Price When Reviewed

$599.99

Best Prices Today: Asus ExperBook B3

$599.99

What can I say? I really like a tiny pc. It looks like solely yesterday that there have been bizarre, low cost Windows machines galore, utilizing small screens wherever from 7 to 10 inches. Some of those tablets had energetic pens and virtually all of them have been extremely sluggish or had a washed-out display or another horrible shortcoming. But, for those who have been prepared to attend for his or her sluggish chips to chug alongside, they might be “good enough” in a pinch when operating previous apps or easy Office duties.

That’s why the brand new Asus Expertbook B3 appeared so intriguing. Not solely is that this a small pc with a kickstand and a keyboard cowl, it’s a tiny gadget with a pen that neatly tucks away right into a silo. It’s even based mostly on a more recent Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 processor, which guarantees power-sipping, fanless operation. Can this little pill overcome its modest spec sheet and provides customers an honest Windows 11 expertise? In a phrase, no.

Asus ExperBook B3 specs and options

Our evaluate unit got here geared up with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 CPU, Adreno 618 graphics, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of eMMC storage. Read on to be taught extra:

• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 (8 cores) 
• Memory: 4GB LPDDR4
• Graphics/GPU: Adreno 618 graphics
• Display: 10.5-inch IPS WUXGA (1920×1200) 16:10 touchscreen
• Storage: 128GB eMMC
• Webcam: 5MP front-facing/1080p for video
• Connectivity:  1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, 1x 3.5mm headset jack
• Networking: Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.1
• Digital Pen: MPP 2.0, fees from gadget
• Battery capability: 38Wh
• Dimensions: 14.29 (W) x 9.36 (D) x 0.70 (H) inches 
• Weight: 1.31 kilos (tablet-only), 2.22 kilos (pill with keyboard and stand), 2.79 kilos with charger
• Price: $599.99

Design and construct

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Microsoft’s Surface mainly invented the fashionable 2-in-1, placing the keyboard cowl front-and-center and balancing the entire widget on a kickstand across the again. The ExpertBook B3 is an identical design, besides the kickstand isn’t built-in. Instead, it’s a chunk of fabric-wrapped plastic that attaches with magnets to the pill. What this permits is a mode that permits you to stand it up in vertical orientation, not simply horizontally. 

Unfortunately, I discovered the stand to be loosely related besides in its horizontal orientation with the keyboard connected. You definitely can’t use it as an easel for drawing with this stand–the angle it folds to is much too shallow to get it right down to the tabletop. And then when you’ve it in vertical mode, there’s no option to join the keyboard and the USB port is inaccessible, below the sting that’s going through the tabletop. I can see this diploma of flexibility being useful is you employ your pill within the kitchen as a cookbook, however in any other case it looks like a number of engineering and bulk for an edge case.

At least Asus consists of the kickstand attachment and keyboard cowl within the field, so that they’re not separate purchases. But the entire bundle feels a bit cumbersome when all put collectively, however the pill by itself is impressively slim.

Connectivity

Given its small measurement, we are able to’t say we have been shocked to seek out solely two ports on this Asus pill–a typical headset jack and a USB-C port. The USB-C port pulls double obligation as your solely charging port and the one choice for I/O. At least there’s an enormous market on the market for dongles and hubs, making it easy to show one port right into a bunch of others, together with display-out.

In phrases of wi-fi functionality, the B3 has Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.1 as default, making it a bit behind the curve on Wi-Fi tech however completely usable for day-to-day duties. 

It would have been very nice to see a microSD card slot on this pill as nicely, which may also help make up for an absence of storage, however alas you’re caught with the 128 GB eMMC this pill has built-in. It looks like because it has a US MIL-STD 810H sturdiness score that Asus eliminated as a lot as potential to cut back the chance for failure. All issues thought of, the B3’s connectivity positively seems like a downgrade from one thing like a Surface Go 3, which has a magnetic dock/charging port, USB-C, headset jack, in addition to a microSD card slot.  

Keyboard, trackpad, and pen

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

One of the worst issues about shopping for a Microsoft Surface is that the pen and keyboard cowl are separate purchases. Here, the whole lot comes within the field. I discovered, nevertheless, that the equipment which are needed to show this pill right into a laptop computer are a decidedly combined bag. The keyboard is okay, however the keys are positively small in comparison with, let’s say, a 13-inch class laptop computer or pill. While the within of the keyboard cowl is plastic, the entire thing feels barely bouncy to kind on, which is lower than perfect in my eyes. Then, when the lights exit you uncover–gasp!– these keys aren’t backlit! I hate to place a bunch of expectations on this little gadget however once you use one thing referred to as ExpertBook, you are likely to anticipate a better-than-basic typing expertise. 

Beneath the keyboard is a dinky touchpad that I didn’t fairly get together with. It’s responsive sufficient, however the floor feels plasticky and tough. Furthermore, it’s so small on this keyboard cowl that I discovered it was tremendous straightforward to hit the perimeters with the palms of my arms. Finally, the floppiness of the keyboard cowl made it straightforward to by chance set off the trackpad’s click on. This may be an edge case for a tool designed for colleges and companies, however this was one thing I observed when utilizing the gadget on the couch, when it has little help beneath the keyboard and trackpad.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

One of the extra distinctive facets of the Asus B3 is that’s has an included digital pen that has its personal silo for storage–no magnets, no hidey gap within the keyboard cowl. The pen fees when changed into the again of the show, which is fairly nice. For notes, this pen works nicely sufficient however I’d skip this pill for artwork functions on account of some noticeable jitter in strains I drew. That and the pen’s less-than-ergonomic skinny physique make this a pleasant bonus, however removed from a star attraction.

