Asus ZenBook 14 14' OLED Ryzen 5 5625U 8GB 512GB Notebook

The Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3402, 12th Gen Intel) is a very nice laptop that has great features but also has some limitations. The features of this laptop are as follows: • An Evo platform core i5-1240p processor 1.7 GHz (12M cache, up to 4.4 GHz, 4P+8E cores) • 8 GB of RAM • 256 GB SSD • a 14" 2880x1800 OLED 90 Hz Display (2.8K) • a 75Wh Lithium Ion Battery. • a Harmon Kardon Dolby Atmos Audio System • ASUS AI Noise-cancelling audio for clear speech • 180 degree Lay-flat ErgoLift Hinge • US military-grade durability. • Left side has a 10 GB/Second USB 3.0 port. • Right side has: charging and backlight indicators, a microSD slot, 2 Thunderbolt(TM) 4 ports for display/power delivery port, a 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, and an HDMI 2.0b port. This laptop weighs in a 3.06 lbs. ... MoreThe Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3402, 12th Gen Intel) is a very nice laptop that has great features but also has some limitations. The features of this laptop are as follows: • An Evo platform core i5-1240p processor 1.7 GHz (12M cache, up to 4.4 GHz, 4P+8E cores) • 8 GB of RAM • 256 GB SSD • a 14" 2880x1800 OLED 90 Hz Display (2.8K) • a 75Wh Lithium Ion Battery. • a Harmon Kardon Dolby Atmos Audio System • ASUS AI Noise-cancelling audio for clear speech • 180 degree Lay-flat ErgoLift Hinge • US military-grade durability. • Left side has a 10 GB/Second USB 3.0 port. • Right side has: charging and backlight indicators, a microSD slot, 2 Thunderbolt(TM) 4 ports for display/power delivery port, a 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, and an HDMI 2.0b port. This laptop weighs in a 3.06 lbs. and is 0.67" thin, making it highly portable. The included power supply is a 65W type-C AC Adapter and works in either of the thunderbolt ports. This model has windows 11 Home preinstalled. This Zenbook laptop has all of the typical WIFI and Bluetooth features one would expect in a system. The chicklet keyboard is nice and types well. The Harmon Kardon sound system sounds wonderful and is a really nice feature of this laptop. The included 2.8K OLED display is gorgeous and easy on the eyes. It would be a fantastic option in this series to have a touchscreen option available as that would make this an extremely awesome system, albeit at a high price point. The included thunderbolt ports along with the HMDI port makes for a useful set of external monitor options. I tested with my home setup that includes a USB - C based multiport display adapter and this laptop was able to drive primary laptop display and the 3 external monitors that I have connected to it at their recommended resolutions (main Screen 2880 x 1800, 2x 24"at 1920x 1200, and a 27" 4k monitor 3840 X 2160). I added a 4th external monitor via the HDMI port and was not able to drive this monitor with the other 3 - which is what I expected to happen but I had to give it a shot (on my home system this monitor is run via a USB based DisplayLink adapter). The most unique feature of this laptop is a special feature of the very large - some might say massive - 3" x 5" trackpad (my SurfaceBook's track pad is slightly larger than 4" x 3" for a much larger device as a comparison). When triggered this feature turns the trackpad into a keypad for quick data entry - this keypad can be activated in two ways - clicking and holds for a short press, on the upper right activates the key pad for what ever app you have open and also deactivates the keypad functionality once you are done with it. If you slide right from the upper left corner not only do you activate the keypad, but you also open the calculator app within the operating system. This upper left area can also be used to toggle the brightness of this keypad functionality between two brightness levels. Overall, I find that this device fits well for anyone who needs basic office automation functionality, along with some light picture and video editing capabilities along with portability. This could be professionals who are on the go, or students, or even parents who have a need for computing on the go. This is a very nice device and it would suit a large number of users and use cases. The only improvement I could wish for would be a touchscreen, but that would likely increase the price tag a bit.

