ASUS Zenbook UX303 (Nvidia GT 840M)

Any one play modded Minecraft on the UX303ln? Just curious if the RAM can handle it.

And is there a 900 series refresh planned soon? I couldn't really find anything as the release of the LN model was more recent, correct?


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I'd say there should not be noticeable speed difference with original SSD for all practical purposes. Personally, I use Samsung SSDs because they are power efficient. Not the most but among the most efficient, especially in idle state.

 

Do you mean nvidia geforce 900m series graphic cards? Well, I don't really think we should expect such refreshment soon. Asus haven't even refreshed the gaming series(ROG) with the new 970/980ms yet as far as I know. So ROG is the first on the line for 900m series.

What is the difference between 940m and 840m anyway? I am not sure the difference is as obvious as 980m/880m..

 

Hi Jim,
I am going to buy the UX303LA, I only have two questions for you.
1. Is the replacement process difficult? I don't have any experience with playing with the insides of a laptop, I would just like to upgrade the SSD.
2. How did you transfer Windows to the new SSD?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

 

I don't think there is any difference in performance between the original SanDisk and the new Samsung. Both are standard 2.5 inch 7 mm SSDs. I don't have any display profile, I just used as is.

Good luck, Jim

 

Yes, sorry, I meant the 900 series GPUs. I didn't realize ROG line was the first to get them.

Still very curious on modded Minecraft .


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My success with working on laptop innards has been poor, so I opted to have an Asus repair shop change out the SSDs.

Some people have done a clean install of Win 8 after installing a new SSD. I chose to clone my existing SSD to the new SSD, then after the new SSD was installed, it booted directly to the OS on my new SSD. I used Macrium Reflect to do the clone. It has an option to expand the OS partition to use the spare space. Or, you can just do a simple clone then use Paragon Partition Manager 2014 (free) to resize the OS partition to use the extra space.

To do the clone you will need a USB to 2.5 inch sata connector. I had a USB 2.5 inch external enclosure that I use for backups, so I used that. There are USB cables with a SATA connector that you can find for a few dollars. Just connect the new SSD via the USB cable and it will show up as a new drive.

Good luck, Jim

Before you start I suggest that you use the Windows 8.1 tool to make a bootable USB with the recovery partitions included.

 

@rfii

Yes, it is a glossy touch screen.

@fisaah

I thought it comes with a nice fabric sleeve case?

 

Using a clone tool is your best bet if you want to keep it as is. I tend to use acronis.

 

Hi,

Sorry to answer tardily to this post.

Did you find where to buy the ux303ln in New Zealand and if yes, where?

Thanks in advance for you help.

 

@ZugZug, @hawkeye62
Thx for the reply.
Well, I suppose that isn't good idea to change the ssd only for performance but only if more space is necessary.

 

Just received a UX303LA from Microsoft Store, love the laptop but unfortunately they sent me a box/unit that was already open (seal was broken). Will try to exchange for a new one.

 

One model became available two days ago - Asus 13.3" UX303LN Laptop | Harvey Norman New Zealand

Personally, I'm not interested in this one because it has an i5 CPU. HDD and the RAM can be upgraded with no problems. I believe all of the ones coming here will be the Australian models (which are considered by many as the best ones). No QHD screens, but only 1080p touch.

 

There won't be much of a difference between the i5 and i7 to be fair.

 

Hey guys! I'm getting this laptop tomorrow, but the only configuration available in my region (Malaysia) is the 1TB HDD with 4GB RAM and i5 processor (luckily it's still the LN model).

I want to upgrade the HDD to an SSD and add another 4GB of RAM to make it 8GB total. Any tips I should know (like what screws they are, how to take the hard drive)? I've never done this before, so any help is appreciated.

