ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED Review – It’s Crystal Clear On the Move

The latest addition to the ASUS ZenBook series is the S 13 OLED, an incredibly elegant looking laptop. I can let its product page speak for it:

The ultralight 1-kilogram Zenbook S 13 OLED is an elegant and powerful companion for those with busy lifestyles. It packs a lot of advanced technology into its super-thin 14.9 mm magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis, including the latest AMD Ryzen™ 6000-Series Processors and AMD Radeon™ graphics. Finished in one of four sophisticated new colors — Ponder Blue, Aqua Celadon, Vestige Beige and Refined White — Zenbook S 13 OLED is designed to stand out, yet it blends in anywhere. Your eyes — and your fingers — will enjoy the clarity and responsiveness of the 16:10 13.3-inch 2.8K OLED NanoEdge touchscreen, which is Dolby Vision-certified with ultra-vivid colors for a superlative viewing experience. And your ears will appreciate the immersive multi-dimensional sound from the Dolby Atmos audio system. Elegance doesn’t get much more refined than this.

ELEGANT FUNCTIONALITY

The ASUS ZenBook S 13 OLED sports a minimalist design, with our review model shaded in Ponder Blue, looking incredibly stylish with its matte metal chassis and bright chrome hinge. Made out of magnesium-aluminum alloy, this is how the laptop is both durable, and not heavy. Definitely one you’re meant to take along anywhere, weighing a mere 1.10kg, should you need to work on the go.

The lid is able to open flat to 180 degrees, to make it easier to screen share right there and then in person. For virtual meetings, you do get a webcam supported with 3DNR technology to enable crisp and clear video calls. It falters just a little as its resolution remains at 720p.

Port wise, the right side has 2 USB Type-C ports and a 3.5mm Audio Jack, while the left side is a USB Type-C charging port. If you have additional external accessories, consider getting an adapter. More so because the keyboard isn’t a full-sized one so if you really want a numpad, you’ll need to supplement it. The keyboard by itself is fully backlit with three brightness levels, but no option to change the colours. What’s important is how it feels to use, though, and I can say that it excels there: key sizes are quite big, the distance feeling just right, enabling quick, comfortably typing.

The touchpad size might depend on personal taste. That said, while it feels a little bigger and wider than I’d prefer, the touchpad didn’t register my palm should I touch it as I type. This is where the ‘virtual’ numpad is accommodated too.

Just so you’re aware, the power button hosts a fingerprint sensor for a quick log in.

WITNESS ME

The ASUS ZenBook S 13 OLED has an OLED display, of course, with a whole host of certifications: 100% DCI-P3, Pantone validation, DisplayHDR True Black 500 and TÜV Rheinland.

It packs a 2880 x 1800 resolution with 16:10 aspect ratio. The screen feels even wider thanks to the four-sided NanoEdge design and ultra slim bezels for that increased immersive viewing experience. I’m definitely impressed with how bright the display is with how vibrant – and accurate! – the colours are when compared to a typical screen.

For work and watching visual entertainment on the side, this laptop’s pretty much made for you.

HORSEPOWER

Under the hood of the ASUS ZenBook S 13 OLED is a AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, AMD Radeon integrated graphics card, 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD and 16GB LPDDR5 RAM. There is currently no option to upgrade the RAM. While this combination is excellent for speedy file transfers, office work and light editing, it’s not a machine touted for gaming.

BENCHMARKING

3DMARK: 2228

PC MARK 10: 5814

Relatively light gaming should still be fine for this laptop. Genshin Impact and Apex Legends can run well enough on the lowest settings at 2880 x 1800 resolution. Trying to crank up the graphical quality will make the games basically unplayable.

GENSHIN IMPACT

At the lowest settings locked to 60 FPS, the game can run, but can only manage 28 FPS. At the highest settings, that drops to 13 FPS and starts getting input lag to boot.

APEX LEGENDS

Default settings will get you 10 – 11 FPS. On lowest settings, this inches up to 20 FPS, but with how difficult it is to run and shoot, that would hardly get you anywhere in a fast-paced game such as this.

BATTERY LIFE

With a 67WH battery, watching a movie for an hour and having Apex Legends run in the background got the battery to 67%. Finishing off the movie’s remaining hour without the game running had the battery end up at 50%. Considering the fact this laptop uses an OLED screen and a Ryzen 7, this combination of powerful hardware leads to an expected 6 – 8 hour battery life on average.

AUDIO

After all the talk about the visual clarity, we can’t forget it’s only part of the experience. Thanks to the ASUS sound system with Dolby Atmos technology and Harman/Kardon certification, you get crystal clear sound for high immersion and realism. Even cranking the volume up to 60 – 70, there was no audible crackling from the speakers.

STYLUS

Last but not least, the package includes the ASUS Pen 2.0. It’s slightly larger than a ballpoint pen, something I imagine those used to drawing tablets would find no trouble with. Charge it up with a USB Type-C to enjoy its 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity on the display. It’s a pen, and using it is intuitive enough. If you need to, it’s got a button to enable right-clicking.

WRAPPING UP

With all that said and done, the ASUS ZenBook S 13 OLED is by far one of your best options for mobile productivity and visual entertainment partner. Just try not to tax it too hard with the AAA game titles.

Get your own starting at RM5999 in four colour options: Ponder Blue, Refined White, Aqua Celadon and Vestige Beige.

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