I've just had this laptop for a couple of weeks and have just one word to describe it. Outstanding!
Background. My main computer is a 32GB core i7 beast with ssd and what not. So my initial hopes for this laptop with a fanless core m processor were very low.
SURPRISE!!! this thing flies. It's not a gaming machine at all, but for office, web browsing and even programming work, I find myself using this more than my main computer. This 6th gen core m processor is comparable to the 5th gen core i5 in performance; well maybe about 20% less powerful in cpu intensive tasks. But honestly, if you don't care about playing games on this laptop, by all means the core m processor is more than enough. And this is coming from an IT analyst who uses Android studio and runs android emulators constantly on this laptop.
Now that performance is out of the way, let's talk why you would want to buy this particular laptop.
1; It's light and portable. For some reason, my ipad air 2 is seeing less use once this baby arrived. Yes, this laptop is more comfortable to use than an ipad most of the times. It's so light and solidly built that it 'begs' to be on you lap all the time.
2; Battery life. This is my first review ever on amazon, and it's the more than 11 hours of real work done without plugging in this laptop to anything that compelled me to write this review. This again is more time than what I get with the ipad air 2, but in this case, I am able to use office (mostly outlook, word and excel) browse the internet (using chrome the battery hog) and keeping a permanent youtube tab playing music. All at the same time. I had brightness at minimum, which is bright enough for me, but other than that no other power optimizations were made.
3; Build quality. The screen (I have the 1080p one) is awesome. It's true that it has a slight tint if you compare it to another screen (in my case a professional calibrated ips monitor), but if you are only looking at it and nothing else then you don't notice the tint. I don't do photography so I don't care weather the display is too warm or cold, as long as can tell the correct colors. Otherwise, it's one of the best screens I've used in a laptop, period. I've used the macbook air, and this laptop feels more solid that the Air, nuff said. The keyboard has excellent travel on par with the air for me. In short, the thing is metal and doesn't feel like it will break at all. It's solid and instills confidence despite the light weight.
4; Silence. Yes, this is a whole lot of reason on its own. This thing has no moving parts at all. Apart from the sound of your fingers pounding the keyboard you get zero noise, nada, from the laptop. It's metal so it shifts from very cold to the touch when completely off to warm when at full throttle but never uncomfortable or hot. I haven't tried it in the summer heat but I almost always use it on my lap and never got worried about the heat coming from it, because there is none. I also haven't once felt any cpu throttling, so having no fan is not affecting performance at all. What has always amazed me is the silence. Hit the switch button, screen comes on without even a click sound. Magical!!! I wish all other computers were this silent. The world would be a better place.
5; Price. Did you notice that this is cheaper than an ipad with half the storage? You'd ask why I keep on insisting on comparing it with an ipad, a device in a whole different category. Precisely because an ipad is usually a secondary device (or tertiary if you consider the phone) normally used as a companion to a full fledged computer. But this primary computing device is cheaper yet almost as portable as the ipad. Don't even bother to compare it to other laptops because non is going to beat this price. I also realize that because of it's weight and portability, I use it more and more in cases where I'd normally use the ipad. In short, the price point is unbeatable.
No review would be complete without outlining the negatives, and this product is no exception. For me the main negative is the keyboard. Specifically the lack of back-lighting. In the dark with lights off it becomes virtually unusable. Maybe one of those cheap usb led lamps may solve the problem but Asus clearly messed up a near perfect product by not placing a backlit keyboard on it. Even for $50 more I would have paid just to get the backlit keyboard on this fanless system.
Another negative would probably be the trackpad. Don't get me wrong, it's smooth, accurate and very responsive as the apple trackpads. The two issues I have with it however is the mechanical click which is very loud and and a bit hard. If like me, you tap to click then you won't find this mechanical clicking an issue as you will not use it. What always get's me however is the double-tap to drag. It works well, only that you have to do it really really fast for it to work and so far I haven't found a way to increase the double tap to drag period. The normal double tap can be adjusted properly in windows settings but if you want to double-tap and then drag after the second tap then you're out of luck. Only one speed is accepted, and that speed is ultra fast. Bummer!
CONCLUSION: I spent countless hours researching the perfect mobile computer. I looked at the more expensive options (the macbook, macbook air, xps 13 and even core i versions of the zenbook) but this configuration (the 1080p non-touch) turned out to be the best option. Fanless, light, robust build quality and very good performance. I could only be happier if the keyboard were backlit.
| Standing screen display size | 13.3 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920*1080 Pixels |
| Processor | core_m_6y30 |
| RAM | 8 GB DDR3 |
| Memory Speed | 1866 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 256 GB SATA |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Intel HD |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 3 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 10 Hours |
