This is my detailed review of the Asus ZenBook S 13 Flip OLED, a 13-inch convertible 2-in-1 laptop with an OLED display and 12th-gen Intel Core P hardware.
This is the 2-in-1 alternative to the clamshell AMD-based ZenBook S 13 OLED we’ve reviewed a while ago . The two are similar in design, ergonomics, and internals, but different in formats and hardware specs.
The premium design and materials, the compact and lightweight format , the excellent inputs, the beautiful screen, the balanced hardware implementation, and the big battery are the main selling points of this series. On the other hand, you’ll have to accept USB-C-only IO and an OLED touch display with its particularities that might not be for everyone.
We’ll discuss all these aspects in this review of the ZenBook Flip S 13, so you’ll know what to expect before buying one.
Specs as reviewed – Asus ZenBook S 13 Flip OLED UP5302ZA
Asus ZenBook Flip S 13 OLED, 2022 model
Screen 13.3 inch, 2.8K 2880 x 1800 px, 16:10 aspect ratio, IPS, touch, glossy,
Processor Intel 12th-gen Alder Lake Core i7-1260P, 4PC+8Ec/16T
Video Intel Iris Xe, up to 1.4 GHz
Memory 16 GB LPDDR5-5200 (soldered), up to 32 GB
Storage 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD (Micron 3400) – single M.2 2280 slot
Connectivity Wireless 6E (Intel AX211) 2×2, Bluetooth 5.2
Ports 2x USB-C 3.2 gen2, 2x USB-C with Thunderbolt 4, mic/headphone, micro SD card reader
Battery 67 Wh, 65W USB-C charger
Size 296 mm or 11.67” (w) x 210 mm or 8.26” (d) x 14.9 mm or 0.59” (h)
Weight 2.47 lbs (1.12 kg)+ .42 lbs (.19 kg) charger and cables, EU version
Extras white backlit keyboard, 2MPx FHD webcam with IR, fingerprint sensor in the power key, stereo bottom speakers, pen included
If interested, here’s my review of the updated 2023-generation of the Asus ZenBook S 13 series .
Design and first look This ZenBook Flip S13 steers away from the design lines of past Flip generation, adhering to the new materials and design language implemented now by 2022 ZenBooks.
That means this is a cleaner-looking product, with more subtle branding elements and more muted materials. Gone are the concentric circles and the Asus logo previously implemented on the lid, and gone are the aluminum pieces used for the entire case. Instead, there’s the new monogram logo on the lid, and the entire laptop is made out of magnesium-aluminum alloys.
These materials feel weird at first, rough to the touch, like fine sandpaper somehow. They do offer good grip and should age well, resisting scratches and dents, and hiding smudges and finger oils in this dark-gray color version.
The transition in materials allowed Asus to keep the weight of this laptop down, at just a little over 1.1 kilos, despite upgrading the internals with better cooling and a larger battery.
The build quality is solid as well, with a very strong lid and almost no flex in the main chassis or the keyboard deck. Just like the clamshell ZenBook S13, this Flip S13 model can stand proudly next to other premium ultraportables of this generation . It’s not quite as exquisite as a MacBook or an XPS, mostly because of its utilitarian design and rougher feeling case, but it’s close.
The ergonomics are good here as well. This is a 2-in-1 format with a 360-degree display and two strong hinges attaching the display to the main chassis. They’re well balanced, allowing you to easily pick up the screen with a single hand, but also keep it in place without moving and wobbling with daily use.
The laptop is an Ergolift design, which means the main body lifts up on rubber feet placed at the bottom of the screen part in order to facilitate better airflow underneath. That’s no affecting the stability in any way. As for the thermal design, this has been updated. Air still comes inside through the bottom intakes and the keyboard, but is now pushed out through the radiator placed on the left edge, and no longer into the display. This is a major design update!
That aside, this Flip is more practical in tablet mode than the past generations, for a few reasons. First, the screen and the main chassis fold up close one over the other, with magnets keeping them together in tablet mode. And then, the improved chassis sturdiness and the fact that Asus moved the hot-air exhaust to the side allow for better grip and ergonomics when holding this in hand for the bottom-bezel part, where the Asus ZenBook logo is engraved.
