ASUS – Zenbook Flip 2-in-1 15.6″ OLED Touch-Screen Laptop – Intel Evo – Core i7 – Intel Arc A370M – 16GB Memory – 1TB SSD – Azurite Blue

I haven’t purchased a Windows-based laptop in ages and this one is a rockstar!
​​TL;DR for my frequent readers and details below.
Pros:
Thin
Screen Clarity
Screen Brightness
Battery Life
2-in-1
Slim Bezel
Wifi 6 / 6E / 6GHz
Cons:
Not USB-C PD / charging
Meh:
Keypad creates off-centered touchpad
Lid is a fingerprint magnet
Recommended resolution doesn’t take advantage of full resolution
Alexa
I’ve been using a lot of Chromebook and iPads over the years and this is the first time I’ve had a non-gaming Windows laptop – and Windows 11 at that.
Immediately, I was greeted with the cool Asus packaging that pitches up the laptop when you open the box and after unwrapping it, I hooked up the charger & let it be. I was a little disappointed that they’re still using proprietary / plugs vs a USB-C style PD charger, but it’s not a deal breaker.
I came back a few hours later to a full battery and ran through the Windows 11 setup, which was pretty painless & now it’s easier to skip a Microsoft.com account login & use local accounts.
After a few moments, I was in & going through my Windows & ASUS updates and getting this thing all current. As a ‘new to Windows 11 user’ – and a typical Power User, I didn’t have any issues installing or removing software or updates.
In true ASUS fashion, their MyASUS software is pretty cool, with customizable RGB colors to make it unique to you.
I’ve been using this as a Web Surfing machine, 4K YouTube, product review videos, launch videos and normal purchase research overall. This widescreen, near bezel-less glossy display is amazing. When watching content produced in 4K, it’s truly stunning. Even with videos in full-screen in 4K, in Chrome & having about 4-5 tabs open, I barely run the CPU over 7% and Memory continues to hover around 9GB in-use; no, I don’t use any extra AntiVirus/Malware tools.
This laptop is also NVMe – the fast stuff. No SATA SSD to controller to system board – this is direct, has its own protocol and takes out the overhead that traditional SATA SSDs create. Given it’s NVMe, I don’t feel the need to Crystal Disk check this as there’s never been a delay that I would attribute to disk perf.
Having a keyboard with relevant hotkeys and not a digital bar is great. I love quick access to volume right at the front & not where I have to search for it. Also are the backlight up/down buttons, touchpad enable/disable a ‘mute the mic’ button and my favorite – a DISABLE THE WEBCAM button. Because there’s no shutter to slide – likely due to how thin it is and the tiny bezels, you have to have a way to shut the camera off. Toggling the F10 key when using the camera will shut off the on-lid ‘camera is on’ light and illuminate an amber on-keyboard light. I don’t hear any clicking so this isn’t mechanical & the software doesn’t indicate the camera is missing (pull the driver style), so this appears to be a software toggle and not something that will likely fail, outside of F10 breaking.
A feature that’s toted by a sticker on the keyboard is “Alexa Enabled.” No thanks. Alexa, or more like the Alexa software, creates some lag during boot & on ‘voice’ activation. I disabled it after a few uses, as to me, the overhead isn’t worth it.
Wifi 6 & 6E is also fantastic. Having a 6GHz radio to talk to a 6E Orbi Mesh system provides stable and fast connection speeds. I’m able to exceed my expected speeds consistently – obviously all depending on area usage at the time, but I’m in no way hindered with WiFi speeds on this laptop. When going straight 2.4/5GHz Wifi 6, also – great. There’s been no noticeable problem when moving between Mesh points, but then again not much of my usage is while moving.
I like the idea of the 2-in-1 and find that when bending the screen into place was a bit laggy when Alexa was enabled, but since I disabled it I haven’t had any issues putting it into tablet mode. In bending it around, I found it kept my finger and palm prints on the lid so it needs some regular cleaning off, else the prints will stay put. Also, as with any touch screen, the display also collects fingerprints but I can’t fault it – it’s just what I’m used to.
Most laptops these days are doing an “80%” charge limit which keeps the battery more healthy and lessens the ability to overcharge – or get too many charging cycles in. This Zenbook is no exception and the standby time, even when starting at 80% is great. I want to say I used this, let it snooze for almost 5 days and came back to 71% battery remaining.
All in all, I love this laptop. From the speed in which it switches tasks, to the screen clarity and blazing fast Wifi, this machine is well worth the price tag. Oh yeah, and great battery life. Duh.
Highly recommended.

