Asus ZenBook 15 UX534 review (UX534FTC – Core i7, GTX 1650, 4K or FHD screen)

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Specs Sheet
Design and exterior
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware and performance
Noise, heat and speakers
Battery life
Price and availability
Final thoughts
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By Andrei GirbeaAsus ZenBook 15 UX534FTC, last updated on May 27, 2020

Asus ZenBook 15 UX534FTC

Summary: The ZenBook 15 UX534 remains a competitive product in its class and something I'd consider if on the market for a beautiful, compact and light notebook with a full-size 15-inch display, excellent everyday performance, some gaming abilities for the spare time, and good battery life, all in a package that won't break the bank for you. It's not without flaws, though, and perhaps tries too much to be a jack-of-all-trades, that's why some of you might actually find better value in the more specialized 15-inch options, either the performance-models or the true ultraportables.

Our score: 4 / 5
Price when reviewed: $1399

THE GOOD

ultracompact form-factor, with small bezels and chin
clean looks and nice craftsmanship
FHD or UHD wide-gamut screen options
fast keyboard, excellent clickpad with integrated secondary screen
solid performance with daily use and demanding loads
runs quieter than the previous generations, and doesn't get very hot either
long battery life
competitive pricing

THE BAD

no Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C charging
the FHD screen-option in need of an upgrade
soldered RAM and single PCIe storage
CPU and GPU run hot with demanding loads and games
poor exhaust design > hot air is pushed into the screen

Table of Contents

Specs as reviewed – ZenBook 15 UX534FTC
Design and construction
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware, performance and upgrade options
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others
Battery life
Price and availability
Final thoughts

Much like its predecessor, the ZenBook 15 UX534 slots in a niche without much competition, as a nicely crafted, compact and light 15-inch laptop with solid everyday performance, some gaming abilities, decent battery life, and competitive pricing.

It’s not as capable in demanding loads as most of the 15-inch performance-ultraportables (like the Dell XPS 15, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme or even the MacBook Pro), but then again it’s a more affordable computer and handles most other daily tasks just as well.

With that in mind, we’ve spent time with the ZenBook 15 UX534FTC (10th gen Comet Lake Core i7, GTX 1650, UHD screen) and the older ZenBook 15 UX534FT (9th gen Whiskey Lake Core i7, GTX 1650, FHD screen) notebooks in the last few weeks, and gathered our impressions of the two down below, with the goods and the quirks.

The review mainly focuses on the late-2019 ZenBook 15 UX534FTC configuration, as that’s the one that you’ll mostly find in stores in the months to come, but we’ll also compare it to the Whiskey Lake the gen variant. For what it’s worth, the hardware platform is what primarily sets the two apart, and that’s a minor difference considering the quad-core Whiskey and Comet Lake i7s are nearly identical. The UX534FTC does get a few other extra features though, like improved wireless and an optional wide-gamut UHD screen option.

Specs as reviewed – ZenBook 15 UX534FTC

	Asus ZenBook 15 UX534FTC
Screen	15.6 inch, FHD or UHD/4K, IPS, non-touch, glossy
Processor	Intel Comet Lake Core i7-10510U CPU
Video	Intel UHD 620 + Nvidia GTX 1650 4GB DDR5 (Max-Q design – 35 W)
Memory	16 GB DDR4 2666 MHz (soldered)
Storage	1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD (80 mm – Samsung PM981 MZVLB1T0HALR)
Connectivity	Wireless 6 (Intel AX201), Bluetooth 5.0, Fast LAN (via USB dongle)
Ports	2x USB-A 3.1, 1x USB-C 3.1 gen2 with data, HDMI, SD card reader, mic/headphone
Battery	71 Wh, 120W charger
Size	354 mm or 13.94” (w) x 220 mm or 8.66” (d) x 17.9 mm or 0.70” (h)
Weight	3.72 lbs (1.69 kg)+ .77 lbs (.41 kg) charger and cables, US version
Extras	backlit keyboard, HD webcam, available in Royal Blue or Icicle Silver, protective sleeve

Our review unit is a high-tier version of the ZenBook 15, with the UHD screen and the 1 TB SSD, but the other aspects are identical across all the existing configurations. That aside, since we got two different versions to review, we’ll touch on both the FHD and UHD screen options, so you’ll know how they compare in terms of quality and their overall impact on daily use and battery life.

Design and construction

The design hasn’t changed from the ZenBook 15 UX533, that’s why I’ll refer you to our previous article for our in-depth impressions on the build quality, choice in materials and overall ergonomics.

In a few words, though, this ZenBook looks great and it’s built fairly well. Metal is used for the outer casing, including the main chassis and the underside, and the entire thing is built strongly, with very little flex in the lid cover or in the keyboard deck.

As far as I can tell, Asus only offers the UX534FT and UX534FTC variants in a dark blue color, which looks nice, but also shows smudges rather easily, so you need to be aware that you’ll constantly have to rub this clean (I purposedly haven’t cleaned our sample before taking the pictures).

That aside, the very compact footprint is a characteristic of the ZenBook 15 lineup. The laptop gets small bezels around the screen and a very small visible chin, mostly because most of it is tucked away behind the main chassis thanks to the Ergolift hinge design. This pretty much lifts-up the laptop on the bottom of the display, creating a slightly forward inclined typing position and allowing for better airflow underneath.

