ASUS PRO P5430UF Review: A Notebook That’s Built Like A Brick

ASUS PRO P5430UF Review: A Notebook That’s Built Like A Brick

We review the ASUS PRO P5430UF!

While Taiwanese manufacturer ASUS has plenty of high-profile consumer and gaming notebooks to choose from, not a lot of people know that the company also creates solid notebooks for serious professionals. The company’s PRO line of enterprise notebooks are slowly and steadily gaining steam in the Philippines, and ASUS is looking to steal customers away from traditional market leaders like Lenovo and Dell. We’ve been using their 14-inch PRO P5430UF for around a month now, and all we can say is that this notebook can take a heck of a lot of abuse and keep on ticking.

ASUS PRO P5430U specs:

  • 2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U processor
  • NVIDIA GeForce 930MX GPU with 2GB VRAM
  • 8GB of RAM
  • 14-inch Full HD anti-glare display
  • 512GB SSD storage
  • 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0,1 x USB Type-C port, VGA port, mini DisplayPort, Ethernet port, microphone/headphone jack
  • WiFi, Bluetooth, fingerprint scanner
  • Windows 10 Pro

Blocky AF, but it’s pretty damn tough

Notebooks for enterprise and professionals aren’t sexy. They usually have utilitarian designs with harsh corners and unlit keyboards. The P5430UF is no exception – put it side-by-side against other similar business notebooks and you’d have a hard time telling it apart, though obviously the logo on the lid will clue you in rather quickly which one is which.

ASUS did try to make the P5430UF look interesting though. Instead of the matte black plastic lid that’s usually on business notebooks nowadays, the P5430UF has a brushed metal finish on its sadly plastic lid, to make it look slightly different compared to the competition.

Open the lid and you’ll see the 14-inch full HD anti-glare display, spacious chicklet keyboard, trackpad and fingerprint scanner. The wrist rest has the same brushed metal finish as the lid to give the notebook a bit of variety.

Aside from that, the P5430UF looks like your typical business notebook – blocky, angular build with an emphasis on function rather than form. Overall weight is pegged at 1.7 kilos.

The bland design choices does serve a purpose though – the one-piece build is made specifically to make the notebook tougher, and ASUS says the P5430UF is capable of withstanding a drop double the height of comparable business notebooks. The lid of the notebook can take around 20% more pressure before breaking, and the keyboard is completely spill resistant, so you won’t have IT on your case if you accidentally spill coffee on it.

Aside from being relatively spill resistant, the keyboard on the P5430UF is quite comfortable to type on too. Despite not being a mechanical keyboard, plugging away on those chiclet keys felt comfortable, with plenty of separation between the keys. There’s around 2.3mm of travel distance for each key, which gives you excellent tactile feedback as you type on them.

There’s a bunch of ports and connectors on the P5430U, which includes a total of 3 USB ports (2 x USB 3.0 and 1 x USB 2.0), USB Type-C port, VGA port, mini DisplayPort, Ethernet port and a microphone/headphone jack.

Take a look at the bottom of the notebook and you’ll see four rubber feet for better stability when using it in any surface, as well as the easy to remove one piece service door that simplifies maintenance when something breaks.

More than enough juice to make short work of office chores

Just like any business notebook, the P5430UF can be configured depending on the needs of a particular customer. Our review unit came in the highest configuration available, which consisted of a 2.5GHz Intel Corei7-6500U processor, NVIDIA GeForce 930MX with 2GB of VRAM, 8GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage.

With those specs, it was not surprising that the P5430UF breezed through most of the work related apps that we used, namely Word and Excel. Our photo editing software of choice, GIMP, ran like a champ on the P5430UF, and overall the notebook never felt slow or sluggish during its time with us. Just like most business notebooks, P5430UF comes equipped with Windows 10 and is outfitted with several special features for business.

One major point of contention is the fingerprint scanner on the P5430UF. The fingerprint scanner uses an optical sensor to read and register fingerprints, which honestly is rather dated tech. Aside from being easy to spoof, optical fingerprint scanners are slow and clunky to use, especially compared to capacitive scanners that are widely used on phones today. We’d rather recommend users just utilizing a simple ol’ PIN to keep the notebook nice and secure rather than using the scanner itself.

As far as the display goes, it’s alright, with generally good color balance, saturation and reproduction, though there will be some color shifting if you don’t angle the display just right. It also has excellent sunlight legibility. Sound quality is okay, though it will quickly get drowned out in a moderately noisy environment like coffee shops.

Battery will last you an 8-hour flight

If there’s one thing notebooks like the P5430UF have, it’s battery endurance. With WiFi on and the screen brightness set halfway, we were able to record around 8 hours of continuous use with the P5430UF. That’s more than enough for most business travelers, though any longer and you’ll have to start scrambling for a power plug.

Verdict: tough, relatively inexpensive and comes with most things you expect from a business notebook

ASUS maybe a little late to the game as far as enterprise notebooks go, but the P5430UF is definitely a step in the right direction for the company. It’s robust, tough, has enough battery endurance to last you the end of the work day and has all the essentials (and then some) that IT managers look for in a notebook. It’s also relatively decently priced, starting around 50K for the core i5 models, though our review device will be a little more expensive given its specifications.

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