 

To open the laptop you'll need T5 screwdriver and Phillips (for screws under rear rubber feet and ones that hold hard drive and battery). The rear rubber feet are glued (not permanently though) but have to be removed to access screws underneath.
Also, be careful removing back panel once it's unscrewed - it is attached with plastic latches to the rest of the body on the rear side. Can't give you specific advice there but simply be careful but persistent.
You'll need to partially unscrew and lift a bit battery because it overlaps hard drive.

 

After a lot of waiting and waiting and still some more waiting I'm (almost) done with this...
I will probably pay a bit more and get a highend business Lenovo Thinkpad T440s. No dedicated graphics, but actually I really don't need that. I rarely play, and then I still have PS3 and iPad for that...

Links: german / english

 

@moeTi:

I also gave up on the 303 and got myself a Toshiba Satellite Z30. Maybe take a look at those Ultrabooks, since I got an UX32 ( instead of the 303... ) but it died and then I got the Toshiba and I am so happy that my ASUS died, because the Toshiba is a really nice ultrabook.
May be a cheaper variant for you, and it's still an awesome ultrabook. Best alternative I found after ~6 Weeks of daily research...

 

Z30 has 1366x768 pixels only?

 

Sorry, Z30-A (Link). There are some configurations with FHD available.

 

No dedicated graphics on that unit though... to me that's one of the features of the 303 that make it stand out versus other ultra books... in addition to the possibility of two drives and of course an awesome yellow hue on the only GPU version available in the US... grrrr...

 

If someone have the post-calibration color profile made by notebookcheck.net,
can share it for me??

 

Thanks for the tip, I read about that one too. In reviews it was stated that it can get quite loud under heavy load, and that's a deal breaker for me. My old notebook was so annoyingly loud that I swore never to get something similar again. So even if it is not much noise, I'd rather go for a very quiet model.
As I mentioned earlier, I ordered a Lenovo ThinkPad T440s: i7, 12GB RAM, matte FHD display, 256GB SSD. It's a sturdy business machine, not a shiny consumer one, it has no dedicated graphic and is a bit more expensive. I can live with all of that, as long as I don't have to wait another few weeks.
German shop where it is quite cheap (in other shops you pay more for the 8GB version): http://www.planet-notebook.com/leno...bssd-w7pw8p-3jgar-20aq0069ge12gb-p-13534.html


I was very interested in Zenbooks, but Asus' information flow is really a desaster! Same for german shop cyperport.de, they announced delivery three times already only to postpone it again on the last day. that just sucks, better say nothing at all like amazon was handling it (they answered nicely after I checked back per email)

 

Somebody at a German shop let us know that Asus has decided that this Version is EOL. They are going to sell the minor rest of notebooks which are available here and there however they want to release a knew product in February/March next year. Maybe it is because of the new generation of CPUs. That's why you have to be really lucky to get this notebook these days!

 

what a joke... the new model (NX500JK) is priced at 2200€, twice what they wanted for the 303LN. Well, I'm done with Asus

 

What is going on here, I mean already EOL??? How trustworthy is this statement? What is Asus doing?

 

Is this based on the posting from the notebookcheck.com forum (saturn employee) or is this from another source? I'm not sure what I should think about it. The new product could be the UX305, which was announced on IFA and was planned to be released in december. Cyberport frequently added a release date for the i7 with 8GB ram, before they had just a date for the i7 12GB ram. If the series is really EOL I'm pretty sure Cyberport will pretty soon remove it from the shop.


Edit: Just checked the Hardwaredeluxx forum. Someone there contacted an ASUS franchise dealer who was in talk with Asus recently and said that the UX303LN will be released beginning december. There will be verions of the i5 and the i7 with 8GB Ram, the 12GB version is not listed. Hopefully that's the big mistake here, as Saturn got only the 12GB version of the i7, maybe that was just a "special version" for Saturn/Mediamarkt and this one will be EOL. Here's the link to the forum posting: http://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/f270/asus-zenbook-ux303ln-ux303la-1034059-6.html#post22893388

 

I think Asus might be playing us here.

