ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402Z Review: Straight Outta Star Trek

As a Zenbook user myself, every generation makes a granular change for better and keeps the traits from its other brethren intact. While there were some misses (specifically looking at the headphone jack-less Zenbook), ASUS isn’t afraid to learn from their mistakes and overcome it. That’s an exceedingly rare trait for a brand in the tech space. That said, with the 12^th Generation Intel processor is hitting the shelves, laptops too, are jumping on the bandwagon. That’s said, here’s our thoughts on the new ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402Z.

ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402Z

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Now with a new Look, Star Trek Style

ASUS has stayed with the signature ZenSpiral brushed design on the back of their laptop. But that pattern is slowly changing with the normal Zenbook. Gone are those brushed aluminium design and comes a design which we are familiar with. Back in 2019, when ASUS celebrated their 30^th Anniversary, they unveiled a limited-edition laptop and a new ASUS Insignia which stood out for a good reason. Being a huge Trekkie myself, it has a good resemblance to the Star Trek Starfleet Insignia.

So, it seems like ASUS is embracing the logo and its more apparent with the new ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402Z. The smooth matte finish on the back with a glossy outline of the logo with a subtle ASUS Zenbook printed at the corner. Very sexy and neat looking. We have it in this Ponder Blue colour, which reminds us more of the ASUS ExpertBook B9 we loved. It also comes with a different colour which unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to look at – that’s the Aqua Celadon.

The ErgoLift hinge of the laptop is no longer “edgier”. Instead, it now has a long cylindrical shaped hinge with the ZenSpiral design on the side. Like I said, very subtle and a Zenbook signature styling is still present. You can fold the display to a 180-degree angle. Neat.

ASUS OLED Display is here to stay

The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402Z comes equipped with a beautiful 14-inch Display with a 2.8K resolution and in a 16:10 aspect ratio. Now, whatever you see here is a unique ratio and resolution compared to other laptop at this price point.

A 16:10 ratio gives more vertical real estate, and the 14-inch doesn’t seem so small at all. ASUS OLED is now a thing, and all the laptop is getting a splash of it. Expect the display to excel in producing the best true black and vivid colours through and through.

To add things more to the table, ASUS is pushing the display to another level – and this time, it gets a 90Hz refresh rate. A rather odd choice but hey, it’s nice to have higher refresh rate on a consumer-centric laptop. It does have a “plastic” like bezel where the display sits below a frame. But it doesn’t bother me much really.

All that Intel 12^th Gen i7 Performance

Moving on to the specification, the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402Z gets the latest generation treatment. That said, the variant we have at hand for this review comes with the following:

• Intel 12^th Generation Core i7-1260P
• 16GB 4800MHz LPDDR5 RAM On-board
• 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen 4 M.2 SSD
• Dual-band Wi-Fi 6E with Bluetooth 5.2

Everything you see here is pretty much new to the laptop space, as we have not had a DDR5 RAM, PCIe Gen 4 SSD and all that goodness in this consumer laptop segment. This is a good generational upgrade as it offers a leap in performance from its 11^th Generation Zenbook. That said, we have benchmarked the laptop with the following: CrystalDiskMark, Cinebench R23, PCMARK and 3DMARK.

Starting off with CrystalDiskMark. The PCIe Gen 4 is a fantastic generational upgrade. If you thought that the PCIe Gen 3 speeds are fast, the Gen 4 are much faster. Twice the speeds in fact. In this case, you can see how well it hits a good 7000MB/s read and 5100MB/s write speeds consistently. You are going to have an enjoyable experience with the drive from anything work and play.

Next up, in Cinebench R23 – you can see the prowess of the 12^th Generation Intel processor in the scores. Given that AMD had the upper hand till this point, it’s a surprising turn of events where Intel is bringing the fight. The processor we find under the hood of this ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402Z is a 12 core, 16 thread processor. Quite the powerhouse if you will. And the scores say so, with 1534 points in Single Core and 7600 points in multi core – making it pretty solid.

1/7

This time, the i7-1260P is an intriguing processor as compared to the 11th gen G series because of how it puts performance first. It does put up quite all right scores for a productivity laptop that’s going to keep you up and running with decks and more. Cram in a bit of entertainment when you can, it’s capable of doing exactly that too. Check out our benchmark scores from PCMARK, Blender and 3DMark which gives a good idea about it.

I am a bit disappointed that, despite it has the Evo Certification, I wished the laptop got the Iris Xe Max treatment, to sweeten the deal. While it may not be the most powerful graphics to depend on, it still is going to be a good addition for even light graphic task. Despite all that, it says that the laptop is Iris Xe “eligible”. But hey, if you do want that, perhaps get your hands on the Zenbook 14X OLED – which happens to be my current daily go-to-laptop.

Hints of Zenbook 14X in Certain aspects

The Zenbook series in general, learns from one another. Usually, a lot of those better elements from its bigger brethren is brought down to the other Zenbook. In this case, since I personally do use a Zenbook 14X – it’s safe to say that there are some shared elements. The keyboard is pretty much exactly the same sans the extra set of keys on the side, which is essentially the same as the one doubled as the arrow keys. There’s a fingerprint sensor on the Power button too.

Secondly, the I/O is very impressive – with 2x Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, HDMI 2.0, MicroSD Card Reader and 3.5mm Combo jack. Thank goodness, the USB 2.0 port is gone for good. Meaning that you have all fast ports and say if you do have a Type-A storage, you can use it with no issues or needing a special dongle to take advantage of the speeds.

Finally, the dimensions – more or less the same as the Zenbook 14X, as both the laptops are proper 16:10 aspect ratio laptops. The trackpad on the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402Z isn’t a ScreenPad but it has a NumberPad baked into it.

Now Supports Dolby Atmos

Seeing is believing. For audio, listening is everything. Zenbook speakers has always been, lack of a better word, perfect in more ways than one. For such a small form, it packs a punch and while there isn’t a bass to it, the clarity of it is more than enough to convince people to not bring a speaker for a retreat and still watch their favourite Netflix show.

Good news is that the Dolby Access is free, and you don’t have to pay a single penny for you to control the audio. Explore and find a profile that works for you, better yet, make a custom one. If you have a good pair of headphones which works well with Dolby Atmos or a sound system, you can set it up too. This laptop is really going above and beyond in fulfilling the entertainment aspect of things.

Conclusion

The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3402Z harmonizes a good balance with next generation hardware like much faster SSD than ever on a laptop, DDR5 RAM for snappy memory management and not to forget, the Intel 12^th generation processor under the hood, screaming to give a good fight with Team Red. This particular Zenbook 14 makes me forget about the Headphone Jack less Zenbook and that’s good.

The model we reviewed here comes at a price tag of RM 5,599 – which is the highest variant in the bunch. There’s another variant you could choose too – an i5 Variant where the processor is only difference at RM 4,399. It’s also the only variant that will be available in both colours: Ponder Blue and Aqua Celadon.

Read our ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition review, by clicking here.