The process by which the lid was protected is called "Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO)," also known as micro-arc oxidation (MAO). This is a type of anodizing of aluminum, but using a very high voltage. With this voltage, sparks with a lifetime of a fraction of a second, which can have a temperature of more than 3000K, are created on the surface of the metal. These sparks create plasma and melt the created oxide layer to form a ceramic coating. These layers are highly porous, which is why a characteristic texture can be observed on the lid.

This laptop does everything right. It proves that IO is not a limiting factor when making a thin and light. They chose all of the right ports for the user who would buy one of these and that is all I could ask for. Though I am not in the market for a premium thin and light, this one with the Ryzen 6800U would be my first choice. Bravo, Asus!

Thank god HDMI 2.1 is becoming more common on laptops. Its absence from the M1 MacBook Pro was pretty glaring.

was fully expecting a $3000 price tag by the end. cant believe what a good package this is starting at $1400 jeez

That’s a really sharp looking device, the design is pretty much perfect imo

I got my Zenbook S13 OLED (2022) with R7 6800U / RDNA2 680M for $1.4K CDN from amazon warehouse a few months ago. Great laptop, beautiful display and super light. It gets hot to the touch under load since the magnesium alloy chasis really moves heat.. although the SoC is fine at like 75c under heavy load. Solid traveling laptop though, with good battery and steller igpu performance. I did video editing with Filmora12, it was fast, fluid, and exported quickly. Light gaming was great too. One issue I had with it was random freezing like once a day. It felt software related since it would run perfectly fine for 8+ hurs at a time, then suddenly freeze, once a day, when I least expected it. I think i resolved it by turning PCIE power save modes to disabled in windows, its been a while and I haven't had an issue since. If that was the reason it was returned to Amazon, im amazed,since I got a premium modern ultra book like $700 off the retail box price. Also managed to claim the remaining year of warranty under my name as well. Will certainly buy another Zenbook a few generations down if they continue to put these powerhouse igpus in them.

Asus really are becoming the kings of the thin and lights - honestly, even if I'd prefer to go amd ... this is pretty much everything I want in an laptop, if I was in the market for a new one (and rich enough to buy one) this would probably be the one I'd go for.

If you Google this model name, the first result is the AMD version from last summer. How does this one compare to that? That one has a touch screen. The 6800u benchmarks better according to Passmark. But that one has better connectivity (HDMI, USB-A) Most of the other shell specs seem about the same. edit: FFS, they made the screw layout better. WHY ASUS! WHY DOES THE AMD ONE REQUIRE DESTROYING THE FEET TO DISASSEMBLE!?

This thing honestly looks like my perfect ultra book, OLED, big trackpad, good keyboard layout thats not off center and thin and light

2:46 I’m curious if the labs keyboard testing robot will be able to test for soft spots and flex! If so, that could be VERY cool and useful.

looks like hardware with very nice UX, lovely set of IO, trackpad. this is something exactly like what I'm looking for me

I love how ASUS is bringing what it's learning from their other lines. The hinge is very reminiscent of the Zephyrus series.

I did get a zenbook flip recently (12th gen Intel) and I have to say I love it. What is surprising is that I have not a single thing I dislike about it and that is quite surprising for me. Little things like a block on the camera, trackpad disable etc.. just make it a joy. OLED to die for (mine does 90Hz) and TB4 for my eGPU. Asus seem to be doing something right.

They increased the bottom bezel to extend the palm rest, without it being a huge chin, that's the best use of space if I ever saw one

I have the 2022 Zenbook 14 OLED (AMD version) and I absolutely love everything about it. It's such a sexy little device.

this sponsored video felt way more like an advertisement than any previous similar video

Can you guys do a piece on "Headless Laptops"? I think they're a VERY lucrative option for budget gamers.

Such a great device i use it for web development and watching movies and some light gaming too the most thing that i love about this device is the screen and also the battery besides it was a gift from my father after i graduated high school and the thing that bother me is the heat when i charge it and use it that's it a very elegant device .

Some companies refer to the (essentially Sapphire) as "ceramic". So it's likely just an oxidized state. Either way, nice looking surface finish.

I think they could have added 1-2mm for a tad more battery, quieter fans, more key travel, maybe a trackpad with actuators like the macbook air and better cooling.

Can't wait to see you guys try out the new 3D Oled Screens.

Really appreciate Asus for willing to try and innovate. That said, I will wait for the the more polished 2023 Flow X13.

It's good laptpop until you compare it to the last year model. I have Zenbook S with Ryzen 6800U (which is better in battery-life and when it comes to gaming it has stronger iGpu then Intel - I am literaly playing AC Valhalla on this machine), Fingerprint sensor is gone, Numpad is gone, Touchscreen also gone (that also means no Pen). 2022 model is thicker (14.9 mm) but it also means better cooling (it is not that loud like the new one in video) and also more travel for key. So typing feels better.

All of my smartphones that had OLED suffered a burn in. I like the colours on the laptop but having OS UI elements burned in would drive me mad.