My only nit with this design regards the fact that the cooling exhaust is placed very close to the actual panel. Hot air is pushed out through vents between the hinges, and with most laptops, there’s a chin beneath the display to take the brunt of the heat. The chin is much smaller on this ZenBook 15, and as a result, the actual panel reaches temperatures of around 50 degrees Celsius in that area right near the exhaust, while the computer runs games and other demanding loads.

Asus are most likely aware of this aspect, as the UX534 models ship with a layer of glass on top of the panel, which helps with both the heat and strengthening the display. There’s no touch included though, which would have been a welcomed addition.

The glass-cover does push the weight up to 3.7 lbs (1.7 kilos), while the non-glare variant weighed just 3.4 lbs (1.55 kilos).

This aside, the ZenBook 15 UX534 is fairly practical and ergonomic, but I still wish Asus would blunt the inner edges, they’re a bit sharp for my liking and dig into my wrists when using the computer in cramped spaces. On top of that, they could do something about allowing the screen to lean back past 145 degrees, that’s a small detail that I look for in an ultraportable, as I often use the laptop on the knees, while lying in bed or on the sofa.

As far as the IO goes, nothing has changed. The laptop still gets 2x USB-A slots, one USB-C gen2 (with just data, no video or charging support), a full-size HDMI connector and a full-size card-reader. Asus even includes a USB to LAN adapter in the pack, just in case you need access to wired Internet. The only thing missing is still Thunderbolt 3 support, which prevents this from being hooked to a TB3 dock and especially to an external GPU.

Keyboard and trackpad

I remember I liked this keyboard on the Zenbook UX533, but I’m not that fond of it anymore on the UX534. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good typer, it’s very fast and quiet and responsive. However, there’s something I just can’t get used to with the way the keys click.

The strokes are fairly shallow and don’t require a lot of force to actuate, but at the same time you have to hit the keys all the way through, or else they won’t always actuate. That means you’ll sometimes hit the key, but don’t get the result, and that happened fairly often with the left Shift and the Space keys. That aside, due to the soft strokes, this keyboard is also unforgiving to straying fingers. Confident typers will probably get away with it fine once they adjust to this weird feedback, but it’s going to take some time.

That aside, the keyboard is also backlit, with white LEDs and three brightness levels to choose from. The illumination can be summoned with a swipe across the clickpad and takes around a minute to switch off.

The layout is also standard for a 15-inch ZenBook, with properly sized and spaced main-keys, shorter arrows and a cramped NumPad section that also integrates the Power button at the very top-right.

The novelty here is the addition of the ScreePad we’ve also seen on the other 2019 ZenBooks and VivoBooks, which consists of a large clickpad with an actual screen (5.65″, 2160 x 1440 px resolution, IPS panel) hidden underneath. Users can choose to have this active or switch it off with a press of the F6 key. When off, the surface looks and feels just like a glass-covered clickpad, which works great with daily swipes, taps, and gestures. The implementation is sturdy and doesn’t rattle with taps, and the lower part clicks smoothly and quietly.

Activating the ScreenPad ads in extra functionality, but takes a toll on battery life, so I would only keep it active while the laptop is plugged in.

When active, the Screenpad works as either a secondary screen visible in Windows, and in this way can display everything you could put on a secondary screen (but miniaturized, of course), or as a companion screen running apps tied to certain software that you’re running on the main display. These apps need to be developed, though, and right now there aren’t many available. Our sample came with companion screens for the Microsoft Calendar, Music, Spotify, Evernote, Word, Excell, and Powerpoint, as well as a Numpad feature.

There’s no finger-sensor on the Zenbook UX534, but most versions get a set of IR Hello cameras at the top of the screen. Our test units didn’t include the IR Cameras, which means Asus might choose to cut them off in certain markets.

Screen

The ZenBook UX534 gets a 15.6-inch display available in a few different variants. We got to test the FHD and the UHD Glare panels, both with a layer of protective glass, but without support for touch.

As explained earlier, the glass does reinforce the display and helps fend off some of the heat that blows into the display from the exhausts, but it also adds glare and reflections into the mix, making the laptops more difficult to use outdoors or in bright environments.

And that’s especially problematic in the FHD panel-option, which gets a rather average panel made by BOE, identical to the one of the ZenBook UX533. The glass takes a small toll on the perceived brightness, though, that’s why our sensor only measured max brightness-levels of around 260-nits on this test model.

Details down below, taken with a Spyder 4 sensor.

Panel HardwareID: BOE BOE07D8 (NV156FHM-N63);
Coverage: 96% sRGB, 72% NTSC, 74% AdobeRGB;
Measured gamma: 2.2;
Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 256 cd/m2 on power;
Contrast at max brightness: 640:1;
White point: 8400 K;
Black on max brightness: 0.40 cd/m2;
PWM: No;
Response time: ~42 ms GtG.

The panel came poorly calibrated out of the box, with a severely skewed white-point and blueish tint, so you’ll want to address that. We also noticed color and luminance uniformity deviations in the lower corners, so overall I’d say this is an OK screen option, but not really what I’d expect in this class in 2019. And that’s because the competition has raised the bar lately, including brighter and better-quality FHD displays on their units.

Asus also offers a UHD screen option for the ZenBook UX534FTC variant, which gets a much nicer panel. It’s still made by BOE, but it’s brighter, richer (with 100% Adobe RGB coverage) and more uniform, as you can see below. Details down below, taken with a Spyder 4 sensor.

Panel HardwareID: BOE BOE07D( (NE156QUM-N64);
Coverage: 100% sRGB, 100% NTSC, 100% AdobeRGB;
Measured gamma: 2.2;
Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 431 cd/m2 on power;
Contrast at max brightness: 750:1;
White point: 7300 K;
Black on max brightness: 0.58 cd/m2;
PWM: No.
Response time: ~48 ms GtG.

