Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED assessment: That display is banging!

It was that with a purpose to get a laptop computer’s profile as skinny as doable, laptop computer makers must make massive sacrifices. An ideal instance for me is the unique 2008 MacBook Air—this ultrabook whittled its ports down to a few, one USB, one charging port, and the headphone jack and used the identical sluggish exhausting drives as an iPod, making it a irritating computing expertise regardless of the way you sliced it.

Fortunately, thin-and-light computer systems have come a good distance since 2008 and Asus has put out what appears to be like like a no-compromises system. It options the most recent Intel Core 10-core chip and a beautiful OLED display, which is all packed into a brilliant gentle body made out of metallic and ceramic. On paper, it looks like it may give even Apple’s honed Airs a run for his or her cash and save for a few gripes, that’s completely the case. Asus has designed one thrilling ultrabook.

In search of extra choices? Take a look at our roundup of one of the best laptops obtainable proper now.

Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED: Specs and options

Our assessment unit got here loaded with an Intel Core i7-1355U CPU, Intel Iris Xe graphics, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of NVMe PCIe SSD storage. For extra particulars, take a look at the bulleted record under:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-1355U (10 cores, 12 threads)
• Reminiscence: 32 GB LPDDR5
• Graphics/GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics
• Show: 13.3-inch 2880×1800 16:10 OLED, 550 nits peak HDR brightness  
• Storage: 1 TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD
• Webcam: 1080p IR digicam
• Connectivity:  2x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB-A 3.1 Gen , 1x HDMI 2.1, 3.5 mm headset jack
• Networking: Intel AX211 with Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3
• Biometrics: Home windows Hi there facial recognition
• Battery capability: 63Wh
• Dimensions: 11.66 W x 8.52 L x 0.46 H inches
• Weight: 2.2 kilos, 2.6 kilos with AC adapter
• Worth as Reviewed: $1,399

Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED: Design and construct high quality

I’m not a snob about my computer systems—I’ve loved all the things from chunky machines made out of recycled plastic to the most recent thin-and-light fashions. That stated, taking the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED out of its field for the primary time was memorable. Its skinny profile and a couple of.2 lb weight make it really feel virtually pretend at first, like a type of show mannequin computer systems you’d discover at Ikea on the present flooring. Nevertheless it’s not pretend! This particular laptop crams a keyboard, all its chips, a good-sized battery, and even its signature OLED show into a brilliant tiny package deal.

All of that might be a soggy noodle of a pc if not engineered correctly. Fortunately, I discovered little or no flex or wobble right here, displaying that Asus has completed an intensive engineering job. Even the skinny display feels comparatively stout, and for all of the vigorous typing I may muster, I by no means felt the underside of the pc torque or pressure below the strain. Steel is the first materials at work right here, however the again of the show is a classy ceramic materials with engaging engraved traces. It’s subtly eye-catching.

Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED: Connectivity

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Lately, I sampled a extremely nice HP laptop, the Dragonfly Professional. Possibly the worst side of that machine was its lack of ports, rocking solely a handful and solely the most recent and best Thunderbolt or USB-C. Nevertheless it’s essential to do not forget that there are nonetheless lots of equipment on the market that want devoted connectors, and that not everybody needs to interchange all their completely good cables for USB-C ended ones. That’s why it’s so good to see that Asus has cut up the distinction with the Zenbook S 13 OLED. Not solely do you get two Thunderbolt 4 ports, with all their Swiss Military USB-C goodness (these are the one approach to cost the pc). However that’s not all you get. There’s a headphone jack, an actual USB-A port, and an actual HDMI 2.1 port too.

Whereas I can get by with adapters and dongles, it’s simply so good that I may plug the Zenbook S 13 OLED proper as much as a USB-A reminiscence card reader I had mendacity round. I used to be additionally in a position to shortly use my outdated Yubikey for two-factor authentication. To be trustworthy, although I’m used to juggling new and outdated cables in my day-to-day, it’s refreshing to not have to fret if I grabbed the fitting cable. Any USB cable will work!

With its Intel AX211 onboard WiFi, the Asus Zenbook S 13 offered a dependable web expertise, with nice reception even from the corners of my home the place some gadgets drop off. Together with WiFi 6E speeds (assuming you may have a appropriate router), you’ll get fashionable Bluetooth 5.3 as effectively. There’s no mobile web possibility, sadly.

Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED: Keyboard and trackpad

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The gap a key travels typically dictates the consolation and responsiveness of a keyboard. Fortunately, the short-throw keys on this Asus really feel exact and cozy. They’re a bit of clicky which I respect, leaving no query whenever you’ve pressed a key. The strain wanted to actuate every button solely wants a lightweight contact. Even for longer typing classes, my fingers by no means obtained fatigued and there wasn’t any type of studying curve—I obtained my arms on the house row and away I went.

If I needed to level out any weak level with the Asus Zenbook, it is likely to be the trackpad. Though I had a advantageous time with it, its use of a bodily clicker made it really feel a bit of old-school when in comparison with some fashionable competitors. The MacBook and even competing HP fashions could use a linear induction motor to offer a click on which I’d want in a skinny laptop like this. However hey, I’ve completely used worse trackpads on current PCs, so perhaps mediocre isn’t a horrible destiny. At the least it’s responsive sufficient, appropriately ignored my palms whereas typing, and has a smooth-feeling glass materials as its contact floor.

Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED: Show, audio system, webcam

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Not solely is the Zenbook S 13 OLED skinny as a finely-honed sword, this laptop computer sports activities an superior, high-res OLED panel. We’ll get into this a bit later however in my expertise, massive OLED laptop computer screens was costly and have an enormous battery life penalty. Fortunately, neither of these appear to be a problem at this level, and the advantages outweigh any drawbacks.

The advantages are beautiful colours and extremely darkish blacks, making for a display with an general wealthy and reasonable look. The height brightness on this display is 500 nits when watching HDR content material. The excessive decision of the panel, 2880×1800, is generally an asset to the Zenbook, however I nonetheless bumped into some dialogue containers in Home windows that didn’t scale correctly, wanting tiny on the display. Possibly the one draw back to this display is the dearth of a contact layer, one thing I missed simply since I exploit so many touch-enabled computer systems in my every day life. For lots of people that is removed from a deal breaker, and I’m right here to say that the vivid, constrast-y OLED display is a big improve from no matter LCDs you’ve tried previously.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Perched atop the OLED display is a so-so webcam that’s a 1080p decision. I discovered that it made my pores and skin look washed out in direct gentle, and that it wasn’t very detailed general, however your mileage could range. Fortunately, the digicam has Home windows Hi there integration, so you’ll be able to no less than log in hands-free, even for those who don’t look your finest on Zoom calls.

Within the premium laptop computer area, we anticipate punchy speaker techniques. Whereas the Zenbook S 13 OLED misses the mark on deep bass sounds and maybe has much less quantity than competing machines, the midrange is satisfyingly detailed. For those who have been hoping to get room-filling sound, you’ll be dissatisfied. However for those who occasionally use your laptop computer’s audio system or have a tendency in the direction of spoken phrase content material, you’ll respect the audio system within the Zenbook S 13 OLED.

Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED: Efficiency

At this level in 2023, you’re going to see extra laptops like this Asus with the most recent Intel thirteenth gen chips inside. Whereas it’s not an enormous leap above the earlier era of processor, there’s nonetheless rather a lot to love right here. In our battery of exams, the i7-1355U, with its two efficiency cores and eight effectivity cores, offers this skinny laptop computer various muscle. However there’s undoubtedly a penalty for smooshing such a complicated processor right into a small area—fan noise. For those who’re delicate to high-pitched noises, you’ll discover the followers as quickly as you begin one thing that taxes the processor. I assumed it was considerably akin to a mosquito flying in my ear—it’s that skull-shatteringly piercing.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

We benchmark each laptop computer with the PCMark 10 suite. This software program offers us a terrific baseline, utilizing on a regular basis duties to gauge a pc’s true efficiency. Not like the AMD-powered opponents (just like the HP Dragonfly Professional on this chart), you’ll solely get a pair of high-powered cores, which places the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED behind these fashions. All that stated, the i7-1355U held its personal towards older Intel chips, with its efficiency coming in solely barely behind performance-focused P-spec Intel chips from the earlier era. These laptops tended to run hotter and have worse battery life, so it’s good to see that there’s a significant efficiency improve year-over-year.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

On this efficiency check, we use Cinebench R15 to get a way for a way effectively all a laptop computer’s processors work collectively to render 3D graphics. The dearth of high-performance cores didn’t assist the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED out right here because it’s bested by most different laptops in its class, however we’d guess that individuals aren’t shopping for these ultraportable gadgets for heavy 3D rendering classes.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