Display, audio, and webcam

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

The solely facet of this gadget I’ve a slight gripe with is the small show and massive bezels. The display has a piano black encompass, after which a giant black border. Before you flip it on, you’d anticipate that the display would fill the within of the black plastic border, however as a substitute it’s nested approach contained in the glass with a thick border doesn’t look tremendous premium in 2022.

At least the display is nice to behold. The Asus B3’s dinky 10.5-inch show is a excessive 1920×1200 decision, appears to be like vibrant from each angle, and reaches a brilliant and constant 350 nits. The shiny floor may decide up glare or make it exhausting to see in direct daylight, however in some other circumstances I cherished the way in which it appears to be like. It’s additionally a laminated show, which might make the interplay with the display really feel extra direct than one with a niche between the duvet glass and the show itself beneath (digital pen customers will discover the distinction!). The punchy colours, good distinction, and crisp pixel density make this a tool that’s at the least good to have a look at, even when it’s maddening to make use of in different regards.  

The entrance going through digital camera on the B3 is fairly good all issues thought of. It’s a far cry from the 720p and 1080p models in a number of laptops, truly letting you get 5 megapixel stills. For video calls, the upper megapixel digital camera helps however I nonetheless appeared a bit blotchy in something lower than brilliant gentle. The audio system and microphone are each respectable. That mentioned, the audio system are a bit quiet and may wrestle in a chatty classroom or workplace setting

Performance

If there’s one frustratingly weak level for the Asus ExpertBook B3, it’s efficiency. This tiny pill has an honest sufficient Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 processor, however the sluggish strong state drive and restricted RAM significantly restrict its talents. This factor seems like utilizing Windows 11 whereas it’s caught in quicksand.

In use, B3 takes endlessly besides up, as if it’s rising from a deep sleep, and Edge must sleep browser tabs always to liberate reminiscence. Sitting right here with OneNote and 4 browser tabs open, Task Manager says 3.3 GB of RAM are in use…yikes! Even belongings you’d wish to be snappy and satisfying, like urgent the Start button on the touchscreen lag.

If you didn’t know a lot about computer systems, you’d suspect one thing was unsuitable. It’s made worse by the lackluster skill of Windows 11 Pro to emulate older apps. Even although it ought to minimize the mustard in relation to light-weight mobile-friendly software program, I discovered the B3 rendered an indie sport like Donut County unplayable below emulation. But don’t take my phrase for it–let’s check out some benchmarks.

In the PCMark 10 Apps take a look at, which runs natively on Snapdragon gadgets just like the Asus B3, we noticed a rating that was lower than spectacular. In truth, it missed the usual of a Lenovo Snapdragon-based gadget that’s virtually 4 years previous. For the sake of comparability, we’ve included a Surface Pro from final 12 months operating a premium Intel chip simply to display how sluggish this pill is. This take a look at makes use of Microsoft’s personal apps to run completely different job so as to measure the responsiveness of the system in Office and Edge situations.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

The Asus ExpertBook B3 turned in a disappointing exhibiting when its graphics have been put to the take a look at within the ARM-friendly Night Raid benchmark. This poor efficiency makes a specific amount of sense, nevertheless, since we’re coping with a less expensive Snapdragon chip with a worse GPU. The remainder of the bunch we had examined all had that 12 months’s finest graphics, which this decidedly doesn’t.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Since net shopping is an important a part of at the moment’s computing expertise, we ran the WebXPRT3 benchmark to get an sense for a way this technique performs with a wide range of duties within the Edge browser. Although the B3 outperformed the older Lenovo Yoga C630 on this take a look at, it’s nonetheless a poor performer on the entire. 

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Battery life

One brilliant spot within the efficiency checks was the long-lasting battery. In our looping 4K video take a look at, the Asus ExpertBook B3 almost made it to 14 hours of runtime, which is stellar for a tiny Windows pill like this. Anecdotally, whereas scripting this evaluate on the Asus, I noticed the battery drain round 5% for an hour of sunshine work.  

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Conclusion

At the top of my time with the Asus ExpertBook B3, I used to be left with one query: who is that this for? The advertising and marketing makes it seem to be it’s for frontline staff or the training market, however I’d really feel unhealthy handing this off to an worker and even worse for the youngsters caught with this in a pc lab. It’s additionally out there on Best Buy for anybody to buy, which I’d advise in opposition to until it’s deeply discounted. Even with out considering of competing choices, there’s not an awesome case for its $600 value.

Even with stellar battery life, included equipment, and a pleasant display, the Asus B3 reminds us that Windows on a Snapdragon chip can nonetheless have a number of drawbacks, particularly in a less expensive configuration like this. Sure, the general expertise has improved quite a bit on the high-end with the Surface Pro 9 and ThinkPad X13s Gen 1, however for now chances are you’ll wish to avoid these low-end Snapdragon Windows PCs.