ASUS Zenbook UX303LB (Nvidia GT 940M)

100-240W. The adapter is probably universal, and it does look like the plug is removable, but probably only for Asus benefit not for the customer. It must be hard snapped in place somehow. Would be a nice feature if you could just pop it off and replace with whatever adapter you wanted.

Euro Plug:


North American Plug:


Plug on adapter (you can see lines where you'd think it would detach):

 

Can the UX303LB play Witcher 3 and GTA V? Yes, yes it can!

 

Now also available in Romania.
http://www.pcgarage.ro/ultrabook/as...56gb-ssd-geforce-940m-2gb-win-81-smoky-brown/
http://www.emag.ro/laptop-asus-zenb...indows-8-1-brown-ux303lb-r4015h/pd/DDH4RMBBM/
5200 RON ($1300) for the i7, FHD and 256GB SSD version.
Rather decent price. The 303LN is about $100 cheaper. The price on the LB will also probably drop soon.

 

I've never been a fan of the combined plug/brick :/

 

You mean wall wart? Yeah I agree. I really would like a separate cable off the brick to the wall. But that's why I buy things like these: http://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Upgraded-Extension-Lifetime-Warranty/dp/B00CEJW0WQ

 

I think that's a good plan, less risk to the brick of damage and easier to plug in.

 

Are the touchpad and mouse buttons as bad as I hear?

I have an MSI GT72 w/ 980m which sees little use. I'm thinking of selling and grabbing either this, the Lenovo Yoga 3 w/ 940m, or the new AW13 for couch use and light gaming.

Basically, all I'll play is a little WoW, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity OS, Civ V, Fallout 3 etc. leaving the AAA gaming for my PS4 on the 65" 4K

So yeah, basic requirements. I just want a nice thin laptop, with quiet fans, thats suitable for that type of light gaming. But I've heard really bad things about the touchpad and mouse buttons on the previous UX303LN.

Luckily, the 1080p model in abailable here in Aus. 1080p touch too.

 

Hi, how are you.
I have a question about this laptop.
I wonder if I can install a SDD (M.2) along with a HDD (no SDD).
The model sold in my country (Chile) comes with a conventional hard disk 1TB, but I like to have a SSD as primary hard drive and the other disk as secondary.

 

It uses a half height MSATA slot rather than M.2 I believe. But I believe you should be able to populate that.

 

I wouldn't use the touchpad for gaming. Not even the best touchpad can perform well for gaming except some basic turn based point and click. The touchpad is large for such a machine and so far has managed my basic Windows experience well, although I do tend to carry a mouse around with me.

I have populated the half height (mini) mSATA slot with a 128GB MyDigitalSSD SSD (128GB is max capacity for the mini SSD) and it works great/fine for a boot drive. I also have a 2.5" 512GB Crucial MX100 drive installed. Great budget matching pair and power sipping too.

 

A 128GB SSD with a fairly decent capacity HDD is also a fairly cost effective solution.

 

I understand that touchpad gaming is never ideal. However, I've had some success using my gf's MB Pro, and have also felt quite accurate using a friends Razer Blade.
I hear that new Microsoft certified Precision Touchpads (Surface 3 / XPS 13) are excellent too.

Meanwhile, I cannot stand the touchpad on my MSI GT72. I find it difficult just navigating around windows explorer. And clicking the buttons is enough to wake up the neighbours. They give off a ridiculously loud 'clack' sound which has resulted in me never using it.
I exaggerate slightly, but for a thin-form laptop I expect to use on the couch, I'd like to be sure that it controls okay. Not just when I have it set up on a desk with a laptop plugged it.

Popping down to my local retailer to have a look at the Yoga 3 14" w/ 940m this morning. Also looks like a pretty nice machine - though not as thin or premium as the UX303LB.
I suppose the hinge might be handy. Could prop it up as a second screen for remote play, if I ever get around to buying an Xbox One

 

how is the hinge? I've read a lot of things about the hinge breaking on the LN model. When this releases in the US, I'm thinking about buying it, but I don't want it to break on me. Also, are there any yellow problems for those of you have the QHD version?

Thanks

 

Do you guys think it will be able to get an (full size) mSATA SSD in there with this adapter?

http://www.amazon.de/M-ware®-mSata-Notebook-Adapter-ID13808/dp/B00H90NYHA/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1435018171&sr=1-1&keywords=msata mini pcie ssd

EDIT: damn this one is the wrong one. Looking for mSATA to mSATA atm, but I can't seem to find a corner adapter.

 

There is not much spare space to work with really so no I don't think so.

 

You could try something like this if you can find a place to mount the mSATA drive: http://www.amazon.com/Generic-PCI-E-express-Extension-wireless/dp/B00RZ3KDZC

But yeah a right angle to mSATA adapter might let it fit.

