Asus UX430UN i7-8550u, 150MX GPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD $999 Costco.com

13.3" laptop with 60Hz IPS 1080p Matte Non Touch LCD.

Deal lasts until November 22 December 3.

https://www.costco.com/ASUS-ZenBook...VIDIA-Graphics--1080p-.product.100375043.html

Part 1 of my review here:



Note that you have to pay 5% non member fee or just buy a regular membership for $60.

 

This would be about perfect if it had a touchscreen and Thunderbolt port.

 

I like this machine because it DOESN'T have a touch screen. It does offer video out from USB 3.1 Type C port. Does this mean it is Thunderbolt?

 

Not necessarily. USB-C is capable of transmitting power, data (at either USB 3.0 or 3.1 and/or Gen I/II speeds), and/or DisplayPort video. Its implementation is dependent on the manufacturer and the individual device itself. The fact that Thunderbolt 3 uses the same connector only adds to the confusion. This particular machine appears to support data and video out of its USB-C port. Not sure about power, but it's definitely not TB3.

 

That's a really good deal for those specs.

Thanks for posting.

Charles

 

I ordered a USB C to DP and to HDMI cables so will test it out.

 

Could you please check the screen for any PWM Flickering on brightness 100% to 0%. Here is the video for example: youtube >> search >> "Samsung Notebook 9 Pro PWM Problem". And you will find all information (in description and comments). How to check

 

Here's benchmark video:


Will look into PWM. Basically sounds like you need a high speed camera.

 

@saturnotaku It runs 4k/60 through DisplayPort from USB C.

 

@dmivos This video?



See this video starting at 1:08:

 

Can't believe. This is deal breaker. UX430UN does use PWM. Still waiting for my purchase. What do you know about restocking fee at Costco? Should I send them back after receiving (sealed box) or just open package and check everything on my own? Because quality of LCD screen is very important for me. I don't want pay for cheap technology with PWM Flickering. Thanks for reply

 

I ordered and returned my first one and 100% money back. It was defective (touchpad mouse button kept sticking), so maybe that had something to do with it. I think there is 30 day 100% money back return guarantee. I would check their site though.

 

Received today
1. PWM Flickering on all brightness levels (This is deal breaker)
2. Coil whine (high frequency noise from the SSD drive)
3. Large AC Adapter (looks cheap)
4. There is no possibility to charge via USB Type C port (one of the best features on MateBook X, for example)
General feeling after 30 min - this is a cheap product made in haste

 

I do get the SSD whine and it is one thing I forgot to mention in my video, but I couldn't be certain it was the SSD. It does seem like that is it once I swapped it out. Actually I did mention it, but didn't add it in my final edit, unfortunately.

The AC adapter is a wall wart, and I hate those, but you can buy inline AC adapters for $10-12. I have a few that fit this laptop and use that instead. Asus is notorious for using wall wart adapters. Otherwise the stock one works just fine despite it being a wall wart.

While charging via USB Type C would be nice, it has a dedicated charging port, and most people see that as a plus. Personally I'd rather not have a power plug consume one of my available USB ports. I'm glad this one has three, because of my peripherals I frequently attach (including an external USB 1080p LCD that uses two USB ports). That's the problem I see with USB C ports. It is universal, but confusing about it's functions. Does it charge the laptop? Does it have Thunderbolt? Does it do video?

I'm not trying to say this is the best laptop in the world, but it is sturdy, well built with aluminum construction, good quality LCD (aside from PWM if that's an issue for you), great battery life, and most importantly has ability to game. Unfortunately there's very few laptops with the MX150 or any other low end GPU, in a thin and light package, especially for $1000. If you're willing to spend more, then you can always go with something like the Razer Blade Stealth, for nearly double the price.

Personally, this laptop offers everything I wanted/needed and at a reasonable cost. I detest glossy and touch LCD's on laptops. Plus I have been using an Asus UX303 (with 940m) for the last two and a half years and I guess this one just feels familiar and comfortable to me.

