Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 Owner's Lounge

This is simply a performance monster according to Asus. It has amazing features! The laptop is new and the information is very limited even though was supposed to be released this month.

Pros
1. Ultrabook design with 4.5 Ibs or 2.06kgs and 20mm to 21 mm thickness.
2. Nice screen and display for the size - 15.6inch screen with a 4K resolution of up to 3840 by 2160 pixels and an option of going down to 1980 by 1080 pixels FHD display.
3. Screen adjusts brightness based on the environment light, just like smart phones.
4. PCIe x4 SSD with storage capacity upto 512 GB and speed upto 1400 MB/Sec
5. Intel core i7/i5 Quad Core processors not just slow dual core processor like most Ultrabooks!
6. High end graphics - nVidia GTX Geforce GTX 960m with upto 4 GB Vram!
7. Option of thuderbolt port - this seems to be just good option for the future, not for now really. I hope it doesn't end up being like firewire or eSATA.
8. Option of touch and non-touch screen.
9. Next-generation dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, with speeds of up to 867Mbit/s

Cons
1. Very big 96 Wh battery but only 6 hrs of operation. Competitors have an edge on this.
2. Just 3 USB 3.0 ports which is small compared to its size.
3. Uncertainty on the heat management and vents. It has two fans but it doesn't have vents on the side, back or bottom. Heat vents are just between screen hinges. I doubt how well it will work. User review is important here.
4. Uses older Intel Haswell processor but might be upgraded to Broadwell after June.
5. On board 4 GB or 8 GB RAM.

Price
Some sites say it starts at 1500 USD. But considering older bothers, it might starts at 2000 US$.

Product page
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ZenBook_Pro_UX501/

Internal
http://www.laptopultra.com/guide/asus-zenbook-pro-ux501-disassembly/

 

It has the exact same specs as the G501

 

This is interesting. So, why do they have two models just for the color lol Maybe to get all type of users! I don't like the red with blank mix, especially in the keyboard, really. However, it is a good alternative and the price hear is very reasonable for the spec! http://store.asus.com/us/category/A23719 My fear, for the gaming one, they might prioritize the performance than battery life.

 

If they have the exact same specs, battery life should be identical. I don't know how they could prioritize as both machines use Optimus.

 

By throttling the processor and graphics.

Just checked the spec of one of G501. http://store.asus.com/us/item/201503AM110000043/A23719

The battery of G501 is almost half the size of ux501. Plus, the weight is 2.27kgs. I don't what they have added.

On the UX501, they don't talk much about cooling technology and a matte screen.

 

Even quad core processors operate at very low clocks at low load and both machines have the same processor, I dont think Asus can tweak that much. Also the dGPU is not used on battery unless you're playing a game so that should not affect battery either. They probably just make two because of the reason you said, different chassis. Not everyone wants a machine that says Republic of Gamers.

 

Hi guys, I have a Gigabyte P34W V3 but this notebook is very tempting because I prefer its design. I bought the P34 fot 1500 € because it was the only lightweight gaming laptop with a 14" screen. It's not the best looking laptop but it looks fine to me. I don't know if I should prioritize design over performance but the UX501 looks very good (pretty similar to the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 I previously owned) and I'm thinking about getting it.

What do you think of the 960m ? Is it a good card for gaming ? My 970m is quite powerful an runs all my games in ultra at 40+ fps. How big is the gap between a 960m and a 970m ? Thanks.

 

It seems 970m is much better. See http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-970M-vs-GeForce-GTX-960M

 

This is lame...why is it shipping with a haswell CPU?

 

Because quad core Broadwell has not yet been released.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...-broadwell-chips-still-mia-expected-mid-2015/

 

looks like the macbook pro 15 are getting quad core broadwell... sigh...*

*correction
ok, looks like Apple is in the same boat
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/0...macbook-airs-with-better-specs-same-displays/

 

Intel is very slow in Quad Core Broadwell. Why do they create huge release date gap between quad core and dual core???
I am sure, I am not going to buy a Haswell Notebook when there are Broadwell ones. I am sure, Asus will not sell this batch in large number.

 

On the ROG site, they side the G501 and UX501 are basically the same thing inside. So even though it looks like some specs are messed up, the battery should be the same and get the same life out of the same specs.

 

The weight difference says something. I think their cooling system is similar but not exactly the same.

 

Battery is super important for these devices. I am surprised by all this, because the UX501 looks exactly like the NX500. Is there any difference there? But NX500 got negative points for battery despite the 96watt battery.

