It doesn t have a headphone jack, but that s just one of its benefits. Asus ZenBook 14 UX425 laptop review

The new Asus ZenBook 14 UX425 does not have a headphone jack in the housing. However, this is not the only reason why it is worth taking a closer look at it, which I have also had the opportunity to do in recent days.

Two previous generations of Asus ultrabooks seemed to divide technology enthusiasts into two groups – those who loved their extraordinary approach to the subject and great value for money, and those who were wondering why we needed a screen hidden in a trackpad.

Personally, I belonged to the first group, but the Screenpad theme will not separate us this time. There is no screenpad here – Asus gave up the additional screen: temporarily or permanently, I do not know. The fact is, however, that instead of a screen that replaces the trackpad, we have an ordinary glass plate, which also functions as a numeric keypad. Asus has been using this trick for over a decade.

We will be divided, however, by the approach to the loudest change in the new Asus ZenBook compared to previous generations: the lack of a headphone jack.

In fact, I don’t know enough to judge whether, from an engineering point of view, such a maneuver had any justification. If the laptop has an HDMI socket, why not the 3.5mm jack?

Asus claims, however, that removing the headphone jack allowed to use a larger battery, which, combined with getting rid of the additional display, is expected to translate into up to 22 hours of work away from the socket. About this in a moment.

However, while I do not think that removing the socket is necessary, the user does not lose anything during this procedure, on the contrary: he gains the sound quality that is usually not found in laptops of this class. All thanks to the USB-jack adapter, which can be found in the set, along with an RJ45 adapter and an elegant case.

It is not an ordinary adapter, but a compatible Hi-Res audio DAC, providing much higher audio quality than that usually offered by mobile devices. It is enough to connect the adapter to the cable of your favorite headphones, or simply put it in a laptop bag and the lack of a headphone jack is no longer a problem in practice.

Thanks to the aforementioned lack of a screen and a headphone jack, Asus also slimmed down its already slim laptop, which now weighs only 1.18 kg and measures 319 x 208 x 15.7 mm thick. And for clarity: we are talking about a laptop with a 14-inch display and a full-size HDMI port.

The set comes with a tiny, one-piece 65 W charger, connected to any of the two Thunderbolt 3 ports, but the laptop can also be charged with any USB-C 5-20V charger, or even a power bank. Here is a big plus for Asus.

The value for money of the new Asus ZenBook 14 UX425 is second to none.

The unit I tested was the best-equipped variant currently available for sale. Featuring an Intel Core i7-1065G7 processor, Intel Iris Plus graphics, 16GB of 3200mHz RAM and 1TB of super-fast NVMe PCIe 3.0 memory.

Price? If it were a MacBook, we would probably look at over 10,000. PLN. But it’s a ZenBook, we look at PLN 5,499 in the version with Windows 10 Pro and PLN 5,199 in the version with Windows 10 Home. And there are also cheaper variants with Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM and 512 GB SSD for PLN 3,999. Soon there will also be a version with new AMD Ryzen processors.

At this price, we get a laptop with great specifications, also equipped with a fantastic screen with a diagonal of 14 "and FullHD resolution, which displays 100 percent. colors from the sRGB palette and makes a great live impression. Slender frames make the screen cover as much as 90 percent. panel, and above the screen there is also an IR camera to unlock the laptop with a face scan.

If I had to stick to something, it would be a bit too low brightness – 300 nits is a bit too little to comfortably use the laptop in full sun, even despite the matte screen. I have no comments about the rest – the viewing angles are excellent, the color reproduction is sufficient for most prosumers, and for such slender frames, the light leakage is minimal and in my copy it was only in the lower left corner of the display.

A selection of ports is also rare in this class. First of all, it is very rare in a laptop for such money to find not one, but two Thunderbolt 3 ports with a full 40 GB / s bandwidth. For this we also have a full-size HDMI port, full-size USB 3.2 gen 1 and a microSD card reader (which might as well not be, for God’s sake, who needs it – it applies to every laptop with this socket).

Added to this is wireless connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ax and Bluetooth 5.0.

All this is enclosed in a light, slim, metal casing that meets the military standard of durability MIL-STD810G, and the power of the components is controlled by Windows 10 in the Pro version, for which you deserve a big plus, and also … a big minus.

I do not know how much McAfee pays partners for pushing their software into their computers, but I hope it is a large enough amount to compensate for the necessity to launch pop-ups taking up 1/6 of the screen area and having to deal with the software roughly useless with the current security level of Windows 10 and web browsers. The presence of McAfee hurts the more that Windows 10 Pro usually lacks junk software, and the McAfee suite is unfortunately one of the most solicitous programs preinstalled on personal computers. It slows down their operation and attacks with intrusive messages, in return offering the level of security either the same or marginally higher than the default security of Windows 10.

Well, I felt sorry . McAfee is of course uninstallable, which I highly recommend. It’s not 2008 anymore.

Let’s go back to praise.

Because there is really something to praise the ZenBook 14 UX425 for. For example, a keyboard that is just gorgeous. The keys have a very short travel, but Asus somehow managed to cushion them softly enough to make typing very pleasant, and the key reflection still remained clear. This is one of the best keyboards we can find in a laptop in this price range.

The trackpad is also great. It does not have the size of an aircraft carrier plate like the MacBook Pro, but is large enough to easily use Windows Precision gestures. However, I must point out that in my copy the PCB was a bit more wobbly than I would have liked, and I also subjectively preferred the ScreenPad in previous generations. For the vast majority of consumers, however, a trackpad will be more than good.

