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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave 2D here. This is the Asus ZenBook S, and it's got this interesting
00:08feature, this hinge that lifts the keyboard, and it gives it this, what I would consider
00:13to be one of the most comfortable keyboards I've used in a laptop recently. So, this device
00:18is standard ZenBook quality. It's aluminum all around, with this chamfered edge that's
00:23either bronze or copper, depending on how you look at it. I'd say it's more of a copper,
00:27but that's just me, and it's really well built. It is a ZenBook flagship. These are
00:31always well made. Now, this hinge is what makes this laptop special. They're calling
00:35it Ergolift, and it's not the first time we've ever seen a device do this. Like, the whole
00:39idea of when you open the device, it lifts up. We've seen other devices do it. We've
00:44seen other Asus devices do it. We've seen XPS devices do it. It's certainly not new,
00:49but these guys do it better than anyone else that I've seen. The idea is to lift up the
00:53keyboard so there's a bit of a tilt, so it's a more comfortable typing position, as well
00:56as opening up the bottom so it's not touching the surface of whatever you're typing on.
01:00And the tilt is just right. It's an awesome keyboard experience. It's a great layout,
01:04clean, white backlighting. The arrow keys are in the proper spot, and each keystroke
01:08has this nice feel to it on these chiclet keys. My only knock on it is that the page
01:12up and page down stuff, there's no dedicated buttons for them, and if you want to use the
01:16hotkeys for them up top, they're in a weird spot. You have to take your fingers off the
01:20cursor and push them in the function keys. But still, despite that odd page up, page
01:24down positioning, it's an awesome keyboard, and it's seriously one of the best keyboards
01:28I've used. If I had to type for a long period of time, for like an essay or development
01:32or any kind of like extensive keyboard use, this would probably be my top pick. The trackpad
01:37is also quite good. It's Windows Precision, good tracking and button mechanics. The fingerprint
01:41sensor's in the top right corner. It's not my favorite spot, but overall, good trackpad.
01:46The port selection is somewhat limited. There's one USB-C on one side, and then the other
01:51side has two Thunderbolt 3s and one audio jack that's built into the screen component.
01:55That's basically it for ports. The speakers are, well, they actually sound really good.
02:00Just the speakers themselves, but they're positioned in not a great position. So when
02:05you have it just kind of like in a regular laptop position, that ergo lift makes this
02:10almost like an echo chamber underneath the laptop, and you can hear the sound just bouncing
02:13around and distorting a little bit. If you just have the speakers pointing straight up
02:18top, they sound really clean, but you're never gonna use them like this, and in the
02:22regular laptop position, they don't sound as good. The screen that I have in this model
02:27is a 4K panel. It looks really sharp, almost to the point of being too sharp. Like, I've
02:32never really needed a 4K panel on a 13-inch device, but that's what this one has. It's
02:37bright, it's color accurate, it looks good. There is a 1080p option available, which I
02:41think is a better choice for most people, but if you're a photo editor or something,
02:45they do have the 4K screen, and the webcam's up top in a normal position.
02:49Okay, let's talk about performance. This device can be equipped with some very powerful
02:53hardware. You can get the 8th gen 4-core CPU and 16 gigs of RAM. You can deck it out pretty
02:58heavily, and for short bursts, that 8th gen CPU is really good. But thermally, it's not
03:04a strong performer, and it casts a bit of shade on this whole device for me. Now depending
03:07on what you're using this for, this may or may not affect you, but for me, someone that
03:11looked at this as a potential video editing machine, it needs better thermals. At stock
03:16settings, it will power and thermal throttle pretty quickly. The fans are really quiet,
03:20which is easy on the ears, but it just limits what this product can do. So in XTU, I played
03:25around a little bit, cracked up some stuff, and it can run boost for longer, but it can't
03:29maintain it. I really wish they'd just gone with more aggressive thermal solution. I feel
03:33like the fans could have been louder, I feel like the fans could have been bigger, or maybe
03:36thrown in two fans. The thing is, this thing is so quiet that, like, it just, I get what
03:41they're going for, right? It's a business laptop, and you, like, those people want really
03:46quiet devices, and they even have like this quiet mode, which makes it run essentially
03:50silent, but it throttles even harder. I just wish there was a way to crank up the fans
03:54and avoid any kind of thermal limitations, but there isn't. It also says something about
03:58the Ergolift, so the idea of this Ergolift was obviously primarily for a more comfortable
04:03keyboard experience, but it would have been nice if there was some kind of airflow through
04:07that gap, but there isn't. It does raise that hot surface away from your lap, so if you're
04:12typing on the keyboard on your lap, it's a little bit more comfortable, but there is
04:16no airflow. Okay, inside, we're looking at a battery that's 50 watt-hours, not a huge
04:20battery, but we're getting around six and a half, seven hours of battery life, which
04:23is pretty respectable. The Wi-Fi card is built on board, can't remove it. Same with the RAM,
04:28can't remove that, you gotta configure it at purchase. The NVMe is removable, and the
04:32one they're using is fast. They're the PM961 drives from Samsung. So, ZenBook S is a device
04:38in that premium ultrabook market. Obviously, it's not gonna be a cheap device. It starts
04:41at $1,100, goes up to like $1,400, $1,500. It's competing with stuff like the XPS 13,
04:47the Razer Blade Stealth, the LG Gram. They're all expensive devices, and I would consider
04:52this one kind of reasonably priced, considering the hardware that you're getting. If you're
04:56looking for something that's like productivity-based, if you want a good keyboard and you're using
05:01it for school, or work, or photo editing, this is a good pickup, this makes sense. But
05:05if you want something that's a little heavier, like video editing, or if you wanna play games
05:10with an external GPU, I would look at something else. Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video.
05:14Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it. I'll see you guys next time.