Asus ExpertBook Ultra review: One helluva debut for Intel Panther Lake X7

[Redaktion]

Asus and Intel are starting off the year strong with the debut of the Core Ultra X7 358H. Although technically a business-oriented laptop, both graphics performance and performance-per-watt are insane for a 14-inch form factor.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ExpertBook-Ultra-review-One-helluva-debut-for-Intel-Panther-Lake-X7.1209366.0.html

[Say in bits per channel]

AFAIK, LPDDR5X is measured in terms of 16-bit per channel (and LPDDR6 is 24-bit per channel). So, why not state it in terms of bits to make it absolutely clear? In this case you would state it as 128-bit.

[Say in bits per channel]

Asus ExpertBook Ultra B9406CAA
Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, Arc B390 Panther Lake iGPU   
117245 MB/s

128-bit checks out with what is measured by AIDA64.
136528 MB/s (theoretical maximum) = 128 (8[or state octa-channel]*16-bit) * 8533 MT/s / 1000 / 8.

[Say in bits]

Sorry, I meant in bits, not bits per channel, as the bits per channel vary depending whether it's LPDDR5(X) or DDR5.

[ArsLoginName]

Actually surprised the battery life isn't better than what it is.

ExpertBook Ultra X7 = 70 Wh/16.1 hr = 4.35 W/hr of wi-fi time
Dell Pro Ryzen 7 350 = 55 Whr/11.8 hr = 4.66 W/hr of wi-fi time
VivoBook S14 OLED HX 370 = 75 Whr/16.5 hr = 4.54 W/hr of wi-fi time

Maybe that tandem OLED is a bigger power hog but I'd thought the 4 LPE cores, TSMC 3nm, and Intel 18 A would obliterate AMD on TSMC 4 nm with no LPE cores in low power wi-fi tasks.

[vvvvn]

matte OLED is slightly grainier than glossy OLED

where are comparison pictures of the actual displays matte & glossy??
i dont believe that anybody would see the difference when your nose isnt 1cm in front of the display.

and the pictures in bright sunlight only??
where are the usual pictures in the shadow or half sun, to show the difference.
this matte screen should be perfect for outdoor use!

and WHY is the fact that its a matte oled display not under the PROs !??
i was waiting for years to finally get matte oled displays!

corning gorilla matte glas and the author totally neglects this innovative screen,
which is a first on a windows laptop.
i couldnt remember this dissing when apple came up with its nano texture glass.
get another writer to write about the topic and not this one!

[vvvvn]

and why is this laptop not rated at least 95% !??
the CONs here are a joke.
1kg, best battery life, best igpu ever, best audio, great matte screen, etc.!!
the article is a joke

[Vinfast]

It's hard to give most laptops a 95% rating due to the windows 11 experience alone. I wouldn't give any laptop over 90% with today's prices either.

Besides, you stress out far too much on individual rating and scores. It really is also dependent on the reviewer.

For example, one reviewer who hates the low travel keyboards of razer blades / MBPs would give it a lower score than someone who doesn't mind as much.

It's better to read the entire review instead, or just look at the actual charts/graphs and measurements if you don't have the time.

[Say in bits]

and WHY is the fact that its a matte oled display not under the PROs !??

I'm not gonna buy a matte OLED, it reduces the advantages of OLED, like poppy colors and crisp text. If you like matte, just get a good IPS, it'll be fine (and will maybe consume less Watt).

Vinfast, good point Dave2D mentioned this in his recent vid (Apple gaining market share due to people not liking Windows 11).


If one want to run a local 30B LLM at an 8-bit quant (30 GB), 32 GB RAM won't fit it. Need a 48 GB RAM configuration.

[Say in bits]

PS: It's not 1kg, it's 1.1kg and the charger weights another 0.35kg.

[rustt]

@Say in bits:
who gives a sh*t what you want to buy? its the fact that there are practically NONE matte oleds around to choose from! and with this resolution its crisp and poppy way more than when you dont see sh*t because of the gloss.
and with the normal oled screen and not the tandem its .99 kg. unbelievably stupid that you single this out.

[rustt]

Besides, you stress out far too much on individual rating and scores. It really is also dependent on the reviewer.

i dont. objectivly leading in different categories for a 1kg laptop like listed.
the cons are a joke. and the reviewer doesnt know what he is doing, and it should NOT be dependent on subjectivity!
the rating is way to low in comparison to other laptops with this percentage that dont even come near.

[true]

Maybe that tandem OLED is a bigger power hog

It maybe is indeed so. Think there's quite a lot of evidence for that (also NotebookCHECK mentioned lower battery life with same laptop, but with an OLED panel instead). It can especially be seen how many Watt OLED TVs consume vs IPS TVs at various brightnesses. And it's maybe another reason why Apple has not introduced OLED in MacBook. PHOLED supposedly to improve OLED' energy efficiency by 15-25%.

[false]

We know desktop battlemage had an issue with cpu driver overhead. Would be interesting if this was investigated in a future articles, if this is still an problem or it's been resolved now.

Would also, like to see rpcs3 testing done for performance per watt. Up till even lunar lake I think AMD drivers were a bit more efficient per watt wise than intel.

[Pavlo]

No WWAN option? I'd add this to the cons list