Asus Zenbook is hands down one of the best and the most popular series of a laptop from Asus. It has also been an interesting series to look at. Every time a new laptop from this series is bout to get launched by the company, everyone has their eyes on it to see what Asus bring next to the table. Well, the company has recently released a brand new Asus Zenbook 14 into the Indian Markets. This time around they have brought something light, elegant with no-compromise performance. Anyways, in this post, we would be reviewing the ASUS ZenBook 14 to find out if it is something worth taking a look at.
This laptop, since it is suitable for everyday use especially for travellers, bloggers and even casual gamers, have some really interesting internals. Talking about the internals, let us now take a look at the Specifications of the new Asus Zenbook 14.
Specifications
Here is a quick look at the specifications of the Asus ZenBook 14 UM431:
- AMD® Ryzen™ R5-3500U processor
- 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 onboard RAM
- 512GB PCIe x2 SSD
- Integrated AMD® Radeon RX Vega 8 Graphics
- 14” LED-backlit Full HD (1920 x 1080) 16:9 slim-bezel NanoEdge anti-glare display
- Pre-loaded Windows 10 Home
- I/O Ports:
- USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C™ (up to 10 Gbps)
- USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A (up to 5 Gbps)
- USB 2.0
- HDMI
- SD card reader
- Audio combo jack
- 47Wh 2-cell lithium-polymer battery
Taking a first look at the specifications, we can clearly see that the Asus has done a pretty well job with the Asus ZenBook 14. Specifications of this laptop seem quite promising for all types of users. Well, is that just on paper? That’s exactly what we would be finding out today in this review. With that being said, let us now take a look at the Design and Build.
Design and Build
The build quality of the ASUS ZenBook 14 feels very rigid yet the laptop feels quite light. There is an iconic spun-metal finish and the laptop also comes in a brand new Utopia Blue colour which makes it look and feel more premium. There is a glossy ASUS logo on the lid which does a great job of catching everyone’s eyes, thanks to the metal finish. The laptop has an ErgoLift hinge and the keyboard of the laptop feel has minimal to no flex in the keyboard whatsoever.
This Asus ZenBook 14 has ultraslim bezels are just 6.45mm thin at the sides, 9.15mm at the bottom and a mere 9.8mm at the top to accommodate the web camera. One of the most eye-catching things about the laptop is the speaker grills which falls on the sides of the keyboard. There is a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C™, USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A, HDMI and DC Jack ports on the left. To the right, you can find USB 2.0, audio jack and an SD Card Reader. The laptop weighs around 1.39kg which is quite light as well.
Display
The display on the ASUS ZenBook 14 is a Nano Edge Display which has quite slim bezels around it. Also, this display comes with an Anti Glare coating on the top which does a magnificent job when using the laptop outdoors. The display is good enough to be used indoors in a well-lit room and also has a good sunlight eligibility when outdoors. As we already mentioned earlier, there is an Anti Glare matte coating on the laptop which does help reducing glares. However, the colours on this nano edge display look pretty vivid and are natural for the most part.
The laptop has a screen to body ratio of 86% which is another great thing to consider. On top of the display, you can find a webcam which is an HD camera and Asus says that they have placed the camera at the most ideal position for the users. With that being out of the way, let us take a look at the performance of this laptop.
Hardware – Processing & GPU Performance
New Asus Zenbook 14 has quite a lot of power underneath. The laptop comes with an AMD® Ryzen™ R5-3500U processor which is from their new generation and supports a maximum clock speed of Up to 3.7GHz. This is coupled up with 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 onboard RAM stick. The performance from this quad-core processor with 8 GB RAM is quite good for light to medium users. You can also expect some casual gaming, however, you should not expect good performance with heavy title games.
Coming to the Graphics, the Asus Zenbook 14 features an AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 Graphics. This GPU was launched by AMD along with their Ryzen 5 series back in 2017. And this graphics processor still holds pretty well. We did test out some games on this laptop, and though it did a great job with some of them, it was not the best performance when it comes to some popular heavy title games.
Storage & Memory (RAM)
The Asus ZenBook 14 comes with a 512GB PCIe SSD which as expected has some really magnificent read and write speeds. Asus has done a great job here since the users can anytime upgrade to more disk space by inserting a new SSD to a vacant NVme slot which can be found inside the laptop.
Coming to the Memory, the ZenBook 14 comes with 8 GB 2400MHz DDR4 RAM. All in all, we can say that as always, Asus has done an incredibly good job here with the Storage and Memory and did keep the future upgradability in the mind when coming out with this amazing laptop for the users. With that being said, let us now take a look at Keyboard & Trackpad of this laptop. Should we?
Keyboard & Trackpad
The ASUS ZenBook 14 comes with an ergonomically-designed backlit keyboard with large
chiclet keys and a long 1.4mm key travel built for precise feedback and a more comfortable typing experience. Each of the key on this keyboard has a 0.2mm keycap dish, which also helps to increase typing accuracy while providing comfort. We really enjoyed typing on this backlit keyboard. The key presses feel tactile and are not mushy at all.
The trackpad on the Asus ZenBook 14 is large and has a fingerprint sensor embedded in the top right corner. Talking about the trackpad, it has great sensitivity and does support all the Windows Smart Gestures flawlessly. To wrap it up, Asus has done a pretty great job with the Keyboard and Trackpad on the new Asus Zenbook 14.
Final Verdict
To conclude this review, we can say that the Asus ZenBook 14 UM431 is a really good pick for those of you who are looking out for a laptop for good performance on a budget. The Asus ZenBook 14 UM431 retails at Rs 59,990 in the Indian Markets. This is a great price for a laptop with these specifications.
