If you are seriously considering a premium 14-inch ultrabook for your business, you just can’t miss on the Latitude 14 7480. The notebook offers excellent build quality, long battery life, enough I/O when you get back to the office and, of course, comfortable input devices. But like every laptop out there, the Latitude 7480 has its drawbacks so we are here to take a closer look and try to find them.

When looking for a 14-inch notebook, a few come to mind that are not only more affordable but more powerful as well. For example, the ASUS ZenBook UX410UQ and Acer’s Swift 5 are excellent examples of portable and reliable business solutions with everything you’d need from a business laptop. But if you are strictly looking for a business laptop with the trackstick in the middle of the keyboard and the fingerprint scanner for security reasons, well spending so much money on the Latitude 7480 kind of makes sense. Also, if you opt for the more powerful configuration with Core i7-7600U, you can benefit from Intel’s vPro technologies. In this case, the price tag puts in the same category as Lenovo’s iconic ThinkPad T470 notebook, which sports a similar set of features and delivers the same performance. So the question here is, which one is more comfortable for typing, using on the go, is more portable and more importantly, has the better display. We find out in the thorough review below.

You can find the available configurations and their prices here: http://amzn.to/2ibc6Zv

Contents

Retail package

The notebook comes in a standard box containing all the usual user manuals, DVD with drivers, the AC adapter and a power cord.

Design and construction

The Latitude 7480 adopts a minimalistic, strict and clean design without any distractions. The body and the lid are made of aluminum alloy but are covered in slightly rubberized matte paint that helps with the grip, feels great but also is a fingerprint magnet. What surprised us the most, however, is the relatively lower weight and thickness compared to the Lenovo ThinkPad T470. In fact, the Latitude 7480 has larger battery, which should have tipped the scale even further.

Anyway, the lid’s construction is rigid and withstands our bending and torsion tests quite well. Although the lid gives in when pressed in the middle, ripples don’t appear on the LCD screen, which, by the way, offers thin side bezels, lower chin and about average upper bezel so it can integrate the webcam. The single-hinge design provides smooth movements up to 180-degree and keeps the lid firmly in place. Unfortunately, opening the notebook with one hand is impossible. As for the bottom piece, it’s made of aluminum sheet covered in the same matte finish but a thinner layer is applied so you can feel the metal beneath. There are a few vents providing the extra airflow for the cooling system and two grill openings for the loudspeakers.

The sides measure at just 17 mm but accommodate all of the I/O you’d need from a 14-inch or 15-inch laptop. The left side has the DC charging port, USB-C 3.1 (Gen 2) with Thunderbolt and DisplayPort support, full-sized HDMI, and two USB 3.0 connectors along with the smart card reader. The right side offers the much-needed RJ-45 for cable Internet connection, another USB 3.0 connector, a microSD card reader, 3.5 mm audio jack and a SIM card tray for the LTE connectivity. Not only does the laptop provide a wide range of connectivity options but the ports are evenly distributed on the left and right.

The interior is also of high quality as the base doesn’t flex or bend at any point. It’s extremely rigid and feels nice due to the matte soft-touch finish, which again, is a fingerprint magnet. That’s always the downside of these sorts of paints. Anyway, the keyboard is just excellent – long key travel, clicky tactile feedback, discreet LED backlight, slightly concaved keycaps that fit your finger perfectly and all the shortcuts you’d need on a business-oriented laptop. We honestly can’t think of anything bad to say about the keyboard. However, the trackstick’s positioning isn’t ideal. For instance, we found ourselves pressing the left mouse button at the bottom of the trackpad with our palm when using the trackstick. So the latter should be moved upwards or the touchpad should be a single plate without dedicated mouse buttons. Also, the slightly concaved surface below the spacebar obstructs the normal usage of the mouse buttons dedicated to the pointing stick. The touchpad itself, on the other hand, is also near-perfect. It’s responsive, accurate and the mouse buttons provide deep and clicky feedback. Still, the gliding surface of the trackpad isn’t optimal and if your hands are moist, you will have some trouble sliding.

The laptop’s build quality is just superb and it’s exactly what you’d expect from an ultrabook in this price range. Our only small complaint is the overly tightened hinge and the suboptimal placement of the pointing stick and the mouse buttons. In any case, the build should provide excellent durability and comfort for working on the go.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Even though the notebook has no service lids at the bottom, the maintenance and upgrades are hassle-free. There’s no need for a full disassembly – just unscrew all the bolts around the chassis and pry it up gently.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

Like most 14-inchers, the Latitude 14 7480 offers only an M.2 SSD slot (located right next to the battery) – no 2.5-inch drive bay, unfortunately. Anyway, SSDs with the 2280 standard fit in while the motherboard itself supports PCIe NVMe SSDs. However, our unit shipped with SanDisk X400 M.2 running on SATA III controller, which is a big let-down since the laptop falls into the premium segment.

RAM

On contrary to storage, the Latitude 7480 comes with two RAM chip slots supporting up to 2x 16GB DDR4-2400. Our configuration, though, sports only one SK Hynix 8GB DDR4-2400 chip leaving the other slot free for an upgrade.

Other components

The Wi-Fi module is right next to the cooling fan and it’s the well-known Intel 8265NGW.

The battery can be found under the wrist rest area and it’s rated at 60Wh.

Cooling system

The cooling design is simple and requires nothing more than a single heat pipe connecting the heat sink to the cooling fan.

Display quality

The panel used for this unit is a Full HD (1920×1080) IPS manufactured by LG with model number LGD0557 (LP140WF7) with 14-inch diagonal. This means that the pixel density is 157 ppi while the pixel pitch is 0.161 x 0.161 mm. It can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal or greater than 56 cm.

The IPS screen offers excellent viewing angles.

We’ve recorded a maximum brightness of 336 cd/m2 in the center and 313 cd/m2 as average across the surface with just 11% maximum deviation. The color temperature on the screen at maximum brightness is 7200K so colors will appear a bit colder than usual – 6500K is the optimal white point. Below you can see how the measurements change at 140 cd/m2 luminance or in other words – 41% brightness.

The maximum dE2000 color deviation is 2.7, which isn’t bad since values above 4.0 are usually unwanted especially when there’s color sensitive work involved. The contrast ratio is good – 1010:1.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The display covers 96% of the sRGB color gamut making it perfect not only for work and general web browsing but for multimedia as well.

Below you will see practically the same image but with the color circles representing the reference colors and the white circles being the result. You can see main and additional colors with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% saturation inside the sRGB gamut pre and post calibration.

The “Design and Gaming” profile is created at 140 cd/m2 brightness, D65 (6500K) white point and optimal gamma in sRGB mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 26 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

It appears that the display doesn’t use PWM across all brightness levels making it safe to use for long periods of time in this regard.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

Honestly, we don’t have anything bad to say about the display – it offers high maximum brightness (enough for outdoor use), good contrast, wide sRGB coverage, no PWM across all brightness levels and fairly accurate color reproduction out of the box. All the small hiccups like a bit colder color temperature and a bit deviating gamma curve can be fixed using our display profiles. They make the most of the already excellent panel.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Dell Latitude 14 7480 configurations with 14.0″ LG LGD0557 (LP140WF7) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2vMfWLM

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

$9.99

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Sound

The sound quality is good and there’s no loss in quality in the low, mid and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet refers to this particular model – configurations may differ depending on your region.

Check price

CPU	Intel Core i5-7200U (2-core, 2.50 – 3.10 GHz, 3MB cache)
RAM	8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2400MHz
GPU	Intel HD Graphics 620
HDD/SSD	256GB M.2 SATA SSD
Display	14-inch – 1920×1080 (Full HD) IPS, matte
Optical drive	–
Connectivity	LAN 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2
Other features	3x USB 3.0 1x USB-C 3.1 (Gen 2, DisplayPort and optional Thunderbolt) 3.5 mm audio jack LAN HDMI card reader (SD, MMC, MS) fingerprint reader keyboard LED backlight
Battery	60Wh
Thickness	17 mm (0.67″)
Weight	1.5 kg (3.31 lbs)

Software

We used the already installed Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) for the writing of this review but if you wish to do a clean install without the bloatware, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from Dell’s official support page.

Battery

At first, we weren’t expecting any mind-blowing results but after the tests, the battery life on this thing is just phenomenal. Thanks to the big 60Wh battery and the energy-efficient ULV (ultra-low voltage) Intel Core i5-7200U CPU, the laptop reaches the second position in our battery ranking table with just a few minutes shy to our current leader – the HP Spectre x360 13.

All tests were performed with the usual settings – Wi-Fi constantly running, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature turned on.

Web browsing

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

Impressive score on the web browsing test – 963 minutes (16 hours and 3 minutes).

Video playback

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

Considerably lower but stil amazing result – 668 minutes (11 hours and 8 minutes).

Gaming

We recently started using F1 2015’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

Of course, the laptop isn’t made for gaming away but it kept on running for more than six hours under heavy workload – 367 minutes (6 hours and 7 minutes).

CPU – Intel Core i5-7200U

Intel’s Core i7-6200U is part of the 7th Generation Kaby Lake CPUs and it’s the direct successor of the Core i5-5200U (Broadwell) and Core i5-6200U (Skylake). It’s also based on the same architecture as the aforementioned chips with little differences that should bring a small performance increase and a bump in power consumption. However, the new CPU is clocked at 2.5 GHz and its Turbo Boost frequency is 3.1 GHz opposed to the 2.3 – 2.8 GHz clocks on the previous Core i5-6200U.

Anyway, we still have the 2/4 core/thread count, 3MB last level cache, and a TDP of 15W, which includes the iGPU and the dual-channel DDR4 memory controller. Speaking of the former, the chip integrates the newer generation Intel HD Graphics 620 graphics chip clocked at 300 – 1000 MHz.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i5-7200u/

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i5-7200U scored 6.405 million moves per second. In comparison, one of the most powerful chess computers, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – Intel HD Graphics 620

Intel’s HD Graphics 620 integrated iGPU can be found in various ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors from the Kaby Lake generation. The GT2 version of the graphics chip uses 24 EUs (Execution Units) that can be clocked up to 1050 MHz and it has a base frequency of 300 MHz but the former can vary depending on the CPU. Since the iGPU doesn’t have a dedicated memory of its own – or eDRAM for that matter – it uses the available RAM on the system which is 2x 64-bit DDR3 or DDR4.

The TDP depends on the CPU model but it’s usually equipped with a SoC rated at 15W including the memory controller.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/intel-hd-graphics-620/

Temperatures

The stress test that we use to assess the overall effectiveness of the cooling system isn’t a real world usage scenario but remains as the best way to see how the cooling design handles heavy workloads and how will it fare in the long run.

We started off with 100% CPU workload for about an hour and the system was able to utilize the full performance of the Core i5-7200U at 3.1 GHz running at a bit higher than expected temperatures.

Switching on the GPU stress test, however, didn’t result in CPU throttling, which is the usual case, but it did lower the frequency down to 2.9 GHz. Operations seem to be normal even under extended heavy workload without overheating.

We measured the temperature developed on the surface across the interior – only the upper part of the chassis became a bit warm but surely, this won’t happen during normal use. The palm rest will remain cool at all time.

Verdict

The Latitude 14 7480 is one of those devices which quality is their middle name. You may have to pay a little bit of extra money but it’s definitely worth it. You will get in an excellently built compact, rigid 14-inch device with comfortable keyboard and touchpad, except for the trackstick. The latter’s positioning isn’t the best one we’ve seen and definitely needs some improvement in the next generation.

But looks don’t mean anything without a capable hardware. Well, the Latitude 14 7480 has that covered as well. The IPS panel will let you enjoy your favorite movies thanks to the excellent image quality it provides without putting unnecessary strain on your eyes – no PWM across all brightness levels. The best part is that the battery will keep the device running long enough for a full season of your show. At the time of writing of this review, the device reached second position in our battery ranking table.

But that’s not all. Two more things left a big impression. The first one is that the device offers not one but two RAM chip slots available for upgrade. Usually, 14-inch devices come with soldered memory or one RAM chip slot at the very best. And secondly, our particular unit came with an M.2 SATA SSD instead of a PCIe NVMe drive. At this price, we expect PCIe SSD to be a default option and not optional but this may not be true for all regions. Just check before you buy.

The bottom line is, if you are strictly looking for a business-grade notebook, the Latitude 14 7480 is an ideal choice. At this price range, you should consider the Lenovo ThinkPad T470 as an alternative but honestly, the Latitude 7480 still comes on top with a better screen and longer battery life. But if performance isn’t enough for you and the lack of 2.5-inch drive bay is a deal-breaker for you, the more affordable ASUS ZenBook UX410UQ might be a better solution in this case. We also suggest considering the Acer Swift 5 – considerably less expensive device but still comparable to the Latitude 14 7480.

