Asus ZenBook Flip S UX371 Review - Compact Convertible with Tiger Lake and OLED

[Redaktion]

Intel's Tiger Lake processors have arrived and one of the first review samples is the brand-new Asus ZenBook Flip S. We have a closer look at the compact convertible with the OLED touchscreen. The graphics performance is increased, but the OLED screen consumes a lot of power.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ZenBook-Flip-S-UX371-Review-Compact-Convertible-with-Tiger-Lake-and-OLED.496285.0.html

[john30092020]

AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

Here we go again. 2500 euros for an ultra slow CPU with an even more ridiculously performing GPU especially in games, but yeah, let's give it an 86% because.....Intel.......

Even Tom's Hardware review looks more honest and we all know Tom's love for Intel (and Nvidia).

Anyone noticed the absence of Ryzen laptops for comparison?

JMO

[Notedbuch]

It doesn't compare in value against Ryzen 5 version of this 2-in-1 notebook.

Too expensive and mixed results in performance.

[Mark S.]

I can't stop  ;D ;D ;D. What was that Intel 28W Tiger Lake preview? The performance uplift from 3 year old i7 8550u is like 20-25% in the finished products, also Zenbook 14 and Swift 5. What was the big deal? Just some pedestrian iGPU improvement? Remember, the HD620 has been around for over 4 years....

[Joe]

FFS, Are you serious?! Why do I have to add the AMD CPUs to the graphs myself? In iGPU performance charts, there is not even a single AMD CPU. What a joke this is. You should be ashamed.

[Sin2x]

Outdated and non-productive 16:9 aspect ratio strikes again. Don't buy, there are better options on the market nowadays.

[Arceles]

They did not even try to compare it to the 4800H, considering the TDP of this 11th gen processor, basically they went with the 4700U at that is a huge TDP difference. How much pays intel for this article again? I hope is enough for at least keeping the writers well enough happy.

[Spunjji]

I can't stop  ;D ;D ;D. What was that Intel 28W Tiger Lake preview? The performance uplift from 3 year old i7 8550u is like 20-25% in the finished products, also Zenbook 14 and Swift 5. What was the big deal? Just some pedestrian iGPU improvement? Remember, the HD620 has been around for over 4 years....

It's even more funny than that, because the "HD 620" (and "UHD 620) is the exact same GPU back-end as the HD 530 on Skylake. So that's 5 years, now.

Have to agree with other commentators - the selection of competitors for the graphs is basically a p***-take, and the dishonest overall rating really takes away from the solid work done to provide a thorough review of the device. Given the high cost, poor battery life, lack of display accuracy and relatively low performance of this device, an overall result in the high 70's seems more appropriate.

[vertigo]

Agree 100% with the other commenters. The complete lack of any AMD systems* is beyond ridiculous and only further destroys NBC's quickly falling credibility. This is so blatantly pro-Intel it's just sad. Andreas seems to be particularly bad about this, and I'm about to just start ignoring his articles entirely. Allen Ngo, OTOH, seems to be more critical and unbiased, so Andreas should perhaps spend some time reading his articles and learning how to use critical thinking to look at things from different angles, so he can at least make his bias less obvious. Heck, he could have even blamed the poor GPU performance on the high-resolution display, which would at least be an excuse and somewhat justify the rating, though it wouldn't excuse the poor CPU performance.

*There's actually one AMD system in the graphs, which is only 2% slower despite being much a much older chip, and he says it's "still ahead of" it as if 2% is anything, much less considering the comparison. Furthermore, NBC themselves have previously reported on the discrepancy between synthetic benchmark vs gaming performance of TL, so the fact it only beats the Ryzen by 2% in synthetic benchmarks means it's probably trailing it quite a bit in actual performance, making this even worse, and that's likely why there are zero AMD systems in the actual gaming comparison graph.

There was also no write-up in the DPC latency section, just a couple images, which is just lazy, not to mention an opportunity to actually legitimately praise the computer due to its performance in this section.

