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Asus ZenBook 14 OLED Review: Premium Laptop That Packs A Punch


Last Updated: March 16, 2023, 12:27 IST

ZenBook 14 OLED gets design upgrades and comes with AMD Ryzen chip

Asus has launched the AMD variant of the premium ZenBook laptops and we tell you how it fares in daily conditions.

Asus has made its name in the laptop segment in India with quality products and the ZenBook lineup has grown in stature over the years. The company managed to push its image from a mid-range lineup to a premium model and the ZenBook 14 OLED launched in India this month continues to show the company’s growth trajectory and product evolution that consumers demand.

Seeing so many laptops launched for well above Rs 1 lakh these days, Asus manages to keep its sanity by offering the OLED ZenBook 14 for under Rs 90,000 which is a big feat and you get it with an AMD Ryzen processor. So, how does the new premium laptop from Asus fare when you put it through the daily grind? This review will help you with the answer.

Asus ZenBook 14 OLED Review: What’s Cool?

Looks are a big part of premium laptops but Asus does something unorthodox which seems to work in many ways. The brand has gone for a subtle matte finish with a small Asus logo at the front.

The laptop gets an all-aluminium build

The build quality of the laptop is undoubtedly solid, and some military-grade tests have been done which suggest it can handle a few drops and come out unscathed. Having said that even with the all-aluminium body, Asus has managed to keep the weight to 1.35 kg which makes it portable.

The hinge unit on the laptop allows you to open it to 180-degrees, which the company says is one of the many demands for consumers in this segment.

The 180-degree hinge makes the laptop open this way

Open the lid of the laptop and you notice the vivid OLED 14-inch 2.8K display of the ZenBook 14 which has slim bezels where the Full HD camera resides. The screen colours are punchy and having an OLED panel means you get it with a glossy screen that offers 90Hz refresh rate. Asus has got the screen Pantone validated which means the colour reproduction is at par with the other devices in the segment.

The laptop features a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display

Asus has added a fingerprint scanner on the power button and kept the delete button to the extreme right to avoid accidental shutting down of the laptop. Now, coming to the performance, you have an AMD Ryzen 7 processor paired with 16GB RAM and up to 1TB SSD storage on offer.

The power button has a fingerprint scanner

Asus does focus on the business consumers, so not having gaming chops is unlikely to deter buyers. The keyboard layout is expansive and the travel feedback of the keys provides a comfortable typing experience and we didn’t face any false moves during our time on the machine.

We got the top-most variant with 1TB storage which costs over Rs 1 lakh but that price tag is warranted for the given features.

The new Ryzen 7 chip has been built on a new architecture that promises improved performance with better power efficiency. And we noticed the difference because of the hardware during the last week with the laptop. You get it with a 75W charging support that uses a USB port and Asus says you can charge it using other chargers (but at slower speed) as well.

This is the AMD Ryzen variant of the ZenBook 14 OLED

You have a slew of ports for connectivity, including a headphone jack and microSD card reader (yes, even those) so that you never feel that something is missing from the feature list.

A huge range of ports and microSD card slot available

The speakers are another strong point for this laptop, and Asus has kind of made it a standard now.

Asus ZenBook 14 Review: What’s Not So Cool?

While the design scores high in our opinion, we didn’t like the ease with which it catches smudges. The last thing you want is to buy a laptop for this price and keep cleaning it every now and then.

The trackpad is huge giving you enough room to manoeuvre but one can’t deny that the Numberpad needs to be more efficient in its use case.

For a laptop in the Rs 1 lakh+ range, it doesn’t get a powerful graphics unit which means your usage is limited to casual gaming. We would have liked to see a powerful GPU on board, just so that you can take advantage of all the power churning under the hood.

Asus ZenBook 14 Review: Should You Buy?

ZenBook 14 continues to relish the premium tag Asus has given it for the past few years. Having a Rs 1 lakh plus laptop comes with a lot of demands, and we feel this laptop can meet most of your needs. It runs on Windows 11, powered by AMD Ryzen 7 processor and offers up to 1TB SSD storage.

All these combine to give you a glitch-free performance, albeit with a noticeable amount of heating when put through extra strain. The speakers and connectivity ports will keep you happy and the durable (military-grade) design ensures you don’t need to worry about damaging it easily. Worth buying in a space where performance and portability comes at a cost but delivers with a punch.

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