Asus ZenBook UX310UA
It’s no powerhouse, but this highly portable laptop has a great screen and excellent battery life
The slim, tasteful design of Asus’ ZenBook range calls to mind Apple’s MacBook Air – but with a wider range of configurations, and much more palatable pricing.
In this case the resemblance isn’t purely aesthetic. Like the MacBook Air, the ZenBook UX310UA is designed for a specific role. It’s a lightweight travelling companion rather than a desktop replacement.
That much is evident from the internals. Unlike most of this month’s Windows-based contenders, the UX310UA comes with a dual-core Core i3 processor, which limits its multitasking capabilities. We wouldn’t call this a slow system, but with an overall score of 34 in our desktop benchmarks, it’s a fair way behind the front-runners.
Gaming power is limited too. In our high-detail Dirt: Showdown test, at 720p, the ZenBook averaged a just-aboutplayable 29fps; the Acer Spin 3 kicked the frame rate up to 37fps.
Note too that this ZenBook model comes with just 4GB of RAM, and a stingy 128GB SSD. That’s fine for emails and spreadsheets – and a lot more than you’ll get from any Chromebook. But if you regularly deal with weighty workloads, it could prove constraining.
Yet the ZenBook has some significant strengths. Let’s start with the one that shines out as soon as you open the lid: the screen is fantastic, with a maximum luminance of 341cd/m2 While it’s not quite the brightest display in this group test, a superb contrast ratio of 1,282:1 makes it this month’s best all-round visual performer. It’s also worth mentioning that the 13.3in panel has a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, for a sharp pixel density of 165ppi. From a typical operating distance, text looks beautifully crisp, and the matte screen keeps distracting reflections to a minimum. This isn’t a touchscreen, mind you: with its conventional hinged laptop design, the ZenBook entirely rejects the hybrid vision. That’s fine by us, because the conventional input methods work very nicely. The backlit keyboard is comfortably sized, with a good responsive feel – if a little more spongy than we’d really like – and the touchpad is luxuriously large, so you never feel constrained by its edges. Connectivity is pretty good, too. As you’d hope, there’s 802.11ac wireless and Bluetooth 4.1. You also get a decent set of USB ports, comprising USB 3, twin USB 2 connectors and a USB Type-C socket, for newer phones and peripherals. It would have been nice to go all-USB 3, like the Dell Vostro 5468, but then this probably isn’t a system that will be regularly hooked up to multiple high-bandwidth devices.
As for sound, the system’s speakers are pleasingly balanced – predictably, there’s not much in the way of bass, and the maximum volume won’t fill a room, but watching videos at your desk is perfectly agreeable.
A final feather in the ZenBook’s cap is battery life. In our tests, the UX310UA delivered 8hrs 6mins of video playback on a single charge. Yes, there are devices out there that will last longer, but those all rely on ultra-low-power processors. If you’re looking for a properly capable Windows system that will make it through an entire working day, the ZenBook UX310UA is your answer.
Clearly, even with all this going for it, the ZenBook’s mid-table performance and old-school design mean it’s not for everyone. If you’re craving power and touch-friendly tablet features, the Acer Spin 3 ( see p83) could be more suitable.
Yet with its excellent screen, impressive battery life and perfectly portable dimensions - it’s just 18mm thick, and weighs a mere 1.35kg – we can’t deny the ZenBook’s charms. If we have a caveat it’s this: the UX310UA currently uses sixth-generation Skylake processors, but a Kaby Lake update is due in a month or two. Any performance benefit is likely to be modest, but if you’re not in a rush to buy, it makes sense to hold out.