Asus has long produced some of the best-built laptops in the business, with its first-gen Zenbook still being among my favorite ever laptops. Now the company’s back with yet another absolute stunner, the Asus ExpertBook Ultra, and even though it’s aimed at high-flying business types, it’s sure to be a tempting option for anyone seeking a serious yet slick portable PC.
So, it might not be one of the best gaming laptops, but with this new Asus machine packing the latest Intel Core Ultra X9 Panther Lake CPUs, it’s still surprisingly capable. What’s more, a 3K tandem OLED display able to hit 1400nits of brightness, a battery that’ll last 24 hours, and even a six-driver speaker system mean this laptop is incredibly capable across the board.
In terms of design, the headline figures for this 13-inch laptop are that it weighs just 0.99kg (2.18lbs) and is a mere 10.9mm thick. That makes it truly effortless to wield one-handed and means it puts minimal strain on your back and shoulders while being lugged around on all those business trips.
Its color options and finishes also look incredible. Instead of a traditional anodized aluminum finish, it employs a surface coating technique based on plasma electrolytic oxidation, which Asus calls its Nano Ceramic coating. This surface treatment creates a finish that’s five times harder than normal anodizing, for a scratch resistance of 9H hardness, which is comparable to the latest toughened glass used in mobile phones.
Crucially, as well as being tough, this coating looks amazing, with Asus able to offer the ExpertBook Ultra in the confusingly named Warm Gray (black/dark gray) or Jet Fog (beige) colors shown here. It was a hotly contested debate as to which looks the best at the Asus event, where I got hands-on with the new laptop, but both looked and felt amazing.
The 3K tandem OLED is available either with an ultra-tough Gorilla Glass Victus glossy finish or the Gorilla Glass Matte coating shown here. The latter has a chemically etched surface, rather than using an anti-glare coating, which creates a rough, matte texture that all but vanquishes reflections and glare, as you can see in the image above (comparing to a previous-gen ExpertBook).
The downside to this surface is that, like all matte displays, it dulls the contrast of the image, making black look gray. However, if you need a laptop that can reliably deliver a readable image in just about any lighting conditions, then this coating is ideal, though the 1400nits maximum brightness of this panel certainly helps, too.
Notably, the connections on the sides aren’t limited to micro versions or just limited to USB-C/Thunderbolt. You get a USB-A and USB-C on each side, along with a full-size HDMI port on the left side, and a headphone jack.
Audio is also surprisingly good, thanks to the use of six speaker drivers. Two pairs of these are woofers that fire in opposite directions from each other to reduce vibrations, while the tweeters fire up through the speaker grilles on either side of the keyboard.
A huge haptic touchpad sits below that keyboard, and there are no oddities with the keyboard layout or other unwelcome touchscreen strips or other such features. Just sensible, useful features.
Inside, you get an Intel Core Ultra X9 388H with 64GB of 9600MT/s LPDDR5X RAM, with the CPU able to run at up to 50W of performance, all while never going above 35dB of noise from the cooling system.
Meanwhile, showing the clear business focus of this laptop, it also comes with top-spec security systems, including NIST SP800-193 certification and an Opal Trusted Computing Group-spec self-encrypting SSD.
The Asus ExpertBook Ultra will launch soon for a surely yikes-inducing price that’s TBD. Here’s hoping there’s a gaming-oriented equivalent around the corner soon, maybe using the new AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388. We can live in hope.