 

The MX 150 is quite an upgrade over the 940M if you want to play games on the go without having to spend a ton of money on a Razer Blade of similar form factor.

 

I'm I missing something regarding the PWM?

According to these two reviews here:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-UX3430UQ-7500U-940MX-512-GB-Laptop-Review.232772.0.html

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ZenBook-UX3410UA-Notebook-Review.192282.0.html

There is no PWM. If they kept the same screen model for the UX430UN there should also be no PWM....

 

I guess that regarding this particular version Asus decided make it differently. Big question - why?
After Samsung NP900X3B, NP900X3G and Notebook 9 Pro NP940X3M now I always check laptop screens.

 

Wow looks quite bad. Can you double check the brand name and exact reference of the screen? (I thinks it's in hardware properties). We can double check if it's the same as previous models and moreover avoid laptops with this reference.

 

BOE NV140FHM-N62 (PWM Detected)
INNOLUX N140HCE-EN1 (without PWM in other versions of ZenBook)
Returned UX430UN back today
Looking for something else with 8th Gen. + MX150

 

@dmivos - check out the Lenovo 720s: https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/lapto...eries/Lenovo-IdeaPad-720S-14IKB/p/88IP70S0833

Although to get similar specs will cost $1400. The 8GB/256GB model is only $900 though. Not sure about LCD though. Has DDR4 2400MHz RAM as well. If 8GB is enough RAM for you, maybe SSD is upgradeable, something to add later?

 

I was about to buy this laptop but the screen issue kills it. Its crazy they "upgraded" the Laptop and then downgraded the screen. The Lenovo 720s looks good but it has a glossy screen, which I dislike in laptops specially outside when its very reflective.

 

I bought this computer at costo too.
I worked few hours on it and I started to have huge headaches.
I checked the screen and it was flickering a lot.
Sent it back to costco and I'm back on my old xps 13 which does not flicker.

 

So I did a bit of research on the NV140FHM panel in this laptop and according to this article, the effects of PWM depend on the speed:

More than 500 Hz are generally not an issue, but there seem to be many users with problems below 250 Hz. ( https://www.notebookcheck.net/PWM-Ranking-Notebooks-Smartphones-and-Tablets-with-PWM.163979.0.html)

According to @LG29 there is a negative effect but @ HTWingNut
doesn't report anything. Any ideas if the quad core variant without the GPU has also a panel with PWM?

Its now available here:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1360991-REG/asus_ux430ua_dh74_i7_8550u_1_8g_16gb.html

and here

https://www.amazon.com/UX430UA-DH74-Ultra-Slim-wideview-Processor-keyboard/dp/B0768M9KVY

Thanks! I still think its a good laptop with good specs, just the screen

 

Maybe HTWingNut working at Costco ; ) and he wants more people to buy it. For me (after this UX430UN) I would never buy ASUS again. I don't like plasticky, keyboard, AC Adapter, surface of laptop and that fact they using PWM technology in their expensive laptops

 

Well brands can produce good and bad items, can't generalize to all due to one bad item. I had an Asus zenbook ux32vd for almost 5 years and I had no issue whatsoever. It was great. Also had an Asus 168b portable screen quite good also. I am willing to try the UX430UA quad core if it doesn't have the PWM issue.

 

Most ASUS products I've had experience with are plasticky, low-quality, and priced accordingly.

Can anyone link to some concrete data/studies related to PWM/eye-strain? I'm curious what percentage of people are actually affected by this issue. I sort of feel like it's a very small, very vocal minority.

 

Most people don't know that eye-strain can be caused by PWM.
I had many laptops before (Acer, Asus, Dell, Sony, etc) et it is the first time it is happening to me.
I had to search before to know why I was having huge headaches and why it was happening even more when I was decreasing the brightness...

 

I'm not talking about most people. I'm talking about doctors/scientists - people who collect and publish data.

