ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564 review – great build quality and interesting hardware

If you fancy yourself a convertible laptop that isn’t down on power, the ZenBook Flip series is a viable option. Thus far, we’ve tested many ZenBook’s and very few of them have ever disappointed. Today, our office is home to the ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564.

Ultimately, this is a device that sits right in the middle of the ULV and high-power category. Perhaps this is why ASUS offers a bizarre combination of hardware. You can either get the Core i7-11370H, which is a 35W Tiger Lake processor, or the Core i7-1165G7, presumably utilizing a 28W TDP.

Traditionally, this notebook is paired with a Max-Q version of the base GTX graphics card from NVIDIA. In this case, it is either the GTX 1650 Max-Q or the GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q.

In case you were wondering, this is the IPS display version. And if you’re not familiar with the ZenBook lineup, some of their series comes in two iterations – one with an IPS display, and one with an OLED panel. Nevertheless, the manufacturer promises 100% sRGB coverage, 300 nits of maximum brightness, and PANTONE Validated colors. We’ll put those claims to the test, of course!

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-zenbook-flip-15-ux564/

Contents

Specs Sheet

What’s in the box?

Inside this device’s package, you will find a 120W power brick, some paper manuals, and crucially – a dedicated stylus. Additionally, you get a sleeve to protect your device when you’re traveling.

Design and construction

This laptop is constructed out of metal. And to our surprise, it is extremely rigid. There is virtually no flex from either the base or the lid. Perhaps the latter’s strength is enhanced by the glass display cover, but nevertheless, it is impressive. Well, it might seem a bit hefty for a convertible with its weight of 1.90 kg, and thickness of 19.9mm.

Unfortunately, but expectedly, the lid can’t be opened with a single hand. However, the backside of the base is lifted from the ground as soon as you get past 90°. Obviously, the hinge mechanism allows you to use the device as a tablet or in tent mode, with the included stylus offering you 4096 pressure detection points. Additionally, you get an HD camera with an optional IR face recognition sensor above the display. It’s worth mentioning that the bezels around the display are very thin.

As you can see, most of the base is reserved for the keyboard. It has a NumberPad section and a backlight. Also, you get a reasonable amount of key travel and feedback that is in the middle of being soft or clicky.

However, the touchpad and its glass cover are smooth and quick to respond, making it one of the better units out there.

Another thing we would like to mention while we are here is that there is a chamfered edge going all around the base. It is a little sharp and can be felt by your wrists.

Now, if you turn the laptop upside down, you will notice the speaker cutouts, as well as the ventilation grill. Notice that the location of the vent is nowhere near the fans. This allows cool air to pass above some components like the VRMs and actively cools them. Respectively, the hot air gets exhausted from two vents – one on either side of the device.

Ports

On the left side, there is a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, an HDMI 2.0b connector, and an SD card reader. And on the right, you get the charging plug, an Audio jack, and two Thunderbolt 4 connectors. Here is also the place, where you will find the Power button.

Display quality

ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564 in the configuration we tested has a Full HD IPS panel with a model number BOE NV156FHM-N63 (BOE07D8) – expectedly, the same as the UX533. Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution is 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

It has comfortable viewing angles. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

The measured maximum brightness of 298 nits in the middle of the screen and 281 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 9%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 6550K – almost matching the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work. The contrast ratio is good – 960:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 90% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 36 ms – the panel is slow.

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564’s display is free of flickerings, which means it doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness level. This, in turn, makes it comfortable for long work periods, by not harming your eyes in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564 configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS BOE NV156FHM-N63 (BOE07D8).

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Sound

ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564’s Harman Kardon speakers produce a sound of very good quality. Its low, mid, and high tones are clear of deviations, but the maximum volume is not very high.

Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://www.asus.com/Laptops/For-Home/Zenbook/Zenbook-Flip-15-UX564/HelpDesk_knowledge/?model2Name=Zenbook-Flip-15-UX564EH

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This laptop’s huge 96Wh battery delivers 21 hours and 20 minutes of Web browsing, and 11 hours and 9 minutes of video playback.

CPU options

This device can be found with the Core i7-11370H and the Core i7-1165G7.

GPU options

Besides the integrated graphics, there are the GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q, and GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q, both coming with 4GB of GDDR6 memory.

