Asus ZenBook 14 OLED UM3402 14'' QHD+ Touchscreen (AMD Ryzen 7-5825U 16GB RAM 1TB SSD 8-Core (Beats i7-1165G7)) Business Laptop Backlit Fingerprint 19 Hr Battery IST SD Card Win 11 Home - 2023 Black

I bought this teeny, tiny machine (compared to my old 17" acer) as I'm not getting any younger, and that old workhorse wasn't getting any lighter. I checked more affordable alternatives, but all of them had some issues. Some had battery capacities lower than 2 AAs soldered together. Some were trying to sell me 1366x768 screens in this day and age. And a few offered me windows S. Yeah right.I settled on this machine mostly because of 3 reasons: First and above all, the keyboard design, and specifically the shape of the arrow keys and the fact that Fn-arrows gave me pgup/pgdn-home/end. I'm a translator, and the keyboard is everything to me. I can live with a 10 years old processor, but I can't live with a keyboard where the arrow keys are not in their natural shape. I don't know what is wrong with all those keyboard designers who expand the left and right keys to cover all the space, so that they are twice the size of the up/down keys. The victim of this choice is the ability to feel one's way quickly to those keys. The second reason is the U series processor, which meant way lower power consumption, coupled with a relatively beefy battery. And thirdly, the touchpad which can also serve as a numpad. That is, at least in theory. Now, let me tell you how that worked out.I love this machine's keyboard. I adore it. The backlight is very nice. I know it has been the part of any half-decent configuration last 5 years, but my old laptop didn't have it. And the difference it makes... Wow. Anyway, hear me out and don't ever buy a laptop without backlit keyboard.Another amazing idea implemented in this machine is to use the combination of arrow keys with Fn to provide pgup/home et al. It saves keyboard space and gets rid of useless key crowding. And you don't need to get used to the location of the keys in every new machine you use. I hope more and more machines will implement this idea. A similar attempt was made with the context menu key, using Fn-RightControl to provide that function. I'm not that happy with that design choice, and would prefer a dedicated context menu key, but I guess I can get used to it. No deal-breaker there.F1-12 keys also serve for other functions when combined with the Fn key. Adjusting the volume or screen brightness etc. Fn-F9 and F10 are particularly noteworthy in this context, as they serve as hard locks on the microphone and the camera, and show little yellow lights on those keys when those devices are locked off. So, you can feel confident about privacy.The keyboard lacks scroll lock and pause/break keys, but who needed those keys since the days of George Bush (the older one)? Anyway, Fn-k serves as the scroll lock key, and fn-something else serves as the pause/break thing. Check the manual if you really need it.The second reason for buying the machine: U series processor. Ryzen 7 5825U specifically. With a TDP of 15 Watt, you can complete the work day without ever needing a plug to charge the thing. And it is pretty decent in terms of performance. It is way faster than my 10 years old i5, when you need it to be. And there's a trick involved. When you don't need performance, for instance when you are just working on word or writing excessively long product reviews on Amazon, you can tell the computer to cut back on the gas. Again, that lovely Fn key plays a part. Fn-F switches between performance/standard/whisper modes. In the latter, the computer is completely quiet, and does not burn a lot of watts. The CPU takes it easy, and the fan virtually stops turning. I love that mode. But when you need the machine to do something really quickly, you can take it to the performance mode, and the cpu revvs up, along with the fan. The machine becomes noisier but faster, gulping all those watt-hours in the battery. Anyway, the whisper mode is more than enough for most everyday tasks like browsing on Firefox, chatting on an IM client, or checking emails. However if you need to compress files or install programs, compile whatever, try the performance mode, and you'll really appreciate the difference, even if the noise is not appreciated.The third reason that led me to buying this thing was the touchpad which could function also as a numpad. Well, I had a huge disappointment on that front, but I guess I expected something impossible. The homo sapiens' interaction with numpads apparently benefit quite a lot from the physical movement of the keys. And when you just paint numpad keys on a touchpad, that feedback mechanism is simply unavailable. So, I don't make much use of that function. It is pretty useless, I can say.Another issue with the touchpad is its excessive width. It could (and should) have been narrower. Using the right-click corner of the touchpad is a pain due to the excessive distance to the right you have to go. I guess it is a deliberate design choice due to the four-finger-gestures introduced with the windows, but those feel unnatural to me anyway. If you like and use four-finger-gestures, my respect for you. But I don't feel I'll ever use them. And thus, for me the excessive width of the touchpad design to accommodate those gestures is just a pain without any benefit.Another issue with the gestures stems from the half-baked mess win11 is. The guys and gals (or whatever gender word you prefer for yourself) at Microsoft, please hear me. Thank you for letting me customize whatever I can do with swipe-up/down/right/left with three- and four-finger gestures. But next time, please put the two-finger ones into the pot as well. I would love to use two-finger click for middle-click, and the three-finger click as the right-click. I'm not allowed to do that for some reason. But I'm not allowed to have a half-decent start menu or taskbar either. Why oh why? Why?So, now, let's move to the other features/issues of the machine.The operating system is a horrible mess. Windows 11 is and has been half-baked since its introduction in 2021. The settings/control panel mess is well known. The taskbar/start menu mess is obviously intentional on part of MS. The Edge mess is right down evil. The task manager mess is cruel. The windows update totalitarianism is Orwellian. And forcing me to getting a Microsoft account... That ain't happening. Bill, or Satya, or whoever... That ain't happening. Please stop pushing for that. I'm even willing to try to learn Linux in this 5th decade of my life. But getting a Microsoft account associated with my computer simply ain't happening. And this is coming from a guy who already has an account from the days of Skype. But I guess I am unrealistically expecting some sense from a company which hid the scroll bars in Word or the track changes function in Excel. Silly me.On the other hand, the OS is very good at finding the drivers the machine needed after a reinstall I had to perform after I broke the OS by messing with it too much. And I appreciate the Mail client. It is way way more memory-efficient compared to having a dedicated Gmail tab in Firefox. The calendar application is capable of syncing with Google calendar. Appreciated.The MyAsus app is neat, and it offers many functions to make the machine better. The battery-care mode which limits battery charge to 80%, thus extending the life of the battery by a year or two is neat. Various sound-related settings are helpful. The Asus OLED Care section which helps extend the life of the OLED screen is a must.On that OLED note... That is the absolutely most horrible thing wrong with this machine. It is even more horrible than the OS used. For one, OLED screens are not known for their longevity. Look up for "pixel burn on OLED". Asus' app will help somewhat on that front I guess. But the most awful thing is the excessive resolution. 2880x1800 on an 14" screen? Why? I don't have leica lenses or microscopes integrated in my eyes. No one does. I guess some marketing guy at Asus thought it would be better to advertise bigger numbers on the product specifications page. It doesn't. Now, I have to increase scaling to %200 or something to be able to see what's written on any application. So, effectively I have an 1440x900 screen, but one that requires tricks with the compatibility/high DPI settings on many applications to make them work reasonably. It would have been better to have a plain 1440x900 screen than this 2880x1800 one, because then I wouldn't have to resort to such tricks with older applications. So Asus, next time when you design a computer, please don't go beyond 1920x1080, especially if the machine is an 14" one. It's simply cruel without any tangible benefit.Also the touchscreen feels useless to me. Maybe someone else would consider it a useful tool. But I'd rather have a matte screen instead of the touchscreen. Fortunately, it is possible to turn off the touch function. Unfortunately, it's not possible to have a matte screen.Anyway, if I have to say a few positive words about the screen, 16:10 and the color gamut are nice. They do not save the day though.Speakers are obviously high quality. The sound is pleasing, and can go very high if you need it to be. I'm not an audiophile, but I appreciate the quality.Some design choices regarding the hardware are not very optimal from a consumer perspective. I don't know how many pennies Asus saved by making the RAM non-upgradeable, but they shouldn't be worth it. Next time, please make the machine half a millimeter thicker or 2.5 cents more expensive if you need to, but put a user-upgradable RAM slot, will you? I intend to use this computer for the rest of the decade, but I'm not sure 16 gigs will cut it in, say, 2028.Another less-than-optimal choice is about the location of the ports. They are all on the right-hand-side. How about putting a USB port or two to the left hand side as well? And how about putting a disk-access light somewhere visible? Also, here's a call for the industry in general: Please don't kill the 3.5 mm jack. We love it.I should also note that the air vents under the machine are scary. The fan and a number of chips look pretty exposed. I hope that's an unfounded fear on my part.To sum it up, I love the keyboard in general and the arrow keys in particular. The speakers are also nice. But the rest of the machine is mediocre to awful. I must admit that assuming the numpad embedded into the touchpad could have been useful was a mistake on my part. But the OS and the screen are just malicious/horrible choices on part of the manufacturer. I wouldn't have bought this computer if I had read this review a month ago.

