I tested Asus' super-light laptop – the Zenbook A14 is ideal for frequent travellers

'A14' sounds more like a road than a laptop. But one word that 'A' could stand for is the key to the Asus Zenbook A14's personality – that word is 'Air'.

The Zenbook A14 is incredibly light, and one of the closest things around to a MacBook Air – even if that laptop actually feels pretty heavy in direct comparison with this one. Super-low weight and super-long battery life are your key draws here.

The Asus Zenbook A14's Snapdragon processor does come with some annoyances – but, on the plus side, has crazy-good stamina – that, overall, combines to make for a compelling alternative to the famously long-lasting LG Gram series.

How much does the Zenbook A14 cost?

The Asus Zenbook A14 was announced at the CES show in January 2025, before being released at the end of that month in the States. It started shipping in the UK in March 2025.

There's one core spec, as reviewed here. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 26 processor, 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD. In the UK at least there are no additional CPU, storage, or display tech options.

The widget above shows you the current pricing, but at launch the Zenbook A14 was penned to cost £1,099 in the UK, $1,199 in the USA, and AU$1,999 in Australia.

How slim and light?

The Asus Zenbook A14 weighs less than a kilo, according to both Asus's specs and my scales. It's only a handful of grammes under, but it's still light enough to make it feel like an empty store dummy.

One recurring issue with these super-light laptops: how do you not make them feel cheap and flimsy? Ceraluminum is Asus' solution. This is something Asus baked up. You won't find it on the periodic table, and it involves aluminium with a ceramic coating.

It also appears to be used to hide the mixed use of metal and plastic in the Asus Zenbook A14, as the underside feels more like plain plastic. The Ceraluminum finish is lovely stuff regardless. It has a softer, warmer feel than aluminium, while providing decent rigidity at low weight.

I dig it. And the beige finish I have is a refreshing break from the norm. That's right: we're praising beige tech in 2025.

There's one issue though. I don't think the lid's finish is anywhere near as forgiving as the anodised aluminium of a MacBook Air. It picks up marks readily, and I appear to have worn two tiny areas in the ceramic finish from one trip out of the house. No idea how.

Ceramic can be a super-hard-wearing finish. But the Asus Zenbook A14's? I'm not sure it is. The verdict? Buy a slip-cover and this is still a bonafide portability dream.

The Asus Zenbook A14 even has more than the most basic of connections, stopping most folks needing to pack an adapter. Besides the standard familiar two USB-C ports there's a full-size HDMI, headphone socket and old-school USB-A. Nothing exotic, but we could easily have ended up with less.

Is the Zenbook A14's screen up to scratch?

Whenever a laptop maker makes a big lunge for something, you have to pay for that somewhere else. The Asus Zenbook A14's screen has likely been picked for its energy efficiency. It's not that high-res compared to its peers.

This is a 14-inch 1200p LCD screen with a maximum refresh rate of 60Hz. It's not ultra-sharp, doesn't have the contrast of OLED or the smoother-looking refresh rates many laptops have these days.

The display surface isn't glass either. It's plastic, but thankfully this is well-implemented enough to avoid annoying distorted reflections.

So does the Asus Zenbook A14 have a bad screen? Not at all. Its colour depth is great for an LCD, while maximum brightness is just as good as that of an OLED rival.

You do have to make peace with the reality you can see the pixels if you go looking, and that you'll see the backlight glow in a dark room. This isn't a touchscreen either.

What's typing like on the Zenbook A14?

If the display compromise hasn't put you off, there's nothing in the inputs to significantly rock the boat further. The Asus Zenbook A14's keys are fractionally shallower than the old industry standard at 1.3mm (versus 1.4mm) but there's a lovely velvety feel to the action here.

If this were a chocolate bar, it'd be a Galaxy (yes, my preference over Cadbury's). The feel is fast and not at all clicky, giving it a darker sensibility. But there's still enough substance to provide good feedback and that sense of confidence when you need to type out a load of stuff fast.

The Zenbook A14 has a very bright backlight too, one whose LEDs have an unusual (and perhaps non-deliberate) purple tone. It's not as classy a backlight as the MacBook Air's, as it bleeds all over the shop between the keys. But it does the job.