The downside with this kind of flippable design is the fact that only small rubber feet can be implemented on the bottom, but even this aspect is better treated here than on other models, so the grip is excellent on the desk.
In fact, the only ergonomic details I can nit about are the rather sharp front-lip and corners which can be uncomfortable sometimes on the wrist, as well as the minimalist IO.
Unlike on other ZenBooks, this S-Slim series relies entirely on USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support. I appreciate that these ports are spread on both sites, so you can plug this in or connect peripherals conveniently, but I do miss having at least one USB-A full-size slot, like on the previous ZenBook Flip S designs .
Aside from the USB-C ports, there’s also a micro SD card reader on the right edge, if that makes any difference for you, as well as an audio jack. The status LEDs are also smartly placed on the side, and no longer under the screen and in the line of sight.
All in all, this ZenBook Flip S 13 OLED is a better quality and more ergonomic notebook than the previous Flip generations, and simply one of the best-designed premium 2-in-1 laptops of its time .
Keyboard and trackpad Asus implemented a full keyboard and large glass clickpad with NumPad functionality on this laptop, and these are some of the better inputs available in a 13-inch ultrabook today.
I was expecting this keyboard to feel identical to the one on the clamshell ZenBook S13, but it actually offered firmer feedback and an overall fast and more reliable typing experience. The typing experience is a bit loud, both for the main deck of keys and the Space key, so this might attract some unwanted attention in quiet places.
The layout includes all the right keys, and everything is properly sized and spaced. Even the power button is no longer in the top-right corner, but rather one key to the left, leaving the top corner for the Delete key.
The keys are backlit, with white LEDs and three brightness levels to choose from. The system times out after 30 seconds and reactivates with a swipe over the clickpad, and overall the LEDs are bright enough to do what they’re designed to, especially in this pairing with the black keycaps. Uniformity is still somewhat of a hit-and-miss, here, with some lights in the top row of keys being brighter than others. A fair bit of light also shines from underneath the keycaps and is especially visible under those brighter keys in the top row.
The clickpad is a large glass surface that works flawlessly with swipes, gestures, taps, etc. It also felt solid on this unit and did not rattle with firmer taps, and the physical clicks in the lower corners are OK, just a bit clunky.
This doubles as a virtual NumberPad, if that’s something you might need in your activities.
Finally, for biometrics, there’s a finger sensor included in the power button, as well as an IR-capable camera at the top of the screen. Both work well with Windows Hello.
Screen This laptop is available with a 13.3-inch 16:10 glossy OLED 2.8K panel, in a touch variant. There’s no other panel option, thus no IPS variant of any kind.
Now, as long as you’re fine with an OLED touch screen on your laptop , this is going to be an excellent display. It’s OLED, so the blacks, contrast, and viewing angles are excellent, and it’s also a 10-bit panel with beautiful colors and 100% DCI-P3 gamut coverage.
So why wouldn’t you like this? Well, for two main reasons.
First off, this is rather dim, at only 350-nits peak SDR brightness, which is only enough for indoor use and won’t suffice for any sort of bright-light environments, especially when considering the glare factor as well. And then, there’s the graininess noticeable on white backgrounds with these touch OLED panels, caused by the digitizer layer. I for one find this quite distracting when browsing and editing texts, which is what I mostly do on my laptops. On the other hand, this screen offers pen support and an Asus pen is bundled by default.
Anyway, here’s what we got in our tests, with an X-Rite i1 Display Pro sensor (with HDR switched off):
Panel HardwareID: Samsung SDC4172 (ATNA33AA03-0);
Coverage: 100% sRGB, 96.4% Adobe RGB, 99.9% DCI-P3;
Type: 10-bit with HDR500, 60 Hz;
Measured gamma: 2.17;
Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 347.64 cd/m2 on power;
Min brightness in the middle of the screen: 8.98 cd/m2 on power;
Contrast at max brightness: 1:1;
White point: 6600 K;
Black on max brightness: 0 cd/m2;
PWM: to be discussed.
This panel came well-calibrated out of the box and turned out to be uniform in luminosity and color. Plus, since this is OLED, you don’t have to concern yourself with any light bleeding on black backgrounds.
