Asus Zenbook 14 Pro OLED review

Greatest Costs Immediately: Asus Zenbook 14 Professional OLED

$2,299.00

The Zenbook 14 Professional OLED is a compact pc that, regardless of its small dimensions, packs numerous efficiency beneath the hood.

However how does it fare in real-world utilization? Right here’s our full overview.

Efficiency

The upper tier configuration of the 14 Professional OLED options an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and a GeForce RTX 4070 GPU and may thus problem beefy gaming laptops in pure brute drive. The mannequin I’ve for testing is extra modest and has a less complicated Core i7-13700H and RTX 4060 as a substitute. It additionally has 16 gigabytes of RAM as a substitute of 32.

My overview unit isn’t essentially the most highly effective configuration, however that’s nonetheless numerous energy for such a small laptop computer. I can simply fireplace up Adobe Premiere Professional and lower or color grade 4K movie in a number of layers, browse picture libraries at lightning velocity, and twist and switch 3D objects in Blender. You could need to keep away from being overly formidable and making an attempt to do all three without delay because of the restricted RAM. However even that’s attainable.

You’ll be able to play video games in your pc even when that’s not what it’s primarily constructed for. With its little-more-than-2k decision and 120 Hz frequency, the graphics card isn’t actually fitted to sustaining a gradual 60Hz in video games, however decrease the ambition and determination and even heavy titles can run easily. For some time anyway, the pc tends to throttle down efficiency considerably throughout longer intervals of most load. Not stunning contemplating the small house for cooling and followers.

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However just for the graphics card. You’ll be able to push the processor for hours with none lack of efficiency. Nevertheless, the underside of the pc will get scorching shortly, so it’s finest to maintain it on a desk and never in your lap. It solely will get noticeably scorching on the highest of the keyboard when the graphics card is working at full velocity.

Design & construct

The pc could also be compact, however it’s not significantly skinny and light-weight. It’s virtually two centimetres at its thickest level and weighs 3.63lbs – round 1.65kg. Its relatively angular form additionally makes it much less snug to hold round. The chassis is strong matte aluminium with darkish surfaces, and the edges and again are lined with giant cooling grids. There may be nonetheless room for the anticipated set of connections, Twin Thunderbolt 4 USB-C, a USB-A , HDMI and a headphone jack.

Uncommon to see on this small format is that it has a separate charging port as a substitute of getting energy from one of many Sort-C ports. However then once more, this can be a efficiency pc with efficiency {hardware}. The charger is a hefty block, as thick as the pc, and weighs an additional couple of kilos to hold round. Three, when you embody the wall plug cable.

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Keyboard & trackpad

The “14” within the title stands for 14 inches in display screen dimension, however it’s a bit greater than most 14 inchers, with a 14.5 inch floor. That additionally makes it a couple of millimetres wider than a regular 13.3 or 14-inch. This may increasingly appear marginal, and for essentially the most half it’s. Nevertheless, it leaves a little bit extra room for the keyboard, which, regardless of having margins on the edges, has full-sized, properly-spaced keys. It’s additionally very effectively constructed. Buttons have distinctive high quality mechanics and the stroke top is palpable.

The facility button is within the high row between Print Display screen and Delete. There’s a sure threat of unintentional presses, however with a barely smarter placement than in different computer systems and with larger stress resistance, Asus avoids the most important dangers. The backlighting isn’t greater than half-strength within the keyboard, however it’s sufficient to comfortably see the keys in low gentle.

Beneath is a big mouse pad with good management. A recessed ring within the high left nook offers particular controls that emulate a dial management, permitting you to “flip” it together with your fingertip.

The Asus Dial function, which pops up a spherical menu on the display screen after I faucet the “dial”, could be linked to controls corresponding to quantity and brightness, and in addition management some options in Microsoft Workplace and Adobe Artistic Cloud. You can too construct your individual menu wheels with optionally available settings and options within the system.

Though it’s frustratingly difficult to do. After years of this function in numerous Zenbook and ProArt computer systems, it’s a disgrace that it hasn’t been developed extra and which you can’t get direct help for sliders in additional applications. It’s as much as third-party builders to combine, and that’s apparently not interesting sufficient.

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Show & audio system

With OLED within the title, it’s in fact OLED within the display screen. Right here, you get a pleasant, sharp and vibrant OLED display screen with all the nice qualities that it brings. The decision of 2880 x 1800 pixels makes it so detailed that I’ve to lean actually shut to tell apart particular person pixels.

You get good distinction all the way down to the smallest pixel, intense colors with glorious management and color accuracy, and even quick response instances whenever you need to play video games. The color gamut goes as much as full DCI-P3 and sRGB, and it’s so near full AdobeRGB that you simply don’t discover the lacking couple of p.c.

That’s for the usual picture, and reaches a brightness of as much as about 350 nits. If you’d like the very best high quality, enabling the HDR mode within the Home windows 11 settings boosts this to only over 500 nits. Color accuracy is compromised, although you’ll be able to customise this to your liking and add a blue gentle filter.

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That is performed within the My Asus software, the place you even have controls for community optimisation, keyboard settings, battery charging and followers. Then there’s ProArt Creator Hub, the place you’ll be able to management the identical followers and a handful of different settings, in addition to professionally calibrate the display screen you probably have a suitable calibrator.

Asus ought to take into account merging these two applications – it will get complicated to have so many separate apps.

Properly-sounding if not spectacularly good audio system sit on the underside of the pc. They supply clear bass and treble and a mid-range effectively suited to voice replica. It is probably not a hi-fi expertise for enjoying music, however it’s acceptable for many issues.

Small however good microphones within the pc present glorious noise-free voice, and the 1080p webcam is nice sufficient. The latter is all the time a little bit of a lottery in Asus laptops, however right here it delivers a largely good image, with some noise in darkish environments however in any other case nothing important to complain about.

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Verdict

Regardless of its compact dimension, the Zenbook 14 Professional OLED can do just about every part. That features enhancing pictures and movies, compiling code or manipulaing 3D fashions. You’ll be able to even play most video games with out subject.

However do you need to do every part on a 14-inch display screen which must be linked to the facility so typically? That’s the fact right here – the 14 Professional OLED can’t carry out at its finest for greater than a few hours.

Nevertheless, there’s no doubting this can be a very good laptop computer with loads of nice options.

Specs

Processor: Intel Core i9-13700H
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060
Reminiscence: 16GB DDR5
Storage: 1TB SSD, slot for SD card
Shows: 14.5 inch shiny OLED, 2880×1800 pixels, 120 Hz
Webcam: 1080p, separate IR sensor for Home windows Howdy face unlock
Connections: 2 Thunderbolt 4, USB 3 Gen 2 Sort A, HDMI, 3.5mm audio jacj
Wi-fi: Wi-Fi 6e, Bluetooth 5.3
Working system: Home windows 11 Professional
Different: Backlit keyboard, Asus Dial
Noise stage: 0-39 dB
Battery life: Two hours 10 minutes (excessive load, full brightness), about eight hours (low load, low brightness)
Dimension: 32.2 x 22.3 x 1.8 cm
Weight: 3.63lbs (1.65 kg)

This text has been syndicated from PCWorld. It initially appeared in Swedish on PC för Alla.