Of course, the UHD panel does cost more and takes a slight toll on the battery life, but as you’ll see in a further section down below, it’s smaller than I expected.

Bottom point, Asus needs to improve future ZenBooks 15 in this department. For this generation, the FHD panel is barely OK by today’s standards as long as you’re mostly keeping the laptop indoors, while the UHD panel is a solid option, but more expensive and most likely not available in most regions. On top of that, both these options are glossy and yet don’t support touch, which is something customers might want and something Asus offers on the 14-inch ZenBook UX434.

Oh, and one more thing: both these panels are 60 Hz and fairly slow, thus not great for gaming.

Hardware, performance and upgrade options

Our test models are both top-tier configurations of the Zenbook UX534FT and UX534FTC, with the high-end Core i7 U processor, 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, a 1 TB Samsung PM981 NVMe SSD and the Max-Q variant of the Nvidia GeForce 1650 graphics chip.

The UX534FTC comes with the Comet Lake Core i7-10510U, while the UX534FT gets the Whiskey Lake Core i7-8565U. The former is the newer launch for late-2019, but it’s almost the same in terms of specs and performance in this kind of thin implementations, that’s why we’ll mostly focus on the i7-10510U in this review. I will, however, put up a different article comparing the two in the next few days.

Anyway, the 1 TB configurations come with a fast Samsung PM981 SSD out-of-the-box, but 256 and 512 GB configurations might only ship with PCIe x2 drives that you might want to upgrade. The storage is, in fact, the only upgradeable component on this laptop, as the CPU, RAM and Wi-Fi are soldered on the motherboard, so you should make sure to get the configuration you want from the beginning. Luckily, most configurations include 16 GB of RAM from what I’m seeing.

You have to remove the entire back panel to get inside, which is a fairly simple task: you’ll need a Torx screwdriver for the screws visible around the sides, and there no other screws hidden beneath the rear rubber feet, like on the ZenBook 14.

As far as the GPU goes, that’s, in fact, the major update of these 2019 generations. Last year’s model came with a Pascal GTX 1050 Max-Q chip and these 2019 versions get a Turing GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU. It’s still an entry-level chip optimized for mobile, thus with just a 35W TDP and not the 50W you’ll get with full-size laptops, but it’s fairly capable as long as you don’t plan to run the latest titles at high graphics settings.

We’ll get to the graphics performance in a second, but first, let’s touch on the CPU. Of course, the laptop handles everyday use (browsing, video, text-editing) smoothly, but if you’re getting the i7 you’ll most likely want to put it to some serious work as well.

That’s why we test the CPU’s performance in demanding loads by running Cinebench R15 for 10+ times in a loop, with 2-3 sec delay between each run, which simulates a 100% load on all the cores. For our tests, we used the High-Performance mode in Windows.

Out of the box, the CPU settles for around 3.1 GHz after several Cinebench runs, scores of around 650 points, a TDP of 24+ W and temperatures of around 89 degrees Celsius.

The results are very good for a Core U laptop, as Asus sets a high TDP value that favors performance, but the temperatures are higher than I was expecting. In comparison, the i7-8565U powered UX534FT runs 4-5 degrees cooler and delivers the same kind of performance, while the UX533 reviewed last year was capable of similar results while keeping the CPU at around 75 degrees Celsius. It did run noisier, though, which suggests that Asus tweaked the fan profile towards a more quiet one on the 2019 models. We’ll talk more about this below.

For now, we proceeded to improve this behavior by undervolting the CPU with Throttlestop, as explained in this detailed guide. Our i7-10510U ran stably at -60 mV, while the Whiskey Lake i7-8565U went lower to -80 mV, but it’s important to know that the i7-10510U variant is an early pre-production version, while the i7-8565U is a final retail unit, so there’s room for further improvement on the Comet Lake configuration with later drivers and software updates.

At -60 mV, the CPU settles for around 3.2 GHz after several Cinebench runs, scores of around 690-700 points, a TDP of 24+ W and temperatures of around 89-90 degrees Celsius, which is a mere 5% improvement over the stock settings. In comparison, the i7-8565U undervolted at -80 mV settled for 3.2 – 3.3 GHz, scores of around 700-710 points and temperatures of around 85 degrees Celsius.

Our sample performed quite well on battery too (details above), returning scores of around 580 points in Cinebench, with the CPU being limited to 15 W and frequencies of 2.5-2.6 GHz.

Next, we’ve included a set of benchmarks, for those of you interested in numbers. We ran them on the High-Performance profile and default settings:

3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 6519 (Graphics – 7435, Physics – 9314);
3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 2888 (Graphics – 2807, CPU – 3458);
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 5597;
GeekBench 4.4.2 64-bit: Single-Core: 5003, Multi-core: 14883;
GeekBench 5.0.1 64-bit: Single-Core: 1195, Multi-core: 3849;
CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 713 cb, CPU Single Core 171 cb;
CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 1525 cb;
x264 HD Benchmark 4.0 32-bit: Pass 1 – 172.02 fps, Pass 2 – 42.24 fps.
x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 80.86 s.

