This is an exceptionally well configured laptop for general use plus gaming, video/photo work, and demanding applications. If you work with exceptionally large spreadsheets, like to have 40 tabs open in Chrome, edit videos or photos at an advanced level, and like to relax and game when you can -- this is a fine choice.

The system was very nicely packaged and boxed. Setup was quick and easy. This was my first experience with Cortana assisted setup and it was mostly positive. Basic setup took about five minutes. Later it took another 20-30 minutes for all the windows updates to apply, but everything was fairly automatic and worked flawlessly (you have to start the windows updates yourself, which is good). The system seems pretty clean, not loaded with junkware which is great!

I tweaked a few power settings to taste and that was about it. The power button does "sleep" by default and I left it as is. Though I normally prefer my power button set to shutdown, I left it this way because of the location. It is located right where the DEL key would usually be, so I thought better to leave it set for sleep in case I hit it accidentally (it functions instantly when pressed). Sleep and wake is nearly instantaneous.

The screen is sharp and clear. Text at the recommended 125% setting is very readable. The maximum brightness is not as bright as some notebooks I've owned, but seems sufficient for normal indoor use. Not sure about bright sun, could be an issue there as screen is reflective. But that is a minor thing as I rarely use my notebook outdoors.

Having a big 512GB SSD is wonderful (I've only had 256GB SSD before this) and 16 GB of RAM is also a big plus. Rarely would anyone ever need more than that. This makes for snappy disk reads and writes and no worries about memory cache and flushing. The SSD has 445 GB free out of 475 GB, normal for this size SSD and windows 10. The SSD is a Samsung which is a highly rated brand and very fast.

In my opinion, the 1080p panel is a great fit, especially if you'll be gaming. Although the 4k panel has better color gamut and higher res, the Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti is much better suited for the 1080p resolution. Also, I find the 1080p resolution to be more realistic for everyday work. Viewing angles on the screen seem good and the brightness and colors look fine as well. The 1050 Ti can drive it well for moderate to high gaming (and even Ultra with some games). Almost any 2016 game will run great and most newer games will as well. The Nvidia driver is 376.20 and seems fine. I left things as is for now. [Note: Hard core gamers will want a 1060 or higher card, but this card is fine for me and makes gaming very pleasurable. I have owned many high end gaming rigs in my day. These days, I'm happy just to have fun and not obcess over maximum performance. YMMV.]

The fan runs nearly all the time, but is almost inaudible until you are very active. Then the sound is a typical low fan sound and not objectionable. (Silent is always better, but if the fans are going to run, I'm glad they are steady. I've had laptops where the fans cycle up and down all the time and it was very annoying.) I could hear no other noises of any kind in normal use (Have not stress tested yet - will update when I do.) The touchscreen works very well. The keyboard also feels good to me (I'm not a touch typist, however I do type fairly rapidly). No problems with flexing at all. [Note: If you press fairly hard you can make it flex very slightly at the top, but in normal use, I see none.] Layout is mostly standard with a few quirks like the power key and a large Fn key in the lower right.

Then you have the truly excellent i7 7700HQ 2.8GHz quad-core processor which blazes and will Turbo-boost to 3.8 GHz! And all of this in a very attractive case. I have always thought Asus made very nice looking laptops and this one is right up there with the best. It has nicely beveled edges and everything feels very solid. No hot spots, everything very cool under normal use. A nice looking rig in my opinion. It even has an illuminated logo! :)

I was very happy to see the glass-like (not sure if it's glass or not?) track pad - I love them. So much nicer. And the illuminated keyboard is well done (you can set various brightness levels) and a must at this price point. Then there are the very good speakers and the very generous selection of ports, especially in such a thin notebook.

The array of ports on this thing is simply excellent. Getting two USB 3.1 C (Gen 2) Thunderbolt ports is exceptional. While I would have preferred a standard SD card vs. the microSD card (note the description here on Amazon is confusing, but it is microSD, not SD), that's minor and not a real issue for me. (I have several USB 3 card readers on hand.) You also get 2 USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, and an audio jack. Everything you need.

The Nvidia GTX 1050Ti with 4 GB of RAM is an excellent choice for the 1080p 15.6" screen. It can handle this resolution well. It's overkill for most daily activities (and indeed you will often be using the internal Intel GFX vs the 1050Ti), but will be very welcome when you get into demanding apps and games. With about twice the power of a 960M this thing is no slouch. I need to drive external monitors on occasion and the 1050 Ti will be a big help with that, also.

Have I mentioned how thin this monster is? For the amount of power you are getting, it's amazing that they could squeeze it into such a thin chasis. The screen hinges work great, easy enough to open, but still stiff enough to support touch use. And it's interesting that it supports the ASUS Pen, a nice plus. I don't have one (yet), but that could add a nice touch later for photo editing, painting/drawing. and such.

So, an excellent notebook with many nice features. I will be running more tests and exploring it in more depth and will come back and update this review with my findings as I go. But my "out of the box" take is - wow! - fantastic! This thing is pretty much my dream machine, it has everything I've wanted in a great package. It's a very balanced configuration

Update: Rewrote parts of the above to add more info and clarity. (#2 - a few more updates above.)

