ASUS ZenBook 14 UX425EA review: a standard step ahead

ASUS has so many ZenBook 14 models. There is the UX433, a 2.6-pound slim-bezeled affair. There is the Flip 14, an elegant convertible. There is the UX431, a mid-tier $900 option. And there is the UX425, which ASUS quietly rolled out included a few tweaks to the traditional ZenBook design. Announced early September 2020 were the UX435, with a tiny secondary display in place of the touchpad, and the UX425EA.

You can not buy the ZenBook 14 UX425EA yet, ASUS is eyeing a mid-October 20020 release. There is not much that differentiates the UX425EA from the horde of ZenBooks, it has got the same lustrous metal lid, the fold-under hinge, and the compact build. But eyes are on this particular ZenBook for one reason: the processor. The UX425EA is one of the first production machines to contain Intel’s quad-core Core i7-1165G7 of the 11th Gen Tiger Lake line.

The 1165G7 beats its Intel predecessor, the 1065G7, which powers the most recent Dell XPS 13, and it beats AMD’s Ryzen 7 4800U. The appeal of this ZenBook 14 line, the UX425 in particular, is in portability over performance. The UX425 is light for a 14-inch laptop at 2.49 pounds and thin at 0.54 inches. ASUS has managed to work the display into a chassis that does not feel too much larger than that of most 13-inch rigs.

There is a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio, thanks to the thin 2.5mm bezels on the sides of the display.

The top and bottom bezels are more visible than those of the Dell XPS 13, but they are not terrible, 6.2mm and 10.9mm respectively. Two other features help differentiate the UX425 from the field. The first is a 1W screen option, which should theoretically help to extend battery life. ASUS says 1W screen option consumes 63.6 percent less power than most laptop displays do.

The second is NumberPad 2.0. If you tap a small icon in the top right corner of the touchpad, an LED numpad appears. This is a clever idea and it worked as advertised. You can still use the touchpad to navigate and click on things while the numpad is up. You can also swipe down from the top left corner of the touchpad to bring up the Calculator app regardless of whether the numpad is on or off.

There are a few other tidbits to note. Design-wise, the UX425 is as ZenBook as they come, with ASUS’ signature concentric swirl design on the lid and a familiar aesthetic that can best described as industrial chic. ASUS says the UX425 meets the MIL-STD-810G testing standard, which means it has passed a barrage of drop, temperature, vibration, and altitude tests.

There is a fair bit of flex in the lid and a smidge in the keyboard, but the chassis does feel durable enough.

The port selection is decent, with one weird omission. You get two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, one HDMI 2.0, and one microSD card reader. There is no audio jack, ASUS nixed that for the UX425. If you are fully transitioned to wireless headphones and microphones, pay this no heed, but that could reasonably be a deal-breaker for folks who still want to use wired gear.

The ZenBook does ship with a dongle. For authentication, there is a webcam that supports Windows Hello but no fingerprint reader. The webcam is not great for video calls. Finally, the keyboard has an extra column of keys on the far right containing Home, PgUp, PgDn, and End. There are various hotkeys, including one that turns off the webcam, one that locks the whole system, one that disables the touchpad, one that lets you take a snip screenshot, and one that brings up ASUS’ command center.

In addition to the 1165G7 with Intel’s Xe integrated graphics, this $1,099 ZenBook has 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, a 67Wh battery, and a 1920 x 1080 panel screen with the 1W power draw. There is also an $899 model, which has 512GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. The extra storage may be worth the premium for folks who want to play games, 512GB can fill up quickly.

The ZenBook performed solidly, and pages loaded a bit faster than they have on Ice Lake systems.

The bottom of the laptop got hot at times, but the keyboard, touchpad, and wrist rests remained cool throughout. During gaming, the CPU did not pass 95 degrees Celsius. UX425 completed an export of a five-minute, 33-second 4K video in 11 minutes and 28 seconds, which is much faster than Iris Plus systems like the Surface Laptop 3, the XPS 13 2-in-1, and the LG Gram 17.

There was a significant performance difference between this system and the Core i7-1185G7 reference design, that device finished the same task in eight minutes. Speaking of gaming, Intel’s biggest bet with Tiger Lake is on its Xe integrated graphics, which it claims offer up to twice the graphics performance of previous generations. UX425 did fine on easy titles, averaging 200fps on League of Legends and 92fps on Rocket League’s maximum settings.

The XPS 13 averaged low 160s on League of Legends and 70fps on Rocket League. Overwatch was stuttery at maxed settings, averaging 43fps on Epic and 62fps on Ultra. That is better than the XPS and the Slim 7 but still closer to those than to the 1185G7 reference design which averaged 59fps on Epic and 89fps on Ultra. And, of course, this is not a laptop you would buy for serious gaming.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider was not playable in 1080p, averaging 29fps on the lowest settings.

This is, again, better than the Ice Lake XPS 13, which averaged 17fps, and worse than the 1185G7 reference platform. In short, these results are an improvement over Ice Lake and Ryzen 4000. They are a respectable step forward. But they are also a reminder that not all Tiger Lake systems, and not all chips, are created equal. At $800, this ZenBook an absolute steal.

