this will be my review of the asus ux305.i have a full unboxing video for this notebook which you can watch here. i have been using the ux305 quite heavilyfor about 4 or 5 months now, over that time i’ve used it for web browsing, listeningto music, watching youtube videos and livestreams, editing documents and some light gaming. atno point over the last few months has it let me down and i have found it more than thatup to the task for whatever i was throwing at it. let’s talk hardware, now a lot of peoplein the general tech community seem think that the ux305 and other similar intel core m laptopsare nothing more that overqualified tablets
or smartphones, and that core m has no realprocessing power. those people are dead wrong and are either lying or have no idea whatthey’re talking about, don’t let anyone convince you that core m equals poor performancebecause it’s not true. is the core m lineup at the same performance level as a mobilequad core core i7 processor, no, but it’s not supposed to be nor does it need to be.the core m cpu line-up and particular the core m 5y10 in my asus ux305 is more thanpowerful for normal everyday home or business use. it’s far more powerful than it mightseem, though it may have an 800mhz stock clock speed, when it needs the extra power the cpueasily turbo's up to 1.6-2ghz. the core m 5y10 cpu is more powerful than core 2 duocpu's you used to get on midrange to high
end laptops about 4-5 years ago. but now youhave that same performance and more in a much smaller form factor with a much longer batterylife. most tasks don't require much cpu power, as long as it’s not video or 3d renderingor aaa 3d gaming then the core m and the ux305 can handle it, no problem. if you are thinkingabout buying an asus ux305, which if you're watching this video you probably are. i wouldhowever stress the importance of choosing an 8gb model over the 4gb versions, the ramon this notebook is soldered onto the motherboard and cannot be upgraded, so whatever memoryconfiguration you choose, you’ll be stuck with. however you can upgrade the storage, so ifyou choose an 8gb version with a 128gb m.2
ssd you can upgrade that ssd to 512gb or morein the future. even with just a few chrome browser tabs open and a few small backgroundapplications running the device will easily use 3gb+ of ram, much more when more tab andprograms are running. perhaps if you’re a very very light user and only ever haveone browser tab open at a time then the 4gb versions of the ux305 might be enough foryou, but you will probably find in a few years that 4gb just isn’t enough for your needs.let’s move onto the other hardware built into this notebook, the webcam is 720p butvery grainy when you’re indoors, even with bright fluro lights. i’ve found that usingthe webcam outdoors yields the best image quality, so that just something to take noteof if webcam quality is important to you.
the microphone on the ux305 isn’t amazingbut it’s clear sounding and gets the job done. due to the placement of the microphoneabove the keyboard area, it will easily pick up keystrokes and touchpad clicks and movements so just keep that in mind. the ux305 doeshave a 4 pole headphone/microphone jack so you could use pretty much any smartphone earphoneswith a built in mic, no problem. speaking of audio quality let’s move onto the builtspeakers and their sound quality, now i’ll start this off by saying that these are laptopspeakers, through and through, as much as asus might want to tout them as the most amazingspeakers ever, they’re not, are they bad no but they are laptop speakers. the sounddoes distort slightly when at high volume
and they can be quite quiet depending on youraudio settings. there are two applications that allow youto adjust the sound output and settings, so if log in i can show you those. so there istwo applications which allow you to control audio settings, one is just a general eq applicationcontrol and it’s called smartaudio, and you can access that going through controlpanel also note i do have classic start installed to get back the original start menu, it givesyou basic eq control as well as some microphone noise and cancellation options. it also hasan option called “night mode†which greatly increases the playback volume, it does tendto distort the audio though. the next utility is called ice power audiowizard and as far as i can tell this is basically
an audio amplifier utility. it comes withsix pre-set options that cannot be changed; they are music mode, which was on by defaultfor me, movie mode, recording mode, gaming mode and speech mode as well as off. musicmode preserves the sound quality the best but isn’t as loud as gaming or movie mode,recording and speech mode just sound muffled and heavily filtered and is obviously notrecommended for any music or general audio playback. i would generally recommend leavingit on music mode or if you want the sound to be a bit louder than gaming mode is yournext best bet. the wifi in my model is very fast, my versionof the ux305 comes with an intel ac 7265 wifi card that support up to wireless 802.11ac,i don’t have a wireless ac access point