You can find the available configurations and their prices here: http://amzn.to/2ibc6Zv

17-inch laptops have always been pricier than their 15-inch counterparts and often we don’t understand why. The bigger chassis doesn’t come with anything more compelling except the bigger screen diagonal. There are the same storage options, no bigger battery or even better cooling. With the 17-inch GL753VE things are slightly different – the price of the laptop is negligibly close to the 15-inch model but only in some regions, like in the USA. In Europe, the price difference is more than €50 and we are still puzzled by why is that.

As we said earlier, the GL753VE comes with identical specs – Intel Core i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, at least 8GB of DDR4-2400 memory and the usual M.2 SSD + HDD storage configuration. But despite all the similarities, we expect the GL753VE to perform differently in some tests. The battery life is expected to be lower (since the unit is the same but the screen is bigger and requires more power), the cooling performance might be better (due to the extra room in the larger chassis) and the IPS screen will most probably score differently in our tests. We hope that PWM won’t be an issue this time around. Let’s dig in.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2voDgxq

Contents

Retail package

The retail box contains the usual user manuals, AC adapter, power cord and cleaning cloth.

Design and construction

As expected, the GL753VE doesn’t differ from its 15-inch sibling in terms of design, build quality and overall appearance. Only the weight and dimensions set those two apart. While the GL553VE weighs 2.5 kg and measures 30 mm in thickness, the GL753VE goes up to a hefty 2.97 kg and measures 33 mm in height. To be fair, none of these two are actually portable so you really have to ask yourself if the larger screen is worth it.

Anyway, the lid is again made of brushed aluminum with the illuminated ROG logo in the middle. The material isn’t very resistant to pressure and torsion but it’s not so bad compared to its competitors. The screen hinges provide fairly smooth travel and allow the notebook to be opened with just one hand. They also keep the lid stable even when placed on uneven surface. The bottom of the chassis uses a generic roughened black plastic with orange-colored rubber feet and a few grill openings for cool air intake.

The sides come with the some added connectors to the standard set of I/O on the 15-inch model and this is great news because there’s another reason to opt for the bigger alteration. The left side has the usual grill for dispersing the heat, RJ-45 for LAN, HDMI, mini DisplayPort (kudos for that), two USB 3.0 connectors and a USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1). The right side accommodates the optical drive and two more USB 3.0 ports. The SD card reader is placed at the front with the two speakers on each side.

Just like the whole base, the interior is also made of plastic but this one imitates brushed aluminum. Fingerprints stick easily, just like the real deal, but the rigidity isn’t the same. There are some weak points around the touchpad and the center of the keyboard but nothing too alarming. The keyboard is awesome as always – tactile clicky feedback, long key travel and RGB backlight. Unfortunately, though, the same cannot be said about the touchpad – not the most comfortable gliding surface, a bit small for a 17-incher, sluggish and clicks feel a bit too stiff to our taste.

The overall build quality is decent and on par with most of the competition but the thing is that this laptop costs more than its rivals so we expect at least slightly better build quality. Aluminum can be found only on the lid, which isn’t very impressive in terms of rigidity as well. The base uses a bit flexible plastic but none of these issues should pose any problem during normal use. The touchpad is again subpar but the keyboard compensates with excellent feel during gaming and typing. Portability might be an issue for some users as well, although you can’t really expect miracles from a 17-inch gaming machine.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

There are no service covers around the bottom but it can be removed quite easily giving access to all of the internals for upgrade and maintenance. Just make sure you’ve removed all the screws around the bottom including the one hiding beneath the silicone cap in the middle.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

As we expected, the notebook comes with a standard 2.5-inch HDD on board and also a free – in our case – M.2 SSD slot supporting PCIe NVMe drives. The 2.5-inch HDD is an HGST 1TB spinning at 7200 rpm. Right next to the HDD, you will find the M.2 SSD slot. But if that’s not enough, you can always replace the optical drive with a caddy with another 2.5-inch drive.

RAM

Of course, the motherboard holds two RAM chip slots each supporting up to 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory. Our unit arrived with just one 8GB DDR4-2400 chip installed from Samsung.

Other components

The Wi-Fi adapter is placed near the optical drive.

The battery is placed between the screen hinges and it’s rated at

Cooling system

The cooling system hasn’t changed and still uses only one fan and two heat pipes going across the CPU and GPU heat sinks.

Display quality

The ASUS ROG GL753VE uses the same IPS panel as the ASUS ROG Strix GL702VS – an LG-made LP173WF4-SPF3 display with Full HD (1920×1080) resolution. This means that the pixel density is 127 ppi while the pixel pitch is 0.1995 x 0.1995 mm. The screen can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal or greater than 69 cm.

The panel provides excellent viewing angles.

We’ve measured a maximum brightness of 377 cd/m2 in the center and 355 cd/m2 as average across the surface with just 8% deviation. The color temperature at maximum brightness is 6630K, which is pretty close to the optimal 6500K. As we go along the grayscale, the average color temperature remains close to the optimal – 6670K. You can see how the results change at 140 cd/m2 (37% brightness).

The maximum color deviation dE2000 at 140 cd/m2 is 2.6 in the upper right corner. This is a relatively good result since values above 4.0 are unwanted. The contrast ratio is 1000:1 but goes down to 970:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The display covers 88% of the sRGB color gamut making it perfect for multimedia and gaming.

Below you will see practically the same image but with the color circles representing the reference colors and the white circles being the result. You can see main and additional colors with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% saturation inside the sRGB gamut pre and post calibration.

The “Design and Gaming” profile is created at 140 cd/m2 brightness, D65 (6500K) white point and optimal gamma in sRGB mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Gaming capabilities (Response time)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 19 ms. That’s a fairly fast response time for an IPS panel.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

The case with this notebook’s display regarding PWM is the same – PWM occurs only sometimes at extremely high frequency (120 kHz) so practically, the panel doesn’t use PWM from 0 to 100% brightness.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SDP) graph.

Conclusion

The presented IPS panel here is of high quality and offers everything you’d need for a good gaming and multimedia experience – high maximum brightness, wide sRGB coverage, high contrast and no PWM across all brightness levels. The only things missing here are the high refresh rate and G-Sync but those are usually intrinsic to high-end gaming laptops so we can let that slide.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS ROG Strix GL753VE configurations with 17.3″ LG LP173WF4-SPF3 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2voDgxq

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

$9.99

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Specs sheet

The specs sheet provided below is for the model used in this review. Hardware specification may vary depending on your region.

Check price

CPU	Intel Core i7-7700HQ (4-core, 2.80 -3.80 GHz, 6MB cache)
RAM	8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2400GHz
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB GDDR5)
HDD/SSD	1TB HDD (7200 rpm)
Display	17.3-inch – 1920×1080 (Full HD) IPS, matte
Optical drive	DVD burner
Connectivity	LAN 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11a/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
Other features	4x USB 3.0 1x USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) 1x USB 2.0 3.5 mm audio jack LAN HDMI 1.4 mini DisplayPort card reader (SD, MMC, MS) customizable LED RGB backlit keyboard
Battery	4-cell 48Wh
Thickness	33 mm (1.29″)
Weight	2.97 kg (6.55 lbs)

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS without the bloatware, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official support page.

Battery

To be honest, we weren’t surprised by the poor battery performance considering the fact that the GL553VE is a 15-inch laptop with fairly small battery capacity and scored borderline satisfactory while the GL753VE has an identical battery unit that has to light up a considerably bigger IPS display. Our tests confirm that the 48Wh unit just isn’t enough to keep the lights on for longer than we would like. In fact, the endurance of the machine is subpar by any means.

All tests were run with the usual settings – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows power saving mode turned on.

Web browsing

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

Unsatisfactory web browsing runtime – 260 minutes (4 hours and 20 minutes).

Video playback

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

Even lower score here and barely enough for a full movie – 145 minutes (2 hours and 25 minutes).

Gaming

We recently started using F1 2015’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

It’s quite unlikely that you will start a gaming session without being close to a power source, but it’s good to know that you can play for more an hour – 73 minutes (1 hour and 13 minutes).

CPU – Intel Core i7-7700HQ

The Core i7-7700HQ is Kaby Lake’s top-shelf direct successor of the Skylake Core i7-6700HQ offering slightly higher clock speeds on the almost identical architecture and TDP. While Intel markets Kaby Lake’s architecture as “14nm+”, the Core i7-7700HQ is still on the same 14nm node with the only significant update being in the iGPU department. That’s why the slightly altered clock speeds (2.8 – 3.8 GHz vs 2.6 – 3.5 GHz) bring not more than 10% increase in performance compared to the Core i7-6700HQ. We still have the supported Hyper-Threading technology with 4/8 – core/thread design, the same 45W TDP and 6MB cache.

However, the Kaby Lake generation boasts an updated video engine for the iGPU, although, its performance is just about the same. Branded as Intel HD Graphics 630, the GPU offers slightly higher clock speeds (350 – 1100 MHz vs 350 – 1050 MHz) compared to the Intel HD Graphics 530 and support for H265/HEVC Main10 profile at 10-bit color depth and the VP9 codec for full hardware acceleration. In addition, the HDCP 2.2 is also supported allowing Netflix’s 4K video streaming.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-7700hq/

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-7700HQ managed to get 13.399 million moves per second. For comparison, one of the most powerful PCs, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB GDDR5)

NVIDIA’s GTX 1050 Ti for notebooks is almost identical to its desktop counterpart but offers different clock rates. What’s more, the Ti variant uses more CUDA cores than the standard GTX 1050 version – 768 vs 640 but both GPUs use the same GP107 chip, which differs from the other NVIDIA high-end solutions. The GP107 chip is manufactured by Samsung, not TSMC, and it’s built on the 14nm node on contrary to the 16nm from TSMC.

Anyway, the GTX 1050 Ti also offers significantly higher clock rates than the normal GTX 1050 versions well 1493 – 1620 MHz vs 1364 – 1493 MHz. This contributes to a significant performance boost over the standard version but the rest of the specs remain the same. The GPU offers 4GB of GDDR5 memory connected via 128-bit interface and transfer rates as high as 112 GB/s.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1050-ti-4gb-gddr5/

Gaming tests

Temperatures

Of course, the stress tests don’t really represent real-life usage or even gaming sessions but they get pretty close to the latter. The torture tests are still the best way to assess the overall stability of the cooling system and its longevity.

We started with the CPU stress test for about an hour and we were pretty delighted by the relatively low temperatures that the system was able to provide for the chip. The Core i7-7700HQ was running rock-solid at 3.4 GHz and within the 75-85 °C range. However, we have noted that such big difference in temperatures between cores isn’t good – one of the cores reports 75 °C while the other 85 °C. This might be due to bad thermal paste or heat sink design.

When we ran the GPU stress test, things didn’t change much for the CPU but the GPU didn’t reach its maximum potential. While the GL553VE prioritized GPU performance over CPU clock speeds, the GL753VE did exactly the opposite. In our stress test, the GL553VE utilized the full performance of the GTX 1050 Ti while keeping the CPU lower than its base frequency. The GL753VE, on the other hand, kept the CPU at its base frequency and didn’t push the GPU beyond 835 MHz which is almost half its usual clock speeds. Interestingly, the GTX 1050 Ti’s temperature was exceptionally low at 68 °C so it’s clear that the GPU can go much faster. We are not sure what’s the culprit of the problem here but a future BIOS update might sort this out. It might also be an isolated problem with the unit we got.

Even though the system uses a single fan design, which is insufficient for such powerful hardware, the surface temperatures were even lower than on the 15-inch model. Quite impressive if you ask us.

Verdict

Our opinion on the 17-inch variant doesn’t deviate too much from our initial thoughts on the GL553VE – generally solid all-rounder, which is slightly more expensive than the competition but at least you know what you are getting here. But most of the complaints from the 15-incher remain – questionable build quality, wobbly touchpad, a bit hefty construction and a cooling system that needs improvement (higher inner temperatures).

However, the keyboard is excellent not only for typing but for gaming as well. We also liked the expanded I/O – more connectivity than the 15-inch GL553VE and retains the good picture quality thanks to the excellent IPS panel. We would have appreciated a bigger battery because the 17-inch screen draws considerably more power resulting in less than stellar battery performance.

Anyway, the GL753VE is currently one of the few mainstream 17-inch laptops with GTX 1050 Ti on board so your choice is limited. But is it better compared to its 15-inch sibling or its rivals? Well, ASUS has makes a compelling case with the GL753VE, except the bigger screen, of course – a wider range of I/O, keeps surface temperatures even lower than the GL553VE and the screen doesn’t use PWM across all brightness levels. You still have to consider the added weight, dimensions and lower battery life, though, so it’s really up to you if you want the bigger screen.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2voDgxq

We are always happy to get our hands on an exciting device that combines two key features that in other cases are considered to be an oxymoron, like portability and power. Well, the new Ideapad 720s from Lenovo offers it all but at a cost. And we don’t mean the pricing. In fact, the price for the base model is surprisingly low because you get a crisp IPS Full HD panel, a Core i5-7200U CPU, NVIDIA GeForce 940MX GPU with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM and top things, the device ships with a Samsung PCIe NVMe drive as a default. With specs like these and a price hovering around €1 000, it puts in the same category as the ASUS ZenBook UX410UQ. However, Lenovo’s solution has a few tricks up its sleeve that set it apart from the competition.

