Convenience and Asus Zenbook 14X OLED go hand in hand. With a gorgeous and durable chassis, slim and lightweight design and power to back it all up, this laptop boasts a vision of brilliance unlike any other.
No two are alike
The Zenbook 14X OLED series is made of an aluminium alloy and Asus’ signature design language that make it both appealing and lightweight. It comes in at 16.9mm and weighs 1.5kg, which is incredible for its size. Staying true to its design prowess, it also boasts a unique hinge design that allows for full 180-degree movement making it easier to share on-screen content on a flat surface.
For the first time, Asus has used a special process to transform the aluminium lid on the laptop into a plasma ceramic aluminium, which is exclusive to the brand. The process of doing so has a low impact on the environment and results in increased wear resistance, corrosion protection and lifespan. Even more unique is the fact that no two lids on any Zenbook 14X model are the same.
While being thin and lightweight is one thing, we are glad that Asus has not skimped on the durability of the machine. The Zenbook 14X OLED is tested to be military grade, with it exceeding industry standards. While this kind of ruggedness is not always required, having it is great for longevity with you not having to worry about taking extra care or protective measures during the inevitable bumps and tumbles associated with travel.
Visuals galore
Over the years, Asus’ OLED panels have evolved to be some of the best in the market. And it is no surprise that the Zenbook 14X OLED delivers exceedingly well when it comes to visuals. Up front, you find a 16:10 14.5-inch Corning Gorilla Glass protected OLED HDR touchscreen with a 2,880x1,800 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. Pairing with that is its 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, up to 600 nits peak brightness and 0.0005 nits of deep black brightness, meaning brighter and more detailed content.
Compared to others in the market, Asus’ OLED panels are a notch above. They deliver true-to-life colours with the ability to tweak the display’s colour gamut at will. You can switch to sRGB mode when creating content, DCI-P3 if you want cinema standard colours or Display P3 for movie-grade colours adjusted to fit everyday viewing. This is possible without sacrificing the health of your eyes, with Asus displays emitting 70 per cent less blue light. Whether you want to consume content at low brightness or outdoors, a panel like the one on the Zenbook 14X OLED can do the job. Inherently, the displays also come with a quick 0.2ms response time, which is ideal for low-latency gaming and fast scenes alongside burn-in prevention for greater longevity.
Processing in a blitz
Thin and light as it may be, the Zenbook 14X OLED packs a punch when it comes to performance. Inside, you find up to a 13th Gen Intel Core i9 13900H chip, 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB of PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD storage. If you want native graphics performance, the laptop is also available with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU based on the Ampere architecture with CUDA Cores, RT Cores and Tensor Cores. In layman’s terms, this means more realistic gaming experiences and access to AI-powered models for creative professionals.
Compared to the last generation, Zenbook 14X OLED also delivers a 1.46x increase in multi-core performance, which is thanks to the new hybrid architecture of the processor. With both Performance and Efficient cores (P-core and E-core), you can see a notable real-world improvement in performance. While the P-cores maximise single-thread performance and responsiveness, the M-cores are responsible for multithreaded operations for tasks that need to run in parallel. Overall, this means better responsiveness, a more fluid user experience and shorter wait times.
But too much processing is not always a good thing. And that is where Asus’ IceCool thermal technology comes into play. You find two heat pipes and a fan made of liquid-crystal polymer, which helps with quieter operation and less vibration compared to standard fans. There are also smart sensors on the motherboard of the device to detect the temperature of various components in real time and this is fed into Asus’ exclusive algorithm to calculate the power output required from the CPU, thereby maintaining optimal efficiency.
Given that the Zenbook 14X OLED is an Intel Evo-certified laptop, all this power comes without any sacrifice in hardware or experiences. For example, the machine has ample connectivity including two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, and a combo audio jack. Conveniences such as instant wake, all-day battery life and Type-C USB Easy Charge are a given too. The latter lets you charge the Zenbook 14X OLED on the go, with any standard Type-C or Power Delivery (PD) certified charger.
Attention to detail
We use the keyboard on our laptops the most, which is why the Zenbook 14X OLED features subtle tweaks to make the experience as comfortable as possible. The ErgoSense keyboard has a subtle dish-shaped indentation and 1.4mm key travel to replicate the typing experience of a computer. This works well with the laptop’s touchpad, which supports multitouch gestures and has a smooth finish.
ScreenXpert 3.0 is also a big part of this experience, where the touchpad doubles as a display. In our time of using the Zenbook 14X OLED, we used this feature to pin shortcuts such as quick access to the clipboard, snipping tool and disabling or enabling the camera.
In an age where most of our work is done online, the AiSense Camera on the notebook also comes in handy. It features fast face login, alongside tweaks to help improve your video calling experience. For example, its 3D noise reduction (3DNR) technology is useful for low-light calls or features like background blur, gaze correction, motion tracking and lighting correction to present the best version of yourselves.
Pricing and availability
When it comes to slim, powerful and lightweight laptops, it is hard to look beyond the Asus Zenbook 14X OLED. It provides performance enough for now and for the future at an extremely competitive Dh5,599 and is available at all leading retailers in the UAE.