Most of the hits I found when searching are from Eizo, and I'm not going to trust information about the problem that comes from a company selling "solutions" to the problem.

I'm curious if anyone more familiar with the subject can link to some studies on the topic.

 

it's just only my personal opinion. this is logical and it will be clear that any flicker will be tiring on the eyes. as the eye muscles will trying adapt to it. flickering cause multiple contractions and expansions of the pupils, which bears down negatively on eyesight. it is obvious even without laboratornih trials in patients. and I do not think that someone to agree to check on them. when there is a choice to buy laptop with PWM flickering or flickering free screen then the choice is obvious. who wants buy a torture system and pay for it. again, this is only a personal opinion

 

@alejo099 - those are the UA version without the dedicated GPU.

I do think it's a good laptop too overall. It has a good build quality. People expect the moon I guess for $1000. Many laptops are built like this Asus for $1500+. I only report what I see, I have not vested interest in giving false positive reviews.

It is also an aluminum chassis and not "plasticy".

 

@HTWingNut thanks for your reply. Yeah I completely agree you don't have any vested interest. Your review on youtube was quite good and honest.

Yep those are the variant without the GPU but with quad core. I might be buying one of these ones if it doesn't have the PWM flickering. Any reports on these ones?

There seems to be some research about flickering:
"existing technologies in LED lighting sometimes provide flicker at frequencies that may induce biological human response"
( http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5618050/?reload=true)

Although not conclusive and maybe just preliminary (not an expert in the topic). I would rather not spend 1k on a Laptop that might cause headaches. Even if the probability is low, I am risk averse and would prefer spending my money somewhere else. But as dmvios said its just my person opinion.

 

And your opinion matters. If you are sensitive to PWM, then you have a much harder time locating a laptop that suits you.

Just my experience here and elsewhere I have rarely seen complaints about headaches due to PWM (or in general). LCD's with PWM seem to be more the norm than not, so it's not like they're a rarity. I agree it would be best to go without it, but even with it, I don't know that most people have an issue based on my personal and gathered experience.

 

Thanks for your great reviews Wingnut, it's really nice to have such detailed information about all aspects of the laptop. However, I was wondering if you might be able to tell us conclusively on whether or not it charges via usb-c?

Cheers,

Dan

 

I have heard that it does not, but I do not have any USB-C charger to test it with (I know, crazy, right?)

 

I have a plan to buy new ux430un i7-8550. What are the latest news about pmw flickering? Has someone of you detect it? Has anybody coil whine? How loud it is, is it noticeable? And what is about fans and cooling?

I read all reviews on internet and youtube, but i still can not decided if ux430 un is the right choice.
What you will describe as pros an cons? Would you rather buy ux410?
Tnx for answers.

 

I found a USB-C charger and it does not charge via USB C.

The whine is there, seems to be the SSD. It is noticeable in a quiet environment. Sounds more like a mechanical hard drive sound than a whine. Fans are quite quiet. At full load they make noise, but really not that bad. The fan is good size so it doesn't whine.

PWM is there, but I don't notice it. I showed in this video. Now that I've investigated, I checked other laptops and most seem to have it too, so it's not that uncommon. If you're OCD or sensitive to it, well you don't have a choice, it is what it is.

I was going to do a final Pros / Cons video, but here's my thoughts:

Pros:
- Definitely thin and light at 0.63 in thick and 2.76 lbs
- Great battery life at 6-7 hours moderate use
- Good performance CPU with 4 cores/8 threads
- GPU can game well if you are realistic with its limits (i.e 720p medium settings)
- LCD is bright with good color reproduction, wide viewing angles, and 60Hz panel good for gaming too
- Three USB ports, two options for external display, supporting up to 4k/60
- Keyboard and touchpad are very good (not the best but very good)
- Solid overall aluminum construction
- Speakers are clear and not distorted
- User accessible bottom panel and upgradeable storage and thermal pipe repaste

Cons:
- CPU can get hot and thermal throttle almost too quickly without mods and/or undervolt
- GPU has 74C thermal limit that cannot be adjusted, which limits overall GPU clock speeds
- LCD has PWM backlight
- Stock SSD has an electronic chirp. This went away when replaced by an alternate SSD.

