Asus Zenbook 14X isn’t a MacBook rival.

ASUS Zenbook 14X

Asus Zenbook 14X isn’t a MacBook rival.

Numerous publications ( The Vergeincluded) have praised this year’s MacBooks as being the most powerful laptops you could buy right now. They are, for many people, the best laptops that are.

However, a handful of surprisingly impressive Windows-based alternatives have been popping up in Asus Zenbook’s high-end Zenbook range, with the same build quality and display as well as performance that rival Apple’s top. Zenbook 13X OLED: The Zenbook 13″ Zenbook 13S OLED model has proved to be an excellent alternative to the M2 MacBook Air competitor, and the focus has been at that 14-inch Zenbook 14X OLED (and, in particular, the super-powered Space Edition) as a potential rival to the fan-powered MacBook Pro. MacBook Pro.

I had a first glimpse at a prerelease model of the Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition in the beginning of January in January. This week, I had the opportunity to test a finalized unit to determine its performance and battery longevity. The Zenbook is superior to the MacBook in several crucial areas, but it isn’t as good in one important area.

 

Zenbook 14X Versus. MacBook Pro: dimensions

It is true that the Zenbook as well as the MacBook are remarkably alike in dimensions. Both are very similar in weight. Zenbook weighs 3.09 pounds and the MacBook weighs 3 pounds. Zenbook is Zenbook weighs 0.62 millimeters thick and MacBook is 0.61 inches thick. MacBook is 0.61 inches thick.

Based on my the extensive experience of carrying both around and around, that the Zenbook feels a bit heavier, particularly when carrying it by one arm. They are however both lightweight and thin devices with the power they provide.

 

Zenbook 14X vs. MacBook Pro: price

The Zenbook is a bit less expensive that the MacBook Pro although I’m not sure if that the difference will be significant for most buyers.

There’s just one version that comes with Zenbook 14X. Zenbook 14X-OLED Space Edition — it features a Core I9-12900H processor 32GB of RAM with 1TB of internal storage. This model is priced at $1,999 on the Asus website although certain retailers are currently selling it at $1,979.99.

If you want to buy an 13.2-inch MacBook Pro with 24GB of RAM (the maximum capacity available) with 1TB of internal storage, you’d have to shell out $2,099, which is an increase of $100. Although neither the Zenbook or the M2 MacBook is inexpensive but they’re both within the range of what consumers are paying for their ultraportables. A 32GB/1TB variant of the 14-inch MacBook Pro (even when you add the standard option of a CPU) would be $2,599.99.

In the present, if you are someone who’s workload might not fully benefit from the 1TB or 32GB of storage that the Zenbook can provide, you may be better off purchasing for example, a $ 1,699 MacBook Pro with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage , and you will save hundreds of dollars on the Zenbook. This will boil back to your typical demands are.

Also, this 14-inch MacBook Pro equipped with it’s M1 Pro is often on sale at the moment (you can currently purchase the 16GB and 512GB models at $1,599). If you’re able to get by with 512GB of space and do not mind a bit of extra weight (the 14-inch MacBook Pro weighs about 3.5 pounds) this is the model you should consider.

 

Zenbook 14X vs. MacBook Pro: design

We’re sorry, Apple, but no MacBook is comparable to this one. Both laptops are extremely sturdy built, well-constructed, and resistant to drive. When it comes to design it’s the M2 Pro still has the same dull grey, big-bezeled look the MacBook Pro models have had since the year 2016. The 14-inch model has new design features, but everything else considered, it appears, well, MacBook-y.

Zenbook 14X’s OLED Space Edition, on the contrary, appears like an actual ship in space. The design elements on the keyboard deck and lid suggest a cockpit and shuttle and, according to some reports, there’s Morse code in the lids if you feel you’d like to sit down and do some decoding. This is obviously something that’s subjective however, I’d prefer the Zenbook’s style always.

Zenbook 14X also comes out on top in terms of display. The Zenbook comes with a 14-inch 16:10 OLED touchscreen with a resolution of 2880×1200 pixels and 90Hz refresh rate. 13.2-inch MacBook Pro features a smaller 13.3-inch screen but has less resolution (2560 x 1600) and a slower speed of refresh (60Hz). While the MacBook’s screen definitely top-quality, I’d prefer the Zenbook’s screen any dayIt’s bright and crisp and I’m always on the lookout for those dark OLED blacks.

The Zenbook also comes with”the” ZenVision display on the lid. It’s which is a 3.5-inch OLED panel that can display your music, duration, battery percentage, or other stats such as a business card, the text you want to display or cute astronaut-themed animations. (It’s supposed to be the windows on the ship, I’m guessing.) The MacBook Pro comes with an LCD Touch Bar on its deck while the Zenbook features a physical function row, however I personally like the ZenVision display to be much more appealing.

The Zenbook comes with it’s ErgoLift hinge, which is a feature that is found on all types of Asus laptops. The hinge folds up slightly beneath the keyboard’s deck and raises it just a bit away from the ground to allow for more airflow. However, it can get into your legs if your using the Zenbook in your lap. It’s not the most sharp however it’s one aspect you have to contend in a way that the MacBook isn’t equipped with.

 

Zenbook 14X vs. MacBook Pro: performance

If you’re in search of an Windows laptop that is able to beat Apple’s silicon in high-end CPU tasks The Zenbook 14X-OLED Space Edition is your bet. It has put up one of the highest performance I’ve ever seen from the laptop with this size this year. I’m not sure it’ll be a problem with any typical office work load.

 

It’s clear as you can see, the Zenbook is extremely powerful in comparison to its size. It performed better than both the M2 and M1 Pro MacBooks in many of our CPU tests. Both Apple’s products however, are far ahead of the pack when it comes to graphics performance, which includes gaming and video editing in Premiere Pro. If your work involves graphics and requires a lot of graphics, then the MacBook is the better buy to you. (Oh and in the event that this isn’t obvious enough that gaming benchmarks are to test your system — If you’re planning on playing a lot, you should skip the models listed above and opt for something like that of the Zephyrus G14.)

The MacBook’s performance without plugs is also much better. The MacBook puts out similar scores when running benchmarks using batteries. However, that’s not the case with the Zenbook scores, which dropped when it was not connected. The Zenbook’s Geekbench Compute score, for instance, fell to 20,675 after battery power.