ASUS ZenBook UX430UN UltraBook Laptop: 14" Matte NanoEdge FHD (1920x1080), 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8550U, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA MX150 Graphics, Backlit Keyboard, FingerPrint Reader, Windows 10

The Asus UX430UN is an excellent laptop for programming, light-gaming*, and general computing. It gets great battery life when doing moderate multitasking like running multiple desktops open at a time and having Atom (script editor for web development), 15+ Firefox tabs, and Spotify running concurrently. So far it seems to run all my programs with aplomb, and I don’t notice any lagging or slowness. I have also read other reviews on the Internet for this laptop stating that they had issues with coil whine, and I have experienced this issue as well due to the solid state drive emitting a high pitched static sound, which is slightly irritating. However, it’s not a huge deal for me, and it isn’t a reason to return this laptop. What is extremely irritating though, is Asus marketing this laptop as having “impressive gaming performance”, which simply isn’t true. Due to thermal throttling the GPU at 73 degrees Celsius, the performance of the laptop decreases significantly, resulting in reduced and fluctuating clock speeds. Asus should have completely redesigned the cooling system for the UN model, as opposed to the integrated graphics in the UA model. Instead, they left a single fan for the CPU and a shared heatsink with the GPU, resulting in incredibly high temperatures for the Nvidia MX150. Note, there is NO FAN for the GPU. I seriously can’t believe they would release this laptop with a flaw such as this, but I guess they don’t actually expect people will use this for anything other than photo and video editing. If this is the case, then Asus should remove their false marketing for this laptop from their website, stating this is strictly for photo and video editing because the cooling design cannot handle anything more than that. Even with light gaming such as Assassin’s Creed Directors Cut edition or Warframe, there exists lag and stuttering issues (much more so in Warframe, and I’m talking about low settings in the latter and high in the former). Bitter diatribe aside, my main purpose for purchasing this laptop was for programming, so I cannot be too upset by the poor graphics performance. In addition, one can ameliorate the poor performance of the GPU by following some of my suggestions at the bottom of this review. Overall, I am giving this laptop four stars, because it suits most of my needs and performs admirably in most tasks. Besides my brief overview, here is a list of pros and cons to help you decide whether you should purchase this Zenbook:Pros:• 14” NanoEdge FHD IPS matte display greatly reduces glare and offers good brightness levels and covers a broader sRGB color spectrum than most• Stunning, thin and light design that delivers 2.76 lbs (1.25 kg) of weight and a 0.6 in (15.9 mm) thick chassis making portability extremely manageable• Backlit Keyboard with 3 brightness levels makes typing in the dark much easier• Excellent performance with the Kaby Lake-R i7 processor and 16 GB of LPDDR3 RAM (dual-channel, vs Lenovo Ideapad 720s 14)• Good battery life (6-9 hours on Better Battery mode with moderate multitasking)• Excellent keyboard travel makes typing a breeze• Smooth Precision trackpad with Elan drivers makes swiping gestures extremely easy and produces a satisfying click• All the required ports are included, making it easy to forgo carrying 80 million dongles everywhere like with a lot of Lenovo, Microsoft, or Apple productsCons:• Poor solid state drive performance from Sandisk x400 m.2 SATAIII SSD (You can upgrade this one to a PCI-E NVMe SSD like Samsung’s 960 Pro if you want)• Elan fingerprint sensor with Windows Hello works about half the time and you must place your finger in a very specific way for it to work.• Light gaming is severally hindered by thermal throttling at 73 degrees Celsius due to a poorly designed cooling solution (Look at the Lenovo Ideapad 720s 14 if occasional gaming is important to you)• Coil whine from the SSD is bothersome• Fan noise can get quite loud, even if one is just doing light to moderate multitasking (though this can be fixed by following the guidelines at the bottom of this review)• Lacks Thunderbolt 3 for charging, fast data transfer, video output, or even eGPU option*To make this laptop much better at light gaming and reduce frame rate drops and lag, one can underclock the MX150 GPU (reducing heat output and reduced clock speeds), use a fan controller software from GitHub, and purchase a laptop cooling pad. First, I used MSI’s Afterburner to underclock the CPU to 1350 MHz at peak voltage. I’ve included a screenshot for the curve I edited. This seems to give the best results in games with low to medium graphics settings, and it reduced the lag quite a bit. Next, I used Notebook FanControl from GitHub with the Asus UX430UQ configuration file (older model, but virtually the same) to increase the output of air from the CPU fan (the only fan) during gaming. This helped with the thermal issues, and it greatly reduced the fan noise to near silence when I just did basic to moderate multitasking. Finally, I suggest purchasing one of the two cooling pads listed below to help cool the laptop during gaming sessions. I purchased the one by Tecknet, and it helped cool the laptop significantly. My laptop no longer got burn-you-severely-with-the-slightest-touch hot, thus making gaming much more comfortable for extended periods of time. Follow ALL these suggestions, and it will be a much better experience to game on this laptop. Laptop Cooling Pad, TeckNet Portable Ultra-Slim Quiet Laptop Notebook Cooler Cooling Pad Stand with 2 USB Powered Fans, Fits 12 -16 Inches Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad 12"-17" Cooler Pad Chill Mat 5 Quiet Fans LED Lights and 2 USB 2.0 Ports Adjustable Mounts Laptop Stand Height Angle

