ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED Review (UX7602) – Prosumer Content Creator Laptop Refined and Redefined

Revealed earlier this in May 2022 in an online live streamed event in what would typically have been a grand Computex launch before the world went pear-shaped, the Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED UX7602 took centre stage in the 2022 show as their top of the line premium laptop for prosumer content creators.

Going beyond the typical ZenBook mandate of being a premium ultraportable for paperwork, the new flagship Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED aims to be powerful enough to cater to content creators with colour calibrated touch displays, beefier hardware including Intel 12th Gen CPUs, an NVIDIA RTX 3060 GPU and more, all wrapped in a svelte aerospace-grade aluminium chassis that costs a staggering RM11,999. The question though, is it worth the money? We’ll find out in our ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED review where we put it through its paces!

ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED Review (UX7602) – Build and Design

The ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED aka model UX7602 is their latest addition to the ZenBook series in Malaysia that  leverages the lessons learnt in their prior laptop designs, refines them even further and then shoehorns it into the elegantly slim 16.9mm casing made of aerospace grade aluminium that weighs 2.4kg.

The external build and design of our ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED review sample mirrors its compatriots with a dark blue bordering on black finish that they’ve dubbed as Tech Black which wonderfully repels fingerprints.

The top lid is made of brushed aerospace-grade aluminium and is otherwise unadorned save for the a subtle concentric brushed texture centered around a revamped ZenBook chevron symbol that was unveiled at the Asus 30th anniversary showcase at Computex 2019.

Coincidentally, it also bears an amazing resemblance to Star Trek’s Starfleet logo which does lend it a certain amount of desirability for sci-fi enthusiasts. Quality is top notch here and there’s no bend or flex with only the slightest of give in the non-load bearing centre portion of the top lid with determined prodding.

One of the most important features in its design is the inclusion of their new and  improved AAS Ultra hinge design which also sees service in the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED UX8402 that we tested last month.

The enhanced AAS Ultra hinge design uses an elegant set of hinges that elevated the keyboard at a gentle 7-degree angle while offering enhanced ventilation for the underside IceCool Pro cooling solution. On paper, ASUS claims that the new AAS Ultra hinge offers 30% more airflow which translates also to better sustained performance on top of better ergonomics for typing.

The hinges are smooth enough to allow for one-handed opening and also help to prop up the impressive 16-inch 4K OLED colour-calibrated touchscreen that has slim enough side and top bezels that it is able to offer a 90% screen-to-body ratio.

ASUS has even managed to find the time to slap in a top-mounted 1080P webcam for video calls too with an IR sensor riding shotgun for Windows Hello biometric authentication along with a colour sensor to dynamically adjust the brightness and warmth of the display based on ambient light conditions.

That’s not all either as they’ve also managed to cram in a comprehensive six-speaker system with four woofers and a pair of tweeters too into the chassis.

The keyboard itself features per-key white RGB backlighting along with a series of light bars on either side of the keyboard to allow for specific lighting effects on demand such as when you turn the laptop on or off, switch performance modes or on other scenarios on demand.

In keeping with its intended role as their flagship Zenbook design, our ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED review sample also has a number of specific design features culled from their StudioBook ProArt series in the form of an improved, lower profile ASUS Dial interface and an insanely large NumberPad 2.0 touchpad that can double as a numeric keypad.

The larger, wider Asus NumberPad 2.0 touchpad integrated into the laptop handily resolves all the traditional problems of smaller laptop touchpads in one fell swoop. The large size makes gestures a lot easier and its ability to turn into a numeric keypad with a single tap of a button means it’s just as handy for spreadsheet jockeys too.

In keeping with its role as a content creator laptop, it has a fairly comprehensive array of ports spread evenly on its left and right flanks.

The right side hosts an SD card reader, an audio combo jack and a HDMI 2.1 port while the left hosts a DC-IN port for the power brick, a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A port and a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports with power delivery support up to 100W, up to 8K display support and up to 40GBps transfer speeds. Combined, this allows the ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED to output up to three 4K displays via the HDMI and two Thunderbolt 4 ports.

The underside is otherwise bare save for a series of grilles for cooling along with a series of raised polycarbonate bars all along its length to offer some space for ventilation.

Overall build quality for our ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED review is excellent with the all-metal finish contributing to its premium feel. Unfortunately, the laptop doesn’t take advantage of their magnesium-aluminium alloys to shave down the weight which is a shame but which would have also significantly increased the price tag too.

Out of the box, the laptop comes with a cardboard stand that doubles as a place to store the bundled 200W charging brick as well as the provided Asus Pen 2.0 stylus and a ethernet- to-USB-A dongle. Asus has also tossed in a free backpack to tote it around in.

ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED Review – Specifications and Benchmarks

The ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED aka model UX7602 is intended as a highly portable content creator laptop and our review sample, which is the only version available for sale in Malaysia features a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H processor, 16GB of LPDDR5 5,200MHz RAM that’s been soldered in, a 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD and an RTX 3060 mobile laptop GPU with 6GB GDDR6 vRAM that offers a combined a 140W TDP along with NVIDIA Studio Grade drivers for extra stability.

Some regions are able to further upgrade this substantial setup even further with a 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900H processor and 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a somewhat ludicrous 2TB SSD.

