ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED (B5602CVN) Review — all-Intel content creation excellence

ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED (B5602CVN)

7

The ExpertBook B5 OLED is worthy of consideration, if you find yourself using a lot of OpenCL or Intel QuickSync.

What's Good?

• Ultraportable creator machine
• Good performance for creators
• Upgradeability

What's Not?

• Could do with more ports
• Bezels could be thinner
• Not the best power budgeting

Remember when I said the ExpertBook B5 series comes with plenty of options? Well, today we will be looking at yet another option: the 16-inch ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED (BN5602CVN) which delivers all that business users need like its military-grade durability, spill-proof design while also throwing in a few interesting bits, like a stunning 4K OLED display, as well as the still somewhat uncommon Intel Arc graphics. So, what’s good, and what’s not about this laptop? Let’s find out.

ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED — What’s Good?

Ultraportable creator machine

I am sure there are plenty of budding creators out there who get cheap gaming laptops for the performance, completely neglecting the fact that the crappy displays would hold them back. I was one of them as well. Well, that won’t be a problem with this laptop gives you a fantastic ASUS Lumina OLED display, a sweet 16-inch 4K OLED panel, 550 nits peak brightness, 100% DCI-P3 and Pantone Validated color accuracy. In terms of visual fidelity, this is about as good as it gets. And, it’s also really light at just 1.5kg, despite its 16-inch display, which is less than what many 15-inch machines weigh.

And then, we get to the performance. ASUS went with a very interesting configuration, pairing up the discrete Intel Arc A350M graphics with a 13th Gen Intel Core P-series processor. This is quite unusual, but it does have its benefits versus the more common H-series and discrete graphics combos. For starters, the P-series processor will sip power for better battery life, while still delivering plenty of performance for most applications. This is a laptop that’s meant for simpler content creation — think Digital Marketing, rather than the Creatives team. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and let’s see how does the specs on paper translate to real-world performance figures.

Good performance for creators

When it comes to creativity workloads, the Arc A350M does come in handy, serving up great scores in Realbench’s OpenCL test. PCMark also sees the ExpertBook B5 OLED perform really well in digital content creation, outperforming even the TUF Gaming Dash F15. However due to issues that we will discuss later in this article, the overall score is somewhat lackluster. For what it’s worth, I also tested this machine with Blender 3.6, and the popular bmw27 cycle was completed in just 1:20.37.

If you were somehow planning on getting this laptop for some gaming, well, look elsewhere. Creativity performance was great but the gaming performance of the Arc A350M leaves much to be desired. Overall performance was not appreciably faster than 2022’s Zenbook S13 OLED with the Ryzen 7 6800U. And of course, it’s a far cry from the GeForce RTX 3060 in the TUF Gaming Dash F15.

Last but not least, battery life. Do not be fooled by its position at the bottom of the chart though, as we are looking at a 4K+ OLED panel in the ExpertBook B5 OLED, and that does take a huge toll on the battery. If it came with a lower resolution display, I think the ExpertBook B5 OLED (B5602CVN) would rank much higher. I do like that ASUS crammed in a huge 84WHr battery into this laptop, as it will allow creators to at least have some freedom when not plugged in to the wall.

Upgradeability

As you can see from the above benchmarks, the performance is pretty good out the box. But if you need more RAM or storage, you can always upgrade the ExpertBook B5 OLED. You get one SO-DIMM slots and two M.2 SSD bays, meaning you can easily swap out the RAM for a 32GB stick for 40GB RAM, or drop in another SSD for more storage. I think given the size of this laptop, we could have easily gone for a dual SO-DIMM configuration like the ROG Flow X16, but at least we do have some expandability here for future upgrades down the line.

Solid build quality

For a 16-inch laptop, the ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED is actually really light. I think it might even be one of the lightest 16-inchers in the market right now with discrete graphics. With that said, it’s very clear that ASUS didn’t sacrifice toughness in favor of portability, as the whole laptop feels very sturdy with very minimal give on any surface, thanks to the use of magnesium alloy for the lid and palm rest area. It does peculiarly enough feel somewhat plasticky to the touch, but that’s more to do with the finishing ASUS went with.

Looking deeper into ASUS’ specs sheet, we also see that it meets the US MIL-STD-810H laptop durability standards, so you should be feeling quite confident hauling this around town with you in a backpack. And if that’s not enough, the comprehensive 3-year global warranty with local onsite coverage, 3-year battery warranty and 1-year accidental damage protection should give you all the peace of mind you need to make the ExpertBook B5 OLED part of your EDC.

ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED — What’s Not?

Could do with more ports

To be fair, I have praised ASUS for including this exact assortment of ports in their smaller laptops. However, you can’t really blame me for expecting more from the ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED. After all, it’s a 16-incher with plenty of room to spare. I guess ASUS could have at least gone for a full-sized SD card reader and added another USB-C port for charging. It doesn’t have to support any fancy stuff, just charging and maybe USB 2.0. With all that said, kudos to ASUS for going with USB-PD charging here, instead of adopting a barrel charger.

Bezels could be thinner

I have always noticed that ASUS doesn’t give the ExpertBook series their thinnest bezels. I believe it is to leave some buffer around the display panel in the event of a drop, but since this is a 16-inch laptop, the ExpertBook B5 OLED ends up with a somewhat sizeable footprint. It’s around 5% bigger than the Vivobook 16X, while being marginally thicker. It still slides easily into most backpacks designed for 15.6-inch laptops, so it isn’t that bad, but I guess from an aesthetic point of view, the bezels do look somewhat out of place in a 2023 laptop, especially one in the rather premium price segment.

Not the best power budgeting

Oddly enough, while Intel talked up all about the Intel Deep Link Dynamic Power Share, the ExpertBook B5 OLED (B5602CVN) cripples the CPU whenever the GPU is active. As soon as the GPU gets any activity, the CPU power limit drops to 13W. This persists even when the GPU is barely under load, drawing below 1W. I am not sure if ASUS or Intel is to blame, but it really handicaps performance in mixed workloads like our Realbench benchmark which switches between CPU-heavy and GPU-heavy workloads. Given that both CPU and GPU are from the same company, I was expecting better things, but this is quite disappointing to me.

ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED (B5602CVN) Specifications

ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED — should you buy this?

For RM8,499, the ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED (B5602CVN) is really on the pricier side of things. The fact that ASUS went with Intel graphics doesn’t help either. The reason why a lot of creators still swear by NVIDIA’s solutions is because of the support for CUDA cores and NVENC, on top of the newer features on tap like AI-acceleration with Tensor cores and real-time raytracing. Going with Intel graphics might prove to be a riskier option, but I am more confident in support from Intel, given that they are working really hard on getting developers to support their features, unlike the red camp.

I guess it really boils down to what your workloads entail. The ExpertBook B5 OLED is worthy of consideration, if you find yourself using a lot of OpenCL or Intel QuickSync. Support will only get better, and in recent months, we have seen Intel graphics’ gaming performance go from strength to strength via driver updates. But, if you want something that’s probably better supported across pretty much everything, including gaming, ASUS also has beefed-up ultraportables like the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED (UX3404) with the GeForce RTX 3050, and save a pretty penny.

For more info about the ASUS ExpertBook B5 OLED: https://www.asus.com/Laptops/For-Work/ExpertBook/ExpertBook-B5-OLED-B5602-13th-Gen-Intel/