Asus UX305 Owners Lounge

Bought my Asus UX305 off the MS store using their 5% off text coupon and ebates 3.5% cashback. They also have off 10% if you’re a student (.edu email).

Only used it for about an hour last night but the main issue I had was the adhesive residue on the screen from the clear plastic sticker they had on the upper left corner.

WHY WOULD THEY PUT A STICKER DIRECTLY ON THE SCREEN?!

It doesn’t have any tabs to peel it off so you need to scrape your fingernail across the screen several times trying to get under an edge so you can peel it off.

I tried using water and isopropyl alcohol (50-50). It helps but there is still some adhesive left. Thinking of using a lighter fluid and water solution but afraid to damage the screen.

Anyone else having trouble getting that sticker off the screen?

 

you're doing it wrong. mine came right off easy. the problem here is possibly throttling. the initial large windows update took forever during install.

 

Must be because no one else seems to have the same issue as me.

The initial windows update was hung on mine but then I disabled my antivirus (Bitdefender) and it worked.

 

I had the exact same issue on my UX303LA - I could not manage to scrape all the residue off, but Goo Gone took care of it pretty easily (recommended in another thread here).

 

Is this puppy compatible with Linux?

This is what what I found by googling, but it would help if there was also someone from this forum running Linux on the ASUS:

 

The UX305 has a QHD+ display option, but I don't see any retailer carrying that version. Has it not come out yet? It's all over the ASUS site, but no info.

 

Hi. I am thinking about buying Asus UX305. Currently I use laptop i5 4th gen 1.8GHz and I am worrying that Intel M might be too slow. I use computer for web, open office and lot of Lightroom 5 (I study photography). Any feedback from users of that chip would be appreciated, I don't need a speed demon I just hate when computer slows down or struggles. Also could somebody tell me how it's handling 4k youtube streaming. Many thanks<

 

I am thinking of buying this ultrabook but I have some questions:

1) I currently have Asus S400CA which features Intel Core i5 3317U processor. How does UX305's newer but below-segment processor compare to this? From what I read I expect UX305 to be almost the same or "maybe" slightly faster performance-wise, is this true? Will this new buy feel like an upgrade, sidegrade or downgrade for me?

2) The sound concerns me. A lot of the reviews say average or below average things about the speakers, they mostly say it is not loud. My current S400CA does not have very loud sound either but it gets the job done. But my laptop before S400CA had really silent speakers and I was very unhappy with it, you simply needed a small and absolutely silent room to hear them. I am wondering how silent the speakers on UX305 are. Can you hear them easily on a big but relatively silent room? It does not have to fill the room but I at least want to be able to hear and understand the dialogs of a movie for example on a big and relatively silent room. I don't expect rich sound but I don't want to be tied to a headphone to use this ultrabook when I am outside.

3) Some reviews and users mention that the display driver crashes from time to time. Did you also experience this? Is this still the case? Are there any updates for this?

4) I will mostly do software development on this machine. I use Visual Studio and PyCharm a lot, do you think it can handle these programs? Did you try any of this programs? I tried Visual Studio on my tablet with Intel Atom bay trail processor and even the install took days to complete, so it was far from handling it. I wonder how is the situation for Core M.

5) Is the touchpad a precision touchpad? If you don't know what a precision touchpad is, it is a standard set by Microsoft for better touchpad experience:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/touchpad

So can you go to your "mouse and touchpad" settings and tell me if there is "Your PC has a precision touchpad" text?


Thank you very much...

 

You can see some comparisons in the anandtech review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9104/asus-zenbook-ux305-review/4

 

So guys I picked up one of these! $799 in Microsoft Canada's store. I like it quite a bit and have it running Ubuntu 15.04. Some weird things with the wifi once in awhile but it has been working great since actually installing it to the HDD. Elementary OS Freya has some issues with the installer and I haven't tried 14.04 LTS or 14.10.

One major gripe I have is the pretty epic light bleed my unit has. I have uploaded an image of black screen at full brightness. The exposure is very accurate to what I actually see. Do you guys have this much? Did I get a rough unit?

 

Waiting for delivery of the Crystal White $999 limited edition US model. I'll post some thoughts here shortly.

Anyone install Windows 10 preview on a UX305 yet?

 

Nice specs on that. I personally couldn't make use of the higher resolution.

Couple things that are sort of bothering me:

1) The screen isn't able to be angled back as much as I would like in certain situations but it is close. The XPS 13 at work seems to be better in this regard
2) The lightbleed is terrible. ASUS wants to RMA it. Ill see what microsoft store canada thinks
3) The click buttons on the track pad surface make it less versatile when trying to click with one hand and mouse with the other. You end up with gestures instead. Though this is just a change of habits type issue if you are going to be moving from laptop with dedicated clickers.

