A Slim And Light Ultraportable PC

The number of laptops being offered in 2025 is pretty insane. It’s as if there has been a laptop explosion this year with so many models and many of them pretty amazing. The ASUS Zenbook A14 is the latest one to hit my desk, and there’s a lot to like about it. The ASUS Zenbook A14 is one of the latest Snapdragon X laptops to hit the market as Qualcomm continues to take a bite out of AMD and Intel’s pie. Honestly, the big three chipmakers are all producing excellent products and Windows laptop makers are benefitting from this. Plus, the extra competition with Qualcomm in the mix has lit a fire under the big two.

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Still, the Snapdragon X isn’t perfect and the ASUS Zenbook A14 is probably not for everyone. There are a handful of apps and programs that may not work with the Snapdragon ARM architecture. But I think average day-to-day users will be safe, as most of the popular and most used programs work fine. Let’s get into this review!

The Quick Take

The ASUS Zenbook A14 is a slim, light, and attractive ultraportable 14″ Windows laptop that offers great specs but at a price that might be more than can be justified. Don’t get me wrong, this is a laptop you should consider, but you should also look around at some of the other 14″ offerings, even from ASUS itself.

Score and Bottom Line

Overall, the ASUS Zenbook A14 is a very sleek and minimal looking laptop, especially in this Zabriskie Beige color. The weight is also insanely light (thanks to the company’s Ceraluminum material) that you almost feel you’re holding nothing, it’s so light. The branding on the top lid is clean and simple, it’s just a very nice design and ultraportable thanks to the weight.

The keyboard and trackpad are great, and the (non-touch) OLED display looks really nice. This is really an excellent package for most basic users who want an ultraportable and beautiful-looking laptop. The price is a bit higher or about the same as some of the competition with better performance, though. So shop around if you’re in the need of capabilities that ARM processors do not offer.

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ASUS Zenbook A14 Specifications

• Color: Zabriskie Beige
• Operating System: Windows 11 Home
• Processor: Snapdragon® X Plus X1P 42 100 Processor (30MB Cache, up to 3.2GHz, 8 cores, 8 Threads); Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU up to 45TOPS
• Graphics: Qualcomm® Adreno™ GPU
• Neural Processor: Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU up to 45TOPS
• Display: WUXGA (1920 x 1200) OLED 16:10 aspect ratio, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, 14.0-inch, Glossy display, 0.2ms response time, (Screen-to-body ratio)90%, SGS Eye Care Display, 70% less harmful blue light, 1.07 billion colors, VESA CERTIFIED Display HDR True Black 600, 1,000,000:1, 600 nits HDR peak brightness, 60Hz refresh rate
• RAM: 16GB LPDDR5X on board
• Storage: 512GB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 4.0 SSD
• I/O ports:
  • 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack
  • 1x HDMI 2.1 TMDS
  • 2x USB 4.0 Gen 3 Type-C with support for display / power delivery (data speed up to 40Gbps)
  • 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
• Keyboard/Trackpad: Backlit Chiclet Keyboard, 1.3mm Key-travel, Precision touchpad
• Camera: FHD camera with IR function to support Windows Hello
• Audio:
  • Built-in array microphone
  • Built-in speaker
  • Smart Amp Technology
• Network and Communication: Wi-Fi 6E(802.11ax) (Triple band) 22 + Bluetooth® 5.3 Wireless Card (Bluetooth® version may change with OS version different.)
• Battery: 70WHrs, 3S1P, 3-cell Li-ion
• Power Supply: TYPE-C, 65W AC Adapter, Output: 20V DC, 3.25A, 65W, Input: 100-240V AC 50/60GHz universal
• Weight: 1.09 kg (2.40 lbs)
• Dimensions: 31.07 x 21.39 x 1.34 ~ 1.59 cm (12.23″ x 8.42″ x 0.53″ ~ 0.63″)

What’s In The Box

• ASUS Zenbook A14
• Power Supply
• Manuals and Documentation

Design

The ASUS Zenbook A14 design is really one of the nicest things about this laptop. It uses ASUS’s Ceraluminum material, which is a combination of ceramic and aluminum. My review unit comes in the attractive Zabriskie Beige color, which is really the one you should get. The ASUS Zenbook logo is on the lid in a glossy gold color, which does not look gaudy at all.

