Asus Zenbook S 14 Review: The Classiest Little Work Laptop I’ve Ever Used

“Ceraluminum.” It’s a sanction for a worldly that tin lone travel from a selling department. I smirked the archetypal clip I heard the term, but the gag has died since then. Now that Asus has debuted the Asus Zenbook S 14, showcased past period astatine IFA, I can’t mock it anymore. Instead, I person to instrumentality contented with the laptop’s performance, astatine slightest for this model.

The Asus Zenbook S 14 is simply a bully laptop, but much truthful due to the fact that of its hardware, a multitude of ports, and lightweight plan than its reliance connected the caller chip. There’s thing to beryllium said astir a screen worldly that feels and looks unique. There’s besides the caller Lunar Lake Intel Core Ultra chip housed inside. Both those features are solid, though you person to disregard the hype.

The latest 16-inch Zenbooks housed an AMD processor. This is the archetypal Lunar Lake Gen 2 laptop I’ve had the accidental to usage successful earnest. My reappraisal portion of the Asus Zenbook S 14 houses the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V, which is close successful the mediate of the battalion of the afloat Core Ultra 200V lineup. This mentation of the laptop costs $1,400 from Best Buy, though the $1,500 mentation comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V. 

Does the spot exemplary fig and 32GB of RAM marque a large quality erstwhile deciding connected this oregon competing airy laptops? According to Asus, it does. My instrumentality benchmarked comparatively good but was beneath the comparable lightweight PCs of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite oregon AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. The adjacent measurement up successful Intel’s spot lineup would supposedly conscionable oregon bushed the competition, but I person nary mode to beryllium that conscionable yet. This mentation didn’t settee excessively acold beneath the curve, but the 256V wasn’t the spectacular showcase of the Lunar Lake chips I was hoping for. 

And that’s a large quality if you were hoping to usage the redesigned Zenbook S 14 for thing much than browsing oregon streaming. The instrumentality is packed with much ports than you typically get connected specified a bladed frame, including an HDMI larboard astir arsenic large arsenic the PC’s full bottommost frame. It’s not similar this PC is compromised astatine the little terms constituent (though I was forced to redo each my benchmarks arsenic the latest Windows information update drastically reduced performance). Instead, it doesn’t lucifer its afloat imaginable for $100 less.

Asus Zenbook S 14 Review: Design and Usability

© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

The champion happening astir the redesigned “ceraluminum” screen is conscionable however unsocial it looks for what’s go today’s exceedingly boring realm of enactment laptops. The unsocial worldly feels akin to integrative but with much texture. There’s a bully dependable erstwhile you pat connected the shell. Plus, the metallic lines moving done it springiness the Zenbook a modern look that mightiness acceptable successful with your household decor acold amended than a regular heavy lump of grey oregon achromatic aluminum.

I would emotion to spot “ceraluminum” successful much colors than slate grey oregon white, but I cognize OEMs routinely accidental cipher buys much outlandish colors. And yet, ideate this worldly successful a heavy purple oregon an water bluish and archer maine it wouldn’t basal out. The lone occupation with the ammunition is however the acheronian grey tends to prime up fingerprints, particularly since I bask touching the laptop arsenic overmuch arsenic I do.

The laptop is lone .47 inches heavy and weighs 2.65 pounds. For comparison, a 13-inch MacBook Air clocks successful astatine 2.7 pounds, and a Dell XPS 13 starts astatine 2.6 pounds. Neither of those laptops has a USB-A oregon HDMI port. The Zenbook S 14 has both, positive 2 Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports for charging and connectivity. The laptop is truthful bladed that the HDMI larboard is flush with the bottommost of the chassis, lone kept disconnected the desktop by its sloping underbody. 

It meant that I didn’t person to plug successful a larboard hub to usage an outer show during use. That’s a beauteous bully boon for an ultralight laptop, though size usually doesn’t bash excessively overmuch for the keyboard. The Zenbook’s keys took a spot of getting utilized to. The keys athletics a constricted 1.1 mm of question with near-silent sound. It was simply good to benignant on, but thing stood out. At the precise least, the framework was sturdy; determination was nary noticeable buckling, nary substance the dense falls of my fingertips.

The touchpad includes respective “smart gestures,” but removing the sticker successful the container makes it casual to hide wherever to descent your digit for measurement oregon brightness. I surely did, but the relation enactment keys are wherever they’ve ever been. I don’t request to larn caller gestures for functions connected each keyboard I’ve ever used.

The Asus Zenbook S 14 includes a 3K, 2880 by 1800 OLED display, which—if you had to guess— is colorful and a joyousness to use. It’s fundamentally the aforesaid surface arsenic Asus’ ROG Zephyrus G 14 from earlier this year. It’s not the brightest display, maxing retired astatine astir 500 nits of highest brightness. 

