Asus ExpertBook P3 review: A better Copilot+ PC for work

Best Prices Today: Asus ExpertBook P3

The 14-inch Asus ExpertBook P3 is a work-focused Copilot+ PC that delivers a surprisingly nice body — all-metal build quality, a snappy keyboard, and unusually good speakers — with AMD internals that deliver serious performance. For many workers, the serious multithreaded CPU performance here will be more important than a laptop that could theoretically last 24 hours away from a power outlet.

Asus delivered an excellent package here, and I’m a fan… mostly. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the display on my review model, and the webcam is a weak point. But the overall package is superior to the average business laptop and far superior to the average Copilot+ PC when it comes to CPU performance.

Asus ExpertBook P3: Specs

The Asus ExpertBook PM3406CKA is a business laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI processor. Our review model came with an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 processor, Radeon 860M graphics, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB solid-state drive. Asus listed it at a price of $1,479 on its website, but it was on sale for less, $1,229 on Amazon at the time the review was being completed.

While AMD’s Ryzen AI hardware can’t quite deliver the battery life you’ll find on Qualcomm Snapdragon X or Intel Lunar Lake hardware, it does deliver an incredible combination of traditional x86 hardware (unlike Qualcomm Snapdragon X), strong multithreaded CPU performance (unlike Intel Lunar Lake), and a Copilot+ PC-ready NPU (unlike Intel’s other hardware). Battery life is still solid. It’s just not the 20+ hour runtimes I’ve seen on Intel Lunar Lake and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus hardware.

At the time of the review, Asus was selling models of this machine with an AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 CPU and AMD Radeon 820M graphics starting at $949.

• Model: Asus ExpertBook PM3406CKA
• CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 7 350
• Memory: 32GB DDR5 RAM (5600 MT/s)
• Graphics/GPU: AMD Radeon 860M
• NPU: AMD NPU (up to 50 TOPS)
• Display: 14-inch 1920×1200 IPS display with up to 60Hz refresh rate
• Storage: 1 TB PCIe Gen4 SSD
• Webcam: 1080p camera
• Connectivity: 2x USB Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen2), 2x USB Type-A (USB 3.2 Gen1), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x combo audio jack, 1x RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet, 1x Kensington Nano lock slot
• Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, Gigabit Ethernet
• Biometrics: Fingerprint sensor and IR camera for Windows Hello
• Battery capacity: 70 Watt-hours
• Dimensions: 12.31 x 8.94 x 0.71 inches
• Weight: 3.6 pounds
• MSRP: $1,479 as tested

This is a robust laptop that can deliver impressive performance with reasonable battery life and at a fair price.

Asus ExpertBook P3: Design and build quality

The Asus ExpertBook P3 has an all-metal chassis. Asus calls it a “robust aluminum build” and says it meets US MIL-STD 810H testing standards for performing in difficult conditions. While my review workflow doesn’t include dropping laptops or subjecting them to sandstorms, this machine did feel incredibly robust.

Design-wise, you’re getting a silver chassis with a black keyboard and a black bezel around the display. The beveled edges at the edge of the laptop’s keyboard tray are shinier. It looks and feels like a very rugged, very professional business laptop.

This 14-inch all-metal build and 3.6-pound chassis feels well-designed. Even the hinge feels carefully designed: Unlike many laptops, I can open the laptop’s display with just a single hand. The hinge keeps the display nicely in place, and I don’t have to use two hands to open the machine.

Asus ExpertBook P3: Keyboard and trackpad

The Asus ExpertBook P3 has a chiclet keyboard with a 1.5mm key travel depth. It feels snappy and responsive, and it was a pleasure to type on. The white backlight makes it readable in low-light conditions.

The large trackpad also feels excellent. The click-down action has a particularly nice tactile feel — it quickly springs back after you click it down. The surface was smooth and responsive. I prefer haptic trackpads, but this is quite a nice mechanical trackpad.

Asus ExpertBook P3: Display and speakers

The Asus ExpertBook P3 has a 14-inch IPS display with a 1920×1200 resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate.  That’s a reasonable resolution, but the refresh rate is just average. The big problem is the brightness. With just 300 nits of maximum brightness, there’s no way around it: This isn’t a particularly impressive display.

That’s common for work-focused PCs, which tend to go for displays that deliver longer battery life and prioritize other specs over a visual “wow” factor. This display does have a nice anti-glare coating, which makes it more readable in challenging lighting conditions. For people using this PC on the go, the display will probably be the biggest drawback: More brightness would be a real upgrade.

This laptop’s speakers sound unusually good for a business machine in this price range. There’s more bass than I would expect, they get plenty loud, and the high notes can get bright and crisp in songs like Steely Dan’s Aja, an audiophile standard benchmark.