The other major design cue you’ll notice about the A14, is the weight. This thing is like a piece of paper. It’s really a true ultraportable and if you value having a laptop that is powerful but weights next to nothing, then the Zenbook A14 may be the one for you.

Flipping the A14 over, you’re greeted with two long rubber feet for stability, as well as a long vent for cooling. The speakers are also on the bottom and there are ten screws holding the backplate on. The spine is fairly nondescript, and the front lip has a notch that really helps to open this easily with one finger. As a matter of fact, this is one of the easiest one finger opening laptops I’ve used.

Opening the ASUS Zenbook A14, you’re greeted with the OLED display, the web/IR camera and the bezels. The bezels aren’t super thin, but they’re not super thick, they look good. The bottom bezel drops under the deck, which makes it looks a bit slimmer.

The deck itself is pretty sturdy with a little flex, and the keyboard is backlit and very comfortable to type on. The trackpad is a diving board style and has touchpoints on the sides and top to adjust brightness and volume. The trackpad is good, I prefer haptics, but ASUS does make an excellent diving board trackpad.

Along the left side of the Zenbook A14 are most of your ports, which include the following:

• 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack
• 1x HDMI 2.1 TMDS
• 2x USB 4.0 Gen 3 Type-C with support for display / power delivery (data speed up to 40Gbps)

Along the right side of the ASUS Zenbook A14 and all alone by itself with no friends is your single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port.

Overall, the design is minimal, clean, functional, ultraportable, and super thin and light. It’s a nice design and Ceraluminum is a very nice material, the Zabriskie Beige is an outstanding color too.

Display

The ASUS Zenbook A14 houses the following mouthful of a display;

• WUXGA (1920 x 1200) OLED 16:10 aspect ratio, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, 14.0-inch, Glossy display, 0.2ms response time, (Screen-to-body ratio)90%, SGS Eye Care Display, 70% less harmful blue light, 1.07 billion colors, VESA CERTIFIED Display HDR True Black 600, 1,000,000:1, 600 nits HDR peak brightness, 60Hz refresh rate

It’s really a lovely OLED display that has great color depth, excellent whites, crisp text, good white balance, and great black levels. The only thing some users may object to is the 60Hz refresh rate. I do think that 90Hz refresh rates should be the minimum these days. But I get it. This laptop is probably not going to be purchased by users who care about refresh rates.

So, while you can do some light gaming on the ASUS Zenbook A14, you most likely aren’t going to want to do any serious gaming on it. The display is also not a touch display, which I absolutely do not care about as I don’t use touch. But I know some users may want that, so that is something you may want to consider.

Overall, the display is really nice, I mean, it’s an OLED. The only real pain point may be that it’s only 60Hz and not a touch display.

Software

The ASUS Zenbook A14 is running Windows 11 Home with CoPilot. Not much to say about Windows 11, we should all know how that works. The CoPilot stuff is also fairly well known with AI tools to check spelling, write notes, write emails, here’s a shortlist of what you can do with CoPilot.

• AI Integration: The ASUS Zenbook A14 is among the army of AI-focused laptops that feature CoPilot. Microsoft believes that its AI-powered companion enhances productivity by assisting with tasks, providing helpful suggestions, and improving user interaction with the device.
• Better App Performance: This new chipset, with an integrated GPU and NPU, is supposed to improve battery efficiency but also performance, especially for apps designed or emulated for this ARM architecture. Though, some x86 apps may not function properly, even when the X Plus uses Prism emulation to run x86 apps.
• AI Creative Tools: The A14 features AI-powered enhancements in its software toolkit. Apps like Microsoft Paint have been upgraded with AI capabilities, which give the app more power in image manipulation and creation.
• Battery Optimization: New software helps the Snapdragon chip enhance the battery life of theA14. This includes efficient power management that complements the hardware design for prolonged use without needing a charge.

ASUS also has a few AI-focused pieces of software included on the ASUS Zenbook A14, here are just a few of the software bits you can expect.

Overall, the Windows experience is everything you’re used to and the extra AI bits from CoPilot and ASUS AI are probably not going to be used as much right now. I’m sure, as the AI software develops, that more people will use it. The software experience was excellent here, there are some AI things I just won’t use, but some of you might.