but when using wireless n i can easily getover 100 megabits per second when i’m next to the access point and very good coveragesome meters away through a few walls. it is worth noting that some variants of the ux305particularly some of the north american versions, those only come with wireless n and not ac.so your wifi performance may differ. now onto the display, my particular model of the asusux305 specifically the ux305fa-fc004p comes with a non-touch 1080p ips display, the ux305is also available in a qhd+ model which has a 3200x1800 resolution (which is double 900p).i personally have no issues or complaints with the 1080p screen on the ux305. it's verybright, at the moment i've got the brightness quite low so the camera can see what's onthe screen
this is minimum brightness, there is alsoan auto-brightness function using the function key control. that bases and limits the brightnessbased on the lighting in the room. the light sensor is up the top here near the webcam.so with the light sensor off, that's the maximum brightness. as you can see it has thrown theexposure out on the camera quite badly. it doesn't look that like in real life, it looksquite bright. when i use it outdoors it's still very easy to see and it being a mattescreen means it’s even easier to use when outdoors, because there are no real glossyreflections, another bonus in my opinion. if we put auto-brightness on it will adjustto the room light and then i can just reduce it a bit more so you can the camera can seea little bit better. but i have no real issues
with the screen at all, colour reproductionis very good, it’s on par with other ips monitors i own that i use on my desktop andi’m really quite happy with the colour reproduction from this display and viewing angles. i've used the dell xps 13 2015 3200 x 1800qhd+ model. even though having briefly used it i would find it quite difficult to recommendthe qhd version of the ux305 due to the significant reduction in battery life as you can hearabout more in my unboxing video and as well as the ui scaling weirdness and issues associatedwith a resolution that’s that high. applications just don’t scale correctly because theyare designed for regular display sizes. so that is still a present issue. at 1080p ithink the screen size is more than enough.
the resolution for this sort of screen ismore than enough, text is very crisp and clear and programs and ui elements scale much betterwith this sort of a resolution because it’s only 1080p. and with that sort of pixel densityit’s still very nice to use, brightness is still quite high. another thing with havinga higher pixel density is that it takes a lot more light to get the same amount of brightnessthrough the display because of the pixel density. i personally have windows ui scaling set tomedium scaling at 125%. i find that a good balance between density of application andgeneral resolution that’s usable. so physical device observations, what is itactually like to use the asus ux305, well it’s very lightweight and very strong, youcan very easily lift up the device by the
corner with the screen open with no flex whatsoever.as i just demonstrated there. the entire body and general construction of the notebook isvery good, there are no real loose hinges or connections or anything, it has held togetherquite well. it is quite strong because it is an aluminium unibody that also does helpwith the cooling as well. the only real complaint i have is that itpicks up fingerprint marks quite easily even on the wrist rest and particularly the lid.the ux305 is available in two other variants. an extra one has been added, both a whiteand a new gold model, which has been revealed quite recently at least at the time of recording.obviously to compete with the offerings that is available for the new macbook 2015. basedon the pictures that i’ve seen neither of
those has a brushed spun metal lid like thisdoes, as you can sort of see with the shine there. so it would likely make it a lot lessof a fingerprint magnet than this particular version is. even with that it’s fairly easy to keepthe device looking clean if you do push at it and keep it clean, they do include a cleaningcloth which is actually pretty good at removing fingerprint marks, particular on the lid.the cloth has some grooves in it that really allow it to get into the spun metal lid andclean out those fingerprints. for anything that is more stubborn just a slight damp clothand cleaning in concentric circles and then a dry cloth will clean it up pretty well.the keyboard is very nice for a device of
this size and form factor and absolutely runsrings around the keyboard on the new macbook 2015 (also an intel core m device). thereare no words to describe how horrid and awful the keyboard is on the 2015 macbook, thereis no travel distance on the keys and it feels similar to the microsoft surface touch cover.but it feels worse because it looks like the keys should move somewhere and they don’t.it is horrid; there is more travel distance on a button or a key on a home button of asmartphone or an iphone or ipad. by comparison the keyboard on the ux305 thoughnot backlight has a very nice amount of key travel distance, they key stiffness is goodas well, with not so little that you can easily mispress a key and not so firm that it's uncomfortableto use. overall i quite like the keyboard
