Zenbook UX303LA Owner's Thread

There is already a thread for the UX303LN which has the discrete graphics. But, nothing specific for the UX303LA. I think there is enough difference in focus of LA owners that a thread for the LA version would be of interest. I will continue to monitor the LN thread because there are some common areas of interest between the LA and LN. So, all of you LA owners, please consider this thread for most of your posts.

Thanks, Jim

 

I have had an UX32LA which was a nearly identical Haswell TN HD screen laptop. I sent it back for repair because there were some issues with the machine going to sleep /it turned off instead/ and sometimes the USB ports did not wake up.
Battery life about 6 hours on wifi and 2/3 brightness (on idle, low brightness, reading/writing, no wifi, no keyboard backlit it could do around 10 hours)
I was trying to run it passively (turned of the fans via notebook fan control - there are no proper profiles for the particular model). It worked, temps around 60 degrees on CPU when idle/low perf tasks, when running video around 70-75 degrees. I had a HDD version and the only thing that was spinning was the hard drive. Over 75 C the fans kicked in at 100 % and cooled down the unit to 45 C, fans went off again. I emphasize this was a test run, normally the fans kick in at 45 C spinning at 3300RPM (not loud but recognizable at very quiet environment) and the machine was not overly noisy even running 3D mark tests.

The TN HDscreen was a little dissapointment. My 5 yr old Acer Aspire Timeline (glossy) has better clarity of photos and colours, is sharper than the Asus' TN panel. On the other hand it is nicely non-reflective.

The backlit keyboard is fantastic. The chassis is also very well built, the laptop looks very nice.

I wonder if there is going to be any difference between UX32LA and UX303LA other than HD+ TN screen option, AC wifi and minor difference in CPU models (i5 4200 vs. i5 4210 etc.)

 

I received my ux303LA yesterday. So far my only complaints are 2 dead pixels near opposite edges of screen, but I will manage to live with them. The screen is great although I had to change the power saving options because it would dim randomly every couple of minutes. The overall build quality of this machine is top notch, especially when you consider the $899 price. No rattling parts or weird noises. The other ultrabooks with similiar build quality were nearly twice the twice or more, granted they may have i7, a larger ssd, and in some cases a dGPU. I settled with the ux303la because most of the other models I looked at had 1 or 2 unresolved issues that I felt I couldn't live with. I would be the owner of a new LN model if they weren't suffering the QHD problem. The HD 4400 is more then enough for browsing, streaming, documents, and light gaming or anything else you might need for daily use. I rely on my xbox one for gaming these days

 

I'm really going crazy waiting forever for the Zenbook UX303LA here in Italy.
More precisely I'm interested in the:

-1080p / Touch
-i7
-256GB SSD
-8GB or 12GB RAM model.

Really don't care about QHD or Dedicated GPU, since I'm already happy with my Xbox One

Some questions for the owners of this model:

Can you tell me if the FHD Display is immune of the "Yellow Washed Color" bug of the LN model?
Is the LA version cooler/quieter and with better battery life compared to LN variants (I suppose so)?
When in the hell ASUS will release this model in the other countries Worldwide (especially in Italy)?
Will those Ultrabooks be easily upgradeable to Windows 9?

Thanks!

 

You are lucky if that config will be available in Italy! The only LA available in the US is 1920x1080, i5, 8 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD. There is no yellow color issue with the 1920x1080, that is exclusively a 3200x1800 screen problem. I have the US version and I am going to upgrade the SSD to 256 GB. 8 GB RAM is enough for me. I don't know what battery life folks with the LN version get, but I get 7 - 7.5 hours with light duty use. I would expect that any Win 8 laptop would be upgradable to Win 9.

Good luck, Jim

 

Thanks for the answer(s)!

Some other questions:

-What's the "real life" difference between the i5 and i7 models? I won't 3D Game at all, but I will edit/encoding some HD movies only at max usage. Is the difference in performance so big between the two?
-What if I'm going to buy the HDD version, and then upgrade it to SSD? Is LA easily upgradable? Am I forced to replace the HDD or I can have SSD+HDD? What is the best compatible third party SSD to buy for it?
-Is it cool and quiet?
-Can you post your personal review (Pro/Cons)?

Thanks so much Jim

 

Little update:


ASUS Italia just answered me via Twitter. I asked about UX303LA 1080p/Touch model availability in Italy, and they told me something like: "We hope they will arrive around Christmas, but we're not sure about it"

Better than nothing I guess

 

I'm reading that at many people ASUS told that the UX303s will fully arrive in Europe in December.
Finger crossed!

