ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 OLED is here!

Imagine that a Ryzen 7-based 5800H laptop computer with OLED display is available.  Add 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, plus touch screen capabilities in just over 4 pounds for US$999.  I ordered one, an ASUS ZenBook Pro  UM535.  I've always felt that ASUS' laptop computers were an alternative to Apple, but it took me three recent tries to arrive at this one.

It isn't a gaming machine.  It is officially a creator's machine.  It only has a resolution of 1920x1080, but that's fine, considering the games that I will play, and the photos and video that I will edit.

What's wrong with the MacBook Air M1?  Nothing is really wrong with it, but I'm missing some games that I played daily on the Windows machine.  Sadly, a number of those games aren't playable on the Steam Deck, as well.

So, first impressions are:

Great display

Poor WiFi

Decent keyboard and trackpad

For US$1399.99. I would feel that the display was too much of the cost.  At the price I paid, it's a good machine.  It hasn't been 24 hours and I've had multiple instances of difficulty connecting to the router downstairs, even though my other devices aren't having a problem. I'm wondering if this is a Windows 11 thing, along with Intel's crappy compatibility in the WiFi department.

I haven't really pushed the machine, but Unreal Tournament 2004 and Asphalt 9 were smooth.  That should be the case with this hardware.

Bitlocker was enabled, even though I don't have the key.  I disabled it.  Besides, the SSD already has some encryption.

It also came with Alexa enabled.  I removed that and McAfee anti-virus.  Getting rid of the stickers could be more interesting.

Initially updating software is always a pain and of course, the WiFi connection didn't work during the updates, so I used my iPhone as a hotspot with T-Mobile 5G service to complete the updates.

It's been a year since I had a Windows machine and that 7th generation quad core i7 Omen by HP wasn't much faster than the 3rd generation i7 MacBook Pro.  This feels so much faster.  I want to say that it's smoother but Windows 11 feels broken so far.  None of the game launchers seem happy.

I connected my Corsair mouse and there was no mention of new hardware and it seems to be working without incident.  I had so much trouble with the iCue software, I'm not sure that I want to load it onto Windows 11.

Update 2022.12.10: Was searching for new Intel WiFi and Bluetooth drivers and the machine restarted.  It mentioned something about fTPM being corrupt, having a new CPU, and tried to use Windows Hello to check my face to log into the machine.  I freaked out a bit.  I couldn't access the internet and needed Microsoft Authenticator to authorize the login.  I couldn't use Microsoft Authenticator for some reason and it took me some time to find solutions.  It's all working again.

Update 2022.12.14: The machine is still working but the WiFi is still erratic.  For a company that sells routers and extenders, I'd think they'd be better.  I ran Windows 11 diagnostics and I've had some marginal improvement.  A new driver and diagnostics have helped but it just isn't all that reliable.  I'm wondering if Windows 11 has something to do with the problem.  I've seen a few comments about it being beta test quality.  It's just odd that the ZenBook Pro is the only device out of four that is having WiFi issues on the same household connection.

Games run well, whether they use the inbuilt Radeon technology or the mobile RTX 3050 Ti.

I did some research and the Ryzen 7 5800H and the Apple Silicon M1 don't seem that far apart in performance but the MacBook Air seems much faster in launching applications and switching web sites in a browser window.

 Update 2023.01.04: I got an e-mail from ASUS thanking me for taking the effort to write a review but that it did not follow their guidelines and was rejected.  I guess you can't tell people that the WiFi isn't working well and that it was the only one of four devices not staying connected.  Oops. 

Update 2023.01.21: Saw a report about Intel's WiFi hardware dropping connections in other machines.  It didn/t mention the Intel hardware I have but I wouldn't be surprised if all of their technology is just a bit sloppy.

I've moved to another room and my computer desk is pretty much right above the router, so I'm getting a better signal.

Windows update 22H2 was ready today and I confirmed that I wanted it installed.  Things don't seem different so far.  Hopefully, the bug fixes will make things better.  Windows 11 seems buggy.

Update 2023.06.04: I haven't seen a firmware update for a while and only occasional Windows updates, although a substantial feature update is due.

Machine is working well.  Fans kick in frequently while I'm playing Honkai: Star Rail and other recent games.  Graphics are good and OLED is sharp.  Keyboard is...meh.

Update 2024.09.09: Microsoft keeps pushing AI-related updates and each one seems to degrade performance of games and other high usage applications.  The machine itself is doing a great job.  The keyboard is still annoying.  They should have ditched the numeric keypad in order to have a better keyboard.