The Flip does charge up decently fast. My system took 54 minutes and 29 seconds to get up to a 60 percent charge (throughout very light Chrome use on the Battery Saver profile).
Good Stuff
The chassis and lid are made of aluminum alloy.
Something to note is that the lid is a finger print magnet. Lots of designs gather a smudge here and there, but this thing was covered in finger prints about 8 hours after I initially opened it. Fingerprints are easy sufficient to get rid of, but it was a bummer to see on such a nice-looking maker however.
The ZenBook Flip (which you should be able to buy at some point this month) isnt quite that bad. It has a larger battery than the Galaxy and lasts just enough time that life period isnt a disqualifying element. Ultimately, though, youre still jeopardizing on battery life for this screen quality– OLED laptop computers of this size are unusual for a factor.
Theres one truly strong argument in favor of purchasing the ZenBook Flip S: the screen. This $1,449 2-in-1 has a 4K OLED panel, and its one of the very best display screens you can get on a 13-inch notebook.
The ZenBooks audio is licensed by Harman Kardon and consists of a “clever amplifier chip” thats meant to avoid damage to the speakers coils.
The keyboard has a 19.05 mm pitch and 1.4 mm of crucial travel.
All in all, a nice display screen in a nice type element. Whats the catch? Its battery life. The ZenBook Flip S includes a 67Wh battery, which is huge for a 13-incher– and Im not sure it would be usable with a much smaller tank. With my usual office workflow and brightness around 200 nits, I got just 5 hours and 15 minutes. Sure, youll probably get a better result if you set the screen to 1080p– however if youre going to be doing that frequently, conserve your money and get a 1080p screen.
However if youre someone like me who primarily needs a device for office work, Spotifying, emailing, image organizing, and especially entertainment, you can most likely conserve cash and get the ZenBook since itll perform simply fine. Youll get a slightly brighter screen, much better audio, and a helpful numpad, too.
OLED panels– which made a name for themselves in high-end TVs but are growing more popular in laptops as well– can deliver a stunning image compared to IPS LCD display screens. But all those pixels suck up a heck of a great deal of battery, and business in some cases slap them on laptop computers that cant totally fill their power needs. Thats particularly real in thin-and-light 13-inch makers, which are working with actually limited area for a battery. And its how you wind up with releases like the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook, a stunning OLED device that cant make it 5 hours on one charge.
Elsewhere, Asus has added an edge-to-edge keyboard and squeezed an extra column of keys onto the ideal side that includes Home, Page Up, Page Down, and End. (HPs Spectres and Envys have a comparable row). The keyboard is an outright highlight for me– it is comfortable and quiet with a load of travel, and I make substantially fewer errors typing on it than I typically do. That said, I have very little fingers, and folks with larger hands often discover this kind of layout a bit cramped.
Like other ZenBooks, this one has a fold-under hinge that can lift the keyboard deck slightly off your desk. Unlike some hinges with this style, this one is extremely slight– I didnt feel it digging into my legs while using the device on my lap. Asus states the hinge is “resilience tested” for over 20,000 open/ close cycles, and it feels durable enough.
Youre mainly going to be looking at this and the $1,799 Spectre x360 if youre looking for a thin-and-light convertible with a premium appearance and an OLED screen. Theyre both very nice computers with standout displays and not-great battery life. The ZenBook, for a couple of hundred less, is missing out on two crucial ports however does provide you a few of Tiger Lakes brand-new features, consisting of Thunderbolt 4 and Xe graphics. (And its a bit thinner). Generally, given that the ZenBook has the latest processor, I would say its the no-brainer option.
As weve seen from artificial criteria, the Flip S is in fact underperforming the 1065G7 (which is inside the Spectre) in multicore usage cases (that is, tasks that leverage every readily available core). If youre seeking to do more extensive tasks like light gaming or multitasking in many different applications at the same time (or if you actually value a headphone jack and microSD slot), the 10th-gen Spectre (or a non-OLED design with a more effective CPU) will in fact be a much better purchase if youre ready to pay the premium. This will likewise depend somewhat on when the Flip S actually hits racks, since theres also an OLED Spectre x360 with the 1165G7 coming at some point this month, which Asus states will be “approximately 34 percent quicker” than in 2015s design.
