“We wanted to call it the Asus Zenbook Air, but our legal team is a little squeamish and easily spooked,” one Asus rep told me, as I held the ZenBook A14 in my hand. And based on my time with it, the world’s lightest Copilot+ PC absolutely deserves this name in spirit.
At under 1kg (less than 2.2 pounds in freedom units), this feels almost impossibly light in the hand, and is so thin too. But none of that takes away from the impressive build quality in the hand and (most importantly) what lies under the hood.
Up top, as the number in the name suggests, you’ve got a 14-inch OLED panel, encased in a whole ceraluminum body (translating the PR talk here: that’s a ceramic/aluminum hybrid material).
Meanwhile, under the hood, you’ve got your choice of Snapdragon X power (the first time a Zenbook has gone Qualcomm’s way) and a battery that is claimed to last up to 32 hours.
Is all of this too good to be true? I tried to find something — anything — to show me otherwise. But it was to no avail. No thermal throttling, Wi-Fi 7 included. The M4 MacBook Air already has some serious competition and Apple hasn't even got around to releasing it yet.
Asus Zenbook A14: specs
Asus Zenbook A14: what we like
The first big goal of Snapdragon-based Windows machines has been a simple one — super thin and light laptops that don’t compromise on performance. From what I tested, Asus has accomplished this.
Makes the MacBook Air look and feel bulky
The M3 MacBook Air is a slim and lightweight laptop — don’t get me wrong. But the Asus Zenbook A14 has just stepped into the room and, quite frankly, embarrassed it.
You see, the 13-inch Air comes in at a svelte 2.7 pounds, whereas the Zenbook has gone through the equivalent of a phenomenal New Year’s weightwatchers journey at a touch under 2.2 pounds. It makes it feel almost shockingly featherweight in the hand.
And shout-out once again to the ceraluminum material used to build the Zenbook A14. Even though the name is rather silly, it does lead to surfaces that look irresistibly luxurious with no fingerprint marks or scuffs upon touching, and feel almost like paper.
Performance and power efficiency
But what’s even more impressive is what lies under the hood. Normally, when you see something super thin and light like this, there are a few corners cut to get there. The usual thing to do is reduce the total power going to the CPU, as the amount of heat generated would just be too much.
However, Asus has pulled off something impressive here. You’re getting the choice of all 3 different Snapdragon chipsets — the X, X Plus or X Elite. And whichever you go for, the miniature cooling setup enables these to run at its full 45W TDP.
Plus, in another 1-UP over Apple, this also means stronger sustained performance over the fan-less MacBook Air.
Uncompromised ergonomics
The 14-inch FHD OLED panel comes alive whatever you watch or do. In my time, I fired up Tom’s Guide’s YouTube channel, and each video felt like a flash flood of color with impressively deep contrast to boot.
Meanwhile, on the bottom deck, you’ve got a stellar keyboard — deep chiclet keys that are synonymous with Asus’ great work in the typing department. Plus, that giant touchpad has a gorgeously smooth surface, along with edge gestures to control the brightness and volume easily.
Combine it all together, and you’ve got a cracking laptop to get stuff done on and entertain yourself too.
Asus Zenbook A14: what we don’t like
There may be more things to point out after going through the motions of longer in-depth testing. But at the moment, there’s only really one thing about the Asus Zenbook A14 we didn't like.
Not-so EasyLift hinge
In the grand scheme of things, it’s only a small issue caused by the lightweight nature of the Zenbook. Asus has put attention into the hinge in an aim to make it easy to open with one hand, but more often than not, you’ll have to use both hands, as that hinge is just a touch too rigid.
That means you lift the whole laptop up rather than just the display. It’s not all the time, but it’s enough of the time that it can be a little annoying. But then again, you don’t want that hinge feeling too loose. It’s a tricky balancing act.
Asus Zenbook A14: outlook
And that is the early story of the Asus Zenbook A14 — one of the first true realizations of what popping Snapdragon in a Windows device can truly do for the design of a laptop.
Up until now, we’ve simply seen x86 shells get the Arm transition. But this is the first proof of concept of how thin and light you can make a system while maintaining performance and power efficiency.
Fair warning to Apple. Asus is coming for the Air’s crown.
