Asus Zenbook 14 OLED review - The 1.2-kg subnotebook with 120-Hz OLED and Core Ultra 7

[AB]

Please try to pass reality check and stick to facts... I agree that in whisper mode it performs like M1 max (looking at geekbench only), but it's only confirmation that this machine is doing very well. In performance mode, it leaves behind M1 max, the latest M3 entry level (it has great single score but fails on multi core), m2 pro 10 core, able to perform similar to m2 pro 12 core... I would say it is very good result.
Let's do price check. In the UK, 14-inch M3 8 core with upgraded RAM to 24 GB (zen 14 has 32) costs £2300. Mac Air with 24GB Ram and 1TB (I don't want to go in details with ssd pcie version, wifi card etc)- £1949. Can you see the difference? Apple CPUs are leaders in performance to watt rating but not doing great in terms of performance to £ (or $ if you prefer).
In case of 185h, I do not know what is real potential of this cpu. The form factor of zenbook and cooling solution are setting up limitation. But it's very well built and great performing laptop anyway, the same like in case of your air.
I have no doubt that your Air is an amazing laptop, but zenbook 14 outperforms it even using, as you called it, "just low performance mode". As I said- this is very good air alternative, you like it or not.

[lmao]

In performance mode, it leaves behind M1 max, the latest M3 entry level

it's top of the line intel low-power laptop-dedicated cpu, right? it barely manages to beat 2.5 year old top of the line laptop low-power arm cpu, that's all what i need to see actually - top cpu to top cpu comparison gives us 2.5 year tech lag. and you don't need any whisper modes to actually work most of the time with fans off on m1max.
m3 is entry-level, if you feel better 185H is barely beating cpu that can run without cooling at all, wellp...

Can you see the difference?

i don't really care, better laptop is worth more, it's always like that.
btw you could get refurbished m1max 32/1 16 inch for just $1699.99 not too long ago, but i see it's sold already, no wonder.

[lmao]

On performance mode, it did 2462 and 13658 respectively.

also i don't see it really "leaving behind" m1max, which is 2450 12800
m2pro is 2600 12300
m3 3000 11500
m3pro 3100 15000, m3max 3100 21000 <- this what really "leaving behind" is ))

singlecore is more important than multicore, so i'd say in everyday use 185h m1max and m3 will be even give or take, depending on software optimization.
also remember there's that wide ram bus m1max has.

so basically yeah, 185h as TOP laptop cpu is lagging 2.5 years behind, hence the price

[AB]

M3pro and M3 max are amazing CPUs with no competition so far...

but average educated person with basic maths skill can see the difference between 13600 and 12800...

Live your dream mate and enjoy your powerful air...

[lmao]

but average educated person with basic maths skill can see the difference between 13600 and 12800...

you are again focusing on multicore number, despite one system has unified ram and wider ram bus.
they will be the same in everyday use.

[RobertJasiek]

M3pro and M3 max are amazing CPUs with no competition so far...

Surprise. No CPU competition for Macs because Apple is the monopolist for them.

Different thinking: What is the price per storage?

Yet another approach: M3s do not run in x64 mainboards.

And I have yet to be convinced that M1 is not more efficient than M3.

O wait: AMAZING. Is this PR word still used?

For what applications and criteria? Depending on softwares and preferences for criteria (such as price per performance, long battery life and passively cooled), x64 systems are worse, equal or better than M3 systems.

[lmao]

Surprise. No CPU competition for Macs because Apple is the monopolist for them.

whats the point of this low-effort comment? couldn't walk past discussion about apple? don't know performance is architecture and platform agnostic and doesn't matter what os it is running?

poor hater saw someone praising apple, immediately got butthurt and gave birth to another nonsensical comment lmao

[AB]

Surprise. No CPU competition for Macs because Apple is the monopolist for them.

As a competition I mean Intel and AMD. But there is Snapdragon on the way, things may look diferently in the nearest future... And this SoC will be used by multi vendors, it might be hit for the apple.
If you think I am advocating for Apple you are completly wrong. Incompatibility with x64 architecture stopped me from buying Macbook. This does not stop me from saying apple laptops are very good products (even if crazy expensive), just not form me.

[lmao]

But there is Snapdragon on the way

just the fact they had to use only p-cores to reach sensible benchmark numbers is a red flag for being doa.
it will not beat efficiency of anything in real use (not 100%-all-core-load benchmarks, but real use) without e-cores.

[mattschmidt]

Something is wrong with stated power consumption or battery runtimes.

If it is at 6.1W minimum in idle, then how it gets to 16:50h in video playback from 75Wh battery?

That would be 4.46W.

Asus takes less power playing video than minimum when idle?

[Louis D]

I just bought a variant of this same Zenbook laptop for my son as an early graduation present.
The variant that I bought was different only in the display and RAM.

My laptop came with a 1200p diplay (still OLED) and 16 GB DDR5 instead of 32GB RAM.

First I will say this variant came and an extremely competitive price of $799. So this laptop punches well above it's price class. The Core Ultra 7 is pretty amazing. You still have the typical performance drop when on battery but the performance while on battery is pretty amazing. It's not MacBook M3 Pro amazing, but also this laptop costs less than 1/2 what a similarly configured MacBook Air 15" costs.

Before I started looking at any performance benchmarks or battery life I update all the Windows, Intel drivers an ASUS BIOS firmware and software with latest updates at this time. (this will make a huge difference, for example the pre-installed BIOS was from last December)

The Geekbench 6 score I got while plugged into the AC adapter was 2404(SC) and 13250 (multi).
This compares better than an Apple M3. This is also just a hair slower than my Desktop Core i5 13500 which draws more than triple the power.

I also did a the Geekbench 6 OpenCL Compute test of the GPU and got 34342 on that. Really not too bad for integrated graphics. Not a lot slower than a mobile RTX 3050 that I have in my personal laptop.

I haven't had this long enough to play any games or do any programming tasks on it. (It is my son's computer after all) but I did a quick test of battery life. I played the now famous Costa Rica in 4K video on YouTube continuously while on battery. Anyway, after playing for 2 hours the battery dropped from 100% to 85%. Extrapolating that usage out to 100% of battery, I could have run that test for 13 hours before the battery died.

Really I'm impressed with this laptop. I don't understand why people pay so much more for a MacBook. This little ZenBook is very well equipped for an excellent price.

[RobertJasiek]

after playing for 2 hours the battery dropped from 100% to 85%. Extrapolating that usage out to 100% of battery, I could have run that test for 13 hours before the battery died.

Thank you for your tests and information but one cannot simply extrapolate battery life because, on some devices, such values are not linear. One must run the battery empty to know whether it is linear indeed.

[billybob]

For the image in the PWM part of the article - the image for 100% brightness...doesn't this still show PWM - can someone please confirm this please.