Came without a case in the package. I have same laptop but 13.3 inch and there inside box are was case

I am a tech support professional, very picky about my computers, and I am impressed by the Zenbook! I first tried a couple of Lenovo Yoga models and didn't like the keyboard. I LOVE the Zenbook keyboard! The overall build quality is high - the metallic case, screen glass, and hinge are top quality. The 2.8K OLED screen is gorgeous! Expect to see some tiny lines on this (or any laptop) OLED. Lenovo has the same issue with their OLED laptops. To me, I'll put up with the tiny lines for the detail, contrast and colors of the screen. The fingerprint reader works well. The touchpad has a good movement and click to it. The touchpad-numberpad works well but I'm not sure I'll use it much. The i/o ports are good. My only complaint is the webcam is only 720p, not 1080p. 720p is adequate though. I prefer the lower power usage, lower heat and longer battery life of the Ryzen 7-5820U compared to the 12th Gen i7. The slightly slower speed of the Ryzen is barely noticeable.

It's a nice laptop. Fast and convenient

I bought this for my daughter who's starting college soon. I wanted the best I could get for my modest budget. I think it was an absolute perfect fit; long battery life, vibrant touch screen, comfortable keyboard, feels high end, enough memory and disk space, doesn't take up a lot of space and powerful enough to cover the needs of a student and then some.

The The display and sound are amazing, and it seems like a good overall product. I guess things have changed since my first backlit keyboard as I did not realize it had a toggle to turn it on. I was afraid it did not have one, but it does and with variable lighting.It is physically smaller than my 13.3" laptop, but the screen is very slightly wider. It is, however, a taller display since it is a 16X10 rather than a 16X9 format.I would recommend it.

the battery, Display, and performance with ryzen 7 500 are just crazy good, you can't find any other laptop for the price at all. just get it and don't think about it,

We got this for my son who is just starting to learn film editing. It's definitely ok for beginners. He also can game with pretty much any new game although not at the highest settings. The battery seems to go pretty quick but he's using it graphics and CPU intense programs so that's to be expected. I like the Tuf series as well because he's prone to dropping stuff and now my heart will jump less far out of my chest when he does so.