ASUS Zenbook is a premium ultraportable laptops offering a good mix performance and price with great specs. The ASUS Zenbook UX430UN is the latest model in this series and it comes with 8th gen Intel i7 and i5 processors along with dedicated graphics card with a choice of 512GB or 256GB SSD. So how does ASUS Zenbook UX430UN perform for the price? Let’s find it out in detailed ASUS Zenbook UX430UN Review.
Design and Build:
The first thing that attracts is the gorgeous looks of the laptop. We variant which we reviewed came in Blue color, but it available in choice or silver and gold as well. It is made of aluminum and has a feels premium. The laptop lid has the ASUS logo at the center and has a glossy finish which ASUS claims that the high-quality texture has been achieved through nano-imprinting lithography. It is a fingerprint magnet but feels premium for the pricing.
Even though the laptop has a slim chassis and is a lightweight one at less than 1.5kg, it isn’t devoid of ports. On the left side, you get charging slot, USB 3.0 slot, micro HDMI, 3.5mm audio jack and a USB Type C port. On the right side, you get another USB 3.0 port along with an SD card reader.
The hinge is strong and made of metal. Overall, the build quality is really good for a premium laptop.
Display:
The display is one of the strong aspects of the Zenbook. It has a 14 inch Full HD (1920 X 1080p) resolution display made to fit in a smaller chassis, thanks to the NanoEdge display technology, it feels almost bezel-less. The bezel at the bottom is slightly higher, but ASUS has the logo included in there. It is a matte finish display and feels really good. The colors are punchy and the brightness is very good. Reading text is crisp and sharp on the display.
Since it a matte finish display, there is no glare on it and watching videos is a treat on this display. Since it is an IPS LCD panel, the viewing angles are also really good. ASUS has also installed the Splendid app which allows you to customize the display colors based on your preferences.
Keyboard, Touchpad and Fingerprint Scanner:
The Zenbook has a full-fledged keyboard and it is easy to use as well. It has a backlit keyboard and I found it comfortable to type on it. It has Chiclet-style design that features extra-wide, separated keys each with a long, 1.4mm travel distance. Users can also change the brightness of the backlight or even turn it off. Probably the only issues I faced with the keyboard is the small size of arrow keys which needs time to get used to.
The Zenbook has a large and user-friendly touchpad. It has a smooth glass-fiber coated surface and supports Windows 10’s multi-touch and multi-gesture input with up to 4-finger gestures. We did not have any issues using the touchpad and it was pretty accurate.
The laptop also comes with a fingerprint scanner placed in the top right corner of the touchpad and it has integration with Windows Hello. The fingerprint scanner was accurate and also quick to unlock the device.
Performance:
The ASUS Zenbook UX430UN is powered by latest Kabylake 8th generation Intel i7 8550 processor and is coupled with 8 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD. The graphics card is 2GB NVIDIA GeForce MX150. You also get an option of i5 with 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM. It runs on Windows 10 Home version. I used the laptop as my daily driver with Chrome running with 20+ tabs, video editing, copying files from Android phones and external hard disk and various other tasks.
For all the tasks it was put to, the Zenbook performed well and there was hardly anything to complain. The only issue was with the fan speed which was slightly noisy when doing extreme tasks like editing videos. Thanks to the latest version of Intel i7 processor, this laptop will be able to handle all your day to day tasks with ease.
The speaker performance of the laptop is impressive, it has two bottom firing speakers and the output was surprisingly loud and thanks to the Harman Kardon speakers on this laptop. If you are a person interested in multimedia content, then the speakers are a treat to use. It also has Bluetooth 4.1 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n in connectivity.
Battery Life:
One of the important things to look when buying a new laptop is the battery life. ASUS claims a battery life of 9 hours on this machine with the 50Wh 3-cell lithium-polymer battery fitted underneath. The battery life we got was around 7 hours on an average which is an impressive performance. It has a 65W adaptor which can charge the battery in around 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Verdict:
The ASUS Zenbook UX430UN ticks almost all the right boxes for a good performing ultraportable laptop. With great design, excellent display, performance and good battery life, there is hardly anything to complain about UX430UN for the price you are paying. The only area where ASUS could have done a bit better is the fan noise.
Although the laptop is not intended for heavy gaming, it can handle all tasks including video rendering without any issues. The top end variant which we reviewed comes for Rs. 93,990, but you can pick the i5 variant with 256GB SSD for as low as Rs 72990 which is a good deal.
If you are looking for a sleek and powerful portable laptop which isn’t heavy on your pocket, then Zenbook UX430UN is a good choice.
