The ASUS Zenbook UX305 Review
by Brett Howse on March 25, 2015 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
ASUS has crafted an elegant experience with the UX305. The body is a sleek creation of aluminum, the device is very thin, and at 1.2 kg (2.6 lbs) in weight, it is very portable. The UX305 could easily be mistaken for a device which costs far more than its $699 starting price. When one thinks of the mid-range laptop, one would expect a thick, heavy, and boring device with a TN display panel, a spinning hard drive, and a short battery life. ASUS has thrown all of this on its head.
The Core M processor in the UX305 which we received was the 5Y10 model. For now, the higher spec 5Y71 model will not be coming to North America in this device. However the performance was surprisingly good. In shorter, burst workloads, the 5Y10 struggled to compete against 5Y71 with its much higher boost clock speed, nor could it compete against Broadwell-U based devices with their 15 watt thermal envelope. However on sustained workloads, due to the cooling solution and higher surface temperatures that ASUS has allowed, the UX305 performed much better than the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro. Gaming was a big difference on this device, and while it is certainly not going to be the next Crysis killer, for lower demanding games like DOTA 2, it performed very well even over long periods of time.
The amount of components which lead to a better overall computing experience that ASUS packed into the UX305 is very impressive. At just $699, you still get 8 GB of RAM, and a 256 GB solid state drive. This is unheard of at this price point. The Dell XPS 13, for example, starts at $799 with just 4 GB of memory and a 128 GB drive.
The keyboard and trackpad are both quite good, especially when we consider the price, and the thin profile of the UX305. The keys had good travel, and while I would question the layout of having the power key as part of the keyboard, really the only thing missing from the keyboard experience is a backlight, and perhaps I only expect a backlight because the UX305 feels much more expensive than it is. The trackpad served me very well, and is quite large. ASUS has had some issues in the past with trackpad drivers, but I experienced no issues at all during my time with the device.
Battery life, while not class leading, is still very good, and bests any laptop we tested before 2015 with the exception of the MacBook Air under OS X. Even under a heavy load, the Core M kept its composure and ensured that the battery life did not slip away too quickly.
There are of course a few issues which need to be mentioned. The already mentioned keyboard backlight would be a great addition to the lineup, even if it was just on a higher priced model. I really do not like the display hinge which is crafed to lift the rear of the laptop up when the display is opened. It makes the laptop much more unstable, causes the display “legs” to dig into soft materials like a wooden table, and all of this is for an extra millimeter or two of height. ASUS would have been much better off with slightly thicker feet.
The display is both good and bad, but it has to be counterbalanced against the price point of this device. It is an IPS display, which is excellent to see even in a more budget offering, and it has excellent brightness and contrast levels. The matte coating is also something that many people prefer to knock the glare down. It performed very poorly in our accuracy tests though, and while that can also be attributed to the cost of the device, the post-calibration numbers on this display were fantastic. If only ASUS could take the effort to include an icc profile to help it out.
Overall, even with the knocks against it, this is a heck of a device for just $699. A Core M processor, which allows a fanless and therefore silent device, but still offers good performance, and much more performance than any other CPU which would allow for a fanless design. 8 GB of memory standard. A 256 GB solid state drive standard. A 1920x1080p IPS display, once again standard. ASUS has really raised the bar for what someone can expect in a mid-range device.
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metayoshi - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 - link
I may be in the niche group right now, but I am pretty excited at what these 5W chips bring to the table. These chips are really where Windows on a tablet will stand out in my opinion. With much better performance than you get with the crappy Atom line of CPUs and with way better performance than anything ARM will provide, and then add in the millions of legacy programs that you can use on a full x86 Windows platform, and in my opinion, it's a winning combination. With products like Dell's Venue 11 Pro already upgraded to Core M, and with the upcoming Asus Transformer Book T300 Chi also coming in with Core M, and all for around $800, I find it worth the extra $300 to get better performance and get full blown Windows instead of being stuck in the limited Chromebook world. At this point, I'm waiting on reviews, and both of Anandtech's Core M reviews so far show me what I expected.Of course, I agree that this platform is not for everybody. A gamer should build their own gaming desktop, or invest in something like the Razer Blade if they want mobility, and a content consumer should just go Android Tablet, iPad, or Chromebook. But personally, I already have a gaming desktop at home that is overpowered for the task in my mind and would benefit from being mobile, but the task is incompatible with anything but Windows, so my smartphone or non-Windows tablet can't even run to program, and Atom is far too weak, so something with Core M is ideal.
In other words, if you don't want it, don't buy it. But to answer your top question, who asked for a 5 W notebook chip? I did.
eanazag - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
I'm excited about these chips too because of battery life. For personal use I'd rather have some more gaming chops.I use a Surface Pro 1 for work and am happy with it except for battery life. The battery life isn't bad; I just know there is better out there and in consideration to my iPad I can't ditch the iPad.
r00fus - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 - link
Hyperbolic post is hyperbolic.Let us know how all your existing software runs on an ARM chip.
