However I have heard it is a pain in the ass to repair, and replacement parts are scarce.
Have not had the need to repair, but I was astonished it shipped with brackets and FPC cables for the second drive. Here is a link to the service manual https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Customer_self_repair_guide/X712EA_Cust...
How long is the battery life (typically with normal load)?
When I am on batteries, I am using the system to diagnose embedded systems. This includes the use of USB to serial converters and serial terminal emulators. I do embedded systems development with jtag programming tools for uploading code to microcontrollers. I also use network tools such as wireshark. This includes the continuous use of WiFi, and the display of multiple video streams generated by our systems. In this sort of operation, I get about six hours if I start at 100% and take the batteries all the way down. I try not to do that. I prefer to set charge limits to 80% and cycle to not deeper than 20%. Eric