Last year, Asus debuted its 16-inch Zenbook to great acclaim. When I reviewed the Zenbook S 16, I awarded it top marks for all but heat, crowning it as one of the best ultrabooks of the year so far. With the Zenbook S 14, Asus has shifted from Team Red (AMD) to Team Blue (Intel), addressed the heat issue, and once again delivered one of the best premium Windows ultrabooks available today.
Asus Zenbook S 14 – Design and Features
The Zenbook S 14 shares a lot of DNA with its larger sibling. It’s clear that they’re both from the same product line as, aesthetically, the only difference is the S 14’s smaller screen. This, in my opinion, is a wholesale win because this year’s Zenbooks have been some of the best-looking laptops to release in years. There are a number of changes under the hood, however, that make this a compelling option and, at least in one core way, a significant upgrade over the AMD-bearing S 16.
Starting with the fit and finish, Asus really deserves kudos for the new direction it went with the new Zenbook series. The S 14 has the same Ceraluminum lid as the S 16 and it’s just as striking as before. This new lid is a composite of ceramic and aluminum alloy and has a silky-smooth texture that’s impressively resistant to fingerprints. It’s criss-crossed with diagonal stripes that catch the light and gleam with their glossy finish. It’s elegant, eye-catching, and unique, allowing it to stand out from the masses of other gray, black, and silver productivity laptops.
The entire frame is made of metal and feels durable and premium. Open it up and you’ll find the same on the keyboard deck, as well as the intricately CNC-milled vent just below the screen. Each circular recess has two miniature circles offset from one another. Asus claims this helps improve airflow and cooling and I have no reason to doubt that; however, it also seems clear that this was a design decision intended to elevate the appeal and premium nature of the laptop.
The S 14 is available in either gray or white colorways – sorry, Zumaia Gray or Scandinavian White. I was sent the white version, a nice change from the gray S 16 I tested. They both look great in their own way; however, the white version has that extra something that’s reminiscent of Apple and I very much enjoy it.
Internally, it appears this model is only available in a single configuration. Our sample was sent with the following specs:
When it comes to specs, the Zenbook S 16 is no slouch. It uses the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor, the most recent generation of Intel’s AI-enabled processors, code-named Lunar Lake. It’s a significant advancement over the first generation of Core Ultra processors in both performance and power efficiency and is more than up to the task of any productivity application you would care to throw at it. It’s even able to take on content creation in the form of photo editing and even some video editing. That said, video editors will still be better served by a notebook with a dedicated graphics card or Apple’s latest M4 processor.
Still, the S14 is nothing to shake a stick at. Its 32GB of LPDDR5X memory is more than enough to handle web browsing, the Microsoft office suite, the Google suite, and the majority of the most popular photo and video editing software in use today. Unfortunately, it’s not upgradeable (as is usually the case with such thin, lightweight notebooks), so if you anticipate needing more than 32GB, the S 14 probably isn’t the best choice for you. It also comes with a large, 1TB nVME SSD, so you can store all of your projects and important files without resorting to the cloud or an external drive right away.
It also offers expanded connectivity with an array of ports that exceeds most other ultrabooks. It features dual USB-C ports, Thunderbolt 4, each spec’d to 40 Gbps and capable of DisplayPort and power delivery for charging. There is a full-size USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, which is handy for connecting a flash drive, an HDMI 2.1 port for full-speed video output, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack. While you will still receive much better connectivity with a full-size laptop, this is a welcome expansion that improves its usability in different scenarios.
The screen is downright gorgeous. It uses Asus’s Lumina OLED technology and is exceptionally color rich, detailed, and accurate. It has a very crisp 2,880 x 1,800 (3K) resolution, which translates to 243 pixels-per-inch (PPI) for an impressively sharp image. It also excels up to 120Hz for smooth motion both in games and on long websites and documents. Like a smartphone, it can be set to change the refresh rate dynamically to save on battery or locked to either 60Hz or 120Hz to match your preference.
It’s a good choice for entertainment as well as productivity for this reason alone, but it also packs an impressive pair of speakers. Given its small size, you wouldn’t expect to have the level of volume that it does, nor its surprisingly full-bodied sound. While it won’t replace a good pair of speakers (it does distort a touch at its highest volumes), it’s perfectly fine for watching videos or even playing single-player games.
For typing and mousing, it features an impressive keyboard. The aluminum deck is firm and didn’t flex under my hammering keystrokes. The keys have been designed to offer 1.1mm of key travel, which is noticeably deeper than many other chiclet-style keyboards. They also have a defined bump when pressed and have a crisp bottom out that makes it a pleasure to type on.
The S 14 also brings back the oversized glass touchpad from the S 16. Measuring 5 x 3 inches and centered on the bottom of the deck, it’s positioned directly underneath your thumb anytime you’re using the keyboard. It feels good to use and is reliable with the bare minimum of misclicks. Like last time, it uses integrated buttons with tactile feedback so you can easily tell when clicks are registered. There are also touch controls along the top and sides to control brightness, scrubbing video timelines, and adjusting volume. These can be disabled inside the software, though they’re not difficult to get used to and proved to be very convenient in my testing.
Asus Zenbook S 14 – Software
As with the ZenBook S 16, the S 14 uses MyAsus for all of its configuration options. This software suite is designed to be easily accessible even if you’re not computer savvy, so don’t expect overclocking options or highly-detailed system monitors, though it does provide basic readouts for CPU use and temperature, battery level, memory usage, and available storage.
