Asus ExpertBook B9 is built for on-the-go business

The Asus ExpertBook B9 is a lightweight business laptop with long battery life that’s built for computing on-the-go.

Asus ExpertBook B9 (B9450) laptop.

The Asus ExpertBook B9 (B9450) is a lightweight business laptop with long battery life that’s built for computing on-the-go. But I wouldn’t call it a powerhouse performance wise.

The B9 is chockablock with good points that you’ll appreciate if you are an out-and-about business person. It’s light, thanks to its magnesium-lithium alloy chassis. It weighs 870g or 995g depending on the model, is easy to hold in one hand and sits on your lap.

It boots up quickly and wakes up in an instant, has both Windows Hello fingerprint and face recognition that offers almost instant access. Getting it out and getting going takes hardly any time.

Despite being a thin and small laptop, it has a great variety of ports around its edges which put rivals to shame. There’s two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports that support up to 40 Gb per second data transfer. They also charge other devices. You won’t need to take around adaptors because there is an USB Type-A Gen 2 port as well.

There is a full-size HDMI port for adding a separate display, an audio combo jack, Kensington lock slot, and a LAN over micro HDMI port. Not only can multiple HDMI devices share their internet connection, you can transfer data and vision on the one cable. Asus supplies a micro HDMI to LAN cable in the box to aid this.

It’s outstanding that a laptop this small and lightweight can offer such feature rich connectivity.

As I said, battery life is great. The B9 lasted 15 hours 26 minutes on a single charge playing 1080p video at 50 per cent brightness (c 150 nits brightness). You could watch movies on this laptop flying from Sydney to Los Angeles, one day, whenever that again becomes possible.

It has a 14-inch LED-backlit, full HD 1080p IPS display with antiglare. The screen has a matt rather than glossy appearance, with a thin 4mm bezel around the sides. The 16:9 wide-screen aspect ratio is well suited to watching movies, but for productivity I prefer the squarer 3:2 screens; you can see deeper into a web page, a spreadsheet or your mail inbox.

Nevertheless, I managed to get lots of work done on the B9 thanks to its excellent full-sized keyboard with 1.5mm key travel. The keyboard is firm, but you don’t feel you are typing on concrete.

The B9 has a large touchpad: 127 x 65mm, and Asus has included its unique NumberPad 2.0 feature. Press the top right-hand side, and a numeric number pad lights up that you can use like a calculator. Luckily, the touchpad still functions as a touchpad even with the number pad active. It manages to distinguish between the prodding of a number, and using your finger to swipe across the touchpad.

Asus ExpertBook B9450 laptop computer

The ExpertBook is not a 2-in-1 device, and the display is not a touchscreen. But it comes in different configurations. You can choose an Intel Core i7 10510 or Core i5 10210 processor. These are new-age processors that offer energy-efficiency, hence the long battery life. But they’re not the fastest processors around.

You get integrated Intel UHD graphics 620, but there is no option for a separate graphics card for extended graphics capability. You have the choice of 8GB or 16GB LDDR3 memory. Note this is older memory than DDR4.

The test bearer out these limitations. My review laptop has a Core i7 processor.

The graphics (OPenGL) test of Cinebench R15 returned 45.44 frames per second which equates to basic gaming suitability. The CPU score of 323cb is at the lower end of performance for new 10th generation Core i7 processors.

On Novabench, the B9 scored 1532, with a CPU score of 828 (24th percentile) and GPU score of 211 (44th percentile). In Novabench baseline comparisons, it’s somewhere below a mid-level gaming PC.

There are other features worth mentioning, such as a privacy shutter on the 720p front facing camera, Wi-Fi 6 support, Bluetooth 5, a TPM2.0 embedded security chip for hardware security, and a choice of a 512GB, 1TB and 2TB solid state drive for storage.

There are two stereo speakers underneath the keyboard on each side with Harman-Kardon audio. Sound is clear but soft and lacking bass.

Despite my reservations, this still remains a great laptop for basic business functionality on the go. Start-up is fast, there are plenty of ports, the keyboard is a joy to use, and it’s lightweight with long battery life. But you need something else if you are a creative type with a need for advanced graphics capability.

These are expensive laptops for this class of device. Prices start at $2999 for the Core i5 model and at $3449 for Core i7 but shop around.