Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED Review (Intel i5-11300H, Iris Xe)

In the laptop market, thing and light laptops are always desirable. However, high performance is also a feature that the market desires. Nevertheless, a popular saying reads “you can eat your cake and have it”. This has been the situation with making a thin and light laptop come with high performance. Over the past few years, thin and light laptops are known to have weak performance, poor screens, and insufficient interface expansion. To this end, many users have the impression that the performance and usability of thin and light laptops are just barely enough.

However, mobile display and processor technology gets better, thin and light notebooks are now getting better. The positioning of these laptops is now redefined. Today, we have thin and light notebooks in the market with high-power performance. These notebooks are now top-notch in their hardware, productivity, and appearance.

Taiwanese manufacturer, ASUS, recently released the Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED comes with a thin and light body design as well as a stylish appearance. It also brings strong performance and excellent screens, the OLED screen is particularly amazing.

Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED is a Windows 10 laptop with a 14.00-inch display that has a resolution of 2,880×1,800 pixels. It is powered by a Core i5 processor and it comes with 8GB of RAM. The Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED packs 256GB of SSD storage.

Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 Yes, Bluetooth and it comes with 4 USB ports (2 x USB 2.0), USB 3.2 Gen 1 (Type A), Thunderbolt 4 (Type C), HDMI Port, Multi Card Slot ports.

Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED Specifications

The first model of the Vivobook Pro 14 comes with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor. However, bowing to market demand, Asus has released the Intel Core version of the Vivobook Pro 14. This notebook not only uses the Intel 11th generation Core H35 chip, it also takes into account high performance and low power consumption. This notebook retains the Ryzen version design but it adds a Thunderbolt interface.

The Intel Core Vivobook Pro 14 still maintains the excellent screen with a 2.8K resolution Samsung E4 material OLED panel. This screen also supports a 90Hz refresh rate, 10-bit color depth, 100% P3 wide color gamut, 1000000:1 contrast, and its peak brightness can be up to 600nits.

The Intel Core i5-11300H uses a 4-core 8-thread, a third-level cache of 8M, and a TDP of only 35W. Asus also provides it with up to 45W performance release, and it uses dual fans. In addition, Asus includes a dual heat pipe for the cooling system to keep the temperature of this device in check.

Considering that this device has more units in Europe, the new generation Iris Xe display also integrates the latest generation of Intel Quick Sync technology. This technology makes it more effective for video encoding and video editing.

Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED Design & Appearance

The first thing that any user will notice about this notebook is that it uses an all-metal design. The Asus Vivobook Pro 14 appears sturdy and does not flex or bulge. As a mid-range notebook, the design is not entirely premium but the overall aesthetic is top-notch. This device comes with a rough plastic bezel around the screen which is not entirely bad.

The dimension of this notebook is 315.8 × 226.3 × 17.9mm and it weighs about 1.4kg. The thickness of 17.9mm and weight 1.4kg weight shows that this notebook is absolutely thin and light.

On the top surface (popularly called the A-side), the Asus Vivobook Pro 14 has a stylish but gritty metal surface with a CNC engraved LOGO which is very recognizable.

Although there are a couple of colour options, the model we reviewed uses the Quiet Blue colour. This colour is not so popular and at first glance, it will appear gray. However, we clearly see the bluish appearance from a certain angle.

Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED Display

On the display side, this device comes with a 14-inch Samsung E4 OLED screen and the display effect is very immersive. In addition to the 2.8K resolution, the 90Hz refresh rate is 90Hz, and the 600nits peak brightness, this device color gamut covers 100% DCI-P3, 133% sRGB, DisplayHR 600 True Black. Furthermore, this display has the German Rheinland TUV certification for low blue light. It also has the SGS eye protection certification.

The bezel is ultra-thin on all sides but the top bezel comes with a physical camera switch. For users who need privacy, they can simply pull the slider to block the camera.

ASUS notebooks are equipped with OLED displays, the advantage of which is excellent color reproduction. They reproduce realistic tones and are therefore great for professional creative work with any graphic material. In addition, thanks to the special organic materials used in the production of OLED displays, they emit 70% less harmful blue light than LCD displays, which makes them more comfortable for the eyes.

We carried out some tests for the display. Let’s take a look at the actual performance of this screen.

The Asus Vivobook Pro 14 screen supports 100% sRGB color gamut, 96% Adobe RGB color gamut, 100% P3 color gamut, and 94% NTSC color gamut, which is very, very high. However, upon testing, the maximum brightness of this screen is 342 nits, and at 100% brightness, the static contrast ratio can reach 26870:1.

As an OLED screen, like a mobile phone, it will be more prominent in games and movies than the data measured by the color calibration instrument after HDR is turned on.