Let me start by saying that I am not a tech geek.  I know a little bit about computer – the speed, the memory and the hard drive.  Very basic stuffs.  I use a computer usually to browse internet, to work with photos like editing, listen to music, watch movie and occasionally play a very basic computer game.  So, let’s start.
 
Portability:  Weighing close to 4 lbs, this is not exactly a very heavy laptop so you can easily carry it in your bag pack.  The slight issue that you may encounter is when you utilize the flip feature, which is very neat and functional for certain tasks, but not exactly a weight friendly although easily compromised for example for watching movies in – which is amazing with this laptop if the connection is not an issue. More about that later.
 
Power/Performance:  With Intel Core i-7, and 16 GB memory, this is a very powerful little machine.  Again, I am not really a technical person, so all I know is at one point, I was able to open multiple pictures (about 100 of them) at the highest resolutions, while surfing online and this thing doesn’t lose any power nor slowing down.
 
Keyboard: The keyboard is probably one of my least favorite parts of the laptop because to type you need to be slightly off to the left since the numerical keys are on the right.  But I think I just need to get used to it to make it easier for me to type. This is a very minor issue.
 
Battery:  Very impressive.  I can’t find information how long it will last on battery only, but it lasts longer than some of the laptops that I used before.
 
Finished: A good looking laptop but it does attract finger prints. It’s a small price to pay. 
 
Sound: The speaker is Harman-Kardon certified and it supports Dolby Atmos.  Using the computer speaker, as tiny as it is, you can hear the multi-dimensional sound coming out of this machine.  Again, very impressive.  Of course, to take more advantage of the sound, additional (good) speakers will be needed.
 
Display:  WOW.  Billed as the world’s first 120 OLED display, this thing is beautiful.  Looking at pictures professionally taken, you can see every detail and the color is sharp.  You will also enjoy watching movie in this laptop – if you have a good source and a good connection.  I played couple of HD and 4K movies on Netflix and I am very impressed.  This can be a substitute for a small screen if needed.
 
Flip & touch screen: Last but not least.  The flip feature and the touch screen.  First of all, the touch screen is amazing.  The display responds to the touch screen instantly.  There is no delay.  Maybe I am not up to date anymore with the latest technology.  But I remember, a few years back, having a laptop with a touch screen was nice but also cumbersome because the touch screen didn’t always work.  So far, this laptop works like it’s designed for the touch screen as well.  The flip feature could be a hit and miss.  Typing on the screen can be a bit problematic if you don’t flip the screen all the way.  And when you watch a movie while the laptop is flipped, you want to use a headphone because the speaker is located in the keyboard area. 
 
Conclusion:
I am very happy with this laptop and would highly recommend it to anybody who is looking for a laptop that highly functional for day to day work and fun activities.    

PROS:
* Amazing color accurate display
* Powerful CPU
* New Intel Arc GPU
* Huge battery
* 2-in-1 design
* Thunderbolt 4
* Great keyboard
* Disable camera and mic buttons
* Premium build quality
CONS:
* HDMI 2.0b instead of 2.1
== The Display ==
There’s so many great things about the Zenbook Flip, but the real star of the show is the display. A bright, color-accurate OLED with 120Hz refresh rate. What more could you want?
This may be one of the best Windows laptops if you do any photo or video editing, or if you enjoy light gaming and really love OLED displays. The 120Hz refresh rate is advertised for gaming on ASUS’s website, but you’ll love it even if you’re just scrolling through webpages.
The display gets quite bright and the colors are amazing. The display, paired with the brand-new Intel Arc A370M, makes this an amazing portable creation machine. Depending on the work you’re doing, you can even adjust the color gamut using the included MyASUS app.
== Performance ==
If I had to summarize this laptop’s performance, it would be: amazing! I have a mid-range gaming desktop that I put together in early 2020, it’s nothing to brag about, but it has a decent 6-core CPU that I used for any of my more heavy workloads (usually in Unity or Android Studio). This Zenbook just puts my desktop to shame (check out my 3DMark screenshots). The 12th gen i7 is just incredible, I still can’t believe how much of a difference Intel was able to bring to mobile processors since the previous generation.
As far as the GPU, it’s quite decent and will provide an enjoyable experience with some light gaming and video editing. I really like that I can use the Zenbook for most of my work in Unity, while using such a thin non-gaming laptop.
I’ve seen some people claim that the Intel Arc A370M is comparable to an RTX 3050 (mobile), but I’m not seeing those numbers. It could be that since Intel GPUs are so new that future driver updates will see better improvement, but for now I would still recommend buying an actual “gaming” laptop if that’s your primary focus for a new computer. That’s not to say you can’t game on this (you can and it’s really good after you tweak the game settings), but the A370M isn’t Intel’s most powerful mobile GPU (more are on the way).
== Battery Life ==
This Zenbook has a MASSIVE 96WHr battery (100WHr is the limit for airlines), so ASUS is doing everything to help let you get a full workday in without being connected to a wall outlet. There’s just one problem with this plan: the display.
If you want to maximize your time away from the outlet, you’re going to need to make some sacrifices in performance. Specifically, I found that I’ll need to lower the display brightness and refresh rate.
Since everyone has a different workload, it’s hard to really say how long you can get work done while on battery power. As a simple, repeatable test of the battery I ran a YouTube video playback test. I had the screen brightness set to 60%, set the laptop to “best battery performance”, and turned off Bluetooth. After a little over 8 hours, the laptop still had about 16% battery left (see screenshot).
== Bottom Line ==
This is hands-down the best Windows laptop I have ever used. It looks amazing AND has the performance to match. The Intel i7-12700H is more powerful than my desktop CPU, so I’m tempted to just buy a GPU enclosure (since the Zenbook has two Thunderbolt 4 ports) and sell/donate my desktop PC.
If you’re looking for a laptop for serious work (photo/video editing or working in Unity/Unreal), but don’t want to buy a thick and bulky gaming laptop, I would HIGHLY recommend checking out this new Zenbook the next time you’re in Best Buy.

