Clever Geek Handbook

Not a review of the ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 UX580GE - almost a year with almost the top

image Eight months since I own an Asus ultrabook with two screens. I play, love, work and suffer. It seems that the time has come to share your thoughts on this device and ask the community for advice on the future ...







Yes, and for a long time I did not write something. Too long for a NM review, which is more like a personal blog post under a cat.







Introduction



Hello! Thank you for deciding to get acquainted with my experience in owning this ultrabook. I will immediately notice that this is more likely not a review, but a subjective opinion. You can look at any tests and benchmarks in any cool technical articles. Thank!







Interlude



It seems that only yesterday I was following my first ultrabook , but no ... It was more than five years ago.







My faithful UX32A completely surrendered - the loop of the matrix started up stripes, and the loop after three repairs rested on parole. The ultrabook went into repair, but I had to choose a replacement for him ...







(Oleg, it's been almost a year since I gave it to you when you get my old man back?)







The choice



I’m still pointlessly a fan of Asus: I own a couple of top-end routers, an almost-idol UW monitor and a computer built on ROG . Was the choice of a new device before me?







He stood ... (Yet 32 ​​died more than one month)







First of all, I needed a lightweight but powerful device. The use case has changed from "carry to university" to "work on trips." For convenience, I was ready to increase the diagonal, but at the same time I wanted to save a little weight.







At that time (December 2018), a line of devices with ScreenPad was already presented, which I was very interested in.









The touchpad is a touch screen on which you can run special utilities or expand the screen of the operating system.







I am sinful: I used to turn on anime while working on a computer on a second monitor, so the opportunity to vertically expand the desktop really interested me.







ASUS ZenBook Pro 14 UX480FD

Display: 14, 1920 x 1080, matt

Intel Core i7-8565U 4x 1.80 GHz

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q 4.0 GB

16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

Weight 1.6 kg







A top-end processor, so as not to cut through throttling, a sufficient amount of RAM and a type of pumped graphics card.







ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 UX580GE

Display: 15.4, 1920 x 1080, matt

Intel Core i9-8950HK 6x 2.90 GHz

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4.0 GB

16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

Weight 1.86 kg







A top-end processor that can be trotted, but only with it is sufficient RAM available and a pumped video card type. At the same time, without unnecessary 4K and a touch screen.







Apple MacBook Pro 15

Display: 2880 x 1800, IPS (IGZO), glan

Intel Core i9-8950HK 6x 2.90 GHz

AMD Radeon Pro 560X 4.0 GB

16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

Weight 1.83 kg







Throttling, but, like, the STANDARD. You can of course pretend that this is for the build of iOS projects instead of virtual machines, but in practice, the problem with porn exe games and synchronization of Unity projects with a "working" desktop.







There is no screen in the touchpad area to watch anime.







Guess what I bought



My favorite was the 14 Pro, which, having a larger diagonal than the UX32, retained similar dimensions due to the thinner frames. At the same time, unlike 15, he also passed the customs limit very well.







(I really do not like the Cyrillic alphabet on the keyboard. I have stationary keyboards with Amazon, and in the first laptop I generally replaced the keyboard with the “original” one, so I also wanted to order a new beech from abroad)







But life made its own corrections ... I did not have time to order 14 Pro, and the UX32 died, right in my arms. At the same time, I had a long trip on holidays to my family, and in the city there were only 15 and Mack. I was afraid to enter the new ecosystem, and after a hasty check (an hour to the train) I became the proud owner of the ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 UX580GE.

(With the Cyrillic alphabet that spoiled the beautiful keyboard)







Something like a review ...



First impression



Wow! Yes, it’s like the UX32, but even cooler ... Awesome blue metal and a strict gold border. Convenient keyboard and two monitors! And you can not enter a password and just poke the fingerprint sensor. Turns on so fast! To go nuts! What? Can I build on a laptop for Android? O_o!













So hey, why does such a great device have such a healthy power supply? I want a powerful vidyahu, but to be powered by a power supply the size of a plug, like 32!







First tar



Touchpad



I work outside the home in not the most comfortable poses and positions. There is not always a place for a mouse, and therefore the touchpad is mainly used. And you know what? On UX32 it was better.







I understand that a touch screen, plastic are all things, but I'm too used to smooth, slippery metal, it’s just uncomfortable to work with plastic. This feeling haunts me even eight months after the purchase.







In addition to the fact that the surface is not very tactile, it also plays in the left click area! There is an intermediate state when there is already a click sound, but for the click itself it is necessary to push stronger.







And in general, the reaction of the surface leaves much to be desired - very often the system does not determine “light” pressures despite the maximum twisted sensitivity.







Trrr - Hacha



In electric vehicles, speakers are specially placed for the exhaust. Here, the engineers installed a silent SSD and, ofigev from this, forgot to add grease to the cooling system.







Really. The cooler is noisy, like an HDD on my first laptop - it was specially compared. The most interesting thing is that the sounds are disturbing only at low revs, as soon as the device heats up and the revolutions increase, the cooling system becomes almost silent. In practice.







Screenpad



The main feature of this device and







And the smartphone does not lean against the screen? © SamVimes

First of all, it is worth noting that there are two ScreenPad operating modes. This is the "second monitor" and "ScreenPad mode - a shell for widgets and smart functions."







