Asus Zenbook UX303 Review – Is this the best windows Ultrabook ?
I still review lots of laptops and ultrabook, when it comes to proper windows laptop there’s hardly you will find, even after heavy investment, it lacks something of that how well optimised the MacBook are in the same spectacular budget of the Mac. Asus did send me an ultrabook which was Asus Zenbook UX303 / UX303UA, which is the Asus’s ultrabook line-up. Whenever ultrabook comes in their key things to check out is good / best specification , slim form factor, attractive build and awesome experience.
What’s an Ultrabook ?
Ultrabook is actually trademarked brand of Intel for high-end notebooks with reduced bulk without compromising on the battery life. They use low powered intel processors, with solid state drive for increased better performance gain. I was also accepted for this type of things until Asus Zenbook Knocked the door.
Asus Zenbook UX303UA specification
- Intel Processor : Core i7 6500U Processor (our review unit has) /
Core i5 6200U Processor /
Core i3 6100U Processor - Windows 10 Pro / Home
- onboard 4GB RAM (up to 16GB available, our unit had 8GB )
- 13.3″ either HD 1366 X 768/ IPS FHD 1920 x 1080 / IPS QHD 3200 x 1800(our unit had)
- Intel HD 5000 with Nvidia 940M
- 512GB SSD / 1TB HDD
- HD Web Camera
- 3 x USB 3.0 port / 1 x Mini display port / 1 x HDMI / 1 x Card Reader.
Asus Zenbook UX303
Build of Asus Zenbook UX303
So when this product was received by me I was fascinated with its look. It did have a concentric circle with at mid of Circle had an ASUS written. It was a metal design, the brushed metal feels great in the hand. So at the thinness, it was 19.2mm thin which is much thin for a laptop. Its bottom had 4 knobs to support rest on a surface or your lap. There wasn’t a dedicated speaker grill inside a laptop else those were an invisible speaker on which sound came from the body itself, it’s innovative but those were ok for a laptop standard.It has a brilliant rectangular display which has best colour reproduction and best possible viewing angles. The right side had Battery Indicator, 3.5mm headphone jack, HDMI port, USB 3.0 port, Display port and Charging port. The left side had 2x 3.0 USB port and card reader.
The laptop opens up to the circular hinge max it can go up to 120 degrees. Above to display had a web camera which was completely decent for video calls. Asus Zenbook UX303 came with the backlit keyboard, the white leds from the side of each tactile key make it a great job to work at night or at low light. The laptop keyboard travelling was good and feel of the keyboard was also great. There was a large glass touchpad which was awesome at the response and well optimised with windows 10.
Overall the build of Asus Zenbook UX303 is the best looking and best build windows laptop which is remarkable and will definitely hardly anyone will complain about its looks. I did test to check the remark of people were impressed by its awesome looks.
The box content had a charger, display wire, cover for a laptop. That’s actually great Asus gave almost all required in the box itself rather than selling it separately.
Display of Asus Zenbook UX303
I wanted to talk especially about the display of Asus zenbook UX303 which dedicatedly came with 13.3 inch IPS 1080p or QHD display, choose anyone you will get the best only in IPS displays. The best thing about the IPS displays are the blacks, when you look at blacks on the screen it almost felt like the screen is off at that black point and IPS display has more vivid colours and better colour saturation than a TFT LCD display. If you are photo editor or video editor or UI developer or say Desktop publisher Then definitely choose IPS because it will help you get the best possible colours for your work and better output will be generated with it.
Windows 10
I got the Asus zenbook updated to windows 10 itself and usual it did came with some bloatware of Asus like Asus web storage and lot more. Still even I had the 1.0 TB variant the windows booted up in less than 8 sec for me in almost all the starts. I appreciated about it to Asus rather complaining about the bloatware. The touchpad had its great sync with windows. The laptop didn’t come with Microsoft Office subscription which needs to be bought separately which I think it’s an only extra cost.
Performance of Asus Zenbook UX303
So I did got to play and test some games in which I tested Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) for the surprise it ran smoother on the mobile GPU of the NVidia 940M, I was impressed with the GTA V performance itself it came till 40FPS in my test. 40 FPS was actually the highest it touches, you can have a look at screenshots. Another thing was the photoshop does render well, the even same case was with premiere pro. I didn’t have the performance issue or a glitch. It was the only laptop which helps me forget my daily windows machine was of its brilliant performance. It helps me forget all.
Verdict of Asus Zenbook UX303
I seriously think after the Asus ROG G20, I thought only the ROG series of Asus is best. When it came to normal or business class work laptop I didn’t found one until I reviewed Asus Zenbook UX303, this review itself was written on Asus Zenbook UX303. If windows are your preference, then this laptop is the best. It doesn’t have the touch screen which is actually the good thing as it isn’t required on windows laptop as we are much use to the desktop app rather than the metro UI. This thing marks all the required things. If you want to choose this one go for it. Choose the SSD version which will give you even better performance than the normal HDD one and you won’t regret choosing SSD as its the best performance gain will be seen.