Asus' ExpertBook has been around for a while now, bringing a premium style to the business market. Now they're raising the roof, with the new ExpertBook Ultra. I've been using one since January, and it's everything that an ultrabook should have been all along. Light, powerful, incredible battery life, and a screen that screams quality.

Now, you might notice that it's got the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H rather than the more powerful X9 chip. Well, I'm here to say you don't need the larger, hotter chip in this class of device, and the X7 is more than enough power. I've used it on the Dell XPS 14, and XPS 16, and it rips through office tasks without the keyboard getting even warm to the touch.

Remember when OnePlus used to have sandstone coating on its phones? Well, the Nano Ceramic Technology used on the magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis is a refinement of that, giving toughness and style while keeping cool to the touch (oh and it's remarkably fingerprint resistant). All of this in a package with several days of battery life and weight under 1 kg. The thing that'll be hefty? The price and that, unfortunately, puts it out of reach for most.

About this review: Asus sent XDA the ExpertBook Ultra for review. It had no input on the contents of this article.

Price, specifications, and availability

The Asus ExpertBook Ultra was announced at CES 2026, but it took some time to get to market (and to reveal the eventual MSRP). This is a celebration of what Intel promised the ultrabook would be all those years ago. It's what happens when you let Asus' designers and engineers go wild with seemingly no constraints.

The only compromise here is that the US market is only going to get the darker colorway, which isn't the wonderful light shade I've been reviewing. And that's a shame that I hope Asus changes its mind. Oh, and the price, which is $3,600. That's a hard sell even for ultra-premium devices.

Our review unit has 2TB of storage, retail units will only have half of that. All models seem to have 32GB of RAM now, while early CES indications were of having a 64GB variant as well. That's going to be down to market prices, even a premium product like this can't escape what is happening to the NAND market.

This is one classy clamshell

Premium through-and-through

Remember when the first MacBook Air was pulled out of an envelope? How we all gasped as laptops of the era were unremarkable bricks. Well, the Asus ExpertBook Ultra is thinner, it feels more premium, and has a display that could stand side-by-side with Apple's best.

And what a display. I'll go into it more later on, but it's bright, beautiful, and the lid is barely thicker than the Tandem OLED panel. It's a masterpiece of engineering and design, and that's a theme that's going to resonate through the rest of the device.

It's a masterpiece of engineering and design

Even with that 10.9mm maximum thickness, you still get a full complement of ports. Two Thunderbolt 4, two USB-A 10 Gbps (one of each on each side), 3.5mm audio, and a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port. And yes, both Thunderbolt ports support display out, charging, and data transfer, so you don't have to worry about which side you're plugging your charger into.

Key travel on the keyboard is decent, with good spacing between the keys. That's even while keeping enough space for the speakers on either side, and the giant glass touchpad. That's got haptic feedback and is the closest thing to a MacBook touchpad that I've used on non-Apple hardware. It's also got a nice notch on the front, which also serves as a way to easily open the lid.

Panther Lake still rips

It's the best thing Intel has made for years

Hiding under that thin exterior is a turbocharged implementation of the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, at 50W, which is on the higher side. Intel sells this chip configurable to between 15 and 65W, and it makes a big difference in both benchmarks and daily use.

You can see that the EliteBook Ultra outperforms the same CPU in the Dell XPS 14 in most of the benchmarks, and also how well it can maintain that performance over time on the longer running of these tests. That speaks volumes not only for the thermal solution Asus has engineered here, but also for how well the firmware has been optimized to not drop power unnecessarily.

Even with that higher cranked CPU, the Asus ExpertBook Ultra still managed over 14.3 hours in the Procyon productivity battery test. That's two full work days (almost) in a thing that weighs just over two pounds. That's astonishing to me, after years of laptops and fuzzy marketing figures, that we finally have performance and efficiency across the board.

The display is the star of the show

Stunning Tandem OLED with matte Gorilla Glass

Okay, you might be thinking, "Tandem OLED, we've seen that before." You'd be right, but not like this. The touchscreen is covered in Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, which is normally found on smartphones and tablets. Then it's micro-etched with Corning Gorilla Matte Pro, which is very similar to Apple's nano-etched displays and it looks phenomenal.

I want this display on my phone, never mind just my laptop

I want this display on my phone, never mind just my laptop. It keeps the clarity and color of Tandem OLED, while muting it to feel almost like E Ink in how it doesn't assault your eyes over time.

And what an OLED: 100% sRGB, 100% P3, 90% AdobeRGB, perfect gamma, and peak SDR brightness of 683 nits. That's enough to use outside, inside, in-between, and anywhere else you want. And you'll want to use it. All day, every day.

Should you buy the Asus ExpertBook Ultra?

You should buy the Asus ExpertBook Ultra if:

• You're an executive and want something different from the pack
• You value weight over cost
• You need more ports than the average ultrabook

You should NOT buy the Asus ExpertBook Ultra if:

• You have a smaller budget
• You want a discrete GPU
• You prefer macOS

Here's the thing. When I first started testing the Asus ExpertBook Ultra, it was January and nobody would tell us what the price was going to be. It's been my main laptop since then, the one that I go back to when I need reliable video and audio for meetings and briefings, the one that I pick up for working from the couch, the one that I reach out to every so often just to feel that wonderful stone-like coating.

All of those things are true, and it's one of the only laptops I've used that feels premium all the way through. The matte Gorilla Glass Tandem OLED is a joy to work on, and easier on the eyes throughout the day than a glossy screen. But then the price was announced, and it's hard for me to recommend it to anyone that doesn't have a C-suite purchasing budget footing the bill.

I'm all for halo products, but then why not put the Core Ultra X9 inside for more power, or more RAM, or more than 1TB of storage? I still love this laptop, and it's one of the best I've used, but I'm in a position of technological lust that doesn't translate to the economics of the thing.