ASUS - Zenbook 14" Laptop - AMD Ryzen 5 - 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce MX350 - 256GB SSD - Light Gray

I love this laptop but I hesitate to give it 5 stars for the reason below: Pro: - Very light, at 2.65- it can easily be carried around everywhere. Solid built. - Backlight keyboard lighting - beware, when there is enough light, the light needs to be dimmed out or completely turn off, otherwise it’s hard to see the marking on the keyboard keys. And when it’s really dark, the light needs to be put in max – which probably will eat up the battery. - A big trackpad that makes it easy to navigate around. BUT depending on where you place your wrist when typing, this could be a nuisance because you might accidentally press the trackpad which happens to me all the time. - A very quick load up – as soon as you turn the computer on, the screen quickly opens up. Having a 256 SSD is probably the reason why. And based on the information from Asus, the SSD hard drive is expendable. However, with cloud storage and portable hard drive, most people are probably quite satisfied with the 256 GB storage. - Stunning 4K video I found on youtube. - 3D IR Camera that can be set up to recognize your face and log you on to the computer automatically just by scanning your face Con: - Keyboard stops working – have to restart before it finally works. Not sure what was the reason. This happens quite often after putting the computer to sleep. I recovered the computer to the previous version and re-install the update again and have not experienced the keyboard issue. So this might be a software issue, but this is one of the reasons for the 4 stars. - At price point around $700, this is not exactly the cheapest laptop. You can definitely get a lower priced laptop but might have to compromise on speed and performance. - Speaker Bluetooth connection could be a challenge. I was able to connect my Beat Solo Pro easily but not the Adidas, even though it said the paired was made. But this could be an issue with the Adidas headphone. - With 8 GB RAM that is not expandable, you are stuck BUT so far, this thing is lightning fast. For what I used it so far: browsing internet, watching videos on youtube and Netflix or typing, I am pretty happy with the speed - The sound coming out of the computer speaker is not exactly the loudest, but listening it using my Beat Solo Pro is a different story: it’s loud and full of bass. IF you are looking for a “budget” computer and not ready to pay $1000 for MacBook, this laptop is a very compatible substitute.

Overall I'm very happy with this laptop purchase. In my current situation, I would probably buy it again, but there are a few caveats that I'll mention in a moment, but first the pros. PROS - Speed - Price - Size I'm totally impressed with the speed of this laptop, especially at this price-point. I'd researched the processor before buying it and made my purchase largely based on this factor, and I haven't been disappointed. It easily out-performs more expensive laptops. I routinely have several spreadsheets, several documents, as many as several dozen tabs on the internet, and a raster or vector graphics editor all open at the same time and it handles the load just fine. And it's small and lightweight. CONS - Keyboard My only complaint is that the keyboard is unreadable in many lighting situations. Gray text on gray keys with soft gray-blue back-lighting just doesn't work in many of the lighting situations I've found myself in. It looked great in the store, and even now as I'm looking down at the keys it's hard to believe that the distinctly dark gray writing on the keys could blend in with the light gray backgrounds -- then I shift the keyboard to a 45' angel and suddenly the keys are almost entirely blank. Turning the backlighting off in brighter environments helps a bit by increasing the contrast between the dark and light grays. The only other caveats would be that the 14" screen is harder to read than the 15.6" I'm used to, and there's no 10-key pad, which I knew when I bought it. On the other hand, whenever possible I use it with an external keyboard, mouse and monitor. When that's not practical though, I just wear my reading glasses and then twist the keyboard around a lot to see where the keys are.

The Zenbook 14 is thin and light with an overall attractive design. The metal chassis gives it a premium feel and the keys are pleasant to type on. The backlighting on the keys are very dim and only useable in a completely dark room. That said, the key cap labels can be difficult to read in certain lighting conditions because of the glare that reflects off the keys. The camera and microphone are average and does the job for video conferencing. I was surprised to see that there was virtually no bloatware to remove and the set-up was minimal. It's very fast at this price point and you can also do some moderate gaming thanks to the discrete NVIDIA graphics. One downside is the small SSD at only 256 GB. I am happy with this purchase, especially with a nice discount. In fact, I bought two of them.

This is a nice little laptop at a good price point. It is perfect for a home use laptop for browsing internet, watching shows, checking emails, etc. Construction: This is a very solidly build laptop. There is no flexing, bending or creaking with this. The full HD matte finish screen sits inside extremely thin bezels which give it a great look. The backlit keyboard feels very good to type on. It is a very short keystroke, but feels solid when typing. The mouse pad is very responsive and has a nice feel to it. I used this for several hours at a time and it never got too hot to have on my lap. Features: I really like the facial recognition camera on this. Combined with the AMD Ryzen 5 4500 Processor and SSD this thing boots up extremely fast. Wifi connection is solid, but bluetooth gave me some glitches. If you are looking to pair bluetooth headphones to this, you need to make sure that they are running the same version of bluetooth as the Zenbook, or they won't work properly. Graphics are good for media streaming, but this will not pull off any hardcore gaming at all. There is one USB 2.0, one USB 3.0, one HDMI, one USCB C, one micro SD card slot, and one headphone jack. One thing that knocks this down to a 4 star for me is that it utilizes a dedicated charging plug. I would really like to see this utilize USB C charging, but it's not a deal breaker. Since the screen size is not the largest, I can easily connect to a larger monitor with and HDMI. I do also have to say that the battery life on this is great. I can get about 8-9 hours on this before needing to plug it in. Overall Value: I think at the price point of this Zenbook, it is an incredible value that has it's place as an everyday home use laptop.