No-nonsense pragmatism returns in the touchpad too. This is a glass pad, not a crappy plastic one, but it does use an old-school mechanical clicker rather than the haptic kind.

And unlike the light-but-sultry keyboard, the touchpad has a relatively stiff feel. The clicker again returns to that darker vibe of the keyboard keys. It's a decent pad, but not among the finest around.

Can the Zenbook A14 play games?

The Asus Zenbook A14 is a CoPilot+ laptop, a series made to persuade us AI in PCs is vital, and a reason to upgrade. And it means they have Qualcomm Snapdragon processors.

That AI argument fell apart pretty rapidly when half of Windows 11’s features were delayed, and every other CPU maker started banging on about 'AI' and 'NPUs' anyway.

It doesn't mean the Asus Zenbook A14 is an unworthy laptop, though. You get Qualcomm's Snapdragon X1-26-100 chipset, 1TB storage and 16GB RAM.

The important part to note is this CPU is part of Qualcomm's more affordable series, designed to bring the cost of these CoPilot+ PCs down. You may also notice the Asus Zenbook A14 isn't all that cheap, as outlined above.

According to my testing, the Asus Zenbook A14 has about 70% of the CPU power of those top-tier first-wave "made for AI" laptops. Or 55% the raw GPU power of the Snapdragon X Elite models. Ouch.

It's not quite as drastic a drop as that may sound, as the Asus Zenbook A14 still feels fab in day-to-day use. It's going to fare worse than some of the other AI-primed laptops, like the Zenbook S14, if you try to play games, though. This thing is not at all good for gaming.

Asus gives you four performance profiles, from Whisper to Full-Speed mode. But unlike plenty of Windows PCs, this doesn't full-on restrict how much power you get from the off. It's more about the noise level, so is only going to affect performance in tasks that will stress the processor for quite a while in a stretch.

The Asus Zenbook A14's fans never seem to make much noise, either. This laptop probably doesn't need four performance modes, and you need to dig into an Asus app to access them anyway.

There's another important caveat. These Qualcomm Snapdragon PCs won't run any and every app made for Windows PCs. They use a completely different system architecture that some software just refuses to get on with. Most software runs okay. But if you're moving from another laptop, make sure the apps you need won't show you the door.

How long does the Zenbook A14 last?

Asus makes an eye-opening claim for the Zenbook A14. It says this thing can last up to 32 hours between charges.

This is, you guessed it, pretty optimistic with any realistic kind of real-world use. But tested stamina is still fantastic even by the standards of these Qualcomm Snapdragon PCs.

The Asus Zenbook A14 can last for around 19 hours of YouTube streaming. This drops to 4 hours when gaming. While that may sound like a huge drop, this is still miles above the average – 90 minutes to 2 hours is pretty normal.

Does the A14 also play games less than half as well as laptops with more powerful integrated chipsets? Yes, absolutely. But there's the play off.

Finishing up, the Zenbook A14 stereo speakers and Full HD webcam are not particularly notable. Acceptable, but not in any way class-leading. But the webcam is one part that gets an AI boost, with the option to blur our the background baked in. It supports face recognition too.

Asus Zenbook A14 review: Verdict

The Asus Zenbook A14 has a laser-like focus on two closely related areas: portability and battery life.

Its stamina is awesome, and it’s so light you might have to check your bag to make sure it’s in there before you head out. A decent keyboard makes it enjoyable to work from too.

You do need to enter accepting some other areas don’t get as much attention, or are deliberately compromised in favour of battery life and portability though.

The screen doesn’t provide ultra-high-res clarity or high refresh rate smoothness. Performance is not great by the standards of other Qualcomm laptops or recent Intel Ultra ones and, as with other PCs in this “made for AI” class, you may encounter some compatibility issues with apps.

Nonetheless, the Asus Zenbook A14 represents pure portability bliss for the frequent traveller. That, for many, will make it an absolute winner.

Also Consider

One of the Asus Zenbook A14's key problems is its price is a little to close to those of the first wave of CoPilot+ laptops, like the HP Omnibook X, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7X and Dell XPS 13, among others.

What they don't generally have, though, is the Zenbook A14's super-low weight. For that you might look to the LG Gram 14. It's more powerful all-round than the Zenbook, and more versatile thanks to being a classic X86-based (well, X64) architecture system.