Currently rocking a zenbook 14 oled UM5401Q, with a ryzen 5600u (I think it was not released in NA). Absolutely loving it, but looks like mine has a better screen: 3k 550 nit oled at 90hz, this is my favourite part of the machine ofc. Battery life, keyboard, trackpad, and every other part is suprisingly good for the sub 1000$ price I paid for it brand new, except the speakers as with the S 13, they can get distorted at max volume, a little bit of eq tweaking help, but not that much. To be fair, still sounds better that the majority of notebooks.

I love how Alex measures how good the graphics on a laptop is by the presence of grass in Valheim

i literally opened task manager on my laptop when i heard some fan noise, turns out it was from the video haha

Some of the best racket I've ever heard. Good stuff

plasma-assisted polishing of aluminum nitride ceramic is what asus meant to explain. It's a rough process and I don't know why they did this other than the fact that it feels amazing. But other than that there is no huge benefits. No downsides either though. Love the zenbook line of laptops but I couldn't get the last gen laptops, it almost seemed like they never existed. But at this point I just use my steam deck to do everything with. like honestly I don't need a laptop anymore. But this seems like if I was to get a laptop this would be it. I love slim laptops with long battery life with decent power. Just seems like the ideal situation. Like my dream laptop last year was a 6800h with an rtx 305 I don't game much but it's good to have it when the situations arises. And then obviously 2 m.2 ports and no soldered ram would have been nice. But I don't think I ever saw a laptop like that.

This laptop does everything right. It proves that IO is not a limiting factor when making a thin and light. They chose all of the right ports for the user who would buy one of these and that is all I could ask for. Could you plz cover the e-gpu case if it has Thunderbolt or USB4? This is a valid use-case for such a laptop and it's quite annoying that nobody covers it. I think the whole e-gpu idea is not taking off not because it has no value, but because nobody is just covering that use-case in the reviews.

Alex in one word: "Daarn good!" i love it!

too bad the touchpad-numpad is gone. it was actually a really cool function in previous gen zenbooks.

Ceramics are just metal oxides with certain properties, as is anodized aluminium (Al2O3). I guess that ASUS treated the surface with a laser in order to get the Al2O3 to transition to another modification (crystal structure - this has a great impact on mechanical properties). Either that, or they wanted to come up with some marketing chargon for "those fashionable line patterns are made via laser ablation".

9:44 Speakers are probably a lot better if not listening at 100%. That way the DSP can do its job. MacBooks can go much much lower with bassresponse when you are below 50% as well

This laptop has a very similar thin-ness and chassis as the laptop I have already! very neat :D Though mine has upwards facing speakers but no HDMI like this laptop

13 is a little small for my work, the 15 inch also looks promising if the price is reasonable. Asus makes good stuff.

It's definitely a well-engineered laptop. Would've wished on an AMD Ryzen-U option.

Bought this, love it

Would be great to test how much bnattery power is daily lost after full shutdown (so not when in sleep). I have last year Vivobook 14 OLED Asus laptop discharging when completely off by 8% per day, and seems like it's not uncommon with new models, not only from Asus.

Still rocking my Zenbook from 2016

Bought a Zenbook 13 convertible a few years back for my wife. It was fanless, and superthin. It looked great, and worked great, until the hinges seized a little more than a year later, not too long after warranty expired. Needless to say, it was not worth repairing it (especially considering that the original parts didn't last very long). No, we didn't even abuse the hinges by using it as a tablet. Ended up selling it at a steep loss. Very disappointed at Asus. The HP Spectre x360 that I bought for myself at the same time as the Zenbook still works great these many years later.

On aluminum engine parts sometimes they do a "plasma" coating to improve thermal performance and wear resistance.

9:30 For speakers, I've found HP speakers (B&O with soundcard kind) really good. Tried many models from Asus, Lenovo, Dell, HP and MacBook Air/Pro 13 in store and they were probably the best out of them.

I didnt want to wait in this. I have purchased a lenovo yoga 7 14inch OLED with the r7 6800U and i freaking love it.

This sleek laptop is the perfect combination of style and substance!

Can’t wait to see the Zenbook 14X OLED

I yearn for a time when ultrabooks finally have good performance *with* good battery life (I don't mind if I have to plug in for the good performance). Currently I have the 2021 Asus TUF Dash F15, which was the closest thing for the price in its time. I can get upto 10 hours of battery life in web browsing, and upto 6 in videos. I can also have great performance when I plug in. The only problem is that it weighs over 2 kg, which adds significant weight to my backpack.

The RACKET test was very good, i think you should include that on all your tests 🌝

The Iris Xe generally is surprisingly capable for something so mobile

Love it ! Nice job Asus!

Imagine this with a 7000 AMD cpu... it would be sick

I am so happy I got the 14 inch one from Best Buy on a sale for $578, its a beautiful screen but I will not recommend to game on it.. I did that at first on a bed closing the vents and mess up the motherboard but I am glad I have one year Warranty. This is perfect for light gaming and emulation. It has an i5 with 12 cores in it and can run Dolphin games and PS2 games fine but can stutter a bit but like I said light gaming won't mess it up. I love my laptop and too bad my 2017 Dell XPS is not as fast or powerful like this laptop with no dedicated graphics.

