ASUS ExpertBook B5: Big, Lightweight & Reliable Business Laptop

Another day, another ExpertBook notebook to look at. Today, ASUS lent us their newest addition to their business laptops, the ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED. This is their second 16-inch to be released under the ExpertBook branding and is targeted towards the commercial industry.

Design & Specification

I’ll never get tired of the sleek minimalist design of all ExpertBook laptops and the B5 OLED is no exception. This 16-inch machine weighs only 1.65 kilogram, just 500 grams heavier than my ROG Zephyrus G14. Comparing this to the B6 Flip that I reviewed a couple of days ago, the B5 OLED is noticeably lighter and I had no problems carrying this even for an extended period. But don’t be fooled with its weight as it is also supposed to be durable with its Magnesium-Aluminum alloy construction.
Specs wise, this is my first time handling an all Intel setup. Powered by Intel® Core™ i5-1240P processor paired with Intel® Arc™ A350M Graphics, this machine should be able to handle most work-related tasks easily. This has an 8 GB on-board memory with an additional SODIMM slot for future upgrades that supports up to 32 GB of DDR5 memory. My loan unit came with 512GB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 4.0 SSD from Samsung. One thing that I appreciate with bigger laptops is the ability to upgrade it as compared to compact laptops where everything is soldered together.
As with most ASUS ExpertBook notebooks, security and durability has been the key selling points for these commercial based laptops thus the B5 OLED is equipped with security features like TPM 2.0, fingerprint login, facial recognition, and physical security like kensington lock and webcam privacy shield. It is also torture-tested and passes the MIL-STD 810H military grade certification ensuring your laptop will likely to survive within those accidental bumps and drops

Display

I would say this over and over again, OLED panels are the next best when it comes to having a good display. Out of the box, you’ll notice how vibrant and rich the colors are while having deep blacks when watching videos. Using my calibration tool, the B5 OLED was able to reach 100% both for sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamut while getting 96% for AdobeRGB meaning you can even use this for those creative contents that require color accurate results. Brightness is similar to its specs at 400 nits, good enough even when used outdoors.
I would also like to add that this has slimmer bezels as compared to the B6 Flip which gives a more premium look.

Connectivity & Upgradeability

First thing you’ll notice here is that it doesn’t have a barrel port for its charger but instead rely on the Thunderbolt 4 Type-C for its charging. I personally liked it as I can switch around different chargers but some might be bummed out as this means that you’ll be sacrificing one Thunderbolt port when the battery drops down. Besides the two Thunderbolt 4, we have 2 USB Type-A ports — one on each side, a full sized HDMI port, an gigabit ethernet, combo audio jack, a microSD slot and lastly a kensington lock. This should be more than enough for most use cases but I do wish they turn the microSD slot to a full size one and an additional Type-A port would be nice too.
As a business owner, you want to maximize your assets for as long as possible and thankfully ASUS included extra SODIMM and M.2 storage slots to accommodate future upgrades down the line.

Keyboard & Trackpad

Layout is almost identical with the B6 Flip together with its other features like being spill-resistant and backlit. Though I do like typing here better, as key presses have more tactility to it, and my wrist feels more comfortable due to its tilted position thanks to its ErgoLift feature. Trackpad is also a big improvement over the previous laptop. This B5 OLED has a huge trackpad comparable even to those seen in Macbooks. It feels solidly built and the overall experience is actually great.

Camera & Speakers

Let’s start with its audio first; this laptop, while not having the best audio quality, has loud speakers, perfect for casual entertainment and even clear enough for those zoom calls. Webcam is still identical, with passable quality but I do think ASUS should upgrade already especially those under their commercial notebooks as these users tend to use their webcam more.

Benchmarks

The variant that I have here is only the i5 model so it might not be representative of what this laptop can actually do. But you shouldn't worry regardless as this runs Intel 12th Gen CPUs which offers a significant performance upgrade compared to previous generation processors. The Intel Arc GPU baked in this laptop is also decent for light graphical tasks and gaming but I do want to explore more on this one maybe on a separate content (Should be available soon over at Junkyard Summit YouTube channel). I did encounter an error while running the Blender benchmark as I am unable to finish the bench run regardless of what I do to troubleshoot it. Hopefully we can get a fix soon from both vendors.

Temps, Noise & Battery Life

Having a 16-inch notebook means more surface area for your heatsink thus better cooling. Idle sits around at 39°Celsius over at 30°C ambient room temp. When running Cinebench R23 for 30 minutes, the Intel i5 version of the B5 OLED manages to peak at 92°C initially and averages at 68°C thanks to the dual fan setup of this laptop. When both CPU and GPU are running, temperature reaches 75°C and 74°C respectively. Though I found it weird that we are power throttling if both are running at the same time to the point that my i5’s P-Cores only ran at 1.2Ghz. Fan noise peaks at 44 dBA when we are running at full load but is only 41 dBA when doing light tasks. Battery life is also fantastic, I was able to reach 7 hours and 20 minutes on a 1080p YouTube loop which is more than enough to last you an entire work day.

Models & Prices

Right now, you can’t buy an ExpertBook laptop just by going straight to a store. You need to select a retailer from this list and ask them first if they do have a stock. Currently, The 16-inch ExpertBook B5 OLED comes in 2 configurations, this review unit I have with an Intel i5 processor still doesn't have a final price yet but the more powerful config with an Intel i7 processor is priced at 75,995 PHP.

Conclusion

Generally I am more of a sub 14-inch laptop but surprisingly this 16-inch business notebook was able to tick most of my use cases including being lightweight, inclusion of an OLED screen and huge trackpad, good battery life, and finally upgradable memory and storage on a thin and light form factor. The only downside as always on these commercial products are the availability and the higher price point as compared to those mainstream ones. But if ever you are looking for a feature rich business notebook, then the ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED is something worthy for your consideration.