Panel quality aside, the other advantages of OLED should also be considered in your decision, such as the low blue-light emission and the way colors are perceived more vividly at mid-brightness levels, but also their potential downsides, such as black-crush, gray-bending, flickering, and even burn-in to some extent. Still, I wouldn’t worry about burn-in with this newer generation of Samsung OLED panels, just make sure you’re not disabling the burn-in protection tech in the MyAsus app and you’re not using this at max-brightness on static interfaces for hours at a time.
Now, a good IPS panel option would have been a more carefree choice here and an option that Asus should have offered. Some IPS panels can get brighter, don’t experience the same graininess, and can match the color volume of OLEDs, and it would have been nice to have that option here, even if those IPS models would have been more expensive.
Hardware and performance Our test model is a top-specced configuration of the 2022 Asus ZenBook Flip S 13, code name UP5302ZA, with an Intel Core i7-1260P processor and Intel Iris Xe graphics, 16 GB of LPDDR5-4800 memory, and a fast 1 TB gen4 SSD.
Disclaimer: This review unit was provided by Asus for this article. We tested it with the software available as of late-October 2022 (BIOS 308, MyAsus 3.1.8 app). Some aspects might still change with future software updates.
Spec-wise, this is based on the 2022 Intel 12th-gen Alder Lake Core P hardware platform . Our configuration is the top-tier Core i7-1260P processor available for this series, the hybrid design with 4 Performance and 8 Efficiency Cores, as well as 16 combined threads. This ultraportable implementation supplies the CPU with up to 30W of power in sustained loads. A very similar Core i5-1240P processor is also available for the lower-tier configurations.
Graphics are handled by the integrated Iris Xe chip, with 96 EUs and frequencies of up to 1.40 GHz in the i7-1260P, and 80EUs and 1.3 GHz frequencies in the i5-1240P.
Our configuration also comes with 16 GB of LPDDR5-4800 memory, in dual-channel. 16, and 32 GB configurations are available for the series, and the memory is onboard and non-upgradeable.
For storage, Asus opted for a fast PCIe gen4 Micron 3400 drive here, which performed well in our tests.
The SSD and WiFi chip are the only upgradeable components here. To get to them you need to remove the back panel, hold in place by a couple of visible Torx screws, and two more extra screws hidden behind the rear-rubber feet.
Inside you’ll notice the redesigned motherboard with the new thermal module and the radiator placed on the laptop’s left side, as well as the battery and speakers. The SSD is still placed right near the CPU, but Asus puts a thermal shield on it, which prevents overheating.
As far as the software goes, this ZenBook gets the standard MyAsus app which allows control over the power profiles, battery and screen settings, updates, etc.
There are three performance/thermal profiles to choose from:
Performance – allows the hardware to run at ~25-30Wsustained, with the fan ramping up to ~42 dB;
Balanced/Standard – allows the hardware to run at 20W in sustained loads, with the fan ramping up to 33 dB;
Whisper – limits the CPU at 12W to favor fan noise of sub 30 dB.
Whisper mode is OK for light use, but I’d recommend keeping the laptop on Standard in most cases, to prevent any sluggishness. The Performance profile offers faster processing capabilities in sustained loads, but is also significantly noisier.
We’ll get to that in a bit, but first, here’s what to expect in terms of speeds and temperatures with daily use, with the laptop running quietly, but almost never completely silent.
Performance and benchmarks On to more demanding loads, we start by testing the CPU’s performance in the Cinebench R15 loop test.
On the Performance mode, the Core i7-1260P processor peaks at the 38W PL2 setting for a little while and then quickly drops and stabilizes around 30W of power, with temperatures in the low to mid-90s Celsius, and fan-noise levels of ~42 dB. These result in sustained Cinebench scores of around 1450 points.
On Standard, the system limits the fans at much quieter 36 dB noise levels. The CPU ends up stabilizing at 20W, with temperatures around 76-78 C. The performance takes a significant hit, though, with the scores stabilizing around 1000 points.
You can also opt for the Whisper mode, with limits the CPU at 12W with now barely audible fans and temperatures in the low-70s. The laptop only performs at about 50% of its abilities on this profile, though.
Finally, our sample performed very well on battery, stabilizing at around 28W of power on the Performance mode.
All these are illustrated in the graph below.
