For the longest time, most business laptops, even higher-end ones, had an unspoken dress code. They had to be black or grey, prioritize function over flair, and be built to survive airport lounges and boardrooms, not to inspire envy at the coffee shop.
A classic example of this was the iconic ThinkPad, loved by millions globally but rarely ever admired for its looks. After all, it wasn’t sleek and desirable, but focused on features like military-grade durability, enterprise security and a generous selection of ports.
The Asus ExpertBook Ultra (from ₹2,39,990) sets out to challenge that long-held premise of function-over-form by borrowing liberally from the ultraportable playbook, to deliver a business laptop aimed at executives, that finally looks like something you'd actually want to carry around, even after office hours.
Drawing inspiration from Asus’ stylish Zenbook lineup, the ExpertBook Ultra’s headlining number is its lack of weight. It comes in at roughly 0.99kg, and measures as thin as 10.9mm at its slimmest edge, placing it among the lightest and sleekest 14-inch business laptops available today.
Stylish and tough
Yet, it isn’t fragile in the least, with the aerospace-grade magnesium-aluminum alloy and its nano-ceramic coating ensuring the Ultra is grippy and scratch-resistant and with no noticeable flex across the lid or the keyboard deck.
Impressively, it even passes MIL STD 810H military-grade standards. Despite the slim profile, the port selection hasn’t been gutted for the sake of looks, and you get a pair of Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-A ports, a full-size HDMI 2.1 port and a headphone jack. That’s more than enough to run external monitors and peripherals without reaching for a dongle bag, which is more than can be said for a lot of ultra-thin machines in this class.
The centerpiece is the laptop’s 14-inch screen with 3K resolution (2880 x 1800pixel). It is a tandem OLED panel in a 16:10 aspect ratio, and Asus has chosen a sharp, contrast-rich, colour accurate, and fluid 120Hz panel that’s hard to match amongst its peers. Of course, the big benefit of using stacked (tandem) OLED tech is that it gets up to twice as bright as a standard OLED screen. All this while significantly reducing power consumption and the risk of long-term burn-in, which is useful when you have the same Excel sheet on screen for hours on end.
The custom Corning Gorilla Matte anti-reflective coating is handy under the bright office lights or in sunlit cafes, but it does dull the blacks a tad in the process. Noteworthy mention: The physical privacy shutter for the webcam is built directly into the top bezel. The built-in six-speaker system is a worthy companion to the gorgeous display. It isn’t often that you can genuinely enjoy watching a movie on a business laptop, but the ExpertBook Ultra is one of the rare exceptions. It delivers enough clarity, separation and fullness to make watching Netflix in a hotel room an experience you’d actually look forward to.
Elsewhere, the backlit keyboard offers a comfortable 1.5mm key travel, and the large, glass-covered trackpad with haptic feedback is great for gestures, and comes rather close to the gold standard MacBook touchpad experience.
Its sleek profile doesn’t mean it scrimps on performance, with the unit I reviewed sporting a Intel Core Ultra X7 Ultra X7 358H processor (from the Panther Lake series) with 64GB of LPDDR5X RAM, 2TB of SSD storage, and Intel Arc B390 graphics. For everyday business computing, the performance on the ExpertBook Ultra is excellent; it handled dozens of browser tabs, spreadsheets, video calls and even light video editing without breaking a sweat.
This is not a gaming machine, but it’ll run most titles at low-to-medium settings if you need a break, and it holds up well under sustained workloads like code compilation or 4K video timelines without significant thermal throttling or fan noise. Where it pulls ahead of other business laptops is its AI focus, with a dedicated NPU (neural processing unit) allowing for local AI workloads such as transcription, summarization and background noise reduction, without having to rely on cloud services. Couple that with Copilot integration on Windows 11 Pro, and this laptop ticks off all the AI features that are now a baseline expectation for a flagship device.
The other benefit from the switch to Intel’s Panther Lake platform is improved battery efficiency, and the 70Wh battery comfortably clocks in 12-13 hours of daily use, even with the demanding OLED panel. None of the usual tradeoffs between picking a stellar screen and all-day battery life here. And even when you do run low on charge, the bundled 90W USB Type-C charger tops the laptop up in a little over an hour.
Verdict
What makes the ExpertBook Ultra notable isn’t any one standout spec. After all, plenty of laptops have OLED screens, while others have the latest Panther Lake chips or a slim, sub-1kg chassis. What sets this apart is that Asus combined all three in a package still aimed squarely at business buyers, and that too at a time when most competitors treat “business laptop” as shorthand for “the one without the nice screen”. This unique combo positions it as a genuine alternative to ThinkPads and XPS-line laptops for professionals who don’t want to sacrifice design for durability and security features.
In all, by pairing solid engineering with a consumer-grade flagship design and display, the Asus ExpertBook Ultra proves that a business laptop doesn’t have to be boring to be serious. If it is within your budget, then it is one of the most compelling business laptops available in 2026.
Tushar Kanwar is a tech columnist and commentator, and tweets @2shar.