16 ms·

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally

by habosa 11y ago

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not modifiable in any way, and Apple's customer service is not what it used to be. So I decided to get a non-Mac for the first time in my life. I ended up with an Asus Zenbook UX305LA. It's a 13" 1080p screen, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Core i5 processor. Cost me $749 and I dual-boot WIndows 10 and Ubuntu (spending 95% of my time in Ubuntu). It costs about 50% what a similar specced Macbook would cost and is similar size/weight to the Macbook air. Build quality is fantastic (open with one hand, good keyboard, glass trackpad, etc). The battery life is not quite as good as a 13" MBA but better than a Macbook Pro. Overall I am extremely happy with it. Considering that my last MBP cost me $2200 up front plus ~$300 in repairs over time and lasted me ~4.5 years. That's about $500 a year. This machine cost $750. If it lasts over a year and a half, the experiment is a success. So far it's been nothing but great.

ekianjo 11y ago
For the Asus Zenbook UX305LA, how flexible is it ? Can you open and change the battery by yourself, for example ? You mentioned the battery life is not great, can you share some numbers on Ubuntu ? How much time do you get on a full charge?
- habosa 11y ago
  It's hard to say since I mostly use it for heavy-drain stuff. Streaming movies on Netflix, building apps in Android Studio, etc. Always have Chrome running with a ton of tabs. I'd say 6h of use in Ubuntu. The reviews I read say that the battery is better using it with Windows 10 (closer to 10h) but I just can't get my work done in Windows. Overall the battery is not disappointing. Not sure if I can change the battery by myself but for $750 I don't intend to invest much in repairs. I'll just ride it until it dies.
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    6 hours is not bad at all. (on Linux!) :) I'd be pretty happy with that.
    - hsitz 11y ago
      I also have UX305 and I easily get at least 6 hours under moderate loads. Eight or nine with light web-browsing (avoiding javascript pages that spike cpu usage), ten or more with lighter use (text editor). I installed Ubuntu 14.x and i3 window manager. I have dual boot with original Windows install and power use is comparable between Windows and Linux. It's a pleasure to use. Only power management tweak I made in Ubuntu was to install the TLP power management tool and (I think) make simple change from its defaults: http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html
      - ekianjo 11y ago
        I have been trying TLP but I failed to notice any significant difference in battery life... is it absolutely needed to tweak its default settings?
        hsitz 11y ago
        I don't remember. I would check power usage with powertop and make sure you've got no 'bad' indicators on the 'Tunables' tab (actually I think I still have one bad). On the 'Device Stats' tab you should be able to get 'system baseline power usage' under 5 watts under light loads. I run mine with display brightness fairly low, 20% or 30%, but it's still has comparable brightness to my other main laptop's (Lenovo x220) full brightness.
        ekianjo 11y ago
        I actually have a Lenovo x220 as one of my machines, and with 70-80% brightness I get about 4 hours of battery life (wifi included) on a 9 cells battery. Does it sound reasonable or am I not getting what I should?
- scrollaway 11y ago
  I own a UX305LA and have owned two previous models in the UX line. Glad to see it mentioned, I like them all very much. The battery is proprietary but easily replaced. My main issue with my previous UX31 was with the SSD. It died within a year and was no longer readable. It was a piece of proprietary SanDisk crap. Googling around about it yields various complaints about it (http://www.pcper.com/news/Mobile/Be-careful-which-ASUS-Zenbook-SSD-you-pick http://www.pcper.com/news/Mobile/Be-careful-which-ASUS-Zenbo...). Battery life: I run Arch Linux with LXQt and get about 6 hours on a full charge. It's not great but IIRC I was getting better on Windows so it might be a software issue.
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    > It was a piece of proprietary SanDisk crap. you mean it was not a standard SSD ?
    - scrollaway 11y ago
      It wasn't, no. The UX is too thin for 2.5in SSDs. I had to find a special adapter to attempt reading it when it died. This is what it looks like: http://www.pcper.com/files/news/2012-03-12/SSDR_Sandisk-SSD.jpg http://www.pcper.com/files/news/2012-03-12/SSDR_Sandisk-SSD.... FWIU they went with a different brand on their newer models, might be better.
      - khedoros 11y ago
        That looks like an M.2 PCIe connection. Is it something less standard than that?
- emerongi 11y ago
  I have the UX305LA. I had a clicky trackpad[1], so I opened it up and fixed it. It was too good in other aspects, so I couldn't bother sending it back. Battery is replaceable. Still though, with Asus you never know whether your laptop will be perfect out of the box or not. That's what sucks about PCs in general - if you want a hassle-free laptop, you either have to pay extra or invest a lot of time into research. I had to send 2 laptops back before I got the Zenbook, but even that had the clicky trackpad problem. This is why I'm thinking that when I have to buy a new laptop, I'll first be looking at the Apple lines. I've never had a Mac (since they're pricy), but I'm done with doing hours and hours of research. I just need a laptop that works. The Zenbook is great though. Love it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un6TSK0RCxQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un6TSK0RCxQ
  - zapu 11y ago
    How did you fix it? I just mapped caps-lock as left mouse button :| I hate clickpads.
  - lmm 11y ago
    One thing Apple does very well is simply not shipping crap products. It's forgivable from Asus since they started out as a budget brand, but the premium PC brands like Sony have really dropped the ball.
    - soylentcola 11y ago
