Asus Zenbook UX305UA laptop

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Commendable
Sep 26, 2016
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I'm looking for a laptop for under $1000. I'm interested in something under 3 pounds and about a 13" screen size. Right now I'm leaning toward buying this Asus Zenbook UX305UA laptop for $750 on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BMERZJ6?psc=1

I like that it has a 6th-generation Intel Core i5 6200U Skylake Processor, 8 GB RAM (I usually have many webpages open at the same time) and 256 GB SSD Solid State Drive. I might not even need that much space because I'm getting an external storage. I also like the multiple USB ports and 10 hour battery life.

However, the Asus Zenbook 3 is coming out soon. Do you think I should wait for that to come out first? I think the other Zenbooks will go down in price once the new one comes out. The current Zenbook will be a better value over the new one which will have a $999 option with only 4 GB RAM and one USB port. Let me know if I should wait or if you know of a better laptop deal.

Edit: I found this ASUS ZenBook UX305CA-UBM1 Signature Edition Laptop for $599. It has a Intel Core m3-6Y30 and 512 GB SDD. Is it worth it to switch from the Core i5 6200U to Core m3-6Y30 to save $150.
https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/ASUS-ZenBook-UX305CA-UBM1-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.3389258700
 
Solution
Keep in mind that the "10 hour" battery life is very optimistic. Actual battery life based on "normal usage" typically falls short compared to what brands advertise. For example, the Dell XPS 13 is advertised to have up to 15 hours of battery life, but most reviews pegs it at around 10 - 11 hours based on "average usage". The Asus UX305UA / Dell XPS are both good laptops.

Should you wait for laptops using the 7th generation Core i5 CPU? That is up to you since it depends on how much the extra performance of a newer generation CPU is worth to you.

It's difficult to say how powerful Kaby Lake CPUs are compared to Skylake CPUs due to very limited CPU benchmarks I have seen. I saw a few benchmarks for the i5-6200 (2.3GHz / 2.8GHz) and...
Keep in mind that the "10 hour" battery life is very optimistic. Actual battery life based on "normal usage" typically falls short compared to what brands advertise. For example, the Dell XPS 13 is advertised to have up to 15 hours of battery life, but most reviews pegs it at around 10 - 11 hours based on "average usage". The Asus UX305UA / Dell XPS are both good laptops.

Should you wait for laptops using the 7th generation Core i5 CPU? That is up to you since it depends on how much the extra performance of a newer generation CPU is worth to you.

It's difficult to say how powerful Kaby Lake CPUs are compared to Skylake CPUs due to very limited CPU benchmarks I have seen. I saw a few benchmarks for the i5-6200 (2.3GHz / 2.8GHz) and i5-7200u (2.5GHz / 3.1GHz) where the performance increase ranges between 2% to 15% depending on the specific synthetic benchmark.

On the GPU side, the Intel HD 620 seems be a pretty decent improvement over the Intel HD 520 where preliminary performance seems to point to around a 20% performance improvement. The Intel HD 620 is still considered a weak GPU compared to a dedicated GPU. But anyone wanting to play games on a laptop relying on integrated GPU would appreciate around a 20% average improvement in performance; which may increase or decrease as more games are benchmarked.
 
Solution