Asus just launched its best business laptop yet

Asus today launched its business-centric ExpertBook Ultra laptop. After using it for a month, here's why I think it's the best Windows flagship today.

At a glitzy event at Resorts World Sentosa this afternoon, Asus officially launched its new ExpertBook Ultra and announced pricing for three variants.

'Make the best business laptop'

When I was first shown the ExpertBook Ultra last month, my first thought was that Asus had spared no expense and cut no corners. That opinion has only solidified over the four weeks I used it, including across two overseas trips. It's as though someone at Asus decided to build the best business laptop in the world and simply got down to it. Today, hearing about the engineering roots behind the company and how it aspires to challenge the current giants of the commercial PC market, namely Dell, HP and Lenovo, everything made sense.

Optimised design

The ExpertBook Ultra is a flagship business series built on Intel's latest Core Ultra Series 3 processors. That translates into a specification sheet led by the latest Intel CPU running at up to 50W, a 3K tandem OLED display, and a weight as low as 0.99kg.

It also carries a host of small but crucial touches: USB-C charging ports on both sides, loud built-in speakers, a physical webcam cover, a large haptic touchpad, and a full 1.5mm of key travel.

The sub-1kg weight caught my interest. I did an extensive search for a light, functional laptop before settling on the Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 13 last December. Had this been available then, I would have gone for the ExpertBook Ultra instead. Asus made the point directly, showing several slides comparing the ExpertBook Ultra against its rivals. There were no one-to-one snapshots, but bold comparisons across all three brands.

Ready for the road

Having used it on the road for weeks, here's what I liked most. The first is fingerprint resistance. The nano-ceramic finish, with 9H hardness, is out of this world, leaving no fingerprints or scuff marks at all.

The second is ruggedness. The ExpertBook Ultra can take 100kg stacked on top, its keyboard resists water, and the ports are ruggedised too. The third is battery life. The tandem OLED model I used barely sips at the battery, and it is the first laptop I've used that comes close to MacBooks on longevity.

I'll write a more in-depth review in a separate post. For now, the pricing Asus just announced is as follows.

• The 3K OLED model with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and a Core Ultra 5 starts at S$3,099.
• The 3K tandem OLED with 32GB, 1TB and a Core Ultra X7 comes in at S$5,999.
• The top 3K tandem OLED with 64GB, 1TB and a Core Ultra X7 reaches S$7,399.