ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) review: bright OLED display and brilliant power

ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) is a rather unusual laptop that may be of interest to those who need a powerful processor in an ultra-compact body. The laptop is powered by Intel's 13th-generation Raptor Lake H-series processor, which is usually used in more bulky models. And the efficient cooling system can handle this power. In addition, the laptop is equipped with a high-quality, bright 14.5-inch OLED display with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. The laptop has a comfortable backlit keyboard and a large touchpad combined with a touchpad. Traditionally for the line, the laptop has a sturdy metal case that meets the MIL-STD-810H military standard and looks nice. But it collects fingerprints very readily.

5 reasons to buy ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404):

• Powerful 13th generation Intel Raptor Lake H-series processor
• Efficient cooling system
• Gorgeous OLED display with a resolution of 2880x1800 and a refresh rate of 120 Hz
• Comfortable keyboard and touchpad
• A compact metal case with MIL-STD-810H certification

2 reasons not to buy ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404):

• High price
• Branded case

Fast transition:

1. What's in the box?
2. What does ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) look like?
3. Is the laptop comfortable to use?
4. How good is the screen?
5. What about performance, battery life, and sound?
6. In a nutshell

What's in the box?

ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) is packaged in the usual grey box. The package is quite good, as usual. In addition to the laptop, 90W power supply with power cable and documentation, there is a USB to RJ-45 network adapter and a very nice envelope case:

What does the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) look like?

ASUS has updated the design of its Zenbooks, we recently reviewed the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3402). Today's ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) has a very similar appearance and design, with the main differences inside. The laptop is almost entirely made of aluminium, with only the frame around the screen being plastic.So theweight is not minimal, but it feels expensive and reliable in the hands . Thetop cover has a pattern in the form of lines that form the new ASUS logo. In the lower left corner is a small ASUS Zenbook inscription. In our case, the laptop is dark grey. The lid has a matte finish that is pleasant to the touch, but very marky. Fingerprints are very noticeable on it, so idealists will have to take a microfibre to wipe it off. There is also an interesting beige (Sandstone Beige) version with a ceramic coating.

There are not too many connectors, but it is quite enough for a compact ultraportable model. On the right side there are two Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort and Power Delivery, a 3.5 mm audio jack and HDMI 2.0b. To the left are two LED operation indicators.

On the left is a single full-size USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 and ventilation holes:

At the back is just a wide hinge that takes up most of the width of the laptop. The front has the usual lid cutout. There are no other functional elements.

The bezels around the perimeter of the screen are thin, especially the side ones. The screen occupies 89% of the surface area. Above the screen there is a webcam with an indicator, an infrared camera for owner identification, two microphones, a light sensor for auto-brightness adjustment and an RGB sensor for automatic adjustment of the display colour temperature. The webcam has a FullHD resolution and supports ASUS AiSense image enhancement. It includes background blur, lighting correction, eye direction correction, motion tracking, filters, and real-time 3D noise reduction (3DNR) technology.

The bottom has a large number of ventilation holes and rubber feet. There are stereo speakers on the bevelled side edges. The bottom cover can be removed by unscrewing 9 screws. This may be necessary to clean the cooling system or replace the SSD. The RAM is soldered on the board, so you won't be able to increase its capacity.

The laptop has dimensions of 321.8 x 225.6 x 16.9 mm and weighs 1.56 kg. Yes, there are lighter and more compact models, but it's worth remembering that there's a 13th-generation Intel Core H-series processor and a discrete graphics card in some configurations. The laptop has a nice appearance and materials, but the top lid is branded. Like the vast majority of current models in the line, the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED meets the requirements of the US military standard MIL-STD-810H and theoretically can withstand more severe conditions of use.

Is the laptop comfortable to use?

Unlike many models in the line, ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED does not use the ErgoLift hinge. Instead, the working surface and keyboard are placed at a slight angle due to the higher rear rubber foot. The hinge is comfortable: it holds the display well in position and allows you to open the laptop with one hand. The maximum opening angle is 180°.

The keyboard layout is almost standard, typical of ultraportable ASUS models. It does not have an additional number pad, and the top row and arrow block are smaller. The only not quite usual solution is that the top row ends not with the power button, but with Delete, which should prevent accidental shutdown of the laptop. The Shift, Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn buttons are duplicated with arrows through Fn. So getting used to the keyboard takes a minimum of time.

ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) uses an ErgoSense keyboard: the key spacing is 19.05 mm, the surface is concave by 0.2 mm, and the full travel is 1.4 mm. At the same time, the pressed button protrudes 0.1 mm above the working surface. The actuation force is 25-34 g, and the maximum pressing force is 62 g. The keyboard is very comfortable: the keystrokes are quite soft, but informative. There is a white backlight with three levels of brightness.

