Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsMinor cons, good pros
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2015
Really early review for my UX303UB, but I wanted to get it out there. I've had it for almost a week, and have basically set it up and used for working (online, at home job). I'll give some background on my situation, then give pros/cons. To preface, I'm a loyal Asus buyer (despite notoriously sub-par customer service). Basically that means I'm used to their weird "click pad" touch pad and the chicklet keyboard, and I expect crappy speakers.
This is replacing a Q500A, so I haven't had a new laptop in like 4 years (well I have an eeebook, but that doesn't really count). I needed to downsize to something more portable, but I wanted enough power for decent gaming (GW2, Saints Row, Sims, Skyrim, Witcher, etc.). Haven't gotten around to gaming yet, so cannot comment, but, based on other online reviews, I'm not playing anything too heavy for this computer. I don't care for the touch screen, so I turned that off. My last laptop was about $700, so this is the first actually high-end laptop I've bought (due to some nice xmas cash flow), making it expectedly more impressive than former computers.
So for starters, I made some tweaks to the laptop right away: Straight off the bat I did a clean install (after finding my product key just in case). Comes with a lot of bloatware, so it was just easier for me to do that. Then I went ahead and updated all of the drivers just to be safe. I was a little disappointed to see that the hard drive is split into 190 GB C drive and 286 GB D drive, but whatever. I changed the default program save to the D drive, and put the D drive as the location for documents, downloads, etc. I'm not a crazy computer genius, so all of these things I did was from finding instructions online. However, I still needed to manually change the install location on some programs to the d drive, so something may have gone wrong there. Also, I don't care for the touch screen, so I turned that off (and thus will not be reviewing it). I also lowered the resolution, because some programs were too tiny with it up so high.
Okay, so now the points of importance:
PROS:
-It comes with a bunch of stuff: sleeve (decent quality), cloth for cleaning screen, extra velcro strap thing (for cord), VGA adapter, and ethernet adapter.
-Backlit keyboard is a must, so that's great.
-More RAM than I'll ever need, which will give good resale value in the future.
-I love the auto detect for screen brightness.
-It's super light and thin, which I love.
-No problems running anything. Haven't gamed yet (will update after), but everything I've done (web browsing and game downloading, mainly) has been seamless.
-It starts up in like under 30 seconds, which is awesome (remember, last computer was 4 years ago).
-Windows 10 is cool, at least compared to 8/8.1. Not sure I'd purposefully upgrade to 10, but I have no complaints (not that it's something to attribute to the computer itself anyway).
-I'm impressed with the screen resolution and images. Color is a little different than my last computer, but not in a bad way.
-The USB port that will charge a device (phone) while the computer is asleep is genius. Why isn't that standard on all computers?
-Minor, but the color is good. I was a little unsure of what it would actually look like, but it is more silver than in the picture, which I approve of. "Smokey brown" is super vague and weird, so I didn't really know what to expect. I'm not too much into gold, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it was more silver than the picture. But it's basically a mix between gold and silver (40 gold:60 silver?), if I had to describe it. (I'll consider taking/adding pictures later, some with size reference.)
CONS (all minor or fixable, in my opinion):
-BIGGEST COMPLAINT: The power cord is SO SHORT. Holy what. I haven't measured, but like....MAYBE 7 feet. Maybe. Probably 6 feet. It's stupid how close to an outlet I need to be. Also it's got the power brick at the prongs, which takes up a lot of outlet space. I did a ton of research to find a compatible power cord and dropped another $20 to get an off-brand normal cord. The adapter section of the new cord will be 6' by itself, so that will be a huge improvement. But really disappointed at how useless the original cord is. (I'm actually dumbfounded over this and cannot get over how someone thought it was okay.)
-The keyboard is a little resistant. I definitely have to press harder than with any other computer, so right now I'll miss a letter here and there. Not a big deal, I'll strengthen my fingers and that's cool.
-The power button being a regular button next to the delete key is a little worrisome. However, I've been super conscious of it and haven't had problems, but there's great potential to accidentally press the power button instead of delete.
-The fans vent out the bottom, so that's weird and can get warm if you keep it on your lap. The keys also can get warm too from venting, so I would hesitate to use a cover over the keyboard (but I'm gonna anyway).
-Like I said, there are 2 drives instead of 1, so plan carefully for where you wanna save stuff (if you have lots to put on the laptop).
-Battery isn't great (like 5 hours?). It also takes a bit to charge, like almost 2 hours to charge around 80/90% of it. In all honesty I'll be plugged in most of the time anyway, so it's not a big deal (but that power cord, though).
-Speakers aren't great, as to be expected. Asus seriously needs to step up that game. I'm used to speakers being on the bottom of their laptops (which is the worst), so having them on both sides is a slight improvement, but they still don't get very loud. Again, I expected that, so no big deal, but worth noting for those who have never owned Asus.
-Along the line of speakers, I've always hated that you have to press FN to use the volume keys on Asus laptops. Never looked into changing that, but this review may spark that research.
-Not the greatest construction. Not bad, just not what you might expect for paying over a grand. I think it's a little less solid than expected to keep the weight down. It's not going to be solid metal build and stay this light, so it's a trade off. But it's not cheap either. Just worth mentioning.
Okay, hopefully I will remember to update in a month or so, after I've done some gaming and had more time to run into potential problems (cause none so far!).
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UPDATE 1/6:
So after a little more time I have some more updates to make.
-Keyboard gets way easier to use. I think I had about a week of normal use before I was back to my normal typing accuracy.
-I am disappointed that there's no little edging on the laptop lid to help open it. I just find myself having a hard time getting it open, and I realized it's because there's no little lip or grip to help separate the lid and body. On my old Asus there was, and I must have used it because without it I'm struggling, haha.
-Gaming is great. I've only played a couple, but I'm really happy. Sims 3 runs really smooth, loads quickly, and can support high graphics. I also played some GW2. The graphics are great (there are textures on my clothes I had never seen before) with no lagging (unless my internet is bad) on med-high (I let it auto detect graphics). Overall I'm really satisfied with the gaming aspect, so just keep in mind what you plan on playing.
-Keyboard heats up when gaming, seems some of the heat escapes that route instead of the downward facing fans. Not a huge deal, but definitely keep in mind. The laptop can definitely get hot gaming, but the performance doesn't suffer, so I'll deal with the heat.
-Oh, a weird thing is that the SD card only goes in the slot halfway. Kind of weird/annoying.
I uploaded a couple pics. One of the SD card, and one of it compared to my old laptop (17 inch w/ optical drive). I just put a skin on it, so not great to get pictures of anymore. Figured a couple were better than nothing, though.
