ASUS Zenbook UX303 (Nvidia GT 840M)

I know those review. In the same time thx for share it.

 

@endurocker.
thx for the information.
please let us know about the battery life detail later on. and if u dont mind to post your laptop screen with some color background variations.

 

So here are my initial findings after using the UX303LN-4142 for 3 days.

-The device screams premium. Its colour is indeed brown(ish) but its the type of finish that cannot be demostrated on photos. I actually like it. The keyboard doesnt flex at all, but the touchpad clicking can be annoying at times. Touchpad usage is good to say the least, but still miles away from the Macbook pro experience (it has significant fiction, the provided software doesnt allow much customization and the gestures are hit-and-miss).

-It is indeed fast, nearly silent even after load and heats up only to a comfortable level. Do yourself a favour and get rid of the Mcafee trial ASAP, it slows the computer down randomly. In addition some driver update messed the Intel HD pwoer management setting, so I dont have refresh rate and dynamic contrast/brightness control anymore. Any help on the matter would be appreciated.

-The battery I cannot comment as of the moment, it is still too early. However, I have a feeling that it would be sufficient for 5-6 hours of moderate use.

And now for the thing that bugs me the most, it is the combination of the matte screen and the brown bezels. The panel itself is perhaps the most beautiful matte fhd panel I have ever seen, but, having been used to the perfect MBRR display with the semi glossy panel and the outstanding colors and black levels, its a hard transition. Even more, the brown bezel ruins the subjective contrast of display. I am actually considering 2 things:
Either a) I will be lucky enough and find someone here that sells the complete lid (with the panel) of either the FHD touch display (US 303LA) or the QHD one (US 303LN) so I can replace mine, or b) try to find the appropriate black skinning decals that are available for the most popular notebooks (but unfortunately currently not for the 303) So I am asking u guys, do you know if there is some other zenbook model that shares the exact same bezel as the european LA/LN?

Thats all for now, for any questions please do ask

 

I didn't realise the matte models had brown bezels. Yuck.

Glad I went with the 1080p glossy screen swap now.

 

@billgs
thx for your opinion.
What you mean when you talk about european model??
Do u think that the european model haven't the big plastic around

 

OK, so quick question. The screen of the UX303LN (Q-HD) is glass, right?

 

@TheUntouchable and @Endurocker,

those machines you bought, were they on display in the Media Markt and Saturn stores?
Or were they packed away in the warehouse and you could only get them because you asked for them?

A friend of mine is looking for a new laptop and since the Samsung 900X3G is no longer available, the UX32LN respectively the UX303LN-R4139H seemed the best offerings to us.
For months we both called and visited a whole range of stores in the Rhein-Main-Gebiet and finally seemed to be lucky, but sadly got delivered a mislabeled LA machine.
Yesterday we went to both Saturn and Media Markt but there were very little Asus on display and no UX303 at all.
She slowly grows sick of waiting for Asus to be able to deliver what is being advertised and what we spent a lot of effort on getting since July.
She is a professional engineer therefore a matt display is very important to her but honestly I can understand she is starting to look into alternatives which have some disadvantages to them but at least are available.

 

I just told the guy what a Laptop I want Can't tell anything about if they were shown there =( Before that I wrote an email to the store if this model is available there and they told me yes it is.

 

Thanks for the hint.
Saturn and Media Markt within 50km of reach just got their email inboxes spammed

 

Hehe, good luck!

 

Anybody already unlock the bios of the ux303ln?

 

Louis, the i5 Model R4139H should be available at Saturn Maybachstraße Köln. Better be fast!

 

What does "unlock" mean in this context? What do you want to do?

 

I want to have the options for overclocking, undervolting, fan control and things like that

 

You can unlock it using AMIBCP and then flash the modded BIOS in DOS mode.

 

Yeah I know, but which version of AMIBCP do I need and will I crash my new laptop? Perhaps someone did this before and has a working bios to flash already

 

It is really baffling that Asus doesn't offer 1080p+840m in the US. I would buy that laptop with my eyes closed.