Not-great battery life
No headphone jack
CPU doesnt reach its potential
Good design and construct
Stunning 4K OLED screen
In fact good speakers
LED numpad constructed into the touchpad
Like other contemporary ZenBooks, the Flip S comes with Asus NumberPad 2.0. The numpad works actually well, and you can also utilize the touchpad to navigate and click around while its up– the ZenBook never ever mistook my swipes for number inputs or vice versa.
It isnt hard to discover 4K OLED screens in bigger laptops– its the screen quality integrated with a compact convertible construct that make the ZenBook Flip S such an enthusiastic gadget. Its just 2.65 pounds (1.2 kg) and 0.55 inches (13.9 mm) thick. Design-wise, its a world far from the last significant ZenBook Flip release, the UX370 (this design is the UX371)– Asus has brought the line into the modern age with sharper corners, smaller sized bezels (3.9 mm on the sides), a strong develop, and smooth premium finish. You might not even see the copper accents or the modest keyboard backlighting unless youre looking for them, but they complete a very nice expert look.
The Flip S features a quad-core Core i7-1165G7 with Xe incorporated graphics, in addition to 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD (to my relief, it didnt come filled with McAfee or any other nonsense). Note, however, that this is a fairly low-power execution of the 1165G7– and in artificial standards, many customers have seen the chip fall behind its 10th-generation predecessors.
The second compromise is on power. The Flip S is among the very first systems to be licensed through Intels Evo platform, which is like Project Athena for the Tiger Lake generation. The Evo brand name is indicated to license that a laptop computer offers a variety of benefits clients desire, consisting of all-day battery life, quick wake time, quick charging, Wi-Fi 6, and Thunderbolt 4.
Bad Stuff
Each Thunderbolt 4 supports approximately 40Gbps information bandwidth.
Kind transitions werent constantly seamless, though. The ZenBook sometimes attempted to change to tablet mode when I was tilting it somewhat to the side (in the laptop position). When I d tilt it back upright, my windows wouldnt all snap back to the same positions I d had them in previously.
The port choice is great, except that theres no earphone jack. Asus states it got rid of that in the name of thinness, and the Flip does ship with a dongle. Plenty of the ZenBooks competitors (consisting of the OLED Spectre x360, which is just a small bit thicker) have actually been able to squeeze one in. Its also missing out on a microSD slot, which the Spectre likewise has. Apart from that, theres an HDMI port, 2 Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, and one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A. The laptop also supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0– no LTE.
The ZenBook Flip S certainly will not slow you down if youre simply utilizing it for multitasking in Chrome, Slack, Zoom, and other efficiency apps. (The bottom did get uncomfortably hot at some times during my testing, though the keyboard only got a bit warm). However this laptop computer isnt the very best option for running demanding programs.
Sometimes, the screen also didnt switch out of tablet mode after I rotated it from the tablet to the laptop computer position, and I d have to redo the transition. This is a concern youll in some cases have with Windows 2-in-1s– its not special to the Flip– but it can be a headache.
So, to begin with the screen: its a stunner. Theres no glare, despite its shiny texture, so operate in bright settings isnt a problem. Pictures were dynamic, blacks were deep, and colors were intense– it makes MacBook Pro screens look low-cost. In screening, the ZenBook covered 100 percent of the sRGB gamut and 100 percent of the Adobe RGB gamut, and it reached 452 nits at maximum brightness. Thats brighter than the OLED Spectre x360 and more accurate than a few of the very best creator-focused OLED laptop computers like the Gigabyte Aero 15.
The ZenBook sounds excellent– it quickly has some of the finest speakers Ive ever heard in a laptop of any size. My music sounded like it was coming from all around the room, the percussion actually struck, and the bass was even present (which is uncommon for laptop computer speakers). Couple that with the remarkable screen, and the ZenBook Flip S is truly an excellent multimedia device.
Photography by Monica Chin/ The Verge
It isnt tough to discover 4K OLED screens in bigger laptops– its the screen quality combined with a compact convertible build that make the ZenBook Flip S such an ambitious device. Design-wise, its a world away from the last major ZenBook Flip release, the UX370 (this model is the UX371)– Asus has brought the line into the modern age with sharper corners, smaller bezels (3.9 mm on the sides), a strong build, and smooth premium surface. The ZenBook Flip S comes with a 67Wh battery, which is big for a 13-incher– and Im not sure it would be usable with a much smaller sized tank. The ZenBook Flip S definitely wont slow you down if youre simply using it for multitasking in Chrome, Slack, Zoom, and other productivity apps. Couple that with the extraordinary screen, and the ZenBook Flip S is actually an excellent multimedia device.