It seems like an absolute joke. The UX32LN was EOL after only a few sold units in every country with no availability in some countries. Asus told people to wait for the UX303LN instead. Now the exact same thing happened again. End of Life before really releasing it.

This really is a joke. It seems like they want to get top reviews on notebookcheck, but the laptop is too good/expensive for them to release it everywhere. Both of these laptop got fantastic reviews. It just doesn't make sense to not make them available anywhere.

! :B Wow!

 

I want to love this laptop but the actions from Asus are really leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Does anyone have an update regarding a fix for the color problems?

Asus service reps deny the problem exists when you call them. Asus reps however are very diligent to claim it's an isolated issue on places like Amazon.com (see reviews).

I saw mention a few times on the Asus North America Twitter page that they were working on a fix but that was over a month ago. Now I see the above mentioning the model is EOL?

Are they giving up because the known issues can't be fixed?

 

No, there is no connection between EOL and the colour issues of the QHD-display. The talk about EOL is about the german releases, which are only available with nontouch FHD-displays. Only the QHD-display has colour problems because of the way they work, the FHD-displays are not affected. If the whole series is really EOL is another question, as you get different news about it. In this and the notebookcheck forum people wrote that shop seller told them that the series is EOL, in another forum someone contacted an Asus franchise dealer and got as answer that at least two of three versions should be released beginning december. Again, it's just about the german releases, Maybe the EOL for the series is correct, maybe it's a mistake and just for one model or maybe it's a complete misunderstandning - as we can't get any clear answers from Asus itself we will see. Asus absolutely needs to improve here.

 

After reading a number of reviews, the UX303 is one of the laptops that precisely fit my criteria. But as I would like to get some light video and photo editing done on it, the warnings about the display colors kept me from buying it so far. At the same time, I repeatedly saw posts here that stated that there are versions of the UX303LN without these problems. These are apparently only available in Germany (where I happen to be from)? And how exactly can they be distinguished?

 

I found this today - its 8GB RAM not 4GB and it has the 1080p touch. I'm in New Zealand

 

In one of your old posts I saw you made use of the free masata mini slot. Hows it performing? What size did you go for? I cant find an msata mini bigger than 128gb. Do you notice any difference in speed between the main ssd and the msata? Sorry for alot of questions

 

You just need to look for a matt Full-HD (in short FHD) display with 1920x1020 resolution. The colour problem is the way how the new glossy Quad-HD (in short QHD) display with 2550x1440 resolution works. Try to get a version with FHD-display and you will be fine.

Germany is indeed one of the few regions who gets the UX303LN with a FHD-display, most other countries only get versions with QHD-displays. Unfortunately in germany the ASUS UX303LN is on delay since August, only a few units showed up lately in some Mediamarkts/Saturns. Everytime you ask Asus Germany you get only vague release dates from them, something like end/beginning of the next month. As result many folks here worry about continious delays and fear that the Asus UX303LN will like it's predecessor UX32LN be removed from the market while it was never really available.

 

Right so I received my UX303ln (US version) about 10 days ago. Had an opportunity to properly work on it this week and I absolutely love it. Yes the yellows are bit weird but nothing I can’t live with. As many have pointed out, any photo editors should stay away from it due to the same issue. This is my 1st windows 8 laptop. I have heard so many people complaining about windows 8 since its release. I just don't get it! Windows 8 is such a great experience. Same with the dpi scaling related complains, I have hardly noticed it even in the desktop mode. Only had trouble last night when I was trying to insert a symbol in Microsoft word document, the symbol pop up box was too small but other than that dpi scaling is fine. I am glad I went for the qhd model as I was sort of in two minds due to dpi and yellow colour issues.
The laptop itself is just great. Very well built, I love typing on it (typed a 6 pages long report last night), screen looks really good other than yellows, trackpad is very responsive and touch screen is an added bonus. The only complain I have is the battery life, it isn’t as good as I would have liked it to be, in fact I didn’t have very high expectations of it but it is even worse than that (slightly worse). The built in speakers aren’t that great either.
As far as seeing any issues is concerned, I have on couple of occasions noticed that the Wi-Fi connection goes a bit slow when laptop is far away from the router but then it randomly picks up the speed. Now the biggest issue I noticed was last night while working with Microsoft office and adobe reader. The scrolling on the adobe is terrible to say the least. It lags and generally the whole experience is very sluggish. I have a suspicion it might be due to the touch feature being enabled but I am not sure. Other than that all the main office applications lagged quite a lot randomly and very frequent. I tried restarting the computer but that didn’t help either. I am really hoping it is some software related glitch, either on the office side or some installed software. Has anybody experienced this issue? Or any suggestions to find the cause?
All in all it is a great laptop but battery could be better. I really hope the lag issue I experienced in office applications can be fixed because it was very noticeable and annoying.

