Best Asus laptop 2022: The 5 top laptops we've tested | Trusted Reviews

2022-06-11 00:10:28 By : Ms. Sherry Li

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The best Asus laptop is going to be different for everyone. The brand makes a large range of brilliant laptops, but it can be difficult to know which is best for your personal needs.

This is where we’ve decided to step in. Our team of experts test multiple Asus laptops every year, ranging from office-grade ultrabooks to powerful gaming laptops that can breeze through the latest AAA titles. From here, we’ve assembled this list of the best Asus offerings.

One Asus laptop isn’t going to suit everyone, so we’ve been sure to include a wide range of laptops that people can get behind. This can range from an all-conquering gaming laptop to one with dual screens that’s ideal for design work, or a more standard ultrabook for general day-to-day usage.

With these Asus candidates, much like when we test general laptops, we’ve made sure to focus on features that people care about. These include how good a screen looks, whether the processor can cope with gaming or day-to-day work, and whether the battery life will be enough to get you through a working day.

To get these real-world results, our team of experts has used each laptop on this list for a least a couple of weeks, as well as using benchmark software and pieces of equipment such as colorimeters in order to get accurate and comparable results. There isn’t much of a need to agonise over any incremental point differences if you’re taking benchmark results into your buying decisions, but it is interesting to see which CPUs and GPUs perform the best from each manufacturer, be it AMD, Intel, Qualcomm or otherwise.

If you can’t find an Asus laptop from the list you like at the moment, feel free to bookmark the page, as we’ll be updating this frequently as more Asus laptops pass through our Trusted Labs. It’s also worth checking out our Best Laptop, Best Ultrabook, Best Student Laptop and Best Budget Laptop pages for a more general look.

Every laptop we review goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge key things including build quality, performance, screen quality and battery life.  These include formal synthetic benchmarks and scripted tests, plus a series of real world checks, such as how well it runs the most frequently used apps.  We also make sure to use every laptop we review as our primary device for at least a week to ensure our review is as accurate as possible.

For those who want an all-conquering beast of a laptop for gaming, we think the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2021) is an incredible choice.

Inside, it packs an incredible combo of an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS processor and Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU. During testing, we found this to offer some immense performance in 1080p gaming, with triple AAA titles hitting an average of 60fps, and older games such as Dirt Rally going over 100fps. Do note though, there is a bit of a dip with 1440p performance but if you can live with the powers of 1080p and the added goodness of ray tracing, this looks like a brilliant option.

You’ll also be getting a light 1.6kg frame, which we found make this a brilliant and portable laptop, for both everyday use and gaming. Its ‘Eclipse Grey’ colour also looks particularly smart, even if it can get a little grubby after extended use. The port selection on offer here is also stellar, with everything from HDMI to a headphone jack supported, as well as an array of USB-A and USB-C ports for plugging in any extra peripherals. All in all, we found this to prove more than enough for a day’s work and gaming, with plenty of functionality on offer.

Its panel is a 14-inch IPS screen, and you get a choice of either a 1080p or 1440p, which is new for the 2021 model. It offers up a 144Hz refresh that we found to be especially handy for gaming, given the smooth output present. We found colours to be bright and punchy, with good colour space coverage. While this isn’t designed as a pro-grade design panel, it’s more than enough for general entertainment and office work.

Six and a half hours of go juice for office duties isn’t half bad for a gaming laptop, as a lot of others clock in at around five hours. If you do want a gaming laptop with immense office-based battery life, then the slightly cheaper Lenovo Legion 5 (Advantage Edition) will provide you with an extra two hours.

Reviewer: Ryan Jones Full review: Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2021) review

In terms of productivity workloads, the Asus ZenBook Flip S (UX371) is definitely one of the best Asus laptop options available.

Its display is a compact 13.3-inch 4K OLED panel that we found to offer up some incredible contrast and vast colour space coverage with over 95% sRGB and DCI-P3 using our trusty colorimeter. This means you can comfortably use the Zenbook Flip S (UX371) for intense design work as much as you can for general productivity tasks. 

At 1.2kg, this is also a remarkably light laptop, which we found made it nicely portable, being comparable in weight with the Dell XPS 13 OLED. The build quality of Asus’ ultrabook is pretty impressive and it also serves up some suave looks, courtesy of a black aluminium construction. Its port selection is perhaps a little stingy though, with a handful of Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports, which can be adjusted with the bundled adaptors in the box.

On the front of performance, the ZenBook Flip S (UX371) is definitely a smashing choice. We found it to blitz our benchmarks and serve up some pretty good real-world performance, courtesy of its 11th gen Intel Core i7 processor and beefy Iris Xe integrated graphics. Sure, you may not be able to play the latest AAA games on this ultrabook, but that isn’t necessarily what a laptop like this is designed for.

A battery duration of 11 hours 40 minutes puts this on par with the competition and gives you loads of go juice to comfortably get through a working day. Do note though, that cranking the OLED brightness up to full and running the battery test did cut this figure in half. That’s just something to be wary of, but if you’re using this with the brightness some way down, you’ll get plenty of endurance out of the Zenbook Flip S (UX371). 

Reviewer: Mike Jennings Full review: Asus ZenBook Flip S (UX371) review

A dual-screen laptop is certainly an interesting idea, and the Asus ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED is a particular favourite of ours. We found the second screen of the ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED to be useful for day-to-day work in conjunction with apps such as Slack or Spotify, while also supporting a range of content creation apps to improve workflow.

