Asus ZenBook Flip S UX371 review
Aces
Smooth plan
Lightweight
Extraordinary screen
Different ports including USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 help, and USB Type-A port
CONS
No 3.5mm earphone jack except for connector is provided.
The slender plan implies some presentation downsides.
The Asus Zenbook Flip S is Asus' famous 2 of every 1 ultrabook line with one basic point, to make the slenderest and lightest 2 out of 1 workstation accessible on market furnished with strong specs to adjust force and transportability in a slick bundle. The Flip S sees the 13.3" ultrabook line accompany Intel's new eleventh Gen Tiger Lake versatile CPU which accompanies Intel's first Evo confirmation. The general plan is very pleasant and at 1.2 kg's proof of Asus designing that permits them to make ultrabooks of this nature without relinquishing a lot on preparing power. While there are some conspicuous reductions, the general conveys ability alternative of the Flip S makes it pretty engaging for the individuals who need a top-notch looking gadget.
Design
First off, in terms of design, it looks the part. 4K display on a 13.3-inch laptop means sharp images on an OLED touch panel. You'll notice the Intel Evo sticker which means it makes the cut for its new Intel processors. Speaking of which, it comes with the latest Tiger Lake Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, 16GB of memory, a 1TB M.2 SSD for storage along with improved Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics.
It's incredibly light at 1.2 kilos and I can't emphasize this enough but it's one of the lightest laptops you'll see this year. The chassis and lids of the ASUS ZenBook Flip S UX371 is made of lightweight, Red Copper diamond-cut aluminium alloy and yet comes with a full HDMI port along with two USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support, plus a USB Type-A port, that's still more ports than the 13 inch Macbook Pro.
Display
First off, in terms of design, it looks the part. 4K display on a 13.3 inch laptop means sharp images on an OLED touch panel. You'll notice the Intel Evo sticker which means it makes the cut for its new Intel processors. Speaking of which, it comes with the latest Tiger Lake Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, 16GB of memory, a 1TB M.2 SSD for storage along with improved Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics.
It's incredibly light at 1.2 kilos and I can't emphasize this enough but it's one of the lightest laptops you'll see this year. The chassis and lids of the ASUS ZenBook Flip S UX371 is made of lightweight, Red Copper diamond-cut aluminium alloy and yet comes with a full HDMI port along with two USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support, plus a USB Type-A port, that's still more ports than the 13 inch Macbook Pro.
If you're getting the Flip S, it will be for the gorgeous 4K OLED touch panel. The panel is a UHD NanoEdge (3840x2160) touchscreen with 100% DCI-P3 gamut that comes with .2 ms response time. it's also pantone validated comes with the VESA DisplayHDR 500 True Black certification.
It doesn't get better than this assuming that screen resolution technology changes rapidly and with the way things go, this isn't impossible but for this is the standard that's been set. I had a lot of fun watching 8K content, albeit, quite loaded up as that footage can slow down even the best of CPU's under a stress test but the Flip S handled this without much issues, more on that in the performance section.
The panel, as the name implies can be flipped, touched and turned into a nice tablet but there will be a few fingerprints to clean up over time but you'll be the envy of your colleagues as you set this up in tent mode to watch your favorite content.
The Keyboard is small and packed together, with large hands as mine, I did have to take some time to adjust to it as I'm quite used to massive keyboards. However, the Zenbook Flip S's keyboard is good to type on. The touchpad, or screenpad in this case is also smooth to the tough and doubles up as a LED number pad if you need it and while some may find it gimmicky, I usually type numbers on the number pad and it was of use to me.
There is however the obvious omission of the headphone jack but there's an adapter supplied but at this rate there are several options of good bluetooth headphones or earphones that this doesn't pose a problem too much but I can see that being the irritation of some purists who like their wired headphones. Usual components also see it with a 720p camera with Windows hello support and you can connect your phone to the MyAsus software to mirror your smartphone and share files.
Performance
Matthew Buzzi over at PCMAG USA got to test the laptop in depth with several competing laptops in this class which you can read here as I didn't have too many ultrabooks to compare this with the exception of the much more expensive Razor Blade Stealth 13 that's designed for 13-inch gaming. In real world tests, the ZenBook Flip S ran at an average of 10 hours and 40 minutes on normal use on a single charge on balanced mode.
It has the capability to run Adobe Photoshop and some light Premiere Pro editing but it takes longer on 4K video editing at which point, the laptop has to be plugged in to get the boost from the GPU and switch to performance mode. Intel's Tiger Lake does alright but again a few compromises do exist. That said, the Flipbook S is a portability + performance notebook and users looking for portability first need not worry too much. It can still hold on its own.
The Flipbook S does have some quality-of-life upgrades, it comes with USB-C easy charge which allow it to be charged with conventional USB-C chargers (5V-20V) and quicker charge times with certified Power Delivery chargers. Zenbook Flip S has its own 65-watt fast charge adapter and can be charged in airplanes, should you wish to travel post pandemic.
There's also the harmon kardon speakers that don't slouch on sound, clarity is excellent in this case that's got a smart amplifier. The Flipbook S however is built for a working scenario in the midst of the pandemic, it comes with its AI Noise-Canceling Audio that filters out most environmental sounds and pushes human voices instead, this option can be changed based on speaker proximity or if there are multiple people presenting, pretty neat.
Verdict
The Zenbook Flip S is an ideal 2 in 1 ultrabook, it looks the part and it comes with a lovely screen that you'll enjoy watching videos on. It's got a lot going for it, in terms of memory space, battery and can take some punishment with some midrange computer processing workloads like photo and video editing but this is a business machine above all else and is designed as such. At AED 6,499, it certainly is premium but it will get the job done.