Asus ASUSPRO Series

Processor: Intel Core i3 6006U, Intel Core i5 6200U, Intel Kaby Lake Refresh i5-8550U, Intel Kaby Lake i5-7200U, Intel Kaby Lake i7-7500U
Graphics Adapter: Intel HD Graphics 520, Intel HD Graphics 620, NVIDIA GeForce MX130
Display: 14.00 inch, 15.60 inch
Weight: 1kg, 1.05kg, 1.23kg, 1.603kg, 2kg
Price: 0, 399, 1100 euro
price: 80%, performance: 70%, features: 50%, display: 79%, mobility: 78%, workmanship: 85%, ergonomy: 85%, emissions: 92%

 

Asus ASUSPRO Advanced B8430UA-FA0084E

Specifications

Notebook: Asus ASUSPRO Advanced B8430UA-FA0084E
Processor: Intel Core i5 6200U
Graphics Adapter: Intel HD Graphics 520
Display: 14.00 inch, 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixels
Weight: 1.603kg
Links: Asus homepage
 Asus notebook section

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Asus ASUSPRO B9440UA-GV0100T

The AsusPro B9440UA-GV0100T is a 14-inch lightweight business-class laptop. AsusPro is the business arm for Asus, a company better known for its gaming motherboards, video cards, and notebooks under the Republic of Gamers sub-brand. Asus produces a full line of notebooks and desktops of all shapes and sizes for business markets under the AsusPro flag. The two ultimate goals Asus was aiming for with the AsusPro B9440UA were low weight and thinness. In order to achieve these, the engineers at Asus put the device on a radical diet, got rid of all ports except for two USB 3.0 Type-C ports, and shrank the bezels to what is almost pure nothingness. Fortunately, a port replicator is included with the device. The B9440UA is available with faster CPUs, Windows 10 Pro instead of Home, 16 GB instead of 8GB of RAM, and various SSD sizes. Due to limitations in size and weight, the laptop doesn’t include a dedicated graphics card. According to Asus, the device is made of a particularly robust MIL-STD 810G graded special magnesium alloy. Considering the laptop’s size and weight, the case does indeed feel very rigid, solid, and well made. On the base, flexing even with intense force was not an issue. The delicate lid with its very thin bezels can be opened one-handed, and while it flexes more than the base, it is still minimal. Applying pressure to the backside of the lid has absolutely no effect on the display.

Despite the lightweight nature of this notebook, the lid can easily be opened one-handed. The cutout just in front of the touchpad makes that process even more intuitive. In an interesting design move, the AsusPro B9440 rests on the bottom edge of its display lid when the lid is opened. This angles the base of the notebook off the resting surface by seven degrees. Just one type of display is offered on the AsusPro B9440. Its 1080p (1,920x1,080 pixel) resolution is the sweet spot for usability and performance. The display has wide viewing angles, thanks to its IPS panel technology, and excellent overall image quality. Asus advertises that the display covers 72 percent of the NTSC colour gamut, which is well above average. Coupled with its high brightness, the picture looks outstanding. The anti-glare surface on this display is practical for keeping reflections to a minimum. This is especially important in an office environment with overhead lighting. The Asus AsusPro B9440UA was designed as a highly mobile office notebook. It's smart dual-core processor with Hyper-Threading, 8GB of RAM, the SSD, and the lack of a dedicated GPU are fitting for its designated use cases, yet still allow for the use of more demanding software like Adobe Photoshop.

As do most companies with a business lineup, ASUS touts that their new Asus Pro B9440UA is the world’s lightest 14-inch notebook, weighing in at only 1.05 kg, according to ASUS at least. One noticeable aspect of this notebook is that it only offers 2 USB-3.1 Type-C connectors instead of a standard full-size USB port, with one supporting power delivery and the use of external displays. Of course, what good is all of this without talking about this notebook’s chassis, which most definitely has a premium feel to it, with its lightweight construction and an especially robust MIL-STD-810G-grade magnesium alloy frame. Despite it being thin and light, it doesn’t buckle under stress, and while the lid flexes a bit more than the main body, it is still minimal at best. At 15mm thickness at its thickest part, the B9440UA has a comparatively smaller footprint than its 14-inch rivals. As this is a business targeted notebook, it is a most welcoming feature to have a TPM 2.0 security chip onboard. Moving on to the user experience, the keyboard has great ergonomics and is surprisingly comfortable to type on with its concave, non-slip keys and good key travel distance considering the thinness of the notebook. As for the touchpad, it happens to be quite slick and smooth for finger movements, which makes it a great experience when managing without a mouse, although it gets uncomfortable if tracked with sweaty fingertips.