However considering you can use a full size 2.5" SSD I don't know that it's really necessary to go to that extent. I find the 128GB mini mSATA + 2.5" SATA drive offers a lot of flexibility. Maybe a 256GB mini mSATA will be available soon.

 

Purchased the UX303LB yesterday. 1080p touch screen model.

I had a play with the UX303LA in-store, and the only complaint I had was the sharp front lip.
I was almost tempted to pick up the Yoga 3 14" w/ 940m purely due to ergonomics, but the
reports of the fans being loud put me off. Plus, the screen was particularly dull, expecially
compared to the bright 1080p seen on the Zenbook.

Will post a bunch of impressions once I get it.
a play with the UX303LN in stone and was

 

Hey, guys!

I'm looking on UX303LB (FHD, i5, 256SSD), but I can't find any info on battery life.

Can anybody tell me, for how long can it run when you are on Wifi, browsing net or doing some office stuff?

EDIT: One more question - If I don't need a new notebook that much, should I wait for Skylane ultrabooks?

 

The guy from this video ( ) has some impressions on the battery life under the comments section.

I believe he has a second video where he goes into more detail (again, in the comments).

Mine was just delivered, so I'll post some impressions over the next few days.

 

Awesome, thanks for the response!

I'm looking forward to your impressions!

 

I have UX303LB 1080p, i7, 1000GB HDD, and the battery last around 5-6 hours of browsing.With SSD it probably would be more.

I bought yesterday msata SSD and realized it doesn't fit into the laptop , so if somebody would like to upgrade it with msata SSD, just remember , you need to looking for half size msata

 

Yes which the largest is 120/128gb due to the small number of chips.

 

My half size msata SSD is arrived. Now,I just don't know how to install fresh windows on the msata SSD.Is it possible to do from the recovery or so?Or do I need to install from a pendrive?

 

You could restore to it yes, or image your current install to it.

 

Couple of quick impressions on this machine.

PRO'S:

- Screen is beautiful. Extremely bright and clear. Touch screen is responsive, and surprising I actually use the touch functionality on occasion. Couldn't be happier.
- 940m is perfect for my needs. Installed a bunch of games over the weekend (D3, GW2, Divinity: OS, Pillars of Eternity, CS:GO). All ran perfectly on high settings. I imagine most shooters will run fine with a little tinkering.
- Fans are quiet. I really cannot stress this enough. I can't stand loud fans, and this is whisper quiet, even under load. Quite amazed that I can finally play games on an ultrabook without it sounding like a leaf blower. Asus really are the kings of quiet laptops.
- It's warm on the lap, but not scolding. And that's under load.
- Coming from a Clevo P157SM and then an MSI GT72 Dominator Pro, it's really nice to have such a little power brick.
- I enjoy using the keypad. I'm a bit inaccurate at the moment, but my accuracy typically adjusts after a week or two. And I just like the way it feels.

NEGATIVES:

- The touchpad is a bit sucky. Mind you, most people won't care because they'll just plug in a mouse (as I have), but it's still worth noting. This is no Macbook or Surface touchpad.
- Mouse clicks are stupidly loud. Again, I imagine people won't not care as much as I do (I use a Nexus Silent Mouse because I hate the clicking of standard mice). But this is the loudest mouse click I've ever heard. I think most people will find themselves tapping and double-tapping the touchpad, and to me this is an obvious design flaw in the machine.

OTHER:

- Battery life is good, but then I don't expect much as I typically just use it at home. Battery life goes out the window when you load a game.

OVERALL:

I really recommend this laptop. It's a much better fit for me than the gaming laptops I've been buying for the past few years. It's sleek and stylish, but more than capable of playing games when you feel like it (unless you expect ultra settings on the latest releases). It doesn't sound like a vacuum cleaner at load (in fact, its almost whisper quiet), and the screen is bright and beautiful. I would, however, note that the touchpad and mouse buttons aren't perfect. This machine is no worse than any other Windows laptops I've used over the past few years, but it's weak compared to a Macbook, Razer Blade, or any machine using a certified Microsoft Precision Touchpad (Surface 3, and I believe the XPS 13).

I think given it's price, form and power, it's one of the very best machines currently available.

 

You can't expect much battery life when gaming. No laptop is really intended to game on battery, even lower powered ones like these. It just draws too much power.

 

Yes all GPUs (even IGPs) a wide hungry power monsters.

 

I can not add a higher capacity SSD? (256GB)

 

The mini / half-height mSATA slot is restricted to 128GB. But the 2.5" drive can be as big as you can get. 1TB SSD or HDD, as long as it's 7mm height.

 

Hi guys,

I asked about the UX303LB hinge mechanism. According to Asus Germany customer support, it's the same mechanism as the UX303LN.