Then we reran some of them on the -60 mV undervolted profile:

3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 6430 (Graphics – 7227, Physics – 10213);
3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 2913 (Graphics – 2803, CPU – 3756);
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 5536;
PCMark 10: 4881 (Essentials – 8983 , Productivity – 7204 , Digital Content Creation – 4876);;
PassMark: Rating: 4655, CPU mark: 10919, 3D Graphics Mark: 6002;
GeekBench 4.4.2 64-bit: Single-Core: 5358, Multi-core: 16920;
GeekBench 5.0.1 64-bit: Single-Core: 1228, Multi-core: 4000;
CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 736 cb, CPU Single Core 180 cb;
CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 1609 cb, CPU Single Core 419 cb;
x264 HD Benchmark 4.0 32-bit: Pass 1 – 182.68 fps, Pass 2 – 44.46 fps;
x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 77.12 s.

All in all, the 2019 ZenBook 15s perform very well for Core U implementations, because the CPUs are set to run at higher than standard frequencies and TDP.

They are performance-wise fairly close or the Core H i5s with 45W TDP, at a fraction of the energy requirements, which allows them to also perform very well while unplugged, both in the Cinebench loops and with games. On the other hand, they can’t match the six-core Core H i7s available in most other 15-inch performance-ultraportables, so if performance in demanding work/school loads is one of your primary criteria, chances are you’ll find better value with those. We’ll talk about your options in the conclusions section.

Moving forward, we test the system’s overall stability in combined CPU + GPU tests by running the 3DMark TimeSpy Stress test and the LuxMark 3.1 test. Both UX534 samples passed the 3Dmark tests, and with Luxmark, which simulates a combined 100% load on both the CPU and GPU at the same time, the CPU drops to 15W fairly quickly and throttles to 1.5 GHz, while the GPU runs well at 35W and solid frequencies.

Finally, we get to run some real games representative for DX11 and DX12 architectures, on the Max Performance power profile and the -60 mV CPU undervolt, at FHD Low, FHD High and UHD Low settings, just to see what you can expect if you’re getting the UHD panel and think about running games at the native resolution (spoiler: don’t).

	FHD Low	FHD High	UHD Low
Bioshock Infinite	162 fps	136 fps	–
Far Cry 5	57 fps	46 fps	19 fps
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor	92 fps	66 fps	25 fps
Rise of Tomb Raider	38 fps	31 fps	24 fps
Shadow of Tomb Raider	53 fps	36 fps	–
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	72-94	42-62 fps	23-30

The Witcher 3 – recorded with Fraps in campaign mode
Bioshock, Far Cry 5, Middle Earth, Tomb Raider games – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities

For comparison, here’s how this GTX 1650 Max-Q laptop compares to a few other devices on the market: the smaller ZenBook UX434 (i7 Core U, MX250 10W), the older ZenBook UX533 (i7 Core U, GTX 1050 35W) and the full-size Acer Nitro 7 (i7 Core H, GTX 1650 50W).

	UX534 FHD High	UX433 FHD Low	UX533 FHD Ultra	Nitro 7 FHD Ultra
Bioshock Infinite	136 fps	77 fps	114 fps	–
Far Cry 5	46 fps	23 fps	24 fps	56 fps
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor	66 fps	50 fps	57 fps	88 fps
Rise of Tomb Raider	31 fps	32 fps	24 fps	53 fps
Shadow of Tomb Raider	36 fps	8 fps	–	53 fps
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	42-62 fps	27-38 fps	24-32 fps	46-56 fps

Back to our ZenBook UX534FTC, the gaming performance out-of-the-box is OK, however, we logged in the experience on the -60 mV undervolted profile. Both the CPU and the GPU work well but run at fairly high temperatures, around 85-90 degrees Celsius for the CPU and around 78-80 degrees for the GPU.

Gaming on the battery is also possible on this laptop. In this case, the GPU is limited to 30 W and the CPU at around 14-15 W, but the experience remains excellent. You’re not going to game for long though, as the battery will run out of juice in about 70 minutes.

In conclusion, the ZenBook UX534FTC can play games released in the last few years fairly well, as long as you’re OK with cutting on the details. This is not a gaming laptop by any means, as you’ll find devices with better specs and faster 144 HZ screens for the same kind of money or less if you’re willing to compromise on the portability and ultra-compact form-factor.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others

The UX534s keep the same thermal design from the UX533, with two 5V fans and two heatpipes, each pipe connected to a single radiator. Performance-wise, this cooling does a fairly good job at keeping the Core U CPU and GTX 1650 GPU in check, as seen above, but both components run at high temperatures with games and other demanding loads.

I would have expected that to ramp up the exterior temperatures a fair bit as well, but the outer shell only reaches temperatures of around 45 degrees Celsius, which is not bad at all. As expressed before, though, I am concerned about the fact that hot air is pushed into the screen and the panel-area around the exhaust goes past 50 degrees Celsius, which I’m afraid might cause issues over time. This is, in my opinion, a design flaw and something Asus haven’t properly considered in their quest to make the ZenBook series smaller than the competition.

Now, if you don’t plan on running a lot of games and other taxing chores, that shouldn’t bother you that much. But then again, in that case, you might be better off with a different laptop altogether, as you’d be paying extra for the 1650 CPU that won’t be put to use.

That aside, the ZenBook 15 runs cooly and quietly with daily use. The fans are always active, even with light use, but you’re not going to hear them while browsing and watching movies, and they remain very quiet with gaming as well, at about 40-41 dB at head-level. That’s a bit lower than on the ZenBook 15 UX533, which confirms my assumption that Asus have tweaked the fan profile between generations, with a positive impact on noise-levels and a negative impact on inner temperatures.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to further change this behavior from the software, as Asus does not provide any power profiles or control over fans and performance on the ZenBook lineup.