It's unclear how such a new laptop which is already a great value at $750 was discounted to $500 mere months after release, but it made me purchase it. 8GB soldered RAM is the only thing that i don't like on the spec sheet, but it's still enough for 90% of my tasks, only photo editing in Lightroom requires more in my use cases, but i can do small batch editing to get around that. If there was the same model with 16GB ram for $150 or so more I would blindingly buy that instead. fan noise is not as bad as i expected. Yes, it does get loud under load but as does any laptop. Given there is only 1 fan inside, it needs to spin way faster to get enough airflow compared to a dual fan system. Even then, at its loudest it sounds like my 4-year-old gaming laptop idling with 2 ... MoreIt's unclear how such a new laptop which is already a great value at $750 was discounted to $500 mere months after release, but it made me purchase it. 8GB soldered RAM is the only thing that i don't like on the spec sheet, but it's still enough for 90% of my tasks, only photo editing in Lightroom requires more in my use cases, but i can do small batch editing to get around that. If there was the same model with 16GB ram for $150 or so more I would blindingly buy that instead. fan noise is not as bad as i expected. Yes, it does get loud under load but as does any laptop. Given there is only 1 fan inside, it needs to spin way faster to get enough airflow compared to a dual fan system. Even then, at its loudest it sounds like my 4-year-old gaming laptop idling with 2 fans (Dell 7577 w/ i-7-7700H). Still if one doesn't like fan noise (like me) just run the system in Whisper mode (see fan profile settings in My ASUS app), and the fans are practically inaudible. It's hard to perceive any performance difference is general tasks. I practically never heard the fans but slightly slower performance in very demanding tasks. I attached Cine bench results for reference. Pros: - As one would expect, OLED is gorgeous and will not disappoint. - Great keyboard for my taste. (Coming from Dell Inspiron keyboards, this was a treat to type on.) - Nifty number pad feature which does come in handy for me as my work sometimes requires me to do number crunching. The trackpad can still be used as a mouse pointer while the numpad is active and it can differentiate between you typing numbers and trying to move the mouse. If one is used to touch clicking, then sometimes you might type a number instead of clicking but just after using it for a few days I'm comfortable with it. Numpad can be toggled on/off pretty easily too and can be fully disabled via My ASUS app if needed. - Quick toggles for killing mic and camera are helpful. -The i5 12th gen is way faster than i7 from last gen, which is great to see. - Whisper mode (My ASUS app fan-profile setting) still maintains decent performance for productivity tasks so please use that if fan noise is a big deal for you. -Upgradable SSD to PCIe Gen-4. (Gen-3 installed but given the cost i can't complain). - 2 X Thunderbolt 4 for future e-GPU expansion as prices for GPUs are currently dropping into the reasonable realm. - Weather you enable or disable the Fn lock, arrow keys always stay arrow keys unless you press and hold the Fn key to use the Home/End/Pg-Up/Pg-Dn functions. I was using 'Samsung Galaxy Book S' which switched to the secondary functions when Fn lock was engaged, and it used to drive me crazy. - I am seeing around 10-12 hours of productivity battery life when i switch the screen to 1920X1200 resolution and 60 Hz. All i care about is the OLED part, because at this size, the higher resolution and refresh rate don't add to my experience and just drain the battery. (The processor uses way too much power at idle in my experience, I just dropped the minimum processor state to 5% in the advanced power settings to see if that helps. Hopefully i can squeeze out couple more hours like that) Cons: - Bluetooth headset. details below. My biggest gripe with the computer is the Bluetooth part. one review mentioned having Bluetooth audio problem but i was hoping it might be an isolated case given the overwhelmingly positive reviews, but to my disappointment Bluetooth headphones behave "weirdly" with my laptop. I cannot find a better word to describe it because it works fine when you initially connect it and everything seems to go smoothly, but after some time the audio gets stutters, and the stutters keep getting more frequent to a point where you hear more stutter than actual audio even though the vide is playing smoothly. One way to temporarily fix it is to switch off the Bluetooth and switch back on, but stutters just start happening after an hour or so & getting worse in about 1.5 to 2 hrs. I narrowed down the problem to "Intel smart sound technology for Bluetooth audio" driver. After updating the driver though i had a new problem - If i stopped playing any audio over my Bluetooth headset for about 30 mins or so, and then try to play something, I do not get any sound over my headset even though video keeps playing. Even system sounds stop coming through. I tried switching the headset off and switching it back on again, but still no audio. Again, the temporary solution is for you to toggle system Bluetooth off and back on again. Right now, i just disabled the driver but that means i cannot use my headset's microphone for calls. They only connect as headphones with no microphone detected. Current driver version is 10.29.0.7082 so whenever a newer version is available, I will try again.

