Question 1

Does the ASUS 15.6" K501UX-WH74 have a backlit keyboard?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it has a backlit keyboard. You can turn it off with fn/f3 and turn it on with fn/f4, so you can choose which way you like it. I tested it to make sure!

Question 2

Is the bottom of the laptop aluminum or plastic?

Accepted Answer

Plastic. 1 whole plastic, so if you want to see whats inside you need to remove the whole bottom. It's not so easy to remove on your first time but if you can get the technique the. It will be a breeze on your next tey. 
You really need to be carefull coz it is a possibility you might break the bottom cover while removing it.

Question 3

Can you add a TB hardrive to it in the future?

Accepted Answer

There is a 2.5" slot for an additional SATA hard disk. The disk MUST be 7mm in height, so purchase carefully - I'm sure there are 1TB options available. I would strongly consider adding another SSD, however, as a mechanical drive will be quite slow and consume the battery much more quickly than an SSD. I have added a cheap 512Mb SSD to mine and it is an excellent solution to the limited storage space.

Question 4

I own this laptop and the fan is very loud, the noise of the fan is unbearable when playing games. Can you please tell if anyone send this laptop to Asus to get the loud fan noise issue fixed?

Accepted Answer

I've just dealt with it. It's really fast so I've been happy with it. It does get annoying though, so I completely understand.

Question 5

Hi,

How is the battery life on this laptop? I'll mainly be using it for programming and number crunching. How does it compare to other laptops?

Thanks

Accepted Answer

Using it right now on battery.   On balanced mode, I have run 3-4 hours without a charge.   Probably could go longer with power saver mode.  Battery is built in and cannot be swapped in the field.   Power input is easy 19.5 volt standard connector, so any universal charger will work.  I leave a power supply at work and one at home.

Question 6

Does this have a backlit keyboard?  Does it come in a 8 GB RAM with 256 GB SSD configuration?

Accepted Answer

My keyboard backlights nicely.  I only found it in the 16GB/256GB configuration.  So far it has worked fine.  Some notifications are too small to read due to the very high res screen.  Mostly, things seem to work fine.

Question 7

I work with a lot of digital artwork and software development programs. Is this laptop capable of handling the workload required for using programs such as Photoshop or visual studio?

Accepted Answer

I am a photographer and do a ton of photo editing.  i would say get yourself a very powerful desktop to do your artwork.  A laptop, especially a windows 10 laptop, as good as the hardware on this one is, and I do have this laptop, will never give you as good an experience as a good desktop for this kind of work.  I do all my photo work on my desktop.  A laptop for editing work would be a waste of money.  That is my opinion.

Question 8

Is it possible to upgrade the memory on this laptop or is it soldered to the board?

Accepted Answer

It's soldered, the only thing I've been able to upgrade was storage...it has a complete empty slot(secondary slot) for another ssd drive so I'm running a PNY 512GB as my secondary drive and I kept the 256gb drive that came with it...SUPER FAST! I highly recommend installing a second drive yourself...look it up on YouTube...it's super easy and we'll worth the work and experience!

Question 9

1.  Can this Asus K501UX  be opened and have a 500 GB SSD (or 1 TB SSD)  replace the 256 SSD the unit comes with?  If yes, how hard will this to do.

2.  Can the ram be increased beyond the 16GB the unit comes with?

Accepted Answer

I tried opening it from behind but I don't have small tools. However, I did in fact searched online and confirm that there is an empty space for additional memory expansion. Please look into Paul's Hardware YouTube channel explaining about SSD sizes. Apparently 3" isn't really 3" so be aware of this. RAM expansion? No. This is what your gonna get. MoBo won't allow it. It's a small form factor. 16gb is good enough (at least for me). I have my rig that I built and that one is myain PC (32gb RAM and storage) I try to keep this laptop as clean as I can possibly can. It is a mobile desktop after all. Not a powerhouse like my custom PC at home.

Hope this helped in some way.

Question 10

Is this touch screen?

Accepted Answer

This is not a touch screen.

Questions & Answers