Asus ZenBook UX305 vs Apple MacBook Air: Can it outpace the Mac?

By Sayan

| Updated: Friday, March 4, 2016, 15:49 [IST]

Apple has been dominating the market of portable laptops for quite some time now, all thanks to their MacBook Air range. Even the much touted 2-in-1 devices often referred to as convertibles, despite being more portable and easy to carry around have failed to the give the MacBook Air a run for its money.

Taiwanese manufacturer Asus though isn't ready to accept this market domination as their new product from their recently unveiled ZenBook lineup is not only portable but also powerful. Apparently, Asus launched the first two devices of its all new ZenBook range back last year. The metal clad device with a slim profile and powerful chips gave users a decent Windows alternative to the MacBook.

Well, Asus has now added its updated range of ZenBook for 2016 at a price starting at just Rs 55,990. The three new variants of the ZenBook feature an all new 6th gen Intel SoC and is available for sale in India via Asus Exclusive stores and Online retailers.

For the sake of comparison, we at GizBot have pitted the top end version of the ZenBook lineup namely the Asus ZenBook UX305UA-FB011T priced at Rs 74,190 against a similarly specced Apple MacBook Air which currently retails via Amazon at Rs 76,995. So without further ado, let's get started.

#1

The vivid display of the MacBooks have always been the USP of Apple, however OEMs using Windows 10 is stepping up their game and the Asus ZenBook is a clear example of that. The ZenBook features a 13.3 inch display with a super high resolution of 3200x1800 pixels. The LED back lit display comes with a peak brightness of 300nits and provides 170 degree viewing angle. On the contrary the Apple MacBook Air uses a 1440x900 resolution display.

#2

Asus has incorporated the all new 6th gen Intel SoC inside their ZenBook series of laptops. The top end variant of the ZenBook which is being compared here sports an Intel i7-6500U chip with two cores clocked at 2.5GHz. The cores have a peak speed of 3.1GHz and total cache of 4MB. The Intel i7-6500U SoC is complimented by an Intel HD Graphics 520.

The Apple MacBook Air on the other hand utilizes a 5th gen Intel i5 chip with two cores clocked at 1.6GHz each, while the peak speed may go up to 2.7GHz. Apart from that the chip has 3MB of L3 Cache unlike the 4MB seen on the ZenBook. So it's quite apparent that the Asus ZenBook holds the edge when it comes to performance.

#3

Apple MacBook Air (2015) is still stuck with 4GB RAM while Asus has included an 8GB LPDDR3 RAM onto the ZenBook UX305UA-FB011T. The most amusing part is that even a smartphone of present date come with more RAM than in the MacBook!

#4

Solid State Drive or the SSD in short may well be a storage component. But unlike the traditional HDD (Hard Disk Drive), the SSD are markedly faster and improves the overall performance of the PC. Apparently the SSDs were always the USP of the Apple MacBooks, whereas the Windows based laptop OEM kept on using HDD. However, the trend is gradually changing in the upper mid-range and Asus ZenBook signifies it quite nicely. The Asus ZenBook uses a 512GB M.2 SSD storage as compared to the 256GB PCi-e compatible one on the MacBook Air.

#5

The main downside of Windows powered laptop has been battery life. Despite the launch of the Windows 10, the MacBook Air still dominates the battery performance test with ease. It can easily deliver 9-11 hours of battery life while most Windows laptop cease to last for 4 hours. While Asus has included a 3 cell 56Wh Li-Polymer battery inside the Asus ZenBook we aren't quite expecting it to deliver the same performance of a Mac.