Gaming tests

Far Cry 5	Full HD, Normal (Check settings)	Full HD, High (Check settings)	Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q	52 fps	48 fps	45 fps

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016)	Full HD, Lowest (Check settings)	Full HD, Medium (Check settings)	Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q	104 fps	69 fps	33 fps

Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018)	Full HD, Lowest (Check settings)	Full HD, Medium (Check settings)	Full HD, High (Check settings)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q	87 fps	46 fps	39 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands	Full HD, Medium (Check settings)	Full HD, High (Check settings)	Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q	46 fps	43 fps	37 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i7-11370H (35W TDP)	0:02 – 0:10 sec	0:15 – 0:30 sec	10:00 – 15:00 min
ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564	3.66 GHz (B+11%) @ 92°C @ 43W	3.47 GHz (B+5%) @ 91°C @ 38W	3.39 GHz (B+3%) @ 92°C @ 34W
Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (PT314-51s)	3.97 GHz (B+20%) @ 95°C @ 64W	4.03 GHz (B+22%) @ 97°C @ 63W	3.87 GHz (B+17%) @ 93°C @ 50W
ASUS TUF Dash F15 (FX516)	4.01 GHz (B+22%) @ 78°C @ 64W	4.00 GHz (B+21%) @ 82°C @ 64W	3.96 GHz (B+20%) @ 90°C @ 60W

Ultimately, this laptop’s cooling wasn’t capable enough to maintain the 35W TDP limit head-on. This is not that uncommon though, as the Tiger Lake architecture is pretty taxing on the cooling solution of every laptop.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q	GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)	GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)
ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564	1560 MHz @ 69°C @ 35W	1544 MHz @ 71°C @ 35W
MSI Prestige 15	1408 MHz @ 70°C	1388 MHz @ 74°C
MSI GF63 10SCXR	1230 MHz @ 77°C	1250 MHz @ 78°C
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 2	1345 MHz @ 69°C	1343 MHz @ 72°C
ASUS ZenBook 15 UX534	1229 MHz @ 77°C	1221 MHz @ 78°C

In our tests, we found that the GTX 1650 Max-Q inside of this notebook is running at 35W. Nevertheless, it posts pretty high clock speeds and is running at a relatively low temperature.

Comfort during combined load

During the 30 minutes of combined load (such as gaming), the fans got rather loud. On the bright side, the warmest part of the keyboard was just shy of 40°C.

Verdict

Apart from the weird hardware configuration options, this laptop looked really solid. This includes the structural integrity, which was unmatched in this class of convertibles.

Additionally, we were impressed by the battery life. This is because ASUS figured out that the Tiger Lake H35 processor and GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q/GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q will definitely be a pain in the …R&D department… to optimize, and put a 96Wh battery. And then… they optimized their machine perfectly. What is the result of this? Well, we got 21 hours and 20 minutes of Web browsing out of it. Indeed, watching HD videos will drain it significantly more quickly, but it is still good for more than 11 hours of screen-on time.

ASUS ZenBook Flip 15 UX564’s touchscreen IPS panel has a Full HD resolution and comfortable viewing angles. It covers 91% of the sRGB gamut, and its backlight doesn’t use PWM.

Well, yes, even with our profile the colors were on the edge of being standard-matching, but it is good to know that you have some sort of customization options through their “My ASUS” app.

Speaking of which, this program allows you to choose from a couple of fan profiles. You get Whisper mode, which allows for a nearly silent operation. Then, there is the Standard mode, which is pretty self-explanatory, and finally – the Performance mode. The latter provides the best possible cooling and performance, but as we found out – running Prime95 to stress test it, it wasn’t too hasty to spin the two fans.

What we didn’t particularly like about the ZenBook Flip 15 UX564 is that it has its memory soldered to the motherboard. This prevents future upgrades, which is unfortunate. On the other hand, there is one M.2 PCIe x4 slot.

Also, as some consolation, the I/O is rather wide with two Thunderbolt 4 connectors, a full-sized SD card slot, HDMI 2.0b connector, and a dedicated USB Type-A port. Not too shabby.

The fact that ASUS provides a stylus inside the box is indicative of the serious intentions of the manufacturer towards its users. The attention to detail in the build quality and the supreme structural toughness of the notebook make it a choice, which will last.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/asus-zenbook-flip-15-ux564/