Priced at Rs 74,990, the Asus ZenBook UX430 offers a brilliant screen accompanied by powerful specifications – all packed into an extremely portable package
ASUS introduced Zenbook series five years back in the Indian market, and since then the company has been creating beautiful and powerful Zenbooks with the latest technologies possible, so the new ZenBook UX 430 really shouldn’t surprise you.
Design
When you first look at ASUS Zenbook UX430 you will see a shimmery lid that resembles a glass coating, but is actually a specially treated metal surface lid created from “Nanoimprint Lithography” process. Sounds high-tech, right? For users who are wondering what it exactly is, here is a short brief. The term is the name of an ultra-high tech process used to create circular patterns to make the spacing between the lines finer than a human hair, and finished with a glass-like surface. The resulting effect is as pretty as the construction process is hard to pronounce.
The Zenbook has a large 14-inch full-HD display fitted nicely into a 13-inch ultrabook chassis. and weighs just 1.25 kgs. The display is wrapped around an ultra slim 7.18mm nano edge bezel, offering an 80 per cent screen to body ratio.
Display
The wide 178-degree viewing angle display retains colour accuracy when viewed from the sides making it easy for sharing content, even if more people are looking at screen at the same time. Similar to other ASUS laptops, the ZenBook UX430 comes with ASUS Splendid Technology – a proprietary display control software that regulates colour temperature and automatically adjusts images to produce true colours.
The display offers four modes – eye care, normal, manual and vivid. While the eye care lowers the blue light emissions thereby reducing eye fatigue and is useful if you are working for longer durations, the normal mode is suitable for routine editing and daily tasks. We recommend vivid mode when watching movies as it further enhances colour and sharpness in the images making scenes in movies pleasant to watch.
Another feature called ASUS Tru2Life Video Technology enhances clarity, colour, and contrast in videos. According to ASUS, it intercepts image and video signals and analyses every single pixel in every frame to optimise its brightness, contrast, colour and sharpness, before sending the frames for display.
Here is how it works
Performance and battery life
The ZenBook UX430 is ASUS’s thinnest laptops to equip NVidia GeForce 940MX graphics, so if you are editing high-end videos or playing games, the Zenbook offers enough power to run them.
The finger print scanner located on the top right corner of the UX430’s touchpad works with the Windows 10 “Hello” security login feature and unlocks the device instantly.
The Zenbook is Cortana enabled and by using the UX430’s built-in mic, you can command Cortana for information or execute tasks such as opening apps, searching for content on the web and checking calendar schedules.
The Harman Kardon experts tuned audio system (a pair of 1.5W speakers) delivered loud sound pushing clear vocals and decent bass. The company has also included a “Smart Amp” app that automatically determines and allows the maximum volume possible to prevent damage to sensitive voice coils of the speakers for a longer life. You can also custom tune the sound using “ASUS SonicMaster” platform and can optimise audio using ASUS AudioWizard software that offers five intuitive presets: music, movie, recording, gaming and speech mode.
The 50W Lithium-ion battery ran for almost eight hours 50 minutes on a full charge with casual usage including streaming content on YouTube, surfing web, drafting content – all at 50 per cent brightness levels.
Precision touchpad
The new generation of chiclet style keyboard in ZenBook UX430 is extremely comfortable and precise to type with. The keys are well laid with extra-wide spacing. Each key is separated by a long, 1.4mm travel distance making each press precise -- ideal for prolonged typing. The keyboard is also backlit, so users can conveniently type in low light conditions.
The trackpad is beautiful too, complementing the design of laptop and features a smooth glass-fibre coated surface that supports Windows 10’s multi-touch and multi-gesture input with up to four-finger gestures. The scrolling and zooming worked fluently.
Conclusion
A slim and gorgeous laptop with Window ‘Hello’ fingerprint reader makes it a top pick for anyone who desire power packed performance and wants to travel light.
