Asus ZenBook 14 (UX434F) Evaluate

Lovely to take a look at and providing clean on a regular basis efficiency, the Asus ZenBook 14 is a dream. How a lot worth you may get out of the ScreenPad relies upon enormously in your working habits.

Professionals

• New and improved ScreenPad is simpler to make use of
• ScreenPad is huge and ultra-responsive
• Blue and gold design stands out from the pack

Cons

• ScreenPad nonetheless eats into the battery
• Low color gamut scores will postpone professional creatives

Key Specs

• Evaluate Worth: £999
• Intel Core i7-8565U CPU
• Nvidia MX250 GPU
• 15-inch Full HD show
• 1TB Samsung SSD
• Weight: 1.3kg

What’s the Asus ZenBook 14?

The Asus ZenBook 14 (UX434F) is among the newest ZenBook laptops to return with Asus’s revamped ScreenPad – a trackpad that’s additionally a touchscreen. 

The primary model of the ScreenPad was spectacular and attention-grabbing, nevertheless it lacked app help and was laborious hitting on the battery lifetime of laptops such because the Asus ZenBook Professional 14 and ZenBook Professional 15. 

Asus says it’s labored on addressing each points with the brand new ScreenPad 2.0, to the extent you’ll be capable to play informal video games with out the battery dropping like a stone.

The brand new ZenBook 14 is the primary mannequin from ZenBook’s 2019 lineup that Trusted Evaluations has in for overview. I used to be a fan of the 2018 ZenBook 15, so I’m eager to see the way it compares to the 14 and the remainder of final 12 months’s ZenBook Professional vary, particularly now that ZenBook Professional energy books have morphed into the large dual-display ZenBook Duo Professionals. 

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Two screens are higher than one: 2019’s ZenBooks now function the ScreenPad, the head-turning function of final 12 months’s ZenBook Professional vary.

Asus ZenBook 14 design – the blue and gold edges and ErgoLift hinge return

The design of the brand new Asus ZenBook 14 follows that of the earlier era – and it is a good factor. As a substitute of the bog-standard black and gray laptop computer chassis designs that flood the market, you get a luxurious regal blue and rose gold color combo right here. The ZenBook 14 can be accessible in rose gold and silver variants, for individuals who like their laptops to look extra conventional.

Whichever color you go for, the highest facet of the ZenBook 14 options Asus’s trademark spun-metal end, a concentric etched impact with the Asus brand sitting fairly within the centre. It provides the ZenBook 14 a lot dazzle and appeal, which makes it stand out in a sea of staid notebooks. 

Asus’s “ErgoLift” design seen within the 2018 vary makes a return right here. Because the identify implies, the form of the ZenBook 14’s case sees the rear portion of the keyboard deck raise up off the floor of your desk if you open it. That is supposed to attain two issues: extra comfy typing and higher airflow. 

For the reason that keys are angled in direction of your palms, and the deck isn’t parallel to the desk, I concede that the result’s raised consolation. Maybe extra importantly, the ErgoLift form means the thermal vent on the ZenBook’s underside is off the desk’s floor, permitting for heat air to flee the system extra simply. 

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The ZenBook 14 ports on the left-hand facet, L-R: mains energy, HDMI, USB-A, USB-C.

Weighing simply 1.3kg and measuring 7.83mm deep when closed, the ZenBook 14 is each gentle and slim. Impressively, Asus has managed to squeeze in loads of ports: a Kind-C USB 3.1 port, Kind-A USB 3.1, and one other Kind-A USB port, together with an HDMI port and a microSD card reader. Additionally included is the usual 3.5mm headphone jack and the mains port. 

Whereas Intel’s Whiskey Lake chips permit for Thunderbolt 3 expertise to be added to a laptop computer, Asus has chosen to not embody it on the USB-C port right here. Thunderbolt 3 permits for information switch at charges of as much as 40Gbps, whereas USB 3.1 is capped at 5Gbps. 

