As our past reviews have shown, a number of us in the office are big fans of OLED displays on laptops. Unfortunately they tended to be a little bit on the pricy side especially compared to laptops with the more typical IPS displays. Asus though looks set on buckling that trend, with the new VivoBook 13 Slate OLED.
The star of the show here, as its name implies, is the OLED screen. It’s a 13.3-inch, 16:9 FHD, OLED display with a peak brightness of 550nits and a 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. It’s also been PANTONE validated, has a 0.2ms response time and a 93% screen to body ratio. Furthermore, it’s capable of a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and is DisplayHDR True Black 500-certified too for deeper blacks than your average laptop.
A lot of Asus’ marketing around it appears to be for artists with the Asus Pen 2.0 stylus as well as content consumption, which with an OLED screen ought to be a great use case too. Pairing the great display is an appropriately solid audio setup, as the VivoBook 13 Slate OLED comes with four speakers in a stereo setup with Dolby Atmos. Together with the quad-speakers is a smart amplifier that drives the speakers to higher volumes without distortion.
However, under the hood, things perhaps aren’t as good, as the VivoBook 13 Slate OLED comes with an Intel Pentium Silver N6000, a fairly weak chip primarily for entry-level laptops. You can pair this with up to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and up to a 256GB PCIe 3.0 SSD, but lower configurations are also available with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage. It will come with Windows 11 out of the box too.
Other features of note include a 13MP camera on the rear, while the front of the VivoBook 13 Slate OLED has a 5MP camera. It has AI noise-cancelling audio too for when you’re using it for video conferencing. As for I/O, you’ll find two USB-C 3.2 ports with display and power delivery support, a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot. And for connectivity, it comes with WiFi 6 support as well as Bluetooth 5.2. There’s a fingerprint sensor on the side too for easy unlocking.
Keeping things running is a 50Whr battery that Asus says will last you 9.5 hours and can go from 0 to 60% in just 39 minutes with the bundled power brick. Other than that, you’re also getting the Asus Pen 2.0 stylus in the box that will magnetically attach itself to the chassis. The detachable keyboard too comes in the box, along with a cover stand that provides a 170° hinge. Asus are stating that the keyboard has a ‘mega-sized’ touchpad and has been given a special coating for a smoother feel on your fingers.
So far, there’s no word yet on local pricing and availability, but we do know that it was announced globally with a retail price of USD599.99 (~RM2,495.66). There’ll also be two other exclusive Artist Editions of the VivoBook 13 Slate OLED, celebrating the artists Steven Harrington and Philip Colbert. These special edition bundles will come with an additional special cover stand, wallpaper, packaging, sleeve, keyboard, hard cover case and keyboard stickers too.
For more information on the VivoBook 13 Slate OLED, you can visit its product page on the Asus global website.
