Asus ZenBook Flip UX360CA
Asus
has been pumping out new laptop models at a prolific pace, and is
slowly but steadily climbing up into the top tier of manufacturers. It
has one of the most diverse portfolios in India, ranging from budget-friendly basic models to super-slim ultrabooks and even massive gaming machines. The company’s Zen branding is reserved for its most stylish, sleek and powerful offerings.Last year, we took a look at the UX305, which was undoubtedly designed to take on the MacBook Air, and in our opinion, succeeded. Later, we evaluated the UX303,
which was nearly the same but had a lot more power at the cost of a
little extra body weight. Now, we have with us a third sibling, the ZenBook Flip UX360,
which is quite different. As its name makes rather obvious, this is a
2-in-1 with a touchscreen and a lid that can flip around.
Asus ZenBook Flip UX360CA look and feel : The
UX360CA isn’t anywhere near as slick as its siblings. It’s clearly two
separate halves resting against each other; not the seamless clamshell
that the other models are. It’s also bulkier and more rounded at the
sides and corners. The top and bottom are flat, since they have to rest
against each other when the two halves are flipped around.
The device can be used as a laptop or as a tablet with the lid flipped around, but Asus
doesn’t specifically promote other “in-between” usage models such what
Lenovo calls “tent” and “stand” modes. There’s a large Asus logo below
the screen which looks funny upside down, so clearly Asus didn’t have
this kind of usage in mind even though it could work for some people.
You’ll find a USB 3.0 port, SD card slot, status LEDs, and the power
and volume buttons on the left side, while the DC power inlet, another
USB 3.0 port, a Type-C (5Gbps) port, Micro-HDMI output, and 3.5mm combo
socket are on the right. Asus includes a USB Ethernet dongle and another
Micro-HDMI to full-size HDMI adapter in the box, which are both much
appreciated.
While all buttons and ports are accessible when you
flip the base around, the speakers which are on the bottom get
sandwiched between the two halves. Grip is also a bit difficult in
tablet mode since there are sharp edges where the inner surface of the
keyboard deck meets the sides of the body, and this becomes the outer
edge when flipped around.
Our review unit was a champagne gold
colour and looked quite attractive. There’s the trademark Zen-series
concentric circle pattern on the metal lid, which always looks
sophisticated. The colour carries over to the keyboard keys and
trackpad, though a few crooked stickers spoil the look somewhat. The
keyboard isn’t backlit, but it is automatically deactivated when you
flip the hinge past a certain point. Windows 10 automatically rotates
the display and switches to its touch-friendly Tablet Mode unless you
disable it.
Switching between laptop and tablet usage is totally
seamless, though the bulk of the ZenBook Flip makes tablet mode
comfortable only if you’re sitting in such a way that you can rest it on
your lap or knees. Overall thickness is 13.9mm and weight is 1.3kg
which is great for a laptop, but not for a tablet.
Asus ZenBook Flip UX360CA specifications and software : Asus
sells the ZenBook Flip in India with an Intel Core m3-6Y30 processor,
which is one of Intel’s low-power Core M models in the sixth-generation
family and doesn’t require a cooling fan. There’s 4GB of RAM and either a
128GB or a 512GB SSD - our review unit had the latter. The same model
abroad comes with a variety of options for all its core hardware, and
just like with the UX305, we would have liked 8GB of RAM to at least be
an option here.
The screen has a resolution of 1920x1080 – Asus’s
initial promotional materials specified the option for a 3200x1800-pixel
screen which is available in some markets outside India, but we don’t
see that version on sale here. Intel’s HD Graphics 515 capabilities are
integrated into the processor, which should be enough for most everyday
tasks. There’s also Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.1, plus a 720p
webcam. Battery capacity isn’t specified, but diagnostics tell us it’s a
54Wh unit. You get Windows 10 Home and a bunch of Asus apps including Asus
WebStorage, the spammy Asus Giftbox, and several small utilities to
control things like screen auto rotation, high power delivery through
the USB ports, screen colour temperature, and manage audio profiles. One
new addition is Asus HiPost, which intercepts anything you copy to the
Windows clipboard and syncs it to an Android phone running the same app.
Asus ZenBook Flip UX360CA performance : The ZenBook
Flip is quick to boot and things generally seem to run smoothly.
Programs launch without any fuss, and we never had trouble when popping
between browser tabs with heavy pages loaded, even when streaming video.
Speaking of that, we had no trouble playing HD and even 4K content,
thanks to the CPU’s dedicated video acceleration hardware.
The
screen is bright and crisp, though colours are a little oversaturated.
We had to pump up the brightness more than usual to compensate for
distracting reflections and smudges on its glossy surface. Windows
scaling was set quite aggressively by default to make everything appear
larger and more touch-friendly, but we were happier and felt more
productive with it turned off.The
speakers turned out to be capable of pushing out considerable volume.
Voices in videos came out clean and distinct, with minimal distortion.
Music was tinny and scratchy, and suffered more when the lid was flipped
around because of the speakers’ positioning.
We were concerned about heat, since the UX360CA relies on passive
cooling. On some occasions, the bottom of the unit did get warm, but not
enough to make it uncomfortable on a lap. We tried using this device in
various situations and positions, and concluded that it works better as
a laptop than as a tablet.Benchmark scores showed reasonably
good performance. We recorded 2,756, 2,476, and 3,003 points in PCMark
8’s Home, Work, and Creative runs respectively. Cinebench’s score was
210 points, and POVRay ran its internal benchmark in 9 minutes, 27
seconds. 3DMark’s Fire Strike test returned 526 points which means that
3D gaming is clearly not one of this laptop’s strong points, though
older titles might run at low settings. We got an average of 18fps from
Tomb Raider (2013) at the native 1920x1080 resolution using the Normal
preset and would have to reduce settings further to make it playable.
We
measured battery life with Battery Eater Pro and got an impressive 4
hours, 36 minutes before the UX360CA shut itself down. It ran for much
longer with general use, including a lot of typing, Web surfing and
video playback, but we’d still want to keep the charger handy if we
needed to get through a full workday.
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