I also haven’t noticed any coil whine or electronic noise on either of our samples, but this has plagued Asus products in the past and there’s no guarantee you won’t’ get any with your unit.

*Daily Use – running Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, fans 35-36 dB
*Load – playing Far Cry 5 for 30 minutes, fans 40-41 dB

With the move to Intel’s 10th gen hardware, the ZenBook UX534FTC also gets the latest WiFi 6 wireless connectivity, through the Intel AX201 module. As a result, the laptop performed great with our setup and we didn’t’ run into any issues during our tests. That aside, a USB to Ethernet dongle is also included in the box, just in case, you’ll ever need to hook to the Internet via wire.

The speakers have been slightly redesigned as well on the 2019 ZenBook 15s, as the whole battery-section has been revamped to accommodate the ScreenPad. As a result, there’s no longer a lot of unused space around the speakers and they’ve been moved on the sides and no longer fire trough grills on the front, which means you’re going to be less likely to muffle them when using the device on the lap.

The quality hasn’t substantially changed, though, which makes these speakers OK for daily use. We measured maximum volumes of about 80-82 dB at head level, without any distortions and a limited amount of vibrations in the palm-rest, and the sound comes out alright, with good mids and highs, but rather lacking on the low end. The output can be somewhat tweaked in the included AudioWizard app, but don’t expect wonders.

A 720p camera is placed at the top of the screen on our unit and it’s mediocre, just like most other laptop cameras. Retail versions of the ZenBook UX534FTC should also get a set of IR Hello cameras in most areas, flanked by an array of mics compatible with Alexa and Cortana, which will help out when logging in without having to type the password, since this laptop doesn’t get other types of biometrics.

Battery life

The internal redesign slightly shrunk the battery inside the ZenBook UX534s to 71 Wh, down from the 73 Wh battery inside the UX533. That’s still a good size for a thin-and-light 15-inch laptop, thus there’s no surprise this will last for quite a long time on a charge.

The autonomy is going to vary based on the screen choice, of course, and we tested both samples and you can find the results below (both with the ScreenPads switched off).

First, here’s what we got on the FHD configuration, with the screen set at 40% brightness, which is around 120 nits:

8.5 W (~8+ h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Better Battery Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
8.6 W (~8+ h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Better Battery Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
8.3 W (~8+ h min of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Better Battery Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
13.5 W (~5 + h of use) – browsing in Edge, Better Performance Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
55 W (~1 h 10 min of use) – Gaming – Witcher 3, Max Performance Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON, no fps limit.

And here’s the UHD panel, with the screen this time set at 30% brightness, which is closer to those 120 nits:

8.5 W (~8+ h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Better Battery Mode, screen at 30%, Wi-Fi ON;
9 W (~8+ h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Better Battery Mode, screen at 30%, Wi-Fi ON;
8.2 W (~8+ h min of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Better Battery Mode, screen at 30%, Wi-Fi ON;
16 W (~4 h 30 min of use) – browsing in Edge, Better Performance Mode, screen at 30%, Wi-Fi ON;
55 W (~2 h of use) – Gaming – Witcher 3, Max Performance Mode, screen at 30%, Wi-Fi ON, no fps limit.

I was expecting bigger differences between the two options, but the UHD came close to the FHD screen in most situations.

Activating the ScreenPad adds an overall draw of 1-4W, based on what’s running on it. I’d rather conserve the battery and don’t find much use for the ScreenPad anyway, so I’d mostly keep it off. Even if I were to use it, I’d probably only activate it while having the laptop plugged in and with a mouse hooked in.

Asus bundles the ZenBook UX534s with compact and light 120 W charger, adequate capacity for the hardware inside this laptop. It’s the two-piece design with longer cables and not the lighter design we’ve seen on ZenBooks in the last years, with the prongs attached to the power brick. There’s still no quick-charging, thus a full charge takes around two hours, and the USB-C port still doesn’t support charging.

Price and availability

The Zenbook 15 UX534 series is available in stores as of early-October 2019.

Right now you’ll mostly find the UX534FT configurations, with the Core i7-8565U processor. In the US, the most widespread variant includes 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage and the FHD glass-covered screen (without touch!) for $1399, which is very competitive for these specs and that amount of storage.

The i7-10510U models are already available in Europe, and will soon be available in the US as well. Over here they start at around 1500 EUR for the i7 /16 GB RAM / 512 GB SSD / FHD screen variant. The UHD panel will most likely demand a 200-300 USD/EUR premium, which might be worth it, given its excellent quality.

Down the line, I expect the UX534FT models to be gradually replaced with the Comet Lake updates, but they might also go on discounts as they’re retired, so keep your eyes out for those sales.

Follow this link for updated configurations and prices at the time you’re reading the article.

Final thoughts

The 2019/2020 ZenBook 15 UX534 remains a competitive product in its class and something I’d consider if on the market for a compact and light notebook with a full-size 15-inch display, excellent everyday performance, some gaming abilities for the spare time and good battery life, all in a package that won’t break the bank for you.

At 1399 USD /1500 EUR this is not a cheap computer by any means, but it is more affordable than most other options with similar traits and features.

Of course, these ZenBooks are not without their flaws. The average-quality FHD screen on most configurations, the lack of Thunderbolt 3 support and the potential issues that could be caused by the components running at high temperatures and by the hot air being blown into the screen, these are all good-enough reasons to look elsewhere.

