ASUS ExpertBook P5 P5405 Review: The Business Centric Intel Core Ultra Laptop

ASUS ventured into the B2B market for a long time, under the name ASUSPRO but that changed a while ago as it’s now the ExpertBook lineup. The ASUS ExpertBook P5 we are reviewing here differs from the B Series. However, the P5 takes a more business-centric laptop with newer Intel Core Ultra magic and also includes ASUS’ take with their software that helps elevate the business experience. So, let’s dive right into this ASUS Expertbook P5 P5405 Review.

ASUS Expertbook P5 P5405 Review

Getting the Usual Out of the Way

The ASUS Expertbook P5 feels and is designed to be a business-centric laptop, especially when you take it out of the bag. The muted grey-silver finish that looks clean and understated proves that this laptop means business. Overall, the laptop is well made—in fact, it’s made of aluminium to give that premium feel and finish, with chamfered edges around the keyboard and trackpad area. It looks pretty simple.

It weighs about 1.2kg, which is okay—the lightest Expertbook award is still with the B9, though it is a different series of laptops entirely. But back to this laptop’s weight, you will be okay with carrying it around wherever you want with no issues. The only thing I have a bit of an issue with is the laptop hinge.

Now, it does let you open the laptop without the need to use two hands – which I do appreciate, but the 180-capable hinge feels a little too flimsy for my liking – in fact, it feels too soft and loose. They did claim that this hinge could withstand several flips but, regardless of that, something I am a little concerned about. Despite the weak feeling hinge, this laptop gets the MIL-STD-810H certification for accidental situations – a much-needed feature in a business laptop.

Performance

We are diving right into the performance as this laptop uses the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 258V Series 2 with 32GB RAM and 1TB of PCIe NVMe Gen 4 SSD. As for the graphics, it relies on Intel Arc 140V. Since it’s based on the Ultra processor, it comes with an NPU capable of handling upto 47 NPU TOPS. Compared to the 13th Generation Intel processor we saw on the ExpertBook P1 which is a bit of an odd choice, but it has its reasons – the Intel Core Ultra is a much better fit for SMEs as the Ultra processor has proven to be a very capable in the performance and endurance department.

In our benchmark, it proved the same – with Cinebench 2024 showing scores for multicore surpassing Apple M1 silicon and in single-core performance, surpassing all the M1 variants. While the Intel Core Ultra is not an ARM-based processor, it is nice to see a performance that could match or go beyond a well-established ARM processor-powered laptop in the market.

Our 3DMARK and PCMark scores proved the same – with 3154 points in Steel Nomad Light Score, 15599 points in Solar Bay, 7171 points in Vulkan, 26930 in Wild Life and 36012 points in Night Raid. We emphasize these points because the Intel processor had a terrible Discrete GPU which was just there for the bare minimum reasons. But the Intel Arc we see here, despite sharing memory with the RAM is more than capable of handling some light games and perhaps editing too – which was once a dream.

This performance is backed by a solid battery life that can last me for 3-4 days on just a single charge with an average of 4-5 hours daily. Charging is pretty simple with USB-C and that’s great. The only catch here in the performance is that the Series 2 processors can’t match the likes of AMD Ryzen AI – which is a more powerful processor that’s better used in other laptops than the ExpertBook.

The Special Thing about the ExpertBook P5 is the super quiet fans because under heavy loads while we were benchmark, I was impressed how quiet it was. A plus point – working in an office and not hearing a laptop sound as if it’s a Boeing 737-800 going to take off the runway.

The Software

ASUS has outshined others by including applications that can heavily benefit in the workspace – and the two noteworthy apps that come pre-installed are ExpertWidget, ExpertMeet and ExpertPanel. Starting with the ExpertWidget, it’s a simple and straightforward app that allows you to customize your hotkeys based on your preferences. I like this one a lot.

Then there’s the ExpertPanel, which mimics a windows quick panel on the right to give access to tools Mic, Screen Recorder, Conference Call mode and ExpertMeet centric features which we will talk about next – because if ASUS made this app a standalone app and sold it separately, I know I would purchase it.

The ExpertMeet app gives you access to three features – AI Meeting Minutes where you can record something and let the app do a summary/minutes for you. There’s the AI Translated Subtitles, which is a pretty good tool for meetings where it shows a transcript and can be translated on the fly.

And finally, the watermark feature – which is my favourite, gives you the option to show information when you get into a video call on the screen – which can be customized and then in situations where you don’t want important information to be leaked, you can use the screen watermark to watermark the entire display.

Rather than selling gimmicks via bloatware, ASUS took the right direction to make these features that can be beneficial to an organization in every way possible.

The Security

On the security front, which is a crucial factor for business laptops – ASUS knew what they were doing and equipped the laptop with the right protocols. Obviousl,y with Windows 11, users will now have TPM 2.0 for a tamper-proof experience but on top of that, ASUS has engineered a commercial grade BIOS that’s compliant with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) SP 800-155 – which has the right guidelines to help organizations manage cybersecurity risks and keep data secure.

This NIST-compliant BIOS gets 5 years of security updates which is a good thing as it protects the laptop from threats we have yet to witness or experience. One thing I am not a fan of the security part is the 1-year free McAfee+ Premium membership, which means little to me. The laptop has a fingerprint sensor with a FIDO2 security key – which means, better biometric security and less cost-associated issues.

As for the Rest

The Display

The 16:10 aspect ratio display of the ASUS ExpertBook P5 is something I appreciate a lot – as opposed to the P1’s 16:9 aspect ratio – which feels very dated and cramped while using. Again, that laptop is designed for a different reason. The P5 houses a 14” 2.5K Anti-glare display.

The 400 nits brightness on this display is decent enough to get work done on and since it does have an anti-glare display, which helps with “eliminating” the glare, you are looking at a comfortable display to use. The colours are nice to look at and while you may not use this display for editing and such – it is still a very good colour-accurate display to get some of those work sorted – like in Canva for instance.

On the top of the display, it houses a camera with Windows Hello – and you get a physical privacy shutter which I prefer more over the electronic ones which can be tampered with.

Keyboard, Trackpad and Ports

The 1.5mm key travel capable keyboard is extremely comfortable to type on with no issues whatsoever and it’s all properly sized and you have all the necessary keys. The right Control key is gone for a while now, and replacing it is the Copilot key. After all, this is a Copilot+ capable laptop – so when features like Recall and such were to make it to the Expertbook – it is going to be an amazing laptop to use for work.

For those who tend to rely on their external mouse, and if you happen to forget it – worry not as the trackpad you see on the P5 is huge and very nice to use with proper tracking accuracy and responsiveness – which is a key factor for a good trackpad.

The modern-day requires modern solutions and the ports on the ASUS ExpertBook P5 are properly future-proofed – gone are those legacy ports and over here we have 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 2x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C, an Audio Combo jack and an HDMI 2.1 port. There’s a Kensington Nano Security Slot for companies or institutions to tie down the laptop to their setup and keep it safe.

Conclusion

The ASUS Expertbook P5 is a heavily customizable business laptop as the configuration we reviewed is just one of the options you can opt for. Despite that, we were very happy with what we got to review and it’s safe to say that ASUS is serious about making an impact with the right business-centric laptop and that’s what the ExpertBook P5 is all about. If I had to deploy a bunch of laptops to get my SME-type business up and running, I would be looking at the right candidate after all.

Price starts at RM 6,859 – which is a relatively steep price to pay but a good work laptop is an investment – and so is this one. The best part: it comes with a 3-year international warranty, a 3-year battery warranty and a first year with a Perfect Warranty that lets you do a replacement in cases of unfortunate events.

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