Asus was one of the first PC-maker to send its notebook computers or laptops into space on board the now-defunct Mir Space Station. The Asus P6100 was the first laptop to go to space and come back with zero defects after 600 days in space. Now about 25 years later, the company is still one of the leading PC makers, and to commemorate the P6100 laptops, Asus launched the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition laptop earlier this year.
The Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition has been launched in India at a price of Rs 1,69,999 onwards, and the laptop comes with flagship specs like a 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, a beautiful OLED display, and more. I used the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition for a few days as my primary laptop, and in this article, I will tell you what I like about the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition, what I don’t like about the laptop, and if you should spend Rs 1,69,999 on the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition.
DESIGN
In terms of design, the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition looks stunning. Given its space-themed design, the laptop comes in a shade of titanium that the company is calling “Zero-G Titanium” colour. The laptop is super slim at just 15.9mm width, and is very lightweight at just 1.4kg. The Asus ZenBook OLED 14X Space Edition is made of space-grade aluminium. There are morse codes and graphics embossed all over the laptop that add to the whole space theme of this laptop.
Further, there is a secondary display on the laptop’s flap, which is a 3.5-inch OLED display and can be customised to show anything you want – be it your name, your photo, logo, or any other thing you want to display. The keyboard also has highlighted space and power keys, which are a shade of bronze, bringing a certain contrast to the keyboard. There is also minimal bezel around the display, which looks premium. In terms of design, the Asus ZenBook OLED 14X Space Edition is one of the best looking laptops out there in the market currently.
DISPLAY
The display on the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition is a 14-inch touch-sensitive panel with a 2880×1800 resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate. The display is super vivid and crisp. It is also very bright and using the laptop outdoors is no issue. The colour accuracy is also very good with the DCI-P3 colour gamut support, and you will enjoy watching movies or YouTube videos on the ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition.
It is a responsive display with a 90Hz refresh rate. The 90Hz refresh rate makes the experience of using the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition rather smooth, and scrolling through items is precise and slick. The touch also works very well, however, it is something that is not standard, and is mostly ignored by the user (but still good to have). The display on this laptop is crisp, vivid, bright, and super responsive.
PERFORMANCE AND USABILITY
In terms of performance, the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition has enough juice to handle most high-performance tasks. The laptop comes with a 12th-generation Intel Core i9 processor paired with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. For our review, we got the 32GB RAM variant, and in terms of performance, the laptop performed just like you’d expect a high-end Windows laptop to perform. It does not come with a separate GPU and uses Intel’s integrated Iris Xe GPU, but you won’t feel the lack of a solid GPU, unless you try to play games on the ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition.
I used this laptop as my daily driver for good three weeks, and during the time, it performed well and never felt underpowered. I used the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition for work like typing, research, tracking news, editing photos and videos, and throughout all these tasks, the laptop never showed any signs of slowing down. Of course, in a longer run, you may feel that it is lacking a GPU, and I did try to run games on this laptop, and while it is capable of running triple A titles, the gaming performance is not as great as you’d expect from a gaming laptop with a proper Nvidia GeForce GPU.
Now, while it may not be the best laptop for gamers, it is surely one of the better Windows laptops for creators and professionals. The performance, for the most part (apart from gaming) felt like an overkill, and the laptop felt like it will not slow down anytime in the near future, at least while being used as a daily work laptop.
The touchscreen does add to the convenience, but it was also one of the least-used feature throughout my review. Further, Asus’s virtual numpad that appears on the track pad on the click of a button is also a super convenient feature and is a great way to integrate a full-size number pad while keeping the profile slim and light. This, however, is prone to mis-touches, and I often found myself turning on the num-pad by mistake.
BATTERY
The Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition comes with a 63WHrs battery, which lasts about 4 hours on a single charge. That, according to me, is rather disappointing since there are better, longer-lasting laptops in this segment. Even many gaming laptops of today offer a longer battery life than the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition. The laptop uses USB type-C for charging, which is good, and comes with a 100W charger inside the box. The charging speed is decent and it did not feel slow by any definition.
VERDICT
The Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition is one of the best-looking thin and light Windows laptop out there at this point. It offers a lot of features that other laptops don’t, like a customisable secondary display (which is useful as it shows vital info like battery life, time, and more), a touch-sensitive display, and a space-grade build. The laptop also has one of the better displays, and there is enough power to handle all kinds of tasks including gaming. However, the battery life is disappointing, and that is something that matters a lot to users.
So, should you spend Rs 1,69,999 on the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition? Now, I do believe that there are better options in the market at this price-point, but none of them offer anything as new or different as this. The laptop looks and feels different from the moment you lay eyes on it, and it does not disappoint in terms of quality and performance.
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