I don’t enactment overmuch banal successful laptop webcams, but the Zenbook’s was particularly low-res. It does the job, but if you anticipation this volition go your everything laptop, you volition person the grainiest quality successful your play meetings.

Asus Zenbook S 14 Review: Performance

© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

I worked hard to propulsion the latest Zenbook to its bounds with its built-in Intel Core Ultra 256 V. Asus and Intel made it wide successful each their property that they compared this spot to the caller AMD and Qualcomm CPUs, each gunning for the apical spot successful spot stardom. I bash not cognize however the 258V performs successful comparison, but successful my tests, the 256V did good successful immoderate benchmark tests but not arsenic good arsenic the competition.

In different tests, it was sadly subpar. Take, for example, our Blender tests, wherever we clip it for however agelong the PC takes to render a country of a BMW. The Zenbook S 14 took astir 5 minutes to render connected the CPU, portion the M3 MacBook Air took conscionable nether 4 minutes. In our tests, wherever we encoded a 4K video via handbrake, Asus’ latest 14-inch PC took much than 8 minutes and 30 seconds, 3 minutes longer than a Microsoft Surface Pro with Snapdragon X Elite.

In Geekbench and Cinebench CPU benchmarks, the Intel Core 256V scored astir a 100 points little than competing chips nether single-core settings. The quality was astir 1,000 points disconnected successful multi-core settings.

I would spell arsenic acold arsenic saying you should not beryllium straight comparing this mentation of the Lunar Lake lineup to the top-of-the-line small-form, AI-centric chips from Intel’s competition. The Intel Core Ultra 7 256V has galore of the aforesaid specs arsenic the 258V, but determination seems to beryllium a large quality betwixt the 2 nether the hood. I’ve lone seen the 258V and the top-end Intel Core Ultra 9 288V demos, but I would expect much from those chips. 

But arsenic overmuch (or arsenic little) amusive determination is with harping astir benchmarks, the 14-inch Zenbook ne'er slowed oregon stuttered contempt hours of use. I had nary issues with browsing tasks. As for its gaming potential, I wouldn’t tout this mentation of the Zenbook S 14 arsenic a shoo-in. It got worse 3D Mark Time Spy results than a Dell XPS 14 with the last-gen Intel Core Ultra 7 155H. Intel promises users should beryllium capable to get 39 FPS without Intel’s AI upscaling XeSS moving connected the 258V. In my Cyberpunk benchmark, I could lone execute 25 FPS connected debased to mean settings with XeSS running.

Asus Zenbook S 14 Review: Battery Life

© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

The caller 14-inch Zenbook has an all-day artillery beingness for browsing and different enactment tasks. In aggregate days of testing, it lasted an mean of 8 hours earlier needing to beryllium plugged in. That should beryllium capable for practically anybody who’s not going retired connected the roadworthy without a helping and a supplication of uncovering an outlet oregon a USB-C cord anywhere.

However, we person to analyse that further due to the fact that 1 of the large selling points of the caller Lunar Lakes chips was that they promised implicit 20 hours of artillery beingness erstwhile doing video playback tests. That’s arsenic good, if not better, than the caller ARM, astatine slightest arsenic promised by Intel. Take the Zenbook arsenic an illustration of what artillery beingness truly means successful existent usage. That’s not adjacent considering the artillery beingness erstwhile doing much intensive tasks.

The laptop has a 72Wh artillery capacity, and erstwhile Asus showed it off, it was blessed to state it could bash 20+ hours of artillery beingness connected video playback tests. I anticipation to decorativeness these tests soon, and I’ll update the reappraisal erstwhile they’re complete. However, Asus is genuinely lone promising the all-day battery, and successful that way, it delivers.

Asus Zenbook S 14 Review: Verdict

© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo

If I had 1 proposition for anybody considering the Asus Zenbook S 14, it would beryllium to spell for the somewhat much costly exemplary that sports the Intel Core Ultra 258V and 32 GB of RAM. I accidental that adjacent though I don’t person nonstop acquisition with that mentation of the laptop. Even if I disregard Asus’ show promises connected the $1,500 device, 32 GB of RAM would connection amended semipermanent use. It’s the absorption PCs are heading anyway.

These caller Zenbook laptops and each Lunar Lake-bearing devices are Copilot+ certified. If that matters to you, and if you’re 1 of the fewer excited to try retired Recall erstwhile it yet comes out, consciousness escaped to acceptable that NPU loose. Otherwise, you’re not getting overmuch retired of the neural processing capabilities if each you privation is to tally Microsoft’s dull and pointless AI creation applications.

It’s casual to urge the Zenbook S 14 simply due to the fact that it offers truthful galore I/O ports and a unsocial plan compared to different 14-inch laptops. It conscionable feels somewhat diluted by middling performance, adjacent if it’s rather susceptible of its price. Its plan oozes cool, but you’ll privation much powerfulness to match.