The seller description is a little off, so I first need to clarify some specs.True Product Description (Updated 9/8/2018)This laptop is the UX430UQ with i7-8550U / 16GBS RAM /512SSD SATA M.2 / MX150 / QUARZ GRAY (Non-NIL) / With Finger Print Reader / WIN10 HOME / 1080p 100%sRGB (Mate Display). So, the display isnt Glossy, and the picture doesnt show the fingerprint reader, but it comes with one. In the box you will find only the laptop and the adpator. (No sleeve or dongles included in this model)Build Quality: (Updated 9/8/2018)The laptop itself is gorgeous to look at, with narrow bezels and more powerfull specs I chose this laptop over the XPS13 for a better PRICE/SPEC ratio. Its thicker and sharper than the Asus Zenbook UX305UA, and the power adapter is also bigger than the UX3XX line, but it has the same footprint, and a way larger screen. The build quality is not as good as the UX3XX Line, but it will d, and has little flex on the keyboard and screen. The Gun-Metal Gray (quarz gray) has a mate finish and show fingerprints easily. (This could be anoying) All the ports are tightly packed and there is no visible mis-allingment of the chasis. Good job Asus!Screen (Updated 9/8/2018)The screen itself has a good Color Accuracy, matching my dedicated monitor Viewsonic 27" VP2770 in color apereance. I tested it out with the Spyder 5 PRO and its shows 93% sRGB. Its also sharp but not very bright, mesures up to 220nits. One problem is the PWM flickering, that shows in every single brightness level. No dead pixels or significant light bleed seen so far. Its sux for gaming, its not a fast response screen tho.Speakers:I wasnt specting something good. Laptop speaker are always crap, but they sound actualy pretty good.Far better and louder than the speakers on the Asus UX305UA. This is not a weak point on this laptop, speakers wont disappoint.Keyboard and Trackpad.The keyboard its ok. In this point i like more the Keyboard found on the Asus Zenbook UX305UA. This one has a shorter key travel, despite been a thicker laptop. The Keys backlighting is dim, you wont see it in a bright enviroment. The trackpad in the other hand its way better than in the UX305UA. Its more responsive, less glichy and admits hands gestures. Also it has a Fingerprint reader.Performance:Adobe Lightroom CC Test - i7 8550U version (Updated 9/8/2018)Culling and Developing in LR CC (2018 with its new engine) it's way better than I initially expected. For a real job test, I develop (Basic exposure, curves, split toning, sharpening and noise reduction) and exported 950 Canon 5Dmk4 raw files to Full size JPG with 60% compresion.LR Raw/JPG Conversion test - 950 Raw (5D4)Asus Zenbook UX430UQ (i7 7500U - 16GBS DDR3) - 95 minutes.Asus Zenbook UX430UNR (i7 8550U - 16GBS DDR3) - 67 minutes.Desktop ( i7 5820K X99 - 32GBS DDR4) - 35 minutes.Geekbench:UX430UQ - Single Core 4345 / Multicore 8752UX430UNR - Single Core 4558 / Multicore 14890Thermal throttling:If you use the GPU and the CPU at the same time at full load it will throttle. But if the CPU or GPU are used independly, they will do just fine. Thermals are good.MX150 Performance:In the game department the only game i was able to test so far its Blizzard Heroes of the Storm. It can run over 60fps if you play High Settings at 1080p. This is by no mean a gaming laptop, the MX150 its crap for games, but it can handle E-Sports tittles in a playable way for your spare time. Its just like a desktop GTX1030.Battery life:Normal Use - Browsing: more than 6-7 hours.Heavy Use - Rendering / Editing: 1.5 Hours.Cooling, Fan-Noise and Coil whining:No coil-whining in my unit. But it heats up pretty intensively during heavy processing task to an unconfortable degree, and the fans kick aggressively making some noise. Not a lot of noise, but you can cleary hear when their are on. Its hard to pack CPU+GPU in such a tiny chassis and get proper cooling. Cooling could improve in future models.Problems or Gliches.:The fingerprint reader on my second unit its glichy... somedays it works flawlessly.. somedays it doest work at all.In general its a good laptop so far. Feel free to try it out, you probably will like it too.This is from an Photographer perspective. My other PC its an X99 i7 5820K build, and i feel confortable with this Laptop as my mobility driver.

