Asus ExpertBook P5
LAPTOP | £1,000 from Asus www.snipca.com/52564
Ultra fast
Most laptops we’ve reviewed recently have been Copilot+ models with Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors. This ExpertBook P5 from Asus returns to a more traditional component – the Intel Core Ultra 5 226V. This is newer than the Core Ultra 7 155H inside our current favourite laptop – the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (see page 30). However, it has only eight cores – half the number of the Ultra 7. Would this harm its chances of ousting the Ultra 7 as our favourite?
A great all-round laptop with decent connections, battery and screen
And the answer is: yes. The Inspiron’s Ultra 7 processor still rules the roost, with its additional cores giving it a significant edge in our tests. The P5 is marginally faster in basic tasks, but when we pushed all cores to their limits, the Inspiron ran nearly 30-percent faster.