Couple of months back Asus has announced its new line up series of Zenbook and the main USP of these notebooks were their compact size, although Asus’s Zenbook series always focused on being portable but here these notebook take it to different level. Asus has announced three new notebooks, the Asus Zenbook 13 (Review), Zenbook 14 and Zenbook 15 UX533F, all are super portable, comes with military-grade metallic bodies and gorgeous display. We had already used and reviewed Asus Zenbook 13 which kind of impressed us, let see what this Asus Zenbook 15 will have for us and whether it is the same or something new for us.
When we had first saw and used these all new Asus Zenbook notebooks, we were very impressed with it, and today we have the biggest among all, the Asus ZenBook 15 UX533F which compete with Dell XPS 15, Apple MacBook Pro, HP Spectre x360 and Microsoft Surface Laptop 2.
Build And Design of Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F –
Asus Zenbook series always impress us with its build and design quality, and Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F is no exceptional here, it comes with all new modern age design and build.
When you first open Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F, first you will notice is how tiny its bezels are, they are just 3mm on side, 5mm on top and just 4.5mm at bottom, which is really impressive.
Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F comes with MIL-STD 810G-certified body which means it can work under any harsh weather conditions as well, which gives a sturdy look to this machine.
One thing which we loved here in terms of design is Asus hasnt tried to over kill here and they kept design as minimalist as they can, there’s a rose golden strip just above the keyboard, and company has used similar shade on the keyboard keycaps.
When it comes to the connectivity and ports, then on the left side you have vents for air flow, and a USB port along with audio jack.
While on the left side you will find DC input, HDMI, USB port, USB Type-C, SD card reader and some LED notifications lights.
Asus’s ErgoLift design can be found here too, due to which screen extends past the hinge and when you open the laptop, it lifts the laptop and raises your keyboard which provide nice angle for typing, and it also make some space for air flow.
Hardware And Specs Of Asus ZenBook 15 UX533F –
When it comes to under the hood features, the Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F is powered by 8th Gen quad-core Intel Core i7-8565U processor (based on the Whiskey Lake architecture) which has a base speed of 1.8 GHz and a turbo frequency of up to 4.6 GHz.
It also comes with 16GB of LPDDR4 RAM (2400 MHz) and a 1TB PCIe SSD, and graphics are being handled by Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 GPU using Nvidia’s Max-Q design optimisations, with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM.
For connectivity you have options like Bluetooth 5 and Gigabit-class dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, and Asus also claims that its Wi-Fi Master technology can allows you to get a peak download speed of around 1.7Gbps.
OS Of Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F –
Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F comes with Windows 10 OS which has its bloatwares like Candy Crush Sag, Cooking Fever and some more.
It has 3D IR sensor which can recognizes your face in well-lit conditions, it also requires you to look straight into the screen, if your face isnt aligned to the screen, then it fails.
Keyboard and Trackpad Of Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F –
Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F comes with full sized keyboard with num pad on the board which supports three levels of backlit, and having full sized keyboard means you dont need illuminated on the trackpad which we have seen on Zenbook 13.
It has 1.4mm key travel which is nice for long and comfortable typing, keys fire back nicely which surely adds points to it and make your typing experience more comfortable. However there were some keys which wobbles like the space bar.
What I like most here is the simple layout, there is a big palm rest area and you can easily put palm on it while typing and can reach all corners of the keyboard without any issue.
There are some minor things which we faced like the Arrow keys are too small and sometime you might find problem while accessing them, the awkward position of Plus, Minus and second Enter keys.
Overall typing experience on this machine is nice and comfortable, those little issue will go when you become comfortable with this layout.
The trackpad is big and tracking is nice too, it uses Windows Precision drivers, which means multi-finger gestures work just fine here.
Display Of Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F –
Asus ZenBook 15 UX533F flaunts a 15.6-inch FHD display with very thin bezels on all around of it, as told earlier it has just 3mm thin on sides, 5mm on the top and at bottom you have just 4.5mm respectively, company is calling it NanoEdge design.
Company also claims due to this NanoEdge design they were able to put this 15-inch panel into a body the size of 14 inch laptop, and result is stunning and gorgeous.
The viewing angles are very nice on this display and outdoor visibility is also nice here and we never faced any issue while using it outdoor.
It has got a score of 80% sRGB gamut which means it is good for graphics design, but if you are into serious image or video editing then you have to attach a different monitor here.
But if you are not going to serious video or image editing, then this display is just fine for you and will work.
Noise, Heating, Speakers, and Battery On Asus ZenBook 15 UX533F –
Asus ZenBook 15 UX533F is a very silent laptop, even while playing games and doing heavy task, most of the time it remains silent and you will barely listen its fan sound.
But once you start to do some serious work, you can hear fans running and making some noise.
Asus ZenBook 15 UX533F comes with dual-fan cooling system, but despite of it, this machine gets hot, specially, the left side of its area get too hot, as vents are there too and if you are using it by keeping it on your lap then you wont be able to handle it.
Asus ZenBook 15 UX533F comes with harmon/kardon speakers which offers nice and balanced sound, but if you raise volume to full, it starts cranking. On most of the music videos or audio, this speaker works well, but if you play games and listen to game sound then you will be disappointed here.
Battery life of Asus ZenBook 15 UX533F is really impressive, it gave as around more than 10 hours of backup.
If your work requires just working of MS Work, some web surfing and making sheets, then it can last a day on single charge for you.
Performance Of Asus ZenBook 15 UX533F –
In terms of performance you will not be disappointed here unless you are hard core gamer, the machine comes with Intel 8th Gen i7 processor along with 16GB of RAM which makes sure your tasks are being handled with care. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 GPU is there to handle the graphics for you.
In our chrome test, we opened 60+ tabs and we were able to switch between them very easily and never found any issue or lag in it.
We were able to edit RAW images on lightroom, and also able to edit 4K footage on Adobe Premier Pro, and everything went smoothly, but yes little bit of heating can be seen when you do heavy task on it, and yes you need to be on power mode, as if you are working on battery mode then performance can dip.
Now comings to gaming, first thing first, this is not a gaming machine or meant for gaming, you can play AAA games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, GTA V, Need For Speed Payback and Far Cry.
These can be played on high setting and you wont find any major lag, but yes one thing which we noticed is frame rate never crossed 30-32 FPS mark, it was like constant.
And in just 15 minutes of game playback, it starts heating up, but if you switch to medium setting then this AAA games can be played very smoothly.
If you love numbers then here are some benchmark results –
- 3D Mark Ice Storm – 75135
- 3D Mark Firestrike – 5142
- Geekbench 4 – 5184 on single-core and 17382 on multi core
- Cinebench Open GL – 106.8
- CPU-Z – 463.9 On Single Thread and 1302.1 on Multi-Thread
Final Verdict On Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F –
Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F has many positive points in its favor, like beautiful design, gorgeous display, ultra portable, light weight, battery life and solid processor.
Yes there are couple of things which goes against it like sub-par audio, but its not a major thing which you can complaint for.
Asus Zenbook 15 UX533F is an impressive laptop which can surely catch the eyeball of anyone. The design is what we loved here most and it has the ability to attract anyone.
If you are looking for a sleek, light weight and good performing laptop, then you should check this machine.