I can see on some sites the G501 indeed does come with a 6 cell 56watt battery instead of a 96watt one. Also, on some models there seem to be a 128 GB SSD + 1 TB, and on others 512 GB SSD.



I wonder if Broadwell Quad-Cores latter this year will boost battery life!

 

ASUS hasn't done themselves any favors with the way they released the specs. The UX501 has disappeared from the site, so who knows what is happening with it.

The G501 has the following on the ROG site and in the ASUS store has 6Cells 5200 mAh 56 Whrs
6Cells 96 Whrs Polymer Battery
4Cells 60 Whrs Polymer Battery

There was a tear down of the UX501, but that site got taken down. I think there was an extra battery pack that could be removed in favor of a HD, but didn't go looking for the archive of the site.

 

It seems that glare and touch is decidedly more premium than matte, since the latter model gets no more than 4GB of on board RAM. The SSD is also smaller, but user replacable. Maxing out at 12GB of RAM can be a deal-breaker for those always opting for matte when possible. There's also little clarity when it comes to VRAM and Thunderbolt, other than the sacrifice of mDP for Thunderbolt equipped models. I am a bit confused as to what happened with the display going from the NX500 to the UX501 and G501. The sRGB gamut percentage is consistent, but the other values have changed drastically. Is it even the same panel? The look of the internal speakers have not remained unchanged either. One site lists the G501 as 0.7 mm thicker. They both have room for a 2.5" drive, so if that's true, I'm curious to see what's changed. I know the UX501 doesn't have any bottom fan intakes, while I don't remember how the ventilation is on the G501. For those looking at model numbers, the UX501JW-FJ167H seems to have become the UX501JW-FJ192H.

http://asusnordic.com/marknad/press/SE_ASUS_ZenBookProUX501_Pressrelease_2015-03-11_final.pdf
http://goo.gl/l03Ori

I've head the pleasure of having free reins over an NX500 in a local store, and it is a beauty with excellent feel of quality overall.

 

Both models are up on Xotic PC.

UX501 $2.000 http:// www.xoticpc.com/asus-ux501jwds71t-touch-eta-early-may-p-8114.html

G501 $1.930 http://www.xoticpc.com/asus-g501jwds71-eta-april-2015-p-8099.html

So, this is basically the successor to the NX500 right?

 

Placing my bets now that the thunderbolt version will be nigh on impossible to find, as is usually the case with these things.

 

I saw the teardown of the Asus G501 in another thread and I was shocked by the keyboard flex. Do you guys think the UX501 will have the same stability / quality issue, or are they identical inside? ( )


Keyboard Flex is also an issue on the Alienware 13. Something which surprised me given how renowned they are for their build quality. Does it have something to do with the fact that in thinner chassis they can't quite make a strong enough skeleton? or is it a money issue? or to keep the weight down? I don't know why, but the Macbook Pro has complete stability. You can punch the keyboard and it wouldn't budge. I type a lot, and I type fast, so I need a good keyboard.

 

UX501 and G501 seems to be the same except color choices. Battery in the teardown video seems to be 60Whr for the G501 at least. There seems to be two versions, one with 8Gb memory onboard (max 16Gb) and one with 4Gb onboard (max 12Gb).

To me price seems too high compared to what you get in terms of specs and quality.

 

This site got taken down, but here is the archive of the ux501 tear down ... it looks the same, but they don't show the keyboard side. It looks like there is nothing between the fans on the board to keep it from being pushed all the way to the bottom.

http://web.archive.org/web/20150315...com/guide/asus-zenbook-pro-ux501-disassembly/

 

Thanks for the link. 96WHr battery takes the space for the 2.5" HDD. Makes sense for the UX model to have only SSD and larger battery, while the G model has smaller battery and additional storage space.

 

The pictures on this site have to be wrong, at least compared to the ones in the press release also listed in this thread. Any reviews up yet? Shops in Sweden have them listed for "in stock" 2015-04-18 but that is probably an estimate.

 

So, what do we know about the UX501 (and perhaps the G501) vs the NX500? NX500 seems to be a strange beast, with great specs but that few people have actually seen or even less owned, perhaps because it is so hard to actually find to buy.

 

In this link, the GeForce GTX 960M has 2GB of DDR3 video RAM. But, the specs say 4GB *DDR5* RAM. Which is it?

 

Some models have 2 GB VRAM.

 

Right, but do the 2GB models actually have DDR3, or do all models have DDR5 RAM?

 

I only saw DDR5 on Asus website but I don't know why Asus removed this page.

