ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) review: the thinnest 13-inch laptop with OLED display

The ASUS Zenbook line has expanded significantly in recent years and has something to offer both in the category of high-performance laptops for working with video and graphics and in the category of the most compact image models. This is exactly what ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) is. The laptop has a very compact metal body weighing only 1 kg with a great ceramic coating and a very stylish design. The company calls it the thinnest laptop with an OLED display. Indeed, the thickness is only 10.9 mm. The laptop is equipped with a bright 13.3-inch OLED display with a high resolution of 2880x1800. The performance is more than enough for office tasks and basic photo or video processing, and the battery allows you to work for a full day without recharging. The laptop's strengths also include a comfortable backlit keyboard and a large touchpad. And the presence of full-size connectors in addition to two Thunderbolt 4, given the compactness and thickness of the case. In general, it's hard to find critical flaws in the ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED quality. We can only note the glare of the glass on the screen. And the display refresh rate is 60 Hz, which is not at all critical for such a model.

5 reasons to buy ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V):

• A very compact and lightweight metal case with a ceramic coating and excellent design
• Bright OLED display with a resolution of 2880x1800
• Comfortable keyboard and touchpad
• Two Thunderbolt 4 and full-size connectors in an ultra-compact body
• Long battery life

2 reasons not to buy ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V):

• You need a more productive laptop for heavier tasks
• Glossy screen finish and 60Hz refresh rate

Fast transition:

1. What's in the box?
2. How interesting does the ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) look?
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 S 13 OLED (UX5304V) arrived in an updated package. ASUS pays special attention to the environmental friendliness of this model. The packaging uses only paper made from wood from forests managed in accordance with the principles of responsible forestry, controlled wood and recycled materials. No glue or plastic is used. The package includes the laptop itself, a 65W power supply with a replaceable cable, a case and documentation. Usually, power supplies are not very interesting. But in this case, there is something to see: it is very compact. More compact than some modern smartphone power supplies.

The envelope case is standard for the latest ASUS laptops:

And part of the packaging can be used as a laptop stand:

How interesting does the ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) look?

The overall style of the laptop is close to other current Zenbook models that we have recently reviewed. For example, ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404VA). The body is almost entirely made of aluminium alloy, including the frame around the perimeter of the display. The working surface is a magnesium-aluminium alloy. The construction feels solid, and at the same time, the laptop is very light. The top lid is decorated with straight lines that form the ASUS logo. We had the Basalt Gray version with light lines. It's also interesting for its matte ceramic lid coating, which resembles a stone to the touch. It looks and feels very stylish and interesting. All surfaces of the laptop are matte and hardly collect fingerprints.

ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) is very thin: only 10.9 mm. The company claims that this is the thinnest 13-inch laptop with an OLED display. There are not so many connectors, which is quite usual for such compact models. But there is still room for two full-size ports. On the left side, there are two Thunderbolt 4 with Power Delivery and DisplayPort support, a charging indicator, a full-size HDMI 2.1 (TMDS) and a left speaker. In this laptop, they are made in the form of slots on the sides.

On the left is another indicator light, a 3.5mm audio jack, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, and a second speaker:

The back of the laptop has two hinges and four small rubber feet that support the laptop in the open position. The front has a cutout typical of modern ultrabooks for more convenient lid lifting.

The screen occupies 85% of the top panel, with very thin gaps on the sides. Both the bezel and the display itself are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass NBT. So it will glare in the sun. There are a lot of interesting things above the screen. Of course, there is a webcam with an indicator and microphones. In addition, there is a dual infrared camera for owner identification, a light sensor for auto-brightness adjustment, and an RGB sensor for automatic adjustment of the display colour temperature depending on the ambient light. The webcam has a FullHD resolution and has a number of ASUS AiSense image enhancement features: background blur, brightness correction, eye direction correction, motion tracking, filters and real-time 3D noise reduction (3DNR) technology.

There's nothing special or interesting underneath. Ventilation holes above the two cooling fans and wide rubber inserts almost the entire width of the laptop.

ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) is very compact and lightweight: 296.2x216.3x10.9 mm and only 1 kg. You can easily carry it with you every day, either in a backpack or a small bag. It looks and feels great. The surfaces hardly bend under pressure, and the matte finish does not collect fingerprints. Traditionally for the Zenbook line, the laptop meets the requirements of the American military standard MIL-STD-810H. ASUS has also started to focus on environmental protection: the laptop and packaging are made from recycled materials.

Is the laptop comfortable to use?

The ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) uses a hinge design that is already familiar from other models, thanks to which, in the open position, the working surface is slightly raised at an angle to the table, and a space is created below for better intake of cold air by the cooling system. Of course, the laptop is easy to open with one hand, and the maximum opening angle is almost 180°. The display unit is very well fixed and does not shake.

The keyboard unit and its keys are dark grey. The key layout is absolutely standard for current ASUS Zenbooks and is generally typical for ultraportable models. It does not have an additional number pad, the top row of function buttons and the arrow block are smaller. The top row ends with the Delete key, not the power button. Home, End, PgUp and PgDn are duplicated with arrows through Fn. Both Shift are long, Enter and Backspace are single-level. There is no fingerprint scanner, which is fully compensated by infrared cameras for owner identification.

The interval between the buttons is 18.7 mm, the full stroke is 1 mm, and the surface has a small depression of 0.1 mm. The keystroke is very clear and resilient. The keyboard is very pleasant to use, and the standard layout eliminates the need for getting used to it.

Despite the compact size of the laptop, the company has installed a large touchpad with dimensions of 129x81 mm. Many larger laptops have smaller touchpads. The coating is very pleasant, the sensitivity is excellent.

