Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED UX7602 (2022) – a creators laptop (review)
The Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED UX7602 is the mother of all creator notebooks. A 16” 4K, 16:10, 3D OLED screen, 12th Gen i7, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GPU, and an auto-tilt keyboard make this a great powerhouse for creators and power users.
Of course, it is more a desktop than a laptop at 2.4kg, drawing a massive 200W peak power. Processor and GPU power is diminished when running on its 96Wh battery but gives nearly nine hours on PC Mark 3.0 battery test.
We will go through its various components.
Note: There is a 13th Gen Core i9-13900H with 32GB, but we cannot find that in Australia. See video at the end.
Australian Review: Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED UX7602Z (2022)-ME7120X (as tested)
Website | Product Page and PDF Manual |
Price | $4,999 – one spec only, Win 11 Pro |
From | Model UX7602ZM-ME071X seen for approx. $4099 at Computer Alliance, MSY, and Umart |
Warranty | 1-year ACL |
Made in | China |
About | Asustek Computer is a Taiwanese company that produces motherboards, graphics cards, optical drives, PDAs, computer monitors, notebook computers, servers, networking products, mobile phones, computer cases, computer components, and computer cooling systems. |
More | CyberShack ASUS news and reviews |
We use Fail (below expectations), Passable (meets low expectations), Pass (meets expectations), Pass+ (near Exceed but not class-leading) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. You can click on most images for an enlargement.
Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED specs as tested
- Intel Core i7-12700H Processor 2.3 GHz (24M Cache, up to 4.7 GHz, 6P+8E cores).
- Windows 11 Pro.
- 16”, 4K (3840 x 2400) OLED 16:10 aspect ratio.
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Laptop GPU.
- 16GB LPDDR5 on board.
- 512GB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD.
- Wi-Fi 6E(802.11ax) (Dual band) 2*2.
- Bluetooth 5.
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A.
- 2x Thunderbolt 4.
- 1x HDMI 2.1a FRL (48Gbps fixed rate link, 4K@120fps 10-bit uncompressed).
- 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack.
- 1x DC-in 20V/10A/200W.
- 6-cell, 96Wh Lithium-Ion battery.
- SD Express 7.0 card reader.
- Stylus (ASUS Pen 2.0 SA203H-MPP2.0 support).
First Impression – Wow – Exceed
It is big, heavy, black, and beautiful. You are immediately drawn to the saturated OLED colour screen and ask what that funny dial on the left palm rest is. It is the ASUS Dial to adjust volume, change brush opacity, increase or decrease display brightness, and much more. It supports content creator-oriented applications, including Microsoft 365 and Adobe software. You can also customise
some of the most common functions.
Next, you notice the vertical speaker grills on each side of the full-size, auto-tilt 7° keyboard. There is a left and right speaker under the grills and two under the laptop. Oh, a huge trackpad that also lights up to double as a numeric keypad. The top of the screen has a Windows Hello IR camera and dual array mics.
There is an abundance of RGB lighting that gamers will appreciate, although there are better ASUS ROG gaming laptops for the price.
This is not a laptop to put on your laptop. It is not that it gets too hot, but underneath is mostly a grill to assist air circulation. The raised keyboard and rear vents help the AAS Ultra cooling vapour chamber do its job. And, with a 200W power supply, you will be tethered to a power point to get maximum speed.
Screen: 16”, 4K (3840 x 2400, 284ppi) OLED 16:10 aspect ratio – Pass+
The screen opens to about 145°. It is a Samsung ATNA60YV02-0 SDC415D panel.
The 10-bit, 1.07 billion colour panel with a maximum brightness of 385 nits (excluding the touch overlay tested 350) and infinite contrast. It is 100% DCI-P3 and 100%+ sRGB (switch using ASUS Splendid). It has Pantone Validation for 4000 colours.
ASUS claims 550 peak nits and is VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certified. This means that a tiny (usually 2%) portion of the screen can reach 500 nits for a millisecond.
It also claims Dolby Vision certification (on mains power only). That means it can decode Dolby Vision metadata (usually requires around 1000 nits peak) and downmix it to the panel’s capability. Frankly, Dolby Vision (despite OLED’s pixel-level dimming) is lacklustre and not much better than the standard dynamic range (SDR). A PC screen offers a vastly different viewing experience to a 4K TV.
Delta E: Out of the box is just over 2 (<4 is great).