 

I think newest available AMIBCP is V4.55. Yes someone quite some time ago posted on here saying they did flash a modded BIOS. There is always a chance you can brick your laptop but you can minimize the chance of it happening by not touching stuff you don't know about and flashing the BIOS in DOS.

 

Does anyone know where to buy the ux303ln model in USA other than amazon?

 

yeah i try figure it out too. i saw amazon just sell the QHD model. that have an issue with yellow color.

 

I am actually looking for standard usa model with qhd screen but don't want to buy from Amazon. Other places I have found are adorama and bhpothoto but they don't have it in stock

 

What's wrong with Amazon?

 

Sales tax! I actually live in uk but travelling to Newyork. I will have to pay 20% VAT when I bring the laptop to uk so don't want to pay additional 9% sales tax. Amazon collects it while checking out.

 

Guys, did anyone notice if the spacebar is slightly lower and less clickier on the left side than the right side. Can anyone please check, i want to know if i have a defective unit.
Thanks in advance.

 

hey, does anyone have the similar condition: I am charging the UX303ln and up to ~98%, then it stops charging and says "connected to AC, not charging" .???

 

I have the same issue on the UX303LA.

 

I don't notice any difference on my LA. But, what do you mean by "clickier"? My keyboard doesn't make any noise when I push a key, well maybe a slight sound when a key hits bottom.

Jim

 

Both end of the keyboard dont feel the same, the left side you can feel a click while on the right side, no clicks or sounds heard it just feels unbalanced, IDK maybe not placed properly but ill probably have to live with it since i dont want to risk breaking any buttons.

 

Oh, I misunderstood. I don't have that issue but sometimes if I click too far to the left or right it seems to miss the press, but then again just in general I have weird issues with keys sometimes not being pressed but it could just be me not used to a laptop keyboard. I have heavy mechanical keyboards normally and I type very quickly so I could just be brushing by the keys since they're so flat. Overall still love this thing though. And I'm starting to think my Wi-Fi issues may be my router rather than this laptop, unsure though because the network card in here is notoriously problematic.

 

The network card, dual band, AC 7260, was the cure all for extremely poor wifi with the Sony Vaio Pro 13 and the Yoga 2 Pro. Everyone wanted the AC card to cure wifi problems.

Jim

 

Are you talking about the touchpad or the keyboard? My keyboard has no click sound except for the keys hitting bottom. The touchpad does have a loud click which I avoid by using tap rather than click.

Jim

 

no im talking about the spacebar on the keyboard...

 

Have you tried massaging the key down on the side it clicks?

 

There is absolutely no sound when I push the spacebar down, except for the sound of the bar hitting bottom. If I push it softly, there is no sound. You might consider an exchange.

Good luck, Jim

 

Hey I have a friend in Thailand whose address I can use to buy the UX303LN, but I had a few questions about the Thai version that I was hoping you could help me with.

1) Is it a matte screen or a glossy one? The folks at invadeIT.co.th thought it was glossy but weren't sure.
2) Does it have an A, B, or C type plug? This website has pictures of the different kinds: Plug & socket types - World Standards
3) It's non-touch FHD, right? Again, the folks at that store weren't positive.

Help greatly appreciated!

 

it was in thailand right?
man that was very cheap thought, if the seller ship to indonesia i'll buy it right now , coz in my country this model has not been released yet.

 

I can confirm that for my ux303ln. No click sound, but the usual key hitting sound.

 

Are there any UX303LN or UX303LA models with:

core i7
FHD resolution
touchscreen

currently available or soon to be released in the US?

I think this is the LN version: UX303LN-C4147H and the LA version: UX303LA-C4089H. Not sure tho.. and no clue if these are already out or will ever be in the US. There are so many pages on this thread it's hard to find the answer anywhere, any replies would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

Do you think this could be the result of me dropping very little oil on it and then wiping it immediately or it just came factory that way?

