Asus Zenbook 15 OLED
Sleek and solid in every department, Asus’s OLED notebook is a very appealing lightweight laptop
SPECIFICATIONS
Display 15.6-inch, 2880 x 1620 120Hz 600-nit OLED CPU AMD Ryzen 5 7535U / Ryzen 7 7735U GPU AMD Radeon Graphics Storage 512GB SSD
Memory 16GB OS Windows 11 Battery life up to 13 hours Connectivity 3x USB (1x USB 3.2, 2x USB-C), HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm audio jack, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 Dimensions 354.8x226.6x14.9mm
Weight 1.4kg
When finding the perfect laptop for your needs, everyone has different priorities and boxes to be ticked. Are you going for a work machine or a gaming laptop? A desktop replacement or something ultralight? Well, the Asus Zenbook 15 OLED aims to meet all of your needs.
Ultrabooks are consistently some of the best-looking laptops available and the Zenbook is right up there among them. The Ponder Blue colour (yes, really) of our review model is pretty slick – but doesn’t have the environmental credentials of the ceramic-style Basalt Grey, which swaps the aluminium case with a plasma ceramic aluminium, making it harder and more resistant to wear.
It’s pretty lightweight too at 1.4kg. That’s lighter than air – well, alright, not actual air. More specifically the 2023 MacBook Air 15-inch with the M2 chip. At 14.9mm thick, the Asus is a bit chunkier than the MacBook, but not by much.
The standout feature of the laptop is its screen. The name gives it all away, really, as you’ll find a 15.6-inch OLED display with 550 nits peak brightness at a 2880 x 1620 resolution (with a 16:9 aspect ratio) front and centre.
Streaming movies is a joy with this display, colours run a rich gamut with DCI-P3 support, and gaming isn’t
completely off limits either with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate (although the GPU will hold you back from serious gaming). There are few displays that can compete with the clarity of the Zenbook, even among ultraexpensive gaming laptops.
We’re also big fans of the keyboard and trackpad of the Zenbook. Compared to a 13-inch machine there’s plenty of space for accurate typing and even a Numpad (ooh la la). The arrow keys are admittedly squeezed in, but otherwise every box is ticked.
If you’re looking for a party trick, the laptop even features a 180-degree hinge to enable it lay completely flat. If you have a standing desk that might be useful, but otherwise it’s a bit niche.
Ask for tasks
Our review model of the Zenbook was the ‘UM3504’ model with an AMD Ryzen 7 (7000 series) processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and AMD Radeon graphics. What does that mean in English? That it should have more than enough to cope with any ordinary task you throw at it. Basically, if you’re not a serious video editor or a hardcore gamer, you’ll have no problems here.
In terms of noise output, it’s not completely fanless like a MacBook Air, but it is pretty quiet – only really picking up noticeably when gaming. As for heat, the underside can get pretty warm but the top always remains cool.
If you are gaming when using this laptop, it is possible that the GPU will hold it back from running AAA games at smooth framerates unless you seriously tone down the graphics. For games like Football Manager though, there’s more than enough laptop here to run them pretty intensively.
If you are of a benchmarking persuasion, you might be interested to know that on our Geekbench test, this Zenbook registered a single-core CPU score of 2,064 and a multi-core score of 9,475. The GPU meanwhile measured 28,787 – respectable, but proof this is not a dedicated gaming machine.
Having tested plenty of the best gaming laptops with piddly battery life, it’s nice to be able to say to you that the Zenbook 15 OLED should last you more than a couple of hours. Streaming the 1hr 40 minute The Grand Budapest Hotel on Disney+ (at full brightness) the battery drained 20%. That’s not bad at all – 500 minutes, so over eight-and-a-half hours at full brightness with Wi-Fi. The only real issue is that pesky MacBook Air 15-inch, which can comfortably reach 15 hours of battery life when running a similar streaming test. That’s a good twothirds better potentially.
We’re struggling to think of reasons not to recommend the Asus Zenbook 15 OLED. After all: it’s priced well, looks stunning, plus features a gorgeous display to boot. Our only hang-up is the competition, as the price does put it in the range of the MacBook Air M2. But if you’re not a Mac fan, then it ticks almost every box (provided you’re not a gamer).