I Might Finally Understand the ‘Ceraluminum’ Gimmick With the Asus Zenbook S 14

The weirdest laptop gimmick I’ve seen successful 2024 came from Asus with the Zenbook S 16 and the touted “ceraluminum.” It’s a made-up word for the company’s caller benignant of laptop material, and I thought it was conscionable much tech satellite nonsense. A portion of maine inactive believes that, but erstwhile the new Lunar Lake laptops all committedness large gains successful artillery life, the new Zenbook S 14’s elemental worldly gimmick someway intrigues maine more for this productivity machine. 

What is ceraluminum? Asus has said it’s a merchandise of a worldly bonding with a ceramic worldly to aluminum. It’s each excessively mysterious and, therefore, silly. When you’re utilizing buzzwords similar “ceramization” to picture the process of making your laptop shells, you’re drafting attraction distant from the astir important parts of the laptop itself. The worldly is expected to marque the backplate tougher and lighter. Each laptop technically has its minutely unsocial texture, but don’t commencement reasoning each caller Zenbook is bespoke.

The Zenbook S 14 feels similar integrative but offers a fewer taps and has a ringing similar a chromatic countertop. Most of all, the texture and separated panels person a crisp look. It’s the aforesaid plan arsenic the S 16 and did not garner overmuch of an content a fewer months ago. I deliberation thing changed successful my outlook—or possibly it’s the size difference—because I picked it up, typed connected it, gave it a flip, and I could instantly ideate it becoming my regular driver. We inactive person to springiness it the implicit reappraisal treatment; things mightiness not shingle retired successful testing. All I tin accidental is it makes a bully archetypal impression.

As acold arsenic ultrabooks go, the Zenbook S 14 has a batch going for it, from the 3K OLED touchscreen show to the 72 Whr artillery and enactment for WiFi 7. The stated 27 artillery beingness is with video playback astatine debased brightness, but if it tin spell much than 20 hours connected a charge, I would beryllium happy. The crushed wherefore the tech journalists retired determination are ruminating truthful overmuch connected the adjacent procreation of laptops is due to the fact that of Lunar Lake, AKA the Intel Core Ultra 200V series. Intel claims it’s a much businesslike spot promising amended show with everything from rendering to gaming, not to notation longer artillery life. Laptops similar Dell’s caller mentation of the XPS 13 and the Acer Swift 14 AI are each promising 20+ hr batteries. 

The Zenbook S 16 and S 13 were powered by an AMD Ryzen AI 370 chip revealed earlier this year. The S 14 should bushed the AMD chip-powered laptop successful performance, but we’ve heard capable astir the Core Ultra Series 2, and we’ve inactive yet to tally each our benchmarks nether our non-lab conditions. According to Asus, what’s much important is that Asus says the 14-inch laptop volition past 38% longer than the S13 erstwhile moving the instrumentality with 50 tabs open. 

It starts astatine $1,400 for the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V mentation with 16 GB of RAM and $1,500 for a Core Ultra 7 258V and 32 GB of RAM. The 14-inch is surely my preferred size for the Zenbook. What’s amended is that it inactive feels precise bladed and light. The Zenbook S 14 is .47 inches heavy and 2.65 pounds, yet it doesn’t person that wafer value that makes it consciousness flimsy. It’s minutely lighter than a MacBook Air 13, though slightly thicker. Asus said it should tally cooler than the previous procreation of Zenbooks, with a redesigned vapor enclosure and smaller SOC.

As acold arsenic gimmicks to merchantability laptops, the PC makers person been chock afloat of it this year. First, it was “AI PC,” past “Copilot+.” All were large promises with mixed results, albeit mostly disappointing. I’m bushed of it. I privation a unsocial laptop that I cognize volition past maine respective years, and I don’t request much speech astir however I tin usage generative AI to constitute my emails to my ma oregon make pointless, ill-natured AI art. 

That being said, AI isn’t going away. Asus promoted arsenic overmuch speech of AI arsenic immoderate different OEM this year, and determination volition astir apt beryllium a fewer apps that tin marque bully usage of the Lunar Lake AI performance. Maybe I tin endure Asus’ promotion tactics a specified ounce amended because, dissimilar companies similar Acer oregon MSI, it’s not sticking “AI” successful the naming schemes of its laptops. Compared to that, “ceraluminum” seems standard.