Likelihood is you gained’t be transferring tons of and hundreds of high-resolution pictures or huge video recordsdata to and from the ZenBook 14. Thunderbolt 3 tech is nice, nevertheless it stays costly for producers to implement. Its inclusion in a system sometimes leads to that value being handed on to the buyer indirectly – so its omission right here may not be that huge a deal. 

Ports of the ZenBook 14 on the right-hand facet, L-R: 3.5mm audio jack, USB-A, microSD reader.

There’s no full-sized SD card reader to be discovered right here, however you do get a microSD reader. As such, no matter you’re capturing on, it is best to be capable to simply switch photographs to the ZenBook 14 for enhancing. Asus hasn’t included a fingerprint scanner – which, at this worth level, is a disappointing omission. 

The Harmon Kardon-branded audio system are a blended bag. Dialogue sounds clear and outstanding, so if you happen to’re streaming over iPlayer you’ll little question respect their addition. For listening to music they suffered the identical drawbacks because the audio system on ZenBook Professional 14. Some music – particularly acoustic guitar, or something with loads of resonance – sounds muffled if you happen to push the quantity past 40%. Should you wish to take heed to playlists whilst you work, crack out the headphones. 

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The ZenBook 14’s responsive backlit keys and the intelligent structure make for a satisfying typing expertise.

Asus ZenBook 14 keyboard – How straightforward is the ZenBook 14 to kind on?

The ZenBook 14 keyboard is a breeze to kind on. Similar to the 2018 ZenBooks, keys hearth again properly and, because of journey of round 2mm, there’s tactile depth right here. It took me no time in any respect to get used to the structure, and I spent most of my time touch-typing. I favored the actual fact the 2 Shift keys have been broad, as this meant I might simply cap up or motion keyboard shortcuts. 

The keyboard structure right here is within the North American model, so there’s a “#” image above the “3” key. To make “#” seem with UK English activated, you merely kind the “” key; to make a “” seem, maintain Alt and press the “” key). However, in the long run I managed to determine every part out, regardless of preliminary confusion. 

Whereas the Operate and arrow keys are small and bunched up, general I used to be pleased with the scale and structure of keys. The navigation keys – Dwelling, Finish, Web page Up, Web page Down – are literally mapped onto the arrow keys and activated if you maintain down Operate. Personally, I favor devoted navigation keys, however this association works nicely too. I’m glad not one of the navigation keys have been set above the arrow keys; I’m certain different laptop computer customers discover it annoying too. 

Lastly, whereas the keycaps aren’t clear, the board is backlit, so you possibly can simply work away on essays and studies late at evening.

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Spotify for ScreenPad wouldn’t set up, so I had to make use of desktop Spotify as a substitute – which, as you possibly can see, is a bit of cramped.

Asus ZenBook 14 ScreenPad 2.0 – What’s new and what can I do with it?

The revamped ScreenPad 2.0 is arguably the ZenBook 14’s foremost speaking level. What number of laptops function trackpads which can be additionally shows? 

Earlier than I start my deep-dive on ScreenPad 2.0, I ought to say that as a trackpad, the ZenBook 14’s ScreenPad is great. It’s super-responsive to instructions – a lot in order that I needed to flip down the sensitivity. 

ScreenPad 2.0 is a really cool and attention-grabbing function that’s a bit of tough to become familiar with at first. However, it’s way more forgiving than its predecessor. Should you’re an Android cellphone consumer, getting used to the brand new ScreenPad UI is more likely to show simpler. As with the final model, you possibly can toggle between the ScreenPad being on and off with a faucet of the F6 button. 

An necessary factor to notice is the primary run of ScreenPad shows have been 5.5-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) screens with a 16:9 facet ratio. Right here, the 5.6-inch ScreenPad 2.0 provides you 2160 x 1080, and conforms to a wider 18:9 ratio. Whereas this implies video content material could also be lumbered with black bars on the sides, there’s extra room for manoeuvre; apps comparable to Handwriting and docXpert definitely profit from the additional lateral respiration room. 