I received this laptop (the new version with MX150 GPU and i8 CPU) 2 days ago. So I will update this review down the road. So far, I have only set up my office apps, outlook, onedrive, imported music and picture libraries, set up steam, itunes etc. All went down fast and seamlessly.Pros:- The CPU and SSD are fast! Turns on and off in an instant (4-5 seconds) and desktop performance is great.- The screen is bright and beautiful indeed. The slim bezel is great.- Surprisingly little bloatware. You can just uninstall a few programs easily, if you want to.- Fingerprint sensor works impressively fast "when" it recognizes you. I guess I should rescan my print to improve it, that might be my fault.- No screen flickering so far.- No coil whine that I can hear- It is very thin and light- Battery charges up fast and lasts about 5-6 hours on light usage. The 8 or so hours Asus states must be for reading a very long article or something :)Cons:- I assume that it is made of metal, but the lid feels very plastic-like and filmsy, almost like a cardboard. Somewhat disappointed since it looks like a Macbook level quality on the pictures.- The fan is not very loud, but it is on most of the time even when not gaming etc. I wonder how bad it will get when I play anything.I havent tried any games yet, so no idea about that infamous throttling issues at this point. This is clearly not a gaming device, but I am hoping to do some light gaming like Pillars of Ethernity, Fallout New Vegas, Civ6 and some other older titles with less requirements. Other than that, it looks like a great business laptop with great mobility.

I have yet to get 8hrs straight usage on battery power when fully charged. Size and weight is perfect. Speed is amazing. Overall, wonderful machine for the price.

Very pleased so far, impressed by the speed at the start!The laptop is very thin and light which I greatly appreciate after using a 17" tank for many years. The screen is pretty good and sound is amazing!I don't usually have it turned on all day, but I'm very pleased with the battery as well.Keybord is nice, direction arrows a little bit small maybe.The only down thing is the absence of a CD/DVD drive , but I guess it is less and less used.I only put 4 stars because of the price (it has great specs I know, but still).