[vertigo]

Another thing I forgot to mention about this review: despite having one of the worst implementations of PWM I've seen (60Hz @ <70%, so basically just about all the time), it's not included in the cons and the only mention if it in the summary is "[t]he panel also uses PWM," which is as brief a statement as possible, as if intentionally glossing over it in an attempt to draw minimal attention to the fact the display, which is supposed to be the main selling point, sucks. And that's not even considering the fact it's not only dim, but nowhere near advertised, which should be a huge deal. But Tiger Lake!! Awesome! 86 score because, stuff.

[calibrationadvanced]

This means the OLED screen, despite the high color gamut (98.6 % P3) is not really suited for serious picture or video editing, because the colors just deviate too much and compromise the results.

You are misinterpreting the results a bit. The deviations that you see in your calibration SW only show up because -you- set it to compare with P3 gamut; but this notebook's display has a larger gamut - it exceeds P3 by quite a bit. So by doing this comparison, you get "deviations".
Now these "deviations" would be a problem in non color-managed applications (= most apps outside photoshop and alike), since all colors would appear over-saturated. But in software supporting ICC or 3DLUT calibration profiles (photoshop and alike, even some browsers) the display would show all P3 colors correctly, since it -has- the capability to display all P3 gamut colors (and then some).
So it is actually more suited to professional video/picture editing than to normal use.

Note: In my opinion I would prefer that any display on the market should rather match one of the standard gamuts exactly (P3, sRGB or Rec2020 gamut), than to exceed / be something in-between them, since then you cannot use such display without said calibration and color-managed (ICC/3DLUT) software (photoshop and alike). Unless you don't mind over-saturated colors.

[maidman]

Another thing I forgot to mention about this review: despite having one of the worst implementations of PWM I've seen (60Hz @ <70%, so basically just about all the time), it's not included in the cons and the only mention if it in the summary is "[t]he panel also uses PWM," which is as brief a statement as possible, as if intentionally glossing over it in an attempt to draw minimal attention to the fact the display, which is supposed to be the main selling point, sucks. And that's not even considering the fact it's not only dim, but nowhere near advertised, which should be a huge deal. But Tiger Lake!! Awesome! 86 score because, stuff.

Nah screens awesome, in practice it's a 530 nit screen with no serious PWM until below 90 nits (see the laptopmedia review). Also it can maintain 30-32w cpu with throttlestop and a good cooling solution (better thermal paste and maybe an external fan), things a mini beast! Think it's already out of production though sadly..

[vertigo]

Another thing I forgot to mention about this review: despite having one of the worst implementations of PWM I've seen (60Hz @ <70%, so basically just about all the time), it's not included in the cons and the only mention if it in the summary is "[t]he panel also uses PWM," which is as brief a statement as possible, as if intentionally glossing over it in an attempt to draw minimal attention to the fact the display, which is supposed to be the main selling point, sucks. And that's not even considering the fact it's not only dim, but nowhere near advertised, which should be a huge deal. But Tiger Lake!! Awesome! 86 score because, stuff.

Nah screens awesome, in practice it's a 530 nit screen with no serious PWM until below 90 nits (see the laptopmedia review). Also it can maintain 30-32w cpu with throttlestop and a good cooling solution (better thermal paste and maybe an external fan), things a mini beast! Think it's already out of production though sadly..

The problem though is what's considered "serious" PWM. Some people are more sensitive to it than others, so some may do fine with it, some may be ok as long as they don't use the lowest setting, which is then an issue in low-light situations (I, for example, use one of the two lowest settings on my laptop screen 99% of the time), and some may be bothered by it even at brighter settings. I can barely even use my phone because of the PWM except in bright environments. For those that are sensitive to it, it's a very important criteria, and one of the reasons I started reading NBC was because they were, at least at the time, the only ones even testing it, so it's disappointing to see them test it and find it to be so bad but then barely mention it.

Haven't seen laptopmedia before, I'll have to check them out.