The bright side of things:

1) There is no double click sound on my right click button on the trackpad like many reviewers took issue with
2) The trackpad is pretty nice and the 2 finger scrolling is really really easy. Flicks are working over teamviewer from Ubuntu -> Windows 7 (Crazy!!)
3) Ubuntu is running really well! I get 10h battery life easily with web usage. Usually around 2-4.3w draw for the entire system!??!?!?!

Ubuntu little issues:

1) Sometimes the battery indicator doesn't actually show AC even tho upower is detecting AC
2) Sometimes the battery estimate goes all wacky
3) Once and awhile wifi auto starts but is unable to find my AP but toggle wifi on and off again works fine
4) Brightness keys need to be rebound manually as Fn+Bup or Fn+Bdown do not work. Rebind to other keys like Alt+f5 and Alt+f6 to xbacklight. There is a kernel bug open for acpi as the key event is not sent at all.

 

Screen angle for me seems fine, it opens with one hand and adjusts easily which i really like.
No lightbleed issues on the QHD+ screen. Different manufacturer and screen tech might be in my favor.
I also find the click buttons annoying. Luckily I use tap to click, but do need to click and drag. Double tap to drag gesture (if enabled) triggers when I don't want it to. Asus still needs to work on their drivers. The touchpad isn't much better than the $179 Asus Eeebook this is replacing.

I'm running Windows 8.1 and it runs very well. I occasionally miss having a touchscreen. No serious flaws. If anything, I would like a "Macbook" like trackpad experience and keyboard backlighting. However, I am VERY happy and it is my favorite laptop to date.

 

I got my Asus ux305 with the QHD+ screen a few days ago, and it's performance is extremely bad.
flash/html5 in chrome and other browsers is sluggish and stuttering.
video driver crashes, machine gets very very hot under light usage, battery life is no more than 3-4 hours at best with normal use. and I'm not even mentioning ths scaling issues with the 3200X1800 with so many apps.
my 5 year old mediocre laptop beats this one by every measure in terms of performance

turned it in for repair and it came back just the same.
how does all this compares with such excellent reviews?

 

It's a passively cooled core M cpu, it will get hot and performance will be sub par compared to a "real" cpu. But the battery drain makes me think you have some issues with background tasks. Even if it's a sub par cpu, it should be better than this.

But the ux305 is pretty much just a glorified tablet with a mobile cpu that works great for light tasks.

 

I am not sure whats going on with yours. I had the video driver crashing in Windows, probably a bad driver. 0 problems running Ubuntu. I get 10h of light usage easily. Mine only gets hot at the back in the middle where the heatsink is even then with summer weather it can easily sit on my lap while I watch Netflix in bed. It seems like either there is something causing high load on your device all the time or your device is way above 80c and throttling due to the heatsink not being mounted properly/flush/without paste.

It is really not that bad. It also shouldn't be throttling at all except 100% sustained gpu performance in this model compared to the yoga 3 and dell tablets that cap at 65c iirc.

Also temperature wise it should only be quite cool at idle/light tasks. Check http://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-UX305-Subnotebook-Review.136543.0.html

The other argument is that this thing just uses less energy which means less heat dissipated in total. These compare well to first or second gen core i which are more than capable machines.

 

Well sent mine for an exchange and waiting on the new unit still. The backlight bleed was discoloring content it was so bad. Hopefully the next unit is not as horrible. Really liked the low wattage. Don't get cooked like with my other laptops when its hot

 

Sometimes the mounting of the display can have an impact on the amount of bleed, thin bezels can clamp too hard. If it's slightly off it can cause the excessive bleed.

 

Well I would have liked to report that there was less lightbleed on my replacement but microsoft has been out of stock for over a month with no ETA.

 

That sucks, are you going to push for a refund and get something else or wait?

 

Upgraded to Windows 10 on my 305FA - no problems! The installation took quite a while. It is at times like that you notice that the processor is slow. Everything seems to be running smoothly now. I installed the new ATKpackage and touchpad driver from Asus support page - those two seems to be the ones one should be replaced with Win10 versions.

I'm happy with Win10 and have uninstalled the old Windows via disk cleanup. Does anyone know if there's any reason to keep the restore partition? Before upgrade the setup-program warned that recovery would not be possible after upgrading.

 

Waiting for right now but might cancel and wait for next gen. Maybe grab a cheap refurb Dell venue pro 11

 

In India, the UX305 is available with only 4GB ram and there are no other configerations.
As the ram is soldered on the motherbaord and not user upgradable, is 4GB enough for the future?
I would be using it for mainly surfing internet and light MS Office work (current scenario).
I would plan on keeping the laptop for approx 4-5 years.

