Asus ExpertBook P1 is a lightweight business laptop that defies its portable form factor with a fantastic mix of endurance and practical perks. It’s me-proof!
Over the years, I have curated a rather non-envious track record with handling electronics around me. From shattering the screen on iPhones, breaking the hinge of a foldable phone, a torn laptop lid, flattening the edges of MacBooks, and forgetting items in transit, the history of my misadventures is pretty diverse. And expensive.
But nothing hurts more than the damage incurred to a laptop, which you can’t just hide behind a skin or case. I’d like to believe there are a few others like me, seeking a machine that can handle rough usage, or just happens to be sturdier than the rest. Asus certainly sees an opportunity in that bracket.
The company recently introduced a trio of laptops in the ExpertBook P series. To my surprise, the company focused less on the usual performance-centric presentations, and more on the practical side of things, such as durability. Is it performant?
A few days after the launch, I got my hands on the ExpertBook P1. I was in for a pleasant surprise. It’s a fairly competent laptop, but more than that, it can brush off mechanical stress with ease. And on top of that, it fortifies a few areas that most brands barely pay any special attention to.
The configuration I tested came equipped with an Intel Core i7 (13620H) processor, ticking alongside 32GB of RAM and 512GB of M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD. Thanks to extra slots, the RAM and storage are upgradable up to 64GB and 2TB, respectively. Over at the front is a 14-inch full-HD panel.
Now, this is neither the latest Intel chip nor the fanciest display out there. It is sharp and offers wide viewing angles without any noticeable color crushing. I wish it were a glass-based panel, but I would take Asus’ anti-glare approach any given day.
The 10-core silicon is fairly powerful, though not the latest that Intel has to offer. When pitted against the 14-core Intel Core Ultra 5, it barely manages to achieve a higher single-core performance, but delivers a 30% lower multi-core performance.
The aging Intel processor again serves a higher single-core tally at Cinebench 2024 compared to Qualcomm’s top-end Snapdragon X Elite, but underwhelms with its multi-core chops, yet again.
On the graphics front, the integrated Intel UHD graphics unit is roughly 18-20% behind the Arc graphics shipped with the second-gen Arrow Lake Ultra Series 2 processors. But numbers aside, this is still a pretty capable combination.
If you aren’t diving into any demanding creative software suite, the configuration will get past most productivity software with ease. My workload involved Chrome (across two screens and three windows), Slack, Trello, Teams, and a handful of web instances for tools like Asana and consistent wireless music playback.