 

Factory error

 

Ok so after spending a week with the UX303, trying to find what is wrong with it concerning the random choppiness and mediocre battery life, I stumbled upon this(which if I knew in advance, I would never buy it)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...ver-sets-cpu-speed-maximum-during-scroll.html

Indeed, if you use the touchpad to scroll with two fingers (and this is the only way, due to the stupid asus smart gesture app) the cpu goes immediately to turbo mode (3.1ghz) and lingers there for about 5-10 seconds before it steps down again, until you touch the pad with two fingers once more. That means, on a typical surfing and consuming media scenario (browsing pages by scrolling with the touchpad), the laptop lasts for 3.5-4 hours, if you are lucky.
What is more, for some apparent reason my power schemes are screwed, leading to the following:

-Battery saver is stuck in 800mhz whatever I do (except ofcourse, the power-demanding task of scrolling, which skyrockets the cpu), something that is not in any scenario optimal.

-Balanced idles in 800mhz again, stepping up directly to 2800 when something is going on, again unsatisfactory.

-High performance idles to 2800, and sometimes reaches 3100 depending on the load, sucking the battery dry.

I succesfully managed to solve this scaling problem momentarily by using some weird intel dptf driver/intel hd driver combo, but that only lasted for a power cycle, after the reboot I was back to the same problem.

Even if I eventually manage to solve the speed step problem, the touchpad scrolling problem remains. The solution is to use either the touchpad bareboned without any drivers, which literally cripples it, or a mouse. This, I believe, is unacceptable for a 12 grand brand new machine.

This issue I have double-checked and it hold true for both my machine (german UX303LN with the matte 1080p screen) and my overseas pal's machine (US 303LN with the QHD touchscreen). I encourage everyone who has it to install a cpu monitoring program like cpuz, leave it onscreen on a corner, try to scroll with the pad and see the cpu's behaviour.

In the meantime I have some questions for the community:
-Can I use another non-Asus touchpad driver? Unfortunately the hardware identifies as FLT0101 from Focal I believe, so no regular Elantech drivers work.
-Is there a definitive solution to the ~power schemes getting messed up~ problem?

Many thanks in advance, I would really appreciate your help because I was waiting for so long for this laptop and now that I finally have it I cannot really enjoy it...

 

This problem has been around for quite some time. To solve this on my UX302LG, I used the method in the following post and it did provide substantially better battery life. However seeing as these new touch pads are Focal (and mine was ELAN) I don't know if it will work for the UX303. http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...power-consumption-due-asus-smart-gesture.html

 

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately this is the very first thing I tried, without results. Maybe due to the new batch of Focal pads...

 

Are you sure it's not from the oil sticky it or something?
Thanks

 

I don't see it going to turbo mode when scrolling via touch pad although it does go up to about 2.5 GHz, then back down to about 0.77 GHz. And my battery life has averaged 7 hr 24 min over the last two months as reported by powercfg.

Jim

Edit: I have the LA, 1080p touch screen with i5 CPU.

 

Of course I'm not sure. You'd have to open your laptop up to achieve any level of certainty. But if it's an entire half of a keyboard, I'd be surprised if it was caused by a few drops of oil. Despite that, I don't think oil would make the keys 'clickier'.

 

If it is making a sound other than just the key "hitting bottom", You should exchange it.

Jim

 

The right part of the spacebar feel less elevated and clicks much less than the right part of the spacebar, i dont know if this is a defect, the left part is more elevated and has more click to it when pressed.

 

Would you mind sharing your exact software configuration? In particular, exact versions of the following drivers:

-BIOS Version
-Intel DPFT
-Intel MEI
-Intel HD Graphics
-Asus ATK
-Asus SmartGesture App (and please make sure that your touchpad identifies as FLT1010)

I know this is probably a lot, but I have spent so much time making this thing work properly and I have failed (exept from 2 occasions thus fair, but they seem to be flukes cause after a restart the problem comes back) so I am one step away from returning it.

Thanks in advance, I will be truly grateful

 

Intel DPTF: 7.1.0.2105

Intel MEC: 9.5.23.1766

Intel Graphics: 10.18.10.3574

Asus ATK: 1.0.0034

Asus Smart Gesture: 2.2.14

Asus Touchpad: FLT0100, Driver: 6.0.0.35 Dated 3/18/2014

BIOS: American Megatrends 203, GOP 5.0.1036
Jim