Performance

The ASUS Zenbook A14 is one of the newest Snapdragon laptops that have been making the rounds for the past year. The first Snapdragon laptop I reviewed was the Elite version and since then, I’ve had my hands on the Plus and the entry-level chip as well. The ASUS Zenbook A14 is running the Snapdragon X Plus X1P 42 100 Processor made by Qualcomm.

The crazy thing is, the Snapdragon series of processors has been an excellent first effort from a company that has been known to make excellent smartphone processors. Because the Snapdragon processor has been so well received, the competition has been improving their offerings as well. But there is one thing that makes this processor a bit different from the competition, and that’s the ARM architecture.

For years, companies have been trying to make efficient ARM processors, and they have had a hard time doing it. Well, Qualcomm has succeeded, but the issue is that not all programs will work with the ARM architecture. The good news is, most people shouldn’t be affected, as the programs that need x86 architecture are generally enterprise and professional programs. Still, it is something to be aware of if you intend to get the ASUS Zenbook A14.

Here’s a breakdown of performance values for the entire Snapdragon X series of ARM processors.

I didn’t use the ASUS Zenbook A14 as I normally would, that is with my content creation tools such as DaVinci Resolve and Affinity Photo. I used this as a daily driver for normal use cases, such as browsing, email, social media, docs, and things like that.

There were zero issues with performance in the day-to-day use, and there was never any fan noise or heat coming from this laptop. I do think you could probably run heavier programs, perhaps even video and photo editing programs, and it would handle it fine. Though, it may stress it more than a higher end laptop.

I wouldn’t use this Zenbook A14 to play heavy games, but you most likely could do some light gaming on it. But keep in mind, this is an ARM-based processor. So some games and even some programs may not run properly on it. I don’t think a general user or student is going to run into this issue. Overall, the Snapdragon series of chips has proven to be one of the best things to happen to PCs in a while.

Battery Life

Battery life on these Snapdragon laptops has already been proven to be pretty insane. The ASUS Zenbook A14 is no exception, as I was able to get 19+ hours of battery life based on general use. Your results may be very different from mine and from each others. Battery life is highly dependent on how you use the laptop and what your settings are at.

I always leave battery settings on balanced, and I always have my brightness to full, not adaptive. This is mostly doing work related things, email, light photo editing, writing on WordPress, social media, YouTube content, and web browsing. I didn’t do anything heavy like video editing, but I did do some light photo editing and AI photo creation.

The battery will take a hit if you use more intensive apps. It’s not a science, and results will be widespread from user to user. Overall, the ASUS Zenbook A14 is certainly a battery champ, and that will be a big selling point for some of you.

Speakers/Audio/Camera

The speakers on the ASUS Zenbook A14 are decent, but nothing special that will blow you away. They are a little thin with not much bass response. The highs are most certainly noticeable, but the mids are barely there and the bass is hardly noticeable.

The speakers and audio are perfectly fine for video conferencing and voice calls but not so great for entertainment media consumption like movies, music, and gaming. I mean, they work in a pinch, but they’re certainly not going to be the ones that will provide the best experience.

The FHD camera is also, just fine. Again, there’s nothing here that is mind-bending or outstanding. Just normal run-of-the-mill FHD camera performance. Overall, the speakers, audio and camera experience are just fine. They’re not horrible, but they’re not the best you can get either. This is a good enough performance and that’s about it.

Price/Value

The ASUS Zenbook A14 is an interesting laptop. The aesthetic and design is fabulous. The materials used are fantastic and that Ceraluminum makes this laptop ultraportable. The display is OLED and has a good brightness. But the price may be a bit steep for some due to this version of the Snapdragon X Plus. If this had the X Elite for the same price, that would be something. Still, it really depends on the user, the value is here for some, but others may look to other ASUS laptops with Lunar Lake. Best Buy does have it for slightly less, as of this review, so you might check them, link right here.

Wrap Up

Overall, the ASUS Zenbook A14 is a very sleek and minimal looking laptop, especially in this Zabriskie Beige color. The weight is also insanely light (thanks to the company’s Ceraluminum material) that you almost feel you’re holding nothing, it’s so light. The branding on the top lid is clean and simple, it’s just a very nice design and ultraportable thanks to the weight.

The keyboard and trackpad are great, and the (non-touch) OLED display looks really nice. This is really an excellent package for most basic users who want an ultraportable and beautiful-looking laptop. The price is a bit higher or about the same as some of the competition with better performance, though. So shop around if you’re in the need of capabilities that ARM processors do not offer.