 

This product may have zero dead-pixel guarantee due to its premium level so please check with local ASUS office as well as your vendor to receive a replacement.

 

I think there is about 15% greater performance for the i7 over the i5, not enough to notice for the activities you mentioned. Both the LA and LN have a standard size 2.5 inch 7 mm port that will take either a HDD or a SSD. And there is a half length mSATA port that could take a SSD. These half length SSDs are mostly used as HDD cache so they tend to come in smaller sizes, maybe up to 128 GB. I think any 2.5 inch 7mm SSD will work, but Crucial M550, Crucial MX100 and Samsung Evo 840 seem to be popular options. The half length mSATA will be harder to find, but again, probably any half length mSATA will work.

My impressions of the LA are excellent. Wifi is excellent and battery life is very good. I get 7 - 7.5 hours with light duty use, much as you describe as your use. Build quality is what I expect for a premium ultrabook. Very little or no flex any where. I like the keyboard, but I am not a touch typer. There is one thing that I would change. The touch pad has a louder click than other laptops I have owned. But, the touch pad also has a tap function that works perfectly, I never get those unwanted target selections from unwanted taps. On previous laptops, I have turned the tap function off because of constant unwanted target selection. Overall, the UX303LA that I have is one of the best laptops I have ever owned, maybe the best.

Jim

Edit: My LA is very quiet, I never hear the fan And it never feels warm except for very slight warmth near the vents.

Jim

 

Thank you Sir!

 

Hi, I am considering getting the 303LA and here in the UK the only one I've come across that's on sale is i7 1.8GHz processor with 6GB RAM and 128SSD. Does anyone know for sure if the RAM/SSD would be upgradeable?

 

I know the ssd can be upgraded because I upgraded from a Sandisk 128 GB to a Samsung 250 GB. The memory can also be upgraded. There is a 4 GB stick soldered in and a slot that could take an 8 GB stick. The 6 GB version would have the 4 GB soldered and a 2 GB stick in the slot. I think a few people have upgraded to 12 GB of memory.

Good luck, Jim

 

Thanks a lot, this would have worked for me but I noticed that the screen resolution is only 900x1600, so its back to drawing board for me. I thought there was a 1920 x 1080 version out there but not yet it seems.

 

Just ordered this model, seems all discussions focuses on the (lackluster, IMO) LN model. Will post my impressions when I get it.

 

Does anyone know is the UX302LA windows 7 drivers will work with UX303LA? Asus website provides only win 8.1 drivers for this model, but I will be installing win 7, so I'm looking for the closes possible model whose win 7 drivers might work.

 

Most Win 8.1 drivers will work on 7.

 

Would it be possible to swap in / add a dedicated GPU card to the UX303LA (e.g. 840m, etc)?

*edit* It appears that the 840m GPU is a chip built into the motherboard so it seems unlikely.. unless they use the same motherboard and you could plug the 840m GPU chip into the UX303LA motherboard.. anyone? I can't tell from the existing dis assemblies online.

 

And what about cooling?

 

From the dis-assemblies of the LA and LN it looks like the same cooling fan is mounted above the GPU spot. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a dis-assembly of the LA in order to see if that spot below it has an available GPU slot for the 840m.

 

Nope, it can't be done since it's integrated.
Also, because of compact design, unless ASUS revised the hardware and replace the GPU with a newer version, but it will be at the same TDP range as 840M.

 

Why not simply just sell the LA and buy an LN?

 

So I'm looking to buy a laptop around December and this one has piqued my interested ever since it came out. Does the community recommend me getting this one (UX303LA) or the UX301LA? The primary difference I see would be screen resolution, storage, and processor. Any suggestions?

 

How is everyone optimizing battery life on this little bad boy?

I just got mine, uninstalled Mcafee and the other crap, turned off bluetooth and auto screen, gave it a full charge and now it's estimating 4 hours battery life with just light web browsing in Chrome on the Balanced mode. That seems low, although I would guess that windows hasn't calibrated the estimated battery life well yet. Thoughts?

 

What boot and restart times are everyone getting on their UX303LA?

I can't decide if something is wrong with my laptop or if the behavior is normal. Without the Windows 8 "Fast Startup" option on my laptop always hangs at the ASUS post screen for 30 seconds before the dots start spinning and I boot into Windows.

 

Does anyone know if there is any difference between the UB52T and DB51T?

One has been available on Amazon for $899 for a while, and the other is on the MS store for $799. Looks like the same specs.