Lenovo has managed to cram up all this hardware into a tiny and slim 13.3-inch form factor aluminum chassis. So where’s the catch? Well, with the limited airflow and the design limitations of the cooling design, you can’t really expect top-notch performance from both chips – the CPU and GPU. According to our tests, the CPU’s performance is crippled, which might not be a big deal for consumers who are going to use the notebook only for multimedia and office work, but will be a deal-breaker for the more pretentious users wanting the best possible performance from the given hardware. Find out more about the device’s ups and downs in our review.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2wCa3nk

Contents

Retail package

The notebook comes in an extremely small box that looks a hell of a fresh – white with orange accent. The package itself contains the AC charging adapter, user manuals and the laptop itself.

Design and construction

The notebook’s build quality and design match some higher-end models easily with anodized aluminum semi-unibody construction, thin, light, rigid and with premium feel. It makes us wonder how Lenovo managed to stick all that hardware inside and still make it look sexy.

Let’s start with the lid. It’s made of aluminum that withstands bending and torsion quite well. Whereas the single-hinge design provides the much-needed stiffness, which is a common miss with lightweight laptops these days but this time the hinge is too tightly pulled. Opening the machine with just one hand is impossible. On the other side of the lid you will find the 14-inch display exceptionally thin side and upper bezels. Fortunately, the camera is well-positioned and its usefulness isn’t sacrificed like in the XPS 13. The chin, though, appears to be normal in size. The bottom cover is made from the same material – anodized aluminum providing stiffness and some grills for extra airflow and for the loudspeakers.

The sides’ design differs from the previous generation, the Ideapad 710s, and now has flat edges with more connections than we expected – USB 3.0 on the left with the 3.5 mm audio jack and the DC charging port while the right side accommodates another USB 3.0 connector, full-sized HDMI, an SD card reader and a USB-C 3.1 (Gen 2) with Thunderbolt support. The latter is a nice finishing touch and not a common occurrence in this price range. That’s actually one of the features that sets it apart from the ASUS ZenBook UX410UQ and other similarly-priced 14-inch solutions – the Acer’s Swift 5 included.

Opening the laptop reveals the flashy and stylish interior, which looks a lot like the Yoga 910. We’ve got anodized aluminum with smooth finish and feels pretty stable because it’s not susceptible to flexing. The keyboard feels clicky and buttons aren’t mushy at all and despite the short key travel, the overall typing experience is great – the tactile clicky feedback compensates for that. The touchpad is another big step forward compared to its predecessor – it’s big, the gliding surface is buttery-smooth, it’s responsive, accurate and mouse clicks are satisfyingly clicky and light.

Apparently, Lenovo took some notes from the previous generation Ideapad 710S and all of its shortcomings are taken care of in this model. The build quality is excellent, the case feels sturdy, elegant, light and thin. Also, the input devices are good and will provide the needed comfortable working experience on the go.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Of course, the ultrabook offers hassle-free access to the internals, although no service lids can be found at the bottom. Anyway, the plate can be lifted up quite easily after all the screws are removed.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

This one is a bit obvious but the laptop comes only with an M.2 SSD slot – without a standard 2.5-inch bay due to the form factor of the device. The M.2 SSD slot needs a 2280 drive and our unit came with one Samsung PM961 PCIe NVMe SSD with 256GB capacity.

RAM

The motherboard doesn’t have soledred memory and relies on a single RAM chip slot supporting up to 16GB of DDR4-2400. The unit we’ve tested has a Samsung 8GB DDR4-2400 RAM. But be aware that the RAM slot is placed under a small metallic shield. First, you have to loosen up the pins that hold it and then lift it up.

Other components

The Wi-Fi adapter is placed next to one of the cooling fans and it’s Intel 3165NGW.

The battery appears to be quite generous and it’s rated at 55Wh placed under the wrist rest area.

Cooling system

We were pretty surprised by the cooling system. A setup like this is usually found in gaming laptops but for obvious reasons, this one is quite simpler. Anyway, the cooling design consists of two separated fans connected to both heat sinks via a single thick heat pipe.

Display quality

The Ideapad 720s comes with a 14-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel manufactured by AU Optronics with model number B140HAN03.5. This means that the pixel density is 157 ppi while the pixel pitch is 0.161 x 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal or greater than 56 cm.

The screen offers excellent viewing angles from a 45-degree incline.

We were able to measure a maximum of 329 cd/m2 luminance in the center of the panel and 302 cd/m2 as average across the surface with 12% deviation. The color temperature on white screen with brightness cranked up to maximum is 7140K – a little bit colder than the standard 6500K. As we go along the grayscale, the average color temperature drops to around 7000K. You can see how the results change at 140 cd/m2 luminance (81% brightness) in the picture below.

The maximum dE2000 color deviation compared to the center of the screen is 2.7, which is totally fine since values above 4.0 are unwanted, especially when color-sensitive work is involved. The contrast ratio is pretty high – 1200:1.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The display covers 92% of the sRGB color gamut making it perfect not only for general browsing and office work, but for multimedia as well.

Below you will see practically the same image but with the color circles representing the reference colors and the white circles being the result. You can see main and additional colors with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% saturation inside the sRGB gamut pre and post calibration.

The “Design and Gaming” profile is created at 140 cd/m2 brightness, D65 (6500K) white point and optimal gamma in sRGB mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 25 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Our equipment didn’t detect any pulsations no matter the brightness level so this makes the panel safe to use for extended periods of time in this regard.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

The display offers excellent image quality, especially given the price point of the device. It offers high maximum brightness evne suitable for outdoor use, high contrast ratio, wide sRGB coverage and no PWM across all brightness levels. All of this makes the notebook suitable for work, general browsing and multimedia for extended periods of time.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Lenovo Ideapad 720s configurations with 14.0″ AUO B140HAN03.5 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2wCKra3

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

$9.99

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Sound

The sound quality isn’t perfect since there are some small distortions at all frequencies – low, mid and high but the maximum volume is impressive.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet refers to this particular model – configurations may differ depending on your region.

Check price

Processor	Intel Core i7-7500U (2-core, 2.70 – 3.50 GHz, 4MB cache)
RAM	8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2400MHz
Graphics card	NVIDIA GeForce 940MX (2GB GDDR5)
HDD/SSD	256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display	14-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS, matte
Optical drive	–
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1
Other features	2x USB 3.0 2x USB 2.0 1x USB-C 3.1 (Thunderbolt 3) 3.5 mm audio jack HDMI SD card reader keyboard LED backlight
Battery	55Wh
Thickness	16.3 mm (0.64″)
Weight	1.58 kg (3.48 lbs)

Software

We used the already installed Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from Lenovo’s official support page.

Battery

The battery life of the Lenovo Ideapad 720s isn’t amazing but left us with a pretty good impression. For instance, the video playback time was way more than we expected – exceeding the one of web browsing. We found that pretty interesting since most of the time, web browsing consumes less power than video playback. Anyway, the score the Ideapad 720s reached was a bit lower than the one of its direct competitor, the ASUS ZenBook UX410UQ, and considerably lower than the Acer Swift 5. Still, we can call it decent and good enough for the asking price. These scores are achieved by a rather big 55Wh battery.

Web browsing

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

Pretty good web browsing score – 443 minutes (7 hours and 23 minutes).

Video playback

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

Surprisingly a bit higher result on the video playback test – 523 minutes (8 hours and 43 minutes).

Gaming

We recently started using F1 2015’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

Of course, the laptop isn’t made for gaming but it’s good to know that it can handle a little over three hours under heavy workload – 196 minutes (3 hours and 16 minutes).

CPU – Intel Core i7-7500U

The Core i7-7500U is part of the latest Intel Kaby Lake generation of CPUs built upon 14nm manufacturing process – or 14nm+ as the company markets – and should offer marginal performance gains over the Skylake generation while improving overall power efficiency. It’s a direct successor to the Core i7-6500U (Skylake) and Core i7-5500 (Broadwell) but opposed to previous architecture refreshes, the Kaby Lake Core i7-7500U is bringing much higher clock rates. Now the chip is clocked at 2.7 – 3.5 GHz (compared to the 2.5 – 3.1 GHz on the Skylake Core i7-6500U) and still adopting the 2/4 core/thread count using the HyperThreading technology with a maximum 4MB cache.

However, the Core i7-7500U’s TDP is still rated at 15W including the iGPU and dual-channel memory controller that supports DDR4-2133, LPDDR3-1866 and DDR3L-1600. And as far as the iGPU is concerned, it integrates a slightly improved Intel HD Graphics 620 clocked at 300 – 1050 MHz, which is slightly higher than the iGPU on the Core i5-7200U (300 – 1000 MHz).

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-7500u/

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-7500U scored 5.555 million moves per second. In comparison, one of the most powerful chess computers, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce 940MX (2GB GDDR5)

The NVIDIA GeForce 940MX is a refreshed version of the older 940M mobile chip but paired with a faster GDDR5 memory and slightly higher clock speeds, which result in noticeably better performance compared to the standard 940M. However, some OEMs will still choose to use the cheaper DDR3 version of the GPU.

Announced back in the first quarter of 2016, the chip is almost identical to the standard 940M (Maxwell) but with clock speeds increased up to 1242 MHz and base 1122 MHz. Again, the memory uses a 64-bit bus and has 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM. It still supports the DirectX 12 API and Shader 5.0 feature along with the usual NVIDIA technologies – CUDA, GPU Boost 2.0, Optimus, GeForce Experience, PhysX. The whole GPU is rated at around 15 to 30 Watts depending on the clock speeds and memory used in the specific notebook.

You can browse through our GPU ranking to see where the Intel HD Graphics (Broadwell) stands: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

For more information about the GPU, follow this link: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-940mx-2gb-gddr5/

Gaming tests

Temperatures

The extreme stress tests that we perform cannot be taken as a representation of real-life use especially on an ultrabook like this one because the general user won’t be able to reach 100% CPU and 100% GPU usage at the same time for such long periods of time. However, this remains as the most effective way to assess the cooling capabilities and the overall stability of the cooling system in the long run.

We started off with 100% CPU load for about an hour. We noticed that the Core i7-7500U reached its maximum frequency of 3.5 GHz for the first few seconds and then immediately dropped down to 2.7 GHz, which is the base operating frequency. It seems that the system isn’t able to fully utilize the performance of the processor for some reason.

Fortunately, though, after turning on the GPU stress test as well, we didn’t notice any thermal throttling of the CPU or GPU. The GeForce 940MX ran at its maximum frequency for a while and dropped around its base clock speeds for the rest of the test. The CPU ran at relatively low temperatures, considering the nature of the test and the device’s class, of course. Whereas the GPU, it ran a little bit too hot to our liking hitting 75 degrees Celsius.

In any case, temperatures on the surface didn’t go above normal (given the form factor and the purpose of the laptop) so it’s safe to say that you won’t experience any overheating during normal use or even during light gaming.

Verdict

The Ideapad 720s turned out to be a great all-rounder and a rare occurrence in this price range. The only real direct competitor that we can think of is the ASUS ZenBook UX410UQ. There are some things that Lenovo’s solution does better and in some cases, the ZenBook is a better choice. However, in terms of design, build quality and display – they appear to be pretty similar.

Anyway, back to the Ideapad 720s. It boasts an excellently-built chassis with fairly compact dimensions, low weight and good input devices that can get the work done in on the go. We are also pleased with the number of connectivity options like full-sized HDMI, plenty of USBs – including a USB-C Thunderbolt (something you can’t really take for granted in this price range and the ZenBook UX410UQ doesn’t offer) and an SD card reader.

But as always, attempts of cramming up a powerful hardware inside a tiny chassis end up with crippled performance or overheating. In this case, it’s the first one. The CPU wasn’t able to reach its full potential, although to be fair, we’ve tested a pre-production sample so this might not be an issue for the end units. Anyway, you will notice very loud (high-pitch) cooling performance under load but if you limit the usage to general work and web browsing, you shouldn’t worry about that. With the ZenBook UX410UQ’s case, the cooling fan didn’t stop spinning even when idle, so there’s always a trade-off. It depends on what you are willing to sacrifice for the portable chassis.

Finally, we want to address the display and battery life – both are great, there’s no doubt about that. The IPS panel provides excellent viewing experience (negligibly close to the ZenBook UX410UQ’s one) and doesn’t use PWM from 0 to 99% brightness. And with a little help from our “Design and Gaming” profile, the color accuracy is vastly improved. As far as battery performance is concerned, it falls a little bit short to the ZenBook UX410UQ and the Swift 5 but it’s great, nonetheless.