Even though I’m primarily a Mac user, I enjoy working with Windows-based machines on occasion. It’s always great to be able to switch between platforms. This ASUS Zenbook was intriguing to me because it’s a 2-in-1 laptop and the touchscreen functionality can come in very handy if you are a content creator. This laptop is intended to be a good all-around machine and work for all types of users. I typically use laptops for productivity, but I will also use them for watching videos and listening to music.
The ASUS Zenbook is a fine laptop that can be used for many different purposes. Here are some of the high points of the device.
Display
The display is gorgeous. I watched several videos in various resolutions. 4K looked outstanding, but 1080P also looked good. The display has a resolution of 2880 x 1620, which is QHD and is considered by some as “3K” resolution. It’s between 2K and 4K quality.
This display is also a touchscreen. I am usually hesitant to use touchscreens on laptops because of how dirty the screen can get, but the Zenbook has done a good job of staying clean and surprisingly enough, the screen has remained relatively smudge-free.
Keyboard
The keys have a great soft feel to them. I’m used to a mechanical keyboard, but do prefer softer switches. Therefore, I really liked the feel of the keyboard. I did discover that my typing speed did suffer a little bit. I’m guessing that it’s because of the spacing of the keys on the keyboard. I would reach out with the pinky on my right hand for the Backspace key and hit the Number Lock key instead.
Speakers
The speakers are one of the best features of the hardware on this computer. They support Dolby Atmos. I ran the Dolby Atmos test on YouTube and it was very similar to the experiences I’ve gotten in a movie theater in terms of surround sound. The sound experience from the ASUS Zenbook is very impressive.
Speed/Performance
Geekbench is a cross-platform benchmark test that measures a system’s performance and compares it to other similar systems. This test provided a score of 1250 (Single-Core) and 9067 (Multi-Core) for the ASUS laptop. When I used the Geekbench Browser to look for similar processors, I found that the Zenbook’s score was quite a bit lower than other similar systems.
NovaBench provides users with a comparison score (a percentile ranking) of where your system falls in comparison to other computers. The overall score with the Zenbook was 2963 and it ranks in the 94th all time percentile. When I reviewed the baseline comparison, the Zenbook had a much higher score than a budget laptop (Intel Core i3-1005G1 or AMD Ryzen 3 4300U), but didn’t rank quite as high as a high-end laptop (Intel Core i9-10885H or AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS). Because this laptop is priced over one thousand dollars, I would place it into the high-end laptop category based on its price alone.
CrystalDiskMark is a good option for testing the read/write speed of the hard drive. I ran this test as a single pass with a 32GB load. The results I got were 3560.17 MB/s READ x 2637.59 MB WRITE. The ASUS Zenbook has an SSD as its main storage (NVMe HFM001TD3JX013N). The benchmarks for this particular SSD stat that a user should see around 2282 MB/s READ x 1935 MB/s WRITE. Given that data, I’m very happy with the results I got.
I think this Zenbook is capable of most work tasks and probably even some gaming. I don’t think heavy gamers would get the most out of it, but occasional gaming probably plays quite well on it. For everyday work, this laptop is an excellent choice.