I also don't understand why all the online buzz is about the LN and not the LA. At least in the US, the models are $4-500 apart. And for the extra $500 you get the upgraded SSD, and 12GB of RAM, graphics card, and an ahead-of-its-time resolution with poor yellows screen.

 

Also, what's the consensus on the quality of the trackpad these days? I know there were some bad reviews for them years ago. I'm hoping to get a laptop with a trackpad as close as possible in quality to the Macbook's.

 

I moved the thread to the right forum.

That does seem low. How many battery cells are in your configuration? Did you try monitoring CPU activity on task manager?

 

So, I bought my Asus UX303LA in the beginning of September. It managed a month and a half without any connectivity issues, but I've been having terrible luck with my wifi in the last month!

I can't figure out if this is a Windows 8.1 issue (as I suspect it is) or an Asus issue. Have any of you had problems with "limited connectivity" for the wifi??

If so, how did you manage to fix the problem? I've tried everything from the netsh.exe commands in the command prompt to changing the device drivers, and nothing seems to work for long. Sometimes I'm connected for days at a time, while other nights I'll spend hours trying every fix the internet can suggest! Please, please help!!

 

It would have been a super upgradeable ultrabook if it accepted standard size mSATA drives , are there any other ultrabooks which accept upgrades in a similar manner ? Are there any other reliability issues that i need to be aware of before going ahead with the purchase ? whats the weight of the box , i will be importing this to my country from US


Sandisk has a mSATA mini 128gb available for OEMs , any news on availability of this model ? ASUS should have used mSATA mini U110 disk in the 2.5" caddy instead of the M2 format

 

Amazon delivered my UX303LA on August 7th. It has been perfect since then, but in the last two weeks it has occasionally been failing to connect to my network when I start it from a power off state. I just select the option to troubleshoot the network adapter and it goes through a "reset" of the adapter. This fixes the problem until the next time.

It seems to me that a program or a Windows operation is leaving the adapter in a disabled state. Maybe one of the Windows updates in the last month messed up something?

I may report this problem to Asus just to get a case number on record.

Jim

 

That's not a bad idea. I absolutely love the laptop, but I am getting seriously disenchanted with the OS. >.> Letting the computer troubleshoot the problem is a good idea, except that half the time it says I'm completely connected with 5 bars, and then I get this error on my webpages: "DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NO_INTERNET". Talk about frustrating.

I had this same problem with my old laptop, too, so I'm wondering if it's something I've installed... But I can't figure it out for the life of me. All my virus and malware scans tell me my computer is fine! I had to downgrade to Windows 7 to fix the problem last year, and I'm hoping I won't have to go through that again!

 

There are so many cards having the same issues on win8 , my broadcom 43xx card worked fine on win7 on win8 it gives me a limited connectivity after some use.

 

Has anyone upgraded the storage on this thing

Which SSD upgrade should i choose for this laptop ? There are 3 options

1. 2.5" ssd
2.Buy a M.2 format and replace with the one present in laptop . Will this work?
3. 2.5" to mSATA convertor with a mSATA drive . Will this configuration support full speeds without data corruption?

I do not prefer to purchase a 2.5mm drive as most ultrabooks wont support it

 

My UX303LA from Amazon USA came with a 2.5 inch, 7 mm SSD, not the "piggy back" M.2 that has been reported to be in the LN models. So, in my case, there was no M.2 option. If you want to use a mSATA SSD you will have to be sure to get an adapter that will fit in a space designed for 7 mm thickness. I don't think there will be any performance issues with a mSATA SSD.

Good luck, Jim

Edit: I upgraded with a 250 GB Samsung EVO 840 which is a 2.5 inch 7 mm SSD.

 

There is another option but someone needs to confirm vacant space with a spare msata ssd.

We could use something like this SLSA7010 Flexible mSATA to mSATA Extender to add a full size mSATA drive. Even if the BIOS doesnt support mSATA boot, moving %PROGRAMFILES% will give a significant performance boost for VMS,boot times,browser profiles,etc

 

Where would you install it? I assume in the half length mSATA slot? If so, where would you put the full length mSATA? Just lay it in there somewhere?

Jim

 

There is some vacant space which is occupied by the nvidia chip and a fan on the LN model.

 

Stick it with a tape , its an ssd . There's also 1 vacant screw hole near the cable.

