ASUS Zenbook UX534 – Review — Maxi-Geek

There is an entire feature I haven’t really touched upon yet and that is the ScreenPad, the space where the mousepad is and for a good reason, I honestly never used it. I tried to use of course, part of the review, but when I was just working on something, my attention was on the main screen and if I needed to use the ScreenPad, it was just as mouse. Please don’t misunderstand, the ScreenPad does offer an impressive range of options, if you have software that makes use of it, but for the general user, it is a screen that is not connected to the main display. Imagine if you are sitting at your desk and you have a second screen, a much smaller one, sitting between the keyboard and you, raising and lowering your head to where it would sit, is honestly a pain. Devices that make use of two screens, like the Nintendo DS, or other ASUS laptops work, because they are next to each other, here the screen is just to far away to make use of it and nothing it offers can’t be replicated on the main screen, it might work for others, but for me it was underused, a lot.

The final take away on any portable device is of course the battery and here things are a little different than on past ASUS laptops, thanks to the ScreenPad. The battery comes in at a very respectable 71w, which is slightly smaller than some of their previous ones, but given that they had to let something give, in order to fit in the second display. I was able to get through a full days use on it, without the need to top up the battery, something I am happy with, but two days was just not possible, with the brightness around halfway, I would get around 11-12 hours before I had to recharge. Of course, gaming or running the screen at max brightness, will deplete the battery faster, it is still a welcome size, especially as the weight of the device leans more to the hefty side than anything else. Charging it wasn’t an issue, the cable length was decent and while there is no quick charge feature, 2 hours for a battery above 90% was decent, others have complained about the lack of charging by USB-C, but for me, it is not a concern at all. Of course, the big issue is the power brick, while not the biggest around, it is very square, which can make it a little awkward to store anywhere.