ASUS ZenBook UX305CA: A 13.3-inch Portable Powerhouse

With the changing trend of beautifying laptops so that they don’t look like a dull piece of electronic, Asus has come up with ZenBook UX305CA. ASUS ZenBook UX305CA is gorgeous, portable and powerful at the same time. Its appearance, features and performance are worth having a look at.

Design

ASUS ZenBook UX305CA is a laptop designed with portability as a goal. It is merely 0.5-inch (1.23cm) thin and incredibly lightweight at only 1.2KG (2.5 pounds). Thanks to its portability, ZenBook UX305CA can be easily slipped into bags and can be easily carried around just about everywhere.

From the very first glance at it, ZenBook gives a premium look and feel. Its precisely crafted metal finish combined with diamond-cut chamfered edges provides ZenBook with a premium and polished appearance.

Asus gives three color options to choose from: Ceramic White , Aurora Metallic and Obsidian Stone. All three colors look stunning with their metal finish. From the back, side or front, ZenBook looks stunning and stands out thanks to its premium finish and choice of colors.

A thinner bazel could have improved ZenBook’s appearance even more but that’s not a requirement.

Features and Tech Specs

Along with its portability and chic looks, ASUS ZenBook UX305CA has a lot of promising features to boast about. One of the best feature I would first mention is its stunning QHD+ display with resolution of 3200 x 1800 pixels. Coupled with integrated Intel HD Graphics 515 and pixel density of 276 pixels per inch, ZenBook’s display outputs some really crisp visuals.

Working on this QHD+ screen becomes even better experience with a responsive touchscreen. A model with Full-HD screen at resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels without touchscreen is also available at lower price.

The processing power of ZenBook is provided by 6th-gen Intel Core M3-6Y30 processor with 4M Cache and Turbo Boost up to 2.20 GHz. Its processor does great job at providing ZenBook with much needed power because no one wants an eye candy laptop that doesn’t perform well. Its multitasking is handled by 8GB RAM which proves to be sufficient.

For storage, ZenBook UX305CA features a 256GB SSD which provides superior performance often seen in thousand dollars worth “premium” laptops. Disk read/write times, boot times, app launch times -everything is exceptionally fast and it feels great to enjoy this speed.

ZenBook UX305CA features a fan-less build. It sufficiently eliminates heat using a 0.5mm-diameter heatpipe made from chromium-copper alloy. A fan-less design keeps it silent and thankfully ZenBook doesn’t get noticeably hot. In addition, ZenBook carries along Asus IceCool technology that prevents heat build-up around the palm rest -providing longer hours of work without feeling the heat.

Ports and Connectivity

Along with promising tech specs and features, ASUS ZenBook UX305CA provides sufficient ports and fast connectivity. It features three ultra-fast USB 3.0 ports which provides exceptional data transfer times. One USB port is enhanced with USB Charger+ which provides faster device charging (up to 50% faster) even when the laptop is asleep or powered off.

Other ports include a micro HDMI port and a headphone output/microphone input combo along with charging port -all three on the right-hand side.

ASUS ZenBook provides latest wireless network connectivity with an ultra-fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi which is designed to provide speed of up to 867Mbit/s -three times faster than 802.11n. Browsing the Web is much more faster thanks to 802.11ac connectivity which is slowly becoming a standard in new devices. ZenBook also features Bluetooth 4.0 to provide connectivity with Bluetooth enabled devices.

An Ethernet port is absent but its absence is rarely felt thanks to a fast Wireless connectivity. This could be considered as a missing feature for those who prefer the use of Ethernet.

Battery

Gorgeous looks, premium features and powerful performance -everything is useless without a long-lasting battery. To overcome this, ASUS ZenBook UX305CA carries a 3-cell 45WHr lithium-polymer battery which provides up to 10 hours of usage on a single charge. This is of course affected by our usage and backup could vary between 8 to 10 hours.

A 10 hours battery life is not an extraordinary thing to boast about as latest laptops are now providing even more backup. But 10 hours is still a decent amount of time without connecting the laptop to its charger.

ASUS ZenBook UX305CA: Final Thoughts

Overall, ASUS ZenBook UX305CA is a laptop that is everything from portable to gorgeous to powerful. This is one of those laptops that you can (and want to) carry around everywhere you go. Its features and tech specs doesn’t fail to impress and it delivers an exceptional performance despite its portability.

At the price tag of $777 for QHD+ touchscreen model or $625 for Full HD non touchscreen model, ZenBook UX305CA is a go-to laptop for those who want the best of portability, style as well as performance.