One of many largest gripes about ScreenPad 1.0 was that, regardless of a second show in your laptop computer being neat, it isn’t at all times enjoyable or sensible for occasions if you merely need to use the trackpad as a trackpad. Beforehand, if you happen to needed to flip between modes you needed to press F6, wait a number of seconds for the ScreenPad to show off the show, after which press F6 a few occasions once more to have the laptop computer flip it again on. 

Now, when you will have the second show engaged, you’ll see a fast shortcut management has been mapped to the underside left of the display – when the little trackpad icon is tapped, it greys out the ScreenPad, letting you utilize it as a standard trackpad. A faucet of the “X” within the top-right nook sees you flip again immediately. 

It nonetheless falls in need of being the best resolution, although, as I discovered myself by accident closing and opening the ScreenPad on a number of events. Personally, I believe a devoted management for precisely this perform ought to sit someplace on the deck, outdoors of the ScreenPad. With all that stated, you’d lose at the very least a number of seconds with the outdated “press F6 and wait” methodology. 

Productiveness options are front-loaded when the ScreenPad is switched on for the primary time. After a brief demo video, which helpfully reveals the right way to push and pull issues between the ScreenPad and the first show, you’re greeted with cell app-style icons for gadgets comparable to docXpert and QuickKey. 

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DocXpert, working on the ScreenPad, places loads of keyboard shortcuts and formatting controls nearer to your fingertips.

The docXpert app is attention-grabbing, permitting you to rapidly and simply apply formatting to textual content. Nevertheless, in lots of situations you is perhaps higher off sticking to your tried-and-tested keyboard shortcuts for issues formatting comparable to, daring, italic, and so forth. For altering the color of particular chunks of textual content, it’s arguably handier.  QuickKey does an identical factor, in that it presents you with variety of instructions, comparable to Minimize and Paste, as a substitute of you having to press Ctrl + X and Ctrl + C. 

Quite a lot of the instruments listed here are pitched as time savers, and people who don’t get on with keyboard shortcuts will respect them. By the identical token, if you happen to’re used to keyboard shortcuts then the prospect of getting to re-learn the right way to do one thing you’re already accustomed to most likely gained’t attraction. It’s one other approach to do one thing – Asus leaves it to you to determine your path of least resistance. 

I’m a fan of the Handwriting instrument. It really works rather well, recognising lengthy and sophisticated phrases – together with “recognising” and “sophisticated” – and there’s even a shortcut to obtain extra languages.

To my delight, when making an attempt to scribble out “Здравствуйте” (the well mannered approach of claiming “Howdy” in Russian), the Handwriting instrument not solely recognised it, however robotically scrolled every part alongside to the appropriate, because the software program had appropriately detected I used to be making an attempt to put in writing an extended phrase, and was working out of area.  

The Handwriting app works very nicely, and might be a killer app for language college students.

Should you’re studying to learn and write in one other language, the ZenBook might help along with your Duolingo progress, though the shortage of stylus help means you’re restricted to writing along with your fingers. The responsiveness of the ScreenPad and the canny software program means even letters comparable to “д” and “й” (“d” and “brief i/y” in Russian) have been picked up. 

No matter I used to be writing in – Phrase, Google Docs, Sticky Notes, an online browser – the Handwriting instrument would simply get on and do its factor. 

I couldn’t get Spotify for ScreenPad to work, although. Regardless of downloading and putting in the app from the Microsoft Retailer, I received no love. Commonplace desktop Spotify nearly works on the ScreenPad, even when the UI is shrunk all the way down to such a level it turns into borderline unusable. The identical goes for Slack – which is a disgrace, since it could have been useful to have a separate chat window open away out of your foremost show.

Sweet Crush Saga labored nicely. Dragging the sport down from the primary show noticed it rapidly snap to the size of the ScreenPad, and inside seconds I used to be swiping away at rows and columns of vibrant sweets. 

How the ScreenPad appears on the Asus ZenBook 14 when it’s powered on. Be aware the trackpad icon within the bottom-left nook. One faucet of that…

…and the ScreenPad disengages, greys out, and allows you to use it as a standard trackpad. A faucet of the X button sees the ScreenPad flip again on.