I have a Zenbook 14 OLED that's pretty good too, it's last year's model though, but it has 90hz refresh rate

I always liked the Zenbook series for value laptops.

Thank you Alex 'Fantastic' Clark for this fantastic video 👍

i have the zen book 13 and it has the same oled screen but 90hz, they’re very nice laptops

It's one of my dream laptops. Hope it's good for learning programming.. and a bit of Video Editing Not into gaming that much these days..

i thought Alex said eleventy-five screws (instead of 11 t5 screws). MOre Alex vids! I'm loving this week on LTT.

Cool Vieeo, thanks! Question regarding windows security: is it as save as apple's macos nowadays ??

Watching this on my Asus ZenBook 13 from 2018 or 19. I'll upgrade to this. Wait. Maybe. Ahh. I'll think about it.

i heard eleventy five screws later and I giggled before I realized it was "eleven t-5"... anyone else? no? ok I'll see myself out ... 😂

Dope.... I want one with an AMD set up tho. The new 780M igpu make just about anything gaming ready so i want that flexibility.

sometimes you want it thicc, and powerful

Amazing video review showing all the ASUS stuff that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. Also I thought the "computer generated pringle" was funny lmao

Amazing Video!!

My 2022 razer blade 17 is super thin with a 3070 ti, the new 18 inch ones are thicker and have beefier fans. Grateful i got the 17 because this boi is already heavy enough when i bring it in to work.

How many external monitors do it support? & How would you connected 2 maybe 3 external monitors?

I freaking love the cover design and the thinness. 16:10, WiFi 6E, HDMI 2.1, OLED, and the Xe graphics are actually somewhat usable? If my next laptop isn't a Framework it'll be an Asus...

Should take a look at the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 14". It's quite similar in terms of performance but I think the price is quite low despite similarly high build quality. Great ports, too, and the same i7-1355U.

Your video quality is really good bro, and background to Love from Bangladesh

That UX3402 Zenbook 14 is probably one of the best laptops I've ever used. I'm not surprised the 13 is good.

Would like to see a comparison between this laptop and the new samsung galaxy book ultra. Which one do you think is better?

Alex smashing it again. And this laptop is drool worthy for on the go stuff

ASUS has been killing it for quite a while now.

.. can you change the battery in it? or does it blow up like a pillow a spicy pillow in few years?

A leaf falls in a forest. Alex "Absolutely love to see it"

Appreciate the cantilever lid design creating air flow but does that make it uncomfortable for laptop sitting? Presumably this ultraportable is meant to be used in mobile environments where there might not be a desk.

I love the fact that this ultra portable has the exact same I/O as the 15.6" ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo mobile workstation I'm watching this video on. Great for the ultra portable, annoying for a workstation.

This is so tempting as a student the lightweightness is awesome. Did a bit a research though and the GPU is not high performing, please correct me if i'm wrong

Someone tell Alex that in valheim you can add "-console" to the launch arguments of valheim to enable dev commands, then you can press F5 and type "devcommands" to enable cheats. Commands like "tod 0.5" will set the time to noon so you can actually record during the day :) "fly" and "god" are also commands!

Which laptop should I choose? The hp spectre x360 or this one? I need insight please

This black keyboard look with the silver looks like a nice touch taken from 🍎

This S13 will pair perfectly with my s chassis.

Hope you get to review the Flow X13 2023 as well. In the market for a 13in and the zenbook is a contender but I'm torn between a zenbook and the flow x13

I really like the IO ports. No dongle required

after all these years still loveing seeing the fallout guy

If they have a ryzen 7040 SKU available I'm definitely gonna consider it an upgrade later

Asus always pushing the industry. Love you Asus, my favorite brand.

I think we can all agree that this exceeded our expectations given its size and thinness

Does having a Dark profile helps with the battery life at all or nah?

The only criticism I have for this great laptop for an average home user is that its screen is not an anti-glare one. Nonetheless, it's in my shopping cart and I may proceed to checkout... Tempting. Very much so. I also need to see how it compares with the 13" Dell XPS - I just do not remember whether the Dell has a better screen or not.

Hey when you are going to do laptop coverage in the future, could you plz cover the e-gpu case if it has Thunderbolt or USB4? This is a valid use-case for such a laptop and it's quite annoying that nobody covers it. I think the whole e-gpu idea is not taking off not because it has no value, but because nobody is just covering that use-case in the reviews.

But what about the 14 OLED? That one has a better display.... An you consider reviewing that? Thanks

Do you guys plan to review the galaxy book ultra?

Does it have a haptic touchpad like Apple's?

Does this run Photoshop, Lightroom Classic and/or Davinci Resolve any good?

2:59 the black keyboard and big trackpad make it look like a macbook

A note on Harman Kardon: they were bought by Samsung in 2016 and Samsung can put the Harman Kardon badge on anything, regardless of who developed the product.

Doesn't oled help battery life if your perdomoninantly using a dark/black system settings. Not having to turn on let's say 50% of the pixels if you are looking at windows files or a black background Web page?

1:00 I would guess that they mean that the ceramic is a plasma deposition coating on the aluminum.