Sometimes , a society makes a laptop with a singular design destination in mind , such as making it as light as potential . The result can be a laptop computer that compromise in too many country , such as a too - pocket-size stamp battery or a construction that feels a small flimsy . Asus has bring out the Zenbook A14 that ’s one of the lightest14 - in laptopsever , and I was a little disquieted that it might tolerate the same luck as some other really light motorcar .
Fortunately , it does not . It ’s solidly built ( with just one complaint ) and it has a tumid battery that afford exceptional battery life , even with an excellent OLED presentation . The trick : Asus used a new stuff to accomplish that light weight , along with the highly effective Qualcomm Snapdragon X chipset and a lower presentation resolution . The result is a laptop that looks and feels enceinte , run fast , and lasts a long time .
Specs and configuration
Asus has just two configurations are on sales event today . The base configuration cost $ 1,000 , and it includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chipset , 16 GB of RAM , a 512 GB SSD , and a 14.0 - column inch FHD+ OLED display . For $ 1,200 , you get 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD .
That ’s a good price for a well - configured laptop that has twice the storage of theApple MacBook Air 13 ( M4 ) . It qualifies as a midrange price , while the laptop feels like it ’s quite premium . So , it ’s not a steal , exactly , but you wo n’t sense like you spend too much money .
Design
The Zenbook A14 ’s primary call to fame is its incredibly sluttish weighting , coming in at just 2.4 pounds . That ’s not the lightheaded laptop we ’ve image , but it ’s light enough for a 14 - in laptop that you ’ll barely notice it in your haversack — and yet , to my surprise , it deflect notion thin as lightweight laptops sometimes do . That ’s thanks to a Modern “ Ceraluminum ” compound in the hat , keyboard inning , and base . Ceraluminum is the result of dipping aluminium in a tub and apply high emf , a process that metamorphose the Earth’s surface metal into what Asus describes as a “ hard , ceramic - corresponding layer . ”
And it certainly feels different . In fact , it felt weird to me when I first pull up it out of the boxful , but as I handled the Zenbook A14 a footling more , I find myself liking it . And another plus is that the Ceralumium promises to keep the surface free of scratches and defect . For example , I could n’t get it to hold onto a fingerprint no matter how intemperately I tried .
The keyboard deck and figure bottom are solid , and the very flimsy lid has just the slightest give under press . That ’s reasonably full , view that some other bounty laptops show the same and they ’re not nearly as light . That Ceraluminum texture has a ardent flavour , too , and while the edge are a fiddling sharp they did n’t cut into my wrists . The Apple MacBook Air 13 is a little more substantial all around , but it ’s also heavier at 2.7 pounds in spite of being a bit smaller and much tenuous ( 0.45 column inch versus 0.63 inches ) with a 13.6 - inch showing . And maybe what ’s most impressive about the Zenbook A14 ’s light weight is that there ’s still a large 70 W - hour battery inside , which as we ’ll see pays some tangible dividends in seniority .
I do have one charge about the ZenBook A14 ’s construction : the hinge is too light . The lid can be opened with one hand , which is great , but it also wobble more than I like and falls backward when the laptop is elevate by the base . And , the flexible joint wo n’t hold up the lid when it ’s any less than about halfway assailable , meaning it falls come together with a reverberative elasticity . Asus did a net ton of examination to assert that the laptop computer is robust , but even so it was a spot upsetting . I wish the hinge was a bit firmer , and I question if peradventure Asus want to exercise on the design a bit . The reviewer ’s usher has a paragraph on the “ EasyLife ” innovation , and I ca n’t say that my reassessment unit ’s hinge mate up very well .
esthetically , the Zenbook A14 stands apart from some other Zenbooks I ’ve review . It has none of the geometrical pattern you ’ll find on many Asus laptops , and the Iceland Gray and Zabriskie Beige ( ? ) color ways see nice but are wholly minimalist . There ’s a plumpness to the pattern that I like , and its fragile display bezels contribute to a modern look . I still slightly prefer some other laptops in this wish , like the MacBook Air 13 and theHP OmniBook Ultra 14 , but I have no ill about the Asus .
Keyboard and touchpad
The keyboard is spacious enough , with a comfortable layout and expectant keycaps . The switches are light with a snappy bottoming action , but it lacked a bit of the crispness that I like . I get up to accelerate quickly enough and writing this review was n’t jade , but I ’d rank the keyboard just a dance step behind Apple ’s Magic Keyboard and the first-class translation HP is using on its OmniBook and EliteBook batting order .
The touchpad is reasonably large , and it ’s a mechanically skillful translation with buttons that are quiet and snappy . As far as mechanical touchpads go , it ’s fine , but more and more laptops are including haptic touchpads that I like a deal honest . Apple ’s Force Touch touchpad with its Force Click feature remains the best touchpad on a laptop today .
Connectivity and webcam
Connectivity is good , with two truehearted USB4 ports , a USB - A embrasure for legacy twist , and an HDMI 2.1 port . The biggest problem is that like most laptop today , the Zenbook A14 charges via USB - C and so you only have one of those port usable when plugged in . That ’s not unusual , though , so it ’s not really a ding against the Asus . I do opt Apple ’s MagSafe 3 connexion on its MacBooks , which keeps all the porthole available for enjoyment . Wireless connectivity is also one multiplication behind , which surprises me a little given the Qualcomm chipset .
