Asus Zenbook 13 UX331UN: An ultraportable laptop with a knack for gaming
Discrete graphics in a slim and trim package.
Yes, you can scoop up a faster 8th-generation Intel quad-core ultraportable than the $1,000 Asus Zenbook 13, but good luck finding one with a discrete graphics core, perfect for Photoshop-minded professionals or casual gamers craving on-the-go Fortnite or Dota 2. A solid array of ports, a snappy keyboard and impressive battery life round out the enticing (if fingerprint-prone) package.
SPECIFICATIONS AND PRICE
We tested the $1,000 royal-blue version ( go. pcworld.com/rbvn) of the Zenbook 13, which comes with a 13.3-inch touch display, an
8th-generation quad-core Intel Core i5-8250u processor, discrete Nvidia Geforce MX150 graphics, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB solid-state drive. A cheaper version of the Zenbook 13 with integrated graphics might be on tap in “a couple months,” according to an Asus rep.
The Zenbook 13’s most arresting feature has to be its glossy, gorgeous lid, etched with Asus’s telltale pattern of razor-thin—or, to be more precise, nano-thin—concentric circles, courtesy of a five-layer process the manufacturer calls “nanoimprint lithography.”
The shiny result is certainly a sight to behold, never more so than when you first glimpse the pristine Zenbook sitting in its cardboard shipping box. Within a few days, though, the lid of my Zenbook 13 review unit was covered with fingerprints. I was able to buff the shiny finish back into shape, but fighting off the smudges turned out to be a losing battle.
Measuring 12.2 by 8.5 by 0.5 inches, the Zenbook 13 makes for an impressively slim machine given its discrete graphics core, and it feels reasonably light at about 2.7 pounds, or a little over three pounds if you include the seven-ounce power adapter.
DISPLAY
The Zenbook’s 13.3-inch 1920-by-1080 display looks sharp and vivid, with svelte 6.9mm bezels along the sides but somewhat thicker bezels along the screen’s top and bottom edges. Measuring about 282 nits (or candelas) at its highest brightness setting, the Zenbook 13’s display is reasonably bright, well above our minimum 250-nit standard for comfortable indoor viewing, if a tad dimmer than the 300-nit readings we’ve recorded on competing laptops.
Viewing angles on the Zenbook 13’s AHVA (a proprietary twist on IPS) screen were excellent, with the display dimming only slightly as I moved from side to side or above and below.
The Zenbook’s
touch-enabled display easily handled my taps and swipes, and yes, there’s pen support, although you’ll have to pony up $50 for the optional ASUS active pen.
KEYBOARD, SPEAKERS, WEBCAM
I’m a big fan of the
Zenbook’s 13 snappy keyboard. The Zenbook’s backlit, slightly concave keys boast a solid, pleasingly bumpy feel when stuck, while the roomy keyboard makes it easy for fingertips to find the right keys while touch typing. The hotkey selection is fairly typical, including the usual hotkeys for brightness, volume, airplane mode, toggling the trackpad and juggling external monitors.
The Zenbook 13’s midsize trackpad felt smooth and responsive, although it requires quite a bit of pressure to click. To the right of the trackpad sits a fingerprint reader, which lets you unlock your Windows profile and log into select Windows Hello-enabled apps and services. Personally, I found the Zenbook’s fingerprint sensor to be a bit touchy. The reader rarely recognized my fingerprint on the first try, even after I deleted my initial fingerprint and carefully scanned a new one.
The Zenbook’s Harman Kardon-made speakers are a cut above your average laptop speakers, although thery’re no substitute, unsurprisingly, for external speakers ( go. pcworld.com/xspk). “Live and Let Die” by Paul Mccartney and Wings sounded crisp and detailed, even with the volume cranked, while Mozart’s 27th symphony offered up an impressive amount of mid-range refinement, although little in the way of bass (again, no big shock).
While the Zenbook 13’s speakers are above average, its VGA webcam is disappointingly sub-par, delivering muddy and grainy video quality that barely suffices for video chat.
PORTS
The Zenbook 13 boasts a solid selection of ports, starting on the left side with a full-size
HDMI port, a USB 3.0 Type A port, and USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type C (up to 5Gbps). Also on the left: a barrel-style charging port.
On the right, you’ll find a second USB 3.0 Type A port, a Micro SD memory card reader, and a combo audio jack.
Nope, no Thunderbolt 3, but that’s not a big shock given the Zenbook’s middling price point.
PERFORMANCE
While it’s not the fastest 8th-generation quad-core Intel laptop we’ve tested, the Zenbook 13 keeps pace with the competition and closes the deal with solid battery life and a discrete GPU, a rarity in an ultrabook this thin and cheap.
PCMARK 8 WORK CONVENTIONAL
As with most of its 8th-generation Intelpowered competitors, the Zenbook 13 breezes through everyday computing tasks.
In our Pcmark 8 Work Conventional benchmark, which simulates web browsing, video chatting, spreadsheet building, and other day-to-day PC duties, the quad-core Zenbook notched a score well above 2,000,