Does anyone know if there were any mid-life updates to the UX303LN hinge that fixed the problem people reported?

 

I've disassembled both and they have the same hinge design.

 

Unless there was a material change then no.

 

Hey Guys,
I've been looking into this laptop to decide whether or not i should buy this for college. It does have everything i need, long battery, thin and light, gaming capabilities, and touch screen. The only thing that is holding me back is that hinge that people have been complaining about. Should I worry about that issue and did anyone one of you guys got the hinge issue yet on your UX303LB or your previously owned UX303LN? Also, couldn't you change your screen resolution to 1920x1080 in windows and download msi afterburner and underclock the 940m to save battery?

 

The 940m is completely idle, and virtually no power consumption when running Windows desktop and applications. It's only active when playing 3D games, so no need to underclock. If you wanted to, you can use NvidiaInspector to underclock, but I don't know why you would. It's not an overly powerful chip.

Changing screen resolution does nothing for battery life, it's still running every one of the 3k pixels regardless of resolution displayed.

The hinge is just a bad design. If you're a bit ginger with opening and closing it from the center it will probably last longer than most. But the design is just set so it will happen eventually. Like I've stated, if you really want to fix it, just get some high strength bondo and reinforce the hinge screw bosses. That will of course void your warranty. So maybe wait until your warranty is up, or get it fixed/replaced under warranty and then reinforce it.

 

What exactly happens to the UX303's hinge? Does the hinge gets loose or something? And what is high strength bondo?

 

See here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-nvidia-gt-840m.746873/page-240#post-10030172

Bondo is just a putty or filler. You can see how iaTa's UX303 failed, and saw at least one other image somewhere that failed the same way. So my thought is to reinforce the plastic somehow around where the hinge screws in. But you may have to do it to the point that you will no longer be able to remove the hinge. But I think that's a better alternative to having it break.

 

Oh, now I see the issue with the hinge. So if I were to disassemble the laptop and put Bondo shown in the picture (credit to iaTa for picture) for both side of the hinge, it could solve the issue?

 

In theory, yes.

 

A specialist plastic glue may also help.

 

Yep. Anything to keep that area from flexing. You want it rigid and increase it's tensile strength.

 

Would this be the correct item that you are talking about?- http://bondo.com/products/fiberglass/bondo-glass-single-use-00270.html

 

Yeah something like that. You have to be careful though. Not sure what plastic the lid is made out of but if it's ABS (likely) then there's not a lot of epoxy or bondo type materials that will bond. But But bondo type stuff gets rock hard and if it bonds to the surface becomes as strong as a rock.

I know there are some JB Weld products that might work well though.

Something like these would probably help and a bit easier to apply:
http://www.amazon.com/J-B-Weld-50132-PlasticWeld-Syringe/dp/B009EU5ZMK
http://www.amazon.com/J-B-Weld-50112-ClearWeld-Syringe/dp/B009EU5ZM0

 

The products that HTWING linked were more of what I was thinking.

 

So do I apply the putty then the epoxy or do I just use one item? (sorry I don't know anything about this)
http://www.amazon.com/J-B-Weld-8237-PlasticWeld-Plastic/dp/B003S2E4UE/
http://www.amazon.com/J-B-Weld-50132-PlasticWeld-Syringe/dp/B009EU5ZMK

 

I think you're better going with a two part epoxy like the PlasticWeld Syringe. The putty is more for filling in holes and sanding and repainting, etc. I'm going to do some more investigating myself and since I am fortunate enough to have a broken UX303LN laying around, I can test it out there first. Probably be a month or so though, just no time at the moment to fuss with these kinds of things.

 

Ok let us know what happens I'm guess this hinge design is the same for the LA model right? Also, did your UX303LB come with a carrying case?

 

I am right before buying this notebook. However there is one question i'd like to ask you: What is your impression of the speakers. I had a UX305 for one day this week but I had to return it cause of the weak speakers. Even at half-volume the membranes began to vibrate unbearably, mostly when I was watching a movie and there were people talking to each other. I tried different audio settings, playing around with the equalizer, but things only got worse. When listening to music I didn't realize something like this.

I found this in a review:

>>The sound coming out of these speakers is rather metallic and tiny and if you’ll pump up the volume, you’ll hear the distortions and feel the vibrations ramping through the laptop’s body<<

 

I am between this laptop and a MacBookPro 13'' with Intel Iris 6100 and 16GB RAM. Gamingwise, I almost only play FIFA 15 and Pro Evolution Soccer 15. I don't need high resolution, I can play them on low res.

What do you guys think?

Kind regards.

 

The problem with macbooks is if you put them under any real load they just instantly throttle, with the 940M it's not having to work as hard in those games so should be much smoother.

 

I haven't seen this CPU or GPU throttle yet.