When comparing MacBook vs ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW, the Slant community recommends ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW for most people. In the question“What are the best USB-C laptops?” ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW is ranked 8th while MacBook is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW is:
The fans produce at most 43.9 dB(A)of sound, quieter than virtually all of its gaming competitors. During idle, it is very quiet at just 28.9 dB(A).
Specs
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Pros
Pro Extremely portable
The laptop weighs just 2 pounds and is 13.1 mm thin. It's one of the thinnest and lightest laptops on the market and it's extremely portable and easy to carry around.
Pro macOS is developer-friendly
macOS is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's a certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on macOS.
There's a large selection of great development tools available for macOS. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing macOS and iOS software, for free.
You can also install Homebrew, an extremely useful package manager.
Pro Amazing display
Everything about the display is very good - from its high resolution (2304x1440) to the brightness (325 nitts), uniform brightness distribution (90%), and high contrast ratio (1000:1) with over 95% of the sRGB spectrum. Overall, a great display which will come in handy for people who work with visual arts.
Pro Excellent trackpad
The MacBook has a large 4.4 x 2.7-inch Force Touch trackpad with a Taptic Engine that delivers haptic feedback whenever the user taps on it to give them the impression that they are actually clicking on it. It also supports gestures and multi-finger swiping.
The accuracy is almost perfect and there's virtually no lag or stutter when using the trackpad.
Pro Decent battery life
The battery lasts around 7h30m of continuous web browsing which is about average for this class of laptops. Where this laptop's battery truly shines though is under heavy stress where it manages to last an impressive 2h35m under a total stress test (maxed out brightness and processor usage - circumstances that you are likely never going to encounter in the real world).
Pro Completely silent operation
Thanks to the Core M processor (which doesn't require a fan) and the SSD storage, there are no moving parts the in MacBook. It will operate in complete silence.
Pro Very good speakers
The speakers, found above the keyboard produce loud and clear sound with minimal to no distortion whatsoever. They can be used for both listening to music and watching movies with no problem at all.
Pro Decent keyboard
Pro Available in 4 colors
The laptop is available in space gray, gold, silver and rose gold (pink) finishes.
Pro Quiet fans
The fans produce at most 43.9 dB(A)of sound, quieter than virtually all of its gaming competitors. During idle, it is very quiet at just 28.9 dB(A).
Pro Good display
The UHD (8340x2160) IPS panel is a touchscreen model. It's average brightness is 250.2 cd/m² which is reasonable, but not ideal for outdoor use. The glass layer used is thicker, muting colors a bit more than other laptops. sRGB achieves 89%, and AdobeRGB scores 58% - both reasonable results, however not extraordinary. The screen is glossy, and provides great viewing angles.
Pro Good performance
The i7-6700HQ processor paired with 16GB of RAM and accompanied by the GTX 960M offers good performance for just about any task, although machines with similar hardware can be found for considerably less (although they don't come with USB Type-C).
The CPU scores 113 in CineBench R15 - a disappointing result. It's expected that that the system throttles down below its maximum setting before finishing the test.
For storage speeds, this laptop is great. It uses NVMe SSDs that are more common on extremely high end hardware. It can achieve 1633 MB/s read, and 1579MB/s write.
Gaming performance is very good, with games running on high settings with ease. Ultra settings will bring down FPS to below 30 for some games, however lighter titles can still run up to 77FPS (StarCraft 2).
Pro Good battery life
At full load, the ZenBook Pro can last for 1h57m, and when surfing the web it lasts 6h19m. These are good results for a gaming focused gaming laptop.
Cons
Con Not very powerful
With an Intel Core M processor, the Macbook isn't a serious development laptop. While it will get the job done for lighter tasks, it will struggle with heavier jobs.
Con Non-free software
Apple doesn't release the source code for most of their software & firmware. This makes it significantly more difficult to customize, automate tasks, and verify security.
Con It's a bit hard to get used to the keyboard
The keys are pretty shallow, with a travel length of just 0.5mm. They still provide good feedback and the writing experience itself is not bad, but it's just a bit hard getting used to, especially if you are coming from a laptop that's not a MacBook.
Con Connecting more than one thing requires a hub
The laptop comes with a single USB-C port that's used for charging as well as any other peripherals or external storage devices. Connecting more than one thing at a time requires using a USB hub.
Con Premium price for not-so-premium hardware
Macbooks are one of the most expensive computers for the hardware they have. Mac is the most expensive UX to buy, as the price has low relationship to how good the hardware is and, instead, is related to how the whole experience from opening the box, to the physical shop, to the cloud and sync services they have.
Con Too fragile, compared to the competitors
Can barely handle liquid, breaks easily with bumping and, at a premium price, has the largest probability of something just breaking without apparent reason.
Con Very expensive (official) repairs
Fixing any problem with a Macbook through the official means is a very expensive investment. Usually, any problem that happens means replacing most of the laptop for 80% of the price, even if the problem can be solved by replacing a 5$ transistor or a 15$ chip or even bypassing with a 1$ wire.
Con Gets warm
While they keyboard doesn't get hot, it does get warm (33C or 91F), and temperatures on the exterior exhaust fan can reach 48.5C (119F) which is higher than comparable laptops.
Con Poor speaker volume
Basses are virtually non-existent, and the volume doesn't go very high (although at high volume the sounds aren't distorted).