We test the first Meteor Lake computer from Asus

Price When Reviewed

$1,299.99

Best Prices Today: Asus Zenbook 14 Oled UX3405MA-PURE16

$1299.99

Intel simply offered its new Meteor Lake processors, and the primary laptops with the brand new circuits will quickly be on sale. Luckily, I’ve had the chance to check one in every of them upfront. The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, with its gorgeous show and stable graphics efficiency, has been refreshed each in and out.

This new mannequin is a thinner and lighter pc than the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED I examined final spring in addition to an up to date mannequin with the 13th era Core processor that had the identical design and virtually the identical weight of somewhat over three kilos. Now we get right down to 1.5cm thickness and a weight of between 2.64 and a pair of.82 kilos, relying on whether or not the mannequin has a touchscreen or not. Mine has a touchscreen, however I can’t say the additional grams hassle me a lot. For a 14-incher, that is very nice.

Looking for extra choices? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops accessible proper now.

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: Build high quality, keyboard

The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED incorporates a stable, high quality construct. It’s virtually completely made from matte aluminum, apart from the glass display screen floor and plastic keyboard keys. The deliciously deep blue-green tones of the surfaces give the pc an expert and opulent look. With the suitable rounding of the sides on the underside, the pc is snug to carry and carry round, regardless of a extra angular grip on the display screen lid.

The keyboard is top-notch with simply the correct amount of journey and response from the massive keys. My solely grievance is that the arrow keys are a bit cramped, however that’s virtually at all times the case on small laptops and not using a numeric keypad. The mouse pad beneath has excessive precision and wonderful direct response for pointing, swiping, and gesturing. It has a large floor, however just isn’t optimally excessive.

Mattias Inghe

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: Touchpad, ports

A protracted press within the higher proper nook of the mouse pad lights up a numeric keypad on the floor and a press within the different nook permits you to alter its brightness. It’s a viable different to an actual numeric keypad on the facet, particularly in the event you’ve related an exterior mouse. It’s attainable to make use of the mouse pad for mouse management and numeric keys on the identical time, however this may generally trigger confusion.

On the edges you’ll discover a well-approved set of exterior connections for a skinny laptop computer. Dual thunderbolt 4 ports with USB-C connector, the place you’ll be able to join energy, exterior equipment and displays. Then a separate USB-A with USB-3 velocity, a 3.5 mm headset jack, and a full-size HDMI 2.1 port.

It received’t be lengthy earlier than you run out of issues to connect with except you’ve received an exterior mouse with a USB-A connector. You may additionally should spend money on a USB-C docking station if you wish to deliver in additional devices. You connect with the community wirelessly with Wi-Fi 6e or less complicated. We’re nonetheless ready for Wi-Fi 7 laptops, and I had the hope that it will include this era of Intel’s processors, however it’s going to take somewhat longer. In any case, it’s undoubtedly quick sufficient towards the Wi-Fi 6 router I’ve accessible for testing.

Mattias Inghe

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: Bright OLED display screen

Asus has a wider vary of OLED laptops than some other producer proper now, and the OLED display screen right here is nothing to sneeze at. The 2880×1800 decision makes it razor sharp and really feel pixel-free at arms size. The distinction is, after all, 100 p.c and also you get excessive brightness of as much as 400 cd/m2 in sort brightness and as much as 550 cd/m2 in HDR mode.

The display screen is licensed for Vesa Display HDR 600 True Black, and with the suitable picture supply or HDR-compatible video games in the suitable mode, it may be an intense expertise. With 100% protection of the dci-p3 colour scale, you get intense and saturated colours. You have 4 predefined colour profiles to select from: srgb, pci-p3, show p3, and Native, which appears to supply deeper blues.

It’s not an actual skilled monitor with additional cautious manufacturing facility calibration of colour correctness, however you’ll be able to at all times do it manually if you wish to. The 120Hz body fee provides a pleasant circulate to interfaces in addition to scrolling net pages and paperwork. A response time of as little as 0.2ms supplies good circumstances for quick gaming, if the graphics circuitry can sustain.

Mattias Inghe

Performance goes a good distance if you would like the pc to edit photographs or video, particularly this mannequin, which is provided with a full 32GB of RAM and a 1TB of quick SSD storage. And then, after all, there’s the brand new processor.

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: New processor

Meteor Lake is the code title for a brand new era of Intel Core processors for laptops. Apparently, Intel is abandoning the title Core i3, i5, i7 and i9. The processor inside this evaluation unit r is named Core Ultra 7 155H. Core Ultra is extra of an built-in SoC (System on Chip) than earlier Intel processors and consists of CPUs for AI, reminiscence interfaces, IO controls, and extra highly effective graphics. Plus, it has a whopping 16 CPU cores.

Multi-threading is the long run. Six of the cores (known as Performance or P-core) are designed for high-performance and assist hyperthreading, permitting for a most of 22 parallel operations. Of the remaining ten, eight are stated to be semi-fast (Efficient or E-core) and two are additional power-efficient and slower (Low Power, LP-core).

The Core Ultra processors are supposed to compete with AMD’s Ryzen 7000 collection, a minimum of the extra environment friendly cellular ones with Zen4 structure that appeared in computer systems through the summer time and autumn. Powerful for skinny laptops, each on the CPU and GPU facet, and vitality environment friendly.

Mattias Inghe

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: Not an enormous enhance, however quicker

Benchmark measurements give a, properly, cautious consequence. You’re not getting a revolution quite the identical gradual enchancment as between earlier processor generations.