At $1,100, it is a fine purchase. It is portable and functional, as ZenBooks tend to be. On the outside, there is no category where it is terrible and no category where it is the best in its class. And then there is the processor, Tiger Lake is certainly a more formidable competitor than Ice Lake was, but the battle is not over. On September 1st 2020, ASUS released the brand new ZenFone 7 and ZenFone 7 Pro series.

2020’s ZenFone 7 series were sticking to the well received innovative flip-camera design and improving upon its specification by adding in an extra camera module. There were also key specification improvements on the part of the phone itself, with an important shift from an LCD screen to a new 90Hz AMOLED display, as well as adoption of Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon 865 and 865+ chipsets. In 2020, ASUS also released two variants of the phone beyond higher DRAM and storage configurations.

The higher-end model featured a higher-binned SoC as well as differentiated the camera systems by exclusively employing OIS.

The ZenFones 7 and 7 Pro employed Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 SoCs and were thus 5G-capable. ASUS employed the newer higher-performance Snapdragon 865+ on the 7 Pro model which brought with it 10% higher CPU and GPU performance. Further variations between the regular ZenFones 7 and 7 Pro were in the DRAM and NAND storage department. The regular variant came with 6GB of LPPDR5 and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, whilst the Pro came with 8GB of LPPDR5 and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.

The key selling point and differentiating factor of the ZenFone 7 as opposed to other phones in the market was the fact that it employed a full-screen display without any notch or camera cut-out, enabling a seamless screen experience without distractions. A big upgrade in 2020 compared to 2019’s model was the shift from an LCD to an OLED screen, which made 2020’s model significantly more attractive to users. The 6.67” screen featured a 2400 x 1080 resolution in a 20:9 aspect ratio and a 90Hz refresh rate capability.

Although 90Hz was not the very top of the line for 2020, it was still a huge improvement over other 60Hz phones and ASUS did manage to employ a 200Hz sampling touch controller which had a large impact on fluidity and responsiveness when interacting with the phone. The back of the phone saw a glass back-panel which came either in a Pastel White or an Aurora Black color variant. The phone lacked wireless charging.

It was to be noted that this was a very large phone that was in line with the Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra in terms of footprint, quite a bit larger and chunkier than the ASUS ZenFone 6.

This was something that ASUS actively acknowledged as being a deliberate design choice so that that they could fit in more components and a larger battery, as well as enabling the various antennas required by 5G connectivity. The camera setup featured triple modules. As the primary main camera, there was a 64MP IMX686 sensor with 0.8µm pixels that by default binned down to 16MP.

The optics featured a large f/1.7 aperture. The ultra-wide-angle also adopted the same setup as on the ROG Phone III with a 12MP IMX363, 1.4µm pixels, and dual-pixel phase detect focus ability. The optics had an f/2.2 aperture with a 113° wide viewing angle. It featured auto-focus ability which meant that this module could do dual-duty as a macro module since it enabled super close focusing abilities.

New to the setup was an 8MP telephoto module which offered 3x optical magnification which can be digitally cropped and magnified to up to a useable 12x zoom in the camera app. The optics featured an f/2.4 aperture. On the ZenFone 7 Pro the main camera as well as the telephoto module featured OIS in their modules, whilst the regular ZenFone 7 did not feature this.

It was one of the cost-cutting measures that ASUS had decided to make for the cheaper model.

The flip-camera externally looked familiar seen on the ZenFone 6, however ASUS had greatly improved the internal mechanism of the newer generation module. The new module employed a new motor that was capable of 2.2x the torque of its predecessor even though it was 40% smaller. ASUS had also replaced the complex 49 signal and power cables that connected the various camera modules to the mainboard of the phone with a new 18-layer flexible printed circuit cable that promised to be twice as durable even though the total signal traces had increased to 110 outputs.

It was good enough for up to 200,000 flips, which was equivalent to 100 flips a day for over 5 years. The camera mechanism on the 7 series felt very solid and robust. A new feature to the flip-screen was its ability to position itself at intermediary angles from within the camera app, giving different capturing angles, which were essentially impossible for any other phone on the market.

Beyond the typical fully-flipped 180° setup in which the cameras could serve as high-quality frontal selfie cams, the module also could sit at a 90° or 135° angle. The phone’s panorama capture feature took advantage of the flipping module to sweep the landscape whilst holding the phone steady. The phone was quite thick at 9.6mm, but that was mostly due to the 5000mAh battery that was included, which also bloated up the device to a weight of 230g.

ASUS had dropped the 3.5mm headphone jack for this generation.

The rationale about the change was that due to the increased internal footprint required by the 5G antennas ASUS had decided to do away with the jack to be able to save on space. One thing that was unique on the bottom of the phone was that it featured an LED notification light on the left of the USB-C port. ASUS had to remove it from the front top of the screen due to the reduced bezel size, but did not want to abandon the light completely, so the company just repositioned it to the bottom of the phone.

This was actually quite useful and a more power-efficient way to handle things than an always-on-display. The left side of the phone featured a long SIM tray that was able to house two nano-SIMs as well as a micro-SD card simultaneously. The right side saw a traditional volume rocker, as well as a triple-function power button. ASUS opted for a capacitive fingerprint scanner from Goodix integrated into the power button.

The fingerprint scanner was one of the cost-cutting measures allowing the ZenFone to hit a lower price-point. Beyond the traditional single-press power button function, dual-pressing the button called up the Google assistant, and this functionality could be customized or disabled.