The measured average Delta E value is 0.95, the maximum value is 2.26, and the minimum value is 0.31.

Just like the official publicity, the overall performance of this OLED screen is excellent. It offers excellent gaming and video experience, and can also reduce power consumption as well as extend battery life. For color-sensitive users, it can even be used as a professional display.

Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED Keyboard

The keyboard of this notebook is slightly different from previous models. The Enter Key is perhaps the noticeable key on the Asus Vivobook 14 Pro. This key is on the far right of the keyboard and it is specially designed with the CNC engravement. The keyboard has a 1.4mm long keystroke, and the keycap uses a concave curved surface design for a more comfortable experience. It also supports three-level backlight adjustment.

Furthermore, the power button is integrated with a fingerprint module and supports Windows Hello fingerprint recognition. In addition, the power button no longer has an always-on light on it. Although the light was pretty small, it is more comfortable to use this device without the light. You can log in directly without entering a password by clicking directly on the boot.

In addition, you can turn off the microphone and camera through the shortcut keys Fn+F9 and Fn+F10, respectively. On this keyboard, we can see that the Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End are now embedded on the top, down, right, and left direction keys respectively. To activate any of these keys, the users will have to hold shift and press the key. For instance, if you need to use the Page Up button, simply hold Shift and the top direction key. Asus had to embed these functions on the direction key because the extra column of Function keys previously available on VivoBook 14 models is no longer available.

The 5.9-inch large touchpad has a special glass surface treatment process, which makes it feel delicate and smooth. The touchpad is centered on the armrest and it is a bit flimsier than the click pads in ZenBooks. Furthermore, this notebook also comes with a virtual dial called Asus DialPad. You can activate this virtual dial on the touchpad by swiping from the right corner. Generally, this virtual dial gives users access to the screen brightness and volume control. However, on the ProArt Creator, you can customize this feature to add more functionalities.

Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED Connectivity

In the past, most thin notebooks do not come with sufficient connectivity interfaces. However, the Asus Vivobook Pro 14 comes with just enough interfaces for connectivity.

On the left side of this notebook, it has two USB Type-A interfaces.

However, on the right, it has about six connectivity interfaces. We have the 3.5mm headphone jack, Micro SD card reader, Thunderbolt 4/USB Type-C interface that supports PD charging, HDMI video output interface, USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A interface, and a round charging port interface.

The Vivobook Pro 14 comes with a round port charging cable and ab AC charger. If you feel that it is not portable enough, you can bring a USB Type-C charger.

For wireless connectivity, this notebook also has the latest-gen WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.

Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED Hardware performance

CPU

The Asus Vivobook Pro 14 comes with a standard Intel Core i5 11th Gen Core i5-11300H processor which is designed with a 10nm SuperFin process and the base frequency is 3.1GHz. Furthermore, the turbo frequency reaches up to 4.4GHz, 8MB level 3 cache, and the integrated Iris Xe core graphics card has a default TDP of 35W.

According to Asus, this chip balances performance and power consumption and maintains low voltage at the core. The processor has four cores and eight threads, but the performance is more fully optimized. Therefore, most of the high-performance thin and light notebooks on the market at this stage use this chip. However, let us look at the actual practical performance of this processor.

CPU-Z
In the CPU-Z score test, the single-core score is 551, which is comparable to the desktop flagship Core i9-10980XE while the multi-core score is 2742.

CineBench
In the CineBench R15 test, the i5-11300H scored 210 in single-core and runs 985 in the multi-core test

In the CineBench R20 test, the single-core score is 525 and the multi-core score is 1645.

For reference purposes, the CineBench score of this processor is close to Core i7-10700K on the single-core end and close to i5-8400 on the multi-core end.

wPrime
In the wPrime test, the 32M single-threaded running score took 31 seconds while the 1024M multi-threaded running score took 191 seconds. For reference, the previous generation i5-10210U multi-core 1024M achieved 321 seconds, an increase of up to 40%.

GPU performance

The Intel Core i5-11300H processor on the Asus Vivobook Pro 14 has a built-in Iris Xe core graphic card. This GPU comes with 80 execution units, about 640 stream processor cores, an acceleration frequency of 1.3GHz, and also integrates the latest generation of Intel Quick Sync module. Let us now take a look at the actual performance of this chip

3Dmark
In the 3DMark Time Spy (2K rendering resolution) test, a score of 1275 was obtained and the operating frequency was 1300MHz. Furthermore, the maximum temperature throughout the testing period was 81 degrees.

In the 3DMark Fire Strike (1080P rendering resolution) test, it got a score of 2798 points and the operating frequency was 1300MHz. In addition, the maximum temperature is 75 degrees. For the 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme (2K rendering resolution) test, it got a score of 1518, the operating frequency was 1300MHz, and the maximum temperature is 76 degrees.