The viewing experience with the equipped IPS FHD display is overall satisfying with its comparatively high brightness, deep black levels and little screen bleeding or clouding. Despite that, for an IPS panel, it suffers from bad color accuracy, scoring 83% for sRGB ratings, which leaves a lot to be desired. Performance-wise, the B9440UA is equipped with Intel’s 7th-generation Core i5-7200U, which can be found in most office and multimedia notebooks. Although the B9440UA is marketed as a business notebook, it is disappointing that its 8GB of DDR3L memory is not user upgradeable, though it should be more than enough for everyday office and productivity tasks. Thanks to its low-power CPU, the B9440UA manages to deliver exceptional battery life, scoring up to 9 hours with surfing on Wi-Fi, which most certainly outperforms its competition. In summary, while ASUS may have taken the same route as Apple in sacrificing all the normal ports users have come to expect, its compromise is sure offset by its excellent user input experience and long battery life, along with being an exceptionally quiet notebook.

Hands-on article by Jagadisa Rajarathnam

Specifications

Notebook: Asus ASUSPRO B9440UA-GV0100T
Processor: Intel Kaby Lake i5-7200U
Graphics Adapter: Intel HD Graphics 620
Display: 14.00 inch, 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixels
Weight: 1.05kg
Price: 1100 euro
Links: Asus homepage
 Asus notebook section

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Average Score: 81% - good

 

Foreign Reviews

 

Asus AsusPro B9440UA-GV0076R

Asus produces a full line of notebooks and desktops of all shapes and sizes for business markets under the AsusPro flag. AsusPro is the business arm for Asus, a company better known for its gaming motherboards, video cards, and notebooks under the Republic of Gamers sub-brand. According to ASUS, the Asus B9440UA is the world’s lightest 14-inch business notebook and is on par with many 13-inch notebooks. The 14-inch Full HD display has thin bezels, allowing the display to fit into a smaller frame. The chassis of the 1.05 kg (2.31 lb) notebook is made of magnesium alloy, which is far more rigid than aluminum alloy. The notebook can also take a beating and has passed MIL-STD 810G standards for durability. It passed extra-high drop, 50,000-cycle hinge, lid pressure, and keyboard spill resistance tests. The ten-hour battery life will also last through most normal business days. The laptop has an island-style keyboard with full-size keys. The 1.5 mm key travel, coupled with the light action of the keys, makes for a comfortable typing experience. There are three different backlighting brightness levels, toggled by pressing the Fn and the F3 or F4 keys. The illumination can, of course, be turned off entirely. The backlighting is visible during the daytime. Just one type of display is offered on the AsusPro B9440. Its 1080p (1,920x1,080) resolution is the sweet spot for usability and performance. The display has wide viewing angles, thanks to the IPS technology, and excellent overall image quality. Asus advertises that the display covers 72 percent of the NTSC color gamut, which is well above average. The anti-glare surface on this display is practical for keeping reflections to a minimum. This is especially important in an office environment with overhead lighting. The AsusPro B9440 has specs befitting an ultrabook. It supports Intel Kaby Lake dual-core processors, with up to a 15-watt thermal design power (TDP) rating. It has a Core i5-7200U dual-core CPU, running at 2.5 GHz, with a Turbo Boost feature up to 3.1 GHz. This CPU has ample performance for most tasks. RAM is of the soldered/non-upgradable. This B9440UA configuration includes a 512 GB SSD as its only internal storage. It used an SATA interface, but Asus lists PCI Express drives as being compatible with this notebook. Either way, it felt fast enough for daily usage. Another highlight of the laptop is the sound of the speakers, which is impressively immersive with rich bass and crystal-clear sound. Delivered by the powerful ASUS SonicMaster audio system, which is designed with Harman/Kardon, it ensures every decibel is music to ears. The audio system of the B9440 was tuned by experts from the ASUS ‘Golden Ears' audio team as well as renowned audiophile company, Harman/Kardon, to ensure the best experience for the playback of a wide variety of content. The Asus B9440UA is a perfect all-rounder with reasonable specs and an affordable price tag. Hands-on article by Jagadisa Rajarathnam

Specifications

Notebook: Asus AsusPro B9440UA-GV0076R
Processor: Intel Kaby Lake i5-7200U
Graphics Adapter: Intel HD Graphics 620
Display: 14.00 inch, 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixels
Weight: 1.05kg
Links: Asus homepage
 Asus notebook section