Performance ultra-portables like the Dell XPS 15, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme or even the MacBook Pro are going to offer better performance, better screens and bigger batteries (not necessarily longer battery-life, though), but similar configurations will cost you closer to two grands, if not more. Then, if gaming is important for you, then you’d be better of with either a full-size laptop in the same price range, or perhaps one of the compact options with capable graphics and fast screens, like the Acer Predator Triton, the Asus ROG Zephyrus M or even the Razer Blade 15 Base, among others.

On the other hand, if gaming is not something you’re interested in, perhaps ultraportables like the LG Gram 15 or the Microsoft Surface Laptop 15 are the ones for you, with nicer screens, lighter weight and even longer battery life.

In the end, the Asus ZenBook UX534FTC fits somewhere between all these, as a potential jack-of-all-trades, something only the Lenovo Yoga C740 might also offer these days. That’s probably this one’s main rival, with similar features and specs, but a convertible form-factor and a touchscreen. We’ve yet to review it at the time of this post, but stay tuned for updates.

Disclaimer: Our content is reader-supported. If you buy through some of the links on our site, we may earn a commission. Terms.

Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com. I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.

45 Comments

Archuk

October 8, 2019 at 2:51 am

That's weird. 10th gen has 6 cores instead of 4 and hit over 900 on cinebench on Msi prestige for example. I think some reviews said that there was a difference, they depends on windows performance profiles perhaps? I think there was a link at notebookcheck site… If best you can get is 700 for 10th gen… Then this result is bad

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 8, 2019 at 10:24 pm
  
  This is 4-core Six-gen. 10510U is 4-core, 10710U is 6-core. There's no 10710U variant on this laptop.
  
  Reply
marc

October 8, 2019 at 8:38 am

Hi, What I would like to know is which of the mentioned configurations/alternatives listed above (or maybe elsewhere) -except for the configurations that cost way over 2000,- (notmy budget) – is going to offer a better performance (no too much throttling etc.especially on battery) in terms of videoprocessing/rendering (not necessarily gaming) ? Tx, Marc

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 8, 2019 at 10:22 pm
  
  Not sure about the Lenovo and Acer options. The others are more expensive.
  
  The thing is, a six-core i7-8750/9750 will help very much for what you need, so I'd advise on going with one of those configurations. Perhaps you can sacrifice on portability to some extent and get something like a Lenovo Y540. Acer Nitro 5?
  
  Reply
  - Marc
    
    October 12, 2019 at 3:05 pm
    
    I am looking for a 15inch model that's not too heavy. Over here, they sell a coffee lake/i7 (9750H) variant of the Y540 (81SX008DMB) for about 1500-1600 euros. The cooling system seems ok, but the small battery (throttling on battery?) and the weight (2,4kg) scare me off a bit however.
    
    I was thinking about the X1 extreme ? However, a six core i7 variant (80Wh battery) starts at 2370 euros !
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    October 14, 2019 at 9:57 am
    
    What does not too heavy mean for you? The Y540 is competitive, but it's a mid-range laptop with a thicker build and a small battery. Did you check the Asus Zephyrus M or perhaps the Acer Predator Triton 500?
  - Marc
    
    October 18, 2019 at 11:55 am
    
    Heavy for me means >= 2kg. The zephyrus S GX502 sells for 1900€ (RTX 2060) and since you gave this 4,5/5 … (don't know difference with RTX 2070)
    https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/1411206/asus-rog-zephyrus-s-gx502gv-es001t-be-(azerty-toetsenbord)/specificaties/
    The Triton 500 is more or less the same price (2000€), same config, same weight (2kg).
    You gave both 4,5/5 ! :)
    With only a small price difference, I would go for the better screen and battery. Any advice on this ?
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    October 18, 2019 at 1:24 pm
    
    I'd get the GX502 for these reasons:
    – slightly better build
    – per-key RGB keyboard
    – better control software
    – better thermals
    – cheaper
    
    Par of the Triton's 4.5 rating is in the competitive pricing in most regions. Should sell for less than the Zephyrus imo.
PJPeter

October 8, 2019 at 4:28 pm

You hinted in the article it's coming soon, I'm really looking forward to your comparison of the performance of the i7-10510U and i7-8565U models. I've got a UX534 i7-8565U for the next few days and I'm split between keeping it or getting the new 1650MQ Razer Blade Stealth or the UX534FTC i7-10510U once it becomes available.

Thanks!
Peter

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 8, 2019 at 10:23 pm
  
  It should be up in a few more days. TO keep it very short, though, the 8565U and 10510U are within 2-3% on the UX534, so the 10th gen is not worth waiting for. That Blade Stealth should be very nice if Razer manage to cool the 1650 properly. It's the same chip in the ZenBook.
  
  Reply
dunfluq

October 10, 2019 at 10:22 am

Hi, thanks for awesome review! Would it be possible for you to review the Lenovo Ideapad S540-15IWL with GTX 1650? It would great to see how it compares to UX534. It seems it is a few hundred $$ cheaper and has a better screen.

There is almost none reviews on S540 on the internetz. Only Notebookcheck has one. I guess it is just being introduced (at least in Europe).

Cheers!

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 11, 2019 at 9:57 am
  
  I'll look for it, but it's not available here, despite the fact that it was announced in Spring.
  
  Reply
Vin

October 13, 2019 at 8:04 pm

There is a mistake always occuring in the article: you always refer to i7-10710U as the cpu. The only avaible one for the model is 10510U.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  October 14, 2019 at 9:55 am
  
  Thanks, updated.
  