Its display shows off the true power of an OLED panel with us experiencing perfect blacks during testing, alongside otherworldly colour accuracy. With our trusty colorimeter in hand, we measured 100% sRGB coverage, as well as 96% Adobe RRG and 97% DCI-P3. This is incredible, especially for a Windows laptop, surpassing even the likes of the Dell XPS 13 OLED or the HP Spectre x360 13. A brightness of 355 nits is pretty good too, and resulted in some vibrant colours. 

The processor on offer is an Intel Core i7-12700H, and yes, that “H” means it’s up to the standard of high-performance tasks. In testing, this resulted in some absolutely smashing performance that led the ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED to challenge the MacBook Pro 14 with its M1 Max chip when looking at the scores for Geekbench 5. Its integrated graphics are perfectly serviceable for entry-level performance that will suffice for basic editing work, although you can configure this laptop to have an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti, which will definitely give you a boost for more intense work. 

Where the ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED does unfortunately fall down is on its battery life. For reference, most laptops should be hitting or exceeding a 10 hour battery life. The ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED only managed four and a half hours, albeit with both the screens running. Turning the smaller ScreenPad Plus off increased this figure by a couple of hours, but this isn’t the best laptop for taking on the go and using at full pelt.

Reviewer: Ryan Jones Full review: Asus ZenBook Pro 14 Duo OLED review

The Asus ROG Flow Z13 is an interesting laptop. It take the beefy performance of a gaming laptop and put it into a portable folio type design of the Microsoft Surface Pro, resulting in a powerful device that you can take with you on the go. 

In its top-range configuration it’s powered by an Intel Core-i9-12900H processor, which is one of the best CPUs we’ve tested in a laptop, offering sublime performance in a range of tasks from general web browsing to a healthy dose of gaming. Our benchmarks show that the RTX 3050 Ti GPU inside doesn’t quite match the CPU’s prowess, but if you’re want some decent 1080p performance in more casual titles, then the Z13 will serve you well. You also have the option of purchasing and plugging in an Asus XG Mobile eGPU to give you the power of a high-end RTX 3080 GPU, which we found to great improve gaming performance. However, this external GPU is a very expensive accessory.

The design of the ROG Flow Z13 is sharp and professional, with a black chassis and type cover. It weighs just 1.18kg, which must make it one of the most powerful yet lightest laptop combos around. And with the magnetic type cover, you may even want to use this as a tablet, even if Windows 11 isn’t the best OS for it. In our eyes, that versatility is particularly what set the ROG Flow Z13 apart from other gaming laptops at this price. Just note that achieving this slim design has forced Asus to skimp out on the port selection. There’s only one Thunderbolt 4 port (for charging), as well as a headphone jack and a single USB-A, limiting your options for connectivity somewhat.

The display on offer is 13.4-inch 1920×1200 panel which we found to offer some vibrant colours, as backed up by its immense colour space coverage. In testing with our colorimeter, the Flow Z13 offered up 96% sRGB coverage, with similar results across Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 spaces. A 120Hz refresh rate also provides some smooth output.

The ROG Flow Z13’s battery Iife isn’t the best in the world, with it only lasting for around 5 hours for basic productivity tasks in our office benchmark. Truth be told, this is around average for a gaming laptop, so you’ll definitely want to keep it plugged in.

Reviewer: Ryan Jones Full review: Asus ROG Flow Z13 review

If you’re hunting for a Chromebook from Asus, then the Asus Chromebook CX1 (CX1500) is one of the best Asus laptop options you’ll likely find.

We reckon its silver shell looks great with decent build quality, even if by comparison to some other Chromebooks it does look a little generic. Combined with this comes a tactile-feeling keyboard, with a smaller layout than you might expect, and a decent sized trackpad. This is all wrapped up in a 1.8kg chassis, which does make this pretty hefty, but it’s still just light enough so it can be stuffed into a bag and carried around.

For a Chromebook, the performance of the Chromebook CX1 isn’t bad, with a dual-core Celeron processor producing passable results in our benchmarks. In the real world, we found it to work well, at least for the casual computing tasks that ChromeOS is designed for. The 4GB of RAM did allow us to have multiple tabs open and gave enough headroom for day-to-day productivity tasks.

With the Chromebook CX1, you do get a 15.6-inch display that we found gave good screen real estate for day to day work. A 1366×768 resolution is fine for this being more of an affordable Chromebook with it just hitting the 720p mark. In the real world, colours looked a tad flat, and 220 nits of brightness meant it was only suitable for indoor usage. Spending a little more will get you a much higher quality panel, as is demonstrated by the Acer Chromebook Spin 513, one of our favourite Chromebooks. But for most simple tasks, the Chromebook CX1 was fine.

The Chromebook CX1 also featured some good battery life, lasting just shy of ten hours in our office benchmark test. This gave it some good endurance and means it should last the working day with some time to spare before needing to be charged back up.

Reviewer: Reece Bithrey Full review: Asus Chromebook CX1 (CX1500) review

One of the best 15-inch gaming laptops

A lightweight gaming laptop with a heavyweight graphics dock

This stylish double-display laptop passes the screen test.

Judging by the laptop’s we’ve tested and the high scores that some of them have garnered, Asus has a fantastic reputation in the laptop industry.

This is really subjective, as there isn’t a clear winner here. Asus makes top-rated, high-end productivity and gaming laptops, while Acer usually excels with its more affordable hardware, especially with Chromebooks.

From our perspective, the likes of the Asus ZenBook Flip S (UX371) are a great option for students given its incredible display, brilliant performance, and overall selection as the best productivity laptop from Asus, as per our testing.

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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

Founded in 2004, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

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