So if you are willing to overlook some of the flaws, this powerful 14-inch fellow can easily be your compact daily driver capable of almost anything. Still, if you need the extra storage, slightly better battery life and you absolutely want the best-in-class display, the ASUS ZenBook UX410 might be the one for you.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2wCa3nk

The ThinkPad T570 remains as a classic, even though it was released just a few months prior to this review. But why classic then? Well, it carries a brand new chassis, which appears to be lighter and thinner than its predecessor, packs the latest hardware but at the same time retains the iconic ThinkPad appearance and feel. The AccuType style keyboard is good as always, the touchpad is nearly perfect and you can still take advantage of the TrackPoint for easier mouse navigation.

But what about all the important stuff the usual business consumer is looking for, like reliability and battery life? As usual, we test the limits of the cooling system, although the Intel Core i5-7200U isn’t all that demanding and overheating is out of the question. And as far as battery life is concerned, we expect at least slightly better endurance compared to the 14-inch model due to the overall bigger battery capacity. In any case, that’s something that can be easily fixed since the notebook features a 32Wh internal battery plus an additional 24Wh external one. You can always opt for a bigger external battery like the 48Wh or the 72Wh options available from Lenovo but more on that later in the full review below.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2wJcyEe

Contents

Retail package

The ThinkPad T570 comes in a standard package containing the usual user manuals, AC adapter and power cord. Also, the external/secondary battery isn’t installed on the machine and can be found separately in the box.

Design and construction

As we already pointed out, the ThinkPad T570 doesn’t really differ all that much from the classic T-series notebooks we’ve seen so far and it’s just a bigger version of the T470 that we reviewed earlier. But, of course, with the bigger screen comes a full-sized keyboard (including the Numpad). But in reality, the T570 doesn’t feel so much bigger than its smaller 14-inch sibling. The side bezels of the screen appear to be slightly slimmer so this might be one of the reasons.

Anyway, the lid uses the same slightly rubberized finish for better grip and also feels more premium this way. The downside, however, is that smudges are prominent and dust builds up easily. In any case, the material feels strong – bending and twisting is almost impossible even when great force is applied. Probably the only slightly weak point is the lower bezel due to the narrow hinges. Speaking of which, they seem pretty stable and look quite durable in the long run because they are made of aluminum. Unfortunately, though, the hinges are so tightly pulled that opening the lid with one hand is not possible but we also noticed that the screen remains firmly in place even when working on unstable surface.

The sides of the laptop offer the same port distribution and design compared to the 14-inch T470 variant and unfortunately, no extra connectors. We think it’s logical to expect at least an extra USB from a bigger form factor but we can let that one pass because it carries all the needed I/Os anyway. The left side comes with a standard USB 3.0 port along with a USB-C 3.1 (Gen 2) with Thunderbolt 3 support. The DC charging port and the main exhaust vent are also placed on the left whereas the right side holds the rest of the ports – 3.5 mm audio jack, SD card reader, two USB 3.0, HDMI and an RJ-45 for LAN. Luckily, gone are the days of clunky old ThinkPads because the T570 fits all that hardware in a 20.2 mm package – that’s just about the height of the 14-inch model as well.

The interior doesn’t surprise us with anything new – excellent AccuType keyboard with slightly shorter than usual travel but delightful clicky tactile feedback while the keycaps are slightly concaved for maximum comfort when typing. We are also pretty satisfied by the big nature of the keyboard because it’s extended to its maximum – as far as the chassis allows. The touchpad is absolutely identical to the 14-inch version – good gliding surface, extra responsive, accurate with light mouse clicks. The latter, however, is conditional. If you reach to the upper half of the touchpad and try to press the mouse button, you will feel that it becomes stiffer and stiffer as you go towards the upper end. It gets in the way sometimes but luckily for the hardcore ThinkPad users, the TrackPoint is still available while the provided left, middle and right mouse buttons (under the spacebar) are well-placed and feel extremely comfortable to use. Moreover, the area around the keyboard and the touchpad is in the traditional ThinkPad fashion – slightly roughened black plastic that looks cheap but feels rigid at the same time. Only when strong pressure is applied you can see the keyboard and the wrist rest area sinking. It’s nothing you should worry about because it doesn’t really make any impact on the user experience.

The ThinkPad T570 covers all of the essential points a business-oriented notebook should have – excellent input devices, strong and durable chassis with compact and lightweight design while delivering all of the essential connectors. Quite frankly, we don’t have any major complaints about the device’s casing except a few minor improvements we would like to see in the next generation. First, the touchpad should be “clickable” across the whole surface, the hinges should be firm and stealthy without being so tightly pulled like these – opening the laptop with one hand should be possible.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Similarly to the 14-inch model, the T470, the T570 doesn’t have dedicated service hatches on the bottom. However, reaching the hardware inside is super easy and hassle-free. It requires only some unscrewing here and there as well as the removal of the external battery, which is rated at just 24Wh but can be swapped with a bigger battery from Lenovo if needed.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

One of the biggest disappointments here is the limited storage options. Although the T570 is a full-fledged 15-inch laptop, it lacks a 2.5-inch drive bay, which is swapped by a metal plate holding a 2280 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD as shown in the photos below. Flipping the plate revealed a thermal paste and a 256GB Samsung PM961 drive.

RAM

At least, Lenovo hasn’t skipped on the memory slots – they are two and support up to 2x 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory. The unit we’ve tested came with only one 8GB RAM chip manufactured by Samsung.

Other components

The Wi-Fi adapter is placed near the external battery and it’s Intel 8265NGW.

The internal battery is a bit bigger than the external one and it’s rated at 32Wh.

Cooling system

The cooling design is pretty simple – just one small heat pipe connecting the cooling fan to the heat sink.

Display quality

The T570’s display uses a 15.6-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel manufactured by LG with model number LP156WF9-SPF1. The pixel density of the screen is 142 ppi and the pixel pitch is 0.18 x 0.18 mm. The screen can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal or greater than 60 cm.

Viewing angles are excellent.

The maximum brightness we were able to record is 282 cd/m2 in the center of the screen while the average across the surface is 281 cd/m2 with just 6% deviation. The color temperature on white screen at maximum brightness aligns with the optimal 6500K.

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the screen at 100% brightness is 2.7, which is relatively good since values above 4.0 are usually unwanted. The contrast ratio is excellent 1100:1. You can also see how the values change at around 140 cd/m2 luminance.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The display covers just 51% of the sRGB color gamut making it suitable for general browsing and office work but it’s not exactly “multimedia material”.

Below you will see practically the same image but with the color circles representing the reference colors and the white circles being the result. You can see main and additional colors with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% saturation inside the sRGB gamut pre and post calibration.

The “Design and Gaming” profile is created at 140 cd/m2 brightness, D65 (6500K) white point and optimal gamma in sRGB mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 27 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

It appears that the display doesn’t is PWM-free across all brightness levels making it safe to use for long periods of time in this regard.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

If it was a mid-range business laptop, like the ThinkPad E570, for example, we won’t be complaining about the display but since this is a high-end notebook, we expected high-quality IPS panel as well. It does have some good properties like high contrast ratio and doesn’t use PWM across all brightness levels but the limited sRGB coverage and relatively low maximum brightness cripple the user experience. It appears that the 15-inch version of the laptop suffers from the same issue that the 14-inch T470 does.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for Lenovo ThinkPad T570 configurations with 15.6″ Innolux N140HCA-EAB (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2vGa851

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

$9.99

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet refers to this particular model – configurations may differ depending on your region.

Check price

Processor	Intel Core i5-7200U (4-core, 2.50 – 3.10 GHz, 3MB cache)
RAM	8GB (1x 8096MB) – DDR4, 2400MHz
Graphics card	Intel HD Graphics 620
HDD/SSD	256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display	15.6-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS, matte
Optical drive	–
Connectivity	LAN 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0
Other features	3x USB 3.0 1x USB-C 3.1 (Thunderbolt) 3.5 mm audio jack HDMI RJ-45 SD card reader Smartcard reader keyboard LED backlight
Battery	24Wh external + 32Wh integrated
Thickness	20.2 mm (0.8″)
Weight	1.975 kg (4.35 lbs)

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS without the bloatware, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from Lenovo’s official website.

Battery

While the basic 14-inch configuration ThinkPad T470 sports an integrated 24Wh battery along with an external 24Wh unit, the 15-inch model offers a bigger base 32Wh unit and the same removable 24Wh one. At first glance, this may seem an incremental update that would be compensated with the bigger 15.6-inch diagonal but apparently, the results from our tests suggest otherwise. The ThinkPad T570 impresses with much better battery runtimes compared to its smaller 14-inch sibling and way above average endurance compared to other 15-inch laptops.

Of course, all tests were performed using the same conditions as always – Wi-Fi turned on, Windows battery saving feature turned on and screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2.

Web browsing

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

Pretty good web browsing score – 550 minutes (9 hours and 10 minutes).

Video playback

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

Considerably lower but still a good result – 453 minutes (7 hours and 33 minutes).

Gaming

We recently started using F1 2015’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

Of course, the laptop isn’t made for gaming but it’s good to know that it can last three hours under heavy load – 192 minutes (3 hours and 2 minutes).

CPU – Intel Core i5-7200U

Intel’s Core i7-6200U is part of the 7th Generation Kaby Lake CPUs and it’s the direct successor of the Core i5-5200U (Broadwell) and Core i5-6200U (Skylake). It’s also based on the same architecture as the aforementioned chips with little differences that should bring a small performance increase and a bump in power consumption. However, the new CPU is clocked at 2.5 GHz and its Turbo Boost frequency is 3.1 GHz opposed to the 2.3 – 2.8 GHz clocks on the previous Core i5-6200U.

Anyway, we still have the 2/4 core/thread count, 3MB last level cache, and a TDP of 15W, which includes the iGPU and the dual-channel DDR4 memory controller. Speaking of the former, the chip integrates the newer generation Intel HD Graphics 620 graphics chip clocked at 300 – 1000 MHz.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i5-7200u/

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i5-7200U scored 6.350 million moves per second. In comparison, one of the most powerful chess computers, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – Intel HD Graphics 620

Intel’s HD Graphics 620 integrated iGPU can be found in various ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors from the Kaby Lake generation. The GT2 version of the graphics chip uses 24 EUs (Execution Units) that can be clocked up to 1050 MHz and it has a base frequency of 300 MHz but the former can vary depending on the CPU. Since the iGPU doesn’t have a dedicated memory of its own – or eDRAM for that matter – it uses the available RAM on the system which is 2x 64-bit DDR3 or DDR4.

The TDP depends on the CPU model but it’s usually equipped with a SoC rated at 15W including the memory controller.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/intel-hd-graphics-620/

Temperatures

The stress test isn’t the best way to represent real-life usage but it’s still the only way to determine the overall stability and effectiveness of the cooling design in the long run. In any case, the laptop isn’t made for long and extreme workload so don’t take the results below so critically.

As usual, we started with 100% CPU load for an hour. The CPU’s temperatures were relatively low and for most of the time, the system was able to support the chip at its maximum frequency for two active cores – 3.1 GHz. We also have to note that the system’s cooling fan was pretty silent even under prolonged heavy workload.

We turned on the GPU stress test after the initial hour and the CPU’s temperatures didn’t change at all while the frequency dropped by another 100 MHz. This is a good sign because apparently, the cooling system is able to support 100% CPU + 100% GPU load without resorting to downclocking. The chip is able to utilize the full performance of the CPU and the iGPU without a sweat. The fan speed remained at its previous state while staying pretty silent.

And as expected, the temperatures on the surface were low with the only warm area around the center of the keyboard. Still, the digits shown in the heat map below will be much lower under normal use.

Verdict

To our surprise, the 15-inch model from the series isn’t much different from its 14-inch sibling. It doesn’t really offer anything more considering the bigger chassis – storage options are the same, the I/O is identical but on the contrary, the internal battery offers slightly bigger capacity, which in turn delivers better endurance overall.

Our opinion of the input devices remain the same as well – comfortable, clicky keyboard with long key travel, excellent TrackPoint positioning and usability and a bit too stiff clickpad. Lenovo practically used the same set of input devices as the 14-inch T470. Build quality is right up there with the rest of the high-end buisness laptops feeling quite sturdy and reliable in the long run – no corners cut here.

But our main complaint regarding the screen remains – relatively dimmer than most IPS panels and covers just half of the sRGB color gamut. This is downright unacceptable for a laptop at this price range, even if it’s a business-oriented notebook. We’ve seen practically the same image quality delivered by the considerably less expensive Lenovo ThinkPad E470 and E570 and we actually praised them for that. But a notebook that starts at around $1 000, we definitely can’t let that one slip by.

