Review asus zenbook 3 deluxe ux490ua năm 2024
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ASUS has earned high praise over the years for its ZenBook line of ultraportables. They marry sleek ultrabook designs with generally good value. We usually don’t see a lot of groundbreaking new technology from the line-up, but not everyone needs that and consistent quality builds are more generally the ZenBook hallmark. Some people just want a thin, light laptop that gets the job done and looks good doing it. Show The ASUS ZenBook Deluxe 3 UX490UA is the big brother of the UX390UA we previously reviewed. It is, essentially, the same laptop bumped up from a 12.5-inch display to a 14-inch display. It’s got the same overall design signature and major features. The machine even comes with a similar carrying case. It’s available in Royal blue and Quartz Grey (the smaller model is also available in Rose Gold, which is absent from this 14-incher). We found a lot to like about that smaller 12.5-inch model, along with a few caveats, and most of that holds true of this larger model. That means a Kaby Lake Core i7-7500U (in our test configuration), up to 16GB of LPDDR3 RAM at 2133MHz, a PCIe NMVe SSD up to 1TB (our configuration had 512GB), 802.11ac 2x2 MIMO Wi-Fi, and a fingerprint reader compatible with Windows Hello. So far, so good: this is the basic formula for a quality modern ultrabook. The UX490UA even fixes one of our complaints about the UX390A with its single USB-C port. This larger model has three, one on the left next to the headphone/mic jack, and two on the right. You can charge the notebook using any of them, and the two on the right support Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort 1.2 as well. You could hook up two 4K external displays if you wanted, though dual-core ultrabook chips aren’t exactly made for the kind of high-end multitasking that would necessitate that sort of thing. The left USB-C port is Gen 1, with a max transfer of 5Gbps. The two on the right are Gen 2, doubling that to 10Gbps. As configured, our ZenBook 3 Deluxe UX490UA is priced at $1699. That’s certainly not cheap, but there are more expensive premium ultrabooks on the market as well. Let's drop down for a closer look at the build and software setup... Asus has well and truly committed to the ultra-premium end of the laptop market, producing one of the most expensive Ultrabooks you can buy in the UK. A larger version of the ZenBook 3 I reviewed at the end of 2016, the Deluxe model increases screen size and improves connectivity. For all its graces – and the ZenBook 3 Deluxe has many – its extremely high price will prove limiting for many, even after you factor in its svelte design as a key selling point. Prices of the ZenBook 3 Deluxe start at £1200 for a Core i5 model, increasing to £1800 for the top-spec Core i7. Related: Best Ultrabooks Asus ZenBook 3 Deluxe – Design and buildDesign-wise, the ZenBook 3 Deluxe is probably Asus’ finest work to date. The spun-metal lid, blue body and gold highlights come together to spectacular effect, especially in the right light. The overall finish will surely draw some admiring glances from colleagues wielding classic Dell Latitudes and the like. It isn’t all about its paint-job, either. This device weighs in at a svelte 1.1kg and, when closed, has a depth of just 13mm. Despite its 14-inch form factor, the ultra-narrow “NanoEdge” screen bezel means the ZenBook 3 Deluxe is happily swallowed up by my 30-litre backpack to the extent that I’m not always 100% certain I’m carrying it. The supplied – and rather nice – sleeve will ensure you can keep your laptop pristine, even if it’s sitting besides numerous items in your bag. The three data ports on this laptop might look identical, but they actually differ in function. All three are USB-C, but two of them also support up to 40Gbps data transfers and DisplayPort connections to desktop monitors using ThunderBolt 3. The third port supports USB 3.1 gen 2, which offers a maximum speed of 10Gbps. Asus provides a pair of adapters in the box, in the form of a regular USB-A port for your legacy kit, along with an HDMI adapter for your current monitor. Fit and finish is mostly good. I wasn’t a fan of the plastic-feeling wrist-rest that featured on the original ZenBook 3, and that complaint remains here. Perhaps Asus has made this choice to maintain the lightness of the device, but the plasticky sound it delivers when typing and the slight flex simply take away from what is otherwise a robust-feeling laptop. The metal lid, meanwhile, proves sturdy. Related: Best free antivirus Asus ZenBook 3 Deluxe – Keyboard and touchpadThe keyboard is plenty big enough, with large chiclet keys that are easy to reach, and no layout oddities. Well, except for one: the power button sits flush with the rest of the keys in the top-right corner. It’s harder to press than the keys around it, but I did hit it on one occasion instead of the Delete key. Luckily, by default, it just puts the laptop to sleep, so I didn’t lose any work. It’s something I became accustomed to the more I used the device. There’s gold/yellow key backlighting, and there are status lights for Airplane Mode and Caps Lock. The top row of F-keys double up as various shortcuts, including screen brightness and volume control, but there’s no room for media button functionality, which is a little disappointing. The keyboard feels a little shallow and doesn’t offer the tactile delights of Apple’s Butterfly keys, nor the depth of Lenovo’s ThinkPads. It’s fine, just not exceptional. The touchpad is Microsoft Precision-certified and supports all of Windows 10’s built-in gestures. But Precision doesn’t mean perfection, and I found the physical click sometimes caused the cursor to jump a few pixels across the screen. I also found it slow to respond to more subtle finger movements. While it certainly isn’t a bad touchpad, it’s far from the best that I’ve used. Asus ZenBook 3 Deluxe – Screen, audio and webcamThe screen might only be a Full HD panel, but what it lacks in pixels it makes up for in vibrancy, brightness and all-round experience. Even without digging out my calibration tool, it’s plainly obvious this is a quality screen, with deep, rich colours assisted by the glossy Gorilla Glass 5 coating. The thin bezel helps to draw your eyes into the screen, rounding off an excellent experience. The screen covers a decent, if not exceptional, 82% of the sRGB colour gamut, but it doesn’t go out of its way to cover the photographer-friendly Adobe RGB gamut at all. It rises to an excellent 308 nits maximum brightness, and contrast is excellent at 1316:1, thanks to some very deep blacks. The speakers are fine for such a thin laptop, and sound their best when the laptop is on a solid surface – such as a desk. On softer surfaces such as knees, audio is clear but lacks any depth. Don’t expect the clarity and depth of the MacBook Pro, however. The webcam is dreadful, offering astonishingly fuzzy-looking images in even ideal lighting conditions. It’s barely acceptable for casual video chats, let alone proper business conference calls, and for what should be the ultimate executive laptop, this is fairly unforgivable. How we test laptopsUnlike other sites, we test every laptop we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product. |
