Asus ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition First Impressions: ‘Mir’ Than Meets

Asus showed off a wide range of new laptops at CES 2022, from high-end gaming models to ultraportables and even high-end, futuristic folding screen designs. The company has pushed OLED screens in many of its new models, and the ZenBook 14X series offers portability and up-to-date specs. While we couldn’t go to CES and see these products in person, we did bring along one of the company’s brand new models, the ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition. Here’s a quick first look.

As its name suggests, the Space Edition is a special edition of the ZenBook 14X. It is designed to celebrate 25^order one’s anniversary Asus The laptop was sent into space in 1997, to serve on the Mir space station for 600 days. It comes in a specially designed package with Mir’s description as well as space-inspired visuals. The laptop itself and its USB Type-C charger come in separate boxes in the main shipping package – the charger’s box opens into a stand that can be used to lift the device up on a table .

In addition to the packaging, several space-themed tokens and stickers are included in the package. You can see this laptop’s main feature through a cutout in the inner box – the 3.5-inch monochrome OLED display on the outside of the lid. The design of the “cosmic cavity” includes a message in morse code: Ad astra per aspera, which means “overcoming difficulties, to the stars”.

When you turn on ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition for the first time, you’ll see predictable space-themed animations played on the external display. You can customize this via the pre-loaded Asus software – there are some extra animation options, and you can also choose your own custom text.

This may seem like a novelty but hopefully it will be put to good use for things like notifications and status updates, so you don’t have to open the lid of your laptop to see what’s going on. happen. Right now, it looks like the extension of the Anime Matrix display on Asus’ Zephyrus G-series laptops largely exists for the sake of novelty. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen an external monitor from Asus – the company has led a short-lived charge with W5Fe Notebook back in 2007, to take advantage of the SideShow functionality of Windows Vista.

The external display measures 3.5 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 256×64 and a maximum brightness of 150nit

The space theme continues on the inside, with orange accents on the keyboard and a more “space-cavity” design on the wrist-rest area. The 14-inch 4K 16:10 90Hz HDR OLED touchscreen display is definitely eye-catching and looks incredibly sharp and vibrant. Asus has certainly checked a lot of boxes, and also lists 100% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage as well as Pantone certification.

Inside, you get one of the twelfth^order Mobile CPU generation ‘Alder Lake’, with Core i9, Core i7 and Core i5 options listed. There’s up to 32GB of non-upgradable LPDDR5 and up to a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. Other specs include Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. Battery capacity is 63Wh.

There are quite a few gates on either side. On the left, you’ll see an HDMI 2.0 output and two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports. On the right side is a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port, a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot. Unfortunately, this slot is located exactly with the laptop’s vents and can cause them to get mixed up. As expected, this laptop runs Windows 11.

This laptop has a full-size HDMI port, a microSD slot, a USB Type-A, and a Thunderbolt port

Weighing 1.3kg and 15.9mm thick, ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition is suitable for today’s mainstream laptops. It can rest at an angle on an unfolded adapter box, but it’s not the sturdiest stand. When placed flat on a table, Asus’ ErgoLift hinge design raises the rear slightly so that the base is angled for more comfortable typing and better airflow.

ZenBook 14X OLED Space Edition will certainly have a higher price tag. Asus says it will launch in India by the end of 2022 and be widely available. If you’re looking for a laptop that stands out anywhere, this will certainly fit the bill, but we’ll wait until we have more information before deciding whether the display Are the additions and subtleties of design worth choosing this model over its more conventional brethren?