To put these in perspective, here’s how this i7-1260P implementation fares against others hardware platforms available in competing ultraportables.
It’s faster than other 1260P models we’ve reviewed in the past, much faster than past Intel 11th-gen models, and close to the Ryzen 7 6800U in the ZenBook S 13. At the same time, it won’t match the capabilities of an Intel Core H or Ryzen H platform, especially in the higher power designs available out there. But with the exception of the ROG Flow Z13 and Flow X13 models, those designs are not 13-inchers.
We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and in Blender, confirming our above findings. On Performance, the i7-1260P stabilizes at 25-28W of power in these longer tests.
We then ran the 3DMark CPU profile test.
Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook, on the Turbo profile. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time, and this unit passed by a narrow margin, which means the combined performance does suffer a tiny bit with longer-duration sustained loads, as the heat builds up.
Next, here are some benchmark results. We ran the entire suite of tests and benchmarks on the Performance profile on this Core i7-1260P configuration, with the screen set on FHD+ resolution, for consistency with other laptops tested in the past.
Here’s what we got.
3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 5324 (Graphics – 5647, Physics – 19061, Combined – 2122);3DMark 13 – Night Raid: 18741 (Graphics – 23087, CPU – 9068);3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 1976 (Graphics – 1746, CPU – 7831);Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 1105;Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 3198;Handbrake 1.3.3 (4K to 1080p encode): 39.63 average fps;PassMark 10: 4197 (CPU – 19281, 3D – 3353, Memory – 2866, Disk – 34394);PCMark 10: 5414 (Essentials – 10182, Productivity – 6697, Digital Content Creation – 6315);GeekBench 5.4.3 64-bit: Single-Core: 1584, Multi-core: 8867;CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 1591 cb, CPU Single Core 233 cb;CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 3599 cb, CPU Single Core 602 cb;CineBench R23: CPU 9419 cb (best run), CPU 8938 (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 1601 CB (best run);x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 41.68 s.
And here are some workstation benchmarks, on the same Performance profile:
Blender 3.01 – BMW Car scene- CPU Compute: 4m 27s ;Blender 3.01 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 10m 40s;
PugetBench – DaVinci Resolve: 377;PugetBench – Adobe After Effects: -;PugetBench – Adobe Photoshop: 734;PugetBench – Adobe Premiere: -;
SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 13.93;SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 13.32;SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo: 25.01;SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy: 3.81;SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 55.09;SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical: 8.02;SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 7.09;SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: -.V-Ray Benchmark: CPU – 6153 vsamples, GPU CUDA – 173 vpaths;
These are competitive results for a 13-inch implementation of the Core i7-1260P platform, within 5-10% faster than on the 14-inch ZenBook 14 and Yoga 9i previously tested, and close to the similarly specced Dell XPS 13 Plus .
Compared to the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U configuration of the clamshell ZenBook S 13 , though, this Intel model wins in single-core and IPC performance, but trails the AMD option in CPU multi-threaded and especially in GPU capabilities, despite the fact that it runs at higher sustained power. It’s not a clear win in every activity, though, as some workloads favor the Intel hardware, such as Adobe Premiere.
At the same time, the i9-12900H powered ZenBook 14X does outmatch this ZenBook S 13 Flip across the board, but that’s a larger unit with higher-power settings and a more complex thermal design.
As for how this 12th-gen ZenBook Flip fares against the previous generation 11th-gen ZenBook Flip S13 , we’re looking at a 20% increase in IPC, 100+% increase in multi-threaded loads, and a 25+% increase in GPU capabilities. Those are the result of the updated hardware, but also of the updated thermal design that allows for higher sustained power on the 2022 model.
With those out of the way, let’s discuss the other power profile. At up to 42 dBA, this laptop doesn’t run very noisy on Best Performance mode, but nonetheless, you can also roll back to the Standard mode for an even quieter experience (up to 32-33 dBA). Here’s what to expect in performance on this profile.
3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 4176 (Graphics – 4581, Physics – 13504, Combined – 1547);3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 1645 (Graphics – 1468, CPU – 5204);Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 2986;GeekBench 5.4.3 64-bit: Single-Core: 1655, Multi-core: 8566;CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 3337 cb, CPU Single Core 615 cb;x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 44.85 s;Blender 3.01 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 12m 21s.