Other (observations that are subjective):
- Fan tends to come on even at idle, although very quiet
- CPU, GPU, RAM are not upgradeable
- Lid hinge is sturdy, but requires one hand to secure the base of the laptop in order to open the lid
- Speaker placement could be a bit better, since they are bottom facing
- Laptop does not charge via USB-C port
- Adding thermal pads over CPU and GPU can help better thermal performance
- Upgrade to Windows 10 Fall Creators Update resulted in black screens with 3D gamess. Needed beta Intel driver (seems a MS update fixed that issue).
- Wall wart power supply, inline would be better, and higher than 65W would be preferable.

 

If you have a choose, what is the best for photo video editing with 4K screen
1. HP Spectre x360 (8th Gen + Intel GPU)
2. Lenovo Yoga 720 (8th Gen + Intel GPU)
3. Lenovo Yoga 920 (8th Gen + Intel GPU)

 

Thank you for detailed review and answer.

 

Unfortunately there is also PWM on the UX430UA quad core variant. Reports here: ( https://www.amazon.com/UX430UA-DH74...show_all_top?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews)

So I looked into PWM (again) and it seems its only noticeable by most people under 500 Hz ( https://www.notebookcheck.net/PWM-Ranking-Notebooks-Smartphones-and-Tablets-with-PWM.163979.0.html). Any idea the rate of the UX430UN? @HTWingNut any leads would be great. If it is over 500 Hz I am willing to give this a try.

Also as an alternative I was thinking of the dell xps 13 quad core given the huge black friday discount. http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/new-xps-13/spd/xps-13-9360-laptop/dncwtr744h Still for a similar price, it has half the RAM, half the hard drive (although NVME) and no gpu. But it has a better design and smaller form factor. Any suggestions?

If the PWM is over 500 Hz I am leaning towards the UX430UN.

 

My biggest concern about ux430un is PMW flickering and coil whine.
Lot of Dell xps 13 has problems with loud coil whine.
The fans are not so big concern, because you can install Notebook fan control.

 

I have no idea how to test for PWM speed. There is a coil whine. I swapped SSD's and it went away. I went back to original SSD and it was back. I went back to my new SSD and the coil whine is still there now, albeit a lot less. So I'm not sure what is causing it.

Then again, I did remove the SSD thermal pad for the new SSD the first time around and put one back on the second time around. So maybe I need to do one more swap. Maybe the thermal pad is enhancing the coil whine since it's in contact with the bottom panel.

That being said, sale is on until Dec 3 now.

 

I'm picking this up in a few days and plan to undervolt, repaste with kryonaut, and put some thermal pads in. I'll post my before and after, with photos. Have you made any modifications? I'd love to compare notes. Not sure the thickness I should aim for on my pads.

 

I'm using 1mm thick pads, and repasted with kryonaut. The repaste didn't seem to make much difference. The pads seem to help though. I have 1.5mm pads that I may swap it with eventually and see if it has better contact with the bottom panel, and remove the thermal pad from the SSD altogether. It's SATA III and not NVMe so it shouldn't get that hot.

 

How loud is coil whine? Is it louder than the fans?

 

I'll get the 1.5s, mine will be on a a cooling pad whenever I'm gaming. I'm disappointed/relieved about the repasting, going by reddit posts the first run of these had terrible heat management, they must have fixed their pasting processes. The Xi Air 13's MX150 memory can be OC'd by 1ghz apparently, definitely want to get a pad on that. Have you undervolted? Looks like the spot for i7 8550u is -.085 to -.105mv

 

The vRAM really won't help much by overclocking it. The CPU/GPU combo isn't powerful enough to bottleneck its 6GHz clock speed. I wouldn't bother with the vRAM overclock honestly. Maybe even undervolt to reduce its temp. The vRAM sits much lower so you'd need a thick thermal foam or heatsinks. But you won't benefit much unless you have the vRAM pad touching the bottom aluminum plate.