No matter you’re taking part in, watching, or listening to, managing the ScreenPad content material is simple. Swiping up from the underside of the ScreenPad will see plenty of controls positioned at your fingertips. There’s Dwelling, which sees you closing no matter home windows are open and leaping again to the primary menu display, and subsequent to that, an App Navigator permitting you to leap between working processes.

Over on the appropriate, there’s a Settings cog that allows you to alter the ScreenPad’s brightness, decision (your choices are: 1000 x 500, and 2160 x 1080), refresh fee (50Hz, 60Hz), interact battery-saver mode, change the ScreenPad’s background picture, and even re-watch the demo video you get at the beginning for a refresher on the way it all works. 

Relying on the way you strategy your work, the ScreenPad will both be a time saver or a enjoyable gimmick you gained’t use more often than not. 

I’m nonetheless not bought on it being essential function; including stylus help and in-display fingerprint scanning would significantly enhance the attraction of ScreenPads. Asus’s second-screen tech is head and shoulders above the final model, although, so hopefully the corporate will persevere and app help will enhance. 

A ultimate level concerning the ScreenPad, which leads me properly into the battery part. The unique ScreenPad, when turned on, would closely eat into the batteries of final 12 months’s ZenBook laptops. Take the Asus ZenBook Professional 14 (UX480), for instance. With the ScreenPad on, battery life was between 5 and 6 hours; with it off you’d get one thing within the area of 9 to 10 hours. 

Asus’s senior director, Y. C. Chen, informed us at Computex that a part of the rationale for this was that 1st-gen ScreenPads would draw energy from a laptop computer’s devoted GPU. The brand new 2.0 ScreenPads now lean on the CPU’s built-in graphics – on this case, Intel UHD Graphics 620 – which guarantees to be a lot much less battery-hungry. 

Asus ZenBook 14 battery – Will the ZenBook 14 final all day?

Nearly – it actually is determined by how you utilize it. Working the PCMark 8 “Work” benchmark till the battery hit important ranges, I recorded 7hrs 48mins with the ScreenPad off, and 3hrs 33mins with the ScreenPad on. 

In each instances, the first show’s brightness was set to 150 nits. I used to be unable to get the tools we use to file show brightness to work with the ScreenPad, however for the sake of uniformity, I set the ScreenPad’s brightness to 50% for the second take a look at. 

Battery efficiency was roughly on a par with what I noticed with the earlier ZenBook Professional 14, which makes use of the identical processor however a distinct graphics unit (Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 vs Nvidia MX250) and a smaller ScreenPad (5.5-inches vs 5.6-inches) with a decrease decision. 

I wasn’t in a position to take a look at the 2018 ZenBook 14, so I’m not in a position to provide you with a direct comparability. The web result’s that having a second display on will eat into your battery – there’s no getting round that. My recommendation could be to dial down the ScreenPad’s brightness or disengage it completely if you happen to’re not going to be utilizing it a lot. It’s straightforward sufficient to show again on if you happen to want it. 

The ZenBook 14 design permits heat air to exit the machine simply, which is simply as nicely, with battery life on the common facet.

Asus ZenBook 14 efficiency – How highly effective is the ZenBook 14?

ScreenPad apart, what’s the ZenBook 14 like for working? Properly, it would blaze via workplace work and can make brief work of sunshine picture enhancing. The SSD (a 1TB Samsung MZVLB1T0HALR-00000) demonstrated spectacular learn and write speeds of 3339.0 MB/s and 2393.1 MB/s on working CrystalDiskMark. I used to be in a position to load and save a number of pictures rapidly, and enhancing them in GIMP was a breeze too.

Working Geekbench 4’s CPU stress take a look at, scores of 5275 and 15,849 have been achieved for the only and multi-core checks respectively. I’ve seen comparable outcomes from different laptops with the identical CPU (Intel Core i7-8565U), so this was no shock. 

These numbers, mixed with the PCMark 10 rating of 4185, signifies the ZenBook 14 is highly effective sufficient to deal with easy PC duties confidently, which was borne out in my day-to-day observations. I might simply energy via my work with 20+ tabs open in Chrome, and expertise no considerable slowdown. 