 

I just received this laptop two days ago via the $799 deal at microsoft. Loving it so far. I've got a 500GB Samsung evo 840 SSD ready to install but I'm going to give it a couple days just to make sure everything is working correctly before opening it up and swapping ssd's. So far so good. No issues with wifi, no dead pixels everything seems exactly as it should.

Wish there was more on this laptop rather than the LN version.

I still have my Dell XPS 13 and truthfully the specs are pretty similar. However the 1080p touch screen on this one and the extra slots for upgrading make this a worthwile step up for me.

 

Nice buy! I have the exact model except from Amazon. The only problem I have had is an occasional failed wifi connection on startup from power off state. It hasn't happened for about 2 weeks.

I upgraded mine to the 250 GB Samsung EVO 840. It works perfectly.

Good luck, Jim

 

I just received mine also from the microsoft store and so far I have been loving the laptop. Especially the build quality/screen/keyboard combo. I also upgraded my ssd to 256gb.

My only gripe is the touchpad.On my old laptop I have become accustomed to resting my thumb on the left click button. When I do that on this touch pad and pick it back up again it keeps stopping my mouse scroll. I wish the click touch pad buttons were not also the scroll pad. Does anyone know if there is a way to turn this off it drives me nuts. I guess I Could get used to it over time by not resting my thumb on the track pad but man thats a bummer.

 

Try removing the existing driver, see if it works better for you with Microsoft's generic driver.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I gave it a go and it is somewhat better but then I lose all the other gestures including two finger scroll which is crucial for me. Guess I will just have to get used to not letting my thumb rest there. Just sucks. I wonder if all laptops with these buttons integrated onto the trackpad are like this, or just ASUS

 

Just rcvd Zenbook; new to Win 8.1 and to some extent Touchpad which does NOT allow for right click - please advise. Other gestures such as scroll work fine. I am tapping in the lower right corner area of touchpad per the ebook owner's manual so this is rather frustrating as well as disliking win 8.1. Plan to use free Classic Start Button software to regain some of the appearance and functionality of Win 7.

Had trouble registering (remembering my PW) and so apologies if the above is inappropriate for this thread. Thanks for any help.

 

Two finger tap in roughly the low center of the touch pad and right corner click both give a right click.

Give Windows 8.1 a little more time. I love it. My Windows 7 desktop seems clunky by comparison.

Good luck, Jim

 

Thx Hawkeye62 ... I finally figured out about 2 finger tap, but find it annoying that lower right corner does NOT work. This led to lots of reading online with various complaints about the Touchpad and not so great attempts to fix things by Asus in subsequent driver releases.

DO YOU OR ANYONE KNOW if one can adjust the speed of movement (or acceleration of movement) of the cursor as one can do with most any USB mouse? That'd be much more important to me as the 2 finger right click tap as well as the dedicated right click keyboard button are fine alternatives. I have the latest drivers for the Asus gestures, but I understand that the Touchpad is an Elantech and that Asus just puts their own wrapper around it. Some other forum people use the Elantech drivers and prefer it, but they do NOT indicate what they prefer about it and what features it has that Asus smart gestures does not have. If anyone has experience with this, I'd love to benefit. I'm of course
using windows 8.1 and the drivers are specific to that OS.

 

I am not sure what you mean by "...lower right corner does NOT work." Mine works as I said, click the lower right corner for a right click. If yours does not do that, it must be defective.

If you open Control Panel and select "Mouse", you can do all of the usual pointer adjustments.

Jim

 

OK thx. Lower right on touchpad is the area to the right of the vertical black line at bottom of Touchpad; for me tapping there does NOT produce a right click and as you suggest perhaps is a defective Touchpad - frustrating. This evening I finally installed the last of software and made an Image of the drive. Reluctant to get seller to replace laptop as not confident that a restore from that Image to a new laptop will be completely effective and worth the risk and hassle. However if the TP is defective I wonder what else might go wrong with unit in short period of time.

As regards TP control and adjustments. In control panel I can adjust some things, but definitely NOT the speed and the acceleration of the cursor based on my movement on TP. Fortunately the screen is small, but the cursor just does not move fast enough and slows me down. If you are able to control speed and/or acceleration perhaps you can indicate what drivers for TP are installed on your unit.

Thanks again ...

 

Well, some apps don't respond to a "tap" in the lower right area, but do respond to a "click".

My UX303LA does let me change cursor speed, double click speed, etc. on the touch pad. In Control Panel, open the "Mouse" window, not anything regarding the touch pad. The touch pad driver on my unit is Asus, 03/18/2014, 6.0.0.35.

Good luck, Jim