      Yeah...I primarily use a desktop for anything demanding but at one point, I needed a laptop for occasional multimedia dj/vj stuff (nothing paid or professional, more personal or artistic endeavors) and I spent some time doing price comparisons. There were a few things I specifically wanted: fast processor (preferably i7 due to the occasional 3d rendering stuff I was going to be doing), at least 16gb of RAM, a decent, discrete GPU, and minimum 1920x1080 resolution. Other stuff wasn't as important. I could do without the latest "retina" screen since I was mostly just going to be looking at DJ/VJ software interfaces and hooking it up to projection. SSD wasn't absolutely necessary but I wouldn't mind one (this was a few years ago when they were considerably more expensive). I had it down to an Asus (non-ultrabook) and a Macbook Pro. The Macbook had a nicer display, slightly more solid hardware (the Asus was only aluminum on top and on the top of the keyboard side, not the underside of the laptop), and may have offered a faster storage drive (can't remember the details now). On the flip side, the GPU options were all lower-end than the Asus. Also, the MBP in a configuration closest to what I needed cost around $2499. The Asus was $999. The Apple had some other features like early Thunderbolt support but those weren't relevant to my uses. As much as I liked the display on the Apple and the somewhat stronger build, I couldn't justify paying more than double the cost. If this was going to be my sole/main computer then I would've weighted stuff like viewing angles and storage drive speed higher but as a secondary computer, I was mainly looking to get certain specs/features without spending too much dough. So yeah, it's a "budget" brand to me. I could get the major specs and decent build for a lot less but I gave up some things that would've been a lot more important if it was my main computer. To this day, my only real beef with the Asus is that the display's viewing angles suck. It's not one of those awful 1366x768 displays that OEMs were slapping into cheap laptops for so long and it's not a glossy mess but you really need to look at it dead-on if you want a decent image. For techie art projects it's great but if I had to look at it every day for 8-12 hours I would go insane.
bkjelden 11y ago
+1 to this machine. I bought one for my wife last June and so far it's been great. As a side note: Asus's naming sure could use some help. If I search the Microsoft Store's website right now, there's a Zenbook UX305FA, 2 UX305CA's, UX303UB, and two Zenbook Pro UX501JW's. I'm sure if I searched Amazon I could find even more unique names. I consider myself a pretty savvy PC shopper and even I find that incredibly confusing.
- kyriakos 11y ago
  The worst part of their naming conventions is that the larger numbers don't always mean better / faster. And this would be ok if it was consistent but its not.
- flurpitude 11y ago
  Asus also often has many sub-models specified by a suffix to the main model number. And what they show on their many inconsistent marketing websites often won't match what's actually available in your country. Not to mention that it appears on the website months before the product (well, a slightly different, less attractive product with a similar name) becomes available. Asus are bad for this.
SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
I'm really happy with my Toshiba Tecra Z series. The article totally missed Toshiba, which is still a decent manufacturer. I get 5-6 hours of battery life with real usage, close to 10 hours in "green" mode, I've got a 15.6" screen, a keypad, 16Gb of RAM, an i7 processor, and a 1Tb SSD. And it's just over 4 pounds and pretty thin. I have NVIDIA graphics. The Tecra Z has an available 3K touch display, and its HDMI port can power a 4K monitor at 60Hz (even while its internal monitor is still going, and its USB3 port is powering a third monitor; that's my office development setup). I've had it over a year and a half already, and it's still going strong.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- gcb0 11y ago
  the article misses everything. lenovo is not even relevant anymore. Their new keyboards (since 2009!) are complete garbage. his "research" was probably asking some guy at the water cooler "what's a good PC laptop" "lenovo" "thanks"
  - thirdsun 11y ago
    That was my impression too. I'm not an expert on Windows hardware/devices but from what I hear the Dell XPS 13 is an excellent machine if you don't want a MacBook. Not even mentioning Dell tells me this guy misses a few things.
    - SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
      Fair points. I'm personally not a Dell fan, though I used one for a year that was purchased by my employer, and yes, it didn't completely suck. Just wasn't my first choice. It did fail as a laptop, though. Something about how it tended to bend on a laptop would cause the physical trackpad "button" to get stuck when it was sitting on a lap in some positions until you picked up the laptop by the sides. :| It was also a lot heavier than my Toshiba. But as a portable computer, it actually did a fine job.
    - 11y ago
hardwaresofton 11y ago
I also relatively recently bought a Zenbook with the mobile fanless processor also (battery life is pretty decent, but of course I can't play many games on it or anything), put Arch Linux on it -- been happily hacking ever since!
hartator 11y ago
I think if you are spending more than 10 hours per day on your laptop, price shouldn't matter. On a side note, you've missed the retina thing, it's making a true difference.
- ricksplat 11y ago
  I've had retina for the last couple of years and while it's a nice bit of fluff I'd take software & service reliability over it any day
- stock_toaster 11y ago
  But it has a matte screen, which sounds glorious! I am still using a seemingly ancient macbook pro 15" 2009 model, simply because it has a matte screen, yet still runs the latest OSX. The super glossy screens make my eyes hurt after a while. I have been hoping that some day the glossiness gets down to a level that I can tolerate enough to get a newer macbook. However, if my laptop ends up giving up the ghost along the way though... I may look at using something like the matte screen zenbook discussed by the parent, and running FreeBSD or OpenBSD on it.
  - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    Have you tried using an anti-glare (matte) screen protector? I haven't, but they're reasonably priced and it seems like an easy product to get right.
    - spronkey 11y ago
      From my experience the matte films are pretty poor, they really do reduce the visual quality of the display to far worse than the actual Matte displays
      - stock_toaster 11y ago
