Asus Zenbook UX305LA Review – With the power of Core i7

Cons

• No keyboard backlight
• Moderate screen calibration

Since the introduction of the UX21 in 2011, the name ‘Zenbook’ has been associated with fast and especially expensive ultrabooks from Asus. That changed at the beginning of this year. Thanks to its Core M processor, the new Asus Zenbook UX305 was no longer particularly fast, but it only cost half of a UX301. That choice worked out well for Asus; in our review we gave the UX305 nine out of ten points and in the Pricewatch the laptop is also regularly at the top of the popularity list.

Still, something was missing from the UX305, because although the low price makes the laptop attractive, a Core M processor is not enough for everyone and enough people are willing to shell out a little more money for a UX305 with a Core i5 or i7 -Processor.

During the Computex, Asus already showed that it has also thought of those people and showed UX305 Zenbooks with Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. Asus will deliver the most extensive model with a Core i7-5500U processor, 8GB memory, a 512GB SSD and a 13.3″ quad-HD screen from September. the UX305LA in two versions, with a Core i5-5200U or with a Core i7-5500U processor.In both versions, the working memory is 8GB and the SSD 256GB, and a full-HD screen is mounted. we look at the differences between the UX305FA, with a Core M, and the most expensive UX305LA.

Appearance

You can’t tell from the outside that there’s an i7 processor in the Zenbook. The UX305LA has the same sturdy metal housing as the UX305FA and has become slightly thicker. You can only really see that if you hold both versions side by side. The extra thickness is necessary for the active cooling and the larger battery. The slots at the bottom, through which cooling air is sucked in, are also new; the UX305FA didn’t have them yet. The extra cooling and larger battery make the fast UX305 more than a hundred grams heavier, bringing the weight to 1316 grams. This makes the UX305LA still not a heavyweight.

The housing is therefore almost identical to that of the UX305FA , which means that there are still three USB connections, micro HDMI and an SD card reader. A sleeve is included as standard, as is an adapter cable from USB to Ethernet. Even in this thicker version, the keyboard has relatively little travel and therefore does not type too comfortably, but that is the case with almost all ultrabooks. Unfortunately, keyboard lighting is not included in the more expensive version.

We tested the laptop under Windows 10 and the new touchpad driver for that operating system seems to work well for the laptop. The built-in Windows gestures are smoothly supported and it seems that the palm detection has also been improved.

Benchmarks: faster processor and SSD

The Core i7 processor in the expensive UX305 is of course a lot faster than the Core M processor in the entry-level model. Comparing only the performance of those two laptops is not really useful, so we have included some more comparison material in the tables. We ran Cinebench 15 Multi, which loads all processor cores, and the single test which runs the same benchmark on one core. For the OpenGL test, we used the results in Cinebench 11.5, because Cinebench 15 OpenGL would not run on older laptops due to a driver problem.

The UX305FA, the model with a Core M processor, is passively cooled, so the cooling produces no noise. With a TDP of 4.5 watts, passive cooling is no problem, but with the 15 watts that the i7-5500U is allowed to consume, that’s no longer an option. While running the benchmarks, the active cooling of the UX305LA makes itself heard, although the speed of the fan drops quickly to a barely audible level after the benchmark has ended.

The results of Cinebench are in line with those of Dell’s XPS 13, which is equipped with the same processor. In Cinebench Multi, the i7 is twice as fast as the Core M, but in the single test it is only one and a half times faster. That’s because the tdp is the limiting factor of the Core M processor. One core can sustain a higher turbo speed within the 4.5 watt tdp than two.

Asus has opted for the M600 from Micron for the 256GB SSD in the UX305LA. Micron supplies SSDs to OEMs under its own name and sells to consumers under the name Crucial. The Micron SSD is a lot faster than the 128GB Sandisk one in the UX305FA, but it’s also faster than other 256GB SSDs we’ve tested in laptops so far.

Screen

We had no complaints about the 13.3″ screen of the UX305FA, the version with a Core M that we have tested before. On the contrary, for a laptop of 750 euros, the screen exceeded expectations. The IPS panel is in fact bright, with a fairly high contrast of about 1300:1 and good viewing angles. The colors could have been calibrated a bit better, but for the money that may be too much to ask. From the i7 model, which costs more than one and a half times as much we expected perfect color reproduction, but that expectation is not fulfilled; the screen is calibrated in the same way as that of the UX305FA.

That does not mean that it is a bad screen, because thanks to the matte finish, you hardly suffer from reflections and the contrast is just as high as with the cheaper version. The slightly too high color temperature, slightly too low gamma value and slightly too saturated colors will not quickly stand out, but it is not completely tightly calibrated.

Battery life

Of all the features of the UX305LA, we were most curious about the battery life. With its economical Core M processor and 45Wh battery, the UX305FA achieved an excellent battery life of more than nine hours while browsing. We feared that the variant with the less efficient i7 processor would perform worse, but that turned out not to be the case.