However, if display quality isn’t of such great importance to you and working outdoors won’t be on daily basis (the screen is a bit dim for outdoor use) and the storage limitation of just one M.2 SSD slot (no 2.5-inch drive in a business-oriented 15-inch laptop, really?) will suit your needs, then you should definitely consider the T570 as your next daily driver. One of the most important features like build quality, input devices, battery life and oevall reliablity are still the main order of the day for the ThinkPat T-series.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2wJcyEe

ASUS’ ZenBook UX series has always attracted a lot of attention and it’s easy to see why. All of the ultrabooks from this lineup offer a fairly powerful hardware combined with excellent battery life, good multimedia capabilities in a thin and light package. What’s not to like, right? Well, just like everything life, the ZenBook UX310UQ isn’t for everyone and it really depends on what you are willing to sacrifice along the way.

Just like the 14-inch UX410UQ, the 13-inch UX310UQ offers an ULV (ultra-low voltage) CPU like the Core i7-7500U, a discrete graphics solution – NVIDIA GeForce 940MX with 2GB of DDR3 memory and blazingly fast M.2 PCIe NVMe storage support, although our units arrived with regular M.2 SATA SSDs. Of course, the usual amount of memory is 8GB of DDR4-2400 and the 13.3-inch display offers a bright IPS solution suitable for multimedia. We were pretty impressed by the battery life and overall user experience that the UX410UQ carries but what about the smaller 13-inch installment? Is it any better or is it worse? Well, in most cases the 14-inch version is a better choice so continue reading to find out why.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2vLvKl6

Contents

Retail package

The package contains the usual user manuals, AC adapter and the laptop itself.

Design and construction

The design and choice of materials are familiar. Nothing has changed compared to its predecessor and its bigger 14-inch sibling. There’s one thing that should be noted, though – the screen bezels appear to be thicker when compared to the ones of the UX410UQ, which makes the overall size of the machine mostly same. In this case, you might as well go for the 14-inch version since you get a slightly bigger screen in the same body.

Anyway, the lid consists of a fairly thick brushed aluminum sheet with concentric texture that is once again stable and hard to twist. The surface is prone to smudges but because of the metallic color, they aren’t so prominent. The single-hinge design provides good stability, smooth movement and keeps the lid firmly in place. It also allows you to open the notebook with one hand. The bottom piece is made of anodized aluminum, it’s clean with no big grills – only two small grills are found towards the front for the speakers.

The sides are remarkably thin measuring at just a little over 18 mm and accommodate the usual set of ports you’d find on a 15-inch device. The connectors are also well distributed on the left and right. Really convenient. The left side holds the 3.5 mm audio jack, a full-sized HDMI port, USB 3.0, and an USB 3.1 (Gen 2) connector as well. On the right, you can see two USB 2.0 connectors and the SD card reader. The USB 3.1 Gen 2 connector is a nice finishing touch because you can extend the I/O with a decent amount of plugs via USB-C hub.

As the rest of the chassis, the interior incorporates anodized aluminum surface providing good stability in the keyboard area and around the palm rest section. The keyboard once again feels somehow spongy – each key press feels like you are pressing a tight spring – but that doesn’t really affect the typing experience in a big way. It just takes some time adjusting. Besides, we found the travel distance more than decent and the clicky feedback satisfying. The keyboard backlight is discreet while the layout is standard and provides all the needed shortcuts. The touchpad is also really nice with excellent gliding surface, light mouse clicks, accurate and responsive. There’s nothing bad we can say about it really.

To sum things up, the ZenBook UX310UQ’s chassis’ choice of materials is not only great but also makes it portable (18 mm thin)), light (just 1.4 kg) and sturdy. The hinge appears to be stable while the input devices can definitely get the work done on the go.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

The bottom piece comes off easily and gives access to all of the internals. And as expected, the ZenBook UX310UQ packs absolutely the same hardware as its bigger 14-inch UX410UQ sibling.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

The laptop comes not only with the standard M.2 SSD slot but also packs a 2.5-inch drive slot available for upgrade. Anyway, the M.2 drive slot is taken by a 256GB Micron SATA SSD. We would have appreciated a PCIe NVMe SSD but this might just be a regional issue.

RAM

The motherboard packs 8GB of integrated DDR4-2400 memory but our unit packs another upgradable 4GB DDR4-2400 chip as well.

Other components

Intel 8265NGW takes care of the Wi-Fi connection.

And the same battery is found inside the 13-inch model – 48Wh.

Cooling system

The cooling solution is also identical and relies on just one small heat pipe going across both chips and connecting the cooling fan to the heat sinks.

Display quality

The ultrabook uses a familiar 13.3-inch Ful HD (1920×1080) IPS panel from AU Optronics with model number B133HAN02.7. The latter can be found in the ASUS ZenBook Flip UX360, however, this one is largely different from the one we’ve tested before. Anyway, the pixel density remains 166 ppi and pixel pitch of 0.153 x 0.153 mm is still at hand. It can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal or greater than 50 cm.

The screen offers excellent viewing angles.

We were able to measure a maximum brightness of 368 cd/m2 in the center and 353 cd/m2 as average across the surface. This means that this version of the panel is about 40% brighter than the previous one we’ve tested on the ZenBook UX360. The maximum deviation regarding backlight uniformity is just 6%. We’ve recorded slightly colder than usual color temperature at maximum brightness – 7280K. But as we go along the grayscale, the color temperature falls down a little – 7000K but still colder than the optimal 6500K. Below you can see how these values change at 140 cd/m2 (about 48% brightness).

The maximum color deviation dE2000 compared to the center of the display is just 1.7, which is a pretty good result since values above 4.0 are usually unwanted, especially when color-sensitive work is involved. The contrast ratio is also excellent – 1200:1 before profiling and 1000:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

Again, we got much better result here than the other version of the panel – 94% coverage of the sRGB color gamut. That’s almost double the coverage.

Below you will see practically the same image but with the color circles representing the reference colors and the white circles being the result. You can see main and additional colors with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% saturation inside the sRGB gamut pre and post calibration.

The “Design and Gaming” profile is created at 140 cd/m2 brightness, D65 (6500K) white point and optimal gamma in sRGB mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 22 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

And here’s the one thing in common between the ZenBook UX360 panel and this one – both use PWM but only below 100 cd/m2 (30% brightness). This means that in the most common brightness range, your eyes won’t experience any issues with screen flickering. But keep in mind that we strongly recommend keeping the brightness level above 30% at any time since the frequency of the emitted light is extremely low and “aggressive”.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

At first, we were disappointed to find out that both ultrabooks share the same panel as the ZenBook UX360 uses a somehow budget type of IPS panel and we expect a higher quality display on the ZenBook UX310UQ. To our surprise, this is probably a revised version of the panel scoring excellently in our tests. The display is not only good for the usual browsing and office work, but potentially for multimedia and color-sensitive work on the go (thanks to our custom profiles that bring dE2000 down to just 1.7).

In any case, you can enjoy an IPS panel with high maximum brightness suitable for outdoor use, excellent contrast ratio and wide sRGB coverage. PWM is present only below 100 cd/m2 making the panel safe to use for long periods of time (as long as you keep the brightness level above 30%).

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS ZenBook UX310 configurations with 13.0″ AUO B133HAN02.7 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2eJckGt

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

$9.99

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Sound

The sound quality is on par with the competition – we’ve got clear lower frequencies and small deviations in the mid and high range.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet refers to this particular model – configurations may differ depending on your region.

Check price

Processor	Intel Core i7-7500U (2-core, 2.70 – 3.50 GHz, 4MB cache)
RAM	12GB (1x 4096MB + 1x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2400MHz
Graphics card	NVIDIA GeForce 940MX (2GB DDR3)
HDD/SSD	256GB M.2 SATA SSD
Display	13.3-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS, matte
Optical drive	–
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11ac 2×2, Bluetooth 4.0
Other features	1x USB 3.0 2x USB 2.0 1x USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) 3.5 mm audio jack HDMI SD card reader keyboard LED backlight
Battery	48Wh
Thickness	18.35 mm (0.73″)
Weight	1.4 kg (3.09 lbs)

ASUS ZenBook UX310 configurations

ASUS ZenBook UX310UA

• Intel Core i7-6500U
• Intel HD Graphics 520
• 256GB SSD
• 8GB RAM

$800^.00

More Info Buy from Amazon

ASUS ZenBook UX310UQ

• Intel Core i7-7500U
• NVIDIA GeForce 940MX (2GB DDR3)
• 256GB SSD
• 12GB RAM

Not available

More Info Buy from Amazon

ASUS ZenBook UX310UA

• Intel Core i7-6500U
• Intel HD Graphics 520
• 256GB SSD
• 8GB RAM

Not available

More Info Buy from Amazon

Software

We used the already installed Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) for the writing of this review but if you wish to perform a clean install without the bloatware, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official support page.

Battery

The laptop sports a 48Wh battery that might not seem a lot but for a 13.3-inch casing and hardware that’s not so demanding, the unit keeps the lights on for quite some time. The Core i7-7500U CPU and the 13-inch IPS panel are the main components drawing so much power but still manage to keep the notebook running for longer than expected. The results from the web browsing and video playback are more than satisfactory.

And interestingly, the 14-inch ZenBook Ux410UQ scored better in both battery tests and the only reason we could think of is the panel. Although the 13-inch screen should draw a bit less power, it seems that the panel itself is the culprit here. Keep in mind, though, that these are just assumptions.

Of course, all tests were run using the same settings as always – Wi-Fi turned on, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows battery saving feature turned on.

Web browsing

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

Pretty good result on the web browsing test – 420 minutes (7 hours).

Video playback

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

Higher than expected video playback score – 448 minutes (7 hours and 28 minutes).

Gaming

We recently started using F1 2015’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

Of course, the laptop isn’t made for gaming but it’s good to know that almost three hours under heavy workload – 171 minutes (2 hours and 51 minutes).

CPU – Intel Core i7-7500U

The Core i7-7500U is part of the latest Intel Kaby Lake generation of CPUs built upon 14nm manufacturing process – or 14nm+ as the company markets – and should offer marginal performance gains over the Skylake generation while improving overall power efficiency. It’s a direct successor to the Core i7-6500U (Skylake) and Core i7-5500 (Broadwell) but opposed to previous architecture refreshes, the Kaby Lake Core i7-7500U is bringing much higher clock rates. Now the chip is clocked at 2.7 – 3.5 GHz (compared to the 2.5 – 3.1 GHz on the Skylake Core i7-6500U) and still adopting the 2/4 core/thread count using the HyperThreading technology with a maximum 4MB cache.

However, the Core i7-7500U’s TDP is still rated at 15W including the iGPU and dual-channel memory controller that supports DDR4-2133, LPDDR3-1866 and DDR3L-1600. And as far as the iGPU is concerned, it integrates a slightly improved Intel HD Graphics 620 clocked at 300 – 1050 MHz, which is slightly higher than the iGPU on the Core i5-7200U (300 – 1000 MHz).

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-7500u/

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-7500U scored 6.888 million moves per second. In comparison, one of the most powerful chess computers, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 940MX (2GB DDR3)

The NVIDIA GeForce 940MX is a refreshed version of the older 940M mobile chip but with slightly higher clock speeds, which result in noticeably better performance compared to the standard 940M.

Announced back in the first quarter of 2016, the chip is almost identical to the standard 940M (Maxwell) but with clock speeds increased up to 1242 MHz and base 1122 MHz. The memory uses a 64-bit bus and has 2GB of DDR3 VRAM. It supports the DirectX 12 API and Shader 5.0 feature along with the usual NVIDIA technologies – CUDA, GPU Boost 2.0, Optimus, GeForce Experience, PhysX. The whole graphics card is rated at around 15 to 30 Watts depending on the clock speeds and memory used in the specific notebook.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-940mx-2gb-ddr3/

Gaming tests

Temperatures

Keep in mind that the stress tests that we perform don’t represent real-life usage but remain as one of the most reliable ways to assess the overall stability and effectiveness of the cooling system in the long run.

We started off with 100% CPU load for about an hour. At first, the chip was able to reach its maximum operating frequency of about 3.5 GHz and shortly after that, dropped down to 3.0 GHz and stayed there for good. Temperatures were relatively low.

After turning on the GPU stress test, the Core i7-7500U toned down to 2.9 GHz while reaching temperatures just below 85 °C while no GPU throttling occurred – the 940MX was running at about 1188 MHz, although a little hot – 76 °C.

Interestingly, the interior remained exceptionally cool throughout the whole test.

Verdict

While the laptop sounds great on paper, there are some things you really need to consider before buying it. First, the thin and light design combined with the powerful hardware has its price and this time it’s noise emissions. The cooling fan is always spinning even if you are not using laptop and it just sits idle. Secondly, there’s already a better version of the notebook that makes this one obsolete – the UX410UQ is nearly identical regarding hardware, build, dimensions, weight, input devices, storage options and performance but packs a slightly larger 14-inch display, somehow longer battery life and slightly better screen. We honestly can’t think of a reason to choose the 13-inch UX310UQ option.

