Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review (UX5304VA model)

14 Comments

  1. Michael

    April 25, 2023 at 4:51 pm

    So hard to find a laptop that is at the same time
    a) lightweight (meaning less than 1.5kg)
    b) high performance with good thermal dissipation in performance mode
    c) large battery able to get some 8 hours of web browsing in energy saving mode

    I get so frustrated with the laptop market because I want to replace both my desk laptop and mobile laptop into just one laptop to carry everywhere with me without sacrificing decent performance.

    • Andrei Girbea

      April 25, 2023 at 4:55 pm

      Have you considered the Zephyrus G14? But you'll have to sacrifice on weight a little bit. Also, 8+ hours of real-use browsing is a bit of a stretch IMO.

      • Michael

        April 25, 2023 at 5:27 pm

        Ah yes, the Zephyrus has been on my list, but the availability of the 2022 model has been so poor in western Europe. Amazon European stores also only have the 2021 model for sale for some reason and not always available. At this point I'm waiting to see if I can get my hands on a 2023 model.

        About the battery runtime, my 4 year old Huawei Matebook with 50 something Whr battery, although having a underpowered Ryzen U chip, can still give me close to 5 hours of web browsing + MSOffice, it only drains faster if I am on Teams/Zoom conferences, so I was expecting that with batteries getting into 70-80Whr range that a 8 hour figure wasn't so unrealistic. If only they would allows us to have a spare battery like the old times…

      • Andrei Girbea

        April 25, 2023 at 5:35 pm

        Yeah but you're not getting an 80-100Wh battery in the weight that you're mentioning.

        Plus, you want good performance, so that means more than a Ryzen U platform. It also means a half-decent cooling module which again adds up to the weight.

        Otherwise, perhaps an LG Gram would work? 80Wh and highly portable for the size. But up to you if the performance is enough.

  2. Christopher

    April 30, 2023 at 1:50 pm

    Any plans for Asus zenbook 14 pro oled laptop? It is available on Amazon but no one has reviewed it yet…

    • Andrei Girbea

      May 1, 2023 at 11:11 am

      I will at some point, but I don't have the review unit yet

  3. Christoff

    April 30, 2023 at 2:34 pm

    Hey Andrei, great write up! I was curious if you're planning on reviewing any of the following models: Lg Gram Style, LG Gram Super Slim, Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra or Galaxy Book 3 Pro?

    • Andrei Girbea

      May 1, 2023 at 11:12 am

      Probably yes on the LG Gram models (but I don't know exactly when), but most likely not on the Samsung units, because those are not available in this part of the world.

  4. Gunawan

    May 22, 2023 at 7:21 am

    Been thinking of getting this new Zenbook. After reading the review, last year's zenbook seems more interesting albeit all I/O is usb c. Great review

  5. Jan

    May 29, 2023 at 9:34 am

    Ok, I got it and so far, it's super thin and super light – nice :)

    There are several annoyances though:
    1) Wallpaper kept changing back to the default Asus one in minutes… nothing worked to prevent this glitch except disabling the option to allow users to change wallpaper completely in gpedit. You need to up to Win11 PRO to get gpedit, though.
    2) How the heck does INS key work on this one? Tried every possible key combination and could not find a solution! Highly annoying – can't select files in Total Commander :-D Thanks!
    3) I don't see options to redefine power button behavior in power settings. It's missing completely, will have to look deeper into it.

  6. Bogdan

    May 30, 2023 at 1:16 am

    Hi Andrei,

    Thank you for the carefully done and informative review of this Zenbook. Much appreciated. I am considering buying this one for my daughter, who has tiny hands, wants to travel light, and does only typing, browsing, and streams movies. However, I am looking at some other options, listed below. I wonder if you could help me decide which one to buy. The prices are in Canadian dollars, before adding the 13% sales tax. Many thanks!

    Asus Zenbook S13 UX5304VA, i7-1355U, 16GB, 1TB, $1,550
    Asus Zenbook 13" UX3402VA, i7-1360P, 16GB, 1TB, $1,450
    Acer Spin 5, SP514-51N, i7-1260P, 16GB, 512GB, $1,330
    Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro 360, NP930QED, i5-1240P, 8GB, 256 GB, $1,530

  7. Oleg Kamikaze

    June 16, 2023 at 3:34 pm

    sorry, but this OLED panel is rubbish. It has a green tint and brightness adjustement mostly affects green channel. Wondering if all OLEDs are such bs.

  8. somename

    September 10, 2023 at 3:08 pm

    very nice review but not one word about the "whiny-ness" of the fans (check the notebookcheck review where they say it's not the noise but some annoying whine at any rpm which makes this notebook useless).

    so with windows notebooks it's not just how loud the fans are, but how whine-y, how erratic and frequent they change the rpm. would stress latter points much more when reviewing windows laptops b/c these are the biggest dealbreakers. a fan can be audible but totally fine because of lacking whine and some steady whoosh sound which changes not too often.

    • Andrei Girbea

      September 10, 2023 at 3:11 pm

      that's rather normal with thin laptops that have tiny thin fans inside. It didn't strike me as particularly more annoying that on other such devices. But, my experience showed me that I'm not very senstitive to winning and high-pitch noises, so take me impressions with a grain of salt.

      My advice, if this is on your list, try to find it somehwere and figure for yourself if the winning is bad or fine. Or just order it from a place that allows easy returns. I find it impossible to asses this based on reviews alone.

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