on the ux305, the us keyboard model at leasthas a good key layout with appropriately sized shift keys and with a very nice large spacebar. let’s move on to the touch pad, i've foundthe trackpad on the ux305 to be very accurate and responsive both with general mouse movementand with gestures. like i mentioned in my unboxing video the left and right mouse clicksare quite audible and it may put some people off. if you think that it might don’t worrythe touch pad supports both left and right click gestures through the use of single fingertab and double finger tap gestures as well as pinch-to-zoom among and double finger scrollingand various other gestures. i do think that the touchpad on the dell xps 13 2015 is nicerto use, it has a smoother finish on the trackpad
and it is also better in my opinion than themacbook 2015 trackpad. i prefer the travel distance of having an actual physical leftand right click button rather than the haptic feedback from the macbook 2015 touchpad, alsothe touchpad surface of the macbook is really nothing special and the dell xps 13 2015 comesout ahead on that one, by miles, there really is no competition here. it is very enjoyableand very satisfying to use the dell xps, very smooth, very nice experience and i high recommendyou go into a store and check it out. of course your preferences may be differentso i would recommend checking them out in a local store if you can find the ux305 ina store and if you can find the macbook 2015, dell xps etc. or even other similar asus laptopslike the ux303 perhaps or ux301. other things
i’ve noticed about the ux305 physical designand structure is that when the screen is open greater than 90 degrees like it is now therear rubber feet at the back of the allow surface of the device to be pushed around,this can be particularly annoying when plugging in usb devices and flash drives into the device.when the screen is open less than 90 degrees it doesn’t have that problem. i believethey have done this deliberately because there are risers on the back of the display thatwhen opened up at 90 degrees lift up the keyboard as you might be able to see. it rises up thelid ever so slightly; presumably this is to make it a better typing experience but asthose supports have no have no anti-slip coating all it does is allow the back of the deviceto be pushed around. so that is a bit of an
oversight there. when the lid is closed orit’s less than 90 degrees or it’s just sitting on the table it’s not really goingto get pushed around because the rubber feet actually touch the table surface let’s move onto browsers and video playback.i’ve got chrome, firefox and ie installed on this device, so pretty much all of them.let’s talk about browser and video playback specifically with hd video. now you mightbe surprised to find that the asus ux305 is capable of playing back 4k 60fps video or2160p uhd, most people call it 4k. so i’ve got the “big buck bunny†4k demo whichi can load up here. and it’s playing back flawlessly with no problems and very low cpuload; it’s within the 10-20% range. but
as you can see it’s playing quite smoothlyin the background. oddly vlc can only do 4k 30 fps video for some reason; presumably thehardware acceleration isn’t quite designed to deal with the newer core m platform quiteas well which is really quite odd although that may change in time but it hasn’t overthe length of time i’ve been using the device. as for browser performance i can easily watchhd 60fps twitch streams and youtube videos although i have lower cpu utilization whenwatching videos in internet explorer as opposed to watching them in chrome or firefox. itis also worth noting that chrome and firefox can’t manage to smoothly playback uhd (4k)youtube videos at all, internet explorer 11 on the other hand can do it no problem andwith significantly less cpu load. i don’t
think this speaks to a problem with the hardwareof the ux305 more so the inefficient nature of google chrome and firefox, this may improvewith time as hardware optimisations get rollout out and chrome gets a bit more efficient butit hasn't thus far. so maybe if you want to watch 4k youtube videos then i guess you’reprobably going to have to use internet explorer or maybe find a different fork of chromiumor another browser to use. now onto system benchmarks and performance,now i’ve tested my ux305 is a variety of different benchmark tools and games. let’sstart with a raw processing power performance test with cinebench r15. cinebench is reallygood tool for measuring processor and graphics performance, it measures both multicore andsingle core performance as well as gpu performance,
