The year is 2020. Our world is fighting a pandemic and it’s a weird experience for everyone. TikTok and PUBG mobile get banned, Mumbai Indians win the IPL in an even year, and Apple surprisingly announced its new M1 chip, ending its decade-long partnership with Intel for MacBooks.
Asus Zenbook S14 OLED (UX5406SA)
Rs 1,49,990
What Is Good?
- Rich OLED display
- Touchscreen support
- Good performance
- No thermal throttling
- Robust build quality
- Excellent battery life
What Is Bad?
- Slow charging, limited to 65W
- Average webcam quality
- Expensive at the moment
That was initially problematic for Intel. The chipmaker needed a huge redemption to tackle the efficiency of the ARM-based competition. Fast forward to 2024, Intel has released its new Lunar Lake processors which are 50% more power efficient than its predecessors, without even shifting to ARM. It finally feels like Intel is all geared up to embrace the AI era and fight against the emergence of Qualcomm Snapdragon chips in its way.
The Asus Zenbook S14 OLED (UX5406SA) marks the debut of the new Intel Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake processors in India. It features a beautiful OLED display, and a sleek design, packed in a thin and light form factor. But does this new chip have enough to build over the productivity-focused legacy of the Zenbook Series? Let’s find out in our review.
Price and Availability in India
The Asus Zenbook S14 OLED is priced at Rs 1,42,990 in India. It is currently available only with the Intel Core Ultra 258V processor, in two configurations:
| Laptop | RAM and Storage | Price |
| Asus Zenbook S14 OLED
UX5406SA |
16GB RAM + 512GB SSD | Rs 1,42,990 |
| 32GB RAM + 1TB SSD (Our Unit) | RS 1,49,990 |
The laptop is available for purchase on the Asus eShop only. The company has not revealed any details about its availability on Amazon, Flipkart, or other retailers.
Build and Design
The Asus Zenbook S14 OLED retains the signature Zenbook design language. The metallic chassis adds a sturdy feel without any bulk, as this laptop weighs just 1.2kg. The lid comes with a new marble finish which looks premium and feels like metal to the touch. I liked this colour as it was refreshing, compared to the standard metallic silver finish on previous Zenbooks, or as a matter of fact, most other productivity laptops.
The hinge opens up to 150 degrees and serves comfortable viewing angles for both desk usage and while using it on the lap. I find this hinge to be much better and sturdier than the 180-degree flat-screen opening variants, which tend to get loose over time. Even with aggressive typing, the screen did not wobble and stayed intact in its position.
| Position | Ports |
| Ports (Left) | 1x HDMI 2.1
2x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C 1x 3.5mm combined headphone jack |
| Ports (Right) | 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A |
| Connectivity | WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 |
The I/O ports are decent as you get a full-sized USB-A port to plug your flash drive or any other accessory. The Zenbook S14 OLED is also among the first set of laptops to support WiFi 7 connectivity. It also has an infrared camera with support for Windows Hello. The face recognition was excellent and it worked with great accuracy. However, I would appreciate it if Asus considered adding a fingerprint scanner for extra flexibility, given the premium price tag.
The webcam is limited to 1080p which is good enough for video calls. But I feel that it is quite dated by modern standards. Even Apple has jumped to a 12MP Centre Stage camera on its latest MacBook Pro models, and it provides exceptional video quality.
Dear Asus, why don’t you take the lead among Windows laptops and start upgrading the webcam? Hoping for a better answer in 2025.
Display and Audio
The top-end models of the Zenbook and Vivobook series have built a strong reputation for their OLED screens over the last few years. These are so good, that it makes it difficult for me to go back to my IPS desktop monitor. The Zenbook S14 OLED is no different and features a gorgeous panel. It produces excellent colours with deep blacks and ample saturation levels.
