Asus Zenbook’s journey continues, the manufacturer presents the ASUS N56VZ-ES71 as a multimedia laptop with the latest Ivy Bridge architecture. The entire design is being revised. A special highlight of this series is an external subwoofer from Bang & Olufsen, which is designed to improve the sound quality.
The ASUS N56VZ-ES71 sports a fast Intel Core i7 3610QM with four cores. The graphics card is Nvidia GeForce GT 650M with 2 GB of memory. This combination, along with 8 GB of memory, is ready to run the latest games and HD video in high performance.
In order for the enjoyment of games and movies, more and more laptop manufacturers are equipping their product with a good speaker system. Asus Laptop, like its predecessor, thought it a step further and provides the Zenbook with a small external subwoofer to complement the mostly middle height and heavy sounds of the laptop. The technology comes from the Danish manufacturer Bang & Olufsen.
ASUS N56VZ-ES71’s Housing
The design of the ASUS N56VZ-ES71 has been developed and is very different from other Asus Zenbook series. While we have criticized the the glossy surface on the lid, we are pleased with the new models. The Asus logo is embedded with clear plastic which appears the backlight illuminates the display and thus the logo. Even if the surface is not as sensitive by far to grease and fingerprints, they can stand out even in the metal.
On the inside of a frame around the display of matte black plastic was used. Below is the Asus logo again admitted, this time reflecting. The top of the base unit is made of plastic though; this looks to be confused with the silver paint on aluminum. The keyboard keys are individually embedded in the surface and also the large touchpad interrupts the homogeneous surface.
The touch pad has to be chalked up somewhat in the processing, because not all the same replacement of the mouse sits sunk deep. While the touchpad on the sides is a little deeper, it is at the bottom center on the same level as the palm rest. At the top it is even slightly higher than the aluminum.
The stability of Asus Zenbook is mostly good: The lid can not be pushed hard, but a little twist. The hinges hold the display firmly in place and not to bounce.
The subwoofer has been modified compared to the previous Asus laptops and the surface is no longer glossy.
Asus Zenbook’s Equipment
The front and back of the Asus laptop is free of connections, the front one finds only the card reader for SD, MS, MS Pro and MMC. One the left side, VGA and HDMI interfaces can be found. In between is the LAN jack.
The plug is unfortunately not well in the socket and wobbles back and forth alarmingly high. Unplugging the cable is indeed a very unpleasant, because it must be kept the lid with your finger nail down, while with the other hand, the locking of the cable is released.
On both sides two USB 3.0 ports were used. ASUS N56VZ-ES71 says goodbye to the older USB 2.0 version.
On the right, the two audio ports, headphone / microphone and SPIDF can be found. Moreover, also the DVD drive, the power connector and a Kensington lock can be found.
The Connection is not very well thought out. If you want to use the interfaces, you inevitably littered the whole desk with cables. A more backward-looking position here would have been much more advantageous.
The Asus Zenbook N56VZ is equipped with WLAN b / g / n and Gigabit LAN. Furthermore, you can connect Bluetooth devices with version 4.0 wirelessly to your laptop.
ASUS N56VZ-ES71’s Keyboard & Touchpad
The keyboard of its predecessor was criticized due to the strange layout. Asus has reworked and has returned to a catchy layout. The keys are flat and clear by a large distance apart. The stroke is relatively short and the fence pretty hard, but still enjoyable. The feedback is clear and there can be good for a longer time tapping on the keyboard.
In the dark, you can use the keyboard, thanks to the backlight. It can be customized in three stages. Links between the keyboard and screen is placed a modifier key, you can prove without using any application or file, but also with features such as mute.
The touchpad is very large and has the dimensions of about 70 mm x 110 mm. It responds very well to the movements of the finger.
The touch pad was built in the form of a click-pad, you have the opportunity to push it as a button instead of tapping lightly. However, the touchpad does not always respond to the click. Centrally located, the pad can press well, but in the (upper) edge of the click is not working properly. Right-click on the touchpad can be reached in the lower right corner. However, this reacts very limited. In the corner of the keystroke is ignored. As usual, particularly when you drag and drop operations, by the lack of dedicated buttons, problems.
Display
The 15.6-inch display of Asus Zenbook has 1920 x 1080 pixels and therefore can play full HD videos in full resolution. Asus has fortunately chosen an anti-reflective panel. Nominally, it is even identical to the display of its predecessor. It comes from Samsung and is called 156HT01-201. In the N55 we have criticized the poor black level and the weak contrast.