so you can really compare apples to apples(no pun intended). the ux305 and the core m 5y10 in cinebench multi core test scored209 which puts it around the same level as an ultra-low voltage 3rd generation intelcore i5. for single core performance it achieved a score of 82 and for the graphics test itscored 24.47 fps. quiet respectable considering this is a passively cooled device with nota single fan. the next test is 3dmark 11, now this is avery performance intensive benchmark even on high end desktop pcs so the performancenumbers here aren’t going to be very impressive, but i think it’s still a useful test torun nonetheless. in 3dmark 11 performance mode at 720p the ux305 achieved a score of1045, now what's worth noting is on the original
launch or “factory†bios score was muchlower at 649. the bios versions 207 and 210 unlocked the cpu thermal limit a bit, so nowwith those bios versions the cpu in the ux305 will run at a higher clock speed for longerwithout throttling and reducing its performance capability. if you have a ux305 make sure you downloadthe latest bios, driver and software updates from the asus website as you may find theywill improve performance quite a bit. it is also worth noting that all these benchmarkscores were taken with the 210 bios version. i personally haven’t noticed any performancedifference between 207 and 210, but the 210 or potentially newer depending on when you’rewatching this should be available so make
sure you download those. the next test is the windows experience indextest, now this was removed from the windows 8.1 update. it used to be viewable in systemproperties. so if i go into computer and then system properties here, it used to be on thisscreen here were it has windows 8.1 and then your oem info, the score used to be on thatpart of the screen but they removed it in the windows 8.1 update for some particularreason. probably because it’s not exactly a very representation of performance capabilitybut it is just an interesting metric that i thought i would include. now i used 3rdparty software to do this test called winaero wei.
so for the cpu the ux305 achieved a scoreof 6.9, for ram score is 7.3, it is worth noting that this is an 8gb model, for graphicsit achieved a score of 5.3, desktops graphics score was 5.5 and the storage or “hard diskâ€test score was 8.1, obviously helped there by the sandisk m.2 ssd. though the windowsexperience index scores have never really been a very good indicator of performanceand speed it does give you a general idea of what sort of performance you could expectfrom the ux305, particularly if you compare those scores with the scores from laptopsand other devices you already own. now onto gaming benchmarks and performance,now like i said the ux305 isn’t designed for aaa 4k gaming or even aaa 1080p gamingat 60fps but it is capable of playing older
aaa games and less visually complex 3d games,i tested the following games from my steam library. invisible inc, don’t starve, portal2 and banished. so let’s start with invisible inc, invisibleinc is turn-based, stealth, strategy game, which was recently release on steam. it hasa cyberpunk theme; it shares some similarities to the xcom games. so with all the visualeffects and everything on high at 1080p with all the visual effects turned on the minimumframe rate in invisible inc was 33 fps, maximum frame rate was around 55 fps and the average40-45 fps. the next game is don’t starve, don’t starveis a very popular sandbox, crafting, adventure survival game, it has a very unique visualstyle the visual. it’s not exactly taxing
to run but it is still a nice game to lookat. in don’t starve at 1080p with all visual options enabled the minimum frame rate was40 fps, the maximum was 60 as the game is locked at 60fps and with an average framerate of 54 fps. don’t starve runs really well on the ux305 it looks really good onthe high pixel density 1080p ips display which makes it a real pleasure to play. the next game on the list is sid meier’scivilization v, civ v is a 4x, civilization building, turn based strategy game. for mytests i ran civ 5 at 1600x900 resolution (partially for better ui scaling and improved performance)on medium-low settings with no aa, you can see the settings i used on the screen now.the minimum frame rate was 24, the maximum
frame rate was 54 and with an average of about42 fps. i found this very playable, the game looks quite nice as well, if you drop thesettings much lower particularly on the terrain quality settings it looks much worse but doesgive you a higher frame rate. in my experience i could happily play a single player gameof civ like this but if you are playing multiplayer with simultaneous turns you might want tolower your settings a bit to ensure that you aren’t at a disadvantage. the next game on the benchmark list is portal2. portal 2 is a first person, sci-fi, puzzle game it also has co-op play. now i testedportal 2 quite extensively on various different settings and though these numbers are specificto portal 2 you could expect to see similar
