ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) review

Once in a while a manufacturer steps in front of the line and says “we’ve built the perfect ultrabook”. And then they start listing all of the special features. Most of the time, everyone speaks gibberish, trying to sell their product. Sometimes, however, the companies do have a point.

We are pretty positive that the Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) is at least partially going to meet the expectations set by ASUS in its product presentation. In fact, reading the specs sheet shows a very impressive feature set. We are talking about Zen 3 refresh CPUs up to the Ryzen 7 5825U, 75Wh battery pack, and incredibly thin and light chassis.

Furthermore, the OLED panel has a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 2.8K resolution. It supports HDR and is supposed to have a maximum brightness of 550 nits, and cover 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, while maintaining a high color accuracy, thanks to the PANTONE validation.

We can list specs and features on and on, but we don’t want to waste your time. So, here’s a rundown on the specs sheet. After that, we’re going to take a look inside the box, and see what the laptop is actually made of.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-zenbook-14-oled-um3402/

Contents


Specs Sheet

ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402, Ryzen 5000 Series) - Specs

  • Samsung ATNA40YK07-0 (SDC4171)
  • Color accuracy  2.4  2.2
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 1000GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 16GB
  • OS
  • Windows 11 Home, No OS, Windows 11 Pro
  • Battery
  • 75Wh, 4-cell
  • Body material
  • Aluminum
  • Dimensions
  • 313.6 x 220.6 x 16.9 mm (12.35" x 8.69" x 0.67")
  • Weight
  • 1.39 kg (3.1 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps)
  • 2x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
  • HDMI
  • 2.0b
  • Card reader
  • MicroSD
  • Ethernet LAN
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.2
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Microphone with Cortana and Alexa voice-recognition
  • Speakers
  • Speakers by Harman Kardon
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

What’s in the box?

Inside the packaging, you will find some mandatory paperwork, as well as a 65W USB Type-C charger.


Design and construction

The Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) comes in a graphite-colored outfit. It is super sleek with just the Zenbook logo placed off-center on the lid. We are impressed by the rigidity of this laptop, as it is entirely made out of aluminum. Also, the laptop meets the MIL-STD-810H durability standard.

It is not too often when we see the circular hinge element, which seems to have lost its appeal to manufacturers as of recently. However, it is a nice touch to the 16.9mm profile of the notebook. Especially, considering the use of the ErgoLift mechanism. In terms of weight, the laptop measures 1.39 kg.

By the way, thanks to the aforementioned mechanism, you get a very small bottom bezel. The main effect though, is that the backside of the base is lifted from the ground, which provides better airflow to the fan. While we are here, we have to mention the camera above the display. It is either an HD or a Full HD unit, depending on the configuration.

Moving to the base, we find a backlit keyboard. It has its power button buried inside, with a fingerprint reader embedded right onto it, which allows you to log into your laptop with one touch. The keyboard itself is pretty comfortable with decent travel (ASUS states 1.4mm) and clicky feedback.

Below it, you will find the touchpad. It is super smooth and shows a very fast response with the 90Hz display. In addition, it doubles as a NumberPad, which can be activated by holding the top right corner of the touchpad for a second.

Traditionally, the bottom panel is home to the speaker cutouts and the ventilation grill. What is interesting in this case, is that the heat exhaust is situated on the left side – apparently, ASUS is doing some sort of a tribute to the older generations with this laptop… and we like it!

Ports

On the left side of the device, you will find a single USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 2) port. Then, on the right, you can locate the rest of the I/O – an HDMI 2.0b connector, an audio jack, two USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) ports with Power Delivery and DisplayPort output, as well as a MicroSD card reader.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

Getting inside this device requires the removal of 7 Torx-head screws. After that, take out the back rubber feet and undo the other two Phillips-head screws. Then, you can pry the bottom panel, starting from the front corners.

Inside, we find a pretty large 75Wh battery pack. It lasts for more than 14 hours of Web browsing, or about 11 hours of video playback. To take it out, unplug the battery connector from the motherboard, and undo all 6 Phillips-head screws keeping it attached to the chassis.

Here, the memory is soldered to the motherboard. There are configurations with 8 and 16GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and we would advise you to get the larger option. Storage-wise, There is one M.2 PCIe x4 slot, which fits Gen 3 drives.

As you can see, the cooling setup comprises a single heat pipe, a side-mounted heat sink, and a fan. Furthermore, you can see that the VRMs have a metal heat spreader placed on top of them.


Display quality

ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) is equipped with a 90Hz OLED panel, Samsung ATNA40YK07-0 (SDC4171). Its diagonal is 14.0-inch (35.5 cm), and the resolution – 2880 x 1800p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:10, the pixel density – 243 ppi, and their pitch – 0.1 x 0.1 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 36 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Viewing angles are comfortable. We offer images at different angles to evaluate the quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

The maximum measured brightness is 428 nits (cd/m2) (HDR off) in the middle of the screen and 434 nits (cd/m2) as an average. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6470K – virtually matching the 6500K temperature for sRGB.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective.
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio here is incomparably better than that of the IPS and TN panels and is mathematically infinite.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 100% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976 and 100% of DCI-P3 providing a punchy and vibrant image. With HDR enabled, the screen emulates the sRGB color gamut quite accurately.


We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc.

