After a month of daily usage, it’s now safe to talk about cons of Asus Zenbook. Well, these are not exactly cons, but more of peculiarities, mostly caused by the laptop being so thin and light.
Let’s start with the not so obvious. The laptop doesn’t have a removable battery. To access the battery, you have to unscrew some non-standard bolts… I really wish engineers screwed every proprietary screw right into their butts. Apart from the battery, the lid also protects the SSD, which is not a standard 2.5″ drive but a card. So, if anything happens to it, it’s not exactly clear where do you get a replacement.
Now lets look up front. Here is only one, but huge peculiarity. For some unbelievable reason Asus engineers decided to unite in one two buttons of opposite functions – delete and insert. To insert, you have to hold the function button. That’s insane. I mean, it’s like using the same pedal in a car for accelerating and breaking, and the switch is located somewhere under the seat. What makes it even worse is that the power button is right next to it. Being sick and tired of loosing all unsaved work when turning off the computer instead in inserting something, I had to force myself to use Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, which isn’t a real replacement. There’s so much unused space around the keyboard, why did they have to make the keys layout this way? Perverts!
Well, that’s about all peculiarities. The laptop also doesn’t have a LAN port, so you have to use a USB adapter for Ethernet connectivity. At first I also had some problems with the left USB port. Plugged in thumb drives and HDDs were not always detected. That is, you plug it in, it’s fails to detect, you unplug it and immediately plug it in again, and this time it works. This also happened in the BIOS boot menu, so it is definitely not driver related. I contacted techsupport, describing the issue and saying it happens in BIOS and that’s why not driver related, so let’s skip that part where you suggest me to update the driver. Guess what response I got?
Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service
My name is kylin and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem.
It seems like there is something wrong with the port.
Have you updated the USB driver?If not,you can try to do it.
You can use the second Global link to download it .
If still,I suggest you to apply an RMA(Return Material Authorization) number and then send the unit in so that our engineers could help you have a detail check for it and then fix the problem. Here are the steps of an RMA process.
Please first fill the following online form.
Please include your name, mailing address, telephone number, and the serial number of your product.
You may also give us a call at 888-678-3688 we would gladly assist in getting you setup with an RMA.
Please provide your Product S/N when you call in.
Sorry for any inconvenience this causes to you.
Welcome to refer Troubleshooting & FAQ for ASUS products in ASUS
Run these steps and let us know if this resolves your problem.
Best Regard
kylin
Yes, you’re right – update the driver. It doesn’t even occur to them that there exist other operating systems than Windows.
I didn’t apply for repairs. The problem is still present, but occurs quite rarely. I guess there’s some electrical contact being dirty or something like that.
And the last thing worth mentioning is that the laptop lacks security lock slot. The laptop is quite expensive, and you would really like to secure it in public places. It also doesn’t have a microphone or line in jack, keep that in mind.