase processing, spreadsheet paintings, internet surfing, and videoconferencing. PCMark 8, in the meantime, has a garage subtest that we use to evaluate the velocity of the machine’s boot power. Each checks generate a proprietary numeric rating; upper numbers are higher.

The UX425JA posted a decent rating in PCMark 10 in a tightly packed crew with the opposite methods with tenth Era Intel processors. The ZenBook 13 (UX325EA), then again, flexed its Tiger Lake muscle tissues and was once the transparent winner in PCMark 10’s productiveness workout.

Subsequent is Maxon’s CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 check, which is totally threaded to use all to be had processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU quite than the GPU to render a posh picture. The result’s a proprietary rating indicating a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads.

The ZenBook 14 UX425JA did neatly right here, completing on the head of the tenth Era pack, however once more the Tiger Lake ZenBook 13 led the way in which.

Cinebench is continuously a just right predictor of our Handbrake video enhancing trial, some other difficult, threaded exercise that is extremely CPU-dependent and scales neatly with cores and threads. In it, we put a stopwatch on check methods as they transcode a typical 12-minute clip of 4K video (the open-source Blender demo film Tears of Metal(Opens in a brand new window))(Opens in a brand new window) to a 1080p MP4 report. It is a timed check, and decrease effects are higher.

What was once that about being a just right predictor? As soon as once more the UX325EA took the gold medal.

We additionally run a customized Adobe Photoshop image-editing benchmark. The use of an early 2018 unencumber of the Ingenious Cloud model of Photoshop, we practice a sequence of 10 advanced filters and results to a typical JPEG check picture. We time each and every operation and, on the finish, upload up the whole execution time. As with Handbrake, decrease instances are higher right here. The Photoshop check stresses the CPU, garage subsystem, and RAM, however it may possibly additionally make the most of maximum GPUs to hurry up the method of making use of filters, so methods with tough graphics chips or playing cards would possibly see a spice up.

The trend held on this benchmark, the place the ZenBook 13 UX325EA was once obviously awesome to the ZenBook 14 UX425JA and the opposite tenth Era machines.

Graphics Assessments

3DMark measures relative graphics muscle via rendering sequences of extremely detailed, gaming-style three-D graphics that emphasize debris and lighting fixtures. We run two other 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Hearth Strike, which can be suited for various kinds of methods. Each are DirectX 11 benchmarks, however Sky Diver is extra suited for laptops and midrange PCs, whilst Hearth Strike is extra not easy and made for high-end PCs to strut their stuff. The consequences are proprietary rankings.

3 other ranges of integrated-graphics functionality are obtrusive. The Dell and Lenovo are on the backside with their Intel UHD Graphics silicon. Within the center are the ZenBook 14 (UX425JA) and Acer Swift 3, which characteristic Intel Iris Plus Graphics. On the best is the ZenBook 13 (UX325EA), which boasts Intel’s newest Iris Xe graphics silicon.

Subsequent up is some other artificial graphics check, this time from Unigine Corp. Like 3DMark, the Superposition check renders and pans thru an in depth three-D scene and measures how the machine copes. On this case, it is rendered within the corporate’s eponymous Unigine engine, providing a distinct three-D workload situation than 3DMark for a 2nd opinion at the gadget’s graphical prowess.

Chalk up some other win for the UX325EA. Iris Xe graphics have sufficient muscle to let the ZenBook 13 serve as as an entry-level gaming pc in case you are prepared to dial again answer and picture element.

Battery Rundown Take a look at

After totally recharging the pc, we arrange the gadget in power-save mode (versus balanced or high-performance mode) the place to be had and make a couple of different battery-conserving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video rundown check. (We additionally flip Wi-Fi off, striking the pc into plane mode.) On this check, we loop a video—a in the neighborhood saved 720p report of the similar Tears of Metal film we use in our Handbrake trial—with display screen brightness set at 50 p.c and quantity at one hundred pc till the machine conks out.

The ZenBook 14 UX425JA options a big 67-watt-hour battery that allowed the machine to closing for an excellent 16 hours and 38 mins in our video rundown. That more or less stamina must get you thru even the longest of workdays with no need to retreat to a wall outlet. Best the Acer Swift 3 lasted longer on this lot.

Mistaken Time to Cross Ice Lake Fishing

The Asus ZenBook 14 (UX425JA) hits the large 3—portability, continual, and reasonably priced pricing—for an ultraportable. You get a vivid 14-inch show in an all-metal chassis that is as compact and lightweight as many 13.3-inch laptops, along side decent functionality and all-day battery lifestyles. And it prices lower than $1,000.

The most productive factor we will be able to say about it’s that it may well be price sporting round two dongles to make the most of its superb value/functionality ratio. However the spoiler is the upcoming unencumber of ultraportables—together with a more recent ZenBook 14—with the ones eleventh Era Tiger Lake CPUs. It is virtually unquestionably price looking ahead to the following era, if best to peer whether or not the UX425JA’s already tempting value is driven even decrease.