  Reply
First Last

November 16, 2019 at 5:14 pm

I'm surprised you claim that ASUS does not offer fan control on this laptop or any ZenBook models when that is not true. ASUS offers the MyASUS app through the Windows 10 store that allows you to customize various hardware options such as fan mode, battery charging mode, and hotkey mode, depending on the laptop.

On most ZenBook ultrabook models (such as the UX391FA I am typing this comment on) you can choose between balanced and silent fan modes, while on some of the pro ZenBook models you can choose between balanced and high performance fan modes. The fan profiles also affect TDP and boosts depending on the model. For example, in the ZenBook S13 setting the silent mode forced the CPU TDP to 5W which significantly lowered performance, but with the ZenBook S UX391FA with the same i7-8565U CPU setting the silent mode allowed the TDP to stay high especially in the boost periods so performance wasn't affected at all, which is why I kept the UX391FA and returned the other one.

I've used a lot of ZenBooks and they all have at least two thermal/fan profiles from what I've seen, you just have to manually download the Windows 10 store MyASUS app to access them.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  November 19, 2019 at 12:30 pm
  
  I'll look into this more carefully in future reviews.
  
  Reply
Mark McKee

January 9, 2020 at 3:50 am

As a professional video and motion graphics artist/producer, I'd just like to say how much I REALLY hate laptop reviews. Games, gamers, charts showing how games run, yet no one, anywhere, can simply fire up Adobe Premiere or After Effects and tell us whether or not it takes advantage of the GPU…or not. You don't even know what I'm talking about….

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  January 9, 2020 at 12:55 pm
  
  Hold your panties, Mr. We do our best to cover as many tests as we can, and the fact that we've missed those that you're interested in gives you no right to disrespect our work.
  
  Reply
KDB

January 22, 2020 at 12:59 am

Hello there.
Great article with just one real criticism. When I am looking at laptops like these it is because of the Full Size keyboard that many business pros demand. They often do not travel with keyboards but absolutely demand it have the numeric keypad. Unfortunately your comparison laptops do not fit this mold. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to find full size keyboard laptops that are offering all next gen tech that are being offered in their other pro type offerings. I would like to see those comparisons made.

Reply
Mark

February 25, 2020 at 3:41 pm

Excellent review! I have been looking to upgrade from my older Zenbook 13 which is still working fine, but as a writer, I needed more screen real estate and a bigger keyboard. There are few in-depth reviews of this Zenbook model and I really appreciate your thorough analysis.

And the 'gamer' guy is out of place with his criticism.

Reply
Adonis Floren

April 15, 2020 at 7:04 pm

I bought a brand new Asus zenbook 15 ux534. However, I seem to have a problem using the Ethernet. It says something like "Identifying". Thanks

Reply
bogdanp

May 12, 2020 at 2:14 am

Hi, is this better than Asus expertbook b9450fa? Mostly for work, don't care about battery. I want it not to get too hot, nice display, finish, keyboard..

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  May 12, 2020 at 10:13 am
  
  they're different. The UX534 is larger and more powerful, the B9 is more compact and a better typer imo
  
  Reply
  - bogdanp
    
    May 12, 2020 at 10:32 am
    
    How about the displays? Now I'm working on a 2015 Mac Pro (the 2019-20 i7 16gb is too expensive and I don't want lower specs) and I like its display and the keyboard is decent. Another option is the Xps 15 but is it worth the money difference?
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    May 12, 2020 at 11:01 am
    
    The displays are reviewed in each of the articles you'll find on the site. Both are fine, not great, not MacBook Pro level.
    
    The XPS is something else, it's a Core H platform, larger battery, better screens. Dell laptops seem to be overpriced in Romania, imo, though. I'd also look into the ThinkPad X1 Extreme or perhaps the matching Yoga C740/C940 15
Artur H

May 16, 2020 at 10:57 pm

I'm planning to buy ZenBook PRO UX580G-EE2030T with
i7-8750H ( 6 core, 9 MB cache, 45 W TDP, 8th gen Q2 2018 ),
16GB RAM,
1TB SSD,
UHD touch LED backlit ( is it OLED or IPS? )

1. Is it sufficient to edit 4K videos? I'll be using Blender on Ubuntu for 4K videos editing and rendering.
2. Will Ubuntu work well with this laptop?
3. Can this laptop work under heavy load for many hours, while rendering 4K videos for instance?

I put my current laptop on the aluminium cooling pad with holes, and 3 fans underneath, and I additionally blow the table fan on the left side of the laptop, which moves away the hot air coming out from the vents, and I'm planning to use this approach with my 4K laptop as well. It has proven to do the job, and truly helped to keep the laptop temperature down.

I don't want to have a desktop machine, as I'm frequently travelling to other countries, and I want to be able to render 4K videos, and perform other heavy load processing tasks, wherever I go.

Reply
- Philipp P
  
  May 21, 2020 at 9:53 am
  
  Great review, thank you.
  
  But where do I get the 4K version from?
  Can't find anything on the net, not even in the Asus webshop
  
  Reply
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    May 21, 2020 at 10:31 am
    
    Configurations vary between regions, and if you can't find it, there's a good chance Asus decided not to offer it in your country. I'd get in touch with their rep over phone or Social Media and ask about that.
  - Philipp P
    
    June 3, 2020 at 7:30 pm
    
    Me again, thanks for your answer last time.
    I got the FHD version now, but seem to have run into an issue with the fans.
    