The software is broken into several different tabs for easier navigation. The main Home tab provides the aforementioned information as well as one-click options to run diagnostics if you find the system is encountering performance issues. It also provides the warranty date, so you can tell ahead of time if you’re covered by its warranty or not.
The majority of its core settings are found within the Device Settings tab. This page is broken into three scrollable categories: Power & Performance, Audio & Visual, and Input Device Settings. Power and Performance details battery options, fan profile, which is essentially the device settings tab, and how much memory is dedicated to the integrated GPU.
The Audio & Visual tab provides options for the noise canceling microphone and speakers, and EQ settings (including custom EQs through the Dolby Atmos app). To customize the screen, it provides a handful of different modes that include sRGB, Display P3, and DCI-P3, as well as normal and Vivid color modes, a color temperature slider, and a blue light filter. There’s also a Tru2Life settings which is supposed to intelligently adjust sharpness and contrast of video content to increase clarity and a Target Mode that darkens everything but your active window to protect the OLED panel. You can also toggle several different OLED care settings and choose between a dynamic refresh rate or locking the screen to 60Hz or 120Hz.
Finally, the Input Device Settings tab houses all of the options for the touchpad and keyboard. This is where you can enable or disable the touchpad or the keyboard’s backlight. Choose how the function row operates and decide whether you want to keep or disable the Smart Gestures on the top and sides of the touchpad.
One area that I especially like for mainstream users is the System Diagnostics tab on the left. Clicking this takes you to a menu that allows you to do a one-click system checkup, targeted problem diagnosis for each of the laptop’s systems (memory, battery, SSD, etc.), or to do a checkup based on different use scenarios. For example, if your computer is running sluggishly, you can simply use the checkup option under “Slow System” and the appropriate diagnostic will run. The available scenarios cover the most frequent issues you might encounter. While power users will likely know their way around diagnosing different issues, if you are coming to this laptop purely from a productivity standpoint, these options provide a helpful gateway to diagnose and solve performance issues you might encounter.
The biggest issue I have is that the software will sometimes demand updates without allowing you to adjust settings. It can be quite frustrating to sit down to work and just want to change your power setting, only for the system to force you to do a BIOS update before you can even toggle a single option. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen often, but it has happened frequently enough that I dread having to open the software just in case.
Asus Zenbook S 14 – Performance
The Zenbook S 14 is a fantastic laptop if you value portability and don’t want to sacrifice performance. Its Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor is a tiny powerhouse for productivity, entertainment, and general day-to-day use. It even offers relatively good gaming performance as long as you’re willing to adjust the resolution and settings accordingly.
The first generation of Intel Core Ultra processors caught a lot of flack, and understandably so, but I’m happy to report that most of those issues have been addressed with this latest generation. The processor offers snappy performance and, thanks to its fast memory and storage, that applies across the board. I’ve been using the S 14 for around two months and haven’t encountered a single situation where it felt laggy or unreasonably slow. On the contrary, it has felt consistently high-performance for its price point. If anything, it over delivers.
While that might seem like high praise, I assure you that it’s deserved. Assuming you can get on with its smaller form factor, it’s hard to find much fault with this system. Unlike the Zenbook S 16, its larger AMD-bearing counterpart, it doesn’t get exceptionally warm to the touch. It doesn’t get loud either, even under full load (although it does get louder). Its screen looks just as gorgeous, if not slightly more so thanks to its higher pixel density. The build quality is fantastic, and the Ceraluminum lid is just as good here as it was on the S 16. In fit, finish, and performance, it knocks it out of the park.
As seen in the benchmarks above, it offers great performance in the majority of cases. It excels well beyond the Snapdragon X Elite in the Surface Pro 11 and is natively compatible with all standard Windows apps. The presence of a physical GPU offers major benefits to gaming frame rates and rendering benchmarks, but at the expense of weight and heat. I’ve included those results here to show what’s possible in the thin and light form factor if you care more about fps and less about unplugged battery life. (For that, check out our list of the best gaming laptops.)
The most interesting comparison is against AMD’s equally AI-centric competitor, and the results are good for Intel. The Core Ultra 7 258V trades blows with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, winning across the board in 3DMark’s synthetics as well as a handful of games. In others, the HX 370 pulls ahead. The AMD processor does have a significant advantage in games that support AMD Fluid Motion Frames (i.e. frame generation). When I initially tested the laptop, that feature wasn’t supported yet, but it is now, so certain games will indeed play better – with a caveat. AFMF works best when you’re able to maintain a high enough base frame rate to begin with (45-60 fps minimum), so real world performance is going to vary game by game.
When it comes to gaming, it’s best approached like a handheld. That might sound counterintuitive, but the same principles apply since it’s using an integrated GPU. This means leveraging power by turning the laptop onto its highest performance mode and plugging into a wall outlet if at all possible. It also means dropping the resolution 1200p – which still looks great on its display, and brings many games to playable frame rates – as well as adjusting graphics settings and using Intel XeSS upscaling whenever possible. Even with those considerations, you might be surprised at how well it runs games while still maintaining strong visuals.
Or, you could game over the cloud. Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming both work very well. GeForce Now is especially good, with crisp visuals, 120Hz gameplay, and a large, ever-expanding library of supported games.
Tying it all together is the Zenbook S 14’s outstanding battery life. In synthetic testing using the PCMark Modern Office Battery Test, I was able to log upwards of 16 hours of uptime at 50% brightness. If you’re mainly watching video and doing lower intensity tasks, that can reach to around 20 hours. In real-world use running at 80% brightness with near-constant internet use, I averaged around ten hours. That’s upwards of a full work day without much regard for battery conservation. That’s impressive.
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