        Agreed. Most of them I have seen range from really terrible to only just crappy.
Raed667 11y ago
The one I found had an Intel Core i7-5500U .. Which is not for power-users. EDIT: Your guide[0] to intel CPUs [0]: https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/processor-numbers.html https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/proce...
redthrow 11y ago
I was thinking about buying this exact machine. Does Bluetooth work well on Ubuntu out of the box?
chjohasbrouck 11y ago
I have both, and I find the things that Macs have that everything else is missing just aren't articulated on a spec sheet. The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done. The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a great machine to live with overall. Most of the PC options are steel and plastic, so they're hot and heavy. They'll burn your legs, they have comparably poor battery life. The screen looks terrible if your viewing angle isn't perpendicular. The hardware I've had has tended to die faster, too. I do spend most of my time in Linux on this old Dell, though. The OS is more important to me and I prefer Linux. But Macbooks are great, and I wish I could find something as good to install Linux on.
- eosrei 11y ago
  You seem to have only looked at the older PCs. Have you looked at the Dell XPS 13 or Microsoft Surface Book? They may dispel your complaints. You can even buy the XPS with Ubuntu.
  - tluyben2 11y ago
    Worthless battery life for such costly machines. I would've bought the XPS 13 with Ubuntu otherwise. Edit: I read reviews like this http://www.iretron.com/blog/posts/dell-xps-13-is-a-major-disappointment/ http://www.iretron.com/blog/posts/dell-xps-13-is-a-major-dis... cannot find the other ones though. It is better than I remember; I thought it was worse. Still; 6 hours is not really usable in my book.
    - Zarel 11y ago
      I googled around and found this: http://www.trustedreviews.com/dell-xps-13-2015-review-battery-life-performance-and-verdict-page-3 http://www.trustedreviews.com/dell-xps-13-2015-review-batter... which gives a rated battery life of 18 hours and a real-world use battery life of 9-10 hours http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-battery-life-fix http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-battery-life-f... This article suggests a battery life of 12 hours. What kind of battery life are you expecting?
natch 11y ago
There are third party batteries that will puff up and explode. I wouldn't blame Apple for that. If it was an Apple battery, I'm curious which Apple store gave you grief about this. Care to tell?
- lucaspiller 11y ago
  I noticed the original battery of my 2006 MacBook was puffed up when I was at my parents over Christmas, so yes Apple batteries do definitely have the same issue. I asked about a replacement and they said they don't make them anymore, but said if I really want one to get a third party battery from Amazon (the guy even searched on Amazon to show me how much it would be).
  - zschallz 11y ago
    My 2008 macbook's (removable) battery also puffed up.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    Same problem here. AppleCare went through three before I moved on from that machine.
Cymen 11y ago
If you still want to bring your old MBP back to life, I just replaced the battery on my sister's 2011 MBP with an aftermarket one from Amazon. There were a lot of pro/con reviews and it's only a couple weeks in but so far it's great. I went the one branded by Anker and it came with the correct screwdriver which was a nice touch. Installation was very simple. She also needed a new HDD so I put in an SSD and the machine is surprisingly zippy with the latest OS X.
perlgeek 11y ago
... and god help you if you ever need the Asus customer support for repairing that thing. A truely horrible experience. I can provide details of my "experience" with them, but the Internet is already full of horror stories that cover everything that is to say about that topic. And no, buying a new laptop after a year and a half simply isn't acceptable to me, even if it makes sense in your economic situation.
- osense 11y ago
  I don't know how things are over in the US, but here in Czech republic, my experience with them was nothing but good. When my SSD broke down after about a month of using the thing, they paid for the shipping to and from the repair shop and replaced the drive in... a week I think. I've been using it for about a year now and I've had no other problems.
  - ilek 11y ago
    I had a poor experience with them in the UK. The hinge snapped on my ultrabook (I don't remember the exact model as the codes are obscure.) E-mailed support, provided plenty of pictures of the issue. Keep in mind I only owned the thing for 6 months so still in warranty. Best they would offer is an out of warranty repair. I know someone with the same model, exact same problem happened to him. Horrible build quality and support.
    - lmm 11y ago
      If you're ever in that situation again, take it to the seller, mention the sales of goods act if you have to. Warranties aren't how things are supposed to work in the UK, it's the seller that carries the responsibility and so they're generally a lot better at it.
      - ilek 11y ago
        Of course, I went straight to amazon after the experience with Asus customer support and got a full refund in an hour.
legulere 11y ago
A 13" macbook air with 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Core i5 processor costs $1 299.00, so more like 60%. There also seem to be some small things where Asus is saving money: It uses a SATA SSD instead of a NVMe PCIe SSD for instance.
- tdsamardzhiev 11y ago
  True that. MBA also has better connectivity and audio. On the other hand, MBA's monitor is a complete joke compared to the one on ASUS UX305.
mandelken 11y ago
I bought the first Zenbook UX31 when it came out and last year bought a retina MBP. The zenbook was at the time half the price for the comparable mac air and I enjoyed it very much the first year, but since then I had it repaired 3 times costing me more than the purchase price (HDD, ram, power plug) and the power plug still doesnt work well so I can't use it anymore. It served me well, but not sure I would recommend it again. I'm very happy with the MPB so far, never thought I'd buy a mac but there was just no alternative for build quality, as the article suggested. Still haven't put Linux on it, which I thought I'd do immediately, so the OS is not that bad. If the MPB were a little lighter, it would be the perfect machine for me.
