This Asus Zenbook is built for space, but you can use it in the office

This story is part of CES, where CNET covers the latest news on the most incredible tech coming soon.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Asus P6300 laptop’s trip to space for use on the Mir space station, spending more than 600 days in orbit, Asus is releasing a Space Edition of its Zenbook 14X OLED. While the laptop might share the same shape as that model, it has a unique design and special packaging inspired by the P6300’s stay on the space station. And of course it’s now loaded with the latest 12th-gen Intel Core i9 H-series processors announced at CES 2022.

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Asus reveals two Zenbook 14 OLED laptops at CES 2022

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One of the biggest changes to the design is the addition of a 3.5-inch OLED display mounted on the lid. Asus calls it a ZenVision smart display, and it can show custom messages, different themes and animations as well as the date and time. The lid and wrist rests are finished with patterns of the Mir station and Morse code with arc lines that symbolize a space capsule, Asus said in its CES announcement for the laptop. The Morse code translates to “Ad Astra Per Aspera,” which itself translates to “Through the hardships to the stars.” 

The patterns continue inside to the wrist rests, though you’ll probably be spending most of your time staring into the gorgeous 14-inch, 2,880×1,800-pixel OLED display. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio for a little more vertical workspace than a widescreen display. It also has a 90Hz refresh rate, it’s certified as VESA DisplayHDR 500 and Pantone validated and, like most OLEDs, it covers 100% of the P3 color gamut. 

And if you have space travel in your future, you’ll be glad to know this Zenbook 14X can handle it. Asus says it meets US Space Systems Command Standard SMC-S-016A testing protocols and can handle extreme vibration and climate conditions down to -24 degrees Celsius (-11 Fahrenheit) and up to 61 degrees Celsius (142 Fahrenheit).

The laptop is powered by the latest 12th-gen Intel Core i9 H-series processors and Intel Iris Xe graphics. It will be configured with up to 32GB of LPDDR5 memory and a 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen4 SSD. Support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 is included, as are two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports. 

The Asus Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition is expected to be available in Q2 of this year, and pricing will be announced at that time. Also, if you’re interested in the Zenbook 14X OLED but without the space theme, Asus is updating the regular 14X OLED with an Intel Core i7 P-series or i9 H-series processors and, depending on the configuration, it’ll have Nvidia GeForce MX550 discrete graphics or Intel Iris Xe graphics.