With working from home now becoming more mainstream due to Covid19 Pandemic, having a laptop that you can carry around easily is a big plus. Working from home or while traveling can be tricky if you do not live alone in the house and a time being forced to move frequently from one point to another. It is more reason why I think ASUS has done some awesome job with the design of ASUS ZenBook 13 OLED (UX325).
In the last two weeks or so, I have been lucky to use ASUS ZneBook 13 OLED for my work and I have enjoyed the awesomeness that it comes with. It also coincided with the week that I was travelling to visit my relatives in the rural areas and one thing for sure is that the laptop enabled me to carry on working throughout the duration I was out of the City. One might say that any laptop can be used in such situation but the reality is, you need to two things two conveniently work, one, the long lasting power of the laptop after it has been charged and two, portability. On the issue of battery life, first, I was shocked how long it lasted, as I had used it for three days without charging. The reality is that there were a number of times that I had to put it off when moving or having some chats with someone. Later on, when I came back to the city , I was able to use it continuously and it lasted for 13 hours. As for the portability I really appreciated the fact that I was able to literally do some of my virtual meetings while on the move.
Let us look at a few aspect of the laptop and whether it worth having beyond what I have mentioned so far:
The Design
The ASUS Zenbook 13 OLED is compact, thin and really pleasing to the eye. It weighs 1.14kg, making it the world lightest OLED AMD laptop. It features a side profile of 13.3 mm, which results in a sleek form factor.
The ZenBook 13 OLED are available in two colors grey and Lilac. Well ASUS call them Pine Grey and Lilac Mist but as I have mentioned in my past writings I am color blind. Of the two mentioned colors thank God the one I have been using is Grey and I assumed it is the one they are calling Pine Grey and I did actually note it down after inquiring from ASUS about the available colors. For those who are good with colors I hope you will definitely recognize Lilac Mist.
Display
ASUS ZenBook 13 OLED has an up to 13.3-inch OLED HDR display that supports 1920 x 1080 resolution and 0.2 ms response time. Yes, 0.2 Milliseconds response time is way less than a blink of an eye. If you have used some of the slow laptops in your life, then you would really appreciate this in many ways. The display offers wide color gamut of 100% DCI-P3. Just in case you are wondering DCI-P3 is a common RGB color space for digital movie projection from the motion pictures. And to explain further RGB color space is any additive color space based on the primary colors of Red, Green and Blue model.
In other words, ASUS has designed the ZenBook 13 OLED to provide the most precise color accuracy. ASUS OLED panels are calibrated to accurately reproduce colors in a 3D color volume, showing what the panel would reproduce at 100% DCI-P3 color gamut regardless of brightness level. This ensures all content is displayed accurately and as intended by its creators, not just at full brightness but at any brightness setting. This is especially important for HDR content.
ASUS ZenBook 13 OLED display also comes with a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, which can support up to 400 nits of highlight brightness and 0.0005 nits of deep black brightness, providing creators with a brighter and more detailed viewing experience. And I hope up to that point you are already seeing why this laptop is a must have.
Processor
We can say what we can about the design, the display and all the beauty aspects that come with laptop but processor remains the core of any device. It is the engine that ensures that functionality of the laptop works at their maximum. It is the reason why whenever I get hold of any gadget, the first thing I check is the processor speed, Memory size and the storage. ASUS Zenbook 13 OLED is equipped with latest Intel 11th generation Core i7 Processor with Intel Iris X graphics. Compared with the previous generation of processors, the 11th Gen Intel Core processors provide better computing performance and can enable FHD gameplay at up to 60 fps with better battery life and mobility than previously possible. This explains why my battery life test lasted 16 hours under intense use.
And to get the promised processor capacity Memory has to be right. The onboard memory design is such that it allows for a thinner and lighter chassis. Despite that, The ZenBook 13 OLED still provides upto 32 GB Memory size, and fast 4266 MHz LPDDR4X clock speeds to provide adequate processing power.
There are interesting development happening with storage these day but that is a story for another day. For today the device comes with 1TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs or optional Intel Optane Memory H10 storage. If you do not understand that then just know that with this, you have huge storage space capable of managing large media and gaming files and applications. Still on this, it has Thunderbolt 4, standard HDMI 2.0 and USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, along with a microSD card reader.
Keyboard
It is one thing to say, company X is innovative but ASUS keep on surprising me with their out of the box thinking. And more so the thinking around the ASUS laptop keyboards. ZenBook 13 OLED comes with edge-to-edge ergonomic keyboard design that allows more comfortable typing. For easy data entry, ASUS NumberPad 2.07 features an LED-illuminated numeric keypad built into the touchpad.
Password
And with ZenBook 13 OLED and Windows Hello, your face is your password! The front infrared (IR) camera recognizes your face in seconds and lets you log in instantly and securely.
Price and Availability
The laptop is available in Kenya at DN Solutions Limited at recommended price of Ksh.120,000. Based on my experience with this laptop I think it is totally worth it. Get one if you can
Summary of ASUS ZenBook 13 OLED Specifications
-11th Gen Intel Core i7 processor
-Supports up to 32 GB of memory,
-1TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs or optional Intel Optane Memory H10 storage
-Up to 13 hours of battery life
-The 13.3 inch ZenBook 13 OLED weighs 1.14 kg accordingly
-standard HDMI 2.0 and USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port
-microSD card reader.