- nextos 11y ago
  I think it's not only about build quality. If you use Linux, sadly it's also about compatibility. I bought a MBA 11' (2012) because it's an all-Intel machine, which was used by Linus for some time and hardware support is almost perfect. It's only lacking ACPI events for battery discharge, something very few machines have. While Macs are good, I think they are optimised for the looks and not for robustness. Glossy screens are a bit uncomfortable, and aluminium tends to be too rigid, transmitting shocks to the screen as a consequence.
- kamaln7 11y ago
  I had a Thinkpad T440s running Ubuntu and then Arch, and now I have a 13" rMBP. I love the glossy screen, vivid colors, and most importantly, battery life. OS X also has the advantage of everything just working perfectly out of the box so I'm happy. I don't think I'll go back to Linux any time soon, though I do miss tiling WMs.
rimantas 11y ago
Wait till 2022 to compare?
conjectures 11y ago
I have a similar Asus machine. Nice build quality. Lasted 3 years of fairly hard use so far. Shiny screen could be improved, that's about it. Would recommend Asus highly.
- DanBC 11y ago
  I love ASUS, and second your recommendation. Watch out though - some of their cheaper machines are just weird. The X205ta being one example.
crudbug 11y ago
The Zen Pro 15" is not bad [1] [1] http://store.asus.com/us/item/201511AM230002951/A26128 http://store.asus.com/us/item/201511AM230002951/A26128
pdimitar 11y ago
I was so very tempted by this laptop but there's one requirement I will never forego -- the backlit keyboard. If they make a second iteration of that model with a backlit keyboard I'll run to the nearest store and I WILL JUST BUY IT right there and then.
- slantyyz 11y ago
  Serious question - can someone explain the appeal of the backlit keyboards? I notice it's a big deal whether you're a Mac or PC fan, but I generally don't understand it. Is it for people who can't touch type without looking at the keyboard? Admittedly, my desktop keyboard is backlit (I had to buy a gaming keyboard to get the macro keys I wanted), but the only purpose of the backlight for me is to know which of the four keyboard profiles I'm using -- and this feature isn't on many laptops at all.
  - cozuya 11y ago
    For me I would say its about simply initial orientation of setting my hands down. Its hard to articulate but like the OP I will never buy one without it again - its just a nice feature that I have decided is essential.
  - JBReefer 11y ago
    It's nice if you use the weird keys that are far from the nubs - like F10, F11, F12, or anything where the grid doesn't give you tactile wayfinding. For example, I use the backlit keyboard when I'm debugging at night, because hitting the wrong key carries a penalty, and F9 is not nearly as heavily used as 'A'
  - pdimitar 11y ago
    As others have said, it helps quickly orientate yourself before you start typing. It's hard to explain rationally but having that makes me much more productive. I've been practicing by my work (as a programmer) and actively learning it aside -- typing without looking, and I am damn good at it. There are however different use cases. Sometimes I have long reading sessions. Suddenly I decide the story is too big and want to stop reading it. Or I try to find a keyword in it. Or a hundred more things. If I am to use programming terms, it reduces your bootstrap time when you want to use the keyboard after a period of inactivity. ...That, plus the fact that most are gorgeous and simply very nice to look at. There are definitely aesthetical factors as well, won't deny the facts. So it's 50% subjective, no doubt.
Mister_Snuggles 11y ago
I'm in a similar boat, I have a mid-2010 MacBook Pro which I've added RAM and an SSD to. I'm dreading the day it dies because it's such a perfect laptop for me. The new MacBook Pros are nice, I've got a work-issued one, but whatever configuration you buy is what you're stuck with until you replace it. That sucks.
- marincounty 11y ago
  If what happens to the economy, and Apple sales--I feel comming. I think you might see, a Mac that's easy to upgrade/repair be suddenly available. I just hope they don't wait too long, and their stores look like Sears.
LordKano 11y ago
I was a long time Mac aficionado. I loved Apple and their products. It was a heart breaking experience when I felt like it was time to move on. I paid about $2,300 for a Performa 550 back in 1993. That machine served me well. I added memory, internal and external hard drives, a Zip drive, a 68882 FPU and a bunch of other peripherals. Between 1990 and 2000, I probably spent $6,000 in hardware, software and peripherals for those machines. They served me well. I still have a G3 and Performa 6400/200 with G3 upgrade under my desk. Every once in a while, I fire one up just to reminisce. Commodity parts and easy interchange is just so powerful that the community of Apple users just doesn't provide the same kind of benefits to outweigh that. At least, in my humble opinion.
chias 11y ago
That laptop looks amazing! Quick question: does it have a backlit keyboard?
smasty 11y ago
I have good experience with Asus as well. Until recently I was still using my early 2011 Asus U36JC. It was probably one of the first ultrabook-like laptops, even though it wasn't branded as one, since it had a second discrete GPU. Reasonably thin at 19 mm and 1.4 kg, with stellar battery life (10h+ under Debian) and great performance. Even though it had 1st generation Core i5, it was still snappier then most of my classmate's laptops with latest i5s. It even had a USB 3.0 port, which was something for a ~700€ 13" laptop at that time. Over the time I upgraded to 8GB RAM and swapped the disk for SSD. Only downside was a pretty crappy glossy screen, but I mostly had it hooked up to an external monitor so I didn't mind so much. I finally decided to go for a new laptop last December because the battery life was degrading after the years. I was consideing just buying a replacement battery, but I wasn't able to find one under $200 including shipping and I got a really good deal on a top of the line refurbished X220 together with a docking station for 380€. My sister, a teacher, is now using the Asus laptop and not considering the battery life it still runs smoothly.

