ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED UX3404 (2023) Laptop Review

The ASUS Zenbook 14X is available in the Inkwell Gray and Sandstone Beige color schemes. See the bottom of the laptop here.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X's build quality is outstanding. Its full-aluminum chassis feels very sturdy, with no apparent flaws or gaps in the construction. There's very little flex on the lid and keyboard deck, and the display doesn't twist when manipulating it. The Inkwell Gray finish is fairly scratch-resistant, though it picks up a fair amount of fingerprints and smudges. The feet feel solid and stick firmly to the bottom.

The hinge is outstanding. Its wide range lets you lay the screen flat on the table, which is handy when you need to show the content to someone opposite you or want to write with a stylus in a more comfortable position. It feels smooth when opening and closing the lid and is very stable, exhibiting almost no wobble when typing heavily.

Accessing the ASUS Zenbook 14X's internals is fairly easy; you need to remove nine T5 torque screws and undo the bottom panel's clips with a prying tool. The screws are very small, so you'll have to be careful not to lose them. The SSD slot supports M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs.

Get the user's manual here.

• 100W USB-C power adapter and cord
• Documentation

Note: Models with integrated graphics only have a 90W power adapter. Depending on the retailer and region, you may get a laptop sleeve and a USB-A to Ethernet adapter included.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X's 2.8k OLED displays look very sharp and provide just enough screen real estate for split-screen multitasking. Its 16:10 aspect ratio is great for productivity, as it gives you slightly more vertical space than a standard 16:9 display, allowing you to see more information when reading a document or website. OLED panels are susceptible to permanent burn-in, especially with static elements like Windows' taskbar; however, it's unlikely to be an issue for those viewing varied content.

Though not entirely necessary for productivity, the 2.8k OLED display's 120Hz refresh rate does provide a better user experience than a standard 60Hz refresh rate, improving motion smoothness (when scrolling through a document) and input responsiveness (when moving the cursor and using touch or pen input). That said, the higher refresh rate will drain the battery faster. You can set it to 60Hz to prolong battery life, and there's also a setting that automatically switches the refresh rate to 60Hz when running on battery and 120Hz when plugged in.

The display's contrast ratio is effectively infinite since OLEDs can turn off individual pixels to produce perfect blacks.

The display gets bright enough for use in most indoor settings but not outdoors in broad daylight. It gets very dim at the lowest brightness setting, which is great for dark room viewing because it causes less eye strain.

The display's reflection handling is okay. Its glossy finish mainly struggles with bright light sources, like a lamp or open window during the day. The reflections are visible even with the screen at maximum brightness.

The display's horizontal viewing angle is okay. Like most OLED panels, colors shift fairly quickly as you move to the side, so you need to be close or directly in front of the screen to see an accurate image.

The display's vertical viewing angle is okay. Again, color shift is the main issue when viewing from above or below.

The display's out-of-the-box accuracy is good. The white balance inaccuracies are extremely minor and hard to spot; however, colors are visibly off because the panel uses a wider color space, resulting in oversaturation. You can clamp the color gamut to sRGB or DCI P3 via the MyAsus app. The gamma follows the curve fairly well; there's just some over-darkening in dark scenes and over-brightening in bright scenes.

The OLED display's color gamut is superb. It has full coverage of the sRGB and DCI P3 color spaces and near-full coverage of the Adobe RGB color space. It's suitable for media consumption, professional photo editing, as well as for viewing and producing SDR and HDR content. The MyAsus app has settings to limit the color reproduction to a specific color space. Here are the measurements in the sRGB and DCI P3 color spaces.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED has a great keyboard. Its layout feels spacious and is easy to get used to. Key stability is good, and the keycaps are large, with a slight concave shape that can help guide your fingers when typing. The keys have a good amount of travel, require little force to actuate, and provide decent tactile and audio feedback. The backlight is white and adjustable via the F7 shortcut.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED has an excellent touchpad. It's large, smooth, and responsive. Palm rejection works well, and there are no issues with actions like dragging and dropping or zooming in and out of images. You can only click in the bottom half of the touchpad. The buttons provide good tactile and audio feedback.