We’re looking at a ~20-25% drop in CPU and GPU performance compared to the Performance mode, with variations between the different tests and scenarios. The Standard profile makes sense on other ZenBooks that run noisier on Performance, but I don’t think I’d use it that often on this design.
Whisper mode is also an option, but that limits the performance and I’d barely even use that with light activities. It does favor passive cooling, though, if you’re looking for a fanless use experience .
With these out of the way, we also ran a couple of DX11, DX12, and Vulkan games on the Performance profile of this Core i7 + Iris Xe configuration, at FHD+ resolution, with Low/Lowest graphics settings. I threw in a few other platforms for comparison.
Low settings ZenBook S 13 Flip – ZenBook 14 –ZenBook S 13 –ZenBook 14X Space –ZenBook 14 –
Bioshock Infinite 81 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
70 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
102 fps (63 fps – 1% low)
105 fps (66 fps – 1% low)
70 fps (40 fps – 1% low)
Doom: Eternal 31 fps (14 fps – 1% low)
29 fps (15 fps – 1% low)
45 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
33 fps (18 fps – 1% low)
–
Far Cry 5 31 fps (27 fps – 1% low)
31 fps (22 fps – 1% low)
45 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
37 fps (30 fps – 1% low)
–
Dota 2 75 fps (52 fps – 1% low)
76 fps (52 fps – 1% low)
74 fps (46 fps – 1% low)
84 fps (65 fps – 1% low)
-102 fps (63 fps – 1% low)
Shadow of Tomb Raider 34 fps (19 fps – 1% low)
36 fps (23 fps – 1% low)
47 fps (35 fps – 1% low)
42 fps (23 fps – 1% low)
-102 fps (63 fps – 1% low)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 39 fps (21 fps – 1% low)
38 fps (20 fps – 1% low)
41 fps (26 fps – 1% low)
44 fps (28 fps – 1% low)
–
Doom, Dota 2, Witcher 3 – recorded with MSI Afterburner in game mode;
Bioshock, Tomb Raider games – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities;
This ZenBook S 13 Flip is a fair performer for the class, capable of 30-40 fps in more demanding games and 60+ in casual titles or older games.
The Iris Xe doesn’t run at its peak capabilities in this design, but it’s fairly close, as you can tell by comparing the framerates to the Iris Xe configuration in the ZenBook 14X Space Edition. At the same time, the current AMD ultraportables are superior performers in GPU-heavy abilities with their RDNA2-based chips (a review of the Radeon 680M iGPU is available here ), as you can tell from the comparison with the clamshell ZenBook S 13, despite it running at lower sustained power.
Next, the performance logs down below show the CPU/GPU clocks and temperatures in a couple of games, on the Performance profile.
The hardware stabilizes at 25-28W of power between the tested titles, with GPU clocks speeds of around 1.2 GHz, so around 85% of the platform’s maximum frequency of 1.4 GHz. A higher power envelope would be required for the iGPU to run at the maximum design speeds.
As far as the temperatures go, though, those are in the mid to high-80s with the laptop sitting on the desk, which are quite high levels for longer-term use.
Bumping the back of the laptop from the desk makes a noticeable difference here, allowing for a drop in CPU temperatures to 70-75 degrees Celsius, but also stabilizing the CPU sustained power around 25-27 W. Hence, I recommend placing this laptop on a raiser stand when running games or other sustained loads, in order to help the cooling and stabilize the performance.
You could also consider gaming on the Standard profile, which results in the hardware running at 20W of sustained power and leads to a 10-20% drop in framerates. You’re also getting quieter fans (~33 dBA vs 42 dBA on Performance) with this mode, and temperatures around mid to high 70s Celsius.
Finally, this laptop performs excellently on battery power, even better than when plugged in. The CPU runs at 28W sustained and the GPU runs at its peak frequency of 1.4 GHz in Witcher 3, better than when plugged in. That’s uncommon for ultrabook designs.
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others Asus went with a single-fan single-heatpipe thermal module here, much like with all of their previous ZenBook 13/14 generations.
However, this 2022 design offers a slightly longer heatpipe now that goes all the way to the radiator that was moved on the left side of the laptop. At the same time, the implemented radiator is rather small and has limited contact with the heatpipe, due to space constraints. Overall, though, this thermal design is perfectly adequate for this sort of laptop.