Pricecompare

Average Score: 80% - good

 

Foreign Reviews

 

Asus ASUSPRO B9440UA-GV0101T

The ASUSPRO B9440UA-GV0100T is the base model of the original Asus Pro B9440UA. T here is another variant of this model called the Asus Pro B9440UA-GV0101T. In comparison to its sibling the only differences are its CPU and RAM capacity. To recap the 100T variant sports a Core i5-7200U and 8GB of memory, while the 101T variant sports a Core i7-7500U and up to 16 GB of RAM, which plenty in most cases. A general run down of the similarities between both variants is the inclusion of 2 USB 3.1 type C connectors with no standard sized USB ports. One of them supports power delivery and the use of external displays. Construction remains similarly if not exactly the same in terms of rigidity and robustness. The use of MIL-STD 810G grade magnesium alloys ensures the chassis remains light but strong. While the primary components are the only boosts to its sibling it remains quite thin at 15 mm at its thickest point. It also has the same business security features of its 100T sibling such as the TPM 2.0 chip. Furthermore, user experience remains great with ergonomics, which allows comfortable typing for most typists out there; even on long typing sessions. The keys also provide a concave nonslip design, which helps compensate for its thinness. The touchpad is also slick and smooth to finger glides, which helps maintain its great experience. However, alike its 100T sibling, the trackpad gets uncomfortable if used with sweaty fingertips. Moving on to its display the equipped IPS FHD display is overall quite satisfying with high brightness and deep black levels with minimal backlight bleeding. Naturally as this is the exact same panel as its 100T brethren's, sRGB scores remain the same at 83%, which frankly is just disappointing for an IPS panel. So, after a rundown of the Asus Pro B9440UA-GV0101T, how is it different from its 100T sibling other than the CPU and its higher RAM capacity? In a few words, the performance is better in synthetic benchmarks. Obviously, if you compare an i5 to an i7, the latter would win. However, the difference is especially small in this case. Hence, the majority of its horsepower won’t be seen in pencil pushing office applications unless you are a content creator. Nonetheless this isn’t a minus but a plus if you’re one of those office users who frequently overload their browsers with more than 10 tabs. But this also means the i7 is going to be slightly more power hungry than its i5 counterpart. This has an impact on battery life. With 8 hours 36 minutes versus 8 hours 51 minutes, it is slightly shorter in the Wi-Fi test. Is the i7 variant worth the extra cost? No, since it doesn’t really add much value unless the user is an excessive multitasker or a really heavy content creator, which warrants having more memory. Otherwise it is safe to say that its i5 brethren can still do most of its job without losing out to its bigger brother. Hands-on article by Jagadisa Rajarathnam

Specifications

Notebook: Asus ASUSPRO B9440UA-GV0101T
Processor: Intel Kaby Lake i7-7500U
Graphics Adapter: Intel HD Graphics 620
Display: 14.00 inch, 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixels
Weight: 1.05kg
Price: 1100 euro
Links: Asus homepage
 Asus notebook section

Pricecompare

Average Score: 78.75% - good

 

Foreign Reviews

 

Asus ASUSPRO P541UA-GQ1532

Specifications

Notebook: Asus ASUSPRO P541UA-GQ1532
Processor: Intel Core i3 6006U
Graphics Adapter: Intel HD Graphics 520
Display: 15.60 inch, 16:9, 1366 x 768 pixels
Weight: 2kg
Price: 399 euro
Links: Asus homepage
 Asus notebook section

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Asus AsusPro B9440UA-GV0005R

There are times when we, as end users, like practical jokes. But sometimes we do not, and the AsusPro model I am currently reviewing is a good example of that. It is not because the model as a whole is unusable; the amount of connection ports provided takes the biggest blame here. Why? Well, let’s say you only get a headphone jack and a USB-3.1 connection. That is it. Literally. I do not know what Asus had in mind while designing this product, but I certainly would like to know. This device is supposed to be aimed at business users. Considering that approach, I only can imagine that Asus wants users to carry a USB multiplier dongle around to get work done.

Hardware wise, it is a generation behind compared to current competitors. It comes with a Kaby-Lake i7-U processor, DDR3 RAM, a generous 512GB SSD and, of course, an integrated GPU. As a user, I would have liked an 8th-Gen processor, but, well, sometimes you get what you get.

