Asus' latest, the Zenbook 14 OLED, is a speed monster packed with a beautiful design and a superb 14-inch OLED touchscreen. All he needs is a good ability to handle video games to be perfect.
Posted at 11:27 am.
We love
The Zenbook 14 OLED notebook from the manufacturer Asus is our first test of the new Intel Core 7 Ultra 155H processor, clocked in turbo mode at 4.8 GHz and 16 GB of RAM, for the model we received. Many observers see this as Intel's response to Apple silicon processors, which deliver stratospheric performance.
If we rely on our calibration with Geekbench 6, mission is almost accomplished. With a score of 12,512 for the entire work of its 16 cores, the Zenbook 14 OLED flirts with Apple's M2 chip. However, the latest M3 chip remains out of reach, reaching a value of 21,057 for the MacBook Pro launched in November 2023, for example. Our Zenbook surpasses the value of Microsoft's Surface Pro 9 (8830) and matches the value of an exemplary PC laptop, the Galaxy Book3 Ultra, at 12,436.
So this Zenbook 14 OLED is very fast and powerful, and its 1TB SSD hard drive, which gives us an incredible read speed of 3492 Mbit/s for large files, does not spoil the good impression. The software opens in no time, navigation is smooth, and access to the hard drive occurs without delay. In two weeks of testing, our laptop showed no signs of weakness in everyday activities, including image and sound processing.
We have a very nice, rather light laptop in our hands that weighs 1285 grams according to our kitchen scales. The touch is pleasant, with a well-tactile 1.4mm rebound, backlighting and even accents for the French-speaking user. Its touchpad offers a surprise: it turns into a number pad, numbers and illuminated commands appear there. We equipped it with two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C sockets on the output side, which provide 65 watts and can connect our computer to an external monitor. If that's not enough, there is also an HDMI 2.1 output, a USB 3.2 Type-A socket and a 3.5 mm audio socket available.
We're beating around the bush a bit, we haven't yet talked about the 14-inch touchscreen, which is probably the defining feature of this computer. As the name suggests, we are entitled to OLED (DELO in French), which allows perfect blacks and very thin screens, here barely 5mm. It's simply stunning, making adding an external monitor a luxury. With a 3K resolution of 2880 x 1800 and a maximum brightness of 550 nits, a playback capacity of 100% of the DCI-P3 color space with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz, we rarely have a serious picture on a PC that rivals Apple's beautiful Retina . Every manufacturer has its own jargon, Asus called it “Lumina” here. The edges are tiny, the screen takes up 87% of the front area.
The built-in speakers are of course not of overwhelming quality for such a thin computer, but they do a good job. The front camera also offers a respectable resolution of 1080p, with a very precise image, although with colors that appear washed out in low light.
An infrared camera was integrated for authentication, which enables the use of Windows Hello. The announced autonomy is about fifteen hours in well-controlled conditions. Instead we were there between 9pm and 4pm depending on usage, which is good.
We like less
The Geekbench 6 benchmark doesn't tell the whole story. The graphics performance of the Zenbook 14 OLED reaches that of mid-range computers designed for video games, namely a value of 32,922. In fact, we couldn't run any AAA games on this computer. Only smaller games could be mastered acceptably.
We had some small configuration issues that may have been due to this computer not being reset. In particular, connecting to an external monitor was difficult.
You buy ?
Asus makes it clear right from the start that this is a “home computer”. For this purpose it is flawless and delivers impeccable performance at an overall acceptable price. When it comes to editing and video games, however, its limitations quickly become apparent and it will not satisfy the more demanding buyer.
Zenbook 14 OLED, model UX3405
- Manufacturer: Asus
- Price: from $1399
Rating: 9 out of 10