Air comes inside from the underside, through the open air-grills positioned over the heatpipe. The fan is mostly covered by the back panel, though, in an effort to channel the airflow over the CPU and heatpipe and then into the fans and out through the exhaust on the left.
Even so, the laptop’s small feet do choke the intakes a little bit, so I would recommend placing this on a raiser stand when running demanding loads for longer periods, to favor cooling and slightly improve the sustained performance.
Despite the CPU running at ~80 degrees Celsius on Performance mode, the outer-case temperatures keep fairly low on this laptop, with sub-35 degrees C around the WASD and arrows keys, and around low to mid-40s C in the warmest spots around the IOPL keys, just over the hardware.
On Balanced, with demanding loads, the fans run quieter and the internals reach lower temperatures in the high-70s, while the chassis temperatures are about the same as on Performance.
As for daily use, on the Standard mode, the chassis temperatures stay within sub-35s C and the fan runs quietly, idling with light use and never going over 30 dB even on the rare occasions will kick on with multitasking. Switching over to WHisper mode favors passive cooling, but the laptop feels kind of sluggish on this profile.
On the other hand, I haven’t noticed any coil whining or other sorts of electronic noises on this ultrabook.
*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Standard Mode, fans at 0-30 dB *Gaming – Performance mode – playing Witcher for 30 minutes, fans at ~42 dB
For connectivity, there’s the latest-gen WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 through an Intel module on this laptop, which performed excellently during my time with the laptop. This can be upgraded if you want to, as it’s a standard M.2 format.
Audio is still handled by a set of stereo speakers that fire through grills on the underside, much like on the previous ZenBook lineups. The angled shape of the D-Panel allows the sound to bounce off the table without distortions and prevents you from easily muffling them while using the computer on the lap.
As far as the sound quality goes, it is alright for daily use and streaming, but don’t expect much in quality. These speakers got averagely loud at 77-78 dB at head-level in our tests, with fair mids and highs, but little in the lower end, so they sounded rather tiny at high volumes.
Finally, there’s an HD camera placed at the top of the screen, flanked by microphones. The image quality is fine for occasional calls, but again, not much.
Battery life There’s a 67 Wh battery inside the 2022 ZenBook S 13 Flip, larger than the norm for a 13-incher.
Here’s what we got in our battery life tests, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~60 brightness).
7.5 W (~7-8 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Normal + Better Battery Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;8.5 W (~8 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Normal + Better Battery Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;8 W (~8 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Normal + Better Battery Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;13 W (~5-6 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Normal + Better Performance Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON.
These are fair results, but nothing to brag about. The previous-gen Core U ZenBook S13 Flip ran for longer with daily use and video streaming, and the AMD-based ZenBook S 13 outlasts this by a significant margin as well.
At the same time, this i7-1260P implementation ran a little more efficiently than the Core P ZenBook 14, so Asus have slightly improved efficiency with the software updates released in the meantime. You’ll just have to accept that 5-8 hours of battery life is what you’ll realistically get with this laptop in real-life use, and if you need longer, you’ll just have to go for a different platform.
The laptop ships with a very compact 65W USB-C charger, a new design for Asus with a compact brick and a long and removable cable. The battery fully fills up in about 2 hours, with quick charging for the first hour.
Price and availability- Asus ZenBook S 13 Flip At the time of this article, the ZenBook Flip S 13 is not yet available in stores.
I saw it listed by some websites here in Europe for around 1750 EUR or 1700 GBP in some UK stores, for the configuration tested here with the Core i7-1260P processor, 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB of SSD storage, and the OLED display.
That’s pricey compared to other 2022 ZenBooks and I’d expect things to end up at around 1300-1500 USD/EUR once it becomes more widely available. Plus, lower-tier CPU/RAM/SSD variants should also be offered.
Stay put for updates, and in the meantime, follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your region .
Final thoughts- Asus ZenBook Flip S 13 OLED Asus put a lot of effort into redesigning and improving their 2022 generation of ZenBooks, and this latest iteration of their ZenBook S Flip is now one of the better 2-in-1 ultrabooks available in stores.
