Asus is one tech company that sure knows to make attractive laptops. It's also experienced in how to turn sloppy gimmicks into bona fide helpful features. Meet the Asus Zenbook 15, giving you an attractive laptop jam-packed with useful features that tick a lot of boxes for a lot of people. From work and productivity, to some mild gaming and entertainment. After all, it features one of the best screens on a portable machine.
Priced moderately, the laptop avoids the silver/gold trend. It goes with a blue chassis finish that's just as durable as it is appealing. Asus also brings the beloved ScreenPad back, though this time it’s slightly bigger and offers more functionality. Throw in Intel's latest 10th Gen Comet Lake processor, huge memory, discrete graphics, and a bigger battery, you get a fantastic laptop for professionals who don't have the budget for the latest 16 inches Macbook Pro 16.
Alright, so what’s new, what’s not, what works and what leaves us desiring for more? Let’s take a detailed look at what Asus Zenbook 15 brings to the table!
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ASUS ZenBook 15 Review
Design
Like the prior Zenbooks, 15 is a delight for the eyes. In a world where silver and gold laptops have become sort of a standard, royal-blue gives you a much-needed respite as soon as you open the package. The aluminum construction is lined by Asus’s telltale circular patterns. The logo at the center glows, giving a feel of a golden sun rising behind a blue sea. The metallic lid feels nice to touch. Opening the lid gives you more blue and gold hue. The entire deck is furnished in royal-blue aluminum, topped by a gold vent. Even the keypad is blue with gold lettering on the keys. Right below is a gigantic touchpad that also doubles as Asus' proprietary ScreenPad 2.0.
As you open the lid, the Ergolift hinge is activated, raising the keypad slightly. This makes for a much more comfortable typing experience, especially when typing for longer durations. A raised keypad deck helps with better ventilation and ultimately better cooling, leading to better performance. Having a little space between the bottom-mounted speakers and a flat surface also improves the audio. At a mere 3.7 pounds, the 13.9 x 8.7 x 0.7 inches ZenBook 15 is definitely one of the most compact and lightweight 15 inches system in the world. It’s significantly smaller and lighter than competitors like Dell XPS 15, HP Spectre x360, and Macbook Pro 16.
ScreenPad
It's back! Bigger, wider, and definitely better than before. The Asus ScreenPad technology makes a return as ScreenPad 2.0, packing more features than the predecessors. It’s powered by ScreenXpert, and designed to complement MS office, enhancing productivity. The LCD touchpad has an impressive screen resolution of 2160 x 1080 and a refresh rate of 60 Hz.
To enable (or disable) ScreenPad, you just have to hit F6. Once enabled, you can switch between the touchpad and Screenpad at your will. Press the X button located in the top right corner of the touchpad to switch to ScreenPad. Likewise, hit the touchpad icon in the bottom left corner to return back to the touchpad. It’s that easy!
The ScreenPad 2.0 comes with nine pre-loaded applications. These include a Number Key that turns the pad into a digital number pad, a Handwriting app to help you jot things down in a jiffy, Quick Key to create hotkeys for certain other apps, and Spotify to give you instant access to some work music when things get a little boring. You can also add third-party apps to the screen for easy access.
But that's not all. The best thing about ScreenPad 2.0 is it’s power and energy efficiency, putting very little stress on the battery life. Plus, it puts the ScreenPad into a power saver mode when idle. That means your laptop can easily outlast an 8-hour work spree.
Display
The display is a marvel of modern engineering. Asus has somehow managed to fit 15.6 inches, 1920x1080 display screen into a 14 inches chassis. On top of that, the laptop features super-slim bezels. Of course, not as slim as Dell XPS 15's InfinityEdge, but still pretty darn remarkable. Moreover, the display looks good, details are sharp, contrast is fine, colors are vivid, and brightness… well, brightness could have been slightly better. It's adequate for outdoor use, but if you're writing a document in the open for a long duration, you wish it was somewhat better.