There are two icons at the top corners of the touchpad. The right one activates the number keys, turning the touchpad into a virtual numpad. A short press on the left icon adjusts the Numpad's brightness, while a long press launches Windows' calculator app.

The speakers get reasonably loud with minimal compression at higher volume levels. They sound clear and relatively natural but lack bass and treble, so they're best suited for speech-heavy content rather than music.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED has a great webcam. The image has a fair amount of fine details and true-to-life colors; however, there's a bit of noise, and the high contrast makes some darker areas harder to see. Voices sound loud and clear over the microphone, but there's also some static background noise.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X has a great port selection. The USB-A port supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer speed of up to 10Gbps. Both USB-Cs support Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gbps data transfer speed and two external 4k displays at 60Hz), DisplayPort, and Power Delivery. The latter allows for fast charging of the laptop and other PD-compatible devices connected to the port. Regarding the HDMI port, although ASUS advertises it as HDMI 2.1, it uses the TMDS (Transition Minimised Differential Signaling) signaling method, which only supports up to a maximum output resolution of 4k @ 60Hz. As such, we consider it an HDMI 2.0 port.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X laptop's wireless adapter is an Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211. Wi-Fi 6E has faster speeds, lower latency, and less signal interference than previous Wi-Fi standards; however, you need a router that supports Wi-Fi 6E to benefit from these features.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X is available with the following CPUs:

• Intel Core i5-13500H (12 cores/16 threads, up to 4.70GHz, 18MB cache)
• Intel Core i7-13700H (14 cores/20 threads, up to 5.00GHz, 24MB cache)
• Intel Core i9-13900H (14 cores/20 threads, up to 5.40GHz, 24MB cache)

All three are high-performance CPUs typically found in gaming and workstation laptops. They can handle general productivity tasks, as well as more demanding workloads like video editing, gaming, programming, and simulations. They're from Intel's 13th Gen lineup, which is one generation behind (we're at 14th Gen at the time of writing). Regarding core composition, the lowest-end Core i5-13500H has four performance and eight efficiency cores, while the Core i7 and top-end Core i9 have six performance and eight efficiency cores. Unlike the newer Meteor Lake CPUs, these don't have an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) for A.I.-based tasks or low-power efficiency cores. The Core i5 is noticeably slower than the other two since it has two fewer performance cores; however, the performance difference between the Core i7 and Core i9 is much smaller.

You can get the ASUS Zenbook 14X with integrated graphics only or with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU, though the latter is only available on Core i9-13900H models. Intel's Iris Xe is an integrated GPU designed for general productivity tasks. If your workload requires more GPU processing power, like video editing and 3D animation, it's best to get a model with the RTX 3050, as you'll get a smoother experience and faster completion times. That said, the RTX 3050 is far from being the fastest you can find on the market, as it's an entry-level GPU from NVIDIA's previous generation. Additionally, it's an RTX 3050 with only 4GB of VRAM and a low TGP (Total Graphics Power) of 45W. It'll get the job done, but don't expect too much of it. As for gaming, the RTX 3050 can only handle games at 1080p with low settings, and even then, you may have to rely on DLSS (in supported games) to get playable frame rates.

You can configure this laptop with 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB of RAM. The memory isn't user-replaceable. If you have a memory-intensive workload and need a laptop available with more RAM, check out the Dell XPS 14 (2024).

