ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED UX3404V Review – A Portable Choice Packed with Beautiful Visuals

The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED UX3404V is the latest entry of the Zenbook line of laptops, which features a beautiful 2.8K OLED display 16:10 aspect ratio that supports up to 120Hz refresh rates.

Specifications

Design

I’m personally a big fan of minimalistic and sleek designs, and the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED is no exception. We got our hands on the Inkwell Black variant of the laptop and it gives off that glossy and professional look to it, and it just oozes classy. The ASUS Zenbook logo is tucked quietly at the bottom corner of the laptop cover that gives way to artistic lines which help with the prestigious look.

Much like the ASUS Vivobook 16X, the Zenbook 14X OLED is also designed in a way that users can push the display screen all the way back, allowing for the laptop to lay flat at 180 degrees for ease of on-screen sharing, perfect for situations which requires group discussions where you need to share what’s on the screen.

Flipping the laptop over, one feature that I can appreciate a lot is this extra built-in part that’s sticking out, which essentially elevates the laptop, making for a more ergonomic design that allows typing for long periods of time a more comfortable experience; at the same time helping the thermals by giving better airflow overall.

Looks aside, touching the laptop was a surprisingly pleasant experience as the Zenbook 14X OLED has a special coating which ASUS calls it “Plasma Ceramic Aluminium”, and as the name suggests gives off this smooth ceramic-like touch to it, and it definitely feels great. However, it unfortunately attracts fingerprints relatively easily but certainly not a deal-breaker by any means.

In terms of the laptop’s overall size, with the dimensions of 32.18 x 22.56 x 1.69 and weighing at only 1.56kg, it makes for a fairly compact and lightweight laptop, which makes it perfect for people who are constantly on the move, whether it’s be for work or for classes.

Display + Audio

When it comes to the display for the Zenbook 14X OLED, it’s ever so slightly larger at 14.5″, 2880 x 1800 OLED screen, which makes up a 16:10 aspect ratio and supports up to 120Hz refresh rates. As you might surmise, the screen manages to present visuals in a very vibrant and colourful manner when I was watching videos and playing games. The colours definitely feel like they pop out more thanks to its 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut range. Pair that up with the paper-thin bezel, the viewing experience was just overall enjoyable.

It also has a peak brightness of 600 nits, which is considerably bright, and makes it possible to work even in both the gloomiest of workplaces or the brightest outdoor cafes. With the inclusion of the 120Hz refresh rates, which is certainly rate for non-gaming laptops to have, is just a feast for eyes when I can just scroll by smoothly.

On the topic of audio, it’s nothing too mind-boggling but it’s able to produce loud and clear audio without sacrificing quality. Throughout my testing out the speakers, there weren’t any noticeable distortions even when blasting music on max volume.

Keyboard + Trackpad

My experiences with typing on the keyboard was an overall satisfying experience. The keycaps had enough of that springy feel to it, and it’s got quite a hefty travel distance to it, which makes for a pretty comfortable experience when typing away. The keys on this laptop also have backlighting, which can come in hand when you’re like me and love doing work in the dark.

With the trackpad, the tracking felt pretty good and it was nice to glide my fingers across the pad, and the palm rejection is good too, so there’s no worries of accidents that might occur when resting your hand on the trackpad.

There’s also a neat feature that the Zenbook 14X OLED has on its sleeves,or trackpad in this case. It has the NumberPad 2.0, where users can transform the trackpad into a Numpad, which can be enabled with just a click of a button.

I honestly think it’s a pretty cool feature to have where users can use the Numpad without needing to reduce the overall space of the normal keyboard to make way for the physical Numpad. As someone who doesn’t use the NumPad on my laptop often, it’s nice to have the option to disable it, and it’ll work like your average trackpad.

Connectivity

The Zenbook 14X OLED has a handful of ports to its name, there’s one USB 3 Type-A, two Thunderbolt 4, one HDMI 2.1 TMDS, and lastly one combo audio jack.

The handful of ports are nice to have, but the one thing I can’t wrap my head around is the placement of said ports. The only port that’s located on the left side of the laptop is the USB 3 Type-A port, which makes sense given that you’d normally plug your mouse there, and have the wire be placed behind the laptop.

What’s odd to me is how all of the other ports are all clumped up on the right side of the laptop. It just feels very awkward if I were to charge the laptop while also plugging in my earphones. It would’ve been a lot better if they were to move the Thunderbolt ports to the left side instead, making it less cluttered.

Battery Life

The Zenbook 14X OLED has a 70WHrs battery life, and it could get me around 6 odd hours with 50 percent screen brightness and balanced power performance, which is pretty decent if you ask me since it’s essentially a full work day. You could also definitely save up a lot more power if you were to set it in battery efficiency mode too.

Benchmark

3D Mark – 2012

PC Mark 10 – 5747

Cinebench Single Core – 1686

Cinebench Multi Core – 10693

Game Test

And while the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED is certainly not a gaming laptop, I tried out some games to see how it would fare. The first game I tested out was Apex Legends, and on the highest graphic settings, I had an average FPS of around 65 FPS.

While running the game on lowest graphic settings, I could get an average 87 FPS. And honestly caught me by surprise considering that game is able to run relatively decent.

Apex Legends (Highest Graphic Settings)

Apex Legends (Lowest Graphic Settings)

Second game I tried out was Hades. With the default settings (you can’t change any of the graphic settings aside from the screen resolution), the game ran very smoothly at an average FPS of around 85 FPS, even during combat.

Hades

Lastly, I tried out Atelier Ryza 3, and at highest graphic settings the game ran at around 30 FPS, which is pretty rough but still playable. On the other spectrum with setting it to lowest graphic settings, it can run at around 50 FPS.

Atelier Ryza 3 (Highest Graphic Settings)

Atelier Ryza 3 (Lowest Graphic Settings)

Verdict

All things considered, the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED is a pretty solid choice for people who are looking for a bit more power for their work, such as content creators or video editors, which would appreciate the OLED screen with 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut range, and high peak brightness.

However, being priced at MYR 5,999 is certainly more on the premium side when it comes to pricing. But, the price also comes a super portable and performance-oriented laptop with some striking visuals, packaged in an overall classy design.

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