ASUS ExpertBook Ultra review: A business laptop that doesn’t feel like one
If you’ve ever been handed a corporate laptop by an IT department, you probably know what to expect: a grey slab, a surprisingly loud fan and a design that seems to have been frozen somewhere around 2015. The ASUS ExpertBook Ultra is a refreshing departure from that formula. It weighs just 0.99kg, packs a 3K OLED display and some serious processing hardware, while still retaining the practical features you would expect from a business laptop.
I spent a couple of weeks using the ExpertBook Ultra as my primary work laptop, putting it through my usual routine of writing, browsing, video calls and plenty of multitasking. Here’s my two bits on the laptop.
Display:
The 14-inch OLED display is one of the major highlights of this laptop. The OLED panel here comes with a 3K resolution and a matte Corning Gorilla Glass coating, which does noticeably help reduce the glare when you are carrying the laptop around outdoors.
But it also means that you lose a tiny bit of the absolute inky, glossy black depth that standard OLEDs offer.
For my purposes, I couldn’t really tell much of a difference and for most of my streaming sessions I felt the display quality to be top notch. But the reduced glare did play a major part for someone like me who does a lot of writing work while on the move.
Performance:
The ExpertBook Ultra comes running on Asus’ Panther Lake processor with Core Ultra X7 SoC and support for up to 64GB of LPDDR5X memory and a 2TB PCIe 5.0 SSD. The X7 358H variant also comes with Intel Arc B390 graphics and an NPU capable of up to 50 TOPS.
Asus also packs the laptop with its ExpertCool Pro cooling system, which is claimed to offer up to 50W TDP performance. Practically, I did not encounter any heating issues or noise from the laptop in my day-to-day use cases like juggling dozens of browser tabs, watching movies, and light photo editing.
The laptop also packs in a 1080p FHD camera with an IR sensor for Windows Hello and a physical privacy shutter. Asus also uses AI-based image upscaling to improve the camera output to up to 5MP.
The ExpertBook Ultra packs a 70Wh battery, which is claimed to last about 26 hours. In day-to-day life, I found the laptop lasted for a full day of use, which included 9 hours of writing-related work and a few hours of streaming.
The good thing is that the laptop charges pretty fast as well and tops up in about 1 hour 20 minutes or so in my experience.
Ports and security:
The laptop comes with a fingerprint sensor, TPM 2.0, Microsoft Pluton, Windows Secured-core PC support and Asus ExpertGuardian security features. Asus says the ExpertGuardian system is designed around NIST SP 800-193 compliance and includes firmware resilience and BIOS protection features.
Given that this is an Asus laptop, you get all the necessary ports you would need and then some. There are two Thunderbolt 4 ports with USB4 support, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, HDMI 2.1 and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The Thunderbolt ports also support power delivery and display output, including support for up to two 4K external displays.
The laptop also supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0, making it fairly future-proof.
Verdict:
At a starting price of around ₹2.4 lakh, the ASUS ExpertBook Ultra is an expensive laptop. But this is also one of those laptops where the price starts making more sense once you look beyond the processor.
You are getting a 14-inch OLED display, a 70Wh battery, a full set of useful ports, a good keyboard and haptic touchpad, high-end Intel hardware and, most importantly, a chassis that weighs just 0.99kg.
For me, the most impressive thing about the ExpertBook Ultra isn’t that Asus managed to make a laptop this thin. It is that the laptop doesn’t feel like a compromise once you start using it.
It is incredibly light, powerful enough for serious productivity, has a genuinely excellent display and still manages to pack in a 70Wh battery and a useful selection of ports.
The ExpertBook Ultra isn’t a laptop for everyone. But for professionals who value performance without the weight, this is one of the more convincing Windows laptops I’ve used.
