ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED (UX5304)

Review Guide — India

Introduction

Premium thin and light laptops are an exciting space. However, there are few Windows notebooks that are without glaring omissions or questionable design choices. Ever wondered what the perfect modern ultrabook would look like — one that is powerful, portable, potent, and pleasant to use?

Meet the new ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED, our flagship notebook for the year. Not only is it our thinnest and lightest laptop yet, but it also sets a new bar for how capable ultrabooks can be.

It starts with a reimagined chassis that is just 1 kg in weight and has an extraordinary slimness of just 1cm. That’s more than 30% slimmer than our previous Zenbook S (UM5302) which was unveiled less than a year ago. This was achieved with a redesigned motherboard layout that allowed us to use every cubic centimetre of space inside the chassis while being able to increase the number of ports.

At the same time, it is also an environmentally friendly product with all metals and plastics originating from recycled sources. Even the box is entirely recyclable. The Zenbook S 13 OLED has also received the prestigious EPEAT Gold badge.

As always, ASUS continues to push the boundaries of display technology, this time with a new 13.3” ASUS Lumina OLED panel with 2.8K resolution (2880 x 1800) with a 16:10 aspect ratio and HDR capabilities.

Internally, it has all the latest components including Intel’s 13^th gen processors, up to 32GB of RAM, PCIe Gen 4 SSDs and more. While compact, the internals are cooled with a dual-fan system that allow for respectable thermal performance.

Other features include a large battery, fast charging, IR sensors, Intel EVO certification, Thunderbolt 4, Audio Booster, customizable performance profiles and more!

Design

The chassis of the new Zenbook S 13 OLED series is made of aluminium alloy, with clean lines and a svelte silhouette that turns heads. The new lid design features the ASUS monogram with refreshing new colours and materials across the series. The ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED series is available in two colour schemes: Basalt Gray and Ponder Blue.

Plasma ceramic aluminium: For the first time, we used a special process to transform the lid into a plasma ceramic aluminium exclusive to ASUS. The process of the new materials uses pure water, and no organic compounds, strong acids, or heavy metals are required. Instead, the environmentally low-impact method produces a physical and chemical transformation of the aluminium. This results in increased wear resistance, corrosion protection, thermal management, hardness, and lifespan. This material is also 100% recyclable at the end of life. The resulting corrosion protection is imparted by changes to the substrate itself, rather than by adding sprayed-on coatings that may be difficult to recycle.

Incredibly thin and light: The latest Zenbook S 13 OLED boasts several impressive features that make it stand out in the market. At 1 cm thin1 and 1 kg light, the new Zenbook S 13 OLED is up to 30% slimmer than the previous generation (UM5302). With the durability of metal and the lightness of plastic, magnesium-aluminium alloy is used for the keyboard deck, forming a tough structure that doesn’t need any extra support. An extremely thin glass covering is used for the touchpad, for an ultrasmooth navigation experience.

The laptop also boasts MIL-STD 810H military-grade durability and EPEAT Gold rating — post-industrial recycled (PIR) magnesium-aluminium alloy in the keyboard cover, chassis and lid, the keycaps and speakers incorporate post-consumer-recycled (PCR) plastics, and the speakers also use ocean-bound plastics.

Display

With the Zenbook S 13 OLED, we are moving to a new OLED standard: ASUS Lumina OLED — standardizing highly crafted solutions around the best OLED experience. Its name also highlights the unique advantages of ASUS OLED displays, which provide a superior visual experience that goes beyond the standard of traditional OLED displays. With more accurate, more adaptive, and more reliable features, the Zenbook S 13 OLED is the perfect example of the excellence that the ASUS Lumina OLED has to offer.

More accurate: The ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED features a 16:10 13.3-inch OLED HDR NanoEdge display with 2880 x 1800 resolution, providing users with a sharp visual experience. The OLED display of the ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED supports a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, up to 550-nits peak brightness, and 0.0005 nits of deep black brightness, providing creators with a brighter and more detailed viewing. Along with an ultrawide colour gamut of 100% DCI-P3 and HDR content support, the display is also certified VESA DisplayHDR 500 True Black, Dolby Vision and is Pantone Validated, assuring accurate colour and high dynamic contrast.

