The Asus ZenBook UX305CA ($699.99 as tested) is an ultraportable laptop that offers an appealing mix of form and function for a very good price. The chassis is sturdy and well made, and the system boasts a full HD touch screen, plenty of port options, and solid battery life. The more expensive Apple MacBook Air 13-inch, our Editors' Choice for midrange ultraportables, has most of the same features, but has the edge in performance and unbeatable battery life, albeit at a higher price. The ZenBook UX305CA stays close to the MacBook Air in terms of performance despite the price difference, and it's easy to recommend as a more-affordable alternative.

Design and Features
The ZenBook UX305CA is an attractive, slim aluminum system with a brushed, circular pattern on the lid. The color, which Asus calls Obsidian Stone, is surprisingly hard to describe—it appears to just be gray or silver at first glance, but has an almost purplish tinge under certain lighting. The laptop measures 0.5 by 12.8 by 8.9 inches (HWD) and weighs just 2.6 pounds. The metal body definitely gives it a little extra heft, but the system feels more solid as a result, so the tradeoff is worth it. High-end ultraportables like the Lenovo LaVie Z HZ550 opt for super-thin materials to keep the laptops as light and slim as possible, but the build quality can suffer too much as a result. The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch bears very similar dimensions (0.68 by 12.8 by 8.94 inches), and is actually a little thicker and heavier at 2.96 pounds.

One noteworthy aspect of the design is that the back of the lid hangs slightly over the base of the laptop, so that when you push the screen back, the bottom of the laptop is slightly propped up off whatever surface it's sitting on. Two small, plastic feet on the bottom of the lid, which slide more easily than a lid itself would, indicate that this design is intentional, perhaps to give the keyboard some slant for more ergonomic typing.

The keyboard itself is well-made, boasting nice chiclet-style keys with good travel, though there's no key backlighting. The touchpad is very roomy, especially for a system this size.The ZenBook UX305CA features a 13.3-inch In-Plane Switching (IPS) display with a 1,920-by-1,080 resolution. The older iteration of the system, the Asus Zenbook UX305FA-ASM1, offers the same display, while the MacBook Air 13-inch only features a 1,440-by-900-resolution screen, despite its $999 price tag. The Lenovo Yoga 900 offers a 3,200-by-1,800-resolution display, but the system is almost twice the price of the ZenBook UX305CA. I'm surprised the ZenBook's screen doesn't look a bit sharper given the resolution and its In-PLane Switching (IPS) panel, but it's still perfectly clear, and the matte finish cuts down on glare. There's an ambient light sensor built into the system that automatically adjusts display brightness, but I found that it generally over-dimmed the screen. A secondary function on the A key switches the ambient sensor off, or you can turn it off in the power-options control panel.

The system offers a decent array of ports, including two USB 3.0 ports and an SD card reader on its left. The right side features another USB 3.0 port, the AC adapter port, a micro HDMI port, and a headphone jack. Unfortunately, like the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch, no Ethernet ports are included on the system. There's a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) on board, which is a higher capacity than the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch's 128GB of flash storage, and again on par with the Asus UX305FA-ASM1. The Lenovo Yoga 900 offers a 512GB SSD, and the Dell XPS 13 Touch includes a 256GB drive. Also featured are dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 Asus offers a one-year warranty on the system.

Performance
Powering the ZenBook UX305CA are a sixth-generation (Skylake), 800MHz Intel Core m3-6Y30 processor, 8GB of memory, and integrated Intel HD Graphics 515. Intel Core M CPUs (including the m3, the m5, and the m7) are the middle ground between the less powerful Atom or Celeron chips present in less-expensive ultraportables or hybrids and the faster Intel Core i5 or i7 CPUs found in more powerful laptops. These processors won't provide top-end performance, but they're well-suited to an ultraportable focused on mobility while still remaining snappy.

See How We Test Laptops

As such, the ZenBook UX305CA performed fairly well on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional productivity test with a score of 2,496. This is better than its predecessor, the Asus UX305FA-ASM1 (2,257 points), which is using an older Core M CPU, behind the Lenovo Yoga 900 (2,564 points) and the Dell XPS 13 Touch (2,987 points), both more expensive systems. Its multimedia performance was solid on our tests, finishing Photoshop and Handbrake in 6 minutes 4 seconds and 3:22, respectively. It wasn't far behind the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (5:13 on Photoshop; 2:49 on Handbrake) or the Dell XPS 13 Touch (5:54 on Photoshop; 2:58 on Handbrake), both of which are pricier systems that feature Core i5 processors. Its Cinebench test score of 215 is also decent, not much lower than the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (257) or the Dell XPS 13 Touch (249).

The integrated graphics, typical for ultraportables at this price point, don't provide much room for 3D gaming. The Zenbook's 3DMark Cloud Gate score of 4,415 points is just ahead of the Asus UX305FA-ASM1 (4,270 points) and behind the Dell XPS 13 Touch (4,852 points) and the Lenovo Yoga 900 (6,069). The system produced frame rates of just 14 and 16 frames per second (fps) on the medium-quality Heaven and Valley gaming tests, respectively (a playable frame rate is at least 30fps), and the ultra-quality tests scored just 4fps and 5fps. This is on par with the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (16fps on both Heaven and Valley at medium quality) and just ahead of the XPS 3 Touch (9fps on both), though the differences at that level are negligible, since none of the three can run high-end 3D games smoothly.

The Zenbook's battery lasted for 8 hours 30 minutes in our rundown test, a good result that's just longer than that of the Dell XPS 13 Touch (7:40), but shorter than the Lenovo Yoga 900's time (10:56). There's still just one clear winner here, though—the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch clocked 17:36, far and away the best in the category.

Conclusion
The Asus ZenBook UX305CA is a slim, well-made system with a good display and solid performance. The aluminum body feels sturdy and of high quality, and the price is a very good value. The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch costs $300 more, and the screen is a lower resolution, but it remains our Editors' Choice for midrange ultraportables, as the higher cost nets you clear-cut advantages, like better performance and unmatched battery life, but the Asus ZenBook UX305CA is a worthy contender, especially if you're looking to save some money.