by habosa 11y ago

ekianjo 11y ago

For the Asus Zenbook UX305LA, how flexible is it ? Can you open and change the battery by yourself, for example ? You mentioned the battery life is not great, can you share some numbers on Ubuntu ? How much time do you get on a full charge?

habosa 11y ago
It's hard to say since I mostly use it for heavy-drain stuff. Streaming movies on Netflix, building apps in Android Studio, etc. Always have Chrome running with a ton of tabs. I'd say 6h of use in Ubuntu. The reviews I read say that the battery is better using it with Windows 10 (closer to 10h) but I just can't get my work done in Windows. Overall the battery is not disappointing. Not sure if I can change the battery by myself but for $750 I don't intend to invest much in repairs. I'll just ride it until it dies.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  6 hours is not bad at all. (on Linux!) :) I'd be pretty happy with that.
  - hsitz 11y ago
    I also have UX305 and I easily get at least 6 hours under moderate loads. Eight or nine with light web-browsing (avoiding javascript pages that spike cpu usage), ten or more with lighter use (text editor). I installed Ubuntu 14.x and i3 window manager. I have dual boot with original Windows install and power use is comparable between Windows and Linux. It's a pleasure to use. Only power management tweak I made in Ubuntu was to install the TLP power management tool and (I think) make simple change from its defaults: http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html
    - ekianjo 11y ago
      I have been trying TLP but I failed to notice any significant difference in battery life... is it absolutely needed to tweak its default settings?
      - hsitz 11y ago
        I don't remember. I would check power usage with powertop and make sure you've got no 'bad' indicators on the 'Tunables' tab (actually I think I still have one bad). On the 'Device Stats' tab you should be able to get 'system baseline power usage' under 5 watts under light loads. I run mine with display brightness fairly low, 20% or 30%, but it's still has comparable brightness to my other main laptop's (Lenovo x220) full brightness.
        ekianjo 11y ago
        I actually have a Lenovo x220 as one of my machines, and with 70-80% brightness I get about 4 hours of battery life (wifi included) on a 9 cells battery. Does it sound reasonable or am I not getting what I should?
scrollaway 11y ago
I own a UX305LA and have owned two previous models in the UX line. Glad to see it mentioned, I like them all very much. The battery is proprietary but easily replaced. My main issue with my previous UX31 was with the SSD. It died within a year and was no longer readable. It was a piece of proprietary SanDisk crap. Googling around about it yields various complaints about it (http://www.pcper.com/news/Mobile/Be-careful-which-ASUS-Zenbook-SSD-you-pick http://www.pcper.com/news/Mobile/Be-careful-which-ASUS-Zenbo...). Battery life: I run Arch Linux with LXQt and get about 6 hours on a full charge. It's not great but IIRC I was getting better on Windows so it might be a software issue.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  > It was a piece of proprietary SanDisk crap. you mean it was not a standard SSD ?
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    It wasn't, no. The UX is too thin for 2.5in SSDs. I had to find a special adapter to attempt reading it when it died. This is what it looks like: http://www.pcper.com/files/news/2012-03-12/SSDR_Sandisk-SSD.jpg http://www.pcper.com/files/news/2012-03-12/SSDR_Sandisk-SSD.... FWIU they went with a different brand on their newer models, might be better.
    - khedoros 11y ago
      That looks like an M.2 PCIe connection. Is it something less standard than that?
emerongi 11y ago
I have the UX305LA. I had a clicky trackpad[1], so I opened it up and fixed it. It was too good in other aspects, so I couldn't bother sending it back. Battery is replaceable. Still though, with Asus you never know whether your laptop will be perfect out of the box or not. That's what sucks about PCs in general - if you want a hassle-free laptop, you either have to pay extra or invest a lot of time into research. I had to send 2 laptops back before I got the Zenbook, but even that had the clicky trackpad problem. This is why I'm thinking that when I have to buy a new laptop, I'll first be looking at the Apple lines. I've never had a Mac (since they're pricy), but I'm done with doing hours and hours of research. I just need a laptop that works. The Zenbook is great though. Love it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un6TSK0RCxQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un6TSK0RCxQ
- zapu 11y ago
  How did you fix it? I just mapped caps-lock as left mouse button :| I hate clickpads.
- lmm 11y ago
  One thing Apple does very well is simply not shipping crap products. It's forgivable from Asus since they started out as a budget brand, but the premium PC brands like Sony have really dropped the ball.
  - soylentcola 11y ago
    Yeah...I primarily use a desktop for anything demanding but at one point, I needed a laptop for occasional multimedia dj/vj stuff (nothing paid or professional, more personal or artistic endeavors) and I spent some time doing price comparisons. There were a few things I specifically wanted: fast processor (preferably i7 due to the occasional 3d rendering stuff I was going to be doing), at least 16gb of RAM, a decent, discrete GPU, and minimum 1920x1080 resolution. Other stuff wasn't as important. I could do without the latest "retina" screen since I was mostly just going to be looking at DJ/VJ software interfaces and hooking it up to projection. SSD wasn't absolutely necessary but I wouldn't mind one (this was a few years ago when they were considerably more expensive). I had it down to an Asus (non-ultrabook) and a Macbook Pro. The Macbook had a nicer display, slightly more solid hardware (the Asus was only aluminum on top and on the top of the keyboard side, not the underside of the laptop), and may have offered a faster storage drive (can't remember the details now). On the flip side, the GPU options were all lower-end than the Asus. Also, the MBP in a configuration closest to what I needed cost around $2499. The Asus was $999. The Apple had some other features like early Thunderbolt support but those weren't relevant to my uses. As much as I liked the display on the Apple and the somewhat stronger build, I couldn't justify paying more than double the cost. If this was going to be my sole/main computer then I would've weighted stuff like viewing angles and storage drive speed higher but as a secondary computer, I was mainly looking to get certain specs/features without spending too much dough. So yeah, it's a "budget" brand to me. I could get the major specs and decent build for a lot less but I gave up some things that would've been a lot more important if it was my main computer. To this day, my only real beef with the Asus is that the display's viewing angles suck. It's not one of those awful 1366x768 displays that OEMs were slapping into cheap laptops for so long and it's not a glossy mess but you really need to look at it dead-on if you want a decent image. For techie art projects it's great but if I had to look at it every day for 8-12 hours I would go insane.

