Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsA really great value wrapped in a very attractive package
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2017
Priced at just over $700 at the time of purchase this laptop is an immense value. If you're a person in need of a lightweight and very portable workstation for a college class or light software development work this is a very solid choice.
As this is somewhat of a niche market, finding a laptop with this small of a footprint priced under $1000 while still being a decent computer can be somewhat of a challenge. The Zenbook3 does an excellent job at filling that role; With about a 12 inch footprint and weighing only 2 pounds it's very easy to fold up and take this laptop wherever you need to go. The i5-7200u offers more than enough power to utilize the laptop as a light to mid range workstation and the Intel 620, while not strong enough to run most AAA games, is still able to do light 3D work and perhaps even some lighter gaming with the settings dropped. It should have no problem running older 3D games and most 2D titles. The 8 gigs of ram might be a limiting factor to some users, however I haven't found myself using more than 50% as of yet.
The battery life on the Zenbook is very reasonable(I admit I don't have much perspective in this category), I got about 10 hours of actual use on a single charge with relatively heavy usage in updating the laptop, installing usual software, and using generally for a few hours. This translated to a little over 24 hours on a single charge when time spent in sleep mode is included. The battery didn't seem to drain much, if at all, while in sleep mode and the laptop turned itself off after a little while of no use.
The keyboard, as others have stated, is the Zenbook's biggest problem. It doesn't offer much travel at all and what little response you do get feels very stiff and somewhat mushy. It's not impossible to get used to, but I imagine it will never feel quite that great type anything long form on. The track pad on the other hand, depending on how you use it, is fantastic. The gesture inputs feel very responsive and the fingerprint scanner doesn't get in the way at all, it might be a problem however if you are a left hand user. I think it is best to treat this track pad as a touch device as the buttons offer so little feedback, it's hard to tell if you've actually clicked and are hard to use on a laptop of this weight anyway.
Aesthetically this laptop is a very beautiful piece of hardware. The pictures found on the amazon listing are very misleading, the shade of the silver appears much darker, the gold accents are *much* more subtle, and the ring texture found on the top is much more subdued. It appears to be reasonably durable with it's metal construction and gorilla glass screen, however, since it's so thin I probably wouldn't carry this in a bag without an additional padded sleeve because it feels like flex might be an issue without care.
The screen packed into the Zenbook, while only 1080p, is still a reasonably high quality display. Colors appear vibrant and deep although I did notice with some issues in the response time with some slight ghosting when scrolling down a web page. I can't imagine a 4K screen would be an advantage in a laptop of this size as it can already be difficult to read on a 12.5 inch 1080p screen without font scaling and the hardware wouldn't be strong enough to drive most 4K content other than video.
A major note is the single USB-C port on the right side. I've never been one to have a problem with dongles and this generation's dongles come in such a small form factor it's hard to see it as an annoyance. I can see how this would be a major drawback to some users, but for my uses I have no problem with plugging in a dongle occasionally.
Overall, if you're a user looking for something light, small, very portable, while still holding onto some power; The Zenbook is definitely one to consider. It provides a very professional and attractive aesthetic in a package that might rival the Thinkpad series in usefulness and at a now incredibly reasonable price. I think you would be hard pressed to find a better value currently without looking into refurbished or 2 gen old hardware. This laptop won't be a replacement for your desktop anytime soon, but it is incredibly useful when used in conjunction with one and if you're on of the few users that falls into the niche this laptop fills it is an absolute dream of a value.