The screen gets bright in outdoor conditions, and I was easily able to read while working from the open terrace. My variant also has touch-screen support, and it worked well. The responsiveness of the touch input is good and it adds excellent flexibility for users who benefit from it.
| Display | Specifications |
| Type | OLED |
| Size | 14-inch |
| Resolution | 3K resolution, 2880×1800 pixels |
| Refresh rate | 120Hz |
| Peak brightness | 500 nits HDR |
| Certifications and other features | 100% DCI-P3, PANTONE Validated,
TUV Rheinland Certification, SGS Eye Care |
| Touchscreen | Yes (Optional) |
Note that both storage configurations of the Zenbook S14 OLED use the same display panel, but touchscreen support is only present on the 32GB+1TB variant, and not available on the 16GB+512GB model.
The 120Hz refresh rate feels buttery smooth. Windows 11 animations are snappy and I enjoyed the screen on this laptop. In fact, I made the mistake of streaming the third test match between India and New Zealand on the Zenbook S14 OLED, because when I switched to my IPS monitor to watch the highlights, there was a day-night difference. I don’t think I can enjoy watching cricket on my desktop, because the OLED screen on this laptop has spoiled me for good.
The Zenbook S14 OLED comes with a quad-speaker setup powered by Harmon Kardon and is compatible with Dolby Atmos. These speakers can get really loud, I never felt the need to use them beyond 40%. Even at full volume, there was no distortion and the sound output was crisp and clear.
Keyboard and Trackpad
The Zenbook S14 OLED has a backlit keyboard in a single white colour. The keys are tactile and provide good feedback. The keyboard offers a quiet typing experience and does not generate any significant clicking noise. It is the same keyboard from the previous generation Zenbooks, with a small addition of a new dedicated CoPilot Key.
I have mixed feelings about this button. On one hand, it’s a good thing to have if you use the AI-powered chatbot regularly. But on the other hand, it can be annoying because it instantly opens the CoPilot app on any screen, even with an accidental tap. If my new personal laptop comes with a CoPilot Key, I would use Microsoft’s own PowerToys app and either disable or remap it to the good-old right control key.
The trackpad is adequately sized and gives you plenty of room to work with. The accuracy is excellent and the left and right clicks also worked fine. However, this variant does not have the Asus Numberpad feature where the trackpad doubles as a Numpad. It’s not a must-have feature, but since I have used it previously on a Zenbook, I would have loved to see it here as well.
Performance
Time to talk about the real business, the performance. The Zenbook S14 OLED is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor from the latest Lunar Lake 200V Series. These processors are claimed to be 50% more efficient than the previous-gen CPUs. It also gets an upgraded NPU which boosts the AI performance of the chipset to 47 TOPS. I was extremely eager to test the new Intel CPUs, but my expectations….. no spoilers. Let’s start with my real-life experience first.
| Hardware | Specification |
| CPU | Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, 8 cores (4P + 4E), 8 threads, 4.8GHz Max Turbo |
| GPU | Intel Arc Graphics 140V |
| NPU | Intel AI Boost, 47 TOPS |
| RAM | 32GB LPDDR5X |
| Storage | 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD |
The Zenbook S14 OLED is a swift machine for productivity tasks like writing documents, creating presentations, managing Excel sheets, etc. It raced through my daily usage with ease with no lags or stutters. As my unit was equipped with 32GB RAM, it gave me the luxury to carelessly open about 30+ tabs on Google Chrome.
I used the laptop for editing thumbnails in Adobe Photoshop, and it worked flawlessly. I also tested it for editing basic videos in Premiere Pro, and it handled multiple layers with ease. However, the previews can be slightly laggy due to the lack of a dedicated GPU, but it depends on the kind of editing you are doing. A 5-minute full HD video took around 10 minutes to render with basic edits, which is good.
While my real-world usage with the Zenbook S14 OLED was seamless, the benchmark testing was not so impressive. The Intel Core Ultra 7 258V is the ideal successor to the Core Ultra 7 155H, and I have tested numerous laptops with the latter. However, the Zenbook S14 OLED failed to surpass the benchmark scores of Zenbook 14 OLED (Review), Vivobook S16 OLED (Review), Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i (Review), Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, and the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro (Review).
The Cinebench R23, Cinebench 2024, and CPU Profile Max Threads scores of the Zenbook S14 OLED were 10-15% lower compared to laptops with the Ultra 7 155H. However, in PCMark10, a benchmark that evaluates the ideal real-world usage of a laptop, the result was almost the same. This indicates that you won’t see any difference in your daily usage, but for performance-oriented tasks, the Ultra 7 258V is not as quick as its predecessor.
