Asus ExpertBook Ultra 2026 review: Asus have solved the premium business laptop equation (HT Tech)

Quick disclaimer before I start this review: the Asus ExpertBook Ultra is probably the best Windows laptop you can buy right now if money is not a concern. This thing has almost everything you would want from a premium laptop in 2026. Powerful hardware, excellent build quality, a stunning display, crazy battery life, and a lot of useful AI features that actually make sense on a business laptop.

For the past seven years, I have tracked consumer tech through constant shifts in hardware, platforms, and the way people actually use devices. Covering everything from budget gear to flagship hardware, I focus on what readers need to know, not on buzzwords or launch cycle hype. My expertise spans gaming laptops and chairs, high-performance PCs, gaming monitors, printers, smartwatches, earphones, headphones, Bluetooth speakers, tablets, and more, with a particular emphasis on how these products hold up in daily use. Reviews, explainers, buying guides, and news pieces all share the same goal: giving readers enough detail to make confident decisions without wading through fluff. Away from deadlines, I spend a lot of time gaming and watching films and anime, which naturally filters back into the work. Performance, comfort, display quality, and sound are judged the way players and viewers experience them, not just by lab numbers, which keeps my coverage grounded in real scenarios rather than just benchmarks.

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And honestly, Asus absolutely nailed this one.

Now obviously no laptop is perfect, and this one also has a few things that could have been better, but none of them is serious enough to ruin the experience. These are more like tiny things you notice after using the laptop for a while, rather than major problems.

The ExpertBook Ultra starts at ₹2,49,000 and comes in two colours, Morn Grey and Jet Fog. The unit I got for review is the Tandem OLED version, and after using it for some time, I can easily say this is one of the most complete Windows laptops I have used in years.

Asus ExpertBook Ultra Specifications

The moment I picked the laptop out of the box, it instantly felt premium. The first thing that instantly caught my attention was the ceramic finish on the lid. It feels completely different from regular metal laptops. The texture has a soft finish that feels premium to the touch.

What surprised me even more is that Asus managed to do all this without making the laptop heavy. The regular version starts at just 0.99 kilograms, while the Tandem OLED version I tested weighs 1.09 kilograms. That is insanely light for a laptop that feels this premium and solid.

It is also extremely thin at just 10.9mm. In fact, it is so thin that Asus had to reshape the bottom panel slightly just to fit larger ports on the side.

And speaking of ports, this is one of the reasons the laptop feels so well thought out. You get two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two 10 Gbps USB ports, HDMI 2.1, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. That is a decent selection for a thin and light laptop, especially one meant for professional use. It means you are not constantly looking around for an adapter the moment you sit down to work.

The laptop is also impressively durable. Asus showed off the demo where the machine was subjected to around 100 kilos of weight, and while I was not about to repeat that test myself, the demonstration was enough to make the point. This is clearly built to handle more than just polished desk duty. It has the feel of something that can survive being tossed into a bag, opened and closed all day, and used in all kinds of work settings without drama.

The keyboard deck follows the same theme. The keycaps are colour-matched, and the overall look is neat and cohesive. I do think darker keys might have looked a little more dramatic, but even this version has a polished, professional feel that works well. The speaker grilles sit on either side of the keyboard, and the whole layout feels balanced rather than cluttered.

The trackpad is big, glass-topped, and very cleanly integrated into the deck. There are no visible edges in the usual sense, since it runs right up to the side of the chassis, and Asus has cleverly cut away the deck area to create a small lip that makes opening the lid easier. Small touch, but a useful one.

The hinge is probably the only thing that felt a little weak to me. It opens easily with one hand and goes all the way back to 160 degrees, which is nice, but the lid falls back a bit too easily when the display is opened beyond 90 degrees. Even if you pick the laptop up from the table, the lid moves back. Not a huge issue, but I think Asus should fix this up a bit in future versions.

You get up to 1400 nits of peak HDR brightness and 600 nits in SDR, which is excellent by any standard. It is also a VRR panel with a refresh range from 30Hz to 120Hz, so it can stay smooth when needed and save power when it does not. On top of that, it is VESA certified and has the Delta-E under 1, which means this panel is more than ready for professional creative work.

It is also a touchscreen, and the matte finish helps reduce reflections quite a bit. That said, the matte layer does introduce a touch of grain if you are looking too closely. In normal use, though, it is not distracting at all. Once you are watching content, it just looks fantastic. The colours pop, the brightness is excellent, and the overall experience is easily among the best you can get in a laptop this portable.

