Asus UX302

Would this SSD be acceptable for the UX302LG?

Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE500BW 2.5" 500GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Thanks!

 

Yes, it is fine to use it.

 

For your information, i currently live in Taiwan, so i would say that my info is accurate

There is only blue UX301 on the market now，but with a 1080p display only

and guess what

no word on UX302LA and UX302LG release date

so nope, nothing at all...

 

Wow thats a nice SSD

 

Hey guys, I'm starting to really dislike asus's marketing right now. Now its late december (the timeframe they specified for the ux302 release) they suddenly came back and said it's now going to be late januari... They have been doing this since september ffs. Too bad there isn't really any other laptop that fits my needs like this one =/

 

Probably issues with either manufacturing (material, quality) or logistic that they need to sort out first before shipping them.

 

im from singapore...and i have the ux302lg....but not 301 here yet...anyway plz dun use intel with this machine it works badly...now am on the 840 evo superb!

 

I am very close to returning my Best Buy UX302LA because of poor battery life. I get only 5 hours, 45 minutes while surfing the web and doing Email and playing Spider Solitaire. Not acceptable for me. I haven't upgraded to SSD, but I wouldn't expect an SSD to give much if any improvement on battery life with my use profile. I can't imagine that the HDD spins up much while surfing the web.

A couple of other irritations include a SD card reader where the card goes in only half way and an adaptive screen brightness feature that just doesn't work.

I really like the looks and feel and the keyboard and the FHD screen, but I just can't overlook the problems I see.

Regards, Jim

 

Why don't you just plug it in once in a while?

 

5 hours 45 minutes? That's awful. If that is normal for this laptop, I'm surprised more people haven't pointed it out. The advertised battery life is 8 hours.

 

For those that have SSD running, do you find the laptop to be warmer? I've heard some mutterings that SSD runs hotter than HDD.

 

Some ssds run warmer than others but usualky cooler than a fast hdd.

 

Intel SSD runs pretty hot, and Samsung SSD (for example 840 Pro 512GB) is actually pretty cool.

 

Yes! I have done two tests where I start at 100% charge and keep a log of start and stop times until the screen goes black. I usually have 4-5 sessions during the test. My power plan is exactly the same as one I have for an HP Spectre with the same specs, except for the HDD, that gets over 8 hours.

Advertised battery life is usually measured while idling, doing nothing. Actual light duty use usually gives me about 70% of advertised.

Why don't I stay near a power outlet? Because I don't want to! That is why I buy a laptop, so I don't have to be tied to a power outlet.

Regards, Jim

 

Can anybody else report their battery lives?

 

Anyone in the US buy a UX302LG? Can't seem to find a reputable vendor.

 

I was one of the first to get the UX302LA, and I reported similar battery life earlier in this thread. I got around 6 hours tops doing light stuff with 50% brightness. Part of the reason I returned mine.

Edit: Oh nice, it's $800 now on Best Buy. At that price, I think it's worth it. But not at the original $1000 that I paid for mine.

 

Accidental post. Please delete.

 

Just to add to the battery life issue. I have an HP Spectre 13t-3000 with a 50 Wh battery. I get over 8 hours with light duty. One test gave 8 hr and 48 minutes. (The Spectre has the same specs as the UX302LA except it has a SSD.) The UX302LA also has a 50 Wh battery. I thought the battery life of the UX302LA would be similar to the Spectre. Was I ever wrong! I don't know what Samsung has done differently, but the UX302LA is a power hog.

Regards, Jim

 

Can anyone recommend a utility that will simply monitor "Time on battery" without including sleep time? I'd be happy to report, but all the utilities I've found include sleep time when counting...

 

I think you would just set sleep to never.

Good luck, Jim

 

Does the Asus UX302LG version have a better battery life or should it be the same? I was interested in this laptop but 6 hours of battery life is simply not enough for an ultraportable.

 

As far as I know the 302LG has a 50 Wh battery and a HDD just like the 302LA. My HP Spectre gets over 8 hours on a 50 Wh battery, the 302LA gets less than 6 hours on a 50 Wh battery. Who knows what the 302LG will get? If you go for the 302LG, be sure your supplier has a good return policy.

