The new range of ASUS OLED laptops have arrived in Australia and while the large 16” OLED displays are gorgeous, it was the compact Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) with its 14” display that caught my eye. 

The Zenbook 14X OLED is available with 13th Gen Intel Core i5, i7 and i9 configurations and Asus have sent across the top of the line Core i9 mode for review. This model includes 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD and an NVIDIA RTX3050 GPU on-board and comes with a price of $2,599.

There aren’t a huge amount of options around with this much power and in a 14″ form factor and I’ve been looking forward to checking out this unit since it was announced. I’ve been using it for two weeks. Here’s how it went.

Hardware and Design

The Zenbook 14X OLED has a lightweight  aluminium alloy chassis with the laptop weighing 1.5kg which isn’t ultra-light but isn’t overly heavy either for it’s size. The 14.5” OLED display inside has a small bezel around, while still including a FHD resolution Windows Hello compatible IR camera above. 

The laptop comes in Inkwell Gray which on the lid has a matte feeling, and there’s the ASUS monogram logo emblazoned across it. The matte feel texture feels good, but also ensures you aren’t wiping fingerprints off the top all the time.

Joining the upper and lower decks there’s a 180°, lay-flat display which is handy for showing off work on a desk. I prefer the 360° hinge to this lay flat option as it’s a far more versatile option, but it is what it is.

Inside, the ErgoSense keyboard spans the lower deck, and it’s extremely comfortable to type on for long periods of time. There’s a nice springiness to it and the 1.4mm key travel feels right giving you good tactile feedback.  The keyboard includes a row of function keys, with fast access to screen brightness, volume and keyboard backlighting which can be turned off or ramped up three levels of brightness. There’s also dedicated keys for disabling the Microphone and Camera as well as a shortcut key to the MyASUS app and a PrintScreen button.

There’s also a large ErgoSense touchpad included which supports multi-touch gestures and comes with an anti-fingerprint coating.

There’s dual Harmon Kardon certified speakers on-board which support Dolby Atmos and the audio is fairly decent at mid-range given there’s only the two speakers, but they do tend to top out at higher volumes or if you add in some bass. 

The lower deck is also where you’ll find your ports with dual USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, audio jack and HDMI 2.1 port on the right and a full-sized USB-A port on the left. Internally you get dual-band Wifi 6E support and Bluetooth 5.2 for wireless connectivity. 

You’ll charge through the USB-C ports and I do miss having a USB-C port on both sides of the laptop to make it easier to charge from either side. There’s also no memory card reader inside but that’s a personal choice.

The overall design of the Zenbook 14X is impressive with the laptop feeling lighter than it is. It’s also something to note that it carries US MIL-STD 810H military-grade certification, so it can travel with you on the road and better handle any accidents you encounter. 

Display

ASUS have really gone all in on OLED displays across their range and the panel in the Zenbook 14X OLED is excellent. The OLED panel measures 14.5” and offers 2.8K (2880 x 1800) resolution but has no touch support which can be a deal breaker for people.

The panel supports up to 120Hz refresh rate, great for just smooth interface as well as in gaming though it’s handy to note it drops to 60Hz once unplugged but you can force it back to 120Hz in settings though it will affect your battery life. For creators there’s support for 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut and supports DisplayHDR 600 True Black and there’s very little light bleed.

It’s a bright display with support for up to 600 nits peak brightness which means it looks great inside or out, though you do get a bit of reflection in the bright sunlight on that gloss finish. 

Performance

The review model includes a 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900H up to 45W, 32GB LPDDR5-4800 memory and 512GB PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD. There’s also the NVIDIA RTX3050 GPU with 4 GB GDDR6 VRAM.

Fundamentally this is a fast laptop for doing almost anything on. It handles all your day-to-day applications, web surfing and more with ease. Rendering in Premiere is decently fast as well, giving you a reason for that NVIDIA GPU.

There’s also the matter of the NVIDIA RTX3050 GPU which will allow you to run games, though it’s not top-end, with most games including CyberPunk 2077, Sons of the Forest, and Halo Infinite all getting around 30fps but Forza ran super smooth at 60fps. I wouldn’t call it a gaming laptop, with Cyberpunk 2077 requiring a drop to Medium settings to get even 30fps, but the Xbox games I tried were fantastic and I had a heap of fun in Sons of the Forest.

The Zenbook 14X performs well, but there is quite a bit of fan noise once it’s pushed to the limits. There’s rubber feet below the laptop to lift it off the desk allowing increased airflow, and the laptop certainly moves a lot of air. Playing games or loading CPU intensive apps will soon see the fan activated and it’s quite loud once it spins up. You can control the fans (and other settings) by adjusting settings in the MyASUS app,

The 3D Mark Benchmark scores are below:

Battery Life and Charging

The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED includes a 70 Wh battery which ASUS says will provide ‘ more than enough battery life to cover a day of work or play’. Also included in the box is a 100W USB-C charging brick. 

In terms of battery life it depends on workload. Office work, general web surfing and watching videos will see you just get through an average 8-hour day. If you want to push the performance and try a game out you can drain the battery in around an hour and a half. 

It’s a decent amount of battery life considering the 14.5” OLED display, but I’d recommend carrying your charger and topping up the battery when you can.  

In terms of charging, the 100W PSU will get you to around 50% in half an hour with a full 100% charge taking around 2 hours.

Software

The ASUS Zenbook Pro 11 comes running Windows 11 Pro adding on some additional features. If you don’t need the pro features, you won’t have to use them though.

There’s a few apps installed including the MyASUS  software as well as utilities including Dolby Access, NVIDIA software and of course the usual smattering of Microsoft products including an MS Office Trial, and of course you get the McAfee software with its usual popups.  The Dolby and Nvidia software are certainly welcome to adjust settings on your hardware, the other software can be uninstalled if you don’t want it. 

Should you buy it?

The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) offers an extremely budget friendly option for creators or even casual gamers who don’t want a laptop with a 16” display. 

The laptop offers a fantastic OLED display with powerful internals offering great performance with the additional benefit of a discrete GPU that allows for faster rendering and if you want to, to play games on your down time. 

There is of course some potential for improved battery life, with the battery barely making it to the 8-hour mark. I’d also love to see some improvement in speaker quality. 

Overall though the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED is a fantastic machine with plenty of power, just make sure you have a chance to top up the battery through the day. It’s also one of the few options for people wanting a heap of power with a discrete GPU in a laptop with a more compact form-factor.

If you want to check it out you can head over to the ASUS Website.