The webcam is a 1080p adaptation , which has become the new minimal banner . More and more laptops are being released with higher resolution webcams , but this one is right enough for a calibre simulacrum . The Snapdragon X chipset has a profligate Neural Processing Unit ( NPU ) run at 45 tera operations per second ( TOPS ) , which exceeds the 40 TOPS command for Microsoft ’s Copilot+ PC AI initiative . That means the Zenbook A14 can execute the various Copilot+ AI feature on - equipment with better efficiency . Asus also adds several of its own utilities that can utilize the NPU , such as its racket cancellation function and its StoryCube app for managing and heighten photos and videos .
Performance
The Zenbook A14 is the first Windows on ARM laptop computer I ’ve reviewed in the last couple of month , and I see that the political platform is doing mulct . There are some incompatibilities that might travel up some users , but I have n’t run across any that would matter in my workflow . I call up that for most substance abuser , Windows on ARM will be full functional . And that ’s a good thing , because the Qualcomm Snapdragon X card is fast enough for the most demanding productivity users , and that ’s this laptop computer ’s target market . And Qualcomm also focused on efficiency , a trademark of the ARM computer architecture that also shows up in Apple Silicon .
My review whole used the Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42 - 100 chipset , an 8 - marrow chipset running at a max multi - core absolute frequency of 3.2GHz that promote to 3.4GHz undivided - core . That makes it the secondly - slowest Snapdragon X chipset and well behind the debauched Snapdragon X Elite chipset with 12 core and faster speed . Its Adreno integrated graphics run at 1.7 TFLOPs , which is also the slowest in the lineup . It ’s up against Intel ’s Lunar Lake chipset that ’s also aimed more at efficiency . Note that all of the results number are in each laptop ’s “ performance ” modal value .
As we can see in our benchmark , the Zenbook A14 was faster than Lunar Lake but not as fast as the Snapdragon X Elite . That ’s to be await . It fell even more importantly behind in the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme bench mark , where Lunar Lake ’s Intel Arc 140V graphics did better .
The determination is that the Zenbook A14 is a very firm laptop computer for demand productivity workflows , but it wo n’t impress in play or creative tasks that calculate on a fast GPU .
Battery life
As I mentioned earlier , the Zenbook A14 manages to be very lightsome while jam in a big 70 James Watt - 60 minutes stamp battery . That ’s mass for a 14 - inch laptop , and when you view the extremely efficient Qualcomm chipset , it predict well for length of service . Even easily , Asus made just the right via media with the display , offering a great OLED panel but keeping the resolve down a bit .
The final result is some of the salutary stamp battery life I ’ve seen from a Windows laptop . The best machines in our comparison group use IPS displays , such as the Qualcomm - basedAcer Swift Go 14 , mean that the Zenbook A14 does a keen problem of offer up a timbre visual experience that nevertheless survive for a long fourth dimension . This is potentially multi - day assault and battery life , depending on your work flow — something that , until of late , only the MacBook Air 13 with Apple ’s implausibly effective Apple Silicon processors could gas .
Display and audio
As I just tell , Asus choose a display that compromises between quality and sharpness . It ’s a 14.0 - column inch 16:10 FHD+ ( 1920 x 1200 ) OLED control board , meaning it ’s not as acute given the filmdom size of it as the more common 2.8 K diversity , but unless you pay a lot of tending you might not notice . I ’m a writer who loves sharp inglorious text on a white ground , and OLED provides the contrast while 2.8 K render the sharpness . But I suspect that most people wo n’t notice the lower resolution well-nigh as much as they note the inky Black person and dynamic color .
According to my tintometer , the video display relish the usual spectacular OLED calibre . It ’s bright at 411 nits , well above the 300 - nit standard we ’ve had for class . Blacks are perfect , and so demarcation is exceedingly high . Colors are wide at 100 % sRGB , 97 % AdobeRGB , and 100 % DCI - P3 , and they ’re incredibly precise at a DeltaE of 0.88 ( 1.0 or less is considered excellent for any use ) .
If you do n’t require the sharp text , you ’ll love this exhibit . It ’s great for every use including productivity and originative work ( although the performance does n’t quite keep up here ) , and culture medium consumption including gamey dynamical range ( HDR ) content looks great .
The audio is n’t quite as telling . The double downward - firing speakers are loud , but there ’s some aberration when turn all the elbow room up . And the lack of sea bass is palpable , with the clear mids and highs coming across as a footling tinny . You ’ll want to apply a span of headphones for more than just the episodic YouTube video , and the MacBook Air 13 ’s quad verbalizer apparatus is a good deal better .
A really light laptop that still lasts a long time
The Zenbook A14 kind of grow on me the more I used it . At first , it just finger kind of eldritch , with a open that was n’t quick like plastic but was n’t quite like metal , either . But the more I handled it , the more I like it . All the body of work Asus put into its Ceraluminum cloth was n’t wasted . I care the flexible joint was tighter , but that was n’t at all a dealbreaker for me .
And I love that even though it ’s very light , it still got class - lead battery sprightliness with solid productiveness performance . It ’s right up there with the MacBook Air 13 ( M4 ) , which is saying something . If you ’re wait for a 14 - column inch laptop that you do n’t need for play or TV editing , then you really necessitate to give the Zenbook A14 some serious retainer .
