Good premium 13-inch laptops are hard to find as most manufacturers focus on creating 14- and 15-inch ones. And Asus has jumped into the 13-inch market with the Asus Zenbook S13 OLED UX 530.
I found the Zenbook S13 UX 530 to be shockingly thin, and surprisingly, it doesn’t make compromises like the rest of the competition to offer all the basic features.
The Zenbook S13 OLED also improves upon its already near-perfect predecessor. But still, it has a lot of room to grow which we would explain in detail as we move forward with the in-depth review.
Specs at a Glance
CPU: Intel Core i7 1355u | GPU: Intel Iris Xe Graphics | RAM: 32GB DDR5 | Display: 14” 2880×1800 OLED | Storage: 1TB SSD | Battery: 63Wh | OS: Windows 11
Chassis & Design
I love how Asus set the Zenbook S13 apart from your other generic laptops with its ceramic plasma coating. The lid of the laptop feels smooth and nice to touch. The rest of the chassis is made of aluminum as you might expect from a premium laptop.
Unfortunately, the coating on the lid is also prone to fingerprint smudges, so if that really bothers you, then you should consider getting a skin for it. I personally don’t really care about the smudges. And I also love the sharp angled lines on the lid, it gives me a break from the boring simple logo on a blank background look that you would often find on the XPS 13 and the Macbook Air.
The Zenbook S13 OLED is also quite light, weighing around just 2.31 lbs (1kg). And I thought that Asus might have compromised on the rigidity of the chassis to keep the device thin and light, but I was wrong. The entire thing feels extremely solid.
The hinge is smooth and solid, and the Zenbook S13 comfortably opens up to 180 degrees. Which means I could comfortably use it in my lap while laying on the bed.
Though one thing that is quite annoying is that the ergo lift hinge pushes the lid down to lift the keyboard deck up. This means the lid kinda feels like it stabs you while you are using it on your laptop. You would be more comfortable using the Zenbook S13 on your lap.
I/O Ports
The I/O Ports on the Zenbook S13 OLED is the best I have seen on a 13-inch laptop. Not only it comes with dual Thunderbolt ports, a USB 3.2 Type-A port, and a full-size HDMI 2.1 port along with an audio jack.
Dell and Apple should take notes here. Not only do they just include the Thunderbolt ports, but Dell also goes as far as to remove the headphone jack, which is ridiculous on a Windows laptop considering Windows sucks when it comes to support for Bluetooth headphones.
If you want full features I/O on a laptop and want to avoid carrying a USB C dongle with you, you can’t go wrong with the Zenbook S13 OLED. Unless you are the photographer or a videographer, in that case, you would need to carry an external SD card reader as Zenbook S13 OLED sadly doesn’t have one.
Keyboard & Touchpad
Keyboard
The keys on the Zenbook S13 OLED actuate quickly and easily. I sort of expected this, but Asus decided to reduce the travel from 1.4mm to 1.1mm. I don’t mind shorter travel as it allows me to type faster as long as the keys provide nice snappy feedback, which these keys do.
I prefer a bit more travel for longer typing sessions. But the snappy feel of the Zenbook S13 is enough for me to use it to write reviews and other long-form content.
I overall also like the design and layout of the keyboard. The keys are big and decently spaced out and overall feels like a standard keyboard layout. It’s definitely better in my opinion than what Dell is trying to do with the flush minimal keyboard design on the XPS 13.
My only minor gripe is the delete button right next to the power button, which I might accidentally end up hitting when trying to delete something, but it’s not a deal breaker by any means. Also, the newer Zenbook S13 also lacks a fingerprint sensor, which was present on the older Zenbook S13 OLED.
Touchpad
The trend of massive touchpads is also seen here and I like it. Asus decided to utilize as much space as possible below the keyboard for the touchpad. This makes the touchpad feels quite roomy and you would have no problem gliding your finger away on it.
One downside compared to the previous Zenbook S13 is the removal of the built-in capacitive Numpad into the touchpad. I hate when manufacturers take away things that were previously present.