Go buy yourself a monster laptop if you want. I like having an option of a slim, sleek fanless form factor, even if the performance isn't top notch.
wetwareinterface - Wednesday, March 25, 2015 - link
because the MAINSTREAM of the notebook market won't even use the paltry power this offers. the MAINSTREAM user needs a web browser, a picture viewer, video playback software and at rare intervals the ability to run office. 8GB of ram means they won't need an upgrade for a long time.V900 - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
But after a couple of weeks the MAINSTREAM will start to get annoyed with the slowdowns, the heat and the fact that you can't have more than a few programs running at once, whitout the laptop throttling down constantly. MAINSTREAM is especially annoyed how everything comes to a crawl when they're doing the virus scans. Because 8GB RAM doesn't change the fact that the puny 5 watt ceiling means that it spends half the time below 1 GHZ and with one core turned off.MAINSTREAM quickly realizes that much of the time, their iPad does a quicker and better job at looking something up online, or replying to an email.
V900 - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Hey now! Apple certainly didn't put this halfassed, asthmatic excuse of a CPU in the MacBook Air.It's the craptastic 12 inch MacBook that has to suffer the indignity of being powered by a CoreM.
(And while I love Apple products and got an i-everything myself, both Apple and Apple fanboys have finally jumped the shark with the 12 inch MacBook. And the Koolaid-swillers can't believe how innovative it is: "It only has ONE port! So brave and futuristic!"
akdj - Saturday, March 28, 2015 - link
It's also fabless, with PCIe storage that flat FLIES, an excellent iGPU that'll help that meager Core m processor that is essentially as fast as the quickest core2duos (mobile)! As well, an operating system that scales your UI properly and sure, a single port. It's 'portable'. Not meant to be connected.You can certianly (& already) buy the proper docks and/or adaptors necessary to utilize USB 3, HDMI or VGA, & power it simultaneously. The traditional bottleneck for the 'mainstream' has NEVER been the CPU. Rather it's memory, storage sub system, OS or a combination of all at the above...including GPU. While you're an Apple fan, you should know just how great these displays and their HiDPI scaling through OS X (& iOS) has gotten since the release of the 2012 models and 'new' iPad (3).
This IS the computer for the 'Apple fanboy Kool-Aid swillers' unlike you and I that obviously need a bit more horsepower, I/O or 'strength' from our laptops. Most, don't. They're doing the 'lifting' at work on a supplied work station. They're using their MacBook to edit family photos, videos, neither using Premier, AE, Smoke or even FCPx ...nor photoshop. They're using iPhoto and iMovie, NEITHER of which will be slowed down to the point of frustration as they're doing what they NEED it to. Surf the web, check email, Facebook and Twitter, watch a flick or listen to music, even ALL those processes, simultaneously running won't create any 'perceived slow down' by the end user of they're not in need of the processing power and amount of ports you somehow believe we all need.
I get it. And own a pair of 15" rMBPs and they're the best computers I've ever owned, and to think it started on a IIe and monochrome display! That said, we get it, you're disgusted but guess what? ASUS literally JUST released the same 'halfassed, asthmatic of an excuse of a CPU' in their latest Ultralight line. Bit less money, but lesser IGPU, lesser storage speeds, and severely lacking display OOB without calibration. It's got your ports, but again I ask, Why?
Why the ports? Why a quad core i7 Xeon with GPUs in SLI? When no one wants anything p,urged in to their laptop on the train, on the plane or on the go? No need to charge, it lasts ten hours --- but if u need it, buy the 13" rMBP. Same tech, all the IO you seem to need and not so anemic a CPU
As an Apple fan myself, it's sad to see another 'fan' so clueless and ignorant to what a portable, laptop design should and shouldnt be (like the crappy hinge on the ASUS)
And you get OS X, an operating system built and 'intended' for maximum end user enjoyment and Performance --- 'real or perceived', it's irrelevant.
It's always nice to leave work at home
Haravikk - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Who asked for a 5W notebook chip? To me the answer is anyone concerned about battery life and/or size; having to put a fan in a notebook adds to its bulk, not to mention making noise, reducing room for batteries and, if the processor needs a fan, reducing that battery life even further.Granted the screens are really the most demanding component these days, especially high-densisty screens requiring stronger backlights, but hopefully this will go down too (and you can run at reduced brightness to get some extra time out of the battery). But yeah; battery life improvements require everything to get more efficient, and that includes the processor. It might not be a massive leap in performance (or an improvement at all, depending upon what you're doing with it), but the efficiency improvements are enormous.
ragenalien - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Because it's easier for intel to improve the power to performance ratio than merely making the chips faster with the same power. They've been doing this since sandy-bridge and it doesn't seem like they'll change that any time soon.frodbonzi - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Except this laptop is $699.... not $1300...And for that "extra" $200, you get a thin, shiny laptop capable of doing 99% of what the "normal" user will want...You want to play uber games... buy an Alienware 18!