The new Space Edition of the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED has reached the orbit of the Manila Bulletin TechNews. And so far, we are loving what we are seeing.
ASUS really took the space theme to the stars. The Zenbook looks gorgeous. On the surface, the design has a strong, Interstellar-vibe. The Zero-G Titanium, the Zenbook’s color, gives the laptop a vibrant, premium, and professional look and feel to it.
It comes with a built-in Microsoft Office, which alone is a testament to ASUS providing everything you would need in a professional space. If you need more apps, the Intel Iris Xe can carry out some of the more power-hungry tasks. To sweeten the deal, ASUS has included a free three-month Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.
The 14-inch 2.8K OLED HDR 16:10 features a resolution of 2880x1800, up to 550 nits of brightness, and because it’s a touchscreen, it has stylus support. ASUS also said the screen has 70% less harmful blue light, which basically means it hurts your eyes less. The benefits of OLED couldn’t be stressed out more. With OLED, the Zenbook has better image quality, brighter, a strong and wider range of colors, faster refresh rates, and a fuller, more immersive working space.
I found the keyboard wide-spaced and comfortable to type in. The clicks are a little bit softer than how I’m used to, which is a tiny nitpick and more of a personal preference. But overall, typing on the Zenbook 14X’s ErgoSense keyboard is a comfortable and relaxing experience.
One thing to behold about the Zenbook 14X is the spacebar called the Planet Space Key and the Planet Icon on the right is a nice touch. It may seem like a small thing, but the different shade adds a multitude of flavors to the keyboard.
The ErgoSense Touchpad is bigger and smoother to touch, spacious enough for you to navigate around. It also doubles up as a Numpad. Press and hold the upper right icon on the touchpad and watch lights bring out the numbers.
The small screen at the back has a 3.5-inch Monochrome OLED, which ASUS calls the ZenVision. This gives you notifications and information such as battery life and time, which is pretty handy when the laptop is closed. When the Zenbook is open, and if you peek at the ZenVision, you can spot a spaceman drifting across the screen. It’s a sweet touch. You can even customize it with animations and custom texts.
The unit loaned to us by ASUS features Intel Core i5 and is backed by ASUS’ IceCool technology, which features dual fan and dual heat pipes to help the Zenbook keep cool. It also features a 512GB SSD and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. Ports include one USB 2.0, two Thunderbolts for support 4K display and faster charging, one HDMI, one headphone jack, and a microSD card slot that nicely blends in with the side grills. Also, you can save a piece of your black tape, as the front 720p camera has an electronic privacy shutter.
What knocked us off our seats was the US Space-grade durability, SMC-S-016A certification. Meaning the Zenbook 14X can withstand strong vibrations, cold temperatures down to -24 degree-Celsius and heat up to 61 degrees. This is a nod to the first ASUS laptop sent to space 30 years ago, the ASUS P6300, which was able to withstand extreme heat and vibrations for 600 days without any issues.
We’ve shared a quick look at TechNews’ own TikTok channel and the most common question we received was: Can it game, though? We’ve tested it. And yes, Intel’s Iris Xe allows it to game, to an extent. Games like Valorant and League of Legends didn’t challenge the Zenbook’s hardware. However, games like Control could only run at low settings. Games such as Fortnite and Apex Legends did not finish downloading in time of writing this review, but I have a strong suspicion those games would work without a single hiccup. We can expect better gaming performance from the Zenbook equipped with the more powerful 12th Gen Intel Core H-Series processor.
The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED is a strong contender in the laptop space. It looks absolutely stunning, the specs sheet is well-balanced for work and play, and the ZenVision has its moments. This is the kind of laptop you want to show off by making you feel cool.
The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED is available for P84,995, and P99,995 for the variant with Intel Core i7. You can check where it’s available on the ASUS website.
If the Space Edition isn’t your jam, you might want to check out the regular version of the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED, which is available for P74,995 for the i5 variant and P89,995 for the i7 variant. You can visit the ASUS website to check for its availability.