PWM flickering was detected at 60Hz; anything below 100Hz is an issue for PWM-sensitive people at less than 80% brightness. There is a PWM software slider control, but we cannot find that it makes any significant difference apart from increased brightness.
Screen reflectivity: Evident – it is best used with indirect overhead light.
Sharpness: We noticed a slight softness in the text at full brightness, and it is due to the RGB sub-pixel matrix. Every second line is RG (red/green) repeating, and every other line is eight Blue followed by a black (off) pixel. These can manifest as small grey dots and colour fringe where text and fine lines are concerned.
Summary: Excellent colourful screen suitable for creators.
Ports – Minimal but quality – Exceed
- 2 x Thunderbolt 4, 40Gbps with data, audio, video and 20V/5A/100W upstream charge
- 1 x HDMI 2.1a FRL (48Gbps fixed rate link, 4K@120fps 10-bit uncompressed – tested)
- USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps
- SD Express 7.0 card reader
- 3.5mm four pole earphone/mic port
It can support four screens (including the internal), so the HDMI can be used for one screen and dock for two 4K@60Hz.
This is a prime candidate for a decent Dock – read Plugable TBT3 Thunderbolt 3/4 docking station range. We tested with Dual 4K@60Hz monitors and a range of USB devices, including cameras. The nice thing about this is that it has two TB4 ports, and the second can also be USB-C 4 (20Gbps), 3.2 Gen 2 (10GBps), or Gen 1 (5bps). These also support alt DP 1.4 for another monitor (needs USB-C monitor or USB-C to HDMI or DP adapter).
Our test dock supports a 100W upstream charge – see battery below.
Battery – Pass for this type of device
It is a 96Wh and delivered nearly 9 hours on PC Mark Moden Office Battery Test. A 1080p loop (50% brightness and sound, Wi-Fi/BT off) was four hours and 47 minutes. That is unusual because it should last longer than PC Mark.
- Charge time (screen off) with 20V/10A/200W is about 7 hours.
- As above, with 20V/54A/100W upstream, Thunderbolt 4 charge: 12 hours.
CPU – Intel Core i7-12700H Processor 2.3 GHz – more than enough – Pass+
Geekbench – all standard defaults
Single Core | Multi-core | OpenCL | Vulcan | |
Mains | 2328 | 12075 | 85,265 (RTX) 16,679 (Xe) | 21,106 (RTX) 79,445 (Xe) |
Battery | 1261 | 6678 | 77,815 (RTX) 15,246 (Xe) | 21,269 (RTX) 20,920 (Xe) |
CPU on battery performance is about 50% of mains power performance. The graphics results (accurate) don’t entirely make sense.
I suspect this 12th Generation model will soon be replaced with a 13th Gen, so drive a hard bargain.
RAM – 16GB onboard – Passable
RAM is soldered to the motherboard and is not replaceable or upgradable. If you spend close to $5K, you want 32GB at least.
SSD – Exceed
The test unit has a Samsung MZVL2512HCJ1 PCIe 4.0 512GB SSD (PM9A1). It appears replaceable. The theoretical maximum peak is 6900/5000MBps,
Crystal Disk Mark (peak throughput)
CPDT (sustained throughput)
DaVinci Resolve (video render)
Comms – Pass
It has an Intel AX211 using a 2×2 antenna, MU-MIMO and 2.4, 5 and 6GHz (160Mhz) bands and should be capable of 2400Mbps full duplex (both Tx/Rx). Using our reference Netgear Orbi RBKE963 Quad-band Wi-Fi 6E AX 11000 mesh router, the results were puzzling.
We could not get it to connect at 6GHz. Instead, it connected to 5Ghz at 1081/245Mbps. This was the same for the ASUS Zenbook Fold 17, and we can only surmise that a firmware update is needed for Australian Wi-Fi 6E bands.
Bluetooth 5.3 allows for multi-point connections and Windows fast pair. It uses an SBC codec.
Keyboard/trackpad/ASUS Dial – Pass+
It is a full-sized keyboard courtesy of the numeric keypad being moved to the oversize trackpad (it is rear-lit to expose the keypad).
The key throw is 1.5mm and 40g activation – superb. The Chiclet keys have per-key RGB and N-key rollover, which is a pleasure to type on.
The trackpad is huge at 150 x 90mm. The response is good, although I had to press a little harder for clicks.
The ASUS dial is programmable and works with Microsoft 365 and Adobe software. It is in an awkward place on the palm rest (especially for lefties). You can disable it in the ProArt Creators App.