Compared to an Intel Core i7-1360P, maybe the most typical processor on this dimension class of pc from the final Intel era, it’s a efficiency enhance of between 10 and 30 p.c relying on which pc I’m evaluating with. It various quite a bit in era 13. But on common, efficiency is undeniably increased, if not enormously so.

Is that what you must examine it to or does the H on the finish of the processor title imply it must be in comparison with the H-series of the 13th era? The Core i7-13700H is a processor that on paper is near the Core Ultra 7 155H, with an equal variety of P cores and E cores. They pull very evenly in my measurements, with just a few p.c right here and there, relying on the measurement program and time.

Finally, the query is how the Core Ultra 7 155H compares to what different producers have to supply. It’s a bit quicker on all factors right here than with AMD Ryzen 7 7840U, one of many few Zen 4 processors I’ve had the chance to check. But once more, it’s a power-efficient U-series processor, so is it the suitable processor to match it with? Perhaps. According to Intel, the Core Ultra 7 155H solely attracts 28 watts. That’s not dangerous in any respect.

Mattias Inghe

Likewise, it’s about the identical quantity forward of an Apple M3 in line with check outcomes from Geekbench and Cinebench. But it’s crushed by the M3 Max and M3 Ultra.

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: Cooling, battery life

Can the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED compete in energy effectivity, coolness, and battery life? Well, no. The Arm structure has an enormous head begin on these factors. The pc can run partially on passive cooling, however you’ll be able to count on followers, starting from delicate whispering to obtrusive hissing, to start out up.

Pure CPU and GPU measurements don’t inform the entire story of how good a processor is nowadays. There must also be built-in NPU powering AI, which helps with sure sorts of use, optimizing the pc on the system degree.

How a lot battery life you get relies on many components, primarily the display screen and the battery itself. Powering such a quick and high-resolution OLED show can eat up vitality. On the opposite hand, the battery right here is comparatively massive, with a whopping 75 Wh capability. Despite this, the pc is what we class as ultra-light.

I managed to get three and a half hours out of excessive processor load and full sort brightness on the display screen. The battery lasts even longer if I take it straightforward with the efficiency problem and the display screen. Working on the pc for an prolonged day must be fantastic with out having to search out energy retailers.

Mattias Inghe

You additionally get a useful charger that connects with USB-C. With 65 watts of energy, it prices the battery from 0-100 p.c in lower than two hours.

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: Fast sufficient for gaming

The Apple M3 wins the graphics efficiency race by a large margin, however the Intel Arc Graphics on this processor comes second to the Radeon 780M in AMD’s processor. The Radeon 780M can also be present in Ryzen Z1 Extreme, which powers the hand-held gaming computer systems ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go. It’s positively highly effective sufficient to make the Zenbook 14 Oled UX3405 an honest gaming PC for many who don’t have astronomical calls for.

On paper a minimum of, it might want some driver tuning to make all video games run easily on it. The lack of devoted graphics reminiscence additionally implies that some video games have issues. I attempted putting in a few semi-demanding video games and operating them at 1080p decision.

Subnautica runs easily with good fluidity between 50 and 70 fps whereas Horizon: Zero Dawn first complains about lack of video reminiscence, then has bother discovering the suitable facet ratio. It additionally doesn’t look good after I manually go in and power the sport to render the picture within the applicable format. Perhaps it’s attainable to get optimized drivers that resolve this, however proper out of the field there’s so much to trim.

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: Far from silent

If you set your pc’s followers to “Performance Mode”, it’s possible you’ll discover aggressive hissing sounds as they energy as much as cool issues down. You’ll must up the quantity to drown out the sound. Fortunately, you’ll be able to squeeze out loads of sound from the built-in audio system mounted on the underside close to the entrance edge. With Dolby Audio assist and a Harman/Kardon sound system, the standard is excessive, though among the finer particulars within the treble are lacking.

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: Specifications

Product title: Asus Zenbook 14 OLED UX3405MA-PURE16
Tested: December 2023
Manufacturer: Asus
Processor: Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 6pcs P-core as much as 4,8 GHz + 8pcs E-core, 2pcs LP-core
Graphics: Intel Arc Graphics
Memory: 32 GB ddr5
Storage: 1 TB ssd
Displays: 14 inch shiny oled, 2880×1800 pixels, 16:10, multitouch, 120 Hz
Webcam: 1080p with ir
Connections: 2pcs Thunderbolt 4, usb-a 3.0, hdmi 2.1, headset
Wireless: Wifi 6e, Bluetooth 5.3
Operating system: Windows 11 Home
Noise degree: 0-39 dBa
Battery life: 75 Wh, 3 hrs 30 min (excessive load, full brightness), approx. 17 hrs (low load, low brightness)
Size: 31.2 x 22 x 1.5 cm
Weight: 2.82 kilos
Recommended retail value: $1,299.99

Asus Zenbook 14 OLED: Performance

Cinebecnh R23, multi-core CPU: 11,057 factors
Cinebench R23, single core CPU: 1,726 factors
Geekbench 6, multi-core CPU: 12,577 factors
Geekbench 6, single core CPU: 2,378 factors
Geekbench 6, GPU: 33,990 factors
3DMark Fire Strike (DirectX 12): 6,063 factors
3DMark Time Spy (DirectX 12): 2,871 factors
Disk, learn: as much as 4,925.51 MB/s
Disk, write: as much as 3,292.92 MB/s

This evaluation was translated from Swedish to English and initially appeared on pcforalla.se.