The button on the touchpad feels clicky and responsive, my only complaint here is that I would have liked to see a glass touchpad on it considering the price of the product, but it’s whatever.
Speakers & Webcam
Speakers
The speakers on the Zenbook S13 OLED are as good as the ones on the Macbook Air. They produce clear and detailed mids and highs with a little emphasis on the bass. And surprisingly, they can also get quite loud. They are definitely one of the best speakers I have heard on a laptop.
Webcam
Zenbook S13 OLED improves upon its predecessor by including a much sharper 1080p webcam. As you might expect, it produces a relatively detailed and clear image. It also has Windows Hello which is a nice way to compensate for the lack of a fingerprint sensor and allows you to log in instantly.
Display
Oh the display, it’s one of the greatest things about the Asus Zenbook S13 OLED. I can definitely see myself using it for watching movies and TV shows on the go. It gets fairly bright at around 360 nits in SDR mode and can boost upto 590nits in HDR content. And as you might expect, it covers the entire 100% sRGB and DCI P3 while also covering 96% of Adobe RGB.
You can easily do color-sensitive work on Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom on the Zenbook S13 thanks to this OLED. The display on this laptop is simply eye candy.
What could have made this display perfect is a higher refresh rate, similar to the OLED display on the Galaxy Book 3 Pro which has a 120Hz refresh rate. I can’t see a reason why Asus didn’t do this, you come to expect something like this from a premium 13-inch laptop.
Performance
The Zenbook S13 OLED is an amazing machine for multitasking and a productive workflow. With its amazing battery life, it’s definitely an all-day ultimate productivity machine. Apart from the basic word processing tasks like working on Google Docs and spreadsheets, its i7 1335u can also handle occasional CPU-intensive workloads such as working on Adobe Apps or code compiling.
As for the overall performance of the Core i7 1335u in the Zenbook S13 OLED, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. In Cinebench R23, we notice a significant improvement in single-core performance from last year, but the i7 1335u suffers in multi-core performance whereas the older Ryzen 7 beats the Intel chip.
And being an efficient chip, it loses to all the performance focus CPUs in the competition such as the XPS 13 and Galaxy Book 3 Pro which have this performance focus version of the i7 chip.
Though things look a bit in favor of the newer Zenbook S13 OLED in the Geekbench 5 benchmark where it outperforms its older 2022 version. However, it still loses out to the offerings by Samsung, Dell, and Apple.
Also, the fans inside the Zenbook S13 OLED ramp up and get really noisy when it’s struggling to keep that i7 cool under intense workloads. So you better be wearing headphones to drown out that fan noise.
Having said all that, the Zenbook S13 OLED is by no means a slouch. It can do all your basic office tasks or anything that include using a web browser. But if your workflow revolves around demanding tasks such as regularly working with Adobe Photoshop, then I suggest going with something that has a powerful CPU like the Galaxy Book 3 Pro which has a much better single and multi-core performance.
Battery Life
Having reviewed the XPS 13 which takes a significant hit to the battery life thanks to its OLED display, I was surprised to see the Zenbook S13 OLED last well over 10 hours in just basic light use like web browsing, this is nothing but impressive.
Though this goes without saying but, the Macbook Air defeats every Windows laptop in terms of battery life. So if battery life is the top priority for you, you can’t go wrong with a Macbook Air.
Expandability and Expansion
I wasn’t expecting much here and I wasn’t disappointed. The RAM is soldered on the Zenbook S13 OLED and the existing M.2 SSD can be replaced for something better. And this similar trend seems to carry forward in other Windows laptops.
Conclusion
I am pretty confident in saying that the Asus Zenbook S13 OLED is one of my favorite laptops of 2023. From its unique yet satisfying ceramic coating to its snappy keyboard and beautiful display, this laptop feels almost perfect. Yet it has a lot of room for improvement. And I hope Asus take care of these flaws in the next installment of the Zenbook S13 OLED.