    Can you tell me which firmware version was installed to your test device?
    I`ve got the most recent version 304 and some comments on the www have it that this version might trouble the fan control. When running games I recognized fan noises up to 80 (!) dB while the CPU operated at 30% only and really not much heat development.
    
    You obviously cannot step down to the previous firmware in BIOS, but funnily enough Asus is offering that one (version 300) as the most recent on their homepage.
    They have yet to answer my question on that.
    
    Did you get version 300 or 304?
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    June 4, 2020 at 1:29 pm
    
    It's been a while since that review, and at the time we did not log the BIOS and software versions used for the test. Sry, I can't answer your question.
    
    You should get in contact with support, and if upgrading tot hat previous BIOS doesn't fix the issue, just return the product within the free return window.
  - Philipp P
    
    June 4, 2020 at 5:04 pm
    
    Okay nevermind, thank you.
    Quite sure you got the older one though. I just saw that .304 was not even released when you made the review.
    I trashed all the bloatware that was delivered with the notebook now and it certainly helped already (measured 40-45 dB under stress), though I'm still not convinced.
    I will make a clean reset of Windows in the next step and if it will still not help, I send it back.
  - Andrei Girbea
    
    June 4, 2020 at 5:08 pm
    
    40-45 sounds right
Bart

May 27, 2020 at 12:12 pm

In your article, I see:

> one USB-C gen2 with video support

But according to someone on the Asus forms, there is no support for display export through USB-C on this laptop: https://zentalk.asus.com/en/discussion/25603/zenbook-15-ux534ft-usb-c-over-hdmi-issues.

Was that what you mean with 'video support'? Or is that about something else?

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  May 27, 2020 at 1:12 pm
  
  That's a mistake in our specs sheet, the USB-C port only supports data on Zenbooks. Sry for the confusion, and I've addressed it.
  
  Reply
Fil

June 15, 2020 at 9:46 pm

Is there any Ryzen-powered version of the Zenbook 15 coming? The combination of Ryzen and dGPU would might be quite attractive, given the thermal limitations, I suppose.
And the smaller Zenbooks seem to get Ryzen variants.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 15, 2020 at 10:21 pm
  
  Not that I know of, but there might be one eventually.
  
  Reply
Tomio

June 27, 2020 at 8:02 pm

Hey, I noticed you wrote that the UHD panel seemed to have 100% sRGB, 100% Adobe RGB and 100% NTSC. Is that right? It seems really high compared to the HD panel

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  June 28, 2020 at 10:31 am
  
  It's along those lines, but we were using an older color-sensor at that time.
  
  Reply
Landon Kelson

July 24, 2020 at 10:09 am

Mr. Girbea,

Please let me speak for all sane people when I say this is a fantastic review. I've scoured the internet to find reviews on the 4K variant, without luck (just picked one up for $1140 on Amazon). These other reviewers are a bunch of Karens who don't know what they're talking about. Probably the most thorough laptop review I've ever read.

Kudos to you, sir.

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  July 24, 2020 at 5:31 pm
  
  Thank you for the kind words
  
  Reply
- Francis
  
  June 13, 2021 at 12:58 pm
  
  No need for the 'Karens' comment. Extremely biased, dumb , and stereotypical of you Landon. Just compliment the autbor on the facts. Indeed Andrei did cover both screen variants and kudos to him for doing that.
  
  Reply
Gerard

November 3, 2020 at 4:29 pm

Very good review. Many thanks. Just a quick question:

Is the battery removable on the ASUS ZenBook UX534 Full HD IPS-Level 15.6 Inch Laptop ??

Thanks again

Reply
Marcello Scotti

November 12, 2020 at 12:58 am

Congrats on your review and thanks for it, Andrei;

you really worked hard to do it.

But let me introduce a respectuful "but"… you don´t even name photographers /videographers and we DO use and need powerful laptops. I don´t know your age, maybe you are a lot into gaming, and maybe I am wrong with this, but I guess pros spend more money and desperately need such great reviews as yours. And from what you tell us about this laptop, we can´t even figure out it´s performance for these kind of tasks.

Trust me, it´s been said with repect for your great work, but remember this is a BIG market segment and (my guess) more interested in 1500 and beyond than gamers.

Regards!

Reply
- Andrei Girbea
  
  November 12, 2020 at 11:16 am
  
  Hi Marcello. Thanks for your feedback.
  
  We analyze each laptop's performance in demanding loads in the Cinebench loop tests and the other stress tests and benchmarks. Based on how the CPU and GPU perform you should deduct how each laptop can handle the workloads that you're planning to run.
  
  It's true that we don't run specific Photoshop/Premiere work loads because those would require a specific a very expensive Adobe Cloud license to install the software on tens of different laptops each year, and frankly, we can't afford it, being a small publication. Will consider it for the future though.
  
  Reply
Pablo

February 21, 2021 at 2:41 am

Hi and thanks for the review!
I am looking for a laptop with good performance, robust built and low weight. I've considered the Lg Gram 15 and the MSI Presige A11SCS, but according to reviews, the performance of the former and the built quality of the second are not the best. This Asus Zenbook 15 UX534 seems a good all-rounder, but from your words I don't see you very conviced with this model. ¿Which alternatives that "tick the box" on performance, built and weight would you recommend? After browsing the market the budget for me would be about 1000 – 1500 euro.
And by the way, ¿is it expected any update of this model with something like an i7-1165G7?
Thanks in advance

Reply

Asus ZenBook 15 UX534 review (UX534FTC – Core i7, GTX 1650, 4K or FHD screen)

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