The Asus ZenBook is definitely a compact, lightweight unit for those who don’t need a lot out of a laptop. While it has up-to-date technology, there’s nothing that makes it stand out, except for its small size and portability. Unboxing was a confusing experience. Normally, this is straightforward process, but somehow the labelling made it appear as if there was no “up” from which to open the box. Then, once the box was opened, the mechanism inside that gently lifts the laptop, to present it to the user, was slightly off, causing the laptop to become skewed, not lift, and subsequently difficult to extract. Initial setup was also strewn with difficulties that are normally not present. The power cord, for example, is much shorter than what I’m accustomed to. Whereas ... MoreThe Asus ZenBook is definitely a compact, lightweight unit for those who don’t need a lot out of a laptop. While it has up-to-date technology, there’s nothing that makes it stand out, except for its small size and portability. Unboxing was a confusing experience. Normally, this is straightforward process, but somehow the labelling made it appear as if there was no “up” from which to open the box. Then, once the box was opened, the mechanism inside that gently lifts the laptop, to present it to the user, was slightly off, causing the laptop to become skewed, not lift, and subsequently difficult to extract. Initial setup was also strewn with difficulties that are normally not present. The power cord, for example, is much shorter than what I’m accustomed to. Whereas the cord on the laptop that I’m using to write this review has lots of slack to allow me to move around the table, the cord on the Asus is stretched taut as it has no slack at all. This would require a user, during travel, to have to be located very physically near an outlet to allow for charging. Another example of a setup head-scratcher was the logging into of Microsoft. I have an existing account that I use for just this situation, but MS would not recognize it. When I tried to create a new MS account, using the same info, MS reported that my requested username was already in existence…because it is…I’m using it. While I recognize that this is an MS issue, not an Asus issue, it was a sticking point, regardless. It’s not all bad, however. The display is fantastic. I purchased an LG OLED 4K UHD television several years ago because of the display. The colors are rich, and the blacks are black. The display on this laptop rivals that television. It’s extremely clear, with fantastic color saturation, and the graphics, while nothing to write home about, do a great job of filling out the display. The combination of the touchpad and the number pad is innovative; I’ve never seen that done before. Until I became used to it, I was always second-guessing myself as to whether I had hit the correct “buttons”. Without the tactile feedback of a button being “clicked” or depressed, I needed to confirm my accuracy. Finally, the ability of the screen to be laid back until it is flat is very helpful. The size and portability of the device allows it to be easily transported anywhere, but if it’s being used for assistance, such as a YouTube tutorial, one doesn’t want to always have to sit down to view the screen, then immediately stand back up again to perform the next task. Laying the screen flat allows one to stand over the laptop and easily view the screen without the glare one would expect. As discussed before, the excellent display allows this to happen. Overall, my perception is that this is a great starter laptop with basics that can be expanded upon in future purchases. It’s compact and lightweight, meaning that it can be easily transported for some distance/time. However, once the battery is depleted, the short charging cable requires the user to be very near an open outlet. Any issues experienced during setup are the responsibility of Microsoft, not Asus, but it’s worth noting as it may change Asus’s suppliers in the future. The functionality is great, especially the display. If one is using it while amid activity, the lay-flat screen adds efficiency by allowing the user to stand over it and continue viewing, and the graphics and colors don’t wash out. There is some innovation shown here that I would suspect appears in later and/or higher-end models in the future, such as the number pad overlay onto the touchpad. It does take some getting used to, but it works. If you feel uncomfortable with, or simply don’t want to, complete transactions on your mobile device, or tablet, this is the unit for you. It’s not a gaming system, and it’s not for pure business. It’s a vanilla, middle-of-the-road device that fills the gap between mobile devices and the need for a dedicated computer.