There are three levels of backlighting. The numeric keypad has smaller keys than the main keypad. There is a dedicated Home key along with End, Page Up, and Down keys. Cursor’s arrow keys are tiny but in their proper inverted T-shape. Overall, the keypad has a very pliant and smooth typing feel. The keys click with a hard to hear a clicky sound. Last but not least, the buttonless touchpad glides smoothly and taps on a slight touch of your fingers.
Performance
The ZenBook 15 introduces the world to Intel’s 10th Gen1.8GHz Core i7 Comet Lake Processor. It's paired with 16GB RAM. With a 14 nm chip, Comet Lake is a step up from the Whiskey Lake chipsets. That said, this processor is all about performance, particularly with multitasking and heavy workloads. To test the performance, we opened 35 different tabs while working with a massive spreadsheet in Google Docs. The laptop showed no sign of slowing down. During a 5GB file duplication test, it’s 1 TB PCIe NVMe SSD took just 6 seconds to do the task. That’s a transfer rate of approximately 779MBPS. Impressive, right?
Graphics
While you won’t be able to play CyberPunk 2077 with it’s Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU, however, expect to play some AAA titles without any problem. All thanks to a 2GB of VRAM. The discrete graphics card also comes in really handy when handling mid-level content generation and multitasking. For regular tasks, the laptop switches over to the Integrated Intel UHD Graphics card.
Ports
Asus ZenBook offers a wide array of ports to accommodate several different displays, accessories, and peripherals when required. On the right side of the laptop, you have a USB 3.1 Type-A port, a USB 3.1 Type C port, an HDMI display port, an SD card reader, and a power jack to juice up the machine. On the left, there's a USB 3.1 Type-A port and a headset jack. Unfortunately, there’s no Thunderbolt 3 port, which is a slight disappointment considering the cost and specifications of this model. Instead of swallowing the entire card, the SD slot leaves it protruding on the side, which can snag on the stuff in your backpack.
Battery Life
Of course, everybody likes two screens, except when it comes to battery life. As we pointed out earlier, the battery lasts a good 8 hours work-spree involving internet surfing at 150nits brightness. ScreenPad 2.0 was turned off during this time. One reason why the battery life is so good is because it has a 1080p panel, which consumes less juice.
Durability
Don't let that pristine look fool you. ZenBook 15 is one tough nut to crack. During our indoor and outdoor tests, the laptop endured a barrage of natural and man-made tests, ensuring that it can be taken to cleaners and still keep ticking like nothing happened. This includes tests dealing with atmospheric phenomena like humidity and high temperatures, high altitudes, drop, fall, and vibration.
Security
For security and protection, ASUS has equipped the Zenbook 15 with a tiny TMP 2.0 module that allows secure user authentication and better high-level security. You can use it to lock your system when needed. Besides, the webcam also features 3D IR technology that becomes very useful for facial recognition.
Temperature
For all that specs and performance, Asus ZenBook 15 should have been a crotch incinerator – especially when you consider the two screens running side by side. Yet after playing multiple Youtube Videos for full three hours, the laptop's center reached 88 degrees and the undercarriage 90 degrees Fahrenheit. That's well below the comfort threshold of 95 degrees F.
Software & Warranty.
Perhaps the most useful of the preinstalled apps on this machine is MyAsus. It helps you run diagnostics, contact customer support, change display temperature, and more. There are also some third-party apps like Netflix, Evernote, McAfee Security, and Spotify. That said, ASUS ships this laptop with a limited one year warranty.
Pros
• Eye-catching, sleek and durable design
• Improved ScreenPad
• Smooth no-noise keypad
• Great battery life
• Excellent Audio/Video performance
Cons
• Brightness could have been better.
• No Thunderbolt 3 port
Final Thoughts
The Asus ZenBook 15 is a glamorous 15 inches laptop that adds military-grade durability to the mix. It not only keeps the useful ScreenPad but enhances its functionality further by adding more apps. The keypad has a new number pad, bezels are smaller, and the battery life is twice as much as the previous model.
The Zenbook has a lot going in its favor, though we particularly loved the new ScreenPad. Overall, it’s an excellent option for mobile professionals who want to squeeze as much functionality out of their laptops as possible. Don’t expect it to play the latest AAA games, though.