bkjelden 11y ago

+1 to this machine. I bought one for my wife last June and so far it's been great. As a side note: Asus's naming sure could use some help. If I search the Microsoft Store's website right now, there's a Zenbook UX305FA, 2 UX305CA's, UX303UB, and two Zenbook Pro UX501JW's. I'm sure if I searched Amazon I could find even more unique names. I consider myself a pretty savvy PC shopper and even I find that incredibly confusing.

kyriakos 11y ago
The worst part of their naming conventions is that the larger numbers don't always mean better / faster. And this would be ok if it was consistent but its not.
flurpitude 11y ago
Asus also often has many sub-models specified by a suffix to the main model number. And what they show on their many inconsistent marketing websites often won't match what's actually available in your country. Not to mention that it appears on the website months before the product (well, a slightly different, less attractive product with a similar name) becomes available. Asus are bad for this.

SomeCallMeTim 11y ago

I'm really happy with my Toshiba Tecra Z series. The article totally missed Toshiba, which is still a decent manufacturer. I get 5-6 hours of battery life with real usage, close to 10 hours in "green" mode, I've got a 15.6" screen, a keypad, 16Gb of RAM, an i7 processor, and a 1Tb SSD. And it's just over 4 pounds and pretty thin. I have NVIDIA graphics. The Tecra Z has an available 3K touch display, and its HDMI port can power a 4K monitor at 60Hz (even while its internal monitor is still going, and its USB3 port is powering a third monitor; that's my office development setup). I've had it over a year and a half already, and it's still going strong.

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gcb0 11y ago
the article misses everything. lenovo is not even relevant anymore. Their new keyboards (since 2009!) are complete garbage. his "research" was probably asking some guy at the water cooler "what's a good PC laptop" "lenovo" "thanks"
- thirdsun 11y ago
  That was my impression too. I'm not an expert on Windows hardware/devices but from what I hear the Dell XPS 13 is an excellent machine if you don't want a MacBook. Not even mentioning Dell tells me this guy misses a few things.
  - SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
    Fair points. I'm personally not a Dell fan, though I used one for a year that was purchased by my employer, and yes, it didn't completely suck. Just wasn't my first choice. It did fail as a laptop, though. Something about how it tended to bend on a laptop would cause the physical trackpad "button" to get stuck when it was sitting on a lap in some positions until you picked up the laptop by the sides. :| It was also a lot heavier than my Toshiba. But as a portable computer, it actually did a fine job.
  - 11y ago

hardwaresofton 11y ago

I also relatively recently bought a Zenbook with the mobile fanless processor also (battery life is pretty decent, but of course I can't play many games on it or anything), put Arch Linux on it -- been happily hacking ever since!

hartator 11y ago

I think if you are spending more than 10 hours per day on your laptop, price shouldn't matter. On a side note, you've missed the retina thing, it's making a true difference.

ricksplat 11y ago
I've had retina for the last couple of years and while it's a nice bit of fluff I'd take software & service reliability over it any day
stock_toaster 11y ago
But it has a matte screen, which sounds glorious! I am still using a seemingly ancient macbook pro 15" 2009 model, simply because it has a matte screen, yet still runs the latest OSX. The super glossy screens make my eyes hurt after a while. I have been hoping that some day the glossiness gets down to a level that I can tolerate enough to get a newer macbook. However, if my laptop ends up giving up the ghost along the way though... I may look at using something like the matte screen zenbook discussed by the parent, and running FreeBSD or OpenBSD on it.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  Have you tried using an anti-glare (matte) screen protector? I haven't, but they're reasonably priced and it seems like an easy product to get right.
  - spronkey 11y ago
    From my experience the matte films are pretty poor, they really do reduce the visual quality of the display to far worse than the actual Matte displays
    - stock_toaster 11y ago
      Agreed. Most of them I have seen range from really terrible to only just crappy.

