ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) Laptop Review – Pushing the era of Mobile AI Computing

Actually this is one of the earlier releases of the Intel Core Ultra laptops that is being introduced by ASUS and their first creation is the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) that brings mobile computing and AI in a single laptop that is light and practically carry everywhere whenever you need the power of the newer processor.

Let have a simple review on this, since NPU is still new for us and we are still in the midst of formatting our benchmark method, but as usual, lets read and see what it has to offer for the consumers and businesses.

Who is this for ?

It is pretty much expected that this is mostly for frequent travel business and hybrid professional worker that needed more than cores and threads to run the latest intensive applications on the road, this also includes the need of a better graphics processing and rendering at least for light video editing and faster render over image editing apps. With AI on the rise and built in NPU, this is a machine where developer can start sandboxing their AI apps in the laptop for development purpose.

Design

The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) retains much of the best from the same lineup of the Zenbook series lineup. I still love to carry this laptop around as it’s only measured at 14.9 mm and weights around 1.2KG, making it part of the ultraportable laptop category with plentiful of ports. We are talking about 2 USB C ports that supports data, charging and display outputs, while then there is also 2 USB A 3.2 ports, a HDMI connection and lastly a 3.5mm combo jack all in a slim form factor.

ASUS still care about comfort, which the keyboard with white LED backlight is still constructed is chiclet style with a quiet tap on it and good key travels. ASUS NumberPad is there embedded on a fairly large keypad extending the use doubling it as a NumPad just by tapping in for 2 seconds.

While it’s small, it is durable with MIL-STD 810H military standard that is certified, undergoes multiple drop and stress test to ensure longevity and reliability.

The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) comes in two colors, Ponder Blue and Foggy Silver.

Display & Audio

The screen is bright and colorful too, and hard to be missed on the clear pixels displayed, as the Laptop is well equipped with a ASUS LUMINA OLED 3K Resolution 120 Hz screen that is dynamically goes down to 60Hz when on battery mode and brightness peak up 600nits with HDR. It carries a TÜV Rheinland-certified display with SGS Eye Care Display for low blue light emission. Daily usage perspective wise, this is basically the best you can get for now within the category should you need a fast, accurate, fluid display for editing and multimedia consumption needs. A webcam is also included with IR Camera for those who needs security, it is compatible with Windows Hello for face authentication.

Audio is not disappointing either, the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) is armed with a pleasant sounding stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos and the set of the speakers inside is tuned by HARMON KARDON for powerful, clear, not too bassy audio that fits most listening and audio communication purposes. Should you need further tuning, you still can do that via the Dolby app.

Performance, Experience, Benchmarks

As mentioned earlier, the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) is powered by the latest Intel Core Ultra 5 125H or Core Ultra 7 Processor, which features a dedicated NPU for AI tasks, sandbox and acceleration towards any AI generative tasks locally. Besides that, it also comes with 16GB of LPDDR5 running at 7400Mhz along with 512GB of internal PCIE 4.0 NVME storage for fast loading and write speeds. The Core Ultra is now can be categorized as an APU, the Intel Arc mobile has finally made it’s official debut and this brings the integrated GPU to a more usable state that can at least game on certain eSports titles and gave content creators a reason to do more with this laptop.

ASUS did include some of their apps in Windows 11, GlideX which allows users to extend and unify external devices such as tablets as monitor, which MyASUS is a one stop app for diagnostics, driver updates, and system information including warranty info. Since this is an Intel based laptop, Unison is included allowing instant sharing of data and images between the laptop and mobile devices.

From the experience perspective, the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) is fast and energy efficient, thanks to the Core Ultra 5 efficient cores that works decently well on light workloads while when needed to have an extra push, the performance cores will kick in to run the tasks. Using it on battery mode alone will last you an average of 9 hours on web browsing, a few short dramas, emails and word processing with music running, which is typical use cases when running without the power attached. A 65W PD USB C adaptor is included for charging which gets you back to full in about 2 hours.

Here’s some of the basic benchmarks, and should you need to game on it, it is possible so long setting some expectations, I mean some graphical settings lower, while the charts does shows it performs quite strong in graphical side this time, in part thanks to inclusion of the Intel Arc integrated GPU.

Technical Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion

Overall the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3405) is a laptop that is not just putting AI as a main point, although it is still the star of the show, but it’s portability and energy efficiency that take things further, a companion that keeps you going for hours keeping you productive and entertained, with design that sets thing apart from other traditional laptop that looks bland, this one is sleek on the looks yet roaring power inside whenever you need it. Price wise, it’s RM5999 for the Intel Core 5 Ultra and it is indeed a laptop that is geared towards those who are ready to embrace the coming era of AI content development.

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