Of course, the smooth operation of the device deserves very high marks, which should not be surprising with such a specification. In everyday use, ZenBook 14 did not slow down for a moment, and even in more intense tasks it did not show that it is a small, light ultrabook. Due to the lack of a dedicated graphics card, it will be difficult, for example, to edit 4K video without the use of proxy files, but processing RAW files of 100 MB each or large TIFF files does not cause any problems for him.

In addition, ZenBook 14 also maintains a surprising work culture for such a slim device. During regular Internet browsing or office work, the laptop remains silent. Sometimes it turns the fans, if, for example, we turn on YouTube videos in the highest quality (unless it’s HBO Go, then the fans work all the time at 540p quality …) but basically the laptop works silently, and when it has to ventilate during longer, intensive work, then the fans are silent and not unpleasant to the ear.

The downside of such a slim design is, unfortunately, the temperature generated by the laptop and some compromise was not avoided here. While the bottom of the laptop lifted by the ErgoLift hinge into the air helps to dissipate heat to the outside, the desktop warms up noticeably after prolonged use. Computer performance is also degrading, though not enough to interfere with your work. However, I noticed that the ZenBook 14 has a similar problem to my MacBook Pro 16 – when the computer gets very hot, there are problems with Bluetooth connectivity, e.g. the cursor of the wireless mouse is jerky or the sound transmission quality to wireless headphones drops. However, I trust that this problem will be solved to some extent by updating the software, after all, the copy I tested was a pre-sale one.

And since we’re complaining …

… Then I don’t have much else to add. Apart from the above-mentioned details, I can only complain about the speakers. Their sound, however, is not an exceptionally problem, because it is perfectly acceptable. The speakers sound clearly, clean, even have a bit of bass, although they lack a lot for Matebooks, MacBooks or even the new Dell XPS 13. No, the problem is the location of the speakers and the volume of their work. The drivers are located at the bottom of the case, so to get the best results, the laptop must be placed on a hard table so that the sound can radiate from under the hinge raised base. When we hold the laptop on our lap or on the bedclothes, the speakers sound quite thin. In every application, however, they sound very quiet, probably due to a slender casing in which there is little space for a resonance chamber. Many times I caught myself trying to turn up the audio while watching a movie only to discover that this is the maximum.

Personally, I would also like Asus to finally abandon the 16: 9 display format and choose the 16:10 or even 3: 2 aspect ratio, following the example of major rivals. ZenBooks are laptops built with work in mind. And at work, there’s always a little more vertical working space. 16: 9 is the aspect ratio that loses its raison d’être today, since even network video is more often made in the 2: 1 format, so anyway there are black stripes above and below the film. However, this is a personal note. Hopefully Asus will opt for a slightly higher screen in the future.

22 hours on a single charge – hit or putty?

Asus, in the presentation of the new ZenBook, boasted that the laptop is able to work on one charge for nearly a day and … of course it is a kit, as you might have guessed. I never even managed to reach 22 hours even once during the typical combination of browsing the Internet, writing texts and listening to music at the same time. This result can only be achieved in a highly controlled test, with the functions of the laptop limited to the most essential. Not in real use. Nevertheless … in real use, I took 10 hours of work from my laptop without any effort. I bet that if I tried a bit, I could use it for up to 12 hours, and probably after a whole day of energy, there would be enough left to watch an episode of the new season of Lucifer.

It is a pity that Windows hardware manufacturers have not been able to bring themselves to follow Apple’s way of promises of working time for so many years. When Apple promises 10 hours of mixed work in the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Pro actually does so much. And at Microsoft’s partners, you always have to take a correction and divide the declared working time at least in half. It’s a pity, because if Asus had written "10 hours on a single charge" in its marketing material, it would still be an encouraging sales message. Especially when the reviews show that it is in line with reality.

Asus ZenBook 14 UX425 has my full recommendation.

It’s really hard for me to point out at least one feature that would clearly dissuade me from recommending a new Asus laptop. Sure, it has a few minor issues, and not everyone will like the lack of a headphone jack – I fully understand that. However, when we filter these disadvantages by the price of the device, it turns out that … they do not matter. We will not buy a second, well-equipped laptop for PLN 5199.

Each of the laptops that could compete with the new ZenBook 14 – Huawei Matebook Pro X, Surface Laptop 3, MacBook Pro 13 – costs much more. And those laptops from Lenovo, Dell or HP that we will buy for the ZenBook 14, well … have a bit of catching up to do.

Paradoxically, the biggest problem of ZenBook 14 is another Asus – ROG Zephyrus G14. Of course, this is a completely different category of equipment and a different target consumer, but these devices have many things in common: the same screen size and great working time on a single charge. And the ROG Zephyrus G14 in the version with the Ryzen 5 4600HS processor, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB disk, Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti graphics and 120 Hz screen is not only cheaper by a few zlotys than the ZenBook 14 tested here, but also incomparably more powerful than it .

And of course – ZenBook 14 is much more mobile, thinner and more elegant than the Zephyrus, but I can understand those who are convinced by the ROG strength argument. However, if you are looking for an ultra-mobile laptop for around PLN 5,000, and mobility is more important to you than computing power – ZenBook 14 UX425 is an excellent choice.

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It doesn’t have a headphone jack, but that’s just one of its benefits. Asus ZenBook 14 UX425 laptop review

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