Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED laptop full review

You can also be interested in these:

The Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED is a highly versatile and portable laptop that has undergone a redesign for its new generation. Available in metallic or black, its 360º ErgoLift hinges allow for easy use of its OLED touch screen, which boasts improved brightness and color accuracy. The connectivity section takes advantage of the capabilities of the Intel i7-1360P CPUs, with dual Thunderbolt 4 and LPDDR5 memory.

Exterior design

In terms of exterior design, the Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED is similar to the non-convertible series, with compact measurements for its 14-inch screen and a thickness of just 15.9 mm. While it may not be the lightest laptop in its segment, it still offers excellent portability.

The laptop’s screen cover and keyboard base are both made of aluminum, with the Asus logo screen-printed on the surface combining a metallic finish with matte. This design also ensures that the laptop does not show fingerprints, at least in this color tone. Additionally, the use of Gorilla Glass to protect the screen improves its durability, and the military-grade resistance certification ensures its robustness and resistance to torsion.

The black border of the laptop’s screen is intercalated between the completely flat side and front edges, with a slot on the front to make opening the screen easier. The left side features a ventilation grille that takes up most of the available space, but the most interesting aspect is the hinge area. The screen uses an ErgoLift system that can rotate 360º in both the screen and body anchor simultaneously. This system has just the right stiffness to hold the screen in any position and perfectly stick it to the body of the laptop in tablet mode.

The plastic bottom case maintains the same design and construction, with edges cut and inclined inwards and small rubber feet in the four corners. The side grille is complemented by an additional area underneath it, but the air intake is carried out entirely through the base grille. This means that cooling may be difficult in tablet mode, as the intake will be blocked.

Opening the Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED reveals a screen with extremely thin bezels – just 4 mm on the sides, 9 mm on the top edge where the webcam is located, and 20 mm on the bottom bezel. The keyboard layout is 65%, with smaller F keys and very small arrow keys. The touchpad could be larger, as the space could be better utilized width-wise. The laptop also includes the Asus NumberPad 2.0, which generates a virtual numeric keypad.

Ports and connectivity

The Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED features significantly improved connectivity, taking advantage of the capabilities of Intel processors and their PCIe 4.0 lanes.

On the right side, the laptop features an HDMI 2.1 port, two USB4 Thunderbolt 4 ports with Power Delivery, a 3.5mm combo audio and microphone jack, and two LEDs indicating power and charging status.

On the left side, there is one USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port.

The laptop offers a total of three USB ports, two of which operate at 40 Gbps, allowing for expanded connectivity with dongles and devices with high bandwidth. However, despite the HDMI port being 2.1, the lack of dedicated graphics means that its capabilities may be underutilized.

The Asus Zenbook 14 Flip features an Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 wireless card, with tri-band capability providing 2.4 Gbps of bandwidth for 5 and 6 GHz, and 574 Mbps for 2.4 GHz. It supports 1024QAM and 160 MHz, and also comes with Bluetooth 5.2.

Convertible OLED screen

One of the most notable features of the laptop is its 14-inch OLED display, which has a native resolution of 2.8K (2880x1800p) and a 90 Hz refresh rate, providing smoother transitions. The panel, which is a Samsung model ATNA40YK07-1, gives the laptop a technical advantage over the Microsoft Surface Laptop or MSI Summit E14 2022, both of which use IPS displays.

The display’s input has been optimized to give us less than 30 ms of latency, making it an excellent complement for artistic or architectural drawing tasks. It also features a 0.3 ms pixel response time, which eliminates any problems with ghosting.

The screen also boasts excellent image quality, with a maximum brightness of 550 nits and DisplayHDR 500 True Black certification. It has a contrast of 1,000,000:1, which is practically a 1:1 ratio, and it has been precisely color calibrated and validated by Pantone. Additionally, the panel has TÜV Rheinland Eye Care certification, with 70% less blue light than an LCD panel.

The Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED does not disappoint with its sound quality, which is provided by two 2W speakers signed by Harman Kardon and compatible with Dolby Audio. The laptop also has an audio amplifier that significantly improves the quality of the bass while maintaining a good balance in treble and midrange, even at maximum volume. The sound quality of the laptop is above average, as expected from a Zenbook. A recorded demonstration with a microphone is provided for users to experience the sound quality for themselves.

Keyboard, touchpad NumberPad 2.0, and webcam

Asus has designed the keyboard of the Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED to be the same as the regular Zenbook models, with a perfect Spanish ANSI layout and without a column of special keys. The island-type keys measure 15 x 15 mm and have a layout that can be difficult to see during the day due to the gray color. However, this problem is solved by having white backlighting with various brightness levels.

The keyboard is designed for comfortable typing, with high-quality membrane, good padding, and silent keys, with a key travel of 1.4 mm. The laptop’s low-profile and wide-keyed design makes the hand position very comfortable. The F keys have dual functions, which can be alternated as the first or second option with the Fn + Esc combination.

The Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED comes with a touchpad equipped with NumberPad 2.0, which features a wide panel for its size but could still make better use of space in width. The NumberPad function provides a virtual numeric keypad that is backlit with a grid and numbers under the surface. The function is activated by pressing the upper right corner, and the left corner alternates between two brightness levels.

The laptop also features a Full HD webcam with an IR sensor for Windows Hello facial recognition, which performs excellently. It is accompanied by two microphones with a long capture range and a noise-cancellation function.

Internal and hardware features

Moving to the interior, the Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED is equipped with the latest possible hardware for both the CPU and RAM. It comes in two variants, i5-1340P and i7-1360P, with storage options of 512 GB and 1 TB.

The laptop is equipped with the Intel Core i7-1360P processor with Raptor Lake architecture, featuring 4 P-cores at 5.00 GHz boost frequency and 8 E-cores at 3.7 GHz. It has 18 MB of L3 cache and power consumption parameters adjusted to 28W expandable to 64W. The processor may be too powerful for the small space of the laptop, and further tests will determine whether there are any limitations in terms of frequencies and power. The laptop does not offer options with dedicated graphics, so it only uses integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics.

The Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED comes with 16 GB of LPDDR5 type RAM at 4800 MHz, which is directly integrated into the motherboard with no possibility of expansion. Storage options include 512 GB and 1 TB capacities through PCIe 4.0 SSDs. It is recommended to opt for the 1 TB version, especially for design purposes. The laptop does not offer an additional expansion slot.

The cooling system consists of two copper pipes that lead from a cold plate to a single turbine-type fan that draws in air from below and expels it to the side. While it is a bit noisier than the Surface Laptop 5’s heatsink, it is quieter than that of the MSI Summit E14.

Battery life

The Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED is equipped with a fairly powerful battery for its size, with a capacity of 75Wh. A 65W power adapter will supply charge to the battery through USB-C. The battery life will vary depending on usage, but it should provide decent usage time on a single charge.

Under the most favorable scenario with power-saving mode activated, brightness at 35%, and editing an article, the estimated battery life of the Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED was almost 11 hours. While this is a more than decent figure under these conditions, the laptop may begin to drain more quickly under more demanding tasks.

Final thoughts on the Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED

The Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED is a strong candidate for the best convertible laptop on the market, with a positive overall balance. However, there is room for improvement in terms of performance optimization. While the laptop has a good processor, the cooling system is insufficient for it to reach competitive clock frequencies.

Despite this point, the laptop has many great features, particularly its 90 Hz OLED display, which offers excellent image quality and perfect calibration in the main color spaces. The keyboard and touchpad are of high quality, comparable to Zenbook productivity laptops, and the sound quality is also great. The laptop’s design is slim, convertible in tablet mode, and optimized for creative skills with touch input and the Asus Pen 2.0, which is not included.

The battery life of the laptop is decent under favorable conditions but may drain more quickly under more demanding tasks. Overall, the Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED is a great choice for those looking for a versatile and portable convertible laptop with many high-end features.