Asus Zenbook 14 review: A solid workhorse, but can it beat the competition?

The Asus Zenbook series of laptops has always been a combination of good design and the latest hardware components. Announced at CES in January, the Zebook 14 has made its way to Indian shores relatively quickly. The Intel variant, with the latest Core Ultra 9 processor (Series 2) and Intel Arc graphics, is what I’ve been using for over a week now. It has a 14-inch Lumina OLED (3K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate and a 16:10 aspect ratio) touchscreen, up to 32GB of RAM and powerful stereo speakers. The Zenbook 14 may be a touch below the Zenbook S series, but it is no slouch.

Design and Display: OLED all the way

With a clean and minimalist design, the Zenbook 14 is a lightweight option for consumers. The chassis is crafted from aluminium alloy and has a sturdy 180-degree hinge. This makes the machine weigh just 1.2kg, making it easy to throw in your backpack without weighing you down. Two colours are available—Foggy Silver and Ponder Blue—and I prefer the latter (also the one I’ve been using for this review). It does attract many fingerprints and smudges on the lid of the laptop, and you’d often have to clean it.

Connectivity options are plentiful. The laptop features two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, a full-size HDMI 2.1 port, a USB 3.2 port and a 3.5mm audio jack. My only complaint, as with most laptops these days, is that both the Type-C ports are on the same side.

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I know many don’t use the touch part of the touchscreen (just like stylus’ have been forgotten), but I find it the smoothest and most natural when swiping/scrolling on an OLED display. I’m not an artist, but I’d always opt for a touchscreen, given the option.

Asus is a leader in OLED displays on laptops, and the one on the Zenbook 14 doesn’t show any compromises. It’s bold, vivid, and bright. The 3K display offers a smooth experience and a joy to watch content on. The viewing angles are good, and the colours pop, though I’d recommend keeping the brightness above 50 percent as it can get pretty dark. The only downside is that the speakers, though loud, aren’t very crystal clear. I noticed some distortion when playing Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer at loud volumes. They do come with Dolby Atmos support, which is good. Still, I’d recommend investing in a Bluetooth speaker.

Performance and Productivity

Featuring the top-of-the-line Intel Core Ultra 9 285H processor, and paired with 32GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, the Zenbook 14 is a speedy laptop. It’s snappy and fluid, even if you have dozens of apps and an infinite number of Google Chrome tabs open. Photo editing in Adobe Photoshop, watching YouTube videos, editing PowerPoint, and playing casual games like TrackMania Nations Forever was a pleasant experience.

Thankfully, the fans never got noisy, and the laptop didn’t heat up. When I tried a more demanding game like Battlefield 2042 or Halo Infinite, the Zenbook 14 began to struggle. I didn’t need to check any stats to know that the laptop dropped frame rates when the game played at its highest settings. Thermals were also a problem as I felt the laptop warmer than usual. Yes, this isn’t a gaming laptop, as it doesn’t have a dedicated graphics card. The laptop also couldn’t handle extended video editing sessions due to frequent stuttering and lags.

That said, the laptop is good for journalists like me, who have a mixed-usage pattern. If you aren’t pushing the laptop beyond its limits, you should be happy with its performance.

The keyboard on the Zenbook 14 is good but not spectacular. There is ample spacing between the keys, and the feedback is good. None of the keys required a hard press for it to register. The best part about the keyboard is that it's backlit, and the lights are strong. I could type out entire articles in a pitch-dark room without straining my eyes.

Thanks to the NumberPad 2.0 integration, the touchpad doubles as a Numpad (there is a button in the top right-hand corner to turn it on). Furthermore, the touchpad supports smart gestures (for adjusting media volume, screen brightness, and much more). It’s a good, spacious touchpad that responds to gestures very well.

Battery life: Not quite 18 hours yet

Starting with Microsoft’s major Surface announcements last year (with the brand-new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite chips) and continuing through CES 2025, manufacturers have been doubling down on laptop battery life. Yes, battery life has doubled since the last generation, but the Zenbook 14, featuring a 75Wh battery, still falls short of Asus’ tall claims.

The company claims the Zenbook 14 offers over 18 hours of battery life. Sure, that’s in certain conditions. In real-world usage, I could easily eke out a day's worth of usage, but I could never get to that 18-hour mark. I routinely got about 12-13 hours on a single charge, which is impressive (considering what previous generations offered) yet disappointing.

Another recently launched laptop from the Asus stable, the Zenbook A14, offers 32 hours of battery life on a single charge. That’s impressive, even if you only get 3/4th of the claimed battery life.

With the Zenbook 14, you can charge the laptop via the 65W adapter (included in the box) or any fast charger you may have lying around at home. That means the Zenbook 14 can be juiced up via portable chargers, power banks, and more if you’d instead not carry the adapter (though it isn’t bulky) around.

A few other things to note

• The Zenbook 14 is future-proof as it has a built-in dual-band Wi-Fi 7 wireless

• Network. You won’t notice it now, as India still runs on Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6e, but maybe in 2026, you’ll have access to faster wireless performance.

• AI Noise Cancelation: I haven’t discussed the laptop's artificial intelligence (AI) features because nothing is dramatically new. But AI Noise Cancelation is one of the best of the lot. Thanks to the AI Noise-Canceling Microphone, ambient noise is suppressed. All noises are filtered out except human voices. This works like a charm during video calls.

• The Asus AI Camera, an FHD IR camera, supports Windows Hello for faster login. It also has various studio effects, such as a background effect, eye contact, and more. While these features work as advertised, the webcam isn’t the sharpest out there.

• GlideX: GlideX has finally improved to a point wherein I can safely recommend it. You can mirror your smartphone onto the laptop and use the keyboard/touchpad for easier navigation. You can transfer files between both devices, make hands-free calls, and more. It’s seamless and works without a hitch (which wasn’t the case in 2024).

The competition

At ₹142,990 (discounted from ₹170,990) for the souped-up variant, the Zenbook 14 faces a lot of competition. Let me list a few of them below:

• Microsoft Surface Laptop (7th edition): At ₹1,31,990, this falls squarely in the Zenbook 14 range. It’s an ARM-on-Windows laptop with improved performance and battery life compared to previous generations. With a Snapdragon X Elite processor and 20 hours of battery life, this is a solid laptop in its own right.

• Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition: With a starting price of ₹1,34,640 and available in 14-inch and 15-inch variants, the Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition is a contender for one of the best laptops in recent times. It’s got a 2.8K PureSight Pro display (with 1a 20Hz refresh rate) and is powered by Intel’s latest Lunar Lake processor.

• HP Spectre x360: If you’re looking for a 2-in-1 device, consider the HP Spectre x360 (14-inch variant). At ₹168,999, this laptop has a Core Ultra 7 processor, a 2.8K OLED display, 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM, and more.

• Apple 13-inch MacBook Air M3: On the Apple side of things, the MacBook Air M3 comes in at ₹1,34,900. It’s a solid laptop with class-leading battery life and would be perfect for college students who don’t consider gaming on laptops part of their daily routine.

Verdict

The Zenbook 14 offers very few compromises. It’s well-built, has a great design, a good keyboard, and that amazing OLED display. If you want a laptop that blends design and guts into a lightweight package, the Zenbook 14 should be at the top of your shopping list.

Ideally, though, wait a month or two more and let Asus launch multiple other laptops. As I said, the Zenbook A14 has a promising battery life of 32 hours. That’s just one of the many in their arsenal. Once Asus is done launching laptops, you can make a much more informed decision.