Intel’s latest Core Ultra chipset, Lunar Lake, is a direct response to Apple’s incredibly efficient and fast M3 chipsets, as well as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X and AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 series. It’s designed to power the next generation of PCs, aiming to rival the best laptops on the market. While the Lunar Lake chipset boasts a fast neural processing unit (NPU), the true measure of its success lies in battery life, an area where Intel’s previous Meteor Lake generation struggled. The Asus ExpertBook P5 (P5405) is one of the first machines to showcase Lunar Lake, and it’s targeted at the business market. We’ve already seen the Asus Zenbook S 14, another Lunar Lake laptop, and it delivers on the promise of improved efficiency. However, the ExpertBook P5 doesn’t quite live up to the hype, raising questions about the real-world performance of Lunar Lake.
The ExpertBook P5 starts at $1,100, including an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V chipset, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch QHD+ IPS display. The higher-end model, which I reviewed, costs $1,300, featuring a Core Ultra 7 258V, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. You can further expand storage with an additional M.2 slot, as my review unit had a second 1TB drive installed. These prices are attractive, especially for a business laptop, which typically command higher prices than consumer models. While we don’t have many Lunar Lake laptops to compare it to, the Zenbook S 14 is more expensive, starting at $1,399 and $1,499 for a similar configuration. The Dell XPS 14 is even pricier, starting at $1,500 and reaching over $2,000. This makes the ExpertBook P5 a compelling value proposition among Intel laptops. However, laptops powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chipsets, like the HP OmniBook X, are similarly priced.
In terms of design, the ExpertBook P5 takes a conventional approach. It’s a dark gray laptop with a silver bar housing a generic logo. The lines are minimalist, reflecting the common aesthetic in modern laptops. The Dell XPS 14, on the other hand, boasts a more modern and streamlined chassis. The Apple MacBook Pro 14, while significantly more expensive, showcases Apple’s signature meticulous design. Overall, the ExpertBook P5 is decent in terms of design, but not particularly standout. Regarding build quality, Asus highlights its durability testing, claiming it meets MIL-STD 810H military standards. While I’m sure it’s a well-built laptop, I noticed some flex in the keyboard deck and the thin lid bends easily under pressure. The XPS 14, MacBook Pro 14, HP OmniBook X, and other laptops I’ve reviewed recently feel much more rigid. When it comes to portability, the ExpertBook P5 isn’t remarkable either. It’s not exceptionally thin or light compared to other 14-inch laptops. The top and side bezels are reasonably thin, but the bottom chin is noticeably chunky. The bezels are also made of plastic, which detracts from the perceived quality. While it’s a portable machine, it’s not a primary selling point.
Perhaps the most important design aspects cater to business users. These features focus on security and reliability, such as the Asus ExpertGuardian functionality, which offers various security features at both the operating system and hardware level. The BIOS is locked down and resilient, and SafeGuard backs up work-related files to a secondary SSD, including encrypted key files. There’s also the aforementioned robustness claims, although, as mentioned, it wasn’t immediately apparent during my testing.
The keyboard features a standard island layout with black keys sporting highly visible and bold lettering with backlighting. Key spacing is ample, and the keycaps are large, but the switches feel a bit loose, requiring a lot of pressure to engage. They’re a little clunky and not my favorite keyboard. The touchpad is mechanical and large enough, but it’s also not my favorite. The button clicks are quite harsh and loud, a far cry from the better haptic touchpads found on the XPS 14 and MacBooks. The lack of a touch display option, while not a deal-breaker for many, is something I miss.
Connectivity is solid, offering a mix of modern and legacy ports. This is typical for many 14-inch laptops, though some machines like the XPS 14 have fewer ports. Businesses generally demand more ports, so the inclusion of extras makes sense here. Wireless connectivity is up-to-date with options for Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7. However, there’s no cellular connectivity, which is sometimes offered in business-class machines. The absence of an SD card reader is also a downside. The webcam is a 1080p version, which has become the new standard, and provides sufficient image quality for video conferencing. An infrared camera is included for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition, along with a fingerprint reader for enhanced business-class security.