P.S I have office 2013 installed

 

Hi to all.
If someone can be interested, here in Italy the UX303LN is relased.
I have bought the i7, 8Gb, 128Gb and fhd display at 840 euro.

PS. I'm searching for a good display profile. Anyone have it and want share it for me?

 

The 940M hasn't been released by nVidia yet, and I'm not aware of any announced release date, so a 900 series update of the UX303LN is probably a long way off.

 

Thank you for the elaborations!

Does it even make sense to wait in the face of these constant delays? From what I can see, it is apparently not possible to just order the 303LN with the better display from any other Europen country.

 

I live in Japan and received my US version UX303LN with i7, 12GB ram, 256gb ssd and QHD screen. i am really happy with it. Photos on the screen is really crisp(yes yellow in normal computer software is a bit mustard, so nothing new there) and performance is great. Have been using it for work running virtual machines for development and it works really great. Did a test run of the Battlefield 3, first time in 3 years. and i had no problems running multiplier on medium settings.
I agree that a lot of software is not adopted for the high resolution, but i guess it is just a matter of time, because i just love the extra screen area to run apps on. And i did not realize i would love the touch screen it is a really good compliment to using the touchpad/mouse in Windows 8.1. Battery time i get about 4 hours when running a VM in virtual box on balanced power settings.

The only issues i have is the the magnet on the top of the screen on my left side is too weak, probably just an issue with my specific machine. I could get a new one on warranty but i really dont want to return this one now after using it for a few days. XD

 

I didn't even realise there were magnets on top of the screen until I saw your post lol. The left one one mine is definitely weaker than the right one. But they may have done this on purpose to allow opening the lid with less force on one side? Have you used any office apps on your laptop yet? (Word, Excel etc)

 

If your left magnet is also weaker, then it is probably a design decision. Thanks for checking your laptop. It definitely makes it easier opening the lid
I have not tested Office yet. Still trying to decide between Office 365 or Office 2013.

 

I'm not a huge fan of 365 :/

 

It's really hard to decide what level of magnet to be used, because it's possible that it can be weak to some but strong to a different group.
If it's too strong then some may complain that they can't open the lid.

 

No problems here with office 2013 and my German ux303, using factory installation with manual updated drivers and software to latest version out there (not from Asus)

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Hi Guys!

I was looking for a portable, powerful laptop with a decent battery life for about year... now I think I have fallen in love with this laptop,
I have a version with 128GB SSD and 1080p touch screen display... i must say it is simply amazing!
I was looking at MSI GS60 2QE with 970M but i rather chose longer battery life than power of 970M ...
This laptop is definitely what I was looking for

Here's quick/short review:

Display:
During day in a room with Brithness set to Auto that display is simply amazing! The problem starts when I set brightness to 30% still during day, I still can clearly see things displayed on the screen but I also can see my reflection what is a little bit annoying but I think I can live with that It's not such a big deal...
During night, well that's when It all begins... 30% brightness ... I was watching Avatar because it is the only film I know is perfect in 1080p and also is really colorful ... nah, i wont be writing nonsense, i'll simply say it ... IT FREAKING AMAZING DISPLAY !!! I couldn't stop the movie even for a second because it was like i got right into the movie with all the characters xD
Even with all of those positives there's one negative... Dark Scenes are a little bit problem but again it's not a big deal