In any case, you will be impressed by the build quality, feel, input devices, battery life, performance and upgrade options. On contrary to most ultrabooks, this little fellow packs an M.2 SSD slot alongside a 2.5-inch drive and even one memory slot available for an upgrade.

So if you are looking into solid and portable all-rounder at a decent price and the ZenBook UX310UQ happens to be on your “want” list, then we strongly recommend looking into the ZenBook UX410UQ and the recently released Lenovo Ideapad 720s. Both pack a tough punch but only one will suit most of your needs.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2vLvKl6

With the latest generation of CPUs and GPUs from Intel and NVIDIA on the mobile front, OEMs started a race – who will build the fastest, yet the thinnest and most portable notebook. We’ve seen some great design and performance from the latest generation of Apple’s MacBook Pro 15 and Dell’s XPS 15. But what if you get roughly the same specs and performance and put it on a much more affordable package? That’s exactly what ASUS has managed to achieve with its latest ZenBook Pro UX550VE – a successor to the well-received ZenBook Pro UX501 and a worthy competitor to the MacBook Pro 15 and XPS 15.

Costing around €300-350 less than its direct competitor, the XPS 15, you’d expect that there are some compromises along the way. But at first glance, there’s nothing wrong or fishy about the UX550VE – solid metal chassis, high-end hardware, thin-bezel IPS panel with good multimedia properties, long battery life and comfortable input devices. For some time now, ASUS has often been associated with excellently built ultrabooks while pricing them lower than the competition. And with the UX550VE, ASUS doesn’t disappoint – Intel Core i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, up to 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory, up to 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD and an optional 4K UHD IPS touch-enabled display. Where’s the catch? Find out in the thorough review below.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2wZR8k0

Contents

Retail package

The notebook comes in a relatively big package with plenty of goods inside the box. Aside from the usual user manuals, AC adapter and power cord, the laptop is accompanied by a neat cable tie, a USB-A to RJ-45 for LAN connectivity, a cleaning cloth and a carrying bag.

Design and construction

Our unit shipped with that signature obsidian blue color (or Royal Blue as ASUS calls it) that looks not only elegant but different as well. As we said earlier, the notebook features an all-aluminum chassis – the lid is brushed while the rest of the body is anodized with chamfered edges. The metal chassis hasn’t reflected so much on the weight as the UX550VE weighs the impressive 1.8 kg and measures just 18.9 mm in height – that’s mighty impressive for a 15-inch laptop. However, the XPS 15 and the MacBook Pro 15 are still thinner than ASUS’ solution but it’s not really so apparent. All three weight approximately the same.

Starting with the lid, the ZenBook UX550VE carries the iconic concentric brushed aluminum plate on top with ASUS’ illuminated logo. You just can’t mistake it for another brand. The aluminum plate provides decent stability and bends ever so slightly, yet it’s still acceptable given the thickness of the device. It’s also fairly resistant to torsion probably thanks to the wide singe-hinge design. Speaking of which, it provides quite sturdy operation without using both hands to open the laptop but as you go towards the end, the hinge becomes pretty stiff. This will definitely suit the touch-enabled versions well. What’s more, the side bezels of the screen measure at just 7.3 mm while the upper one and the lower chin are slightly thicker. Of course, the XPS 15 still holds the crown in this regard but the compromise is the awkwardly placed webcam. The bottom of the chassis features anodized aluminum without any vents for cool air intake, only two out of four speakers are placed at the bottom.

Although thin enough to impress, the sides still maintain functionality. Measuring just below 19 mm and sporting chamfered edges, the UX550VE offers pretty much everything you’d need from a 15-inch laptop in terms of connectivity. On the left, you will find the DC charging port, full-sized HDMI and not one but two USB-C 3.1 supporting Thunderbolt 3. On the right, you can rely on the 3.5 mm audio jack, microSD card reader and two USB-A 3.0 ports.

Opening the lid reveals a familiar interior – fairly stable anodized aluminum sheet with glass covered touchpad and a comfortable keyboard, although, we were surprised to see that the Numpad block is missing since it’s a 15-inch device. Anyway, the chassis continues to give an impression of a stable design, although we found only one relatively weak spot – right in the center of the hinge, the sheet gives in under small amounts of pressure. Nothing worth considering in real-world conditions but we felt obligated to note that since it’s a high-end device. The rest of the interior appears to be rock-solid.

The keyboard feels nice and delivers about 1.5 mm of travel but we felt like it’s a little bit less. To compensate for the shorter travel, the keys offer tactile and audible clicky feedback making the whole typing experience very pleasant. Also, each key has a small indentation for added comfort. The LED backlight is white and has several brightness levels each being pretty discreet and we didn’t notice any annoying light bleed. And as for the trackpad, it has silky smooth glass surface registering each gesture, swipe and drag accurately. Mouse clicks are light, clicky, deep and don’t get in the way of dragging and dropping.

All in all, the UX550VE is has an excellently built chassis with virtually no downsides. Even though it costs considerably less than the competition, the overall build quality is on par. Still, the carbon fiber on the XPS 15 kind of makes the whole user experience a bit elevated and Apple’s simplistic and impeccable design still comes on top of all. Nevertheless, the UX550VE is definitely a bang for the bucks, especially if you are willing to spend so much on a 15-incher.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

As before, the ZenBook UX550VE offers easy access to the internals but not thanks to dedicated service lids. The bottom plate comes off easily once you remove all the screws and pry it up.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

Unfortunately, storage is limited only to a single M.2 SSD, which in our case is a Samsung PM961 PCIe NVMe SSD with 512GB capacity. Probably due to design limitations, the laptop skips on the 2.5-inch drive bay in favor of a bigger battery.

RAM

To our surpise, the notebook has no available RAM slot for upgrade and instead relies on soldered RAM chips (it can be found under the small metal plate). The configuration we’ve tested had just 8GB of DDR4-2400 memory. This is a considerable drawback especially for a 15-inch laptop.

Other components

Next to one of the cooling fans, you can find the Intel 8265NGW Wi-Fi adapter.

The battery is located under the wrist rest area and it’s rated at the whopping 73Wh.

Cooling system

The cooling system looks pretty solid – two big heat pipes connecting both fans and heat sinks. Speaking of which, the GPU heat sink is familiar in design – often found in high-end gaming laptops. Too bad that even this isn’t enough to keep the internals cool during heavy workload.

Display quality

The display uses a Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel with matte finish manufactured by Innolux with model number N156HCE-EN1. The 15.6-inch diagonal means 142 ppi pixel density and 0.18 x 0.18 mm pixel pitch. The screen can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal or greater than 60 cm.

Viewing angles are excellent.

In the center of the screen, we’ve recorded a maximum brightness of 337 cd/m2 and 316 cd/m2 as average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 14%. The color temperature at maximum brightness on a white screen is 7260K, which means that colors will appear slightly colder than usual. As we go along the grayscale, the color temperature remains approximately 7200K. You can see how values change at 140 cd/m2 (56% brightness) below.

The maximum dE2000 color deviation at 56% brightness is 4.0, which isn’t really good if you consider doing color-sensitive work on this screen. Contrast ratio, however, is excellent – 1200:1 before calibration and 1000:1 after.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The panel covers 92% of the sRGB color space making it suitable for multimedia as well.

Below you will see practically the same image but with the color circles representing the reference colors and the white circles being the result. You can see main and additional colors with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% saturation inside the sRGB gamut pre and post calibration.

The “Design and Gaming” profile is created at 140 cd/m2 brightness, D65 (6500K) white point and optimal gamma in sRGB mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 21 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

And here’s the one thing in common between the ZenBook UX360 panel and this one – both use PWM but only below 100 cd/m2 (30% brightness). This means that in the most common brightness range, your eyes won’t experience any issues with screen flickering. But keep in mind that we strongly recommend keeping the brightness level above 30% at any time since the frequency of the emitted light is extremely low and “aggressive”.

Although we’ve detected PWM from 0 to 29% brightness, we consider the display practically harmless in this regard because you will most probably end up using it way above 85 cd/m2. And even if you go below that point (if you are in a pitch black room, for example) the frequency of the emitted light is too high and may not affect everyone – only users with sensitive to PWM eyes.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

The presented IPS display is excellent for work, browsing, gaming and multimedia. It offers wide sRGB coverage, high contrast, high maximum brightness and has no PWM above 29% brightness. The only problems we’ve encountered were the slightly colder color temperature, deviating gamma curve and inaccurate color reproduction but all of this can be fixed with out custom profiles.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS ZenBook Pro UX550VE configurations with 15.6″ Innolux N156HCE-EN1 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2wmA9q7

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

$9.99

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Sound

The sound quality is good – there’s enough clarity in the low, mid and high frequencies.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet refers to this particular model – configurations may differ depending on your region.

Check price

Processor	Intel Core i7-7700HQ (4-core, 2.80 – 3.80 GHz, 6MB cache)
RAM	8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2400MHz
Graphics card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB GDDR5)
HDD/SSD	512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display	15.6-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS, matte
Optical drive	–
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1
Other features	2x USB 3.0 2x USB-C 3.1 (Thunderbolt 3) 3.5 mm audio jack HDMI microSD card reader keyboard LED backlight
Battery	73Wh
Thickness	18.9 mm (0.74″)
Weight	1.84 kg (4.05 lbs)

ASUS ZenBook UX550 configurations

ASUS ZenBook Pro UX550VE

• Intel Core i7-7700HQ
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB GDDR5)
• 512GB SSD
• 8GB RAM

$2015^.00

More Info Buy from Amazon

Software

We used the pre-installed Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) for the writing of this review so if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS without the bloatware, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official website.

Battery

Although considerably cheaper, the ASUS ZenBook UX550VE beats both of its competitors (the MacBook Pro 15 and XPS 15) when it comes to battery life. We were really impressed by the battery runtimes as the laptop pulled off almost a record-breaking web browsing result falling short only to the Dell Inspiron 15 7567 in the 15-inch class. It’s really funny how this 15-inch ultrabook with Core i7-7700HQ and a Full HD IPS panel was able to run for such long periods of time thanks to its surprisingly big 73Wh battery.

All tests were performed with the usual settings – Wi-Fi always running, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2 and Windows power saving feature turned on.

Web browsing

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

Outstanding battery score on this test – 715 minutes (11 hours and 55 minutes).

Video playback

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

Sensibly lower but still an excellent score – 532 minutes (8 hours and 52 minutes).

Gaming

We recently started using F1 2015’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

Of course, the laptop isn’t made for gaming but it’s good to know that it can run for more than three hours under heavy workload – 215 minutes (3 hours and 45 minutes).

CPU – Intel Core i7-7700HQ

The Core i7-7700HQ is Kaby Lake’s top-shelf direct successor of the Skylake Core i7-6700HQ offering slightly higher clock speeds on the almost identical architecture and TDP. While Intel markets Kaby Lake’s architecture as “14nm+”, the Core i7-7700HQ is still on the same 14nm node with the only significant update being in the iGPU department. That’s why the slightly altered clock speeds (2.8 – 3.8 GHz vs 2.6 – 3.5 GHz) bring not more than 10% increase in performance compared to the Core i7-6700HQ. We still have the supported Hyper-Threading technology with 4/8 – core/thread design, the same 45W TDP and 6MB cache.

However, the Kaby Lake generation boasts an updated video engine for the iGPU, although, its performance is just about the same. Branded as Intel HD Graphics 630, the GPU offers slightly higher clock speeds (350 – 1100 MHz vs 350 – 1050 MHz) compared to the Intel HD Graphics 530 and support for H265/HEVC Main10 profile at 10-bit color depth and the VP9 codec for full hardware acceleration. In addition, the HDCP 2.2 is also supported allowing Netflix’s 4K video streaming.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-7700hq/

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-7700HQ managed to get 13.335 million moves per second. For comparison, one of the most powerful PCs, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4GB GDDR5)

NVIDIA’s GTX 1050 Ti for notebooks is almost identical to its desktop counterpart but offers different clock rates. What’s more, the Ti variant uses more CUDA cores than the standard GTX 1050 version – 768 vs 640 but both GPUs use the same GP107 chip, which differs from the other NVIDIA high-end solutions. The GP107 chip is manufactured by Samsung, not TSMC, and it’s built on the 14nm node on contrary to the 16nm from TSMC.

Anyway, the GTX 1050 Ti also offers significantly higher clock rates than the normal GTX 1050 versions well 1493 – 1620 MHz vs 1364 – 1493 MHz. This contributes to a significant performance boost over the standard version but the rest of the specs remain the same. The GPU offers 4GB of GDDR5 memory connected via 128-bit interface and transfer rates as high as 112 GB/s.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1050-ti-4gb-gddr5/

Gaming tests

Temperatures

The stress tests that we perform can’t be taken as a good representation of real-life use of the machine since even normal gaming session can’t put 100% CPU and GPU load at the same time for such long periods of time but it’s still the best way of assessing the overall stability and effectiveness of the cooling system in the long run.

