If you’re looking for a laptop that looks amazing while having a great screen, then the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition UX5401 is surely a laptop that should be at the top of your list. This laptop brings a few specialties to the table – and as the name suggests, this is a special edition laptop. However, it is not a limited edition. There’s no need to scalp this laptop.
There are many things that I wish words can describe, but alas – I suggest you watch our video here instead. It’s better to show you than to purely speak about it.
So, what this laptop brings to the table? Let’s find out.
Design
Obviously, the “space edition” here means that the laptop will indeed have some special-looking design. The entire “Space Edition” mantra here is inspired by the Mir project, as a commemoration of one of the ASUS’s laptops that were chosen to be for that project. We can see that the emblem-looking thing is actually the Mir Space Station’s shape.
We’ve also unboxed this laptop to show how special it is – so have a look here.
One more specialty of this laptop is the “ZenVision” screen. It’s a monochrome OLED screen that displays some information that we can customize through the MyASUS software.
What’s even more beautiful, is that the design spills into the laptop after we opened the lid too. The wrist rest area is decked with the same style of Space Edition design but they’re covered by the stickers instead. I suggest peeling off all the stickers to fully admire the laptop’s beauty.
Keyboard & trackpad
The keyboard is actually quite good. I had fun typing on the keyboard as it is springy and offers some decent travel distance. The aesthetic of the keyboard is also classy as it uses the same beige color from the laptop’s chassis throughout the entire keyboard – except for the power button and the spacebar. I guess it’s time to insert some jokes about “space”bar here?
The trackpad though, is fairly decent overall – granted, our unit was faulty as the trackpad had something that’s constantly pushing it upwards. Again, the trackpad still works fine – just the clicking mechanism is a little weird.
Screen
Of course, the screen of this laptop is also something to be amazed about because it is using an OLED screen with a resolution of 2.8K and 90Hz refresh rate. These are some good specs, but we’ll have to use the colorimeter to test out its color accuracy.
To our surprise, the screen’s color accuracy is fantastic!
The peak brightness of the screen isn’t particularly that high, though. It can reach about 360 nits of brightness at most – and that is definitely not enough for outdoor usage under sunlight.
By the way, this is also a touchscreen. But, the hinge only allows angles up to about 150-ish degrees.
However, the OLED screen is a little weird here. Like a few of the other ASUS laptops with OLED screens that we’ve reviewed in the past, it will say that it has switched to PWM dimming when its brightness is below 55%. Some of the ASUS laptops can actually go all the way down to 1% brightness without the message appearing.
It’s still an unresolved mystery, but it’s something that I want to explore further.
Performance
In terms of performance, I think it’s a little wasted. We have this list of specs for our configuration of this laptop:
As you can see, it’s pairing up the H-series Intel Core processor on what is supposed to be a thin and light laptop. Since there is no discrete GPU on this laptop, its performance is most likely going to be bottlenecked by the Intel Iris Xe GPU – unless your application uses mostly CPU and very little GPU power.
I can’t help but think that Intel is making way for the Arc discrete GPUs instead of improving Iris Xe since the Iris Xe in the new 12th Gen Intel Core processors are pretty much a direct copy-paste of 11th Gen’s Iris Xe GPUs.
We did further analysis and explanation on 12th Gen Intel Core Processors, so watch that video here too.
Battery life
I mean, it’s surely improved. Considering that this laptop has a higher resolution screen and a higher refresh rate while also equipped with the high-powered Intel Core i7-12700H, I still get about 5-7 hours out of a single charge. Granted, the battery life drastically varies depending on what I am viewing on the screen and at what brightness, because OLED screens aren’t as straightforward as IPS LCD screens.
I would also like to see some sort of automatic refresh rate switcher when I’m using the laptop’s battery. Currently, the laptop is always at 90Hz no matter if I’m on battery or plugged into the charger. I believe that switching to 60Hz on battery will be beneficial for us.
Should you buy the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED UX5401 Space Edition?
Tough question to answer, honestly. Let’s take a look at the variants available and their prices.
| Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition | UX5401Z-ASKN070WS | Titanium |
|
RM6,499 |
| UX5401Z-ASKN081WS | Titanium |
|
RM5,599 |
Honestly speaking, I think the Zenbook 14X OLED UX5401 Space Edition isn’t exactly that expensive. It’s a special edition after all, so some price premium is expected. However, I highly recommend the Core i5-12500H version instead since the performance out of the Core i7-12700K version is probably not going to be utilized much.
Where to buy? (Affiliate links)
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