More adaptive: For different tasks or preferences, the new Zenbook series supports a customizable colour gamut function, allowing users to switch the display’s colour gamut quickly and easily. The default setting is the ultra-vivid native colour, and users can switch to other settings via the Splendid page in MyASUS. The colour gamut of sRGB is for creating web content or browsing, DCI-P3 is for cinema content, and Display P3 is for movie-grade colours finessed to fit everyday viewing in the real world.

More reliable: In addition, the OLED panel emits 70% less blue light than LCD panels and it is certified by TÜV Rhineland to ensure that the device adheres to high safety and quality standards.

Performance

With a thin and light form factor, the ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED is equipped with up to a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 1355U processor, up to 32 GB of onboard LPDDR 5200 memory and a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD. It also offers two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a standard HDMI 2.1, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, and a combo audio jack. All the above options ensure performance and comprehensive connectivity, and a 63-watt-hour battery provides more than enough battery life to cover a day of work or play.

The ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED series features an onboard memory design to allow for a thinner and lighter chassis, and it still provides up to 32 GB capacity and fast 5200 MHz LPDDR5 clock speeds to provide plenty of processing power. For storage, the ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED series features an M.2 slot with up to an optional 1 TB PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD and support for up to 6500 MB/s read performance.

The refined PCB was precision-engineered to pack in an additional, ultrathin fan to increase airflow and thermal management. We achieved this by developing an asymmetrical PCB layout and shrinking the board by 15%. The benefits are significant. With this increased space and thermal capacity, the overall performance is raised by 20% and drives the thermal design performance from default 15W to 20W.

Co-engineered with Intel, the Zenbook S 13 OLED series is an Intel Evo-certified laptop, which guarantees a certain set of hardware specifications and key experience targets for exceptional mobile experiences ― including instant wake, a faster WiFi connection and long battery life.

Convenience

Comprehensive connectivity: The ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED series features two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports. Each Thunderbolt 4 port can support up to 40 Gbps data bandwidth, DisplayPort, and Power Delivery. In addition, ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED series also offers a full-sized HDMI 2.1 (TMDS) port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, and an audio combo jack.

Long battery life and easy charging: The Zenbook S 13 OLED features a 63Wh battery, providing users with up to 14 hours of battery life. The laptop also supports USB-C Easy Charge, allowing the laptop to be charged via a wide range of standard USB-C chargers (5-20 V). Users can enjoy ultrafast charging with any PD (Power Delivery) certified charger, including the 65-watt fast-charge adapter supplied with the ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED series, or devices can be juiced up on the go with airline chargers, portable chargers, or power banks.

5.25X louder sound, zero distortion: The audio system of the ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED also features a smart amplifier and ASUS Audio Booster software. The smart amplifier is a powerful DSP chip that can enhance the maximum volume up to 3.5X with clearer sound at all frequencies while preventing long-term damage to the sensitive speaker voice coils.

Advanced camera array: The Zenbook S 13 OLED features a Full HD webcam with an IR camera for biometric authentication and Windows Hello. In addition, the laptop has a sensor that can detect ambient light levels, allowing the display to adjust the brightness and color temperature of the screen automatically to provide the best-looking image. To provide better videoconferencing experiences, it includes a new Webcam Effect feature. Via the MyASUS software UI, users can choose between Lighting Optimization, Background Blurring, Eye Tracking, and Motion Tracking effects.

Comfortable typing experience: The keyboard of the Zenbook S 13 OLED achieves an 18.7 mm pitch and offers many commonly used function keys, enabling users to type comfortably. The keyboard is backlit for convenient typing in dark environments such as flights. In addition, the keys of ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED series feature a subtle 0.1 mm dish-shaped indentation and 1.1 mm key travel — the longest of aits class of laptops.

ErgoSense touchpad: The ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED features the latest ASUS ErgoSense Touchpad which measures 129 x 81 mm and offers a 9.5% increase in touch area compared to the previous model. That means it’s larger than some large-sized laptop touchpads.

Specifications