Good luck, Jim

 

Hi Jim,
I've been reading the this blog intensively and was almost pulling the trigger on the Asus UX302LA. The $799 price and the option of upgrading it to 8Gb and 250Gb for about $250 made it a very good option (total ~ $1050).
However, I've been seeing some complaints about battery life, and you mentioned how better the HP Spectre 13t-3000 seems to be. I quoted it on HP.com and with the discount the price came out to be $995.99, with 8Gb and 256Gb SSD.
Having both, do you think the HP would be a better option? Most of specs seem to be comparable, except for the fact that I would not have the hassle of upgrading it myself, plus avoiding possible warranty issues.
I appreciate any thoughts on UX302LA vs. HP Spectre 13t-3000.

Thank you,
Bernardo

 

I am returning my UX302LA and keeping the HP Spectre 13t-3000. The 302LA is a beautiful ultrabook, but poor battery life is a deal breaker for me. A few other quirks add to my disappointment. SD card only goes half way in the reader, the auto brightness feature doesn't work, the display/top cover has a lot of flex and the bottom cover also has some flex. The HP has no flex no where. And the self upgrade is also a downer for me. If I am going to pay $1,000 for an ultrabook, I don't want to do an upgrade to get it right. There is a 13t-3000 forum on this board hiding under the name "HP Envy & HDX". Check it out before you make a decision.

Good luck, Jim

 

I will definitely take a look!
Thanks for the fast reply!

Bernardo

 

I am seeing it priced at $1,229.98 on HP.com (Part: 902170 Spectre 13t-3000 Ultrabook - Smart Buy)
Where did you see it for $995.99?

Smart Buy – Get a better PC, when compared to our standard model
- More memory (8GB versus 4GB)
- Bigger solid state hard drive (256 versus 128)
- Better Display (QHD versus Full HD)
- Better wireless (802.11 AC versus 802.11 BGN)

 

They have been running a 20% off sale for a few weeks. Check for a coupon number, or just ask a sales rep for the discount.

Regards, Jim

 

I thought of that, but I want to do a real battery life test. My usage is typically grab the notebook, open it (comes out of sleep), do my stuff, maybe for an hour, then close it to put it back to sleep, rinse and repeat...

I would like a timer which accumulates the time when it is open and being used, and doesn't count the sleep time (since I think when sleeping the battery usage is negligible).

I'll share the test results once I find the right tool, but I wouldn't expect much more than 4-5 hours. Unfortunately, this is probably the one drawback of the 302LG. If you want something thin, 13", very light, with a dedicated graphics card (without which I can't actually do the line of programming I'm in, not to mention play games etc), the UX302LG is almost literally the only option. There's the Lenovo U430P (heavy, thicker), or some of the Acers (worse build quality in my opinion). The Razer Blade 14 look pretty nice, but is expensive and has a terrible screen.

Of course, if one isn't interested in dedicated graphics, there's a tonne of other options. If battery life is important, maybe other options are better...

 

Does anyone know the manufacturer of the trackpad? If either Synaptics or Elan, I'm pretty sure there are other drivers out there with more functionality out there. Specifically, I'm looking to change the function of either left click or right click.

 

A few questions on expandability for this line of laptops.

How much of memory is soldered on? It looks like 2GB for UX302LA, 4GB for UX302LG, ALL for UX301LA. Is only the 302 upgradable?

Has anyone replaced the mSATA drive in the UX302? I'd like to stick 128GB there and use the 500GB hdd as storage.

Finally, does anyone find it annoying that the Power button is right next to Delete and Backspace?

[edit: I just realized Apple's put the power button in the same spot. Asus probably copied Apple's dumb design decision.]

Thanks.

 

I think the 302LG HDD can be upgraded to SSD, not sure about memory. I believe the 301LA has memory soldered and no open slot.There are several threads on this forum about upgrading the 302LA. Both HDD and memory can be upgraded. The SSD upgrade is a full size SSD that replaces a 2.5 inch 7 mm HDD. The memory has one slot with 2GB soldered and one slot with a replaceable 2 GB stick. Most folks have replaced the 2 GB stick with an 8 GB stick to give a total of 10 GB.

Some folks have talked about using the mSATA slot that is normally used as cache with a larger SSD for operating system and programs. I don't know if anyone has done it.

Yes, I found the power button next to the delete key an annoyance. And I found that the SD card that only goes half way in the slot a real inconvenience. That means you have to keep the SD card someplace where you won't lose it, because if you leave in in the slot, it will probably get broken.

Good luck, Jim

 

For the 302LG, 4GB soldered. I've upgraded mine to 12GB total.

I was also worried about this, I haven't accidentally hit the power button yet, and I use the backspace key a lot. When I'm going for the delete key, I usually have to look first for it on a laptop anyway, so I don't mistype.

That's a good idea about replacing the mSata. Once a 256GB comes out, I might do that, and leave the HDD for storage.

