ASUS Zenbook Flip 14 OLED (UP5401E) laptop review – flexible choice

Zenbook Flip 14 OLED is a 14-inch and relatively compact notebook from ASUS with a 360-degree touch screen that positions itself as an advanced tool for work and creativity. What this model offers and how comfortable it is to work with, we will consider in detail in this review.

Specifications of Zenbook Flip 14 OLED

Delivery Kit

In the box together with the laptop, you can find an ASUS Pen, a branded case with just the right amount of space for it, an adapter from USB Type-A to RJ-45, as well as a 100 W charger with a USB Type-C cable.

In general, the configuration can be called very good, there is everything necessary for work and even a fairly high-quality cover. The only thing is that the place for the pen is not very convenient, it can stick to the laptop case when you insert or remove it from the cover.

Design and materials

The laptop received the classic design of the Zenbook line with a branded metal screen cover that contains the slightly offset ASUS logo and concentric circles that diverge from it and shimmer depending on the viewing angle and lighting. This style from the manufacturer is preserved, despite the release of models in pastel colors and with an updated logo. However, the positioning of the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED suggests that it is primarily a work tool, and it should not draw too much attention to itself. Therefore, the dark gray body with sharp edges should demonstrate the superiority of content over form. And it really does.

The user gets a relatively thin (1.59 cm) and light (1.4 kg) laptop, which is convenient to carry and work with in almost any position, even lying down.

This is facilitated by the hinge of the screen, which opens the body to 360 degrees, providing flexibility for work. Zenbook Flip 14 OLED can easily be turned into a stand for a presentation or made into a tablet for signing documents. The same can be done for creativity, if you need to draw something, or when you just want to watch a series lying on the sofa.

Despite the fact that the hinge fixes the position of the screen very well, the laptop cover is easy to open with one hand. ASUS engineers should be praised here, because manufacturers often manage to do one or the other.

Zenbook Flip 14 OLED is also qualitatively assembled, the company used aluminum, fitting all the parts so that the body looks and feels monolithic, nothing is squeezed or creaks here. As you would expect from a high-end model.

The top case of the laptop is made of a solid sheet of metal and has slots only for plastic keys and a glass touchpad. The display also has a protective glass, but, unfortunately, it does not have an oleophobic coating, which is not very convenient, because you have to make more efforts to wipe the touch panel. On the other hand, it is pleasing that the matte coating of the case hardly collects traces of use.

Ports

All connectors in the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED are located on the sides, and it is convenient to connect peripherals to them. On the left side of the case you can find an HDMI 2.0b port and two Thunderbolt 4 with support for image output and power.

And on the right: one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, a combined 3.5 mm audio jack and a slot for microSD memory cards.

In general, it turned out to be a good set of ports for a compact laptop, there is everything you need to connect a monitor, external drives ,and other accessories.

Display and stylus

In the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED, as you can easily guess from the name, ASUS installed an OLED display. This is a 14-inch touch matrix from Samsung with an aspect ratio of 16:10, a resolution of 2880×1800 pixels, a response time of 0.2 ms and a refresh rate of 90 Hz.

Traditionally for OLED panels in recent ASUS notebooks, the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED screen has received Pantone Validated certification and generally high-quality color reproduction. According to our measurements, the display shows 100% of the sRGB color space, 98% of Adobe RGB, and 99% of P3. It has a reference gamma of 2.2, and the peak brightness in HDR mode even exceeds the one declared by the manufacturer and reaches 600 cd/m2.

This is a very high-quality calibrated matrix, if you do not switch from the Normal mode in the settings of the MyASUS program, because others do not have the same accurate color reproduction.

It should be noted separately that modern OLED matrices are not so prone to burnout, unless, of course, you watch static images with maximum brightness on the screen all the time. For the longest use of the display, ASUS has implemented additional options for its protection, the system periodically imperceptibly for the user mixes the pixels so that they switch.

In addition, if the laptop is open but not in use, a special screen saver can be started, which will switch the pixels in different colors.

The touch panel in Zenbook Flip 14 OLED allows not only to control the Windows interface, but also to use the complete ASUS Pen SA201H stylus. This is a fairly compact pen in a metal body, weighing only 20 grams and 15 cm high. It has one flat face, which, firstly, was perfect for placing a double rocker key, and secondly, it prevents the stylus from rolling off the table.

In general, the ASUS Pen is convenient to use, the laptop automatically recognizes it nearby thanks to the MPP 2 technology, and the pen itself recognizes 4096 degrees of pressure, in fact, the user can apply to the screen from 14 to 450 grams of pressure, drawing the thinnest (from 0.2 mm) or the thickest lines while drawing. The stylus is powered by a replaceable AAAA battery, which, according to ASUS, should last for a year of use if you write or draw something for 2 hours every day.

The ASUS Pen is a really useful addition to the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED, the only pity is that the stylus does not attach to the body of the laptop itself. Of course, this problem is solved by a cover, but if you work in an office and need to go from your desk to the conference room, it would be more convenient to magnetize it to the case.

Platform and speed

The test Zenbook Flip 14 OLED was equipped with a 10nm 4-core processor Intel Core i7-1165G7 with a TDP of 28 W, which operates at a frequency of 1.2 to 2.8 GHz, accelerating to 4.7 GHz in Turbo mode. It’s still an 11th-generation (Tiger Lake) chip with integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, but it’s more than adequate for the tasks a compact laptop might face.