This model is cleaner looking and sturdier built than before, offers uncompromised inputs and a beautiful OLED display, and implements higher-power specs and a superior cooling design.
At the same time, you do have to accept the USB-C-only IO (+ audio jack) without full-size ports and the lack of any non-OLED screen options.
You’ll also have to accept an Intel Core P hardware platform here, as Asus have split their offer between Intel hardware on this Flip model and AMD hardware on their clamshell variant. It would have been nice having both hardware options with both formats.
All in all, if a convertible 2-in-1 format is what you’re primarily looking at, this ZenBook S 13 Flip must be on your list alongside the excellent HP Spectre x360 , the more affordable Lenovo Yoga 6, and the popular Microsoft Surface Pro lineup. Otherwise, if you’re fine with a clamshell format as well, there are quite a couple of better value ultrabook options for you to consider instead , starting with the AMD-based ZenBook S 13 UM5302 .
That wraps up this review of the ASUS ZenBook S 13 Flip OLED UP5302ZA. Let me know what you think about it in the comments section below.
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Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com . I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.
Ray
November 5, 2022 at 6:33 pm
Hi, I was wondering if this laptop would be good for a chemistry student? I really love the design and USB c plug.
Andrei Girbea
November 6, 2022 at 1:35 pm
up to you to decide, you know what you want and need
Sebastian
November 9, 2022 at 3:48 pm
Hello. I'm struggling to find it in Europe. Where exactly is it available? Country? Store? Thanks!
Andrei Girbea
November 9, 2022 at 3:53 pm
Hm, it was listed here in Romania when I finished up the article, but now it is no longer. The section already says there's limited availability for now, but I'm updating and rewording the section to better showcase the current availability status.
Dionamuh
November 12, 2022 at 8:00 pm
Thank you so much for these reviews, they're very comprehensive!
I agree it would be nice to have both AMD and Intel variants. I just ordered the S13 with AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, because of the GPU performance and efficiency, but it would be even better as a convertible.
I saw the new Zenbook 14 Flip with Ryzen 7 6800H just started getting available. Any chance you will be reviewing that one in the future? Looks pretty good on paper with 90 Hz screen, nice amount of ports, and a less constrained Ryzen 6000 series APU. A lot heavier (1,4 Kg) than the S13 though, and probably worse battery life and noisier with its dual fan cooling.
Andrei Girbea
November 14, 2022 at 3:12 pm
I don't have it on the review list yet
Nikolay
November 18, 2022 at 3:31 pm
I have been following this Asus model since the start of this year and I'm shocked how slowly the new models from Asus are rolling out in Europe particularly this Zenbook model.
It is this exact model because I was looking for new 13 inch laptop for media consuming and 3d drawing on the go but seeing how slowly is rolling it would probably be available January-February-March range next year.
Damn, 1700-1800 euros is very steep prices even for this laptop.
I SZ
August 31, 2023 at 12:04 pm
Thanks for the review, You didn't review the pen usage. Can you tell us your experience?
Andrei Girbea
August 31, 2023 at 3:04 pm
Haven't used it, so can't really comment about it.
Stephen Linney
September 28, 2023 at 9:36 am
I am looking to buy one of these but I will be using it outdoors
Could I therefore ask for clarification please: you state "at only 350-nits peak SDR brightness, which is only enough for indoor use" but the Asus specification states " 550 nits peak brightness"?
Andrei Girbea
September 29, 2023 at 12:03 pm
Their claim is misleading and I've complained about it in past articles. 550-nits is peak HDR brightness in HDR content, and only if the bright spots are small (only occupy a small percentage of the screen, under 10%). Regular brightness for this OLED panel is only at around 350-400 nits, and this is what you should account for with daily use. If you plan to use it outdoors, that might not be enough imo – but that's what you can expect from 13-14 inch OLED panels, regardless of the laptop they're implemented in. So this is not a limitation for this ZenBook, but a limitation of the 13-inch OLED panel technology.
For outdoors use, ideally, you'll want an IPS panel (available on other devices) for higher brightness, and maybe even a matte non-flare finish.
All in all, though, you'll have to judge for yourself whether this OLED would be OK for you and your use cases. If you can buy from a place that allows easy returns, you can get the laptop, give it a try, and then keep it or return it if not Ok for you.