Yes I undervolted but it didn't help a whole lot. It did slow the progression to higher temps, but adjusting the TDP so it wouldn't spike in temps was most useful. That way it could maintain 3.0-3.2GHz under full CPU load where without TDP adjustment, even undervolting, it would quickly reach 90C+, then throttle to about 2.5GHz and stay there or slightly rise to 2.6 or 2.8GHz if you were lucky.

What the system really needs is unlocking peak GPU throttle temp and undervolting. I'd rather unlock GPU temp to 90C, undervolt as best I can and maintain 1.3-1.4GHz than have it jump to 74C then start throttling down to 1.1 to 1.2 GHz.

 

My preliminary results: The GPU temp limiting at 73 is really killing what this could be capable of, but I'm impressed so far.

I've undervolted -90mv and it sits at around 2.8ghz with all four cores. Haven't repasted yet. I've also overclocked the VRAM 1000mhz and it has made a big difference in Ungine Superposition. Stock scores was ~2000, with both mods it's ~2400. Total of 20% performance increase. Without repasting, my GPU stabilized at ~1410mhz. I put +200 on the core but I doubt it does anything with the thermal limiting. Maybe with repasting I can get a bit higher clocks.

I've also disabled the onboard graphics, don't want anything else under that spreader making heat that could go towards higher sustained clocks.

I also have the coil whine, from the SSD. It's noticeable whenever the SSD is in use, file transfers and such, but not normal web browsing. Might replace the SSD, but 512GB in a $1000 laptop is a steal.

I downloaded NotebookFanControl and forced 100%, because the fan speeds are based on CPU temp, and games will not usually use all four cores, so in normal gaming use it won't go to 100%, limiting your GPU. So, with the fan on 100%, core speeds were around 1500-1600, spiking to ~1700. Superposition scores increased to 2556, a 25% increase.

Monday I'll be repasting, installing the thermal pads, and have an appropriately sized cooling mat coming, so we'll see what I can squeeze out of it then.

What did you adjust TDP to?

Update 2:

Repasted with Kryonaut, added thermal pads (1.5mm, doubled up on some chips), and added one to the SSD - mine didn't have pads to begin with. Chirp from the SSD is gone now, and the gaming is much smoother. My final adjustments for stability:

Turbo boost and TDP both adjusted to 22W, -.70mv, +1000mhz VRAM. On stock settings I would get microstutter while gaming when the CPU TDP maxed out with it's default short term boost, the extra heat driving down the GPU clocks. Stabilized at ~3.5ghz and 1500mhz.

 

By disabling onboard graphics, did you mean the Nvidia graphics, because you can't disable Intel. That is enabled all the time.

I set my TDP to 35W and it maintains 3.0-3.2GHz. Lower TDP it just won't do much more.

As far as Unigine Superposition, I'm more interested in actual game performance not synthetic. Boosting vRAM really doesn't do much since it's limited by the GPU performance (and temp throttle).

I do wish they'd raise or unlock the max GPU temp throttle temp.

 

I hope Afterburner will eventually be able to unlock the temp max. In Nvidia control panel I set it to always use the Nvidia chipset rather than onboard. I also have pics of the stock paste job if anyone is interested.

Haven't been able to get the BIOS off though. Same with NVFLASH. I'm very interested in upping that thermal limit. Any idea where to start?

 

Interestingly I found this post related to the nvme which I had assumed was SSD modes only.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-support-pcie-ssd.796362/page-4#post-10622569

In the post Doodie says the unit achieves 1860MBps...