Asus ZenBook 14 UX433F (i7-8565U) Laptop Review

The narrow bezels on both the top and bottom edges of the display have an interesting side effect. The notebook appears wider than other 16:9 laptops since the chassis can afford to be shorter in depth. In fact, the length of the UX433 is exactly the same as on the XPS 13 despite the fact that the Asus has a larger 14-inch screen. Asus managed to shave off over 2.5 cm in length when compared to the last generation UX430 largely due to the trimmed bottom bezel.

The system still weighs about the same as many of its competitors since it is slightly thicker (15.9 mm) than the XPS 13 (11.6 mm), MacBook Air (15.6 mm), and Yoga C930 (14.9 mm). In other words, the UX433 has one of the smallest footprints for its size class even though it's not necessarily the thinnest.

The Intel 9560 provides Bluetooth 5 and WLAN transfer rates of up to 1.73 Gbps. Our results below are much slower than this since our server is limited to a 1 Gbps line. We didn't experience any connectivity issues during our time with the unit.

The bottom panel requires both a T5 Torx wrench and a Philips screwdriver for the two hidden screws underneath the rubber footing. Servicing is easy if not slightly annoying because the rubber feet can be difficult to remove.

Upgrades are limited to the M.2 SSD as the WLAN and RAM modules are soldered. An empty slot underneath the heat pipe is reserved for a potential dedicated GPU even though there are currently no other GPU options for the UX433 as of this writing.

The Precision trackpad (10.5 x 6.2 cm) is actually narrower than the trackpad on the last generation UX430 (10.5 x 7.5 cm). Nonetheless, glide is smooth and responsive with no sticking when moving at slow speeds.

The integrated click keys are soft and shallow with quiet clatter due to their spongy press. The clickpad the job done if an external mouse is not available, but we find it easier to simply tap on the surface to input a click instead. The trackpad on the competing MateBook X Pro does a much better job in this regard.

A unique feature of the new UX333/433/533 series is the backlit NumPad inspired by the NumPad on the Zephyrus GX501 gaming laptop. By pressing the top right corner of the trackpad, the trackpad surface becomes a virtual touch-sensitive NumPad. It's a clever approach especially for smaller laptops where there is no room for a dedicated NumPad.

In practice, the virtual NumPad is simply not as reliable as a dedicated NumPad because it lacks tactile feedback when tapped. Attempting to tap the numbers quickly will inevitably lead to missed values. Additionally, the brightness of the lit NumPad cannot be controlled and it's far too bright when working on a plane or dark room. It's certainly better than nothing, but adding brightness control and haptic feedback would have gone a long way to making the virtual NumPad more comfortable to use.

Color space is approximately 89 percent and 58 percent of the sRGB and AdobeRGB standards, respectively, compared to Asus' claim of 100 percent sRGB. Results are similar to most mainstream Ultrabooks and just slightly better than on the UX430. Wider color coverage is available on the larger 15.6-inch Zenbook UX580 but not for the UX333/433/533 series.

Further measurements with a X-Rite spectrophotometer reveal an overly cool color temperature out-of-the-box with poor reproduction of Blue and Teal in particular. While this is to be expected from a cheap panel with limited color coverage, we're a bit surprised to see it here on a premier laptop. Our calibration addresses these issues and greatly improves color accuracy in the process. We highly recommend applying our ICC profile to get the most out of the display especially since the panel is capable of very accurate colors.

The glossy display makes for poor outdoor visibility as the backlight is not powerful enough to overcome glare. Working under shade is still the best option if outdoor use is unavoidable. The MateBook X Pro and XPS 13 9370 are equipped with brighter displays if outdoor visibility is priority.

Is this new-fangled processor any faster than the Core i7-8550U that it replaces? CineBench benchmarks reveal the i7-8565U in our Asus to be just 6 percent faster than the i7-8550U in the last generation UX430 and slightly below that of the Core i5-8259U in the MacBook Pro 13. It's a minor performance upgrade at best especially when compared to the massive gen-to-gen performance boost that the Kaby Lake-R series brought to the table last year. Users upgrading from Kaby Lake or earlier processors will still see significant performance gains.

Running CineBench R15 Multi-Thread in a loop shows relatively stable performance over time. The initial score of 624 points eventually drops to about 586 points for a dip of only about 6 percent. While marginally better than the i7-8550U in the UX430, we were hoping for a higher initial score to help boost the system even further over its Kaby Lake-R predecessors.

See our dedicated page on the Core i7-8565U for more technical information and benchmarks.

PCMark benchmarks rank our Asus within single-digit percentages of many of its competitors including the Yoga C930 and outgoing UX430. In other words, system performance is not significantly faster than last generation Kaby Lake-R options. The latest 2018 MacBook Air scores much lower than our UX433 due largely to its slower Core Y processor.

We didn't experience any software or hardware issues during testing.

The cooling solution is almost identical to its UX430 predecessor despite the vast changes to the rest of the chassis. The fan is active during low loads like browsing or streaming, but it is essentially inaudible when sitting at a normal distance. Higher medium loads will bump fan noise to 36 dB(A) compared to almost 42 dB(A) on the UX430 since the latter is equipped with dedicated GeForce graphics. Had our UX433 test unit included GeForce graphics, it would have been very likely to exhibit the same fan behavior as the UX430.

Fan noise is quiet overall if not a bit louder than many other iGPU-only Ultrabooks like the XPS 13 or Spectre 13 when under higher processing stress. Our unit suffers from slight-moderate electronic noise that can be heard when placing an ear near the keyboard.

We stress the notebook to identify for any potential throttling or stability issues. When subjected to Prime95 load, we can observe a CPU clock rate as high as 3.9 GHz while core temperature slowly rises to 89 C. Once this threshold is reached, the clock rate begins to alternate between 2.0 GHz and 2.7 GHz in order to keep temperatures in check. Since the base clock rate of the i7-8565U is 1.8 GHz, the CPU in our Asus is able to maintain at least a 200 MHz Turbo Boost at all times when under extreme CPU stress. Our screenshot below shows this in action including the alternating clock rate pattern.

Running Prime95 and FurMark simultaneously to stress both the CPU and iGPU will throttle clock rates even further as the system struggles to satisfy the processing demands.

Running on battery power will impact both CPU and GPU performance. A 3DMark 11 run on batteries returns Physics and Graphics scores 6211 and 1745 points, respectively, compared to 7617 and 1979 points when on mains.

Perhaps the closest system we can compare the UX433 to in terms of power consumption is the 14-inch VivoBook Flip 14 since have 15 W TDP CPUs and no discrete graphics. Even with these constants, however, the VivoBook Flip 14 still comes out to be more power efficient under all tested conditions. Running 3DMark 06 demands 42 W from our UX433 compared to just 33 W on our VivoBook. The new model may be a bit faster, but it also draws a tad bit more power in the process.

The highest consumption we can record is 44 W from the very small (~5.4 x 5.4 x 2.8 cm) 45 W AC adapter. This maximum draw is unsustainable over long periods of extreme stress because the system eventually throttles as shown by our graph below. The alternating power consumption behavior mirrors our clock rate observations during the stress test above.