The Asus Zenbook Pro UX501J-DS71T ($1,499 as tested) looks and feels like a premium desktop-replacement laptop. With stylish aluminum construction, a gorgeous 4K display, and hardware that sets it ahead of the competition in terms of performance, it's clearly competitive. But when compared with leading systems like the Dell XPS 15 Touch (9530) and the Apple MacBook Pro 15-Inch Retina Display (2014), the real kicker isn't performance or features, but price. Despite its impressive feature set and leading performance, the Asus Zenbook Pro UX501J-DS71T is several hundred dollars less than the competition, and that makes it easy to name it our Editors' Choice premium desktop-replacement laptop.

Design
The Zenbook line has had a fairly consistent design over its several iterations, and the latest entrant has the same brushed-aluminum construction seen on the Asus Zenbook NX500, with a radial, brushed pattern across the lid, and a distinctive circular pattern of perforations serving as the grille for the system's built-in speakers. Sure, there's more than a passing resemblance to the 15-inch Apple MacBook Pro, but those unique design elements give it a flavor all its own. The Zenbook Pro UX501J-DS71T measures 0.8 by 15.1 by 10 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.5 pounds, which is within an ounce or two of competitors, like the Apple MacBook Pro and the Dell XPS 15 Touch.

VIEW ALL PHOTOS IN GALLERY

The 15.6-inch 4K display will turn heads, thanks to an impressive In-Plane Switching (IPS) 3,840-by-2,860-resolution panel, with edge-to-edge glass, and 10-finger touch capability that offers vivid colors and excellent viewing from almost any angle. These Ultra-High-Definition (UHD) displays have become the new standard for premium desktop-replacement systems, putting the ZenBook Pro on even footing with the likes of the Dell XPS 15 Touch (9530) and the Toshiba Satellite P50T-BST2N01.

The keyboard is similar to that seen on
the Asus Zenbook NX500, with square, chiclet-style keys and automatic backlighting that adjusts according to the ambient lighting in the room. The biggest difference is the addition of a 10-key numeric pad, which has narrower keys than the keyboard proper, but adds some extra utility for anyone working with numbers. Below the keyboard is a touchpad, and Asus claims that the 16:9 aspect ratio of the touchpad is more efficient since it matches the aspect ratio of the display. Whether or not it's an improvement is up for debate—I didn't notice any real difference—but the glass-surface clickpad works well, and supports all Windows 8.1 gestures.

To either side of the keyboard are Asus's ICEpower speakers (developed in partnership with Bang & Olufsen). The sound quality is quite high, and the clarity and richness are exactly what you would expect from a premium laptop.

Features
On the right side, you'll find two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card slot, and a headset jack. On the left are a third USB 3.0 port, which also boasts power for charging gadgets while the laptop is asleep, along with an HDMI-out port and a Thunderbolt port. That Thunderbolt port does double-duty as a mini DisplayPort, but also offers fast data-transfer capabilities for high-speed storage and docking accessories. This is an especially nice feature if you're buying this laptop for use in a home or business that uses a lot of Apple Mac hardware, where Thunderbolt has the largest market presence.

Internally, the Zenbook Pro UX501J-DS71T features not only dual-band 802.11AC Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, but is also equipped with LoJack, so you can track down your laptop if it gets lost or stolen.

For storage, there's a 512GB solid-state drive (SSD). While not as large as the 1TB of hard drive storage offered by the Toshiba P50T-BST2N01, it is larger than the 256GB Flash Storage module offered in the base model of the 15-inch MacBook Pro. It's also faster than both of those alternatives, thanks to a 4x PCIe connection that offers better data-transfer speeds than traditional SATA connections.

While the drive's capacity and speed are pretty good, Asus includes plenty of preinstalled software on the system, like a 30-day trial of McAfee LiveSafe Security, a free 30-day trial for new customers of Microsoft Office 365, and apps like iHeartRadio, Netflix, TripAdvisor, Zinio reader, Flipboard and MusicMakerJam. When so many premium systems take pains to keep the amount of preinstalled apps to a minimum, it's a little disappointing to see so many preloaded on this system. That said, there are some choice extras included, like 16GB of cloud storage through Asus WebStorage (free for 12 months), and LoJack for locating lost or stolen laptops. Asus covers the Zenbook Pro UX501J-DS71T with a one-year warranty.

Performance
The Zenbook Pro UX501J-DS71T boasts a 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-4720HQ processor and 16GB of RAM, with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M graphics card. If you've been keeping an eye on Asus products lately, you may notice that this configuration is nearly identical to the gaming-oriented Asus ROG G501J-DS71, with only a few small features and a chassis design distinguishing the two. But there's one other major difference—where the Asus ROG G501J-DS71 fell flat as a gaming machine, the Zenbook Pro UX501J-DS71T does very well as a premium desktop-replacement laptop.

In productivity tests like PCMark 8 and Photoshop, the Zenbook Pro UX501J-DS71T ran out ahead of the competition. In PCMark 8 Work Conventional, it scored 2,775 points, edging ahead of the Dell XPS 15 Touch (9530) (2,661 points), the Asus Zenbook NX500 (2,563 points), and the Toshiba P50T-BST2N01 (2,593 points). It also beat out competitors in Photoshop, running through our test in 3 minutes 18 seconds, which is several seconds ahead of the nearest competitor, the Apple MacBook Pro 15-Inch (3:25).

See How We Test Laptops

Graphics performance was also top-notch in testing, as the system was the only one of the five comparison systems that produced playable frame rates (albeit at medium detail and lower-resolution settings). While the laptop isn't built to satisfy hardcore gamers, and certainly won't deliver the sort of 4K graphics the display can support, it does have some gaming capability, so long as you dial down the settings and don't expect flawless performance.

About the only aspect of performance that's lackluster is battery life, with the laptop lasting 4 hours 56 minutes in our rundown test. Given the power requirements of a 4K display, this isn't too bad—and it's better than the Toshiba P50T-BST2N01 (2:45)—but it still falls behind the competition. The Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch leads with 8:55, but the Dell XPS 15 (5:48) and the Asus Zenbook NX500 (5:24) both managed to break the 5-hour barrier.

Conclusion
The Asus Zenbook Pro UX501J-DS71T is prime example of how premium hardware can impact the price of a system. Even a few months ago, similarly equipped laptops cost hundreds of dollars more, due in no small part to the cost of relatively rare 4K resolution displays and high-end graphics hardware. As time marches forward, technology gets more affordable, and the hardware behind high-resolution displays and high-performance CPUs ring up at a much lower price. The result is a system that not only outclasses competitors on most fronts, but is far more affordable. As such, the Zenbook Pro replaces the Apple MacBook Pro 15-Inch Retina Display (2014) as our top pick for high-end desktop-replacement laptops.