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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here, and this is the Asus ZenBook Pro for 2017.
00:07This is the UX550, and this thing was announced quite a few months ago, I think it was like
00:11March at Computex when this thing was revealed, and I've finally been able to spend some time
00:15with it.
00:16It's a very powerful machine, it's one of those thin and light work-oriented machines
00:20that also has a GTX 1050 Ti, so if you want to play some games, you can, and this is the
00:25type of stuff that gets me excited.
00:27These are the type of laptops that I'm most interested in because, I mean, they're kind
00:30of stealth, like, they don't look, they're not designed for gaming, but because of the
00:34video card, you'd think they'd be able to bang if you really want them to.
00:38This one, you'll see at the end of the video as to why it's not so much a gaming laptop,
00:44but it is a very good laptop for what it was meant for.
00:47I want to talk about the design first.
00:48First thing, black.
00:49This is the first Asus laptop that I've used that was black, so fully black finish, black
00:54top, black bottom.
00:56There is a silver chamfer as you go around the edges, but the whole idea of this thing
00:59is black.
01:00The build quality on this thing is good, better than I expected, and let me explain.
01:05The UX501 from last year, and the year before, had okay build quality, not amazing.
01:11The panels were just a little softer when you pressed down on them.
01:14This thing is definitely more rigid, it's definitely better build quality than the UX501,
01:19but it's still not perfect.
01:21There's still a little bit of flex on all the panels, the top, the bottom, the keyboard
01:25deck.
01:26The screen itself, if you try to torque that, it's super solid, I couldn't get it to twist
01:30very much.
01:31The hinges are also well made.
01:32The laptop on the whole, I would consider to have good build quality.
01:35Not excellent, I wish it was better, but it is good.
01:38The port selection on this thing is good, there's actually two Thunderbolt 3 ports,
01:41and those run on all four lanes of PCIe, so if you plug up an external GPU, you're gonna
01:46get max bandwidth.
01:47The thing that I don't love is the inclusion of a micro SD slot.
01:51Now, it's cool that they have an SD slot at all, but it's micro SD, and this is a pro
01:56laptop, right?
01:57This is ZenBook Pro, and working professionals, very few of them are using micro SDs as their
02:02main form of data transfer.
02:04It just doesn't make sense that they put that there.
02:07It seems almost useless, because you're not gonna use that.
02:10I would much prefer to see a regular SD slot, but you're stuck with that, and that kind
02:15of bugs me.
02:18There's a lot of good stuff about this laptop.
02:20I like the screen, I like the speakers.
02:22The speakers are actually very, very impressive.
02:25It has the Harman Kardon branding, and usually when you have that kind of branding on a laptop,
02:28it means nothing.
02:30This time, there's four speakers, two on the top, two on the bottom.
02:33The ones on the bottom are downfiring, and they sound really good, I was quite impressed
02:37with it.
02:38They don't sound super loud, but the audio quality is there.
02:40The mids, the lows, the highs, they're all present, and they sound good.
02:44Back to the screen up top.
02:45This one's running a 1080p panel.
02:47They do make a 4K panel, if I'm not mistaken, but this one's a 1080p touchscreen.
02:51The color accuracy is there.
02:53It's not super bright, I wish it was brighter, but the overall image is nice, and the bezels
02:57on the screen aren't too thick.
02:59It's like a, I don't know, it kind of looks like the newer MacBooks in terms of the bezel
03:03thickness, but it's just an improvement over their regular Asus ZenBook Pro line.
03:07It's just a thinner, cleaner looking design up top.
03:10Okay, to get on the inside of this laptop, I've removed the screws, but it's pretty simple.
03:14There's just seven, eight screws, they all pop off pretty easily, T4, and when you get
03:18inside, things get less awesome, so so far it seems like a really good laptop, right?
03:24Okay.
03:25On the inside, we have a fast SSD, which is good, we've got a great Wi-Fi card, the Intel
03:298265, which is good.
03:31The RAM is soldered on, and this bugs me.
03:34This is not like one of those super thin laptops, right, so it doesn't make sense to me that
03:38the RAM is soldered on.
03:39Now maybe it was a space issue, maybe it was an energy efficiency issue, because you know
03:42when you solder on RAM, when it's built on board, it uses slightly less energy, and if
03:47that's the case, fine, but I just don't like seeing soldered on RAM.
03:52But the thing that bugs me is the thermal design, so we're looking at two heat pipes
03:56to cool a GTX 1050 Ti and an i7-7700HQ.
04:02So these are pretty hot components, and it's not like the hottest stuff out there, but
04:06they're not cool components, and you'll see in the thermal performance later on that they
04:11don't do great.
04:13And the battery down here is a 72-watt RSL, it's getting around 6 hours of battery life
04:17with a screen at 250 nits.
04:19So this is probably in the middle of the pack in terms of battery life, it's because it's
04:24not a huge battery, it's kind of a small chassis, so the battery's, there's only so much space
04:28in here, but if you're going to bring this thing to class or to work and you're expecting
04:31a full day of use out of it, you're probably going to have to bring the charger with you
04:35just because it's a little bit tight.