Thankfully, the brightness measurements are somewhat different than the panel of Asus Zenbook N55. The average brightness of the N56VZ’s display is brighter and just missed the 300 cd / m² mark. The distribution of brightness on the display is very good with 90%. On battery power remains the same maximum brightness of the display.
The black level, despite the same serial number of the display, has significantly improved. In N55, we measured 0.84 cd / m², the display can now reduce the unwanted light to 0.59 cd / m². This provides a good contrast of 514:1, making the details for games and movies are also easy to recognize due to the high resolution.
The professional color space sRGB and Adobe RGB are not reached by the display, even if this should be interesting for graphic designers and discerning photographers.
Due to the high brightness and anti-reflection coating of the display, the ASUS N56VZ-ES71 works very well in bright environments.
Over a large angle to the colors are supposedly stable. In the horizontal, this is indeed the case. Except for a slight weakening of the image brightness is also seen from the side the same. Even with a view from above can still see everything well, but the colors are not quite as strong and it may be a blue or yellow cast. But if one looks at the bottom of the panel, then it darkens very strong and you can barely see anything. For a TN panel, the viewing angles are quite good, compared with IPS panels.
The ASUS N56VZ-ES71’s Performance
The Asus N56VZ-ES71 builds on the new Ivy Bridge architecture of Intel chipset and as the HM76. The biggest new feature here is the support of USB 3.0, which Asus says goodbye in this model of USB 2.0.
The processor is a quad-core with a TDP of 45 watts. The Intel Core i7 3610QM uses a default clock of 2.3 GHz. The difference to the Sandy Bridge architecture is the structure width, which was reduced from 32 nm to 22 nm. It means that with the same energy the Ivy Bridge intakes better performance. Then there is the part of the processor core i7 3610QM CPU is now at about the level of the former high-end Sandy Bridge processor i7 2920XM.
In the integrated graphics Intel Graphics HD 4000 the performance gain can be felt just as much. Compared to the Intel HD 3000 Graphics GPU, the HD 4000 now can deal with DirectX 11 and has increase of almost 80% at the 3DMarks.
If the graphics performance of the integrated GPU is not sufficient, the dedicated graphics card from Nvidia, the GeForce GT 650M take the graphics calculations (Optimus).
Two bars at 4 GB DDR3 RAM is used. The available 8 GB should be quite sufficient for most applications. As a Seagate hard drive with 500 GB capacity and a rotational speed of 5400 rev / min was selected.
In Cinebench the performance of the processor is evaluated. To a 3D scene is rendered on time. This benefit of Intel Core i7-3610QM of the four cores can process two threads. In Cinebench 11.5 the N56VZ scores with 6.2 points in the middle compared to other laptops with i7-3610QM.
PCMark is the evaluation of the entire system. Here is a whole series of tests is performed to simulate the many possible applications. In PCMark Vantage the Asus N56VZ-ES71 scores with 8858 points, the Asus laptop is at the bottom of a laptop with the same processor and same graphics card. This is mainly to put the hard disk to load, since all other previously tested laptops come with a faster hard drive (7200 rpm).
The Seagate 500 GB only rotates at a speed of 5400 r / min and is quieter than faster competitors with 7200 rpm. When the transfer rate, however, it creates a 5400 HDD a good result. With an average of 82.4 MB / s, it is one of the flotteren their craft, however, remains behind fast-7200 boards. The access time of 19.1 ms is mediocre.
The processor in the Intel Integrated HD Graphics 4000 can handle all office tasks and also play HD video smoothly. In 3DMark 11, the GT 650M provides a good 2363 points.
To compare the gaming performance of notebooks with other models, the current DiRT has been tested down. This game can be played smooth on the Asus N56VZ up to the high settings with an average of 54 fps.
In the native screen resolution (full HD), 4x anti-aliasing and the default "high" can be played DiRT showdown with an average of 38 fps. Here, the frame rate drops temporarily fps still liquid onto 32nd
Noise and Temperature
If the Asus laptop is not heavily used, it is pleasantly quiet. 31 dB, although quite audibly, but are not distracting. The hard disk due to their low speed of 5400 rev / min is very quiet.
At idle, the laptop stays relatively cool and does not exceed 30 ° C. The front is warmer than the rear, giving the palm rest is warmer than the rest of the notebook. Here, the Asus laptop can be used without problems on the thighs.