 

Yeah, it's probably a typo. Nvidia's specs list DDR5 for the 960M. Most cards have multiple options for the amount of memory. But would be extremely surprised if this card supported 2 different memory types. Thanks!!

 

Lots of US & Canadian sellers have this model up for pre order now. You can set stock alert(s).

ETAs ranging from April-early May.

ASUS UX501JW-DS71T

 

I believe the UX5o1 will not have the quantum dot display the NX500 got.... Likely didn't feel the high cost was worth the enhanced colors.

From Asus'website:
UX501
72% NTSC, 74% Adobe RGB and 100% sRGB

NX500
100% NTSC, 108% Adobe RGB and 146% sRGB

 

Hmm, yes. I went by actual 3rd party numbers and compared them to Asus' submitted numbers for the UX501, even if Asus is not likely to have changed their measuring procedure all of a sudden. 100% sRGB would have been fine with proper colour calibration, but given how the NX500's 146% sRGB seemingly turned out to be a lesser 100% sRGB, I would assume a less impressive coverage for the UX501 than reported as well.

With how quickly the NX500 had to make room for its sibling models, a significant downgrade in panel quality is a major let down, as the NX500's display was a headline-grabbing feature. Even if I managed to snag a Thunderbolt-equipped model to be used with an XG Station 2 to make up for the rehashed GPU silicon when at home, a console-sized desktop might be a more appealing alternative to me after all.

 

So, what would we say about NX500 vs UX501? NX500 isn't easy to find but do exist yet, could the NX500 be a better purchase even though it is an older model?

 

Oh hey, it's back up again! It's getting real now.

 

That is cool! Unfortunately, their choice of making the FHD version a lower end version is so annoying. It seems like they are going to limit the on board RAM to just 4 GB and the PCie SSD to just 256GB....

 

Where did you hear such news? And what's the new model name for the fhd version?

 

Anyone know when the UX501 with 1080P version instead of 4K will release? Is the UX501 coming out on 4/20 with the g501?

 

W

What is it with you techies these days... All the hard core gamer types seem to prefer low res, matte screens. The UHD screens are jaw dropping, I don't get what's not to love. Battery life?

 

960M is weak as hell when u push it on a 4K. completely pointless

 

You need to understand that the main appeal of 4K is not gaming. Unless you exclusively game on your computer, 4K is great. Besides, some less demanding games like Civ5, Sims 4 or Cities Skyline run great at 4K.

 

You aren't going to game at 4k on any laptop right now. Go take a look at a 4k screen, try it out and then you will see why it's included. If all you are going to do is game, buy a brick that has the best gpu and plenty of room to cool it.

Sent from my KFTHWI using Tapatalk

 

All I want to play is league of legends. Even with 4K on that, I don't think it will run as good as 1080P

 

if you have to have a thin laptop that can play games right now, this looks the best to me, even with the 4k screen ... if there wasn't a big jump in processors coming soon, I would be buying this

 

Is waiting for those processors worth the wait?

 

There's always some jump coming around the corner... But this computer is exactly what I want: the fastest (non-Mac) notebook in the smallest form factor that I'm not embarrassed to bring out in public (looking at you, ROG/Razer/Alienware). That's why I'm ordering this computer the second it comes out.

 

It depends again on what/how you want to use the laptop. The improvements in the cpu that I care about is the size and power. So it is smaller, uses less power, less heat, and is faster. Maybe that allows Asus to improve battery life, make it thinner, and maybe even put a 965 or greater in it. It is supposed to be a major increase, but we have to wait to see it to know for sure. CPU should be out in August if all the rumors are true.

 

Exactly. It looks super professional and clean, with a more than capable 960M. Great for me, lightweight, powerful and good quality. Let's hope this thing stays as ice cold as the MacBook does tho. One of the reasons why I returned my aw15 is because it runs like a frying pan.

 

Preview of the UX501 from UltrabookReview:

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/7032-asus-zenbook-nx501/

Must admit I'm not as impressed as I hoped to be. Being a .NET programmer and Windows user, I would have hoped that the next laptop purchase wouldn't be a forth MacBook Pro but now I'm not so sure any more. But I'll wait for a full review before making up my mind here.

 

Overall not that helpful a review, honestly. It's good to confirm the build quality will probably be good, but I wouldn't have expected otherwise.

Complaining about the speakers in a laptop is like complaining about the radio in a Ferrari.... Kind of secondary.

I too am most interested in hearing about the heat rejection, and overall performance as well, and have a hard time believing either will be all that different in a production model. If anything, fit & finish is what will change between prototype and final model, so why devote most of the review toward this aspect?