 

Asus UX303 has a certain design flaw and I'd like to ask you if you have noticed the same problem with UX305.

If you put UX303 to sleep and it is not connected to the charger, then it will be waking up every few hours, thus discharging battery.

You may see this on this video:

 

No, haven't noticed anything like that!

 

Something is causing a wake event. You can diagnose what is sending the event by checking http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/179257-wake-source-read-event-viewer-log.html

 

The event is "power button" but as everyone can see in the video, nobody is touching the power button. This is for sure hardware or firmware problem.

BTW, I just tested brand new Asus UX305 and it has exactly the same problem. I'll post video as soon as I edit it.

 

Here it comes:

 

Any power behavior settings in the BIOS? Wake on AC, wake on lan or anything else. Could be inter-firmware communication causing a chipset to fire up the laptop.

Update: "There are Power Off Energy Savings Mode" and "Wake on Lid Open" these could be tested against.

So windows 8, windows 10, UX305 and UX303. Which bios version are you on?

So has anyone got a 1080p unit with zero light bleed? I looked a 1080p Windows 10 model in a bright store and couldn't see any at all. Much better than my original unit. Wonder if they have improved on this

 

Tried changing all the BIOS settings, without effect. Asus service couldn't fix this.

This is 1080p and light bleeding is very strong, I think worst I've ever seen.

 

Has anyone run into the issues of the laptop being really weak speakers? I can't hear mine with just the dishwasher on.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

 

Yes, the speakers are crap.

 

I actually realized that the volume of the speakers are much louder if you have audio wizard install and the setting set to music or movie mode.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

 

Apple really sold me the fanless Core M laptop concept with its MacBook. Unfortunately as a uni student I didn't have enough free funds and I started looking for alternatives. UX305 seemed the best option since I didn't really desire tablet form factor. Based on what I've researched the MacBook is superior device on most fronts, UX305 has upper hand in ports and slightly better keyboard.

I've read many reviews before I bought it but I'd like to repeat some important parts and confirm they are really true. I have 1080p model with Windows 10.

1) Backlight bleed is really bad, fortunately you don't see it in most situations but every time you start the computer you are reminded of this fact. It's also slightly distracting when watching movies with black bars.

2) Speakers are very weak and in urban outdoor areas you wont hear them. Even indoor and quiet room on some media and streams I have to use headphones because I cant hear speech and I don't have any hearing problems.

3) Touchpad is usable but not very good, even one from MacBook Pro 2009 model is far superior, night and day. You really want a mouse when seated behind a table.

4) There is a an issue with display drivers sometimes crashing when on battery power, this happens mostly when viewing flash content from Youtube and other streaming sites.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/39xuqx/display_driver_has_stopped_responding_error_on/

5) Battery example (remember 1080p model): I have Firefox running with 360p Youtube video in 1 tab, 4 tabs of mostly lightweight text, few cloud syncing service idling on background, brightness at 60% and battery level at 79% with exactly 5h remaining. In most light usage situations I get about 6-7h of predicted battery life.

6) Sometimes when I have free time I like to fire up CS:GO. On UX305 with settings turned all the way down and 1024x768 resolution I get ~50 fps with frequent spikes down to upper 20's. So to anyone even slightly serious its unplayable. I didn't expect it to handle it anyway but this would have been a slight bonus.

Aside from these few negative points the laptop is stellar, build quality rivals Apple, no excessive heat buildup, obviously no noise. Performance is as promised and should fulfill every need one would expect from this form factor.

 

Well 6 will apply to all core M series machines really, they are designed for your day to day emails and office apps, nothing that requires serious processing.

 

hi folks - I'm old to the forum but new to this device. so far I like it better than any of the recent notebooks on the market and can see why it is so popular and holds it value reasonably well, for a PC.

I have a couple of issues you may have already resolved, so solicit some advice here:
1. The touchpad driver/'wares seem to lack advanced features such as palm check and aperture sizing. Am I seeing this right or is there some other way to adjust these values? If no palm-check or other accidental tap measures I will use Touchfreeze ...
2. Display color. I really like this display - for one thing [which I did not expect] - it has the least "eye strain" effect on me of any I have used . better than my daily driver which was better than 80% of what I"ve seen. this has been a great surprise to me. Because of losing vitreous membranes and maybe the early edge of cataracts, I get a glaring 'haze' from ambient lighting which fatigues eyes/brain after awhile. This one is the least offensive I have used.
However, subjectively the colors here are pale. Is there a way to adjust this to 'richen' the colors just a tad without running up the intensity overall?

thanks
c

 

You can play with the colour settings in the Intel drivers.