Under load the N56VZ-ES71 warmed up considerably and reaches up to 47 ° C. Here, fortunately, the palm rest areas stay cooler and 36 ° C is acceptable. Links heated above the fan to the laptop on top of the most up to 46 ° C. The bottom heats up on the side of the fan to 47 ° C, it remains the front here with a cool 33 ° C.
In the stress test for over an hour of the processor and the graphics card is running at full capacity. Here must then prove the cooling system. If the processor is too hot, it throttles its power to not get too hot.
At the beginning of the tests, the Intel Core i7 yet achieved the maximum possible 3.1 GHz. But after a short time, it always jumps back to 1.2 GHz. In the course of the hour, the clock is always longer at the low 1.2 GHz and only a very short jump to a higher clock speed. The processor is thus heated to 97 ° C.
Speaker
Special attention on Asus laptop, like its predecessor, is the sound system. A small subwoofer can be easily connected to the laptop. This should help to differentiate itself from the many multimedia laptops with height-and middle-heavy speakers. This succeeds the N56 also pretty good. Although one can expect from the subwoofer, of course, no shaking bass, but it is sufficient to music and soundtracks to give the necessary depth.
Battery Performance and Power Consumption
The power consumption can vary greatly depending on the application. At idle, the Asus N56VZ-ES71 laptop takes about 17 watts. Thus, it can not keep up with ultrabooks, but the performance offered by the energy consumption is still appropriate. This is achieved by the dedicated graphics card is switched off and the processor is clocked down.
Under full load the laptop then reaches 120 watts, and shows that it can afford a lot. This is the video card to be justified by the fast quad-core processor, but also by the bright display. Here, even the 120 watt power supply will be scarce. Simultaneous charging of the battery is no longer possible.
The longest possible battery life is determined using the Battery Eater Reader's test. Here are the entire wireless network module is switched off and set the screen to the lowest level. This keeps the laptop by about 6 hours.
Far more practical is our wireless surfing test. Here is surfed at a screen brightness of 150 cd / m² over WiFi connection. This decreases the battery life is already considerably more than half of something. Of 3.25 hours, the laptop is certainly not meant for long trips away from electricity.
If you would like to see a movie from a DVD, this is usually without problems. If the battery was completely full, you can enjoy up to three hours of films. That is ample for many films.
Under load, the battery life with the Battery Eater Classic tool is determined. At the highest brightness of the colorful 3D scene is rendered and thus the CPU and GPU load. The Asus N56 it reaches just under two hours.
Asus N56VZ-ES71 Specifications
- Intel Core_i7_3610QM Core i7 3610QM 2.3 GHz
- 4 GB SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM,Integrated 2 Megapixel Webcam,1x Headphone Output,1x Microphone Input,2x USB 2.0,2x USB 3.0,HDMI,VGA,LAN
- 500 GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
- 15.6-Inch 1366x768 Screen Nvidia GT 650M - 2GB Video Memory
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
- Product Dimensions: 15 x 1.1 x 10 inches ; 6 pounds
Conclusion on Asus N56VZ-ES71 Review
The first impression of this Asus laptop is very promising. The housing is well processed and stable. The surfaces are not sensitive to dirt and fingerprints. Also, the external subwoofer is well made.
In terms of connections, the N56VZ sparkles with four USB 3.0 ports. However, the LAN can very wobbly and makes it difficult to disconnect. The sockets are positioned unfavorably in front. As wireless technologies are Wi-Fi b / g / n and Bluetooth 4.0.
The keyboard has been successful. It can also be a long time to type comfortably. With the backlight it can be played or worked well in the dark.
The full-HD display is very bright and the AR coating also good to use in brightly lit rooms or outdoors. Even the good is pleasant contrast with the low black level high.
The performance of the Asus N56VZ-ES71 is unquestionable.
The laptop is fortunately mostly quiet, but it is quite warm. The sound is very well due to the external subwoofer and makes an external sound system is largely superfluous. The battery life is reasonable.
Title Post: ASUS Zenbook Review: ASUS N56VZ-ES71
Rating: 100% based on 3109 ratings. 5 user reviews.
Author: onSquid
Thank You for Visiting Asus Zenbook Fans
Rating: 100% based on 3109 ratings. 5 user reviews.
Author: onSquid
Thank You for Visiting Asus Zenbook Fans
