Having a large variety of products in the Indian market, Asus introduced a new member to its premium line of ZenBook notebooks in India last year with the ZenBook Pro UX501. The laptop directly competes with the likes of Apple MacBook Pro and the Dell Inspiron 7000 series not only because it is priced in the high-end category but also offers an exquisite design with powerful hardware.
Apple was probably the first company to bring lightweight metal to the laptop world, but other OEMs have capitalised on this and have further pushed the limits. The design and finish of the ZenBook Pro is commendable with a clean aluminium build and a striking brushed metal finish on the lid. Even on the inside, the keyboard and the round circled speakers around it make it stand out. The only area in terms of the design where the ZenBook Pro doesn’t impress is its weight. It offers quite a bulk due to the full metal body and it can get difficult to use on the lap for long periods. The display however makes up for the bulk as you get a glorious 15.6-inch UHD (3840x2160) IPS display which offers rich colours and good viewing angles. Watching HD and UHD videos is a treat for the eyes and even games look impressive. It is also touch enabled, if you don’t mind getting some fingerprints on the panel.
The chiclet keyboard is backlit and offers a full layout along with a num-pad. It is comfortable to use and offers good amount of spacing. Even the key travel feels perfect and typing long articles felt like a breeze. There are two stereo speakers embedded right next to the keyboard and are powered by Bang and Olufsen and have a crisp output, not the best in the business, but reliable. The large trackpad performs smooth and is quite responsive, even the left and right clicks felt firm.
There are a variety of ports around including three USB 3.0 ports, an SD card slot, an HDMI, Mini DisplayPort and a headphone and mic combo port. On the inside there is an Intel Core i7 4720HQ (4th gen) quad-core processor clocked at 2.2GHz which can go up to 3.6GHz. There is 16GB RAM which is more than enough handle multitasking and an Nvidia GTX 960M 2GB to take care of the video and graphics tasks. Storage is top notch as Asus has fitted a 512GB PCIe Samsung SSD which makes tasks quite fast. It comes with Windows 8.1 preinstalled and is eligible for the Windows 10 upgrade which brings in a huge boost of performance to the machine. There are also a bunch software installed including some free cloud storage, a battery optimizer and a trial versions of the McAfee Anti-Virus and Office 365.
Performance is great for day-to-day usage and apps load relatively fast thanks to the fast SSD storage. The laptop also serves very well if you have resource intensive tasks like photo or video editing and rendering as the hardware provides sufficient juice. The resolution on the display is high, but scaling is done well and all the apps and software seem to run smooth and without any issues. The laptop is also great as a multimedia consumption device as it can flawlessly play videos and music. It can handle some new game titles too, but don’t rely on it if you want a high-end gaming experience. While it might be able to run some games, it can only do so in medium graphics settings and lower fps (frames per second). Heating is well managed, apart from the area around the hinge where the exhaust fan is. The battery life was one area where the ZenBook Pro left room for improvement. It churned out about 6 hours of backup after a full charge which far from notebooks like the HP Envy 360 or the Apple MacBook Pro, both of which offer about 9 hours of backup.
The ZenBook Pro is a great machine and definitely looks and performs brilliantly. Apart from the battery life and the bulk, this is a perfect Windows alternative for a MacBook Pro. Do check out other alternatives like the HP Envy 360 and the Dell Inspiron 7000 which are as good as the ZenBook Pro.
Price: Rs, 1,15,999
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