The amount of RAM in the test version was 16 GB of dual-channel LPDDR4X-4266 MHz, it is soldered on the board, so it cannot be replaced or increased.

The data storage in Zenbook Flip 14 OLED is implemented on the basis of M.2 SSD drive Samsung 980 Pro with a capacity of 1 TB, and it can be replaced if desired. Unless it’s to increase your file storage space, though, because it’s a very fast drive, delivering nearly 7,000 MB/s read and over 5,000 MB/s write speeds, according to CrystalDiskMark.

In general, the speed of the system is at a fairly high level for a compact transformer laptop and allows you to work comfortably, both in office mode and editing photos or basic video editing. On the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED, you can even play, for example, GTA 5 on minimal graphics settings, or something like Mortal Kombat X or Civilization 6. In practice, this is more comfortable than you would expect from a completely non-gaming model.

Zenbook Flip 14 OLED uses a Wi-Fi 6 module from MediaTek (MT7921) to connect to wireless networks, and Bluetooth 5.0 for headphones and accessories.

Heating and Stability

To cool the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED, the manufacturer used the active IceCool Plus system, which consists of two heat pipes with a diameter of 8 and 6 mm, as well as two IceBlades fans that have 87 and 83 blades .

Three modes are provided for system operation, the first Whisper – for maximum energy saving, Balanced – for productive but quiet operation, and Performance Mode – with maximum speed, but increased noise from the fans, which the manufacturer immediately warns about.

I mainly used the laptop in Balanced mode, in which the cooling system turns on under load, but the fans are almost inaudible. In the AIDA64 system stress test in this mode, the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED processor heats up to a maximum of 92 degrees Celsius, and as can be expected from a model with a thin body, throttling appears. At its peak, it reaches 40%, but on average it stays at the level of 13%.

The frequency of the processor is on average around 3.2 GHz, which is quite good. But the main thing is that the surface of the laptop, both around the keyboard and on the bottom cover, remains barely warm.

If you switch to Performance Mode and also run the AIDA64 stress test, the Intel Core i7-1165G7 heats up to a maximum of 94 degrees Celsius, but keeps the frequencies higher, on average 3.5 GHz. There is also throttling here, an average of 17%, and the cooling works much more aggressively and, accordingly, noisier. At the same time, the body remains slightly warm.

It is worth noting that the user is unlikely to be able to load the processor to 100%, as in the AIDA64 test, in everyday tasks, so it is worth stopping at the Balanced mode of system operation, which provides a good level of speed, and quiet operation of the cooling system with minimal heating of the body.

Keyboard, touchpad and fingerprint scanner

The laptop is equipped with an island-type keyboard with backlight and a key travel of 1.35 mm. Typing large volumes of text on the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED is very pleasant. The buttons have a soft, but well-defined stroke, and are pressed with a pleasant click. It is quite easy to adapt to the layout.

Key backlight is adjustable in three ranges, whichIt is enough to choose a comfortable one for working in poor lighting conditions or in the dark.

The touchpad in the laptop is quite large with a glass surface and a pleasant satin finish. ASUS uses Windows Precision drivers, so the touchpad accurately recognizes the position of your fingers and allows you to do without a mouse.

Another feature is the presence of a touch-sensitive numeric keypad that appears directly on the surface of the touchpad if you click on a small icon in its upper right corner. In the upper left corner there is another icon that can be used to adjust the brightness of the numeric keypad.

It’s worth noting that overall this solution works well, I never accidentally turned on the numeric keypad, and when I needed to, it worked very accurately. What’s more, if you turn it on, the touchpad doesn’t stop working, you can still move the cursor with it.

However, if the numeric keypad is not needed at all, it can be completely disabled in the MyASUS application.

Zenbook Flip 14 OLED also got a fingerprint scanner, which is located on the power button. It supports Windows Hello, which allows you to log into your Windows account without entering a password, but simply by scanning your finger, which is much faster and more secure.

Webcam and microphones

For video calls, the laptop uses a 0.9-megapixel webcam that can transmit video with a resolution of 720p. I won’t say that I ever looked at my interlocutors during Zoom or Google Meet conferences, but it should be noted that the webcam in the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED is mediocre.

But this is compensated by the array of microphones that are located on the sides of the webcam. They record pretty well on their own, but the MyASUS app can also enable an intelligent noise cancellation system that works on basic machine learning. It is really very effective.

You can listen to an example recording, this is normal mode without noise reduction:

This is with noise reduction in a noisy room:

And it is the same in a noisy environment, but without intelligent noise reduction:

As you can hear, the difference is quite significant.

Audio

Zenbook Flip 14 OLED received two external speakers located on the sides at the bottom of the case. They are loud, not very voluminous, but they sound best when the laptop is standing on some surface, because that is how the sound is reflected. However, for videos and series, such speakers are more than enough.

If you want better sound, you can connect headphones, both wired through the 3.5 mm jack on the right side of the case, and wireless through Bluetooth.

Battery life

The laptop has a built-in 3-cell a63 Wh battery, in the PCMark 10 Modern Office battery life test it lasted almost 8 hours, which is a good result.

This generally coincides with my personal impressions of working with the Zenbook Flip 14 OLED, depending on the load, my laptop kept a charge for 7-8 hours when working with the browser, mail, messengers and documents.

The battery is charged from the included 100 W power supply, which is connected via a USB Type-C port. Charging a laptop from 0 to 100% takes about 2 hours.