ASUS ZenBook 14 UX425JA Review: A Value For Money Ultrabook For the Masses

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September 17, 2020

ASUS has consistently been on my radar this year thanks to its variety of new products. After testing their slick and powerful ROG Zephyrus G14, I started using another brilliant 14-inch laptop from the company. Now ever since the whole lockdowns and work from home scenario began, I’ve been actively using my desktop for a more productive day at work. I do occasionally swap devices for testing, but for the past week or so I’ve been stuck on the ZenBook 14. The funny thing is that for the first few days of use, I assumed that ASUS sent me the smaller 13-inch variant. But surprisingly, it felt so compact and lightweight that I didn’t even realise that it is actually a 14-inch notebook.

The ZenBook 14 UX425J comes with the company’s distinguished spun-metal finish on the lid that looks classy and the notebook gets MIL-STD-810 certification, assuring a sturdy build. The company’s ErgoLift hinge design also makes an appearance here. We’ve seen this on a variety of ASUS notebooks where when you open the lid, the hinge opens up to lift the bottom chassis at a slight angle, making the keyboard easier to use as well as offering more space for cooling.

Now the main chassis makes use of aluminum alloy, which isn’t exactly premium and you might notice a little bit of flex here and there. But overall the notebook felt very solid to me and worthy of the price. I also found it to be quite handy and easy to carry around making it a recommended choice for people who are on the go.

GOOD SET OF I/O PORTS, BUT NO HEADPHONE JACK?

As for the I/O ports, you get much more than your usual ultraslim notebooks. The only crucial one missing is the headphone jack, which is odd as the company did manage to squeeze in ports like an HDMI, and a full-sized USB 3.2 Gen 1 port. You also get two USB-Type C ports with support for Thunderbolt 3 as well as power delivery, along with a microSD card expansion. The reason behind omitting the legacy audio port is that the company believes consumers are transitioning to wireless earphones, which kind of makes sense. But for the ones who want to plug in their wired headsets, there is a USB Type-C to 3.5mm audio jack converter in the box. Wireless connectivity includes the Intel WiFi 6 with Gig+ and Bluetooth 5.0.

Moving to the display, you get a 14-inch IPS panel with thin bezels all around, except for a chin at the bottom. The display comes in a Full-HD (1920×1080) resolution with a matte finish that keeps reflections at bay. It is a good looking screen but it isn’t the sharpest or the punchiest one around. Claimed to offer 300-nits of brightness, it felt adequately up to my standards but of course, I would’ve appreciated if ASUS had managed to crank it up a bit. Despite the slim bezels, the company has managed to fit in a slim webcam. This brings support for Windows Hello, which is great as it makes it really seamless to unlock the machine. I wasn’t as happy with the quality of the camera though. You could use it for your Zoom meetings, but beyond that, it isn’t that impressive.

EXCELLENT KEYBOARD TO TYPE ON

Now the keyboard on this machine felt surprisingly good to me as it is spaced out with the keys offering a noticeable amount of travel as well as responsive actuation. It usually takes me a few days to get used to a keyboard for fast typing, but I quickly managed to adapt to this one. As for the layout, it isn’t bad, but I do want to point out the dedicated row for the Home, Page Up/Down and End keys which seems pointless as the arrow keys offer the same secondary function. Maybe they could have made the arrow keys bigger. As for the backlighting on the keys, it is a standard white that offers three levels of brightness and works well in dimly lit places.

The touchpad is rather wide and lights up to show a Numpad by long pressing on the top right corner. This is something that ASUS has been using on a bunch of premium notebooks. As an add-on, if you swipe from the left top corner you can quickly fire up the calculator for easy access. The touchpad responds well and all gestures seem to be pretty much on spot.

INTEL ICE-LAKE PROCESSOR IS TUNED FOR BATTERY AND SILENT OPERATIONS

As for core hardware, the notebook comes with the latest 10th-Gen Intel processors with either the Core i5-1035G1 or Core i7-1065G7 alongside 8GB or 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM while a 512GB PCIe NVMe 3.0 x2 M.2 SSD comes as standard. Now we got the high-end variant that is priced around a lakh. It turned out to be excellent for my daily work and had no trouble handling 10-15 Chrome tabs along with some music streaming on Spotify and a little bit of photo editing on Photoshop.

The Core-i7 on the notebook is the fastest 15W Ice Lake-U chip currently on the market and also powers the likes of the new Dell XPS 13 9300 and the HP Spectre x360. However, ASUS has limited the overall power on the chip and optimised it for silent operations. You can switch between two performance/thermal modes- Dynamic and Whipser. The former allows the CPU to run at full power going around 20W with increased fan speeds while the second profile limits the CPU and overall fan noise. Thermal performance is good but that is because the processor is mostly limited in terms of power. The single fan sucks in air from the bottom and exhausts hot air from the back and under the display. I noticed the machine warming up under heavy loads but overall it never felt unbearable. The maximum CPU temperature that I noticed while running heavy benchmarks was about 88-degrees celsius.

Graphics performance on the ZenBook 14 courtesy the Intel Iris Plus integrated GPU is just average, so don’t expect it to fulfill your gaming needs. You could play some esports titles but at lower resolution and graphics.

ALL-DAY BATTERY LIFE FOR THE WIN

The 10th-gen Intel CPU on the ZenBook 14 is tuned for power efficiency. I easily got about 8 hours of battery life from the 67Wh unit, primarily with 75-percent screen brightness. To take things further I ran PC Mark 8’s Work Conventional Battery Life test that resulted in 4 hours and 22 minutes. The charging adapter is rated at 65W with a USB-C connector at the end. This also means that you can use any reliable third-party charger and even use a power bank to charge the battery, which makes it convenient for when you are on the move.

The ZenBook 14 is a really good ultrabook and ASUS has done a splendid job in my opinion. It doesn’t sit at the very top when compared to other slim notebooks as it isn’t super-premium in terms of finish or price. Having said that, I think for what its worth, the notebook should serve you well thanks to its lightweight construction, powerful hardware, and long battery life. It is well-suited if you are looking for a portable everyday notebook for your office or school work and use for browsing, watching videos, text editing, and other casual activities. In my opinion, you could save some money by going for the Core i5 variant as aren’t going to get a massive jump in performance anyway if you go for the Core i7 variant. Pricing starts at Rs 79,990 with the higher end model priced around Rs 95,000. If you want something more affordable, go for the Mi Notebook 14 series, but if you care for a super-slim profile then you need to up your budget and look at the Dell XPS 13 or the HP Spectre x360.

ASUS ZenBook 14 UX425JA Review: A Value For Money Ultrabook For the Masses

GOOD SET OF I/O PORTS, BUT NO HEADPHONE JACK?

EXCELLENT KEYBOARD TO TYPE ON

INTEL ICE-LAKE PROCESSOR IS TUNED FOR BATTERY AND SILENT OPERATIONS

ALL-DAY BATTERY LIFE FOR THE WIN

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