Asus ZenBook 13 (UX325EA) Review
The Asus ZenBook 13 has long been a value player in the premium ultraportable laptop market. The latest UX325EA version starts at $949.99, and spending an extra $50 to upgrade to the configuration reviewed here gets you Intel’s latest 11th Generation “Tiger Lake” Core i7 processor, a 1TB SSD, and 16GB of memory. The ZenBook 13 also offers long battery life, a stylish chassis that’s admirably thin and light, and multiple color options. A comparable Dell XPS 13 or Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch would cost hundreds of dollars more, which makes the ZenBook 13 a sensible choice for shoppers who want a combination of premium features and wallet-friendliness.
Mục Lục
Easy on the Eyes
The ZenBook 13 is one of the smallest and lightest laptops with a 13.3-inch display that you can buy, measuring 0.55 by 8 by 11.98 inches (HWD) and weighing just 2.36 pounds. Compare that with the Apple MacBook Air, which rings up at 0.63 by 11.97 by 8.46 inches and 2.8 pounds. Asus has pulled off quite an engineering feat here. And such a small chassis necessitates extremely thin borders around the screen, known as bezels. Asus says the ZenBook 13 has an 88 percent screen-to-body ratio, not far off from the 90 percent ratio of the 14-inch ZenBook 14.
The lightweight ZenBook 13 is also easy on the eyes, with either Pine Gray or Lilac Mist color schemes. I tested the former version, which feels right at home among the other metal-finish laptops, like the MacBook Pro, that typically make up this corner of the market. The distinctive concentric circle design that surrounds the Asus logo embedded into the display lid does help it stand out a bit, however. And if you want an especially distinctive ZenBook 13, order it in the bright Lilac Mist color scheme. It transforms the exterior and keyboard deck, but keeps the same gray color on the display borders, for a unique two-tone look.
While the ZenBook 13 looks pleasing and is compact and light enough not to place a burden on your shoulders when you’re carrying it around in a bag, I don’t find the laptop to be quite as well-constructed as the XPS 13 or Apple MacBook Pro are. There’s a small but noticeably concerning bit of flex when you tap on the palm rest. The hinge on the generously sized touchpad is also loose, resulting in occasional rattling sounds that don’t inspire confidence. Given the reasonable sub-$1,000 asking price, though, I suspect some buyers will be able to overlook these potential flaws.
ErgoLift Angled Keyboard
When you open the ZenBook 13’s lid, the hinge extends below the keyboard base, angling it upward slightly to increase typing comfort. This ErgoLift hinge has been a mainstay of Asus laptops for a few years now, and the angle it offers is pleasing to those who prefer it while small enough not to annoy those who prefer their keyboards to lay flat. The keyboard itself has sturdy keys and wonderfully quiet key switches. Unfortunately, Asus has included an additional column of keys on the right side (Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End) that necessitate squishing all of the keys a bit, making them a bit cramped for my large fingers.
Other than the slightly loose touchpad hinge, the ZenBook 13 offers a reliable tapping experience. You can even transform the touchpad into a calculator, with virtual backlit buttons. This ZenBook 13 lacks the unique ScreenPad available on some other ZenBook models, which is mostly a good thing. The innovative ScreenPad is a combination of a secondary touch screen and a touchpad, but like Apple’s Touch Bar, it’s not a must-have feature. It mostly appeals to bleeding-edge dwellers who are willing to download ScreenPad-compatible apps and wade through multiple configuration pages.
The ZenBook 13 also lacks a touch-enabled screen, which I find to be a far more important oversight given the robust touch capabilities built into Windows 10 that are useful for everyday computing tasks like navigating web browsers and minimizing app windows. The ZenBook 13 also lacks a 4K display option. The only display available is a full-HD (1,920 by 1,080 pixels) LED-backlit panel, which can be configured with either 450 nits or 300 nits of brightness. Our test unit has the brighter version, which I highly recommend unless you’re looking to eke out as much battery life as possible, in which case the 300-nit backlight could be a better choice.
Above the display, there’s an HD (720p) webcam with IR sensors that support face recognition logins via Windows Hello. Video quality is average, with a slightly noisy picture even in bright indoor lighting conditions.
No Headphone Jack
The ZenBook 13’s port selection reflects the laptop’s extraordinarily thin chassis—that is to say, there just isn’t room for a ton of ports. Asus has generously included a full-size HDMI video output and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, neither of which is common on ultraportable laptops these days. However, they come at the expense of a headphone jack. Asus includes a USB-C-to-3.5mm dongle in the box for people who want to connect a wired headset or headphones.
