We have reviewed a lot of ASUS laptops but this one is special. It’s a convertible laptop and I have a soft spot for this type of form factor because I can flip it backwards and use it as a tablet without detaching or attaching any additional accessories. It can even stand on its own!
But other than the form factor, it still needs to have great hardware and battery life. After all, it’s still a laptop. So, after using this laptop to do a lot of my work, here is what I think about it.
Starting off, we’ll talk about the most important thing of a convertible laptop – the screen. This is using an OLED screen – 14-inch and a resolution of 2880×1800 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio. The refresh rate is at 90Hz too.
Obviously, this is a magnificent screen. The colors are magnificent and our colorimeter reports about 100% coverage for both sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts too. The maximum ΔE is at 2.82 which is slightly high but the average is at 0.1 so I won’t worry about it.
The maximum brightness is a little low, though. It’s only at about 350 nits and that’s weird, especially for an OLED screen. Maybe it’s because of the touchscreen digitizer layer – but whichever the case may be, it’s enough for daily usage.
By the way, we also got a lens from Edmund Optics that is a blue light filter. We can see how much blue light is emitted from the screen – and from our quick test, there’s not much.
For a convertible laptop, the hinge is also very stiff and I can keep poking the screen and it wouldn’t wobble. But, the hinge is still smooth to bend backward.
And for whatever reason, ASUS also implemented the ErgoLift hinge design to this laptop. I mean, other conventional clamshell laptops do not have this design and I think it would’ve been crucial for those laptops instead of a convertible.
Also – have you tried playing PC games using a touchscreen? There are some games – like Papers Please in particular – will be fundamentally broken. The game has upgrades so that you can perform the tasks faster using a keyboard and mouse – but you can skip all of that with a touchscreen.
I also want to add that for all the games I played on this laptop – be it pixelated, stylized, or realistic-looking games, the OLED screen makes them pop up so much. Even my visual novels look absolutely fantastic.
Then, we’ll need good performance to ensure that whatever we’re doing on the laptop looks good. Powered by the latest 13th Gen Intel Core i5-1340P and with Iris Xe graphics too. Coupled with that 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD, we can do a lot of things with this laptop.
I tested with some games since it handled everything else perfectly well. With Genshin Impact at the lowest graphical quality at its native resolution, we can get a pretty good frame rate.
Do take note that we are testing using the Performance mode. We can toggle between modes by pressing Fn+F keys. Since it is using a P-series chip, it can take 28W maximum but from what I can see, it’s only taking in about 26W. The temperature is also rather high at 85°C and the fan noise is… definitely loud.
When we are not gaming then we can use the laptop in either silent or balanced speed. Then, the fan noise the barely noticeable and the Core i5-1340P can handle all of the tasks that I want to do without any issues at all.
Ah – how can I forget about the ASUS Pen. This is included in the box and it’s the same ASUS Pen as what we’ve previously encountered. It feels good to write and draw – but I’m not an artist. I only use it to draw some illustrations and it feels good. Coupled with the Core i5-1340P, we can run some heavier illustrating apps on this laptop with no issues.
However, there is no place to store the pen – so you’ll have to take note of that.
The keyboard is surprisingly clean and it feels similar to the previous Zenbooks that I’ve reviewed. The keys are springy and fun to type on while offering a lot of travel distance too. I’m still not a fan of the half-height compressed arrow keys though.
The trackpad is good and has fantastic palm rejection as there was no accidental detection at all when I’m typing – but I find myself using the touchscreen more than the trackpad anyway.
ASUS also stuffed in the NumberPad feature so you can hold this part of the touchpad and a virtual number pad appears on the touchpad. Nifty feature to have and it’s there if you like to use a number pad.
The ports on this laptop are fairly good but I think their placement is swapped. I would’ve preferred the USB 2.0 port to be at the position where the HDMI port is, and move one Thunderbolt 4 port to the left side so that we can plug in either side to charge.
Ah speaking of that – yes, this laptop uses the USB-C port to charge. So if you want to connect a charger, you’ll only have one Thunderbolt 4 to use. This laptop does come with a 90W charger, but I never used this charger since I can use my Ugreen 100W GaN charger.
I tried gaming using the Ugreen 100W GaN charger and the stock 90W charger – and it performs the same. That’s great news for those who consistently travel.
As for upgradability, we can’t do anything here except change the SSD. Nothing much to see here. Except for that 75Wh battery.
When I used this laptop, I get around 5-6 hours of battery life while using the laptop at 60% brightness with the silent fan profile. Do keep in mind that OLED screens have a different power consumption particularly when it comes to what we’re looking at. If it’s mostly black, then we can conserve more battery. If it’s mostly white, then the battery consumption is a lot higher.
And all of this magnificent hardware is packed into a thin laptop, weighing in at about 1.5kg. This entire laptop is also made out of metal and it is very sturdy.
Should you buy the ASUS Zenbook 14 Flip OLED UP3404?
Finally – this laptop is priced at RM5,499. I’d say it’s actually worth it considering that we’ve also tried another 2-in-1 laptop recently. All I have to say is, the ASUS Zenbook 14 Flip OLED has better hardware and implementation of a laptop-tablet hybrid – and at a lower price too.
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