Aside from that, I think a nice feature to have are narrow bezels. Here, a 14-inch screen is fitted into an almost 13.3-inch case, therefore, the screen nearly takes up all the space. The device weighs only 1 kg, which makes it a great mobile companion. Oh, and I almost forgot: There is no webcam! A device aimed at professionals that lacks the ability to communicate - that is the greatest joke I have heard recently. Unfortunately, it is the truth. Again, I would like to know what Asus was thinking.

Anyways, let’s move on and discuss who the device is for. I am not sure. Just like any laptop, it has a keyboard, a screen and functioning hardware to provide some performance. But the lack of connectivity options makes it hard for me to recommend the device. It is almost as though you are taking something with you, but only to keep it to yourself. At least it comes with WiFi ac and Bluetooth, otherwise it could only be used for your wildest novels that you would not want to share. Since the laptop also comes with a fingerprint reader, you can make sure nobody can reach your secret files.

Well, enough with the irony. With its current configuration and apparent connectivity issues, I am having a hard time suggesting this device. It is better to look for alternatives at this point.

Hands-on article by Umit Yilmaz Gunes

Specifications

Notebook: Asus AsusPro B9440UA-GV0005R
Processor: Intel Kaby Lake i7-7500U
Graphics Adapter: Intel HD Graphics 620
Display: 14.00 inch, 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixels
Weight: 1kg
Links: Asus homepage
 Asus notebook section

Pricecompare

Average Score: 74% - average

 

Foreign Reviews

 

Asus Pro P5440UF-XB74

Specifications

Notebook: Asus Pro P5440UF-XB74
Processor: Intel Kaby Lake Refresh i5-8550U
Graphics Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce MX130 2048 MB
Display: 14.00 inch, 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixels
Weight: 1.23kg
Price: 1100 euro
Links: Asus homepage
 Asus notebook section

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Comment

Asus: ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated, a Taiwanese multinational company, produces motherboards, graphics cards, optical drives, PDAs, computer monitors, notebook computers, servers, networking products, mobile phones, computer cases, computer components, and computer cooling systems. The company's 2007 revenues reached US$6.9 billion. ASUS also produces components for other manufacturers. The Eee PC initiated the netbook boom in 2008.

In the notebook sector, Asus had a global market share of about 11% from 2014-2016, making it the fourth largest laptop manufacturer. In the smartphone sector, Asus is not among the Top 5 and has only a small market share (as of 2016).

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Modern games should be playable with these graphics cards at low settings and resolutions. Casual gamers may be happy with these cards.

Intel HD Graphics 520: Integrated GPU (GT2) with 24 EUs found on some Skylake CPU models (15 W ULV series).

Intel HD Graphics 620: Integrated GPU (GT2) found on some Kaby-Lake CPU models (15 W ULV series).

NVIDIA GeForce MX130: Mid-range graphics card for mobiles based on the Maxwell architecture. Renamed GeForce 940MX.

» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.

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Intel Core i5:

6200U: Skylake-based ULV dual-core processor for thin notebooks and ultrabooks. Offers an integrated HD Graphics 520 GPU and is manufactured in 14 nm.

Intel Kaby Lake:

i5-7200U: Kaby-Lake based SoC with two CPU cores clocked at 2.5 to 3.1 GHz, HyperThreading and manufactured with an improved 14nm process.

i7-7500U: Kaby-Lake based SoC with two CPU cores clocked at 2.7 to 3.5 GHz, HyperThreading and manufactured with an improved 14nm process.

Intel Core i3:

6006U: Skylake-based ULV dual-core processor for thin notebooks and ultrabooks. Offers an integrated HD Graphics 520 GPU and is manufactured in 14 nm. The maximum clock speed is only 2 GHz and Turbo Boost is not supported.

Intel Kaby Lake Refresh:

i5-8550U: Kaby-Lake-Refresh based low power quad-core processor. The four cores are clocked between 1.8 and 4 GHz (Turbo Boost) and support HyperThreading. The integrated GPU is clocked between 300 and 1,150 MHz. The SoC is manufactured in a 14nm+ FinFET process.

» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

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» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.

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1 kg:

Mainly, bigger-sized tablets and convertibles weigh as much.

2 kg:

This weight is typical for very old and big tablets, subnotebooks, ultrabooks and convertibles with a 11-13 inch display-diagonal; nowadays, rather typical for 15 inch laptops.

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80.1%: This rating should be considered to be average. This is because the proportion of notebooks which have a higher rating is approximately equal to the proportion which have a lower rating.

» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.

Devices from a different Manufacturer and/or with a different CPU

Devices with the same GPU

Devices with Same Screen Size and/or Weight