12 Days of Christmas: Day 10 is the ASUS ZenBook S

Today we are marking day 10 of Best Buy’s 12 Days of Christmas celebration. This time around, the focus is on laptops.

I’ve had the opportunity to go hands-on with many laptops this year, including high performance gaming laptops and the latest 2-in-1 devices. Apple even released a long awaited update to the laptop model that’s been my personal work machine for nearly a decade with an all-new MacBook Air.

My pick as the best laptop of 2018 is an ultra-portable that combines a beautiful 4K display with a super-slim form factor, premium design and plenty of processing power: the ASUS ZenBook S.

Picking my top laptop for 2018

Picking my favourite laptop for 2018 was tough. This has been a bumper year for compelling choices. New Intel mobile processors have meant laptops are thinner than ever, with battery life regularly stretching into double-digit hours. Bezels are shrinking and displays keep improving—even the MacBook Air gained a Retina display in 2018! Nvidia’s Max-Q mobile graphic cards have made it possible for gaming laptops to not only be thin and stylish, but also gives them the power for high demand tasks like virtual reality gaming.

Microsoft is now multiple generations into its own line of laptops, setting a high bar for other PC manufacturers to follow. And they have been up to the task, making this a great year to buy a laptop, no matter who made it.

In making a choice for the best laptop of 2018—the laptop I’m recommending for Best Buy’s 12 Days of Christmas—I had to rule out some very good options.

For example, that new MacBook Air. Very nice laptop (and vastly improved over the previous generation), but its appeal is specific to Mac fans. I couldn’t get over the ASUS ROG Zephyrus, the slimmest and most stylish gaming laptop I’ve ever had my hands on. Beautiful as it is, that laptop’s short battery life and high price tag limit its practical appeal to gamers.

When I made my pick, I was looking at factors like performance, display quality and portability. Battery life is also important and so is design. A good keyboard is a must. Ideally I was looking for a laptop that excelled in all these categories, but also stood out as being unique. Memorable. What about price? I didn’t want to pick something with a price tag that’s stratospheric, but at the same time I didn’t want to let premium pricing rule out a good laptop. After all, a higher price tag often pays off with specs and design that mean a laptop will remain useful for a longer period of time, making it less expensive than a cheaper laptop in the long run.

After careful consideration, I picked the ASUS ZenBook S.

Why the ASUS ZenBook S was my pick as best laptop of 2018

I’m going to start my case for the ASUS ZenBook S being the best laptop of 2018 with a disclaimer. This is my pick, based on my hands-on experience. It’s based on a number of factors (listed above) to come up with a choice that’s a standout, well-rounded laptop. If you have specific requirements, it may not be your best choice.

It’s not a good option for gamers, if you want a big display you’ll want to go with a 17-inch laptop, if multimedia content creation is your thing something like a MacBook Pro would be a better choice and if you have a tight budget there are plenty of decent options that cost less.

That being said, it’s time to explore why the ASUS ZenBook S made such a big impression. And trust me, there is a lot to like about this laptop.

Beautiful slim design

The first thing you notice about this laptop is its design. At 1kg (2.29 pounds) and 12.9 mm thick it takes slim and light to new levels. The unibody anodized metal body of my review unit felt solid and featured a very attractive Deep Dive Blue colour, with Rose Gold accents. Open it up and the ErgoLift hinge elevates the back of the laptop for improved typing and to improve air circulation.

Killer display

Opening the lid also shows off a killer feature of the ZenBook S: the display. This is a 13.3-inch NanoEdge panel with 4K UHD (3840×2160) resolution, minimal bezels and 100% sRBG colour. It also has 10-point multitouch and supports stylus input, for features like Windows Ink. It’s crisp for reading and spectacular for streaming movies. This is probably the nicest display I have seen on a laptop so far this year.

Great keyboard and trackpad

The downfall of many laptops is their keyboard and trackpad. Keys can be mushy or lack feedback, while trackpads aren’t always the most responsive. The ASUS ZenBook S nails it on both fronts. The full-sized chiclet keyboard has just the right amount of travel and it’s backlit. The large glass trackpad was accurate and it also has an integrated Windows Hello fingerprint sensor. And as mentioned, the ErgoLift hinge means the deck also has adjustable elevation for an even better typing experience.

Impressive specifications

My ASUS ZenBook S review unit came with premium pricing. But besides the sleek design and beautiful display, it came loaded with very impressive specs, including an 8th generation Intel Core i7-8550U CPU, 16GB of fast RAM, 512GB of SSD storage and three USB-C ports (two of those with Thunderbolt support). Battery life is rated at up to 13.5-hours, but getting anywhere near that level does require some sacrificing some performance in favour of power management.

These are specs that make for a very high performance laptop and one that will continue to be capable for years to come.

Yes, it costs more than the base price of the last laptop I bought, but I always spec my laptops to last; once I had upgraded the CPU, RAM and SSD that laptop cost significantly more than the ZenBooks S. If you value premium design, demand performance and expect a laptop to last more than a few years, the ZenBook S is worth paying a little extra for.

To learn more about the ASUS ZenBook S, you can read my full review of this stunning laptop here.

Did you miss out on previous 12 Days of Christmas posts? Make sure to check the complete series on the blog because there have been plenty of other products featured that are hand-picked by Plug-in contributors, including LEGO’s Harry Potter Hogwarts Great Hall (Day 9) and the Sony Playstation 4 (Day 6).