ASUS Zenbook A14 – Review

Any professional on the go knows that finding the ideal laptop, or a portable machine that balances mobility and functionality, without being weighed down by bulky equipment, is essential to staying productive. ASUS’ Zenbook lineup of ultraportable laptops aims to cater to this very demographic, promising uncompromising performance to handle everyday tasks, wrapped neatly in a lightweight package that ensures work gets done efficiently and comfortably regardless of location.

With its latest model, the Zenbook A14, the company has achieved a new milestone with its lightest laptop yet, while still offering respectable performance. Measuring 31.1 x 21.4 x 1.6cm, and weighing in at a mere 980g, the laptop is staggeringly light, feeling almost like a tablet when picked up. Minimalism is the name of the game here, with the device clad in a matte beige finish made of a ceramic-aluminium hybrid that’s smooth to the touch, which extends to its keyboard, though presented with a slightly darker colour tone. Embossments are similarly minimal, only featuring the Zenbook lettering on its lid and a tiny logo at the top right-hand corner of the keyboard.

Cooling vents, which are usually the more unsightly parts of a conventional laptop, are tastefully tucked away from view, comprising of three vents on the underside of the device alongside its main vent stretching across its rear, hidden behind the hinge of its lid. Two rubber strips of varying heights line the laptop’s base plate, and when placed on a flat surface, enable the device to sit on a slight incline to promote better airflow. Despite its thinness, the Zenbook A14 feels sturdy in use with no signs of visible flex, suiting its purpose as a travelling companion device.

When out and about, having connectivity options can be a major boon in preventing the need for multiple external dongles and by extension, extra unwanted clutter. The Zenbook A14 offers a decent spread, housing two USB 4 Type-C slots with built-in power delivery support, an HDMI 2.1 port and an audio jack on its left, and a single USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 port on its right. These ports are flushed towards the rear of the device, so any attached peripherals shouldn’t affect a user’s mouse space for both right or left-handers. Its offerings are more than sufficient for everyday use devices, but its lack of an Ethernet jack means that users are restricted to wireless internet connections, which may not be ideal in office or home settings where faster options are available.

The Zenbook A14’s keyboard comes equipped with full-sized key caps equivalent to those on a regular size keyboard, each illuminated with white backlighting that can be toggled off, or between a choice of three increasing levels of brightness, which makes keys easier to spot in low-light conditions. It’s a shame that its default white light can’t be changed, as its harshness stands out amidst the sea of beige.

In use, its desktop-sized keyboard provides a comfortable and accurate typing experience thanks to its 1.3mm travel distance, although some slight issues like mistyping tend to pop up occasionally due to just how sensitive the keys are. The same can’t be said for its trackpad though, which despite its enlarged size, can feel finicky at times due to its imprecise click measurement, sometimes failing to register touch inputs or causing unintentional double-clicks, alongside its longer 0.23mm click depth that requires a bit too much effort to press down and can incorrectly register a right-click when pressed at the centre. Swiping across the trackpad never feels as smooth as it should, especially when changing directions mid-swipe.

Flaunting a 14-inch 60Hz panel and a crisp 16:10, 1,920 x 1,200 resolution OLED display, the Zenbook A14 shines when it comes to providing vibrant and accurate colours, making it comfortable for the eyes during extended work sessions and providing an elevated experience when binging on Netflix or Disney+. Its speakers, however, leave much to be desired, with the audio output sounding hollow and tinny, making headphones a better option in most situations.

As with all technology, aesthetics matters little if not backed up by solid performance during use. To maintain its slimness, the Zenbook A14 review unit comes equipped with the 8-core Snapdragon X X1 26 100 processor suited for low-profile devices, with a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU that provides up to 45 trillion of operations per second (TOPS), a Qualcomm Adreno GPU and 16GB of RAM. That said, there is an upgrade variant with a 12-core Snapdragon X Elite X1E 78 100 processor and 32GB of RAM.

On the surface, it seems like its mobile processor would cause the device to become a literal definition of the term lightweight, but in practice, the Zenbook A14 handled basic day-to-day tasks without a hitch, running smoothly even when faced with multiple browser tabs, windows and photo editing software open at once. Installation speeds are similarly a breeze and did not cause any noticeable slow-down when done concurrently with typing, clearing emails or general browsing. One thing to note, however, is that the base model of the Zenbook A14 currently lacks Wi-Fi 7 support, a feature only reserved for its premium upgraded variant.

As a business-focused laptop, its processors are understandably not built with gaming in mind, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t handle casual titles, providing surprisingly solid performance for less graphically intensive games like Hades II, which ran at a smooth 60fps without frame drops on max settings at 1080p resolution, even handling older 3D titles like Left 4 Dead 2 well with minor settings tweaks. Just don’t expect it to run any modern games though, as it struggled to hit even 30fps on the lowest possible setting on titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, even being unable to run certain games outright, like Metaphor: ReFantazio.

However, having such a slim form factor brings its fair share of downsides, mainly around heat management, with the device warming up pretty quickly even during light use, which can get uncomfortable for those using it on their laps as the warm air gets disapated entirely downwards due to the positioning of its aforementioned heat vents. This isn’t ideal considering its main purpose is to be used on the go, even in locations with no readily available support surface.

On the flipside, having a relatively low-powered processor means the device benefits from excellent battery life, dropping only around 20 per cent after an hour of intense benchmarking using 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme stress test. During general light usage, its 70WHr battery only dipped around 5 per cent after the same timeframe, which means users should clock in at around 15 to 20 hours of use on a full charge depending on intensity, more than enough for a typical work day without the need for a power adapter.

In this day and age, it’s hard to mention a device without bringing up the current big thing in tech in the room – artificial intelligence (AI). AI on the phone or laptop can serve as an assistant, as it can be activated to handle basic tech support when figuring out certain device-specific functions, or receive and remember information like deadlines to provide reminders on a whim.  As a Copilot+ PC with a dedicated NPU, the Zenbook A14 features all the bells and whistles anyone familiar with such AI PCs would expect, notably creator-centric assistance like Cocreator and Generative Fill in Microsoft Paint, or Image Creator and Restyle Image on the Photos app. For more corporate use, tools such as AI summaries, video call enhancement and real-time captions come in handy for the day-to-day corporate life, but as with the other highly touted AI offerings, not all are required.

At a slightly hefty starting price of S$1,699, the Zenbook A14 might be a tough sell for some, especially considering its more simple hardware, which seems unimpressive for its cost. In practice, however, its performance holds up just fine for daily work and editing, while its stylish minimalism, extreme portability and impressive battery life do help those on the move. It’s not without its issues, but those looking for a lightweight laptop that won’t take up much space while remote working would certainly find it an excellent contender.

Kevin Low

Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.