We started off with 100% CPU stress test for an hour. The results show that the Core i7-7700HQ ran a bit too warm but was able to sustain its maximum operating frequency for four active cores – 3.2 GHz. Usually, configurations with this processor tend to keep temperatures around 80 degrees or less.

When we turned on the GPU torture test as well, the CPU and the GPU started throttling. The Core i7-7700HQ’s frequency dropped down to 1.8 GHz, which is way below its base frequency while the GTX 1050 Ti didn’t go anywhere it’s minimum frequency either – 1177 MHz. Often when cooling designs have trouble keeping up with the powerful hardware clock down the CPU or GPU but not both at the same time. In this case, the ASUS ZenBook Pro UX550VE’s cooling system proved to be quite insufficient for the given hardware. Also, the GTX 1050 Ti ran a little bit too hot.

The inner temperatures have affected the temperatures on the surface as you can see from the heat map below. Still, the palm rest area remained cool. Also, we noticed that the cooling fans keep running even when the notebook is idle or during normal office work.

Verdict

The ASUS ZenBook UX550VE is a no-brainer if you are looking for an affordable Dell XPS 15 or Apple MacBook Pro 15 alternative but obviously, you will have to deal with some setbacks along the way like insufficient cooling capabilities, always running cooling fans and a bit flexible interior. In addition, you are stuck with only one M.2 SSD and no RAM chip slots – you have to deal only with the soldered memory. This is also true for the MacBook Pro 15 but we expected more from ASUS, come on…

Anyway, if we put aside these inconsistencies, we are mostly impressed by the premium feel of the machine, excellent input devices, great IPS display (with practically no PWM) and outstanding battery life. The all-aluminum chassis with chamfered edges and brushed surface give the ZenBook Pro UX550VE a distinct look and feel while the long battery life will let you enjoy your favorite movies and almost get you through a full workday on a single charge. However, we strongly recommend that you consider our custom profiles as they improve color accuracy, gamma and color temperature.

So at the end of the day, if you are willing to spend a little bit more on such laptop, the XPS 15 or the MacBook Pro 15 are better choices but if you are not so pretentious and can overlook some of the issues (especially if you are not going to play demanding games or use it for continues heavy workload), the ZenBook Pro UX550VE is actually the smarter choice.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2wZR8k0

With the mainstream HP Omen laptops, such as the Omen 15 (2017) and Omen 17 (2017), it’s time for the high-end enthusiast Omen X. While the Omen 17 is a great deal, in our opinion, the Omen X takes things up a notch and focuses on features that only hardcore gamers and enthusiasts will appreciate – overclocking the CPU, GPU and RAM, improved cooling design with plenty of heat pipes and cooling fans (instead of an optical drive) and fully-customizable mechanical keyboard with macro keys and RGB illumination.

Surely, the notebook isn’t designed to take on the ASUS ROG Zephyrus or Acer’s Predator Triton 700 but instead invades the territory of the beefy Alienware 17 R4, Acer Predator 17 X and the Lenovo Legion Y920. However, we find the Omen X a different breed due to its highly-customizable “nature”, the inclusion of a really good mechanical keyboard and a bit more… let’s say conservative design approach, which in our opinion is much better than the usual flashy gaming design. Still, the machine offers just about everything you’d expect from a high-end gaming laptop also found in its rivals – a factory overclocked Intel Core i7-7820HK CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (or 1070), 32GB of DDR4-2400 memory (unlocked for overclocking here), two M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD slots, one 2.5-inch HDD slot and two screen option – 4K UHD IPS or Full HD IPS with 120 Hz refresh rate. Either way, you can enjoy the buttery-smooth gaming experience thanks to the built-in G-Sync feature. Find out more in the thorough review below.

DISCLOSURE: We received an early engineering sample from HP and thus the unit we used for the review isn’t suitable for a full review so we decided that we will publish only a potion of the full review. We will update it once we get our hands on a retail unit.

The notebook isn’t on sale yet but when it is, you can find the availalbe configurations here: http://amzn.to/2yb5hLl

Contents

Retail package

The box in which the Omen X came, had only the usual user manuals, AC adapter and power cord. We don’t know for sure whether the full retail package will come with more accessories.

Design and construction

The notebook is anything but portable. Tipping the scale at 4.35 kg and measuring at approximately 40 mm at its thickest point including the silicone feet, the device is comparable to the Alienware 17 R4 and the Acer Predator 17 X – differences are negligible, although the Alienware 17 R4 is considerably thinner. Anyway, we are glad to report that HP has used aluminum in most areas and was able to compensate the added weight and thickness with rigidity. We hope the cooling performance is just as good.

From a visual standpoint, the Omen X retains the design signature of its more affordable siblings – the Omen 15 and Omen 17. The lid is made of anodized aluminum and patterned metal sheets with Omen’s illuminated logo in the middle and two LED strips forming an “X”. This time around, however, all LED-illuminated ornaments are customizable thanks to the RGB lighting. Anyway, pressing the middle of the screen results in bending but interestingly, no ripples appear on the LCD screen. So in practice, this shouldn’t be an issue. Opening the lid reveals a familiar piston hinge design – they can be found in the ultra-thin HP Spectre 13. This means that the hinges feel quite similar as well – smooth linear travel, allow opening the device with one hand and stable positioning of the screen. We also found the whole lid to be quite resistant to torsion. And as for the bottom – it’s entirely made of plastic and it’s covered in rectangular-shaped grills along with two big vents on the sides for additional airflow – whether they are for cool air intake or dispersing the heat.

One of the most exciting things about the Omen X, however, is the expanded I/O. The notebook offers way beyond the bare minimum of connectivity and it’s also well-distributed along the sides. On the left, you can find just one USB 3.0 connector, the 3.5 mm audio jack and another 3.5 mm port for an external microphone. The right side accommodates the SD card reader and another USB 3.0 connector. The DC charging port is right next to the right grill, which might be awkward in some cases. In any case, the Omen X keeps the big guns on its back – RJ-45 for LAN, not one but two USB-C 3.1 connectors supporting Thunderbolt 3, one mini DisplayPort, another USB 3.0 port and a full-sized HDMI 2.0A connector supporting external displays with HDR. The latter will most probably be deciding factor for you if you already own an HDR-capable monitor. Moreover, it’s hard to miss the customizable RGB LED strip at the back and the huge grills for dispersing the heat on each side.

Moving onto the interior, we find a stable brushed aluminum sheet that doesn’t give in under pressure at all. Unfortunately, though, as all black and brushed finishes, this one is a fingerprint magnet as well. Anyhow, the most impressive feature we have here is the RGB-illuminated keyboard. Through the Omen Command Center, you can pick any color or any effect you’d like. There’s also a column of six macro keys positioned on the left, a full set of Fn shortcuts including an Omen-branded key that brings up the Omen Command Center app and full-sized isolated arrow keys. Regarding the feel of the keys – it’s nothing short of some full-sized desktop keyboards. We are pleased with relatively long key travel and satisfying audible and tactile feedback thanks to the tactile bump. With all being said, we think highly of the keyboard not only for gaming but for typing as well. And as for the touchpad, well it’s pretty much the same as the one on this year’s Omen 17, which means, of course, comfortable mouse keys, responsiveness, smooth gliding surface and accurate.

If you are able to overlook the weight and overall size of the notebook, the Omen X offers some neat features like mechanical keyboard, plenty of I/O, relatively easy upgradeability and rigidness.

Display quality

The Omen X comes with exactly the same panel as its slightly smaller 17-inch sibling – the HP Omen 17 (2017). They both share the AUO B173HAN01.4 (AUO149D) Full HD (1920×1080) IPS panel with 120Hz refresh rate and support for G-Sync. So we already know what to expect from the panel – excellent image quality, buttery-smooth gaming experience and some small issues that need to be corrected using pre-calibrated profiles.

Anyway, as all 17.3-inch Full HD panels, this one offers 127 ppi pixel density, 0.1995 x 0.1995 mm pixel pitch. The screen can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal or greater than 69 cm.

The display offers excellent viewing angles.

Our equipment detected a maximum brightness of 330 cd/m2 in the middle of the screen and 333 cd/m2 as average across the surface with just 5% deviation. The color temperature is close to the optimal but will still make colors appear slightly colder or blue-ish – 7040K. As we go along the grayscale, we observe similar average color temperature of about 6970K and you can also see how values change at 140 cd/m2 (71% brightness).

The maximum dE2000 color deviation is 1.4 at 73% brightness, which is an excellent result since values above 4.0 are unwanted, especially when color-sensitive work is involved. The contrast ratio seems to be a bit lower than expected – 840:1 before calibration and 780:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

As expected, the display covers 92% of the sRGB color gamut making it ideal for gaming and multimedia.

Below you will see practically the same image but with the color circles representing the reference colors and the white circles being the result. You can see main and additional colors with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% saturation inside the sRGB gamut pre and post calibration.

The “Design and Gaming” profile is created at 140 cd/m2 brightness, D65 (6500K) white point and optimal gamma in sRGB mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 23 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

And here’s the one thing in common between the ZenBook UX360 panel and this one – both use PWM but only below 100 cd/m2 (30% brightness). This means that in the most common brightness range, your eyes won’t experience any issues with screen flickering. But keep in mind that we strongly recommend keeping the brightness level above 30% at any time since the frequency of the emitted light is extremely low and “aggressive”.

Of course, our equipment once againd didn’t detect any PWM across all brightness levels. This means that even users with sensitive eyes shouldn’t have any problems after long gaming sessions.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

Although there were slight deviations from the results taken from the previously tested AUO B173HAN01.4 (AUO149D) panel, the viewing experience is excellent due to the wide sRGB color gamut coverage, decent contrast, high maximum brightness and the absence of PWM. The high refresh rate (120Hz) combined with NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology makes the gaming experience even better.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for HP Omen X configurations with 17.3″ AUO B173HAN01.4 (AUO149D) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2h5QqdH

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet refers to this particular model – configurations may differ depending on your region.

Check price

Processor	Intel Core i7-7820HK (4-core, 2.90 – 3.90 GHz, 8MB cache)
RAM	32GB (2x 16384MB) – DDR4, 2400MHz
Graphics card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB GDDR5X)
HDD/SSD	512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display	17.3-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS, matte
Optical drive	–
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1
Other features	3x USB 3.0 2x USB-C 3.1 (Thunderbolt 3) HDMI 2.0a mini DisplayPort 2x 3.5 mm jacks for audio and external microphone SD card reader RJ-45 for LAN keyboard LED backlight
Battery	unknown for now
Thickness	40 mm (1.57″)
Weight	4.35 kg (9.60 lbs)

CPU – Intel Core i7-7820HK

The Core i7-7820HK is part of Intel’s latest generation Kaby Lake processors sporting an improved 14nm+ manufacturing process allowing for slightly higher clock speeds and better efficiency, although the performance per clock hasn’t changed since this is practically the same microarchitecture as the one used for the previous Skylake chips.

Anyway, the Core i7-7820HK offers higher operating frequency than its Core i7-6820HK predecessor – 2.9 – 3.9 GHz (for four active cores the Turbo Boost frequency drops to 3.5 GHz or 3.7 GHz for two active cores) vs 2.7 – 3.6 GHz but keeps most of the features like Hyper-Threading, (4/8 core/thread design), 8MB LL cache, a dual-channel DDR4-2400 or DDR3L-1600 memory controller and a TDP of 45W including the iGPU. Speaking of which, the processor integrates an Intel HD Graphics 630 chip clocked at 350 – 1150 MHz.

The most noticeable feature of this processor is the unlocked multiplier for easy overclocking and usually OEMs provide the needed software for doing so. In the end, the processor’s maximum frequency can be increased depending on the notebook’s cooling system.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-7820hk/

GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB GDDR5X)

The GeForce GTX 1080 is the top-shelf GPU from NVIDIA’s Pascal generation (except for the Titan X Pascal, of course) built upon 16nm TSMC process, which is a huge leap over the last generation (Maxwell), which featured a 28nm node. Anyway, the new architecture allows better thermals, efficiency and considerably higher clock speeds than its direct predecessor the GTX 980. Also, for the first time, NVIDIA has made the difference between the desktop and the mobile variants of the Pascal GPUs mostly unnoticeable in real-life use, although there’s a slight difference according to synthetic benchmarks.

CUDA cores (2560), ROPs (64) and TMUs (213) are identical to the desktop variant of the GTX 1080 since they are based on the same GP108 chip including the memory controller, which is the highlight of the new graphics card because it features the next generation of GDDR5X memory developed by Micron allowing higher memory bandwidth on a 256-bit interface clocked at 10 000 MHz. However, there’s a small difference in the base clock speeds – 1566 – 1733 MHz for the laptop version and 1607 – 1733 MHz for the desktop variant. Both frequencies can be altered depending on the manufacturer and the cooling system’s performance.