04:38Before I get into performance, because I know that's what a lot of people are interested
04:41in, I want to talk about the keyboard and the trackpad.
04:44So keyboard is a very standard Asus keyboard, it's a good keyboard.
04:49The home, page up, page down buttons are on the side, and I like them there, but not everyone
04:53does because if you're not used to them being there, if you're trying to hit backspace or
04:57shift or enter, you might hit those keys, but I like them there because if you want
05:01to, you can use them and you will get used to their positioning, it doesn't interfere
05:05with my regular typing anymore, but for people that haven't used an Asus keyboard like this
05:09before, there's a bit of a learning curve.
05:11The keystrokes themselves are a little bit soft, but firm at the same time, it's hard
05:16to describe, but basically the pressure that it takes to activate the switch is a little
05:21more than your average keyboard, but the spring feels softer, so it's a different typing experience
05:27than I'm used to, I just haven't used an Asus keyboard for a while, but you'll get used
05:32to it quickly because when I used this thing for like 3-4 months before, not this one,
05:36but a keyboard very similar to this, you get used to it, and it's not a problem.
05:41Trackpad, good trackpad, probably its best feature in terms of the inputs, it uses Windows
05:46Precision Drivers, so it's got accurate tracking, and it has a fingerprint sensor for quick
05:50logins and stuff in Windows Hello.
05:52Okay, let's talk about performance because that's probably the most important thing,
05:56because if it doesn't have good performance, nothing matters, right?
06:00Okay, the performance on this thing, I gotta open it back up to kinda show you what I'm
06:03talking about, is good for certain people and not so good for other people.
06:08So this thing's running, like I said earlier, the 1050 Ti and a 7700HQ, the Kaby Lake i7,
06:14and because the thermal output on these two chips is quite high, it's difficult to cool
06:20something like this in a chassis this small and this compact, and with the heatpipes that
06:24they have, because there's only two, maybe even one and a half heatpipes, you're not
06:27gonna get the best cooling.
06:28If you're doing work stuff, if you're doing like video edits and renders and stuff, this
06:32is sufficient, because you're not stressing the GPU at 100% all the time in your workload,
06:38because you're kinda using the GPU here and there as you do stuff in Photoshop or Premiere.
06:42So I ran some video edits and I ran some renders, this thing runs really well.
06:46You're getting the performance you would expect just on the paper specs.
06:49The 1050 Ti is a good card for video editing.
06:52But when you start playing games, that's when issues start to rise.
06:55The temps creep up, and after like 20, 30 minutes of gaming, you're gonna notice some
06:59serious thermal throttling.
07:01And you could probably resolve this if you repaste it or if you undervolt it, and I mean
07:05you can, I'm not gonna do it on this unit, and I'm positive that if you did, if you repasted
07:10this and if you undervolted this, you would get better performance, but I wouldn't pick
07:14up this laptop if your main purpose is to play games.
07:17It's a really nice looking laptop, and it's slim, but because of the thermal issues, I
07:22can't just openly recommend it for people who are quote unquote gamers.
07:25The fans don't come on very often when it's idle, it's actually very quiet, but at full
07:29load, it's a little bit loud, not super annoying or anything, but it can get loud.
07:34So this is a laptop that was designed for professional users, right?
07:38It's a ZenBook Pro, and I think because of what it's equipped with, because it has a
07:411050 Ti, because it has an i7, I think a lot of people are drawn to the specs and think
07:46hey, I can pick this up and play games really well on it, but that's not what it was designed
07:51for.
07:52Unfortunately, it's a really nice looking laptop.
07:53It's not super expensive, I think the base model starts at $1400, $1500.
07:58This unit here with everything I've decked it out with, $1700, but yeah.
08:04If you're a gamer, and you're hoping that this would be like the gaming laptop that
08:08didn't look like a gaming laptop, this is not that laptop.
08:11I'm sorry.
08:12I was disappointed, and I feel like a lot of my viewers were really interested in this
08:16thing because it had such potential, but no.
08:20It's not the one.
08:21Okay.
08:22Hope you guys enjoyed this video.
08:23Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
08:24See you guys next time.
08:25If you're curious, like if you're looking for other options, I don't know if anyone
08:29is still sticking around to this part of the video, but if you're curious, I've been using
08:34the Aero 15X, so this is the upgraded model.
08:37This is not that different in size from the ZenBook Pro.
08:42It's a completely different price point, this is significantly more expensive, but they've
08:45designed this thing to house a GTX 1070.
08:49It's a significantly more powerful video card, but it's similar in size, but the way that
08:53they're doing is that they have to crack this thing open, and they're putting a ton of venting
08:57on this thing to make it more viable for gaming, and that's not what the ZenBook does.
09:02They try to keep it clean and minimal and just very nice looking.
09:05It does look a heck of a lot nicer than this, like look at this, but this thing is where
09:09you're going to get performance.
09:10If you want something that's built for gaming, look at other options like this, the Aero
09:1615.
09:17This is actually the Aero 15X.
09:18Okay.
09:19See you guys next video.