I got this laptop for college about a month ago. I didn’t want anything heavy or big to carry in my bag, and even though I knew this would be small I was so surprised at how small it is! I mean, this thing is tiny and slim!! The battery life thus far (although it IS still so new) is so amazingly good. For a full battery it lasts 8-9ish hours for just browsing, doing word documents, homework, video calls, etc. (which is what I do mostly as of right now anyways). And far as the little things and the real deep factors of this laptop, I haven’t explored it much yet. I am a major in computer science, and though I am still a freshman, I suspect I’ll need a laptop with more juice (maybe!) but as far as this guy goes, it’s amazing. We imminently turned around and got another one for my mom because of how much she loved the feel and look of this one.

I like to play DOTA 2 and have had no problems playing it on this computer. I have also played GTA V to good graphics. It was certainly a great deal, it is very light as a 200 sheet notebook. Great job from ASUS. I just want to add more ram.

I purchased this laptop in early December 2020 for online learning. The computer provided to me couldn't handle zoom and chrome running at the same time. I was looking for an affordable machine that could handle school with ease and could do some light gaming. This laptop is just that, even though it has some issues. Pros: It has the best CPU and GPU combination below $1000. The AMD Ryzen 4500U delivers exceptional performance. It never stutters even when I have multiple apps open. The MX350 offers an entry level gaming experience. It's stronger than the integrated gpu and handles light games flawlessly. Fortnite easily runs at a stable 60 fps and if you leave it on unlimited fps it fluctuates between 90 and 55 FPS. Minecraft runs smoothly at 60 fps when the render distance is set to 20. The school experience is good as well. The mic quality is clear but a little bit on the quieter side. The camera is definitely not winning any awards but it's usable. Zoom runs smoothly thanks to the CPU. Speakers are loud but tend to get a little tinny at max volume. The touchpad is buttery smooth. The 14” 1080p screen is matte so you won't have to worry about reflections, offers 104% srgb rating, and gets decently bright. The fan is quiet and only turns on when i'm pushing the cpu (such as zoom with 8+ chrome tabs open). The only time it gets to full blast is during gaming. The laptop does get toasty during gaming so I don't recommend gaming on your lap. Battery life has been good. I usually finish 5 hours of school with 20-30% of battery left. The laptop is light and feels solidly constructed. I haven't had any wifi or bluetooth issues so it seems good in that department as well. This laptop also has a great port selection. Cons: 2 things I wished that were different were the ram and ssd. The ssd can be upgraded so that's not really an issue more like a hassle. The ram on the other hand is soldered onto the motherboard so it cannot be upgraded or replaced. The first major issue is the keyboard. The keyboard itself is satisfying to type on and has backlighting. The issue is that the keyboard's color combo is grey on white when the backlighting is on and grey on clear when it's off. This combo makes it impossible to see during certain lighting conditions. The backlight is also very weak. The highest level for this backlight is the weakest on almost every laptop on the market. The next issues are ones that I think shouldn't be overlooked and that is the auto sleep/wake function and the max fan issue. When i first got this laptop it would randomly not go to sleep when I closed the lid and would also turn on even when the lid was closed. Sometimes when i would open the laptop the fan would go to max speed and wouldn't stop until i powered off the laptop completely. I don't know why it does this but I found a fix only to the fan issue. Solutions: For the fan issue you have to change what the power button does. To change what the power button does go to settings, click on system, click on power & sleep, to the right or the bottom it will say additional power settings click on that - on the top left it will say change what the power buttons do- then change sleep to hibernate on both the battery and plugged in columns, try it out, then change it back to sleep and it should fix the issue. The sleep/hibernate issue went away by itself but if i find anything i'll post it here. Conclusion: This laptop is a really good buy if you can get past the issues. Although having the MX350 card is nice, people who won't be gaming or video editing won't take full advantage of it. For those people I recommended the Lenovo Yoga 6 2 in 1. Although it does have a smaller screen and a bad touchpad, it's better in almost every other department. It has no real issues, has a stronger cpu, better speakers, its a 2 in 1, and gets exceptional battery life. Due to how odd the issues are I can't recommended this laptop to people who are not that familiar with computers. But for those of y'all that like to have some extra power in a light thin body, this laptop is for you.

The main problems I have been seeing from other reviews are the max fan problem and the "invisible keys". Well, I have only experience the max fan issue once and it never came back. But for those who keep experiencing this issue here is a fix: (1.go to device manager 2.choose universal serial bus controllers 3. Right-click on the AMD USB 3.10 eXtensible Host controller and choose properties 4. Choose power management 5. Uncheck “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”.) And the solution for the "invisible keys" is just to get a keyboard cover. Here is the link: https://amzn.to/35fHTyJ I really like this laptop and didn't want to return it because it has potential. Even though you can't upgrade the ram, you can still upgrade the SSD. Not upgrading ram shouldn't be a compromise unless you're going to do heavy multitasking and video editing. Other than that it already has a fast processor and the ram usage within apps is fine. (ITS ENOUGH RAM) Please remember to keep updating your GPU for the latest drivers and best gameplay. It runs Fortnite, GTA v, 2k20, and other games pretty well. It has one of the best color accuracy's in laptops, especially for its price, (it's 100% srgb)