Once again ASUS is trying to reinvent portability. The ZenBook 14 UX433 (which visually is very reminiscent of the UX480) is branded like a 14-inch notebook in a 13-inch form factor. Well, this is usually a gimmick used by the manufacturers to say that their laptop is very small in terms of area. Expectedly, the case is the same with this device as well – it simply can’t be the same length as a smaller-screen device. However, with the help of the ErgoLift technology, it is considerably narrower than most of the notebooks.
Even though they have limited space inside, ASUS has equipped their premium laptop with Whiskey Lake CPUs. In addition to that, you have the option to get it with NVIDIA’s GeForce MX150 on board. This puts it one step ahead of one of their main competitors – Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52), which doesn’t feature dedicated GPU.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-zenbook-14-ux433/
Contents
Specs Sheet
ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 technical specifications table
Upcoming
What’s in the box?
Depending on the deal you find, you can get a free carrying bag with your ZenBook 14 UX433. Other than that there are the laptop itself, as well as a couple of the mandatory boring manuals and lastly – the 45W charging brick, which is no bigger than an iPad charger.
Design and construction
One of the main innovations ASUS is pushing for is in the form of the touchpad. They are thoroughly trying to utilize that space beneath the keyboard. Their most notable feat in this aspect is the ScreenPad on the ZenBook Pro 14 UX480. While most of the people have mixed opinions for it, the company have integrated a simpler solution in the UX433 – a NumberPad touchpad which, as its name suggests, can be used as the NumPad area that is usually not found on a 14-inch laptop. Sadly, we weren’t able to test a device with this feature on board so we have to settle with a plain ZenBook UX433 experience.
Nevertheless, here is an extremely light and premium build notebook. It is made entirely out of aluminum. In the same time it has by the time being, the smallest footprint of all laptops of this screen size. It uses the same ErgoLift technology, which lifts the base of the UX433 with the help of its screen which results in 92% screen to body ratio. This essentially results in almost no bezels around the screen. The notebook measures at 16 mm thickness and 1.09 kg of weight.
Speaking of the screen we are happy to see it can be opened with a single hand, which is rarely to be seen on a laptop with this hinge design. It features a flawless IR technology system, surrounding the camera.
Its keyboard takes the majority of the space on its base. We are surprised to see that amount of key travel. It is pleasant to type on and it gives tactile feedback. However, at first, it needs some adjustment to the layout. Further below is where you are going to find the NumberPad on a device that supports it. You can easily turn on the numbers – all you need to do is put your finger on the designated button. However, the touchpad itself is pretty accurate and is probably as close to a MacBook experience as you can get.
The bottom plate is home to a very limited amount of grills. There are two meant for the speakers and two to enhance the breathing of the cooling system. All of the hot air comes out from the back of the ZenBook 14 UX433, being trapped by the display assembly. However, this device is not the biggest heat generator, so we expect it to be fine.
| Width | Length | Height | Weight | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 | 319 mm (12.56″) | 199 mm (7.83″) | 15.9 mm (0.63″) | 1.09 kg (2.4 lbs) |
| ASUS ZenBook Pro 14 UX480 | 323 mm (12.72″) | 225 mm (8.86″) | 17.9 mm (0.70″) (+13%) | 1.60 kg (3.5 lbs) (+47%) |
| ASUS ZenBook 14 UX430 | 324 mm (12.76″) | 225 mm (8.86″) | 16 mm (0.63″) | 1.25 kg (2.8 lbs) (+15%) |
| Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) | 329 mm (12.95″) | 228 mm (8.98″) | 15 mm (0.59″) (-6%) | 0.97 kg (2.1 lbs) (-11%) |
Ports
Despite being just 16mm thick, the ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 is equipped with an adequate I/O. On the left side we see the power plug, an HDMI connector, as well as two USB 3.1 (Gen. 2) ports – one Type-A and one Type-C (saddly, not Thunderbolt). On the other side there is the MicroSD card reader – cool for photographers and content creators, a single USB Type-A 2.0 port and an Audio jack.
We have a couple of things to note here – we would definitely love to see a full-sized SD card reader, and more importantly – Type-C would certainly be appreciated.
Display quality
ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 features a Full HD IPS screen, model number AUO B140HAN03.2 (AUO323D). Its diagonal is 14″ (35.56 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 157 ppi, their pitch – 0.161 x 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 56 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).
ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 has comfortable viewing angles. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.
The maximum measured brightness is 334 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 308 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 18% in the bottom right corner, which is considered as inappropriate. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 7940K (average) – colder than the 6500K optimum for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 7680K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 55% Brightness (White level = 141 cd/m2, Black level = 0.103 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is acceptable – 1350:1 (1260:1 after profiling).
To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to 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 yellow dotted line shows ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433’s color gamut coverage.
Its display covers 91% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.
Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma 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.
Below you can compare the scores of ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).
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 (Gaming capabilities)
We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 31 ms.
Health impact – PWM / Blue Light
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.
ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433’s display is free of PWM at all brightness levels. This presents comfort to the eyes in this aspect plus conditions for extended periods of work without overloading your eyes.
Blue light emissions
Installing 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.