The star of the show is the new 17-watt Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, an 8-core (four Performance and four Low Power Efficient cores), 8-thread chipset. It’s part of the Lunar Lake generation, or Core Ultra Series 2, depending on how you want to refer to it. The main goal of this chipset is to close the gap with Qualcomm and Apple in terms of efficiency while maintaining strong performance. This is a challenging feat considering the strong competition from the Qualcomm Snapdragon X and Apple’s M3 chipsets. The Core Ultra 7 258V is more closely aligned with the Meteor Lake U-series, which runs at 15 watts and, in the Core Ultra 7 155U, has 12 cores and 14 threads. On paper, it’s less powerful than the 28-watt Core Ultra 7 155H that sports 16 cores and 22 threads. Then, there’s the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite and 10-core Snapdragon X Plus, the 12-core/24-thread AMD Ryzen 9 HX 370, and the 8-core CPU/10-core GPU Apple M3 to contend with. All of these chipsets are primarily aimed at demanding productivity users, as their integrated graphics aren’t ideal for creators or gamers. In our comparison group, only the Asus ProArt PX13 has a dedicated GPU, which shows up in the 3DMark Steel Nomad Light benchmark. Even as an entry-level GPU, it significantly outperforms the field. But in thin and light laptops like these, we’re most concerned about CPU performance. Here, the ExpertBook P5 and the Zenbook S 14 with the Core Ultra 7 258V fall somewhere between the Core Ultra U and H Meteor Lake chipsets. This is most evident in the Handbrake test, which is entirely CPU-intensive, where the ExpertBook P5 lagged behind the H-series in the Zenbook 14 Q425. While Lunar Lake offers a boost in single-core performance, multi-core performance is lacking. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 370 is a much faster chipset across the board, while the Apple M3 leads in single-core performance and is also fast in multi-core. For most users, the difference in performance won’t be noticeable. However, the ExpertBook P5 doesn’t stand out in any way. It’s worth noting that the Lunar Lake NPU is rated at up to 48 tera operations per second (TOPS), compared to Meteor Lake at just 10 TOPS. This meets the Copilot+ 40 TOPS NPU requirement, as do Qualcomm’s and AMD’s latest chipsets. However, we lack a consistent way to measure NPU performance, and in any case, NPUs are best suited for more efficient on-device AI performance, while dedicated GPUs remain significantly faster.
As we’ve seen, all these laptops are more than fast enough. The real question is how efficient they are. This is where the real battle lies, and Windows laptop makers have struggled to catch up with Apple’s incredibly efficient machines built around Apple Silicon. Lunar Lake is intended to bridge the gap, at least until Apple’s M4 chipset arrives. Unfortunately, the ExpertBook P5 isn’t the best indicator of Lunar Lake’s efficiency. It has a reasonable battery capacity at 63 watt-hours and an IPS display, compared to the Zenbook S 14 with the same chipset, an OLED display, and a slightly larger 72 watt-hour battery. Nothing specific to the laptop itself seems to hold it back, so I’d expect similar battery life when compared to the Zenbook S 14. However, the ExpertBook P5 wasn’t as impressive as the Zenbook S 14. In our web browsing test, it lasted about half as long, and it trailed by about two hours in our video looping test. In our Cinebench test, which measures battery life under heavy CPU load, it also fell behind the Zenbook S 14. While the Zenbook gave the MacBook Air M3 a run for its money, the ExpertBook P5 didn’t. In fact, the Zenbook 14 Q425, an outlier among Intel Meteor Lake laptops, performed much better. Perhaps Asus will address this through firmware updates, and the results will improve. But until then, the ExpertBook P5 is very disappointing.
The ExpertBook P5 offers only one display option, a QHD+ (2560 x 1600) IPS panel running at a blazing 144Hz. I’m not entirely sure why the refresh rate is so high, considering it’s not a gaming laptop, but I suppose it contributes to a smoother Windows 11 experience. According to my colorimeter, the display is indicative of the excellent IPS panels that manufacturers have been using for years. I rarely encounter a laptop with a bad IPS display, even compared to the excellent OLED and mini-LED options available. This one was bright at 482 nits, boasted good colors at 99% of sRGB, 77% of AdobeRGB, and 79% of DCI-P3 with accuracy reaching a Delta-E (color difference) of 1.18 (1.0 or less is considered excellent). Contrast was very good at 1,510:1. Sure, the Zenbook S 14’s OLED display had much wider colors at 100% of sRGB, 96% of AdobeRGB, and 100% of DCI-P3, but its accuracy was unusually poor for OLED with a Delta-E of 4.92. It was also not as bright at 313 nits. The bottom line is that the ExpertBook P5’s display is more than good enough for productivity users. It won’t satisfy creators or media consumers, which is where OLED reigns supreme. But for most people, it’s a solid display. Audio is delivered by two downward-firing speakers. They’re adequate for watching a YouTube video or hearing notifications, but that’s about it. I recommend using headphones.
The ExpertBook P5 proves that not all laptops are created equal. We were quite impressed with the Zenbook S 14. While not as fast as we hoped, it offered strong battery life, a high-quality build, and a fantastic OLED display. I was optimistic that the ExpertBook P5 would share these qualities, but with a focus on the business market. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. For starters, the build quality simply isn’t what it should be. In particular, the lid feels fragile. The ExpertBook P5 is reasonably affordable, but this isn’t acceptable. Battery life was also disappointing, which is the whole point of Intel’s new chipset. I can’t recommend this laptop.