The touchpad is glass, with a very nice matte finish. It is quite large and has good sensitivity. Like many other Zenbooks, it uses NumberPad 2.0: the touchpad is combined with a touch-sensitive numeric pad activated by a touch button in the upper right corner. However, the touchpad can also be used for its intended purpose in the number pad mode. There is a brightness adjustment and the ability to quickly launch the calculator by moving the touch button in the upper left corner in any direction.

How good is the screen?

OLED screens are gradually becoming the norm for laptops. TheASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) also has a 14-inch OLED display with a 2.8K (2880x1800) resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio, 120Hz refresh rate and 0.2mspixel response time. The coating is glossy, but it's not as glare-proof as the protective glass in touchscreen models. They promise colour coverage of 100% of the DCI-P3 colour space, have PANTONE Validated certification, the maximum brightness in SDR mode is 400 cd/m2, and the peak brightness in HDR mode is 600 cd/m2. In addition to the usual Splendid colour display mode settings, the MyAsus app has many settings aimed at extending the life of the OLED display: pixel shift, taskbar hiding, screen saver, low-brightness flicker elimination and refresh rate selection.

Measurements with a colourimeter showed that the maximum brightness in SDR mode is very close to the declared value: 387,707 cd/m² . The colour gamut of the screen is much wider than sRGB.

What about performance, battery life and sound?

The most interesting thing is inside the laptop. It has a new 13th-generation Intel Raptor Lake processor. In our case, it's an Intel Core i7-13700H. Usually, H-series processors are used in more "massive" portable workstations and gaming laptops, while ultraportable models like the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) get less productive, more energy-efficient U or P series processors. Intel Core i7-13700H is manufactured using the Intel 7 process, has a TDP of 45W and a cache of 24MB. The configuration of the cores is similar to last year's processors of the same level. Namely: 6 productive cores with a frequency of 2.4-5 GHz and 8 energy-efficient cores with a frequency of 1.8-3.7 GHz. There is support for multi-threaded computing: up to 20 threads. There is 16 GB of LPDDR5-4800 RAM. It's soldered on the board, so you can't increase the capacity. There isno discrete graphics card in this configuration, only a built-in Intel Iris Xe. It has 96 executive units, and the maximum frequency can reach 1500 MHz. There is a more powerful laptop configuration with an Intel Core i9, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop 4GB graphics and 32GB of RAM. Wireless interfaces: Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.2.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) has high performance, which is enough for the vast majority of work tasks, including editing and basic video editing. But for more serious graphics tasks, you should still look at models with discrete graphics. The results in the benchmarks are appropriate: high in the processor tests and very moderate in the graphics tests.

The drive is a 1TB Micron 2400 SSD with a PCI-E 4.0 4x interface. On the official website, the manufacturer promises data read speeds of up to 4500 MB/s and write speeds of up to 3600 MB/s.

The actual figures correspond to the declared ones. Theread speed can reach 4700 MB/s and the write speed 3600 MB/s:

The ASUS IceCool cooling system includes two heat pipes and a fan. At minimum loads, it switches to passive mode, and the laptop works completely silently. At maximum loads, the fan is audible, but it works quietly. The case hardly heats up, only the area above the keyboard gets warm. At the beginning of the AIDA64 test, the system heats up to about 85° and can reduce performance by 5%. After the cooling system adapts to the load, the temperature of the components remains at 70-75°, and the laptop operates stably.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) is not designed for gaming, but it's quite possible to play not the most demanding games. Gears Tactics at high settings with a resolution of 1920x1200 runs at a frame rate of 30-35 FPS. Dying Light at medium settings with a resolution of 1920x1200 - 50-65 FPS.

ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3402) is equipped with a three-cell 70 Wh battery, which should theoretically last for 10 hours of operation. Of course, in energy-efficient mode with low brightness. In actual use, with 50% brightness, Wi-Fi connection, browser, documents, and Photoshop, the laptop lasts about 6.5 hours. In addition to fast charging from the included power adapter, the laptop supports USB-C Easy Charge: it can be charged from any Type-C power source, including a Powerbank.

The stereo speakers are located on the side bevels of the case at an angle to the surface. The sound quality and volume are very good, considering the dimensions of the laptop. They are quite enough for movies and videos. For music, the amount of low frequencies may seem too low.

The MyASUS application is used in all ASUS laptops. It is responsible for updates, system monitoring, switching charging modes, configuring the function keys and AI noise reduction.

There is also a ProArt Creator Hub. In it, you can select a performance mode, monitor system load, calibrate the screen if you have the right calibrator model, create groups of applications for quick simultaneous launch, and more.

To sum up. Three things you need to know about ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404).

• The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) is an ultraportable laptop with a powerful 45W TDP Intel Core i7-13700H processor inside
• Equipped with a gorgeous 145-inch OLED screen with a resolution of 2880x1800 and a refresh rate of 120 Hz
• Equipped with a comfortable keyboard and touchpad

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