ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED review (UM5302) – Small in size, big on performance

Asus has been on a roll of late, deploying a variety of notebooks across their entire range with OLED displays and various combinations of features and hardware to cater to almost every conceivable need.

Their new Zenbook S 13 OLED is an unusual cherry-picked combination of their best tech combined into a beautifully svelte 13-inch form factor that combines the latest AMD Ryzen 7 6800U CPU with an OLED touchscreen to make it arguably their finest ultraportable for 2022 but is it worth the money? Our Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review puts it to the test to find out!

Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review (UM5302) – What’s in the box, build and design

As part of their premium Zenbook range, the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED aka model UM5302 boasts of exceptionally premium build quality that is a cut above even their other current offerings for 2022 as it is one of the few models in Asus’ line-up that uses ultralight magnesium aluminium alloy to shave the weight down to just 1.1kg without compromising on its slimness – it’s just 14.9mm thin – or its durability with a robust MIL-STD-810H rating which means that it is capable of surviving a modest amount of vibration and minor drops. The chassis is slim enough to easily slip into a backpack and light enough for all day carry.

Aesthetically speaking, our Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review sample features excellent build quality with a premium smudge resistant matte black finish all around complemented by a chromed hinge on the rear. 

Up top, the top lid of our Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review is an otherwise nondescript swath of matte black with the only indication as to its origins being the Zenbook chevron in chrome emblazoned just off centre. Belying its slimness, the top lid is exceptionally sturdy and the centre portion and edges have minimal flex or give.

The right side of the laptop hosts three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports, all of which support power delivery and display port support with two ports mounted on the right alongside an audio combo jack and one on the left. This allows users to charge the laptop and also project it out to an external display on demand though the lack of USB-A ports means that you’ll need to rely on the bundled dongle to use some traditional peripherals like an external keyboard or mouse.

The underside mounts rubber feet for air ventilation and features vents near the palm rests for the downward firing stereo speakers tuned by Harman Kardon along with a side grille for cooling on the left side of the laptop. 

Flipping the laptop is a two-handed affair on account of the stiff hinges but on the bright side, they’re built like a main battle tank and are effectively wobble free while allowing you to fold it around 180-degrees to lay essentially flat on the off chance you need to do so.

When opened, you get a compact white-LED backlit chiclet style keyboard while the touchpad features a NumberPad 2.0 overlay that allows it to double as a numeric keypad in a pinch. This nifty feature directly addresses the typical cramped dimensions of 13-inch keyboards and makes it viable for use by spreadsheet jockeys and for those more reliant on a numeric keypad for their work.

To their credit, Asus has also maximised the dimensions of the touchpad, with its smooth expanse making up  almost a third of the keyboard tray while still leaving enough room for your palms to perch on near the corners.

The main draw here is the colour calibrated 13.3-inch 2.8K OLED touchscreen that looks wonderfully lush and crisp at first blush with slim side bezels though the top and bottom bezels are slightly thicker than 2022 standards with the screen offering up a 16:10 aspect ratio. 

Up top, inset into the display is a FHD webcam. Unfortunately, there’s no physical privacy slider here though it does have both a mic mute and camera off function on the F9 and F10 keys that lights up in amber when not in use.

In terms of extra gear, the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED comes with the obligatory 65W USB-C charger and associated charging cable, a USB-C to USB-A adaptor, an Asus Pen 2.0 stylus, the usual warranty and quick start literature as well as a padded laptop sleeve. 

The Asus Pen 2.0 stylus is slightly larger than a normal ballpoint pen, charges via a USB-C port and offers 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity when used on the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED’s touch display. Asus has also tossed in a free pre-installed copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2021 with the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED that lends it immediate utility as a paperwork cruncher.

Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review – Specifications and Benchmarks

Our Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review sample for the Malaysia market is well appointed as ultraportables go with the new AMD Ryzen 7 6800U processor. Announced earlier this year, the Ryzen 7 6800U is built on the Zen3+ architecture, uses a 6nm process and features 8 cores and 16 threads with the ability to go up to a 4.7GHz max boost clock speed and 28W TDP. 

This is paired with 16GB LPDDR5 RAM that has been soldered in which unfortunately precludes any after-market upgrades. Storage needs are tackled by a generously sized 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD while the laptop itself has AMD Radeon 680M integrated graphics which are one of the first integrated graphics solutions currently in the market to have hardware ray tracing. At present, this is the only model available for sale in Malaysia. Here’s how it stacks up on paper:

Price	RM5,999
Display	13.3-inch OLED NanoEdge touchscreen, 2,880 x 1,800 pixels, 60Hz, 100% DCI-P3, DisplayHDR 500 True Black, Dolby Vision, Pantone validated, TUV Rheinland certified, 16:10 aspect ratio, 0.2ms response time, 550 nits peak brightness
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 6800U 28W TDP
OS	Windows 11 Home
Graphics	AMD Radeon 680M
Memory	16GB LPDDR5 6,400MHz RAM / 1TB PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD
Battery	67Wh Li-Po 4-cell battery w/ 65W Type-C charger
Size/Weight	296.7 x 210.5 x 14.9mm /1.1kg

Running under the hood is Windows 11 Home and the laptop packs the brand’s own MyASUS manager app that allows you to select from Whisper, Balanced and Performance mode settings, access customer support and sort out colour temperature as well as gamma settings for the display if the default settings aren’t to taste. 