You can configure this laptop with 512GB or 1TB of storage. The SSD is user-replaceable; the slot supports M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 SSDs.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X has an outstanding overall score in the Geekbench 5 benchmarks. The posted results are averages obtained in the default Balanced mode. Switching to the Performance mode increases the CPU single-thread score to 1,880 and the GPU compute score to 55,189, while the CPU multi-thread score remains in the same ballpark at 11,480. The Core i9-13900H's performance is adequate for heavy multitasking and demanding workloads, like programming and simulations; however, it's at the lower end for an Intel 13th Gen H-series CPU. You can find models with a Core i7-13700H or even an Intel 12th Gen CPU that performs just as well. As for the GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 can handle some demanding workloads, but again, it's an entry-level GPU from NVIDIA's previous generation, so although it can get the job done, don't expect to get the smoothest experience or the fastest completion times.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X has an outstanding overall score in Cinebench R23. The posted results are benchmarks performed in the default Balanced mode, which throttles the CPU in intensive, sustained workloads. Switching to the Performance mode increases the single-thread score to 1,832 and the multi-thread score to 14,356, roughly an 11% and 13% performance boost, respectively. This performance level is adequate for heavy multitasking and demanding, multi-threaded applications. You can get significantly better performance on laptops with an Intel 14th Gen HX CPU, like the Dell Alienware m18 R2 (2024); however, those laptops are typically much bulkier due to their more robust cooling system.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X is suitable for Blender work. Although you can get reasonably fast render times using the CPU, it's best to get a model with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU, as even an entry-level discrete GPU like the RTX 3050 can render images significantly faster.

The Basemark GPU score is decent. The performance is certainly better than most integrated graphics, but it's at the lower end for a discrete GPU, as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop is an entry-level graphics processor, and this particular variant runs at a low TGP. It's more comparable to the older NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 performance-wise. This means it can handle 1080p gaming but only older titles with low settings. The Intel Iris Xe integrated GPU is even slower and can only handle light, puzzle-like games and older titles.

Models with integrated graphics only will have longer battery life.

Borderlands 3 runs poorly on the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED with an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU. Although you can get over 60 fps at 1080p with some tweaks in the settings, the gameplay is choppy due to frequent frame drops. Intel's Iris Xe integrated GPU can't handle such a demanding game.

Civilization VI runs well on the ASUS Zenbook 14X. This game isn't graphically intensive, so the RTX 3050 can easily push high frame rates. It's playable on models with integrated graphics only, though you'll have to lower the settings much more to get a smooth experience. The average turn time is decent and within the expected range for an Intel 13th Gen CPU.

Counter-Strike 2 runs well. Except for a few occasional stutters, the gameplay is very smooth. Models with integrated graphics only can push over 60 fps with low settings, but you'll experience more frequent stutters.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is playable on models with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU but not on models with integrated graphics only. Even then, you'll have to dial down the settings a bit and rely on NVIDIA's DLSS to get smooth gameplay. The large frametime spikes are scene changes and aren't representative of the performance.

The keyboard only gets mildly warm under load, and the fan is audible but quiet. However, the bottom of the laptop gets hotter and can be uncomfortable if you wear shorts. Switching to the Performance mode doesn't increase fan noise.

The ASUS Zenbook 14X has a few pre-installed software applications, including:

• Dolby Access: Adds Dolby Atmos support and lets you tweak the speakers or headphones settings.
• GlideX: Lets you mirror your screen's content to a smartphone, tablet, or computer.
• MyAsus: Lets you see system and warranty information, adjust the display and fan profile, diagnose issues, get system updates, apply noise cancelling during video calls, change the sound profile, contact customer support, and transfer files. There are also settings to help prevent OLED burn-in, like Pixel Refresh.
• McAfee WebAdvisor: Protects you from malware when browsing the internet.
• ProArt Creator Hub: Lets you monitor and optimize system performance, calibrate the display, and optimize your workflow.
• ScreenXpert: Window management utility for multi-display setups.

The ASUS Zenbook 14x OLED laptop has a Windows Hello facial recognition IR camera. You can use it to log into Windows, authorize Windows Store purchases, and auto-fill saved passwords on supported websites.

The display supports pen input; however, you have to buy the pen separately. ASUS has a stylus, the ASUS Pen 2.0 (SA203H), though any Microsoft Pen Protocol stylus will work.