Raed667 11y ago

The one I found had an Intel Core i7-5500U .. Which is not for power-users. EDIT: Your guide[0] to intel CPUs [0]: https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/processor-numbers.html https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/proce...

redthrow 11y ago

I was thinking about buying this exact machine. Does Bluetooth work well on Ubuntu out of the box?

chjohasbrouck 11y ago

I have both, and I find the things that Macs have that everything else is missing just aren't articulated on a spec sheet. The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done. The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a great machine to live with overall. Most of the PC options are steel and plastic, so they're hot and heavy. They'll burn your legs, they have comparably poor battery life. The screen looks terrible if your viewing angle isn't perpendicular. The hardware I've had has tended to die faster, too. I do spend most of my time in Linux on this old Dell, though. The OS is more important to me and I prefer Linux. But Macbooks are great, and I wish I could find something as good to install Linux on.

eosrei 11y ago
You seem to have only looked at the older PCs. Have you looked at the Dell XPS 13 or Microsoft Surface Book? They may dispel your complaints. You can even buy the XPS with Ubuntu.
- tluyben2 11y ago
  Worthless battery life for such costly machines. I would've bought the XPS 13 with Ubuntu otherwise. Edit: I read reviews like this http://www.iretron.com/blog/posts/dell-xps-13-is-a-major-disappointment/ http://www.iretron.com/blog/posts/dell-xps-13-is-a-major-dis... cannot find the other ones though. It is better than I remember; I thought it was worse. Still; 6 hours is not really usable in my book.
  - Zarel 11y ago
    I googled around and found this: http://www.trustedreviews.com/dell-xps-13-2015-review-battery-life-performance-and-verdict-page-3 http://www.trustedreviews.com/dell-xps-13-2015-review-batter... which gives a rated battery life of 18 hours and a real-world use battery life of 9-10 hours http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-battery-life-fix http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-battery-life-f... This article suggests a battery life of 12 hours. What kind of battery life are you expecting?

natch 11y ago

There are third party batteries that will puff up and explode. I wouldn't blame Apple for that. If it was an Apple battery, I'm curious which Apple store gave you grief about this. Care to tell?

lucaspiller 11y ago
I noticed the original battery of my 2006 MacBook was puffed up when I was at my parents over Christmas, so yes Apple batteries do definitely have the same issue. I asked about a replacement and they said they don't make them anymore, but said if I really want one to get a third party battery from Amazon (the guy even searched on Amazon to show me how much it would be).
- zschallz 11y ago
  My 2008 macbook's (removable) battery also puffed up.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Same problem here. AppleCare went through three before I moved on from that machine.

Cymen 11y ago

If you still want to bring your old MBP back to life, I just replaced the battery on my sister's 2011 MBP with an aftermarket one from Amazon. There were a lot of pro/con reviews and it's only a couple weeks in but so far it's great. I went the one branded by Anker and it came with the correct screwdriver which was a nice touch. Installation was very simple. She also needed a new HDD so I put in an SSD and the machine is surprisingly zippy with the latest OS X.

perlgeek 11y ago

... and god help you if you ever need the Asus customer support for repairing that thing. A truely horrible experience. I can provide details of my "experience" with them, but the Internet is already full of horror stories that cover everything that is to say about that topic. And no, buying a new laptop after a year and a half simply isn't acceptable to me, even if it makes sense in your economic situation.

osense 11y ago
I don't know how things are over in the US, but here in Czech republic, my experience with them was nothing but good. When my SSD broke down after about a month of using the thing, they paid for the shipping to and from the repair shop and replaced the drive in... a week I think. I've been using it for about a year now and I've had no other problems.
- ilek 11y ago
  I had a poor experience with them in the UK. The hinge snapped on my ultrabook (I don't remember the exact model as the codes are obscure.) E-mailed support, provided plenty of pictures of the issue. Keep in mind I only owned the thing for 6 months so still in warranty. Best they would offer is an out of warranty repair. I know someone with the same model, exact same problem happened to him. Horrible build quality and support.
  - lmm 11y ago
    If you're ever in that situation again, take it to the seller, mention the sales of goods act if you have to. Warranties aren't how things are supposed to work in the UK, it's the seller that carries the responsibility and so they're generally a lot better at it.
    - ilek 11y ago
      Of course, I went straight to amazon after the experience with Asus customer support and got a full refund in an hour.

legulere 11y ago

A 13" macbook air with 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Core i5 processor costs $1 299.00, so more like 60%. There also seem to be some small things where Asus is saving money: It uses a SATA SSD instead of a NVMe PCIe SSD for instance.

tdsamardzhiev 11y ago
True that. MBA also has better connectivity and audio. On the other hand, MBA's monitor is a complete joke compared to the one on ASUS UX305.

mandelken 11y ago

I bought the first Zenbook UX31 when it came out and last year bought a retina MBP. The zenbook was at the time half the price for the comparable mac air and I enjoyed it very much the first year, but since then I had it repaired 3 times costing me more than the purchase price (HDD, ram, power plug) and the power plug still doesnt work well so I can't use it anymore. It served me well, but not sure I would recommend it again. I'm very happy with the MPB so far, never thought I'd buy a mac but there was just no alternative for build quality, as the article suggested. Still haven't put Linux on it, which I thought I'd do immediately, so the OS is not that bad. If the MPB were a little lighter, it would be the perfect machine for me.

