A sleek and powerful ultra-portable laptop
The MacBook Air is one of our favourite laptops for some very simple reasons -it’s stylish, lightweight, sturdy, has excellent battery life, a quality screen and a very comfortable touchpad and keyboard. It’s a simple formula that makers of Windows laptops have struggled to achieve - until now. The Asus Zenbook UX303LA is the first Windows ultra-portable laptop we’ve seen that matches Apple’s flagship MacBook Air.
The UX303LA has a classy, sturdy metal build. Despite this metal construction, it’s very light at just 1.4kg, rising to 1.7kg with its charger. Combined with its lengthy battery life of just under 13 and a half hours, it’s ideal for working while on the move.
Despite its long battery life, it’s refreshing to see that performance hasn’t been sacrificed. The 2GHz Core i7 4500U dual-core processor paired with 6GB of memory is fast enough to be used as your main computer. The SSD ensures waking from sleep mode is virtually instantaneous, but its modest 128GB of storage means it can get cramped very quickly. You can prise off the bottom panel to fit a larger SSD and upgrade the memory, but this is a fiddly business.
Rather than squeezing a full 1080p resolution into the 13in screen and run the risk of making onscreen items too small to see, Asus has wisely opted for a more sensible 1600x900-pixel resolution instead. The screen is easily legible and gives you more working room than the 1366x768-pixel resolutions found in most other laptops at this price. It’s dazzlingly bright and has an anti-glare coating that significantly reduces reflected light. All of which more than makes up for the so-so colour accuracy, the grainy sheen and the relatively narrow viewing angles.
Although the keyboard isn’t backlit for working in darker conditions and we’d rather the keys had a little more resistance, it’s still one of the most comfortable laptop keyboards we’ve used, offering plenty of travel and feedback. The touchpad isn’t as impressive. While big and accurate, it often lagged when performing gestures, such as swiping two fingers to scroll or pinching to zoom. It’s also far too easy to brush up against the touchpad when typing, accidentally triggering onscreen controls.
The UX303LA doesn’t have all the niceties of the MacBook Air. We miss its neatly designed power adapter, the backlit keyboard and the superior touchpad, for example. Still, if you want a well designed slim and light Windows laptop then the UX303LA is the best you can get.
VERDICT
Not quite perfect, but it’s still the best Windows slim and lightweight laptop available.
SPECIFICATIONS
2GHz Intel Core i7 4500U dual-core processor • 6GB memory • 128GB SSD • Intel HD 4400 integrated graphics chip • 13.3in 1600x900-pixel screen • 802.11ac/a/b/g/n • Windows 8.1 • 1.4kg (1.7kg with charger) • 20x323x223mm (HxWxD) • One-year warranty