Zach
- التعليق
I don’t write very many reviews but when spending quite a bit of money on something, I do like to try and give a good, unbiased opinion on it. I am very familiar with technology and computers as I build desktop PCs for personal and business use but I’m not quite as familiar with the world of laptops. I will try and hit each important category but they will be no particular order. First off, I would like to describe exactly what I was looking for. I wanted the best laptop for the cost. Originally, I was researching the $1,200 area for a laptop as I believed that price point is what offered almost everything I was looking for. This laptop in particular, hit most of my categories for MUCH less money. My key points were good battery life, a good screen, portability, good performance, good I/O, and some form of dedicated GPU. I did NOT purchase this as a gaming computer, however, I wanted a laptop that could at least provide me the option of playing less-demanding games when traveling. Before getting into the details, the short story is that this laptop comes close to being perfect FOR ME but it does miss a couple of areas. I cannot give this laptop a perfect review but it’s definitely getting a good review. P.S - Packing sucked! Inside of a much bigger box, was just a little bit of paper to protect my new $800 laptop across an 800 mile journey. This was unacceptable. While it did arrive okay and undamaged, I seriously took pictures while unboxing and booting because I was that concerned. Put the Asus box inside of a smaller shipping box and either use a lot of paper or consider a different packing material. Performance: This category is bit touchy for me because as mentioned above, I build PCs and I have a $1,500 custom gaming PC at home. Of course, when going from that to any laptop, there will be a huge hit in performance unless you’re willing to spend $2,500+ on a laptop and even then, it’s still not as good. BUT, that is to be expected. You’re reading a review for a thin and light, not a 17” 13 lb gaming laptop and I’m also, again, trying to unbiased with this review. The performance is solid for what I need. Writing emails, using a CRM all day, jumping between 5-15 tabs, making notes, creating documents, etc. Everyday stuff - nothing intensive. The 8th gen i7 definitely holds its own, especially for being a U-series processor. It’s very fast and snappy for browsing the web and doing light to medium productivity tasks. For those who don’t know, the U-series CPUs are designed for low power consumption. Meaning, it’s an i7 but it’s only an 11 watt chip (I believe) compared to the 65 watts that the desktop counterpart (i7-8700) is able to pull. This is how the laptop is able to be thin and light and have decent battery life at the same time. Gaming. As mentioned, I wanted a laptop with some form of dedicated graphics ONLY to play a few select titles when traveling but also to handle programs like Photoshop when I need. I haven’t put too many game hours into this laptop yet but games like Fortnite, older Call of Duty games, Astroneer, etc aren’t a problem to run with the dedicated MX150 graphics. DO NOT purchase this if you’re wanting to play more demanding games. On Fortnite for example, this computer has no issue running it. If you jump down to 720p, you’ll be able to play around medium to high settings for a stable 60FPS. In 1080p, you’ll be forced to turn down the graphic settings to low for a stable 60FPS. 7.5/10 (for what it is) Screen: The screen is absolutely beautiful - it’s one of my favorite parts about this laptop. The colors are accurate and saturated, text is very sharp and clear and the screen has a matte finish meaning it’s not reflective like glossy panels are. It’s only 1080p but it’s a 14” screen so the pixel density is about right. If you took 1080p and stretched it across a 17” panel, that’s when text ends up looking soft and everything appears to be washed out but that isn’t the case here. Typically, I remove any and all bloatware that comes with Windows 10 and the manufacturer. I hate bloatware so much. I did leave one program installed and that is the Splendid Utility that comes on the laptop. The colors and everything takes a bit of tuning out of the box but it doesn’t take much work at all. Once you play with that program, everything is very nice. 10/10 Battery: As most reviews state, the battery life is good. Not great but certainly not bad. On average, from my use, I see about three to four and a half hours of battery life. I do, however, feel that I could squeeze an extra hour out of it if I had to. Just bring brightness down, keep the keyboard backlight off and use battery saver - you should be able to achieve a solid 5 ½ hours or so out of it if you’re good. The battery life is good enough for me. I do wish it lasted a bit longer but it does the job for me so I’m not docking any points for the review itself. 8/10 Portability, Build Quality and I/O: Portability is definitely as expected. It has a 13” footprint but with a larger screen. I have no issue with carrying this around to meetings or traveling or between work and home. It’s lightweight and you can barely feel it in your bag. I personally use a sleeve to carry it around but in a backpack, it’s hard to notice. The charger is small and again, lightweight. There’s not much else to say about how portable it is. The build quality is also good but I’ve seen better. The outside of the lid is made of aluminum and everything else is plastic but it’s a premium feeling plastic. I don’t feel as if I would break, dent or scratch anything although keep in mind, I’m very particular about my gadgets and I care for them very much. I’m definitely not one to toss it around. The only sub-par component in build quality is the screen hinge. There is a bit of wobble when moving the laptop and sometimes, it even wobbles while typing. Considering this laptop is brand new, I can only imagine that this will continue to get worse over time so time will tell if the hinge will hold up. Thank god it’s not a touchscreen because at that point, I feel that it would be unusable unless in a “tent” mode or folded over like a tablet. I do have to dock the review a bit because of the screen hinge. The I/O is pretty solid providing two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, a USB Type C, HDMI, SD Card and a headphone/microphone combo jack. I do very much wish that the USB Type C had thunderbolt capabilities even if that meant paying a few more bucks for it. I have no complaints in terms of I/O and won’t be docking the review for anything. What I will dock the review on is that this device should be charged via USB Type C! Not Asus’ proprietary crap. Every single company needs to adopt that technology to make everyones lives easier. I don’t understand why they don’t implement that technology rather than making their own. Oh well. I enjoy the keyboard quite a bit considering the chiclet style. They have Macbook-like travel but for some reason, I’ve always enjoyed that style of keyboard. The spacing and feel of the keys is all good. I have no complaints about the keyboard. 8/10 Pros: - Good CPU performance. - Good battery life. - Great screen. - Portable. Cons: - Screen hinge. - I wish the GPU offered a bit more. - Needs to be charged via the Type C port. - Shipment packaging was terrible.