We’ve seen Intel’s built-in Iris Xe Graphics enhance considerably through the years, and at this level you may get ok efficiency for easy duties. The 3DMark Time Spy benchmark we use is a torture check for these type of laptops, however when in comparison with different related Intel-based machines you’ll be able to anticipate it to be aggressive. It’s nonetheless a far cry from AMD-based laptops with their stronger Radeon built-in graphics, however we weren’t anticipating this era of Intel chips to enhance the graphics by a lot anyway.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

We check each laptop computer by reencoding a high-res video file right into a small file meant for a pill system. It looks like Intel’s put in a bit of labor into its QuickSync video know-how, as a result of the i7-1355U within the Zenbook S 13 OLED managed to match the extra highly effective AMD-based Dragonfly Professional on this check.

Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED: Battery life

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As we talked about earlier, OLED screens in laptops was unhealthy information for battery life. However not right here—the Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED lasted greater than 10 hours in our 4K video looping check. That makes it aggressive with different current laptops we’ve seen on this class, just like the HP Dragonfly Professional, whereas being virtually a full pound lighter. It looks like a extremely spectacular feat that this laptop computer may be so gentle, a lot highly effective, but additionally final most of a day and not using a cost. Anecdotally, I misplaced round 9% over a half hour whereas utilizing this machine fairly intensely, with a YouTube video taking part in, the display brightness cranked up, and loads of tabs open in Microsoft Edge.

Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED: Bloatware

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Though Asus comes near matching the MacBook Air expertise with the Zenbook S 13 OLED, there’s one factor that the Mac does higher: you’re sure to get a clear set up of the working system. The Zenbook S 13 OLED got here preloaded with some actually annoying utilities, one that might even mess with the long-term operation of this laptop’s superior OLED display.

As all the time, the worst offender was the included antivirus software program. McAfee wasted no time bullying me about “Early Fowl” offers so I can get a low fee locked in as soon as my trial expires. I perceive that the PC enterprise depends on kickbacks from these software program distributors, however for a premium laptop computer that is ridiculous. Placing scary messages, spinning clocks, and ticking countdown timers on the display merely leaves a nasty style in my mouth, and I really feel unhealthy for anybody who has to take care of this type of manipulative advertising and marketing.

Then there are the built-in Asus utilities. There’s a utility named GlideX that ought to allow you to lengthen the Zenbook’s show to a pill, but it surely makes customers subscribe for additional options and to take away show advertisements. Surprisingly, there’s additionally an app included referred to as ScreenXprt, which so far as I can inform builds on Home windows 11’s already fairly nice window managing system, duplicates the digicam and microphone off buttons from the keyboard, and lets customers add shortcuts to display snipping (which already has a keyboard command as effectively). The worst a part of that is that’s sticks a clear emblem within the nook. As chances are you’ll know, OLED screens may be significantly delicate to static graphics, which might burn in over time and this app may just do that. The MyASUS app, meant to provide customers assist, despatched a notification telling me of some nice spring offers…no thanks!

Though the Asus {hardware} workforce has put in nice work, the folks choosing out the software program really want to consider how these little issues can kill somebody’s buzz.

Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED: Do you have to purchase it?

2023 has been a terrific yr for PC laptops, even when folks aren’t shopping for them as ravenously as throughout earlier years. For those who’ve been holding off a purchase order ready for improved chips, nicer screens, and nice battery life earlier than you improve, then Asus has put all of these items into a tool that has few compromises—the Zenbook S 13 OLED even has a, helpful collection of ports. If energy isn’t your precedence, this laptop computer may cowl all of the bases for typical varieties of labor, and its vivid OLED display is solely beautiful for watching your favourite films or streaming reveals.

Even the negatives listed below are fairly negligible…if I all I can complain about are the trackpad being a clicky button as a substitute of a motor (that’s a primary world downside for certain!), a slight whine from the followers, and a few bloatware you could simply and shortly uninstall, then that claims rather a lot. Even for the $1,399 worth, you get loads of storage, a future-proof quantity of RAM, and a really competent processor. The M2 MacBook Air or Dell XPS 13 Plus, optioned out to an identical tier, each value greater than $2,000. Merely put, the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED is a no brainer purchase.