For gaming, it’s nearly adequate to play the likes of Apex Legends and Fortnite in Full HD – utilizing FRAPS, I’d see round 30-40fps more often than not, sometimes dipping to round 20fps when motion heated up. The ZenBook 14 isn’t a gaming laptop computer, nonetheless. Should you’re after a type of, try our greatest gaming laptop computer roundup.

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The shiny coating of the ZenBook 14 overview pattern I picked up appears implausible, however as you’d count on, glare is a matter.

Asus ZenBook 14 show – Is it adequate for picture work?

I recorded passable color area protection and most brightness scores on the ZenBook 14, and for most individuals eager to view or retouch vacation snaps, this machine will probably be high quality. Professionals will need to attain for a tool with a extra detailed show, although. 

Utilizing an i1 Show Professional colorimeter and the DisplayCAL software program, I recorded max brightness of 312.16 nits, which is simply above the 300 nits it is best to count on from laptops this present day. This will probably be vibrant sufficient so that you can work on outdoors, until it’s an exceptionally sunny day. 

Max brightness mixed with a black stage of 0.26 nits provides as much as an outstanding distinction ratio of 1172:1. This is smart, as video content material I streamed on the ZenBook 14 appeared nice – lighter areas didn’t look too blown out, and likewise, darker areas gained’t appear to be murky and vague black blobs on the display. 

White areas appeared a bit of colder to my eye, and I wasn’t stunned to see the color temperature studying was 7075K – a good bit cooler/bluer than 6500K, the color temperature which most intently resembles pure gentle. 

Whereas all of that is high quality, it’s in need of best-in-class. The show can also’t dwell as much as that of 2018’s ZenBook Professional 15 (UX580GE-XB74T), which gave me distinctive color area protection, greater max brightness, and a larger distinction ratio:

When it comes to color gamut protection, it doesn’t obtain within the class of both the HP Envy 13 or Dell XPS 13, each of that are presently sitting excessive up in our greatest laptops roundup. 

Additionally, whereas a 1920 x 1080 decision show is ok in 2019, it doesn’t examine nicely with the likes of, say, the Microsoft Floor Laptop computer 2 (2256 x 1504) or the MacBook Air 2018 (2560 x 1600). As I stated, it’s high quality – however for detailed picture work there are extra appropriate laptops on the market. 

The 2019 ZenBook 14 is a implausible Ultrabook. Whether or not you’ll get a lot use out of the ScreenPad is one other factor.

Ought to I purchase the Asus ZenBook 14?

The Asus ZenBook 14 will attraction if you happen to’re after a Home windows laptop computer to do the fundamentals, however need one thing that completely blitzes primary PC duties and appears trendy as well. The ZenBook 14 definitely does that.

The ScreenPad trackpad/secondary show hybrid is attention-grabbing, however will probably be an opinion divider. Some customers will undoubtedly discover the shortcuts supplied by apps comparable to docXpert and QuickKey helpful, and the Handwriting app works properly. Then once more, if you happen to’re nicely acquainted with Microsoft Phrase and have an inventory of favorite shortcut instructions, you may not discover it that helpful. It’s loads of enjoyable, although, and Asus has made ScreenPad 2.0 a pleasure to make use of.

That the show returned pretty common scores might encourage individuals in direction of the Dell XPS 13 or HP Envy 13, if gentle picture enhancing is a precedence. However, the Asus ZenBook 14 is not at all horrible on this regard.

Costs noticed on-line from Bulgarian and Hungarian retailers point out that the brand new Asus ZenBook 14 (UX434F) will probably be priced across the £1000-£1200 mark, however proper now, UK pricing is but to be revealed. Be aware that we are going to change the ultimate verdict rating if costs differ dramatically to what we’re anticipating.

Verdict

A wise-looking and compact Home windows 10 laptop computer with an attention-grabbing promoting level within the type of the ScreenPad, ultimate for college students and way of life use. Its show isn’t fairly correct sufficient to be thought-about an choice for skilled creatives nonetheless.