How good is the screen?

ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) is equipped with a 13.3-inch OLED display with a resolution of 2.8K (2880×1800) and an aspect ratio of 16:10. In fact, the resolution is probably a little too high for such a diagonal. But the picture looks very clear. In general, the impressions of the screen are very positive. The colours are bright and saturated, the viewing angles are maximum, the brightness margin is very decent. The display is covered by a protective glass, so it will glare on the street. Thepixel response time is0.2 ms, and the refresh rate is standard, 60 Hz. According to official information: the colour coverage is 100% of the DCI-P3 space, there is PANTONE Validated certification, and the peak brightness in HDR mode is 550 cd/m2. The maximum brightness in manual mode is not specified. There is VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification and Dolby Vision support. ASUS calls its new displays in laptops Lumina OLED and claims that they have become even more reliable, accurate and energy efficient. The MyAsus app has tools to extend the life of the OLED panel: screen saver, pixel shift, taskbar hiding, taskbar transparency, dim inactive windows, and DC Dimming (flicker reduction). There are Splendid colour display modes and colour temperature settings.

Themaximum screen brightness in SDR mode is 390,318 cd/m². The colour reproduction is accurate, with minimal bias towards cold shades. And the colour gamut is significantly wider than sRGB:

What about performance, battery life and sound?

Earlier in our reviews, we wrote that starting from the 12th generation, Intel mobile processors have three lines: the most productive H/HX for gaming laptops and portable workstations, the middle P line with a TDP of 28 W for ultraportable relatively productive models, and U - the most cost-effective processors with a standard TDP of 9 to 15 W for the most compact and lightweight models. This is exactly the processor installed in ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V). Namely, the 13th generation Intel Core i7-1355U Raptor Lake. It is manufactured using the Intel 7 process and includes 10 cores. 2 productive and 8 energy-efficient cores. Multithreaded computing with up to 12 threads is supported. The clock speed of the productive cores is from 1.7 to 5.0 GHz, and the energy-efficient cores are from 1.2 to 3.7 GHz. The cache is 12 MB, the standard TDP level is 15 W, and the model under review has a mode to increase TDP to 20 W in maximum performance mode. ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED does not have a discrete graphics card. Instead, the graphics are handled by the built-in Intel Iris Xe adapter with 96 processing units, with a maximum frequency of 1300 MHz. The amount of RAM is 16 GB LPDDR5-5200. There is no upgrade option; there is a version with 32 GB of RAM. Wireless interfaces: Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.2. Thelaptop meets the requirements of the Intel Evo programme, which has a number of performance requirements. Among them: a resolution of at least FullHD, support for fast charging, up to 9 hours of battery life, fast wake-up, Wi-Fi 6 support, and Thunderbolt 4 ports .

ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) is an ultraportable solution for working with documents, browsing and other not too demanding tasks on the go. So the performance is quite appropriate. We have a fairly powerful processor (for its class) and a not very productive graphics subsystem. However, it is quite enough for basic photo or video processing.

The drive is a 1TB Samsung PM9A1 SSD with PCI-E 4.0 4x interface, which is quite common in flagship ultrabooks. The declared read speed is up to 7000 MB/s and write speed is up to 5100 MB/s.

The drive is very fast, and the SSD performance is fully consistent with the claims:

The cooling system includes two low-profile fans. Usually, they don't come on under light load, and the laptop is completely quiet. This applies to working with documents and a browser. At maximum loads, the fans are audible, but they work quietly. The case hardly heats up. But the Throttling Test in AIDA64 showed that during the first minute and a half of maximum load, the processor heats up to about 93° and there is throttling. After the coolant adapts, the temperature drops to 77° and stays at this level, the laptop works stably

In case you suddenly have a desire to play on the laptop, it is quite possible. Although, of course, not the most modern games. In Gears Tactics, at medium settings with a resolution of 1920x1200, the frame rate is more than 50 FPS. In Spec Ops The Line - 40-45 FPS at medium settings and 1920x1200. Tomb Raider - 30-40 FPS at medium settings and 2880x1800 resolution.

ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) is equipped with a 63Wh battery, and ASUS promises up to 14 hours of operation on a single charge. The testing conditions are as follows. The Wi-Fi module is switched on, but not connected to any network, the display brightness is 150 cd/m², the performance mode is balanced. 1080p video playback. A more modest configuration with Intel i5-1335U, 512 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM was used. Fast charging is supported: 50% in 30 minutes from the bundled 65W PSU and USB-C Easy Charge, which allows the laptop to be charged from power banks. The energy-efficient processor has a good effect on battery life. In Wi-Fi mode, the laptop lasted about 9 hours with a browser, documents and music from streaming services at 50% brightness.

The built-in stereo speakers were surprisingly loud for such a compact body. But they are not very suitable for music: low frequencies are almost absent.

The bundled software includes the main MyASUS application, which we have already talked about many times in our reviews of the company's laptops:

ScreenXpert with some useful features such as quick application switching, screenshots, quick microphone and camera switches, etc.

And GlideX for quick smartphone connection, data transfer and use as an additional display:

That's it. Three things you need to know about ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V).

• The ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304V) is a very thin and light laptop with a metal body and a nice design
• Equipped with a bright 13.3-inch 2880x1800 OLED display
• It works for a working day without recharging

Go Deeper:

• ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404VA) review: bright OLED display and brilliant power
• ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 16 (2023) review: total dominance on the virtual battlefield
• ASUS ROG Flow X16 review: a powerful gaming laptop-transformer with a docking station
• ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3402) review: ultra-compact laptop with OLED display and new Intel processor
• Acer Swift Edge review: the lightest 16-inch laptop ever