Consumers are no longer content watching their favourite tech experts unboxing a product on screen; many of them want a piece of the action too. If you’re one of those customers, you’re likely to enjoy unboxing ASUS’ new laptop. You’ll have to decipher a bit of Morse code first. You’ll decode the words: ‘ad astra per aspera’ (It means ‘Through hardships to the stars’ in Latin). That code is a giveaway, the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition celebrates 25 years of the MIR space mission with space exploration-inspired design. Aside from all the packaging and special-edition features, is this good for work and play?
Space nerds unite
We hear ‘out of this world’ a lot when it comes to gadget product design. In this case it’s an accurate description. This laptop is designed for a trip into space; we’ll leave Elon Musk to figure out the logistics. The ASUS Zenbook celebrates 25 years of the MIR space mission. The unboxing experience mimics visuals from a spaceship while the Keyboard deck resembles a space capsule cockpit, with multiple Easter eggs. We totally dig the external packaging. The laptop itself boasts of a an aluminium alloy design with a Zero-G titanium finish. The other cool touch is a customisable 3.5-inch OLED ZenVision display on the lid. It doesn’t drain the battery and you can use it craft your own message, handy when you want to make a statement at a hipster café.
All metal vibe
The Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition looks every inch premium. It’s just 15.9 mm thin and weighs about 1.4kg; that’s quite impressive for a device with a 14-inch screen. I enjoyed typing on the colour-matched keyboard. You also get ASUS’ NumberPad 2.0 functionality on the trackpad but I didn’t find myself using the trackpad much. Aside from the design and build, our favourite feature is the 14-inch 2.8K (2880 x 1800 pixels) 90Hz OLED touchscreen. ASUS stretches the screen: body ratio to 92 percent screen: body ratio, the taller 16:10 screen aspect ratio adds to it’s binge watch creds. Blacks are deep and colours are vibrant thanks to a 1000000:1 contrast ratio. ASUS turned to Harman-Kardon to tune the speakers that also boars of Dolby Atmos audio, making it a solid screen for Content consumption.
Raw power
The Asus Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition is powered by the top-of-the-line 12th Gen Intel H series processors that combine performance cores and efficiency cores for the ultimate balance between power and battery life. Our top-of-the-line review unit featured 32GB of RAM and 1TB of internal storage. Multi-tasking was a breeze and this laptop has the firepower for intense gaming too. Battery life could vary depending on your screen brightness and use-case scenarios. We think you should manage about 6 to 7 hours on average. There’s a 63WHrs battery under the hood with a 100W charger in the box that should juice it up in about two hours
The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition features quite a few thoughtful touches like an electronic privacy shutter for its webcam and a fingerprint sensor on the power button for Window Hello authentication. It has the hardware specs to be a serious productivity or gaming device but it’s the unique design elements and theme that set it apart. It’s good to see Windows laptop manufacturers like ASUS stepping out of its comfort zones to create engaging user experiences in the premium laptop space.
The ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED Space edition is priced starting at Rs 1,14,990.
