Asus Zenbook 15 laptop review: Compact, comfortable keyboard

Laptops are getting smaller and Asus has always been at the forefront of that trend. ZenBook 15 is a petite laptop with a 15.6-inch screen. Although small, the Asus Zenbook 15 still contains 8th-generation Intel Whiskey Lake Core i7-8565U CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU.

Let's find out more about this laptop through the following article!

Appearance

Over time, ZenBook has become aesthetically consistent like Lenovo's ThinkPad. ZenBook 15 has Asus' concentric swirl symbol on the lid, blue with gold trim, which is easy to distinguish from previous models.

ZenBook 15 is only 1/10 inch wider than the XPS 15. It is also slightly thicker than the XPS 15. However in terms of weight, ZenBook 15 is lighter than the XPS 15.

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Asus Zenbook 15 has 2 USB-A ports, one Gen 1 (up to 5Gb / s) and one Gen 2 (up to 10Gb / s), a single USB-C Gen 1 port, HDMI port and SD card reader full ruler. However, this laptop doesn't have a Thunderbolt 3 port, which is difficult to accept in a high-end laptop.

Wireless connectivity is also no different than before, still with Gigabit WiFi 2X2 MU-MIMO 802.11ac (without WiFi 6 or 802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.0.

Performance

ZenBook 15 is powered by a quad-core Core i7-8565U, which can compete with the six-core Core i7-9750H in the XPS 15.

Like 13.3-inch and 14-inch models, the ZenBook 15's hinge angle allows for good airflow and a more comfortable experience. The fan is not too noisy and does a good job.

The Asus Zenbook 15 completed the Handbrake video transcoding test in about 3 and a half minutes, significantly faster than other 15-watt quad-core laptops.

ZenBook 15 works well compared to other thin and light laptops, but not as fast as the XPS 15. The same is true when it comes to the GPU performance of ZenBook 15.

In actual gaming benchmark tests, the ZenBook 15 handled at 89 frames per second (FPS) in Civilization VI, better than the XPS 15's 82 FPS at 1080p. This is very surprising. But in other games, the XPS 15 is faster.

Battery life

In battery tests, ZenBook 15 gave unimpressive results, which lasted for less than 8 hours.

ZenBook 15 with Full HD panel and most high-end laptops last at least 8 hours. And in video testing, ZenBook 15 only lasted less than 11 hours (which is the average for high-end laptops today).

There is no 4K screen

The Full HD display is the only option that ZenBook Pro comes with and it's also below average. Colors are close to average (72% for Adobe RGB and 93% for sRGB). Color accuracy is good but not too excellent (at 1.68). The brightness is lower than preferred (300 nits), reaching 288 nits and the contrast is below the average of 700: 1 (modern high-end laptops should be around 1000: 1 or better).

ScreenPad 2.0

The ZenBook 15 keyboard, is awesome, with easy-to-read yellow text on a blue background and a lovely backlight with three levels of brightness. Typing is comfortable and feels right.

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Asus Zenbook 15 is equipped with the latest version from Asus ScreenPad technology. Basically, the touchpad is a 5.65-inch touch screen, which can act as a traditional touchpad or provide some application-based functionality.

As a touchpad, it feels good with Microsoft's Precision touchpad support. As ScreenPad 2.0, users can access special function keys for Microsoft Office applications, such as using their fingers to write on the screen, turning on the virtual numeric keypad and using ScreenPad as a secondary monitor.

Advantages:

1. Built with excellent quality
2. Comfortable keyboard
3. Solid CPU performance
4. The GPU is surprisingly good

Defect:

1. Battery life is too short
2. The screen is disappointing
3. No Thunderbolt 3