Recently, we talked about the ASUS Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED UX8402. That laptop is using the company’s iconic dual-screen design and that laptop is also the first to make use of the new AAS Ultra hinge – which is literally a dual-hinge design.
Then comes this ASUS Zenbook Pro 16X OLED UX7602. This laptop also uses the AAS Ultra dual-hinge design, but it only has a single screen. In place of what should have been the ScreenPad Plus are the keyboard and speaker.
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With that in mind, what is it like to actually use this laptop? Eeeeeeeeee it’s weird. Let me share my experience with you.
A quick disclaimer here – many of the points made are based on my personal preference and experience and your preference may vary.
Let’s jump into the main highlight of this laptop – the AAS Ultra hinge. Once we open up the lid, the entire keyboard lifts up to about 7°. Depends on how you use your keyboard – some people may like this but some may not. I am someone who falls into the latter category as I prefer my wrist to be as flat as possible.
This laptop’s keyboard requires me to use the laptop’s keyboard by twisting my wrist upwards. Your wrists should be neutral or “flat” to ensure proper ergonomics, by the way.
This keyboard is using a 65% layout and it took me a long time to adapt to this keyboard. The speaker grill is humongous on both sides and I kept misaligning my fingers when I tried to type. It will definitely take a lot of time for me to adapt to this.
Also, the keys themselves a rather stiff. Combined with the angled keyboard… yeah, it’s fatiguing to type.
By the way, the part where my arm rests against the edge of the laptop – yeah that part is too sharp and created a line. I honestly just do not like this angled keyboard.
Also, the keyboard is pretty gamer-looking?? For some reason, we have an RGB keyboard but we only have a single zone to customize its lighting. Also, there are a few more options like having it flicker some light when we switch applications. To those who ALT + Tab a lot, then you’ll get epilepsy. I turned it off instantly.
The ASUS 30th anniversary logo on the lid also lights up in RGB, by the way. It’s not configurable as the software considers the logo to be a part of the keyboard’s lighting system.
Then comes the trackpad. With the keyboard technically moved up high, there is a lot of space for the trackpad – and ASUS enlarged the trackpad by a lot. The trackpad in itself is actually good and it also has a vibration motor or some sort when we click on it. The NumberPad feature is also here too.
Then, ASUS also added the ASUS Dial to this laptop. We do have a new “single functionality” mode now, but the functionality of this ASUS Dial is mostly the same as the other ASUS Dials on other laptops – so watch our other video instead.
As for the location though, is something that can be done better. The way I position my left hand on the keyboard means that part of my wrist will always be touching the ASUS Dial. I tried to avoid it, but the angle of the keyboard makes my hand impossible to use it properly.
Then, if I want to edit videos while using the ASUS Dial, then I can’t use the Dial alongside keyboard shortcuts because of its location. My use case is simple – I want to cut off all the excess of a video using Premiere Pro. I want to use the ASUS Dial to move the play head and use keyboard shortcuts to perform my cuts – but because of its location, I can’t seem to place my hand and use both the ASUS Dial and keyboard shortcuts at the same time.
Constantly touching the ASUS Dial while typing…
… and it’s impossible to be used in tandem with keyboard shortcuts.
I honestly prefer the ASUS Dial location of something like the ASUS ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED H5600 or the ASUS Vivobook Pro 14X OLED N7400 more than this. Granted, the middle button on the ASUS Dial of this laptop is actually tactile so that’s good.
But then there’s another argument to be made – the ASUS Dial is meant to be used with the ASUS Pen 2.0 instead. In that case, yeah I guess you can draw on the screen while using the ASUS Dial at the same time. But it won’t be fun since the screen will wobble around. It would’ve been better if the ASUS Pen 2.0 is compatible with the trackpad – like the ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED H5600 that we reviewed earlier this year.
Other than that, the laptop is actually pretty powerful It uses the Intel Core i7-12700H with the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU and 16GB of DDR5 at 5200MHz. For content creation, this laptop is plenty powerful – but for gaming, it will struggle a little due to its high-resolution display with a resolution of 3840×2400. Essentially, it’s a 4K monitor but 16:10 in aspect ratio.
Halo Infinite at the lowest graphical setting will get me around 40fps and I had a great time with it.
Genshin Impact ran fine at the highest graphical setting and still gets around 45fps.
GTA V is a game that truly requires a lot of fine-tuning as I tried to play it with medium graphical settings and still didn’t get 30fps.
The AAS Ultra hinge design also created a huge gap at the back of the laptop which claims to provide even better cooling performance but as we can see from these numbers here, the chip is still going to be hot. At least the fan speed isn’t whiny, though.
The screen is brilliant and covers 100% of both sRGB and DCI-P3 but with a slightly high maximum Delta E, but that’s okay since our eyes won’t realize it anyway.
One thing I do want to highlight is the very weird double brightness slider. Previously, I have mentioned that the screen will operate in two different modes. Anything lower than 55% brightness will be at PWM dimming, but at or above 55% brightness will be DC dimming.
Turns out, in the MyASUS utility, there is another brightness slider to lower the brightness while in DC dimming. I have to tip my hat off to ASUS for including such a feature – but its implementation could have been more seamless. I know that Microsoft Windows plays a part in this as well, so some form of communication is desperately needed.
As for the battery life, we have a 96Wh battery and I was using it at 60% brightness but 90% DC dimming in MyASUS while streaming music from Spotify and also browsing the web using Google Chrome. I was also using it in the silent power profile. It lasts about 5 hours in total – so I think that’s actually pretty good considering that this laptop is using an Intel Core i7-12700H.
In terms of upgradability, there’s nothing that can be done here. Everything is soldered onto the motherboard except for the SSD. However, unlike the ASUS Pro 14 Duo OLED UX8402, the SSD screw does not have a warranty sticker. I have no idea why there’s such a discrepancy.
We also have a fair selection of ports which I am going to just show you.
And so we’ve reached the conclusion of this review. This laptop is priced at RM11,999 which I think is expensive and the comfort level of this forcefully tilted keyboard and that ASUS Dial is going to be up to your personal preference. There is one last thing I want to highlight – and that is the weight.
Combined with the massive 200W power brick, the entire set weighs at least 2.5kg.
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