It seems to be a lot to write about this gadget. Still would! Such a scope for creativity ... So many possibilities for the interface of the future. But ... Everything breaks up about everyday life and banal laziness.

I did not entertain myself with hopes that I would use the "huge" set of widgets from Asus for an additional screen. My goal was just to watch anime on it, and YouTube while working. And you know what? I do it successfully and do it.







Asus offers about 10 installed widgets for the monitor and something like a market, but I didn’t even open them. They do not fall into my use cases.







But you know what is the saddest thing?







I would love to use ScreenPad, like NumPad or a calculator for quick calculations. And even there are such widgets! But ... Only in the mode of working with widgets (logical). In desktop mode, only three options are available: Switching between touchpad / touch screen modes, moving the active window to ScreenPad, screenPad brightness.







The option display button hangs on top of the entire image and does not remember its position, after each reboot crawling to the left of the screen - it seems a trifle, but wildly annoying.









The button hangs on the left after the next reboot







(Of course, you can write your own macros and split ScreenPad into touch buttons using a special program, but I would like to see it all out of the box).







By the way, playing with the mini-map on the touchpad was inconvenient. Tilting your head to see the strategic position is stupid. Especially when there is such a card on the main screen just in a slightly smaller size.







And it seems that everything is fine - tolerable usability and full implementation of Wishlist. But ... A month after the acquisition, Yandex.Browser learned to display the video in a separate window that hangs on top of all windows.









Nothing prevents me from dropping a window from the video on ScreenPad, but no, no, and I "forget" it from the edge of the workspace.







For all the time I owned the ScreenPad functionally, it hasn’t been updated for me.







Keyboard



She is comfortable. Like in UX32. F functions work without clamping Fn, used to quickly - conveniently. In the reviews they write that it bends, but this in my copy, fortunately, is not.







I don’t know what else to write ... I'll try to joke.







Did it happen to you that by the time you accumulate on a device with a backlight, you are already printing blindly? (Although I wrote about this in a previous article)







Performance



Why, and I have no complaints about performance. Of course, in comparison with the previous beech, the jump in the power of devices is huge, I finally was able to build Android builds not remotely on a working machine. Maybe that's why I look through pink glasses, but it cannot be denied that this is one of the most powerful solutions on the market.







Unless I would like more RAM so that you can run virtual machines. Unfortunately, the device cannot be upgraded: there are no slots, all memory is soldered.







I did not feel throttling as such. Of course - while working in Unity, Rider and TeamViewer in the background, the device is hotter, but not extreme. The cooling system does not cut ears even at maximum speed. (A browser for a couple of dozen tabs and running viewing online video are implied by default).







But I have a claim to the fingerprint sensor. In terms of recognition quality, it reminds me of the first Chinese smartphones - you can put your finger on it, but you have to twist it. Maybe I just don’t know how to cook it ... As a result, an acceptable job was achieved only after I saved one finger several times in different poses.









My typical boot mode.







Gaming performance



For five years, my tastes have not changed much. I still play Age Of Empires 2, Counter Strike and Stronghold Crusader. It goes at maximum speed - I recommend!







But not on this device, because often launching full-screen applications leads to ...







Everyday problems



The ScreenPad screen turns off all the time. The system continues to see the screen, but no image is displayed.







Launched the game and minimized it? - Bye ScreenPad

Closed a laptop while playing a video? - Bye ScreenPad

Disabled ScreenPad during the game and then turned it on incorrectly? - Bye ScreenPad

Updated the graphics card driver? - Bye ScreenPad

Fortunately, the solution is simple - turn the ultrabook off and on again. And what? SSD is fast!







I understood that there could be problems, but I did not expect so "raw behavior" of a far off-budget device. Over and over again I updated the drivers, even reinstalled the services a couple of times, but this problem did not go away. Maybe, specifically, my unique combination of software always breaks something, but somehow it is not easier.







Repairs



As I wrote above, the device was purchased more for travel and after the New Year holidays was used from time to time.







A couple of times I was disturbed by a strange rattling sound while watching a video, but I did not betray it much, blaming the low-quality microphones of bloggers, and not the excellent acoustics from harman / kardon!







And in July of this year (before my next trip) the beech after the usual noisy warm-up instead of warming up and starting to rejoice at me with a quiet rustling of cooling at high speeds, said "VZVZVZVZVZVZZ" and went into warranty repair with the following complaints:









The store acknowledged that there was a backlash ScreenPad, having passed it for re-repair, you can ask for a refund or replacement. (The ultrabook spent almost 40 days in the repair)







But what's next?



I dont know. I like the device, but still I do not want to put up with these shortcomings. I will survive the plastic touchpad, but not its stupid play. The initial volume of the cooling system does not bother me either, and I learned to bypass the triggers to disable ScreenPad.

Maybe I'm stupidly out of luck with the instance / batch. But in one of two reviews on NM, similar problems are described.







Looking for something new? Over the past year, the weird ZenBook Pro Duo came out, but there’s an extremely small keyboard. While I was looking for information about him, I found the UX534FT announcement with ScreenPad 2.0, where it seems like the problems of the first version were fixed, but where and when to wait for it? In this case, everywhere there are Poppies who are ready to take in their ranks for soul and kidney ...







Printed on ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 UX580GE







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