Asus ZenBook UX430 Review: It Offers Power and Class But...
The latest ZenBook Windows laptop from Asus gets a 7th generation Intel processor.
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Zenbook by Asus, for me, has been an understated notebook range that defies everything you’ve heard about the ‘Windows laptop’ over the years. These, to be honest, come closest to being a MacBook alternative running on a Windows operating system. Their latest effort in the Zenbook series comes with the UX340, which starts from Rs 74,990.
Does it pack enough oomph and power to become yet another must-have in your laptop shopping list? Let’s find out.
Pros:
- Classy, top-end design finishing
- Portable and lightweight form factor
- Impressive day-to-day performance
- Decent battery life
Cons:
- Not suited for gaming
- Underpowered graphics on-board
- High-end variant won’t come cheap
What’s Good?
It’s hard to look beyond the sheer elegance of the notebook in the first instance. This one carries all the hallmark of a Zenbook laptop we’ve known for sometime now; slim design profile, lightweight to make it portable yet power-packed to some extent.
Speaking of design, the ZenBook UX430 series gets a glassy touch on the front, which might be reflective, alright, but nothing that’s going to leave you worried.
The laptop weighs at around 1.25 kg, and while most ultrabooks at this price range around the same figure, but cramming a 14-inch screen ratio on a 13-inch dimension does add to its charm on the display front.
It’s got 7.9-mm narrow bezels, that doesn’t eat up into the screen estate, letting you watch anything, just about at the right measurement.
The 14-inch form factor gets a full-HD 1920x1080 pixels screen, coated with anti-glare, matte finish, making sure your eyes don’t bear the brunt of reflective sunlight, especially when outdoors. Talking about its quality, you get crisp contrast and the colour gamut rendered on this notebook will leave you satisfied.
In terms of hardware, the UX430 series starts with 8GB of RAM, and you can choose between 256 and 512GB SSD for storage, that also aids in quick boot-time of the system. There’s a Core i5 version, as well as Core i7 (7th generation processors though). It’s got enough USB 3.0 ports to let you connect other devices, while the charging duties are taken care of by Asus’ pocket-sized charger, which is pretty quick.
The battery life of the UX430 can vary depending on your usage, but typically you should be able to get at least 8 hours out from it, on a single charge.
What’s Bad?
For over 75K, this laptop has some nagging concerns which are hard to miss out on. Firstly, it’s 2018 and Asus is still content on selling a 7th generation-based notebook. That itself has the power to bring down the price of the laptop.
The other thing we noticed is that even with Core i7 in tow, the use of a 2GB NVIDIA 940MX graphics card doesn’t help you with getting heavy-duty tasks done on the system. Yes, it can easily handle multi-tasking, but don’t make it your gaming machine.
The most important thing with the UX430 is its starting price. Granted it has a sleek ultrabook-ish design and hardware, but in a market like ours, spending above 75k on a laptop demands perfection and while it comes perilously close, it doesn’t have it all.
Why Buy It?
The Asus ZenBook UX430 is an interesting case study into how brands have to be proactive with their product strategy.
While, there isn’t much to complain with its design, hardware and overall value factor, but minute things like running an outdated processor in this price bracket, with underpowered graphics system, will make sure that you’re neither saying no, nor buying it right away.
This one’s got competition, but even then if you’re looking for a compact, reliable day-to-day system with a higher-budget marking, that isn’t meant for gaming, then the ZenBook UX430 is a good MacBook alternative.
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