The Asus Zenbook UX305 is a thin and light notebook with an Intel Core M low-power processor and a fanless case. It measures just about 0.5 inches thick and weighs 2.6 pounds.

Asus introduced this laptop last fall, but it’s not yet available for purchase in the United States. The company did bring a demo to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show though, so I recently had a chance to spend a few minutes with the Zenbook UX305.

ux305_02

While the Zenbook UX305 isn’t the smallest or lightest laptop I’ve seen this week, it’s certainly a pretty remarkable little machine.

It has solid state storage and a fanless design, which means there are no moving parts to make noise. The laptop also has a matte display, which means that there won’t be as much glare when you use the computer outdoors or near a window as you’d get with a model featuring a glossy screen.

Asus will offer models with 4GB to 8GB of memory, 128GB to 256GB of storage, and 1920 x 1080 pixel or 3200 x 1800 pixel IPS displays.

Each model features Intel HD 5300 graphics 3 USB 3.0 ports, micro HDMI output, an SD card slot, 802.11ac WiFi. and Bluetooth 4.0. The laptop has a 45 Wh battery which Asus says should be good for around 10 hours of run time.

While the Intel Core M processor doesn’t offer the same kind of performance you’d get from some of the other 5th-gen Intel Core chips launched this week, it’s a low-power processor that helps laptops like this offer long battery life and fanless designs. Asus will offer the Zenbook UX305 with 800 MHz Core M-5Y10 or 1.2 GHz Core M-5Y71 processor options.

Overall, the UX305 looks like a nice addition to the Zenbook family. Unfortunately I still haven’t heard anything about how much it will cost or when it will be available for purchase in the United States.

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4 replies on “Hands-on: Asus Zenbook UX305 ultrabook with Core M”

  1. I am still trying to understand the allure/benefit of these Core M chips in laptops. From the Yoga 3 Pro reviews, it sounds like it is a dog performance-wise. Is it just that it doesn’t have a fan? If the fan isn’t noisy, who cares?

    The reason I ask is because the XPS 13 has the new i5 U Series chip in it; that laptop weighs the same, gets better battery life, and performs better (I presume).

    My other thought is that maybe the Core M chips are cheaper, but that manufacturers are not passing the savings along in their pricing — the Yoga 3 Pro certainly was no bargain, and I am guessing this thing will cost about a grand.

    Am I missing something, or is this Core M craze a flop to be avoided?

    1. For me the fan is the first thing that fails, fails in the sense that the noise increases after a couple of years or use and sometimes cleaning it doesn’t fix it. It is also the last moving part left in most laptops. Core M is slower than U series but that doesn’t mean it is slow, depends of what you do. I work with 36 megapixel images on slower processors than Core M and it is fine. If you are doing 4k video editing then you probably should not use an ultraportable laptop yet.

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