Update: Battery life -- I have not run a full test as yet, but based on my early use, I would say 8-10 hours is very reasonable to expect for just normal use. I would imagine that will decrease if doing anything that fires up the Nvidia 1050 Ti for long periods. I will have a better take on this in time and I will come back and update based on more experience ASAP. Right now I see 8 hours as almost certain, so will have to see how far above that we can go.

-- Here are my best estimates for battery life. These are just educated guesses, based on my light use so far, but I think they should be pretty close. I will update if any changes as I have more experience.
--
-- 8-12 hours mixed use (web browsing, movies, some gaming, other normal uses)
-- 8-10 hours movie and video watching
-- 3-5 hours gaming or heavy loads
-- More than 10 hours light use, web browsing, email. editing documents/spreadsheets, and such
-- Note: Since sleep and awaken are very fast, using sleep judiciously could extend these times easily.
This is, in my opinion, outstanding for a machine this powerful. I'm very pleased with the battery life I'm seeing.

*** Geek Notes: ***
The GTX 1050 Ti is about 1/3 faster than the previous 1050. It is not VR ready, you'll need a 1060 for that.

The Intel i7 7700HQ supports hyper-threading with up to 8 threads at once - it's an excellent performer.

Some people obsess about throttling. I used to also. I don't anymore. My days of spending hours to get a 10% performance increase are over. I'm content to just relax, enjoy, and be happy. The plus is a cooler, lighter, thinner, nicer overall experience vs. a thicker, chunkier, hotter, noisier beast with short battery life. I'm OK with that. [Feel free to disagree, I had a lot of fun tweaking rigs myself, in the past, and understand the need for speed.]

I bought ZenBook as I wanted a gaming laptop and a portable laptop. I'm an avid gamer, I have an Xbox, but some games I can play only on my laptop. Previously, I had top-notch Alienware, which I loved and everything was ok with it, except the weight. I realized I need a portable laptop.

This laptop is a great purchase. If you need a powerful working or gaming machine, UX550E is just for you. My favorite thing is it can live during the whole day, without being connected to the socket. I never take the charger with me, it's always at home.

One thing I didn't like about the laptop, as beautiful as it is, is it's a fingerprint magnet. The laptop gets smudged easily, and its elegance will be tarnished if you don't wipe it often. I wipe it using my eyeglasses wipes, which works for this laptop as well.

If you're OK to pay for the laptop a bit less then $2000 then I would definitely recommend this one: long battery life, business-looking, everything is working as it should, and it stays cool all the time (dual-fan setup). Perfect!

Bought it not on Amazon, as I wanted a blue edition, seems to me it looks much better than the black one.

Before I start, I must say I am really impress with the delivery speed. I ordered this laptop (sold by Amazon and delivered by UPS) the night of Oct. 3rd, and it was delivered the morning of Oct 5th... and I live across the border in Canada! I had originally hoped to get the blue version from Taiwan, but it had been out of stock for weeks, so I got the black one from the States instead.

The laptop body is very well built. Slim and full aluminum body, circular metallic pattern and ASUS logo that lights up when turned on, the glass trackpad and fingerprint sensor, ultra-thin bezel, perfect. There are four speakers: two on the sides, and two from the bottom front, resulting in loud and crisp sounds. Hinge resistance is just right as I can open the laptop single-handedly. Screen brightness is slightly darker and feels cooler than my last ASUS laptop (K43S) from 2011, but this is more comfortable for my eyes.

Keyboard has slight flex, but sturdy, not as bad as some video online shows. I checked the lightbleed and found there is little to none for my machine, that's great. I do not really use SD cards at all, so the micro SD is a non-issue for me, but some people may not like this design. Performance wise, it's blazing fast. As a graphic designer / full stack developer, this is a perfect machine for my everyday professional work. As I am not a heavy gamer, I can't say much about how this machine performs in gaming, so I will leave for others to review that, but for a light gamer this is more than enough. I have not get the time to see how ventilation works under heavy load, but with only two arrays of small vents at the back I suspect it may not be too well.

I do have a couple issues with it though. First, the power bar is a giant brick. I did expect a powerful machine to have a bigger AC converter, but the size of it (about three iPhone7s stacked together) still startled me, and it weights about half kg. Second one is a bit troubling: the machine makes some small buzzing sound when some processes are running; it could be the coil whine some people are talking about. It's not loud, but it's audible in a quiet room so I might want to open it up and check one day.

The issues aside, this is a very good laptop in terms of quality and performance. This is the laptop of choice for me this year, and I would definitely recommend it for professional users (though probably not gamers).

Trackpad, keyboard and battery life are great. There's some backlight bleed, but unless you plan on doing work at night with all the lights off AND have the screen brightness at maximum, you wouldn't be able to tell it's there. The keyboard flex everyone is worried about is negligible too. But, don't get this laptop if you just want to game on it. Games like Overwatch, Dota 2, CS:GO and LoL are fine, but not AAA titles unless you're willing to drop the settings to medium.