Below you can compare the scores of the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) against the P3-D65 standards.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 2 ms.

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Unfortunately, ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402)’s panel uses low-frequency PWM for brightness adjustment up until 90 nits. Afterwards, we detected small pulsations, which makes the display generally safe in this aspect (after 80 nits).

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Gloss level measurement

Glossy-coated displays are sometimes inconvenient in high ambient light conditions. We show the level of reflection on the screen for the respective laptop when the display is turned off and the measurement angle is 60° (in this case, the result is 163 GU).


Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) configurations with a 14.0″ Samsung ATNA40YK07-0 (SDC4171) (2880 x 1800p) OLED panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Drivers

All drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://www.asus.com/Laptops/For-Home/Zenbook/Zenbook-14-OLED-UM3402-AMD-Ryzen-5000-series/HelpDesk_Download/

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Here, the 75Wh battery pack lasts for 14 hours and 10 minutes of Web browsing, or 10 hours and 57 minutes of video playback.


CPU options

This laptop features the latest Zen 3 updated processors of AMD. You can get it with the Ryzen 5 5625U, or the Ryzen 7 5825U, both of which offer slightly increased clocks, compared to their respective pre-update versions – the Ryzen 5 5600U, and Ryzen 7 5800U.


GPU options

Since they are still Zen 3 chips, you won’t be getting the RDNA2 as an iGPU. However, the integrated Vega graphics are not a bad option.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS142 fps94 fps63 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS135 fps89 fps52 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

AMD Ryzen 7 5825U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402)3.09 GHz @ 79°C @ 44W2.82 GHz @ 90°C @ 35W2.73 GHz @ 86°C @ 30W

The Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) is doing a good job in cooling this CPU. This lets it maintain a comfortable TDP boost of 30W (15W above the base) towards the end of the test.

Comfort during full load

When you use the device in the “Performance” preset, you should expect higher fan noise. On the other hand, it will only appear if you play games, or do other intensive tasks. The warmest point on the keyboard is also not too hot – around 43°C.


Verdict

Did they just do it? Did ASUS make the best ultrabook? Well, it depends, but they really got close to doing so. The Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) comes with fantastic build quality. This is proven by the MIL-STD-810H certification.

In addition, the laptop features a very sleek design, and we really like the cylindrical element around the hinges. It is combined with the ErgoLift mechanism, which lifts the backside of the base, and a keyboard/touchpad combo, which is one of the more comfortable ones out there. Not to mention the inclusion of a fingerprint reader, and a NumberPad, located on the touchpad.

ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402)’s display has a high resolution, comfortable viewing angles, exceptional pixel response times, and shows true blacks, thanks to the nature of the OLED panel. Furthermore, it covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and features a 90Hz refresh rate, which makes using the laptop a really smooth experience. There is also HDR support.

See, ASUS has promised good battery life, and they were kind of right. While we weren’t able to replicate the 19 hours of screen on time, we got 14 hours of Web browsing or 11 hours of video playback. This is still a very good result, and you can be confident that the laptop will last you through an entire workday on a single charge.

Unfortunately, there is a downside – you get no memory upgrade options. This device ships with up to 16GB of soldered LPDDR4x RAM, and we strongly advise getting the largest option available.

Despite its 16.9mm profile, the Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) features a USB Type-A port, two USB Type-C ports with Power Delivery and DisplayPort output, an HDMI 2.0b connector, and a MicroSD card reader.

There is also no IR face recognition available, but to be frank – the price point is low enough for this not to be an issue. On the other hand, it’s good to know that there is a FullHD Web camera option. Not to mention the AI Noise Cancellation feature – something ASUS first to introduce with native software.

At the end of the day, we think that getting the Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402) is a very smart choice. It has the performance to pull a train while remaining one of the thin and light notebooks out there. Its fantastic screen is further elevating the experience provided by one of the best ultrabooks the market has to offer.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-zenbook-14-oled-um3402/

Pros

  • Great performance from a ULV chip
  • Fantastic input devices
  • Strong aluminum chassis
  • 100% sRGB and DCI-P3 coverage + HDR support
  • High resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio
  • Deep blacks and virtually infinite contrast ratio
  • NumberPad
  • 90Hz refresh rate with fast pixel response times
  • Fingerprint reader + MicroSD card slot + relatively wide I/O


Cons

  • Uses PWM below 90 nits
  • Soldered memory

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Germancho
Germancho
1 year ago

Error en la relación de aspecto, no es 16:10 sinó 3:2. Por el resto, muchas gracias por el review, justo lo que buscaba, asegurarme que funciona bien. Tengo algo de desconfiaza de Amd porque veo que está teniendo bastantes problemas de compatibilidad, funcionamiento y rendimiento con Windows 10 y 11, aunque poco a poco los han ido solucionando pero los afectados han debido tolerar bastante tiempo hasta que salgan los parches correctivos, creo que por primera vez usaré un chip de Amd.

Ephra
Ephra
1 year ago
Reply to  Germancho

2880/180×1800/180 =16:10

Germancho
Germancho
1 year ago
Reply to  Ephra

Cierto. Gracias por corregirme, no verifiqué los valores, estaba creído que todas las de 2880 pixeles de ancho venían en relación 3:2.

Arek
Arek
6 months ago

Is the brightness measurement put in the article correct? It shows values at around ~145 cd/m2…