I also really like the 16:10 aspect ratio here. It gives you extra vertical space, which makes a real difference when you are working with spreadsheets, documents, timelines, or just general multitasking. It is one of those things that sounds minor until you start using it every day, and then it becomes hard to go back.

Dolby Atmos support helps with the soundstage, and while I would not call the audio class leading, it is very respectable for a machine this size. The speakers get loud, the vocals come through clearly, and watching YouTube or casual video content without headphones is honestly a good experience.

Bass is a bit limited, which is not a surprise given the chassis constraints, but clarity is strong enough that voices sound crisp and easy to follow. For work calls, meetings, streaming, or general media use, the speakers do the job very well.

The key feature here is the Turbo mode. Asus lets the chip go up to 50W TDP for short bursts, which gives it extra room to breathe when you need performance quickly. After 30 minutes, the mode automatically switches off, which is exactly how it should work. You get the burst when you need it, but you do not risk forgetting that the power mode is on and draining the battery unnecessarily.

In real-world usage, this laptop is seriously fast. You can throw pretty much any professional workload at it, and it handles everything easily. I edited a 10-minute video on DaVinci Resolve with multiple layers and effects, and the laptop barely struggled.

And thanks to all the RAM, multitasking is effortless here. You can keep dozens of Chrome tabs open, multiple apps running in the background, and the laptop still feels smooth.

Gaming is also more relevant here than it used to be on business laptops. The new Intel Arc B390 GPU is much more capable than older integrated graphics solutions, and that makes a noticeable difference. I ran Cyberpunk 2077 and Forza Horizon 5, and the laptop delivered very good results when plugged in. On battery, Forza Horizon 5 barely dropped in performance, while Cyberpunk 2077 took a bigger hit but still stayed playable at roughly 40 to 45 frames per second. That is not something you would expect from a machine like this a few years ago.

What impressed me most was how quiet the laptop stayed during normal work. In regular usage, the fans are barely audible. In Turbo mode, yes, you can hear them a little more, but they still do not become obnoxious. That is a big plus for anyone who works in quiet spaces or spends a lot of time on calls.

Heat is also managed pretty well. The keyboard stays mostly cool, although the middle section can get a bit warm during heavier loads. Even then, it never reached the kind of uncomfortable levels that make you want to stop working.

One feature I genuinely loved is the quick toolbar Asus added for settings and AI features. Instead of opening different apps for different options, you get all the important controls in one place.

And honestly, it works even better if you are using the touchscreen because everything is literally right at your fingertips. Yeah, pun intended.

The AI suite is clearly aimed at business users, meeting heavy workflows, and people who spend a lot of time in collaborative environments. AI meeting minutes and AI translated subtitles both work well in my testing. Asus does offer a subscription for the more advanced features, but the free tier already covers a lot of ground and does it locally for better privacy.

There are also screen watermark and webcam watermark features, which are exactly what they sound like. They are simple privacy tools, but they are the kind of tools that can actually matter in a professional environment. If Asus keeps adding more features to this AI layer over time, it could become one of the strongest software packages in the business laptop space.

Battery: The charger stays at home most of the time

What is honestly shocking is how Asus managed to fit a 70Wh battery inside a chassis this thin. And because of that, the battery life on this laptop is absolutely amazing.

This is the kind of machine that makes you stop thinking about the charger all the time. I was able to get more than a full day of usage from it, even with multiple browsers open and enough tabs to make the taskbar look like a row of tiny favicons. By the end of the day, there was still enough battery left to comfortably get through the first half of the next day without reaching for the wall adapter.

Charging is quick too, so even if you do need to top it up in a hurry, it is not a painful wait. For a laptop this powerful and this thin, the battery life is probably one of its biggest achievements.

And yes, it is also surprisingly good for gaming on battery, as long as you keep the settings low to medium. That is still not something most premium laptops can do well.

The small flaws are there; the hinge could be tighter, the matte layer adds a little grain, and some people may wish for even more refinement in the keyboard deck or port layout. But none of these is the kind of problems that break the experience. They are more like notes in the margin of an otherwise excellent notebook.

If you want a business laptop that feels top-tier in almost every way, the ExpertBook Ultra is very easy to recommend. It is one of those rare Windows laptops that makes the premium price feel justified, not just visible.

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