Year-on-year, Asus has quietly bolstered its presence in the enterprise market with the ExpertBook series. This year, the ExpertBook B5 (2024), designed for enterprise and corporate customers, continues that trend. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks and here’s how my experience has been.
Design
The Asus ExpertBook B5 features a magnesium aluminium chassis, making it sturdy and light at just 1.29kg. Its slim form factor ensures easy portability, ideal for daily commutes in a crowded metro.
The 180-degree ErgoHinge by Asus serves a dual purpose: it not only elevates the screen to a more ergonomic viewing angle but also enhances ventilation by raising the laptop a few inches, improving airflow at the bottom while using it in “Best Performance” mode.
Display
The B5 features a 14 Inch-WXGA display (2560 x 1600) with touchscreen and Microsoft pen protocol (MPP) stylus support with matte finish.The matte finish kept away annoying reflections and worked well both indoors and outdoors. The 500-nits brightness makes it more functional for outdoor use as well as working in both dark and bright environments.
The touchscreen display felt smooth and accurate to the touch and navigation using the Asus Pen Pen 2.0 was a breeze.
The bezels were minimal, and the display felt well-built, with a thicker, more balanced weight distribution between the display and the laptops bottom half along with enhanced damage protection.
The colours on the display were well-balanced, making it a joy to watch Season 3 of The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix. Its colour accuracy also makes it ideal for post-work use, perfect for catching up on web series during long trips.
The laptop’s 1080P webcam works well in good lighting but delivers grainy images and videos in poor lighting. It also supports Windows Studio effects like background blur and auto-reframing.
Keyboard
The keyboard is a mixed bag for me. It offers a decent key travel of 1.5mm, but the backlight is only average for typing in dark rooms. Additionally, I found the ‘E’ and ‘Space’ keys required extra effort once in a while to register a keypress during the course of this review.
Ports
The ExpertBook B5 features an RJ-45 port on the left side, a Kensington lock with two USB-C ports (supporting display and power delivery), HDMI, two USB-A ports, and a 3.5mm combo jack on the right. While the variety of ports is adequate, having them all on one side can stress the laptop during cable management and complicate switching between home and office setups.
Sound
The sound on the ExpertBook B5 is average in both volume and sound quality. While listening to Auriga by Aim To Head, the laptop’s volume was average and distorted at higher levels. Despite Dolby Atmos tuning, the speakers are mediocre and struggle to project sound in bigger rooms.
However, the noise-canceling mics are excellent, effectively reducing ambient noise during Zoom calls and supporting multi-presenter conference calls in the same location.
Performance
The unit I reviewed came equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155U CPU, featuring 12 cores and 14 threads, 16 GB of RAM, and a 1 TB SSD, along with integrated Intel graphics.
In CineBench R24, the laptop scored 49 in Single Core and 390 in Multicore, putting it on par with first-generation Ryzen and 12th Gen Intel Desktop CPUs.
The laptop delivers only 37-56 frames per second in CounterStrike 2, clearly indicating its business-oriented optimisation.
Asus has its MyAsus App which is like a dashboard for laptop details such as battery stats, performance profiles and customer support as and access to the various features under display like colour profile, AI effects, sound etc. It also has an Asus Business Manager which can be used to encrypt as well as restrict USB access.
The device is also Microsoft CoPilot+ certified and runs most of the AI operations on the device. It took me 3-4 seconds from prompt to generation across tasks.
Battery
The Asus ExpertBook B5 features a 3-cell 63Wh battery which was able to last above 9-11 hours at a stretch writing reviews, handling social media, researching for videos with 10-20 open Chrome tabs and the occasional YouTube or OTT video.
A 65-watt USB-C charger ships with the laptop and was able to charge the laptop from 0 to 100 in under an hour and half before I set off to work and there is an instant charge option for quick charging from 0 to full in under an hour.
Conclusion
The Asus ExpertBook B5 excels with a functional form factor ideal for both office use and daily commutes, along with impressive battery life that lasts the entire workday without needing an adapter.
However, having all ports on one side can make it challenging to use as a mobile workstation with a connected monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Despite being an average performer, it holds its own against HP ProBooks, Lenovo ThinkPads, and Dell Vostro laptops in terms of features, battery life, and performance, making it a solid choice for corporate and enterprise customers.
Asus ExpertBook B5
Price: ₹1,10,200 onwards.
Pros: Great battery life, well built, functional form factor.
Cons: Average sound,functional ports on the right side.