 

can't fix physical speakers but I can help a lot with the quality and adjustability of audio settings.
these are safe downloads and having used it now for awhile on diff systems I can't do without. this is just too good
http://sourceforge.net/projects/equalizerapo/?source=recommended
http://sourceforge.net/projects/peace-equalizer-apo-extension/

The first is the EQ program that will install the APO. the second is a GUI that provides all the adjustability you could want. read the instruction as to where to place the latter - you have to copy/paste one of its files into the Equalizer APO install folder once it is unpacked and installed.
FABULOUS product

 

not much uniless I'm missing something major.
virtually no adjustability. you have ONE gamma control, and it goes basically one way only. if you tamper with 'raising' gamma it goes from "washed out" to unbearable.
why intel refuses to make good gpu is more than I can guess....

 

Best tip I can suggest is to use the ASUS Splendid Utility app and put it on Vivid setting. It seems a bit foolish using ASUS programs as they are often just bloatware, but I can't find a way to beat it.

 

excellent Mont! I knew nothing of the util. had clean install so no info.
I'll report back.

you guys should try the EQ app I posted about. on all your pc's

 

rats....
w/ windows 10 the Splendid util will not install.
"could not find icm file"
i see others having the same issue

 

Ah, apologies. I have the UX305CA and it came preloaded with Windows 10, so naturally no problems using it. Very unfortunate.

Possibly downloading it using the following link may work as the app here is configured for Windows 10?

https://www.asus.com/Notebooks/ASUS-ZENBOOK-UX305CA/HelpDesk_Download/

 

Wanting to hear from others as to whether the new windows 10 build 1511 broke your audio?

the way the conexant bug works is: will be just fine for awhile, but play a large file that runs for 10 minutes or so and it will break. once gone, can't get it back without uninstall/reinstall or better yet uninstall and replace with generic HD Audio device. That will hold until the next windows update, at which time Win upgrade will install Conexant

 

Got my UX305CA a few days ago and I think it's a nice little PC especially for the price. I got the matte version, and was wondering if anyone else finds the hinge a bit looser than other PCs? Comparing it to an XPS13 or a MacbookPro it has a lot less resistance. For example, if I tilt it all the way back, then pick up the laptop and angle it down towards me, the hinge will allow gravity to pull it down about half way. Doesn't seem right and not sure if this is how they all are or not.

 

I"m interested in your notes on the performance of that model. talked my bro' into buying one or the other.
also let us know about the hinges. if it were really floppy, i would wonder if they changed something, assemblywise. It is delicate to get it at a happy spot for the assembler - too tight, it is a nuisance to open with one hand. too loose, floppy. mine has no movement when I'm typing, and I am heavy-handed

 

new user, just wanted to know from anyone: how has this device lived up to your expectations? i am interested in purchasing one. just found out about how far an SD card sticks out, kind of a bummer if someone wanted to leave a card in there.

not much of a gamer really, but i play zdaemon. can anyone test this out? it is online multiplayer doom. www.zdaemon.org for the client, comes with freedoom.

also, have these models gone on sale much? hoping theres a boxing day sale after christmas but ill still save the money none the less.

 

So I picked up the UX305CA-UHM4T at the MS Store yesterday on sale for $700. My thoughts so far...

• Overall very good quality for the price. The high resolution screen is great despite the handful of applications that don't work well with the scaling. Keyboard is great to type on.
  
• The hinge is a little loose compared to something like the XPS 13 but it's definitely not bad. The screen doesn't shake when I type or anything, but using the touchscreen can be a little awkward. Then again I think that touchscreens on laptops are awkward anyway.
• Performance is worse than I expected. I'm coming from an i3 2367m which benchmarks much lower than even the 5Y10 let alone the 6Y30, but performance overall is still worse than the i3.

My major concern is the battery life. I'm only seeing about 5 hours browsing with very low brightness. Is it really expected to be that much lower than the FHD model? I was expecting 6-7 if the FHD was 9-10, not a reduction of nearly 50%.

 

Since the screen is even more of a percentage of the draw due to the low power parts the impact can be quite large.

 

so i purchased a ux305ca (FHD model) and so far im loving it.

- i wish the screen was a little brighter
- typing on the unit is pretty good, no issues
- while webpages on Edge look great, text on webpages using Chrome look slightly fuzzy. some programs also exhibit this. trying to change the DPI settings so far
- wondering if the card reader is limited by speed. tested using 64gb uhs1 card, max 20/20 read/write, but using usb3 card reader yields far better results
- while it works, when using f.lux, upon startup the main display will flicker oddly for about 30ish seconds. then its effect gets applied afterwards.