Now, there are two perspectives to this. Intel itself has not made any bold claims for raw CPU performance improvements with its Ultra 200V Series Lunar Lake processors. Instead, the company emphasises that its new processors deliver similar performance while consuming half the power of the previous-gen Meteor Lake chips. In fact, the same idealogy is being followed on Intel’s new Arrow Lake desktop processors. So clearly, the 200 series for them is a new take on efficiency for both platforms.
I can verify this as the Zenbook S14 OLED lasted for 15 hours and 8 minutes in my PCMark battery test, the highest for any laptop which we have tested. For comparison, the best record for an Ultra 7 155H laptop was the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (Review) at 11 hours and 9 minutes.
So at the cost of a 10% dip in peak performance, you are almost getting 50% higher efficiency and battery life. In my opinion, it’s a good tradeoff. Now the second perspective is that the Intel Core Ultra 200V processors were launched in September 2024. These are fairly new CPUs and it is possible that benchmark programs or software are not optimised to extract the full performance of the Lunar Lake architecture. However, we cannot confirm this at the moment. This question can only be answered some months later, or once we test more laptops with the new Intel chips.
At the moment, if you are planning to get the Zenbook S14 OLED, or any other laptop with the latest Intel processors, rest assured that you are getting a highly efficient and pretty capable machine. You can rely on these laptops for your daily usage.
The good part is that even after running benchmarks, the Zenbook S14 OLED did not overheat, and it showed no signs of thermal throttling. The keyboard did get a little warm to the touch, but it does not heat to the extent that it gets uncomfortable. The laptop has a dual fan design with bottom-sided outflow, so it is better if you use a laptop stand or anything else that keeps the vents open, during performance-oriented tasks.
Battery Life and Charging
The Zenbook S14 OLED is powered by a 72Wh battery. The laptop easily lasted me for an entire day of usage which involved typing a lot of documents, replying to emails, editing thumbnails, scrolling social media, and occasional video streaming. During my two weeks of testing, the Zenbook S14 OLED consistently delivered an average screen-on time of around 10 hours. With my kind of usage, the battery never drained below 20% even after I finished my daily work.
As mentioned earlier, the Zenbook S14 OLED lasted for 15 hours and 8 minutes in the PCMark10 battery test. It even surpassed the ARM-based Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (Snapdragon X Plus) and the HP Elite (Snapdragon X Elite) laptops.
The laptop supports 65W fast charging via USB-C. It takes approximately two hours to fully charge the laptop.
Verdict
The Asus Zenbook S14 OLED is an excellent laptop for professionals with its sleek design and ultra-portable form factor. The OLED display produces rich colours and the optional touchscreen is an added productivity bonus. The new Intel Core Ultra 7 258V delivers splendid performance without any thermal problems. The biggest advantage of this laptop is its battery life, which can easily get you through an entire day, even with heavy usage. This has completely flipped the script of Arm vs x86.
If you are looking for a productivity-focused Windows laptop with good battery life, then the Zenbook S14 OLED is a great choice to consider at its price tag of Rs 1,49,990. However, if you can compromise a little with battery, then you can save up to Rs 40,000 and get a last-gen laptop such as the Zenbook 14, Lenovo Yoga Slim7i, or the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus with the Core Ultra 7 155H.
However, the major competition for the Zenbook S14 OLED comes from the Snapdragon X Plus/Elite-based laptops. For example, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is available for around Rs 1 lakh and it offers similar battery life and performance. Of course, there’s more to a laptop such as the display, build quality and other factors, but the huge price difference makes it hard to suggest the Zenbook S14 OLED as a go-to choice.
I suggest waiting for a price drop, or looking for the Zenbook S14 OLED to get listed on Amazon, Flipkart, or other retailers. Typically, laptops are available at lower prices via e-commerce portals, compared to directly buying from the brand’s website. If you can get this laptop around the Rs 1.2 lakh mark with card offers or other discounts, then it is indeed one of the best Windows laptops that you can buy.