performance numbers from other source enginebased games like counter strike source or even global offensive as well as the original portal and garry’smod. i originally started out testing portal 2at 720p on high details, no anti-aliasing was enabled at all in my testing. on thosesettings i achieved a minimum frame rate of 42 fps a maximum frame rate of 115 fps andan average frame rate of a 60 fps, very playable if you ask me. i also tested 720p on low settingagain with no aa, the minimum frame rate was 40 fps, the maximum frame rate was 184 fpsand with an average of 77 fps. i also testing portal 2 at 1080p just toosee how high it could go. so at 1080p on low settings, no aa, the minimum frame rate was33 fps, the maximum frame rate was 107 fps
and an average of 47 fps, if you were to runthe game on higher settings you would see the frame rate drop below 30fps which is inthe unplayable territory for a fast paced game like portal 2. another important thing to note is how thegame performance changes when the cpu is at a high temperature, above around 85â°c thecpu thermally throttles and reduces its performance to keep the hardware in a safe operating temperaturerange. in portal 2 at 1080p on low settings with the cpu having thermally throttled itsperformance the minimum frame rate was 25 fps, maximum frame rate was 77 fps and theaverage was 47 fps. on the average frame rate that's about a 10 fps drop due to thermalthrottling, this is another reason why i recommend
running portal 2 at 720p on low or high witheither a 30 or 60 fps frame rate cap. if you live in a colder climate than i doand your room temperature is less than about 24 25â°c or you have a notebook cooler thatyou use then this really shouldn’t be a very significant issue. even so portal 2 at720p on high or low with no aa looks quite good on the 13†1080p ips display. now at the moment the cpu in realtemp is runningat 30â°c, now based on my little thermal gun here the table temperature is 21â°c and thatis probably the room temperature now as well. so the system is running at about 32â°c inabout a 25â°c room environment i find it sits about 38-40â°c. the hot areas of the deviceare obviously back here, so as you can see
near where the cpu is and the exhaust is about26â°c. now where you’re typing and around the wrist rest and keyboard is a lot coolerat 22-23â°c. so where you’re typing it doesn’t get particularly too hot. at the bottom ofthe device particularly under load can get quite warm into your mid 30’s to low 40’s.you can get to 38â°c up towards the top here and again that is under full load, so justkeep that in mind and make sure you’ve got some pants on if you’ve got this restingon your lap. so now onto the next part of the performancetests, now the next and final game on the list is banished, banished is strategy city-builder/survivalgame, it’s an indie game that was made one person and was released in early 2014. inbanished at 1080p on medium-low settings with
no aa, the minimum frame rate was 38 fps,the maximum frame rate was 60 fps and the average was 50 fps. banished at 1080p on thehighest settings with no aa, the minimum frame rate was 24 fps, the maximum was 35 fps andthe average was 28 fps. the main things that affect the performance in banished are shadowquality and reflections, and this is largely true of most other games as well particularlyin civ shadow settings also affect the performance quite extensively. obviously you can play games more simple 3dand 2d games, things like ftl, papers please, prison architect etc. as for any games thatyou can’t run, the ux305 works very well with valve's steam in home streaming. againit can play 4k 60fps video, obviously it’s
going to be able to handle streaming no problem.so if you want to play a game on the ux305 that it can’t otherwise run you can streamthat game from a more powerful pc in your house via your local network. and i think that’s pretty much it, i’mreally quite impressed with the ux305 it's a great thin and light notebook even moreso for the money and i wholeheartedly recommend it. it’s got a fantastic amount of i/o,it’s got three usb 3 ports unlike the macbook 2015 (which only has one usb type c) headphonejack, sd card reader, upgradable m.2 ssd, comes in a 13.3 inch 1080p display and a qhddisplay if you particularly want that, really fantastic device for the money.if perhaps you want something with a little
more power but with a similar feature setand design to the ux305 then perhaps the asus ux303 is a better option for you or maybethe ux301 or ux302 depending on what region you’re in. those are available with corei3, i5 and i7 cpu’s and the ux303 is available with an nvidia geforce gt 840m dedicated gpurather than the intel hd graphics 5300 that’s built into this. alternatively the dell xps13 2015 is also a very good device, but it does costs significantly more particularlyif you want an 8gb model, again which i would high recommend. if you were thinking aboutpurchasing an asus ux305 and found this review or the unboxing helpful why not give thisvideo a like and that other one a like, that would be very much appreciated and thanksfor watching.
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