The GPU’s power consumption is rumored to be around 165W making it suitable only for large 17 or 15-inch machines with high-performance cooling system. In addition, the graphics card delivers new and exciting features like DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection, refined H.265 video encoding, etc.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-8gb-gddr5x/

Estimated performance and overclocking

One of the main features that HP is bragging about the Omen X is overclocking and overall performance. Unfortunately, we can’t really say anything about overclocking at this point but we sure expect some significant performance gains over the stock clock speeds of the CPU and GPU. We are also pleased to see that memory is overclockable as well. We will make sure to check out these features once the final units arrive.

In the meantime, we can have a pretty accurate guess on how the system will perform with the Core i7-7820HK and the GTX 1080. We’ve already reviewed a laptop with this setup – the Acer Predator 17 X (GX-792). So we are pretty sure that results from synthetic benchmarks and gaming tests won’t be much different from the ones listed in the Predator 17 X review.

Early verdict

It’s too early to draw any conclusions about the new Omen X since we weren’t able to perform our full sets of tests like battery life, performance and cooling capabilities. However, we are can be sure about the blazingly fast performance of the setup as a whole, the excellent viewing experience and the good build quality.

The performance of the system without overclocking should be really close to the already tested Core i7-7820HK + GTX 1080 systems on the market while the 120Hz IPS panel with G-Sync support should deliver immersive gaming experience even on the go. Build quality is also its strong suit while the chassis adds neat mechanical keyboard, cool customizable RGB LEDs around the chassis (including the keyboard) and a wide variety of connectivity options including not one but two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports. Our main complaint at this point is the hefty chassis – it’s pretty damn thick and heavy even for a 17-inch laptop. Nevertheless, we can let that one slip by if the cooling system performs well.

The notebook isn’t on sale yet but when it is, you can find the availalbe configurations here: http://amzn.to/2yb5hLl

When we talk about business-grade laptops, the primary OEMs that come into mind will probably be Dell, HP and Lenovo’s legendary ThinkPad series. But what about ASUS? The company has been around for quite some time now but doesn’t have a strictly business lineup to call of its own. The closest thing to a business notebook is the ZenBook Pro lineup as it offers some additional multimedia features as well. With the ASUSPRO B9440, everything changes.

The ASUSPRO B9440 focuses on all that’s important for the mass business user – portability, rigidity, battery life, and input devices. In fact, the company claims the B9440 is the lightest 14-inch notebook on the market measuring at just 1.05 kg and just 15 mm thick with super thin screen bezels – just 5.4 mm on the sides and top. This easily puts it in the 13-inch category but what are the trade-offs here? Usually, such thin and light devices tend to cut some corners when it comes to cooling the 15W TDP processor, which in this case is the Core i7-7500U and skip a few connectors along the way. Unfortunately, the B9440 makes on exception here and even lacks a webcam, which for some users will be a deal-breaker. What else? We find out in our extensive review below.

You can find the available configurations here: http://amzn.to/2xhmAdO

Contents

Retail package

The laptop comes in a standard ASUS box with the usual user manuals, AC adapter and power cord. The bonus here is the carrying bag.

Design and construction

Our first impression of the laptop is the incredibly rigid case, portable dimensions and low weight. But how ASUS made that possible? According to the OEM, the device uses an incredibly robust military grade magnesium alloy – MIL-STD 810G.

You can definitely tell that there’s more than the conventional plastic coating when testing the lid. Pressing the middle where the logo is placed doesn’t result in severe flex and doesn’t cause any ripples to appear on the screen. However, we found that due to the thin design, the whole screen is susceptible to twisting yet again, we didn’t notice any visible distortions on the LCD screen. Despite the low weight of the base, the screen hinge is perfectly balanced allowing the notebook to be opened with just one hand. Once you open up the ultrabook, the protruding part of the lid gives the whole base a 7-degree incline for more comfortable typing experience. ASUS claims that the tilted base puts less stress on the user’s wrists, neck and overall positioning of the body. We don’t know about that but it really is rather pleasant to use. The bottom piece is made of the same material as the rest of the notebook and features only two small grills on the sides for the loudspeakers.

The sides are just 15 mm thin and as we already mentioned, skip most of the conventional ports. On the left, you will only find the 3.5 mm audio jack while both USB-C connectors are placed on the protruding lid on the both sides. We could have gone easy on ASUS for including only USB-C connectors if only they were Gen 2 or Thunderbolt 3. It appears, however, that both ports are just Gen 1 so there’s limited expandability with a USB-C hub. At least one of them supports video output while charging the device is possible only using the left one.

The interior continues to impress with rigidity and gives in only big amounts of pressure in the middle section of the keyboard. Speaking of which, it features barely noticeable curved keycaps with plenty of travel (1.5 mm) and clicky tactile feedback. Typing on the keyboard is a delight and pretty much the same goes for the touchpad. All gestures, swipes and clicks are registered correctly while the gliding surface is buttery-smooth. Our only minor complaint would be the positioning of the fingerprint reader – it’s located in the far upper right corner.

To sum things up, ASUS has made an incredibly portable yet robust business laptop offering excellent working experience on the go thanks to the comfortable keyboard and touchpad. However, in search of extreme portability, the company has ditched the conventional connectors leaving just two USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) ports and due to the extremely thin bezels – no room was left for the webcam. With all being said, we question the decision made to cut so many practical features from the chassis in favor of portability.

Disassembly, maintenance and upgrade options

Accessing the hardware inside is rather easy – you just need to remove the bottom panel by unscrewing all the bolts and then you can proceed with your cleaning or upgrading.

Storage upgrades – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD, M.2 SSD

As expected, the ultrabook carries only an M.2 SSD slot and our unit came with a 2280 M.2 PCIe NVMe Toshiba THNSN5512GPU7 SSD with 512GB capacity.

RAM

Unfortunately, the laptop comes only with soldered RAM and can’t be further upgraded so make sure you get a configuration that suits your needs.

Other components

The Wi-Fi module is located near one of the loudspeakers and, of course, it’s Intel 8265NGW.

The battery takes a strange shape but this way it utilizes the unused space inside the chassis. It’s rated at 48Wh and according to our tests it’s enough for a pretty solid endurance.

Cooling system

The cooling design is super simple – short heat pipe connecting the cooling fan and the heat sink. According to our stress tests, it’s fairly sufficient for normal office work and general browsing.

Display quality

The ASUSPRO B9440 uses the same IPS panel as the recently reviewed Lenovo Ideapad 720s – AU Optronics B140HAN03.5. The display offers Full HD (1920×1080) resolution, 157 ppi and 0.161 x 0.161 mm pixel pitch. It can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal or greater than 56 cm.

Viewing angles are excellent.

The maximum brightness in the center of the screen is 339 cd/m2 and 313 cd/m2 is the average across the surface with 15% maximum deviation. Color temperature at maximum brightness is 6730K and it’s pretty close to the standard 6500K. And as we go along the grayscale, the color temperature doesn’t change too much, in fact it is closer to the optimal – 6650K. You can see how values change at 56% (140 cd/m2) brightness in the image below.

The maximum dE2000 (color deviation) at 140 cd/m2 is 3.9, which is borderline acceptable since values above 4.0 are usually unwanted, especially when color-sensitive work is invovled. The contrast ratio is really high – 1400:1 and 1200:1 after calibration.

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

As expected, the display covers 92% of the sRGB color gamut making it suitable for multimedia as well.

Below you will see practically the same image but with the color circles representing the reference colors and the white circles being the result. You can see main and additional colors with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% saturation inside the sRGB gamut pre and post calibration.

The “Design and Gaming” profile is created at 140 cd/m2 brightness, D65 (6500K) white point and optimal gamma in sRGB mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and reverse.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 25 ms.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Of course, the display doesn’t use PWM across all brightness levels so it’s safe to use for long periods of time in this regard.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

There are no apparent problems with the display and it suits the higher price of the product. The wide sRGB coverage, high maximum brightness, the excellent contrast ratio and the absence of PWM make the laptop’s screen suitable for long hours of work and multimedia and pleasant experience in the outdoor environment.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUSPRO B9440 configurations with 14.0″ AUO B140HAN03.5 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS screen and the laptop can be found at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xPX0j1

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at bg.laptopmedia@gmail.com.

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

$4.96

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

$4.97

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Health-Guard

THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

$4.98

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

$9.99

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Sound

The notebook features Harman Kardon-tuned speakers and offer good clarity in the high frequencies but this changes in the mids and lows.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet refers to this particular model – configurations may differ depending on your region.

Check price

Processor	Intel Core i7-7500U (2-core, 2.70 – 3.50 GHz, 4MB cache)
RAM	8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2400MHz
Graphics card	Intel HD Graphics 620
HDD/SSD	512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display	14-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS, matte
Optical drive	–
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1
Other features	1x USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1 with support for power delivery and display output) 1x USB-C 3.1 (Gen 1) 3.5 mm audio jack fingerprint reader keyboard LED backlight
Battery	48Wh
Thickness	15 mm (0.59″)
Weight	1.05 kg (2.31 lbs)

ASUS ASUSPRO B9440 configurations

ASUS ASUSPRO B9440UA

• Intel Core i5-7200U
• Intel HD Graphics 620
• 512GB SSD
• 8GB RAM

$999^.00

More Info Buy from Amazon

ASUS ASUSPRO B9440UA

• Intel Core i7-7500U
• Intel HD Graphics 620
• 512GB SSD
• 8GB RAM

Not available

More Info Buy from Amazon

Software

We used the already installed Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) for the writin of this review so if you wish to perform a clean install of the OS without the bloatware, we suggest downloading all of the latest drivers from ASUS’ official support page.

Battery

Running a 14-inch Full HD IPS panel with Intel Core i7-7500U processor supported by a 48Wh battery, we expect long battery life. Fortunately, the ASUSPRO B9440 delivered excellent endurance, which is absolutely essential for every business-grade laptop. The video playback time was a bit lower than expected but more than enough for more than one movie at a time.

All tests were performed using the usual settings – Wi-Fi turned on, battery saving feature switched on and screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2.

Web browsing

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

Excellent battery runtime – 657 minutes (10 hours and 57 minutes).

Video playback

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

Considerably lower score on the video playback but still good – 460 minutes (7 hours and 40 minutes).

Gaming

We recently started using F1 2015’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

Of course, the laptop isn’t made for gaming but it’s good to know that it can run for more than three hours under heavy workload – 227 minutes (3 hours and 47 minutes).

CPU – Intel Core i7-7500U

The Core i7-7500U is part of the latest Intel Kaby Lake generation of CPUs built upon 14nm manufacturing process – or 14nm+ as the company markets – and should offer marginal performance gains over the Skylake generation while improving overall power efficiency. It’s a direct successor to the Core i7-6500U (Skylake) and Core i7-5500 (Broadwell) but opposed to previous architecture refreshes, the Kaby Lake Core i7-7500U is bringing much higher clock rates. Now the chip is clocked at 2.7 – 3.5 GHz (compared to the 2.5 – 3.1 GHz on the Skylake Core i7-6500U) and still adopting the 2/4 core/thread count using the HyperThreading technology with a maximum 4MB cache.

However, the Core i7-7500U’s TDP is still rated at 15W including the iGPU and dual-channel memory controller that supports DDR4-2133, LPDDR3-1866 and DDR3L-1600. And as far as the iGPU is concerned, it integrates a slightly improved Intel HD Graphics 620 clocked at 300 – 1050 MHz, which is slightly higher than the iGPU on the Core i5-7200U (300 – 1000 MHz).

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-7500u/657

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-7500U scored 6.695 million moves per second. In comparison, one of the most powerful chess computers, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU – Intel HD Graphics 620

Intel’s HD Graphics 620 is a direct successor to the integrated HD Graphics 520. The latter is found in ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors from the 6th Generation (Skylake) of chips while the former is in the 7th (Kaby Lake) generation of CPUs.

Intel’s HD Graphics 620 uses the GT2 version of the graphics chip with 24 EUs (Execution Units) reaching as high as 1050 MHz and it has a base frequency of 300 MHz. However, the maximum operating frequency depends on the CPU, whether it’s the Core i3-7100U or the Core i5-7200U or the Core i7-7500U. Since the iGPU doesn’t have a dedicated memory – or eDRAM for that matter – it uses the available RAM on the system which is 2x 64-bit DDR3 or DDR4.

The TDP depends on the CPU model but it’s usually equipped with a SoC rated at 15W including the memory controller. Its performance should be enough for multimedia activities, light applications and gaming on really low resolution and minimum graphics settings.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook with this GPU that we’ve tested: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/intel-hd-graphics-620/