Review: Asus ZenBook Pro UX501VW, a silver bullet

IT has been almost five years since the first ZenBook from Asus hit the market with its stylish all aluminium chassis. It originally sported the Sandy Bridge line of CPUs and became a poster child for Intel's Ultrabook laptop range.

According to Asus, a pattern of concentric circles on the lids is said to represent ripples in water and the Zen philosophy that designers wanted to integrate into the exterior design. The standout design coupled with a steep price always ensured that the ZenBook laptops remained premium devices.
 
Design

Fast forward to 2016, things have not changed dramatically. Like its predecessors, the new Asus ZenBook Pro UX501VW is also instantly recognisable due to its full aluminium chassis and shiny top cover. Although exceedingly thin, the UX501VW is not an ultrabook - it is a full-fledged laptop.
 
Weighing just over two kilograms (excluding the power brick), the ZenBook Pro UX501VW is one of the lightest laptops that we have seen recently. With a thickness of just over two centimetres, it is also one of the thinnest in the market.
 
The original ZenBook had been heavily criticised for its unreliable touchpad software. There is no such problem with the ZenBook Pro UX501VW. Unlike the diminutive ultrabook, the large keyboard is also a joy to use. The keys are very responsive and typing for long hours is not a problem.
 
Display Matters
 
Along with the shiny chassis, the 15.6-inch IPS display is the laptop's standout feature. In a market flooded with Full HD screens, it is nice to see a laptop with a true 4K display. Also, compared to bog standard laptop displays, the ZenBook Pro UX501VW screen has at least one interesting feature.
 
It is what Asus calls Splendid Video Intelligence Technology. This offers eight preset modes that are optimised for various scenarios such as Scenery, Standard, Theater, Game, Night view, sRGB, Reading and Darkroom. Each mode has its own default settings for brightness, contrast, colour temperature and sharpness. Once you select a mode, you can go into each setting and make further adjustments.
 
Asus also backs the display with its Zero Bright Dot guarantee. A bright dot is a sub-pixel defect that is permanently 'on', displaying a coloured (red, green or blue) spot on the display at all times. If you end up with a UX501VW with a bright dot on its screen, Asus will replace or repair it.
 
So is the screen on the ZenBook Pro UX501VW worth the hype? The short answer is - yes. In terms of contrast, sharpness and brightness, it is one of the best we have seen on a laptop. At least in terms of its display, the UX501VW lives up to its billing as a premium device.
 
Internal Hardware
 
Like all premium laptops shipping these days, the ZenBook Pro UX501VW is powered by a Skylake Intel Core i7 6700HQ CPU. This runs at 2.6GHz. The laptop also has 8GB of DDR4 RAM and a discrete Nvidia 960M GPU for games and 3D applications. The Nvidia GPU has an additional 2GB of video memory.
 
Storage comes in the form of a single 512GB SSD which is split into two partitions. Asus also gives you the option of upgrading to a larger 1TB hard drive if you need more space.
 
Connectivity comes in the form of a single USB 3.1 Type C port, three USB 3.0 ports, one HDMI port and another Thunderbolt port. In addition to Wi-Fi networking, the laptop also includes a 10/100 port. The high-end audio outfit, Bang & Olufsen, provides the stereo speakers.
 
Performance & Software
 
The ZenBook Pro UX501VW is the fastest non-gaming laptop that we have seen so far - but only by a whisker. It pips the Dell XPS 15 in all our benchmarks by a few percentage points. But this comes at a small price - slightly lower battery life. At its peak brightness settings, if you playback a 4K video, the Asus laptop lasts just over two hours. Just enough to watch a 4K movie, but not much else.
 
To be fair, most users are not likely to run the laptop at its maximum brightness. Reducing the intensity to around 50% increases the video playback time to over three hours. Asus claims up to six hours battery life if you use the laptop for regular office work. In our testing with a reduced screen brightness, we found that the ZenBook Pro UX501VW lasted around five hours.

 

In addition to the regular Windows 10 installation, there is not much in terms of unique software. Our test laptop came with Cyberlink Power Director and Asus Gift Box. The Gift Box is nothing of that sort. Mostly, it is just a collection of time-limited demos and discount offers for holidays and software.
 
Conclusion
 
The ZenBook Pro UX501VW is exactly what it says in its marketing brochure - a sleek, stylish high performance premium laptop. And like all premium devices, you will need to pay a hefty price for this. With a retail price starting at RM6,599, this Asus laptop is definitely for the connoisseur.
 
Rating: 4 out of 5