 

wow, I was always thinking of replacing the HDD, but why bother? Next year I can get a 1TB mSata! And I would still have the option of replacing the HDD with a larger one or an SSD...

 

I collated some battery statistics on my UX302LG, using the quite capable "powercfg /batteryreport" command.

Starting from fully charged, I used it over the period of a day, closing the lid and sleeping between uses. 50% screen brightness, web browsing mostly.

Of 94% capacity used (100% charge down to 6% remaining charge):

87% was used actually using the laptop, for a total of 5 hours 27 minutes.
7% was used during sleep mode (8 hours 54 minutes)

So if I used the laptop right down to 0%, and avoided sleeping (i.e. just used it straight through from 100% down to 0%), the real battery capability is about:

6 hours 14 minutes

PS: After this test, I then realized that I used almost 6 hours of the day in front of my laptop, not working, and not interacting with anyone else. What a complete waste of time. This will be my last post on the subject for a while, as I need to go find better things to do than sit in front of a computer for 30% of my waking hours.

 

Those look like full size msata to me. UX302 only takes half sized msata, which are currently limited to 128gb.

 

Can you please check your bios and see if there is an option to even boot from the msata slot? All bios are different but the option is typically called "Boot mode" and it's set to UEFI by default. Then you can change it to Legacy to allow the drive to stand alone. Asus might be different though since they make their own boards and have bios other than the norm.

 

The touchpad is Elantech rebranded under ASUS Smart Gesture.
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download UX302LA

 

WOW! powercfg /batteryreport is fantastic! How did you find this utility?

Regards, Jim

 

Jim, powercfg is internal command line utility from Windows.

POWERCFG <command line options>
Description:
This command line tool enables users to control the power settings on a system.

 

I bought one of the ux302la's from bestbuy at $799. I'm on the fence about it. The light bleed on the edge of the screen at start up and battery life make me have hesitations. I played with the ux31la, which had 8gb of ram and 128gb ssd.

The ux31la seems to have the same light bleed at start up. I like the Ux302la for upgradability but am kind of nervous about opening the machine up since the previous posts show some difficulties in doing it.

A MacBook Air is on my radar as well, because of battery life. But, the non retina screen has me leary.

I'll probably just wait to see what other ultrabooks come out.

 

I returned my UX302LA to Best Buy yesterday. Poor battery life, SD card that goes in slot only half way, auto screen brightness that doesn't work, difficult upgrade process to get it configured the way I want, a lot of flex in display/top cover and some flex in the bottom cover are the reasons why I returned it. I am keeping my HP Spectre 13t-3000. The base i5 has the same specs as the 302 except for the HDD, great battery life and everything just works.

Good luck, Jim

 

I got the HP ENVY TouchSmart 14 for $695 from the Microsoft Store with the same CPU, but the advantage of the HP is it has a QuadHD+ screen (3200x1800), 8GB (accepts 16GB) and has built-in UMST mobile broadband with 200MB/month included for 2 years. It is heavier at 4.6lbs but the cost and QHD+ screen makes it awesome. (Discount is from 10% of SMS Text Promotion, and $25 Windows Store promotion).

Buy HP ENVY TouchSmart 14-k110nr Sleekbook - Microsoft Store

 

Why would the light bleed on startup be an issue. Who cares? Some of you people complain about the smallest insignificant things. I think you should return it so there will be plenty of "refurbished" ones available at a reduced price with virtually nothing wrong with them.

 

You got one with 8 gig RAM?

 

No, the base i5 at the HP store has only 4 GB, which is fine for my use profile. There is an option to customize a 13t-3000 where you can get 8 GB. I bought mine before the 20% off sale or I probably would have gone for the customized version.

Regards, Jim

Edit: The HP site now has only the customized version starting at the same price as the previous base unit.

 

keyboard is warped in the middle.. has anyone else seen this? almost like if its not glued down for something

 

I don't remember if I have seen reports of this on the UX302LA or some other ulrabook. But I believe most of these ultrabooks have a keyboard base (the area between the keys) made from a single sheet of metal, most are an integral part of the rest of the keyboard. So, any warping would most likely be some sort of damage, not glue coming loose. I would return it for replacement.

Regards and good luck, Jim

 

Yes the keyboard will be removable at some level and warping is either incorrect mounting or damage to the keyboard itself rather than glue.

 

So I can only upgrade the RAM to a maximum of 10gbs? Is there a certain type of RAM I should buy, or are they all the same? Thanks.