This shouldn’t be necessary as the display itself is Pantone validated and also has 100% DCI-P3 out of the box which makes it colour accurate especially for content creators. 

When plugged in and set to Performance mode, our Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review sample scored the following:

3D Mark Time Spy	2,404
3D Mark Time Spy Extreme	1,112
3D Mark Fire Strike	5,965
3D Mark Fire Strike Extreme	3,072
3D Mark Fire Strike Ultra	1,624
3D Mark Night Raid	15,754
GeekBench 5 Single core	1,317
GeekBench 5 Multi core	7,090
GeekBench 5 OpenCL	28,049
GeekBench 5 Vulkan	27,112
Cinebench R23 Multi Core	7,494
Cinebench R23 Single Core	1,106 x6.77 MP Ratio
PCMark 10 Extended	4,291
PCMark 8 Battery Life (Creative)	N/A
3DMark Port Royal	804
Horizon Zero Dawn (Low settings)	13fps average
Far Cry 5 (Low settings)	25fps average

Performance across the range is excellent and compares favourably with a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H with Iris Xe graphics . In fact, the AMD Radeon 680M is one of the first integrated graphics cards capable of handling hardware ray tracing for games and even managed to complete the 3D Mark Port Royal ray tracing benchmark. 

 

This is easily one of the most capable iGPUs currently available and surpasses low-end NVIDIA MX series GPUs like the MX350 and MX450. It’s still a jittery affair for AAA games unless you opt for massive compromises in performance and texture quality though to be fair, it’s a triumph that an ultraportable with an iGPU is able to run them at all without keeling over.

On the bright side, it’s more than able to comfortably run last gen and older eSports titles. CSGO, DOTA and the like will run smoothly without issues with more than enough performance to tackle paperwork and photo editing.

Unfortunately, the tradeoff here is that the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U runs hot under heavy loads and when gaming, the upper and lower portions near the hinge reach levels hot enough to make it uncomfortable to touch for any length of time. While the keyboard area and palm rests remain cool, the hot underside means that you’ll need to plonk it on a table if you’re doing anything serious.

If you’re sticking to purely productivity related tasks, emails, web browsing, social media and paperwork, this isn’t a problem and heat levels remain comfortable enough for it to perch on your lap for extended use.

Our Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED review sample’s OLED touchscreen is among the best on test with good visibility under daylight and great colour rendition that’s also colour calibrated to ensure it’s ideal for content creators with 100% DCI-P3 and Pantone validation. Blacks are beautifully deep and colours pop with movies looking fantastic onscreen.

Unfortunately, it retains a conventional 16:10 rectangular aspect ratio and caps the refresh rate to 60Hz which makes viewing multiple documents and web browsing a cramped affair while the 60Hz refresh rate means that professional gaming is not its strong suit. Even so, it’s more than enough to enjoy Cyberpunk Edgerunners on Netflix and crunch through a few documents in a comfortable fashion. 

The provided stereo speakers are surprisingly good with a decent amount of volume and sound staging that can fill a room with sound and make it great for casual music listening duties though the lows and bass aren’t particularly deep or rich.

Unfortunately, PCMark 8’s battery life test kept crashing so we weren’t able to get a synthetic benchmark out of that. As 13.3-inch ultraportables go, the Zenbook S 13 OLED has better than average endurance on account of its newer and more power efficient AND Ryzen 7 6800U CPU.

Overall battery life is above average with enough juice to comfortably last a day of purely paperwork and on medium brightness. With web browsing, Google Docs and Microsoft Office along with a few minutes of YouTube over lunch break, it was able to comfortably last a good 7 plus hours before needing to hunt for a power outlet.

Should you buy the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED?

The Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED makes for a surprisingly capable ultraportable. A high quality OLED touchscreen, a competent AMD Ryzen 7 6800U CPU, fast DDR5 RAM and capable integrated graphics makes the Zenbook S 13 OLED one of the best equipped Windows ultraportables currently in the market.

There are some quibbles of course with the lack of variety in ports and the fact that it runs hot under heavy loads but this is otherwise one of the best AMD Ryzen powered ultraportables that money can currently buy.

Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED review sample courtesy of Asus Malaysia. For more details and to purchase please visit https://www.asus.com/my/Laptops/For-Home/Zenbook/Zenbook-S-13-OLED-UM5302-AMD-Ryzen-6000-series/