Asus ZenBook Flip 13 (UX363EA) – Two laptops in one for office work (TECH REVIEW)

The cover is discreet, as it fits a laptop of this type, with only the ASUS logo, placed a little to the side. But there is one thing that bothers me terribly about the look of this laptop, which is the fact that it is a fingerprint magnet, both in terms of cover and screen – which of course you will touch, since we are talking about a 2 laptop. in 1.

A few words about the unboxing experience: when you open the box you will notice that the laptop is slightly raised, a mechanism similar to that of the laptop itself and thus gives you a “teaser” of the experience you will live. Inside you’ll also find a protective and carrying case, the charger (of course), a USB-A dongle with Ethernet and a USB-C dongle with 3.5mm jack, but also a stylus, so you don’t have to operate a touchscreen . ul with their own hands.

You are probably wondering what’s with the extra dongles in the box. Well, they are there because, in terms of ports, ZenBook Flip 13 is rather limited. On the right we have only one USB-A and the power button, and on the left two USB-C ports and one HDMI. I think there is still a headphone jack on the right, so you don’t have to carry the dongle with you if you want to hear something just for you.

Cover and stylus in the package

But a big plus for the protective case in the box, an accessory you rarely see but often find you need when it’s too late and your device has already “taken” a few subtle scratches. Incorporating the stylus is also good, but you will have to be careful where you put it, as it cannot be magnetically attached to any part of the laptop, nor does it have a special place where it can be inserted. But I had no issues with using it, being quite nice and useful in tablet format, especially if you don’t want to cover your fingerprint screen.

Let’s move on to the keyboard and trackpad. As for the former, I like the layout, even if at first glance it seems a bit too “tight”, you will find enough space between the keys to type without wrong presses. What disappoints me a bit is the key pressure, which seems a bit too short. The sound I make doesn’t sound very bright either, although I appreciate being quiet enough that I can probably use my laptop with someone sleeping next to me.

But the trackpad is superb: generous, with ample room to maneuver, as befits an ultrabook, combining small size with great utility. Of course, as did ASUS, you also have a NumPad integrated into the trackpad, which is why the dimensions are considerable, so those who want to use the NumPad are satisfied, but also those like me who collect dust on a normal keyboard.

Before moving on to the performance, a few words on the display. Yes, it’s a fingerprint magnet, like I said, but it looks great. It is a 13.4-inch LED with Full HD resolution and 60 Hz refresh rate, very responsive to touch and with 100% coverage of the sRGB color gamut. It’s not something I would recommend to professionals, but for everyday users it’s great for watching series or a bit of photo or video editing (I stress, a little). It would still be necessary to work on the brightness, because the screen goes up to 300 nits, but it works well here too.

Processor capable of excellent performance

The ZenBook Flip 13 is equipped with a Tiger Lake processor, more precisely an 11th generation i7, with four cores and eight threads, clocked at up to 4.7GHz. We don’t have a dedicated video card, but we do find 8GB RAM and a 500GB SSD from Kingston for storage.

I say this is one of my first experiences with Tiger Lake processors and it was very enjoyable. The performance of the laptop was very good, the integrated GPU (an Intel Iris Xe) did its job well and the autonomy turned out to be excellent, especially since it is a 2-in-1 type laptop: little more than 8 hours kept me in May every day, enough to spend the day working with him.

Where there is more work to be done is cooling, of course, as we are dealing with such a thin laptop. It’s nearly impossible to cool it evenly and hard enough so that it doesn’t look like your laptop is hot, but again, that’s normal, considering we’re talking about a 2-in-1 and you shouldn’t face it. this problem compared to more stressful tasks. However, a big plus for the fans, who are very quiet.

It invites you to use it in tablet format

But I really like its use in tablet format. It’s not the first time I’ve tried a 2 in 1, but it’s the first time I’ve found myself much more often than I expected with the stylus in my hand and the laptop turned into a tablet format. It’s a powerful, beautiful and stylish laptop, and the ability to become a tablet seems to entice you to use it far more than other convertibles I’ve tested.

And the sound is very good, which is quite predictable, given that it’s provided by Harman Kardon. It’s not the strongest, but it’s enough if you want to watch The Queen’s Gambit or another Netflix series.

The 8GB RAM memory may seem small, but from my experience, I tell you that this is not the case at all, for such a laptop. My daily driver also handles 8GB of RAM remarkably, with workloads, writing, editing (lightweight) and is even capable of some games (well, I don’t use it for that, but it’s capable). ZenBook Flip 13 is a much more competent machine in all of these categories. Sure, it’s not a laptop for professionals, but it doesn’t want to be either. It is an excellent tool for work, a good, good looking and high performance desktop laptop. And those who want more GB of RAM can choose a more expensive version, with 16 GB of RAM.

Asus ZenBook Flip UX363EA (the version I tested) costs around 6500 lei.