For any Ultrabook, it is necessary to provide a thin, good to carry design and a good battery backup for longer duration of work. Asus ZenBook UX305 is perfect example as an Ultrabook that meets all the required specifications and features a 0.5-inch thick aluminium body that comes with an Intel Core M CPU and gives up to 9 hours of battery life.
Image Source: TechRadar
Design
The UX305’s design is simple but an absolute gorgeous and elegant design. The laptop is finished in dark obsidian stone and continues the ZenBook tradition featuring an all aluminium body with thin waistline. The lid is decorated with a circle pattern that radiates outward from the center with Asus logo on it.
Image Source: Pc World
Under the body of UX305, it has a Chiclet-style keyboard and an one-piece touch-pad. Having a fan-less design, the bottom of the laptop is plain and smooth. The speaker grills are on the either side of the bottom of the laptop. The dimensions of UX305 is 12.7 * 8.9 * 0.48 inches and it weighs 2.64 pounds.
Image Source: Laptop Mag
Coming to the ports, UX305 features three 3.0 USB ports, an SD card reader, a micro HDMI port, a combo 3.5 mm headphone/mic jack and a charging port.
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UX305 features a 720p webcam that take videos at 30 frames per second. However, the over all quality of the webcam is not as good as it should have to be. The camera struggles with black and white balance.
Display
UX305 features a matte screen that gives it a glossy look similar to most of the other modern Laptops. Because of this, the colors becomes less saturated when compared to the other UltraBooks. The UX305 gives you a bright display with almost 180-degree of viewing angle and better outdoor availability.
As per the reports, UX305 produces 281 nits of brightness which is slightly below the matte-screened version of XPS 13, but it was 25 % brighter than the EliteBook Folio 1020.
In terms of color production, UX305 covered 93.9 percent of the sRGB spectrum, which is good but not enough for an Ultrabook of such price range. It is more than XPS 13 (91.7) but less than EliteBook Folio 1020 (95).
UX305 performed poorly in terms of color accuracy. The Delta-E rating (closer to 0 is best) of UX305 was registered as 11.7 for UX305, worse when compared with XPS 13 that has 10.6 rating and even more worse when compare with EliteBook Folio 1020 with 7.4 rating.
Keyboard and Touch Pad
The UX305 features a Chiclet-style keyboard which is comfortable and spacious. The keys have actuation weight of 60 grams and are placed at distance of 1.2 mm. The only thing missing is the back-light which is featured in other UltraBooks.
Coming to Touch-Pad, UX305 features a 4.1 * 1.9 inches one-piece touch-pad. The two-finger scrolling and pinch to zoom gestures are very smooth and responsive on UX305’s touch-pad. Also, it is easy to do left and right clicks.
Graphics and Audio
Asus ZenBook UX305 is equipped with an integrated Inted HD 5300 Graphics that can handle casual games such as Hearthstone easily. The games with 1920 * 1020 medium graphics will be stable on UX305 with good frame rates and smooth animations. Unfortunately, the UX305 is not made for the Users that love to play games featuring higher graphics.
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On the Graphic Benchmark, UX305 scored 603 points which is lower than XPS 13’s score (704) but is better than EliteBook Folio 1020’s score (405).
Coming to audio, UX305 features stereo speaker designed with the help of Bang & Olufsen. However, the audio of UX305 didn’t meet up to the mark, both in terms of quality and volume. In terms of volume, UX305 under-powered speakers managed to produce only 79 decibels of sound which is very less when compared to XPS 13’s 94 decibels and EliteBook Folio 1020’s 85 decibels.
Performance
With an 0.8 GHz CPU, the speed and work load capacity of UX305 seems to be alarming. However, after smoothly streaming a full 1080p movie with several spreadsheets and Chrome tabs, UX305 proved its more than capability of handling work load very precisely and efficiently with out any problems. The US305 features an Inter Core M-5Y10 CPU that comes with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD (Solid-state-drive) storage.
The Intel Core M processor has also helped the Asus to create a fan-less Ultrabook that prevents UX305 from creating the sound of the fan-blades to cool the system.
On Geekbench 3, which evaluates overall system performance, the UX305 scored 4,623 which is 20 percent slower than the Core i5-powered XPS 13. However, XPS 13 is $200 costlier than UX305 and comes with 128 GB SSD only. The EliteBook Folio, which has an Intel Core M-5Y71 CPU, finished behind the UX305, with a score of 3,814, despite a price tag more than double that of the UX305.
In terms of file transfer, UX305 has transfer rate up to 154 Mbps that beats XPS 13 with 87.7 Mbps of transfer rate. However, UX305’s transfer rate is pretty slower than that of EliteBook Folio 1020 which gives 182 Mbps of transfer rate.
Coming to Heat-Level, even with 0.5-inch thickness,UX305 never crossed the 95-degree-Fahrenheit comfort zone on the heat test done by Laptop Mag.
Battery
Asus claims that UX305 can give up to 10 hours of battery backup. As per the battery test done by Laptop Mag, UX305 lasted 9 hours and 38 minutes.
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The battery backup is not as good when compared to XPS 13 that gives 11 hours and 40 minutes of battery life. However, UX305’s battery backup is far better than that of EliteBook Folio 1020 that gives only 7 hours and 30 minutes of battery backup.
Price and Verdict
The price of Asus ZenBook UX305 is approx US $738 (approx Rs 50,000). At this price tag, the UX305 is one of the best Ultrabook to buy for. The only downside of the UX305 Ultrabook is its sound quality. Also, it is not meant for the Users who love to play highly configured games.
Source: Laptop Mag