nextos 11y ago
I think it's not only about build quality. If you use Linux, sadly it's also about compatibility. I bought a MBA 11' (2012) because it's an all-Intel machine, which was used by Linus for some time and hardware support is almost perfect. It's only lacking ACPI events for battery discharge, something very few machines have. While Macs are good, I think they are optimised for the looks and not for robustness. Glossy screens are a bit uncomfortable, and aluminium tends to be too rigid, transmitting shocks to the screen as a consequence.
kamaln7 11y ago
I had a Thinkpad T440s running Ubuntu and then Arch, and now I have a 13" rMBP. I love the glossy screen, vivid colors, and most importantly, battery life. OS X also has the advantage of everything just working perfectly out of the box so I'm happy. I don't think I'll go back to Linux any time soon, though I do miss tiling WMs.

rimantas 11y ago

Wait till 2022 to compare?

conjectures 11y ago

I have a similar Asus machine. Nice build quality. Lasted 3 years of fairly hard use so far. Shiny screen could be improved, that's about it. Would recommend Asus highly.

DanBC 11y ago
I love ASUS, and second your recommendation. Watch out though - some of their cheaper machines are just weird. The X205ta being one example.

crudbug 11y ago

The Zen Pro 15" is not bad [1] [1] http://store.asus.com/us/item/201511AM230002951/A26128 http://store.asus.com/us/item/201511AM230002951/A26128

pdimitar 11y ago

I was so very tempted by this laptop but there's one requirement I will never forego -- the backlit keyboard. If they make a second iteration of that model with a backlit keyboard I'll run to the nearest store and I WILL JUST BUY IT right there and then.

slantyyz 11y ago
Serious question - can someone explain the appeal of the backlit keyboards? I notice it's a big deal whether you're a Mac or PC fan, but I generally don't understand it. Is it for people who can't touch type without looking at the keyboard? Admittedly, my desktop keyboard is backlit (I had to buy a gaming keyboard to get the macro keys I wanted), but the only purpose of the backlight for me is to know which of the four keyboard profiles I'm using -- and this feature isn't on many laptops at all.
- cozuya 11y ago
  For me I would say its about simply initial orientation of setting my hands down. Its hard to articulate but like the OP I will never buy one without it again - its just a nice feature that I have decided is essential.
- JBReefer 11y ago
  It's nice if you use the weird keys that are far from the nubs - like F10, F11, F12, or anything where the grid doesn't give you tactile wayfinding. For example, I use the backlit keyboard when I'm debugging at night, because hitting the wrong key carries a penalty, and F9 is not nearly as heavily used as 'A'
- pdimitar 11y ago
  As others have said, it helps quickly orientate yourself before you start typing. It's hard to explain rationally but having that makes me much more productive. I've been practicing by my work (as a programmer) and actively learning it aside -- typing without looking, and I am damn good at it. There are however different use cases. Sometimes I have long reading sessions. Suddenly I decide the story is too big and want to stop reading it. Or I try to find a keyword in it. Or a hundred more things. If I am to use programming terms, it reduces your bootstrap time when you want to use the keyboard after a period of inactivity. ...That, plus the fact that most are gorgeous and simply very nice to look at. There are definitely aesthetical factors as well, won't deny the facts. So it's 50% subjective, no doubt.

Mister_Snuggles 11y ago

I'm in a similar boat, I have a mid-2010 MacBook Pro which I've added RAM and an SSD to. I'm dreading the day it dies because it's such a perfect laptop for me. The new MacBook Pros are nice, I've got a work-issued one, but whatever configuration you buy is what you're stuck with until you replace it. That sucks.

marincounty 11y ago
If what happens to the economy, and Apple sales--I feel comming. I think you might see, a Mac that's easy to upgrade/repair be suddenly available. I just hope they don't wait too long, and their stores look like Sears.

LordKano 11y ago

I was a long time Mac aficionado. I loved Apple and their products. It was a heart breaking experience when I felt like it was time to move on. I paid about $2,300 for a Performa 550 back in 1993. That machine served me well. I added memory, internal and external hard drives, a Zip drive, a 68882 FPU and a bunch of other peripherals. Between 1990 and 2000, I probably spent $6,000 in hardware, software and peripherals for those machines. They served me well. I still have a G3 and Performa 6400/200 with G3 upgrade under my desk. Every once in a while, I fire one up just to reminisce. Commodity parts and easy interchange is just so powerful that the community of Apple users just doesn't provide the same kind of benefits to outweigh that. At least, in my humble opinion.

chias 11y ago

That laptop looks amazing! Quick question: does it have a backlit keyboard?

smasty 11y ago

I have good experience with Asus as well. Until recently I was still using my early 2011 Asus U36JC. It was probably one of the first ultrabook-like laptops, even though it wasn't branded as one, since it had a second discrete GPU. Reasonably thin at 19 mm and 1.4 kg, with stellar battery life (10h+ under Debian) and great performance. Even though it had 1st generation Core i5, it was still snappier then most of my classmate's laptops with latest i5s. It even had a USB 3.0 port, which was something for a ~700€ 13" laptop at that time. Over the time I upgraded to 8GB RAM and swapped the disk for SSD. Only downside was a pretty crappy glossy screen, but I mostly had it hooked up to an external monitor so I didn't mind so much. I finally decided to go for a new laptop last December because the battery life was degrading after the years. I was consideing just buying a replacement battery, but I wasn't able to find one under $200 including shipping and I got a really good deal on a top of the line refurbished X220 together with a docking station for 380€. My sister, a teacher, is now using the Asus laptop and not considering the battery life it still runs smoothly.