RAM
ASUS Vivobook Pro14 built-in dual-channel DDR4 3200MHz 16GB onboard memory timing is 22-22-22-48 CR1. Using AIDA64 for the memory cache test, the measured read, write, and copy bandwidths were 42875MB/s, 40404MB/s, and 37010MB/s respectively. Furthermore, the latency was 86.7ns.

SSD
The Vivobook 14 Pro uses an Optane NVMe SSD from Intel with a capacity of 512GB and provides 32GB of Optane memory acceleration to further improve SSD performance. In the CrystalDiskMark test software, the sequential read speed is 2850MB/s, its write speed is 1308MB/s while the 4K random read and write speed is 153MB/s and 124MB/s respectively

On another benchmark database (AS Benchmark), the SSD sequential read speed is 1191MB/s, the write speed is 622MB/s and the 4K random read and write speed 62MB/s read and 125MB/s write respectively.

The two software evaluation standards (CrystalDiskMark & AS) are different, so the running scores are significantly different. However, the scores belong to the same mainstream level.

Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED Heat Dissipation

On this notebook, considering the high-power Intel chip, Asus went for the dual-fan heat pipe design. Other Vivobooks with low-power hardware do not come with this complex heat dissipation design. This design achieves a large-area directional heat dissipation, so on the bottom of this notebook, we have two rows of heat dissipation grids.

However, when you look at the image of the bottom of this device, it appears that there are three rows (vents) for heat dissipation. Nevertheless, the first row is just a decorative effect, and if you look closely, you will see that you cant see the interior of the device from the first row. The heat dissipation vents are therefore just the second and third rows.

For testing the heat dissipation and temperature of this device, we used AIDA64. The power consumption of Intel Core i5-11300H is kept at 42W in the first 20 minutes, and the  frequency is 3.6GHz. This is basically in line with the official publicity (of course also depends on the application environment), however, this notebook will eventually stabilize at 38W.

During testing, the frequency is 3.4GHz and the temperature stayed put at about 94 degrees from the beginning to the end of the testing period. Interestingly, there is not much fluctuation of the temperature throughout the testing.

In terms of observed temperature, the entire keyboard area (where the CPU and other major components are located) has a certain degree of heating, but it is acceptable. The touchpad and palm rest area are relatively cool and are not affected by the heating above.

Asus Vivobook Pro 14 OLED Battery Life

The Asus Vivobook Pro 14 has a built-in large-capacity lithium battery with a capacity of 63Wh. We use PCMark 10 to actually test the endurance of the notebook.

The scene selected for the test is a modern office with PCMark 10, the power mode is “longer battery life” and all other processes are deactivated during the test. The network connection is deactivated, and the screen brightness is adjusted to 50%.

The endurance test score in the PCMark 10 modern office scene is 8 hours and 16 minutes. This means that this notebook can give users an entire working day of usage. Of course, they will have to set the notebook to the office mode without a network connection.

Summary

The 10nm SuperFin process technology Intel Core i5-11300H processor with 4-core 8-thread and a default TDP 35W actually stabilizes close to 45W. This performance is comparable to some low-end gaming notebooks with stronger performance. Thus, users get portability and lightweight while also enjoying the built-in high-performance Iris Xe display card. Many thanks to its robust heat dissipation system, this chip can run at full throttle without significantly raising the temperature of the device.

The E4 high-quality OLED screen that can be used as a professional-level display has passed professional certifications such as DisplayHDR TrueBlack 600 and Pantone Colour. The color display and color gamut coverage are more accurate and wide. Users who like to watch movies, design, and video processing will have an immersive experience. The OLED display saves more power and this is a very advantageous aspect of this notebook because it will allow the battery to last longer.

Despite its thin and light dispensation, this device also comes with rich interfaces including the Thunderbolt 4 (which gets as high as 40Gbps). This notebook can be charged by PD, and can also be connected to a high-performance graphics dock, high-speed SSD, high-performance docking station, 8K display, etc., to meet various expansion needs.

ASUS also pays more attention to privacy. The notebook camera provides a physical switch. A one-click shielding can prevent malicious sneak shots, and there are also special shortcut keys that disable the camera and microphone with one click.

In addition, it is very pertinent that we make mention of the MyASUS software that comes with ASUS Vivobook Pro 14. This software does not only have a beautiful interface, but also provides smart functions such as color adjustment, AI intelligent noise reduction, Wi-Fi master, and battery protection.

In terms of price, this Asus Vivobook Pro 14 Intel Core Edition costs about less than $950. It has two color options including the quiet blue which we reviewed and the star silver option.