Asus ExpertBook P3: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

The Asus ExpertBook P3 has a 1080p webcam, and it wasn’t particularly impressive. The image quality seems grainy and washed out. On a snowy day in New England, the daylight wasn’t enough to provide a crisp picture, and neither was my office’s overhead lighting. The webcam is the one component here that feels like it doesn’t quite match the quality of the rest of this machine.

This machine does have a physical webcam shutter switch, which is always nice to see.

This laptop’s built-in microphone setup sounds surprisingly good, too. The audio quality of my voice was deeper and richer than it normally is on the average laptop I review. I’d be happy using this to speak in online meetings, although I wish the webcam delivered a better image quality.

The ExpertBook has an IR camera for Windows Hello facial recognition sign-ins, as well as a fingerprint reader built into the power button at the top-right corner of the keyboard. You can use whichever biometric method you like.

Asus ExpertBook P3: Connectivity

The Asus ExpertBook P3 packs an excellent selection of ports. On the left, you’ll find two USB Type-C ports, a USB Type-A port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a combo audio jack. On the right, this machine has a second USB Type-A port, an RJ-45 Ethernet jack, and a Kensington Nano lock slot.

That’s an excellent selection of ports, including Ethernet, but be aware there’s no SD card reader here. Also, this machine charges via USB Type-C, so you’ll always be plugging the charging cable into the left. I wish there was a USB Type-C port on each side of the machine, though. The USB Type-C ports are USB 3.2 Gen2, so there’s no Thunderbolt or USB4 here.

The Asus ExpertBook P3 supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, so you have the latest bleeding-edge wireless hardware. Combined with Gigabit Ethernet, this machine is ready for all sorts of network setups on the go.

Asus ExpertBook P3: Performance

The Asus ExpertBook P3 performed well in day-to-day productivity tasks — web browsers, office suites, communication tools, and the type of Windows desktop apps most workers would be running on laptops like this one.

We ran the Asus ExpertBook P3 through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs.

First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With a PCMark 10 score of 7,636, the Asus ExpertBook P3 exceeded the performance you’d get from Intel Lunar Lake-powered Copilot+ PCs.

Next, we run Cinebench R20. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage.

With a multithreaded Cinebench R20 score of 6,213, the Asus ExpertBook P3 and its eight cores with 16 threads exceeded Intel’s eight-core Lunar Lake hardware, which is focused on efficiency and not multithreaded CPU performance.

We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load.

The Asus ExpertBook P3 completed the encode process in an average of 974 seconds, or just over 16 minutes. That’s an excellent score, especially for a Copilot+ PC laptop.

Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t a gaming laptop, but it’s still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3Dmark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance.

With a 3DMark Time Spy score of 3,037, the AMD Radeon 860M graphics here just aren’t as powerful as what Intel offers in Lunar Lake systems. However, they’re nowhere near the bottom-of-the-barrel older “Intel Graphics” GPUs that many lower-end laptops are currently shipping with.

Overall, performance was excellent for a machine like this one. If you prioritize graphics performance, however, you’ll want a machine with a different GPU (likely a discrete GPU).

Asus ExpertBook P3: Battery life

The Asus ExpertBook P3 has a 70 Watt-hour battery. Combined with AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 hardware, I’d expect to see decent battery life for a laptop, but not maximum ultraportable battery life. And that’s exactly what the benchmarks showed.

To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks, which meant we had to crank this laptop’s display brightness up. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this.

The Asus ExpertBook P3 lasted an average of 768 minutes, which is 12.8 hours. Depending on your workload and your screen brightness, you may be able to get a full workday of battery life out of it, but just barely. The battery life is okay, but battery life is a trade-off you make when you choose AMD Ryzen AI hardware. They offer decent power efficiency, but you get more performance than you do with Intel Lunar Lake and Qualcomm Snapdragon X hardware, and you pay for it with higher power consumption.

Asus ExpertBook P3: Conclusion

The Asus ExpertBook P3 is a great laptop combining an all-metal build quality and “AI PC” hardware that delivers a combination of solid CPU performance and an NPU that can drive Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC features. On top of that, the price — $1,200 to $1,400 or so, depending on the sale pricing — is an excellent value for a machine that comes with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB solid-state drive.

The main downside here is the display: Many people will want something brighter and perhaps higher-resolution. The other downside here is battery life: Chips from Intel and Qualcomm will deliver much longer battery life at the cost of top-end CPU performance, and that will be a better fit for workers with light workflows. But this is a robust laptop that can deliver impressive performance with reasonable battery life and at a fair price. It’s a great laptop.