ASUS Pen 2.0 (not tested)
The ASUS Pen 2.0 SA203H-MPP2.0 supports 4096 pressure levels and 266Hz sample rate. USB-C charge takes 30 minutes for up to 140 hours of battery life. It has a range of tips. But (as we found with other ASUS OLEDs), the screen angle could be better for stylus use.
Camera/Mics – Pass
It is a 1080p camera and an IR Windows Hello sensor. Overall it is great for video conferences. While it lacks a privacy shutter, it lights up when used.
Two mics on the top provide echo cancelling for better voice recognition and audio recording. AI noise cancelling removes sound outside the 1-4kHz range (clear voice) and can be set for basic, single, or multiple presenters. Tested and fit for purpose.
Audio – Pass+
It has two left/right up-firing tweeters from beside the keyboard and two down-firing full-range speakers under the front of the palm rest. ASUS calls it Smart Amp, with Harman/Kardon tuning.
- Maximum volume was 82dB (good).
- The sound stage with 2.0 content is as wide as the laptop with no height (as expected).
- The sound stage with Dolby Atmos content extends about 30-45cm from each side of the laptop, just above screen height. Remember that you are sitting about 30cm from the screen, so this is good.
- There is evident distortion at maximum volume – back off to 75dB (normal).
It has no low bass (not expected), mid-bass from 60Hz building to 120Hz (high-bass) and is flat to 7kHz, gradually declining to 20kHz. This is almost a neutral signature (a flat response that neither adds nor subtracts from the original music!) verging on Bright Vocal (bass recessed, mid/treble boosted – for vocal tracks and string instruments but can make them harsh).
It is one of the better four-speaker listening experiences, and the Dolby EQ can adjust to almost any genre.
More reading: How to tell if you have good music (sound signature is the key
Build – Pass+ with caveats
The build is to US MIL-STD 810H – it is pretty tough. There is no body or screen flex, although we noticed a little looseness of the keyboard lift hinge.
The caveat is more about the potential for dust and detritus to get under the keyboard lift. It appears sealed, so this should not be an issue.
The bottom panel can be removed. The M2.2280 SSD, battery and fan are replaceable. There is no service guide at present.
APPS – Pass
- MyASUS is one of the Apps you need to use to control the laptop. An explanation is here.
- ProArt Creator Hub contains more tweaks. An explanation is here.
- SceeenXpert manages ASUS and connected displays. An explanation is here.
These can be daunting for a typical user but offer enormous flexibility.
CyberShack’s view – Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED UX7602 is everything a creator could want
It is big, has a powerful processor and has a colour accurate 4K OLED Touch screen. The unusual feature is the auto-lift keyboard.
Our only caveats are:
- 16GB soldered to the motherboard (not expandable) may be too low for creators who need 32 or 64 GB.
- Less than half processing and GPU power on the battery. It is really tethered to the 200W power supply.
- Very long charge times at 100W (using a dock or GaN Charger). The 100W charger could not keep up with the 150W maximum draw.
- The sub-pixel can lead to ‘dots and colour features’ around the text. Fortunately, that is not reflected in finished Adobe or Microsoft files. Incomplete matrixes like this Samsung OLED panel are faux 4K.
- 60Hz PWM can be an issue for those who suffer from screen flicker, meaning it needs to be set at 80+% brightness.
- Dust under the keyboard is impossible to clean.
Rating Explanation – Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED UX7602
- Features: 85 – it loses points for 16GB RAM (not upgradable)
- Value: 80 – at $4999 RRP, it loses points for the 12th Gen processor and 16GB. At $4099, that may add more points. And the 2023 13th Gen is almost here.
- Performance: 90 – excellent on power and so-so on battery
- Ease of Use: 90- It is Windows – say no more. The tiled keyboard is excellent.
- Design: 90 – unusual but effective.
Note: The next video is for the new 2023 13th Gen, not yet released here
Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED UX7602 (2022)
$4999Pros
- Great performance on mains power
- Colour-accurate 4K OLED touchscreen
- 2 x Thunderbolt 4 and 2.1a HDMI
- Great Dolby Atmos sound
- Decent battery life, albeit at about 50% of CPU/GPU utilisation
Cons
- 60Hz PWM will affect sensitve users
- Inconsistent and low battery life in performance mode and dark theme off
- Long battery charge times and 100W charge does not keep up
- ASUS Dial – not sold on that
- You need to use multiple Apps to tune this – Screen Expert, ProArt Creator Hub and MyASUS