Regardless of variant, all versions pack a breathtakingly impressive 16-inch 4K OLED NanoEdge touchscreen which has been colour calibrated to offer a  100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, Pantone validation, VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification for ultra deep blacks and is also Dolby Vision certified too, making it ideal for serious content creators.

To offer a comfortable viewing experience, it also has TÜV Rheinland certification for low blue light emissions too. All this makes this huge and luscious touchscreen ideal for content creation tasks. Unfortunately, the only quibble here is the modest 60Hz refresh rate which precludes its usage for gaming but that’s to be expected for a content creator optimised display.

Here’s how our ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED review sample stacks up on paper:

Price	RM11,999
Display	16-inch 4K NanoEdge OLED touchscreen, 3,840 x 2,400 pixels, 16:10 aspect ratio, 0.2ms, 100% DCI-P3, 550 nits peak brightness
Processor	Intel Core i7-12700H 2.3GHz processor
OS	Windows 11 Home
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 mobile GPU w/ 6GB GDDR6 vRAM (Up to 140W TDP with CPU and GPU)
Memory	16GB LPDDR5 5,200MHz RAM / 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD
Battery	96Wh
Size/Weight	355 x 251 x 16.9mm/ 2.4kg

On paper, our ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED review sample is certainly impressive indeed though it unfortunately has its RAM permanently soldered in which precludes the ability to upgrade it in the future so 16GB is all you’re getting and it has no spare M.2 slot so you’ll have to hop through several extra hoops to upgrade the existing SSD.

While it’s not immediately obvious, ASUS hasn’t skimped on the cooling either and the laptop’s IceCool Pro system packs a pair of 12V 97-blade cooling fans along with a 3D vapour chamber to vent heat from the CPU and GPU. 

For more intricate control over settings, our  ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED review also has their ProArt Creator Hub app preinstalled that offers four settings starting in at Whisper mode for ultra quiet sub-28dB operation all the way to full performance mode where the fans get revved up to their full RPM, volume be damned and you get to experience the full 140W TDP in all its glory.

When put to Full Performance mode settings and plugged in, we managed to get the following synthetic benchmark results:

3DMark Fire Strike	16,097
3DMark Fire Strike Extreme	8,115
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra	4,299
3DMark Time Spy	7,254
3DMark Time Spy Extreme	3,449
3DMark Port Royal	3,925
Geekbench 5 Single Core	1,486
Geekbench 5 Multi Core	12,659
Geekbench 5 OpenCL	86,619
Geekbench 5 Vulkan	95,762
Geekbench 5 CUDA	19,378
Cinebench R23 Single Core	14,697
Cinebench R23 Multi Core	1612 / 9.12x MP ratio
PCMark 10 Work (Creative)	7,747
PCMark 8 Battery Life (Creative)	3 hours 10 minutes

At its fullest potential, the  ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED has impressive pixel crunching punch with the ability to easily and smoothly handle all but the most demanding content creation tasks.

Editing photos was a trifle, 1080P video editing was handled without a hitch and all but the most demanding 4K video edits were tackled without issue. This makes the UX7602 an ideal rig for prosumers though having a variant with 32GB and a 12th Gen Intel Core i9 would have made it into something that can handle the needs of professional content creators too.

For a lark, Horizon Zero Dawn’s internal benchmark was run at 4K at Ultra settings and got a respectable 40fps average.

The display is among the best on test with nigh instantaneous responsiveness, beautifully vibrant and accurate colour rendition as well as scads of detail along with wonderfully deep blacks that only an OLED panel can deliver.

The modest 60Hz refresh rate makes it unviable for serious gaming purposes but it’s more than sufficient for casual gaming and puttering around Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 makes for a viscerally immersive experience. Add in the six-speaker array which serves up surprisingly decent bass, detail and sound staging and you have a great way to binge through your Netflix backlog on the go.

Unfortunately, the ProArt Creator Hub is optimised for control of Adobe’s suite of apps though it also supports input from apps that are capable of accepting Microsoft Wheel Device input.

If you don’t rely on Adobe’s apps in your workflow you’ll most likely find the ASUS dial to basically be little more than a brightness and volume control for the laptop. On the bright side, the slimmer profile ASUS dial is fast and responsive along with the huge touchpad and keyboard which makes it ideal for paperwork.

In terms of battery life, the laptop’s 96Wh battery is considered large by laptop standards though the power hungry processor, cooling array and GPU mean that it has poor endurance if you’re using it for serious work.

On the demanding Content Creator settings in PC Mark 8 and on Full Performance mode, it only lasted a little more than 3 hours and 10 minutes. Assuming you dial it to the lowest performance settings, reduce screen brightness and just perform basic computing like web browsing and emails, you should be able to eke about a fair 6 hours plus or so which is fair but unremarkable.

Should you buy the ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED (UX7602)?

The ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED builds on their prior experience in crafting content creator laptops and refines them further to create an elegantly crafted and powerful rig that offers excellent performance, a beautiful display, a host of innovative features and a hardware/mission profile that makes it ideal for prosumer content creators.

ASUS ZenBook Pro 16X OLED review sample courtesy of ASUS Malaysia. To purchase and for more details please visit https://www.asus.com/my/Laptops/For-Home/Zenbook/Zenbook-Pro-16X-OLED-UX7602-12th-Gen-Intel/