Asus ZenBook 13 UX333FA

amazon Asus ZenBook 13 UX333FA reviews

Dell XPS 13 has taken our top spot among laptops for the past few years, but a strong contender has always lingered in its shadow. Asus ZenBook 13 300-series. While not as perfect as the XPS 13, ZenBook 13 always delivers great performance and practical portability. Its work-like look is its only weakness.

The new Asus ZenBook 13 UX333 directly solves that problem. It’s slimmer, more compact, and sports that gorgeous blue and gold look that Asus debuted on previous more expensive laptops like the ZenBook 3.

Even the interior of the new machine is impressive. You’ll find a Core i5-8265U processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD, all for just $850. Is this the last laptop that can devalue Dell’s XPS 13?

Luxurious trick-down

As mentioned, the ZenBook 13 UX333 comes in a unique blue and gold color scheme that first appeared on the Asus ZenBook 3, a flagship laptop series that Asus launched in 2017. It stands out from the crowd, but it’s not too prominent. You would be shy to use it in a meeting. A darker Slate Gray model is available, but the more popular Royal Blue model is our favorite.

On the other hand, this ZenBook 13 is the picture of a modern laptop. It’s thin at 0.55 inches thick and about 2.7 pounds light. The display has thin bezels, some previous models are notable for, and the chassis is built from durable metal that feels luxurious in hand. We also like the “concentric” circle engraved on the lid. It’s subtle, but it adds texture to what would be a flat, matte sheet of metal.

The Asus ZenBook 13 stands out from the crowd, but it’s not flashy.

Does it beat the XPS 13? Not necessarily. Dell’s laptops look and feel better, mainly thanks to the interior’s soft carbon fiber textile details. However, the new Zenbook 13 comes much closer than the previous model and even beats affordable favorites like the Huawei MateBook X.

The connection isn’t bad either. You’ll get two USB-A ports, one 2.0 and one 3.1, along with one USB-C 3.1. HDMI provides video, and a combo headphone/microphone jack provides audio support. It doesn’t have many options, but it’s a perfect fit for a 13-inch laptop. Wireless support includes 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5.0.

Thunderbolt 3 is the only connectivity option that’s noticeably absent. That’s acceptable given the Zenbook 13’s modest price tag. Even expensive laptops sometimes neglect it, and budget models rarely include it.

A good keyboard makes weird choices.

Let’s start with the good news. Asus’ ZenBook 13 UX333FA doesn’t sacrifice keyboard travel to achieve a slim profile. The keyboard feels great, easily on par with the Dell XPS 13. Apple’s MacBook Air feels like a block of wood by comparison.

That’s a good first impression, but there’s a problem. Asus made the odd decision to cram (almost) full-sized arrow keys into the bottom-right corner. That means the right Shift and Control keys should be smaller. That wasn’t very pleasant.

It got weirder. The power button is on the keyboard, right next to the Delete key and above Backspace. We spent the first three hours putting the ZenBook 13 UX333FA to sleep and turning it back on. We eventually learned the layout and stopped making that mistake, but it’s still a weird decision that can cause trouble if you often use other computers with more conventional layouts.

The trackpad works well enough, but it’s cramped. The Dell XPS 13, Apple’s MacBook Air, Huawei’s MateBook X, the Razer Blade Stealth, and more offer room. The ZenBook, though, has a party trick. Tapping in the upper-right corner lights up the virtual keyboard, giving you a chance to catch up with your accountant. It works for flipping through the numbers, but we’ve activated it by accident several times, so we’re not sure it’s worth the trouble.

where can you get a Asus ZenBook 13 UX333FA online

ASUS ZenBook 13 Ultra-Slim Laptop 13.3” FHD WideView, 8th-Gen Intel Core i7-8565U Processor, 8GB LPDDR3, 512GB PCIe SSD, Backlit KB, NumberPad, Military-Grade, Windows 10 – UX333FA-AB77 Royal Blue: Buy it now

ASUS ZenBook UX333FA-DH51 Laptop (Windows 10, Intel Core i5-8265u 1.6GHz, 13.3″ LCD Screen, Storage: 256 GB, RAM: 8 GB) Dark Royal Blue: Buy it now

This screen is amazing.

Laptop screens have come a long way over the past few years, but we weren’t expecting the Asus ZenBook 13’s screen.

A contrast ratio is an important number. It comes in at 1350:1, which is great for a laptop and beats anything we’ve seen since the Asus ZenBook 13 UX331UA. That includes the new Apple MacBook Air, Lenovo Yoga C930, Surface Pro 6, and even the ThinkPad X1 Extreme with a 4K display.

That’s not all. The laptop also offers an average color error of just 1.68. A lower number is better here. The ZenBook 13 UX333FA isn’t the best; the MacBook Air has an average error of 0.98, for example – but it’s certainly pretty good. You also get 77 percent of the Adobe RGB color gamut, which, again, goes hand in hand with top performers like the MacBook Air and Dell XPS 13.

The screen looks great. It provides deep, inky shadows with vibrant colors.

All this means one thing; The screen looks great. It provides deep, inky shadows with vibrant colors. While 1080p isn’t what it was in 2018, it’s still the best choice for a 13-inch laptop. It’s sharp enough to look good and doesn’t suffer from the battery penalty associated with 4K.

There is a weak point. Brightness. The maximum luminance of 265 nits is lower than all competitors, but the screen is still glossy. Glare can be an issue, and you will have to change screens to combat it. We’ve seen a similar flaw in previous budget Zenbook models, but most have an anti-glare coating that makes their meager brightness less noticeable.

It’s fast

Asus has packed the latest Intel hardware in the ZenBook 13 UX333FA. Intel’s Core i5-8265U is the star of the show. A quad-core chip with a maximum clock speed of 3.9GHz, it’s impressive on paper and delivers predictably strong results in tests.

Let’s see. Geekbench 4’s single-core score reached 4,129, while the multi-core score was 13,903. Those numbers aren’t much different from the previous Core i5-8250U, but they’re as powerful as you’d find in a 13-inch laptop.

The handbrake is a bit more advantageous. This test, which uses Handbrake software to transcode a 4K trailer from h.264 to h.265, sees the ZenBook 13 UX333FA complete the task in four minutes and 20 seconds. That’s 10 seconds faster than the XPS 13 with the Core i5-8250U and 30 seconds faster than the Acer Aspire 5.

There’s a lot of good news from the hard drive. It’s a solid-state NVMe-based drive that delivers read speeds of 1,094 megabytes per second and writes speeds of 963 MB/s in a sequential test. It doesn’t have the record, but overall it’s good and close to the top of what we’d expect in an affordable price range. Most laptops in the $800 price range, including the previous Zenbook 13 UX331, have SATA-based drives. Equipped machines struggle to exceed read or write speeds above 500 MB/s.

However, the new Intel processors do nothing to change the graphics performance. It’s still Intel HUD 620 graphics, which means performance is only consistent with older 3D titles, even at lower settings.

If anything, the Asus ZenBook 13 is a bit slower than the regular system with UHD 620 graphics. Even the Razer Blade Stealth hasn’t been able to squeeze real gaming power into a 13-inch laptop.

This laptop is well configured to take advantage of it. You may be surprised by how long you can use the charger.

Even the Basemark benchmark, the most demanding battery loop we ran, lasted nearly five hours on the Asus ZenBook 13 UX333FA. Lighter loads, such as watching 1080p videos, will extend the life by just 13 hours. That’s a strong result, beating the Apple MacBook Air and even the Dell XPS 13, although the latter comes close.