Two USB Type-C ports and a microSD card reader round out the port selection. Both of the USB-C ports support Thunderbolt 4 speeds of up to 40GBps (new with Tiger Lake and its platform). It’s moot at the moment considering a lack of Thunderbolt 4 peripherals, but a nice inclusion in a $1,000 laptop. Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.
At maximum volume, the ZenBook 13’s speakers are easily powerful enough to fill a midsize living room. This is thanks in part to what Asus calls a “smart” amplifier, which the company says is designed to allow the maximum possible volume without damaging the speaker coils. The emphasis is clearly on volume over quality, though, as music played at the maximum level sounds slightly tinny and distorted.
Testing the ZenBook 13: Roaring Performance From Tiger Lake
The ZenBook 13 is one of the first production laptops we’ve tested with Intel’s Tiger Lake CPUs. The Intel Core i7-1165G7 has four cores, eight threads, and a base frequency of 2.8GHz. It also uses Intel’s latest Iris Xe Graphics processor. This integrated graphics engine offers performance approaching that of an entry-level gaming laptop with a discrete GPU, and is a boon to people who prefer an ultraportable laptop but occasionally want to play games on it.
To test the ZenBook 13’s performance, I compared its results on our benchmark tests with a few other comparably priced ultraportable laptops, including the Acer Swift 3, the Apple MacBook Air, and the HP Envy x360 13.
While the Dell XPS 13 unit we tested costs significantly more than these systems, I’ve also included its results, since it’s currently our top pick among high-end ultraportables.
CPU and Media-Creation Tests
Overall, the ZenBook 13 demonstrates excellent graphics and computing performance, which is to be expected given its cutting-edge processor. For example, it recorded a slight edge over its Windows-based competitors on our PCMark 10 productivity test, which simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We use the test to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet jockeying, web browsing, and videoconferencing. The test generates a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better.
The performance of the ZenBook 13’s 1TB SSD as measured by the PCMark 8 storage subtest is also excellent, though not appreciably different from other SSD-based laptops, all of which score around 5,000 points on this test.
On our specialized multimedia content creation benchmarks, the ZenBook 13 is at least as fast as laptops that use previous-generation Intel silicon, and rivals the capabilities of the AMD Ryzen 5 processor in the Envy x360. For example, the ZenBook 13 takes 16 minutes to transcode a 4K video using Handbrake, which is comparable with the Envy x360 and nearly 10 minutes quicker than the Core i5 in the MacBook Air.
Maxon’s CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads, shows similar results. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads.
The ZenBook 13 takes the lead on our image editing benchmark, in which we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image using Adobe Photoshop. We time each operation and, at the end, add up the total execution time.
As with Handbrake, lower times are better here. The Photoshop test stresses CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, but it can also take advantage of most GPUs to speed up the process of applying filters, so systems with powerful graphics chips or cards may see a boost. The Tiger Lake CPU’s high base and boost clocks, though, likely help in this “bursty” test.
Plenty of Graphics Muscle for Light Gaming
One of the most intriguing parts of the ZenBook 13’s performance capabilities are its extraordinary achievements on our 3DMark and Superpostion gaming simulations. The average frame rate of 44 frames per second (fps) on Superposition at a 720p preset with low quality settings is especially impressive.
It’s slightly better than the AMD Radeon Graphics in the Envy x360, and suggests that people who are willing to compromise on detail and resolution can use the ZenBook 13 as a substitute for an entry-level gaming laptop.
Battery Life Testing
Rounding out its set of performance skills, the ZenBook 13 has an impressively large 67-watt-hour battery. It posted a time of just over 13 hours on our battery rundown test, which isn’t quite as good as the 15-plus hours that the XPS 13 and MacBook Air can manage on this test, but still suggests that the ZenBook 13 will last through a full day of light work without needing to be plugged in.
Verdict: Affordable Big-Cat Power, Impressive Portability
The ZenBook 13 combines power, portability, and affordable pricing, which are the top three priorities for most ultraportable laptop seekers. This laptop is therefore an excellent choice at around $1,000, the bottom end of the premium ultraportable category.
Asus did need to make some sacrifices to achieve this optimal blend of features, however. They include slightly inferior build quality and no option for a 4K display or a touch screen, both of which are available on the more-expensive and Editors’ Choice-winning Dell XPS 13.
These drawbacks keep us from awarding the ZenBook 13 an Editors’ Choice award, although they’re certainly not enough to keep us from recommending this excellent laptop to people who want the latest and greatest Intel processor in a slim, attractive laptop that won’t break the bank.
Asus ZenBook 13 (UX325EA)
4.0
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Check Stock
$999.99
at Amazon
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Base Configuration Price $949.99
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The Bottom Line
The Asus ZenBook 13, now with Intel’s 11th Generation “Tiger Lake” processors, continues to be an affordable option for seekers of a powerful ultraportable.
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