Keyboard/Touchpad:
I never had a laptop with backliting before so I can say it's really really handful while typing this in completly dark room while i am laying in my bed...
It's not like MSI Steelseries but it feels premium :O I can't tell more about keyboard because I can type well on any keyboard Not counting Lenovo(these machines have really problematic keyboard even for me...) But again there's one negative thing about it, and that is definitely Power Button which is part of a keyboard and when I am coding I accidentaly push it when looking for delete button, but hopefully after some time I'll get used to it and stop pressing power off

Touchpad/clickpad or whatever it is called sometimes is not my friend... I accidentaly put my pinky to it and then I am like "why the hell isn't my mouse moving..." but I can say it's way better then any laptop I used before


Performance:

Well, I just tried HAWX2 and LOL so there's not much what I can tell you guys...
Hawx2 without any problems went well on max without AA... FPS 40+
LOL while on battery it was somewhere between 30+ FPS(nvidia) and 15-20(intel) ... playing with charger: 50+(nvidia) and during team fights it never dropped below 40

I also did 3DMark benchmarks so here they are: NVIDIA GeForce 840M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4510U,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. UX303LN

Temperatures:

Idle/Light browsing: CPU max 40-50°C GPU: off
Gaming: CPU max 75°C GPU: also around 70°C
Benchmarks: same as gaming and it also never went higher then 75°C without any throttling...

Chassis: Was getting warmer around number "9" button but that's all, no problems at all even when gaming

Noise:
What noise? even when gaming it was completly silent I was able to hear that fans are on but it was like whispering

Battery life:
Idle: 9+ hours (Backlight off, Brightness 30%)
Webbrowsing: 6+ hours (Backlight 30%, Brightness 30%)
Gaming(LOL): around 2 and a half ... I was able to play 2x 5v5 Summoners Rift(both around 50minutes) + 2x ARAM(ca 10-20minutes games)
Movie watching: That's what also amazed me, I watch way more movies then game so it was the main thing I concerned about... I was able to watch 5x 20minutes series + 2x 90minutes movies what is ca 4.5 hours of movie watching ! + 15-30minutes reserve for little usage :O

Chassis:

I should have start with that
Feels pretty solid and premium... nothing more I can tell you

______________________________________________________________

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me

 

Bought my UX303LN the other day and am very happy with it.

Immediately after buying I swapped out the SSD for a 1TB Samsung 840 Evo, installed a clean copy of Windows 8, upgraded to 8.1, installed all the Asus drivers from their webpage and started using the laptop.

I noticed immediately that my battery was running down very fast (estimated time was around 2 hours). I did some searching here and found that the Asus Smart Gesture app might be the problem so I uninstalled that, sadly there was no change (or perhaps imperceptibly small).

I've installed battery bar and now, as I type with wifi on, screen brightness at 50%, performance mode at balanced it tells me i'm using 14,329mw.

I've read other people reporting 5 - 6,000mw in similar usage situations to mine. Does anyone have any idea where the extra power is going and how to fix it?

Many thanks.

 

Your Nvidia is probably active. If you are using Chrome or Steam check if it's set to use Intel graphics and not nvidia

 

Hi What drivers did you update? And what software to the latest version?

 

Good suggestion but sadly not the case. I checked the settings in the Nvidia app in the control panel and Chrome was set to use the integrated graphics card. Just to make sure I disabled the nvidia card completely but this also didn't solve the problem.

The absolute lowest draw i've seen on my battery, no applications open screen setting on minimum, wifi on is 9,300mW.

Any other suggestions?

 

Yes, please! If somebody could compile a list of drivers that can be updated that would be very much appreciated!
I only updated the NVIDIA driver because I don't know which other drivers can be updated and where to go to find them (Intel?).

Thank you very much!