Asus Zenbook A14 hands-on review: a true Air alternative?

Introduction

What shoppers expect in terms of time away from the mains has been transformed by the latest generation of ultra-efficient CPUs. 2024’s best laptops could manage a full day on battery power – and now the next generation is promising to last even longer. The Asus Zenbook A14 can apparently last for up to 32 hours, yet hasn’t needed to pack in a massive battery to do it.

This 14in Copilot+ PC weighs in at less than a kilo, thanks to some clever use of materials and an attention to detail from the hardware design team that shaved off every gram possible. A gorgeous OLED screen and slick, minimal styling should then make this seriously appealing to laptop users that spend their life on the move.

I went hands-on with the Zenbook A14 ahead of its official unveiling to see how it compares to the previous bunch of Copilot+ laptops – and whether it can also turn people away from the latest MacBook Air.

Design & connectivity: seriously svelte

Asus has kept the Zenbook A14’s weight to a minimum by crafting the entire chassis out of its Ceraluminum material. The alloy is based on magnesium, with a soft touch outer finish that felt wonderfully high-end under my fingers and a screen hinge that opens with one finger.

It’s a perfectly sturdy system, with very little flex to the lid or keyboard tray, and should withstand smudges and fingerprint marks very well too.

Branding is kept to a minimum, with small written logos on the lid and screen bezel. Unless the light hits it just right, it’s difficult to spot – or at least it was in the Iceland Gray colour shown during my demo session. There’s also the fancily-named Zabriskie Beige, though I didn’t get a good look at it in person.

Both models have a decent range of ports at the sides, including a full-size HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm combo audio port, single USB-A and two USB4 Type Cs. You shouldn’t need to reach for a dongle or adapter quite as quickly as you might with a modern MacBook Air.

Screen & sound: OLED advantage

Asus was quick off the mark with OLED laptop screens, which have since steadily become the norm at this price – at least in the Windows world. The Zenbook A14’s panel still stood out to me, though, with impressive brightness levels and wonderfully vibrant colours.

At 14in and with a 16:10 aspect ratio it’s ideal for productivity, with enough vertical room to comfortably fit two documents side-by-side. Some mild letterboxing when streaming videos is a small price to pay.

I also appreciate the sensible 1920×1200 resolution, which isn’t so high the hardware has to work overtime to deliver enough pixels, yet still detailed enough to do justice to Full HD videos. Image editing shouldn’t be a struggle, either. Viewing angles were great, too.

Keyboard & touchpad: enter Copilot

Skinny laptops often compromise on keyboards, with little room for each key to travel. Asus has done well to find 1.3mm for each of the Zenbook A14’s keys – that’s less than you’ll get from a thicker notebook, but still enough that I could comfortably knock out a few sentences and not feel like I was tapping on a completely rigid surface.

Of course you get a Copilot+ key – it’s standard on pretty much all Windows machines with the AI tech these days – and an even white backlight should make low-light working a breeze. Half-height arrow and function keys are about the only concessions for the Zenbook’s size.

Asus certainly hasn’t had to compromise on the touchpad, which is absolutely huge. I like that it sits centrally to the keyboard rather than off to one side, with accurate enough palm rejection that the mouse cursor didn’t budge while I was typing. It recognises all the usual Windows smart gestures, too.

Performance & battery life: Snapdragon endurance

Asus says the Zenbook A14 can last a whopping 32 hours on a single charge, making it one of the longest-lasting Windows laptops I’ve ever tried. It was impossible to test that claim during my brief hands-on demo (that’ll have to wait for a full review) but the choice of internal hardware points to it being on the money.

The 70Whr battery is already larger than the ones some Copilot+ PCs make do with, and Asus is pairing it with Qualcomm’s incredibly efficient Snapdragon X silicon. Depending on spec you’ll be able to get a Zenbook A14 with an X, X Plus or X Elite chipset, with a lightweight thermal module keeping it cool. 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage is par for the course.

I didn’t get to run any benchmarks during my demo, so can’t yet say whether the entry-grade Snapdragon X chip has enough oomph to make it worth your while or should be skipped for the X Plus instead. That CPU was perfectly potent in the Acer Swift 14 AI I tested in October 2024, and while Qualcomm’s graphics tech isn’t quite as advanced as Intel or AMDs, it could still play modest 3D games at decent detail settings. I’m expecting similar here.

As for the AI acceleration built into the chipset? I’ll withhold judgment until Microsoft adds more Windows features to actually make use of it. Copilot’s feature set is still pretty limited, and I’ve yet to find much reason to use any of it on the regular.

Asus Zenbook A14 initial verdict

Super lightweight Windows laptops aren’t exactly a new phenomenon, but on first impressions alone the Asus Zenbook A14 is one worth getting excited about. Its powerful yet efficient Snapdragon internals promise exceptionally long stints between charges, yet should still have enough oomph to tackle tasks more demanding than basic web browsing and document editing.

Asus hasn’t skimped on connectivity, made sure the keyboard wasn’t compromised by the slim dimensions, and fitted a colourful OLED display that’s very easy on the eyes. With the top model set to retail at $1500, it’s also keenly priced compared to other high-end Copilot+ PCs.

I’ll have to wait for a full review to see whether it outperforms those rivals – and whether it’s a better buy than the MacBook Air.

Asus Zenbook A14 technical specifications