Conclusions
All in all, ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 is equipped with a good IPS panel. It is both bright enough – at 340 nits, has comfortable viewing angles and covers a wide color gamut (91% of sRGB). Moreover, it doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment and with the help of our Gaming and Web design profile, you can vastly improve the accuracy of the colors it produces. The only downsides to this screen are the high backlight leak in the bottom right corner and the cold white balance (which is also fixed by our Gaming and Web design profile).
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for ASUS ZenBook Pro 14 UX433 configurations with 14.0″ AUO B140HAN03.2 (AUO323D) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.
*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 [email protected]
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.
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.
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.
Sound
ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 is equipped with Harman Kardon labeled speakers. They produce loud enough sound, which is clear in the mid and high frequency range but has some deviations in the lows.
Drivers
All of the drivers and utilities for ZenBook 14 UX433 are available for download in ASUS’s official web page: https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-14-UX433FN/HelpDesk_Download/
Battery
Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. The ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 is equipped with a 3-cell battery pack which has a capacity of 50Wh.
Officially, ASUS state that their notebook is able to run straight for up to 13 hours away from the plug. In fact, we were able to get exactly 13 hours of web browsing from our unit. However, the battery life drops significantly when watching videos – 8 hours, which is still a good result. If you opt to play games on battery power you are going to get around 2 hours from the UX433.
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.
CPU options
The CPU selection for this device is pretty much the same as with its Pro sibling – you can get it with either the Intel Core i7-8565U or the Core i5-8265U Whiskey Lake CPU. Both of them have four cores and eight threads with the only difference lying in slightly higher clock speeds and 2 MB more cache for the Core i7.
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
GPU options
On the GPU side, however, you have two very different options. One of them is to stick with the built-in Intel UHD Graphics 620 and the other one is to get an NVIDIA GeForce MX150 with 2GB of memory. As you’ve seen from other tests we performed the MX150 is pretty potent in light gaming and consumes very little energy.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
| CS:GO | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings) | HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 61 fps | 39 fps | 20 fps |
| DOTA 2 | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 1080p, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 83 fps | 41 fps | 19 fps |
| Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) | HD 768p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 768p, High (Check settings) | HD 768p, Very High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 36 fps | – fps | – fps |
Temperatures and comfort
Max CPU load
In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.
Average core temperature (base frequency + X); CPU temp.
| Intel Core i7-8565U (15W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 | 2.69 GHz (B+49%) @ 65°C | 2.64 GHz (B+47%) @ 77°C | 1.87 GHz (B+4%) @ 76°C |
| Acer Swift 5 (SF515-51T) | 1.98 GHz (B+10%)@ 61°C | 1.98 GHz (B+10%)@ 71°C | 1.68 GHz @ 77°C |
| ASUS ZenBook Pro 14 UX480 | 3.13 GHz (B+74%)@ 95°C | 2.91 GHz (B+56%)@ 95°C | 2.47 GHz (B+37%)@ 87°C |
ASUS ZenBook 13 UX433 has one main setback it has to overcome with its cooling – it’s form factor. In addition to that, as a business device it can’t just max out its fans and annoy everyone around you. This led ASUS to design a thermal curve that sacrifices frequency in order to keep the temperatures and the noise low. As you can see from the table above, it competes pretty well with the 15-inch Acer Swift 5 (one of its main competitors in the lightweight range). We see strong 2.69 GHz in the first part of the test with the temperatures not exceeding merely 65C. However, towards the end of the torture test clock speeds had to drop to just 70 MHz above the base level. This resulted in both relatively cool and super quiet laptop.
Gaming comfort
The end result of the never-to-happen extreme torture test is 49C on the hottest spot of the keyboard. This happens to be just above the W key, which is a pretty crucial spot for gamers. Thankfully, this is not a gaming device, so you can relax.
Verdict
ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 is one of the pretties laptops we ever tested. Not only it looks good, but it has some very impressive visual parameters – thin profile, low weight and small area. In addition to that it is equipped with a fast hardware – with the Whiskey Lake CPUs it flies through the UI. Not only that but it is never too annoying, as the fan is ever so quiet.
While we can continue to pour superlative over the ZenBook 14 UX433, we have to note that there are some minor downsides of this laptop. The main one would be some light leakage from the backlights bottom right corner. Other than that is obviously nitpicking – barrel plug charger instead of a Type-C one and lack of Thunderbolt support.
That’s pretty much all. On the bright side, we have a bright screen with wide color coverage, huge battery life if you are web browser junkie and lack of harmful PWM for brightness adjustment. By the way, the screen becomes pretty color accurate when you apply our Gaming and Web design profile.
Comparing it side by side to the lightweight champion in this category – the Acer Swift 5 (SF514-52) it is negligibly heavier but smaller in footprint. The ZenBook 14 UX433 has a higher quality screen and you can get it with a dedicated GPU – the GeForce MX150. We definitely recommend this laptop if you are in the market for such a device.
Pros
- 13 hours of web browsing on battery power
- Elegant super small form factor
- GeForce MX150 option
- Decently bright and colorful screen (AUO B140HAN03.2)
- It doesn’t use PWM to adjust screen brightness (AUO B140HAN03.2)
- ScreenPad option and adequate keyboard
Cons
- Huge light bleed from the bottom right corner (AUO B140HAN03.2)
- Lack of Type-C charging
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-zenbook-14-ux433/
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