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Asus Zenbook UX303LA

Editor's rating (1-5): Where to Buy

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What's Hot: Thin and gorgeous as ever, lovely full HD display, upgradeable internals, good port selection for a 13" Ultrabook. NVIDIA GT 840M dedicated graphics option on LN model is rare and tempting.

What's Not: Trackpad surface is slick. The QHD+ display option has murky yellows when running on battery power.

Reviewed November 4, 2014 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)

Editor's update Jan. 2016: read and watch our review of the Asus ZenBook UX303UB that replaces this model.

We love it when a good product keeps getting better. That's the Asus Zenbook UX series story: it started as the first truly aspirational Windows Ultrabook that went head to head with the MacBook Air in terms of materials, design and features back in 2011. Since then Asus has improved the keyboard and trackpad, upgraded to full HD IPS displays while dropping the price. So what's left? Two features that are rare in 13" Ultrabooks: fully upgradable internals and optional dedicated graphics. Enter the Asus Zenbook UX303 series that offers both.

We look at the more affordable $899 Zenbook UX303LA in this review. It has a 1920 x 1080 IPS touch screen and runs on a fourth generation Intel Core i5 CPU with 8 gigs of RAM and a 128 gig SSD. It's as elegant and capable as any high end Zenbook 13.3" model, and even better, if you remove the bottom cover you can upgrade the RAM, SATA SSD and wireless card. Sweet. This reminds us of the cult classic Zenbook Prime UX32VD, and we're glad to see the design return. The $1,299 UX303LN adds NVIDIA GT 840M dedicated graphics and upgrades the panel to 3200 x 1800 resolution. The drawback with the LN model is lesser battery life and more heat thanks to the dedicated graphics. Of course, when doing non-graphically intensive things like word processing and web, the laptop will use switchable integrated Intel HD4400 graphics, so heat and battery life issues only come into play when working with graphics and video editing programs or playing 3D games. That 3200 x 1800 display is the same Samsung PLS panel used in the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro and Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus, and its Achilles' heel is yellow that look mustardy green when running on battery power. That could be a deal breaker for graphics professionals.

Asus steps up the game with a better than average port selection too. There are three USB 3.0 ports, a full size HDMI port, a mini DisplayPort, 3.5mm combo audio and a full size SD card slot. You don't often see two display ports and 3 USB ports on a very slim 13" Ultrabook. That compares favorably with previous generation Zenbooks as well as the competition.

Design and Ergonomics

Little has changed from the original Zenbook formula, and that's fine with us given how robust and attractive the line is. The entire casing is made from aluminum alloy, with a glossy spun metal lid that Asus calls smoke brown. It's really a mid to dark gray color with a little hint of brown, and the keyboard deck and bottom are light silver. The machine has complex curves and smoothly machined sides and it tapers toward the front. It's very slim and reasonably light at 3.2 lbs. The laptop is rigid and the keyboard deck is firm with no unwanted bounce when typing. The trackpad is quite large and unlike some previous Zenbook trackpads, it actually is stable and works well with multi-touch gestures, though we're not fans of the slick surface texture that makes precision a little harder.

The backlit keyboard is excellent. The keys have good travel and a dampened feel, and though they aren't as ergonomically sculpted as Lenovo ThinkPad keys, I typed equally well on the UX303LA.

The UX303 models have a large single fan, and we rarely heard it on the UX303LA model. When gaming or exporting HD video, the fan will kick in but it's neither obnoxiously loud nor grating. The bottom cover is secured with several Torx T5 screws and two of these are located under rubber feet that are secured with reusable adhesive. Be careful not to tear these rubber bits as we did--they're more delicate than usual.

Asus Zenbook UX303LA Video Review

Display

The Zenbook UX303LA has a 13.3" IPS full HD 1920 x 1080 display. It has an impressive 344 nits of brightness and it can reproduce 96% of sRGB and 76% of Adobe RGB. That's as good as the best laptop displays on the market in terms of color gamut, and Asus markets the color accuracy of this display. In fact, unlike prior Zenbooks (even the Zenbook UX301 with its lovely Sharp IGZO panel), it doesn't have a strange color cast or visually discernable variance from calibrated sRGB. Good job, Asus! The company does offer a few color profiles you can choose from, should you prefer amplified cool tones or deeper blacks. Black levels are decent for an IPS panel at 0.54 and contrast is a respectable 640:1. IPS panel backlight bleed used to be an issue with Asus Zenbook UX models, but happily backlight bleed is faint and at thoroughly normal levels for the industry.

The Zenbook UX303LN has a Samsung PLS panel with an impressive QHD+ 3200 x 1800 resolution. When super-high resolution Ultrabooks hit the market last year, specs lovers went wild. The reality is that the world of Windows still doesn't handle super high DPI display scaling well. The Metro Live Tile UI in Windows 8.1 looks great, but the desktop still has tiny close boxes, dialogs that can be too small to read and many desktop programs still don't support scaling well. Microsoft's own programs do support scaling nicely--for example MS Office 2013 (but not old versions). Personally, I think 1080p is the highest practical resolution for Windows 8.x machines unless you have a specific need for tasks like RAW image file editing. That said, the machine defaults to 200% scaling, giving you an effective 1600 x 900 desktop view that's readable. That even doubling makes for sharper fonts than other scaling levels.

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