Asus Zenbook S 14 review: Core Ultra Series 2 makes its debut

A lot rides on this laptop.

The Asus Zenbook S 14 is the flagship device that will showcase Intel’s new Core Ultra Series 2 processors (aka Lunar Lake), which are attempting to stand against attacks from all sides. For example, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite has upped the ante for battery life on Windows laptops and Apple’s M4 Macs are right around the corner.

On the other hand, the Zenbook S 14 itself is also gunning for a top spot among the best laptops you can buy. The device features a really premium, thin and light build. Despite some misgivings about the performance of the Core Ultra Series 2 chips, I’m happy to report that this is a stellar laptop on its own, largely thanks to the great design, improved integrated graphics, and heaps of battery life.

Specs and configuration

My review unit of the Asus Zenbook S 14 features the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, the Arc 140V integrated graphics, 32GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 2880 x 1800 OLED display.

I’m told that this exact configuration isn’t going to be sold in North America, and therefore I don’t have an exact price for it. That’s understandable, as it’s an odd pairing of RAM and memory capacity. The closest model that is being sold starts at $1,500, which is identical to my configuration except that it comes with 1TB of storage. There’s also a similar version that has 16GB of RAM and sells for $100 less. While memory is soldered down, storage can be upgraded using the M.2 PCIe 4 slot.

The lack of a cheaper configuration means that the Zenbook S 14 is meant to represent a higher echelon of product. Zenbooks used to represent a more budget-friendly premium laptop, but not the Zenbook S 14. This is a laptop that’s designed to compete with the likes of the best thin-and-light 14-inch laptops on the market. Namely, you can put this in the same camp as laptops like the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition, MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3), and Dell XPS 14.

In comparison, the Zenbook S 14 is still $150 cheaper than the XPS 14, even when it’s on sale at Dell.com. The Best Buy model matches the price of a similarly configured Surface Laptop 7th Edition, though the 32GB model is quite a bit cheaper than Microsoft’s device. Suffice it to say that it’s also far cheaper than the 14-inch MacBook Pro when trying to stuff it with 32GB of RAM. In that sense, you can think of it as one of the cheaper options in the most premium laptops category.

Still, I wish Asus was offering a 16GB model with 512GB of storage as a starting configuration to really showcase the value of the offering.

Design

Ceraluminum. It’s a made-up word, yes. Asus says it took four years to create an aluminum that’s been transformed into “high-tech ceramic.” But the idea is real. The Zenbook S 14 is remarkably light laptop at 2.65 pounds, but it still has excellent build quality. More than that, the lid has an interesting textured finish that feels great under your fingers. Unlike some other very light laptops, the lid of the Zenbook S 14 feels rigid against bending. With a maximum height of 0.51 inches, it’s not quite as thin as the MacBook Air, but it sure does feel thin. It opens with one finger effortlessly, of course,

It also features the newer Asus logo (which, yes, looks a lot like a Star Trek insignia) both on the lid and on the keyboard deck. It’s always been a nice bit of branding, managing to be both subtle and classy. Meanwhile, the Zenbook S 14 comes in either gray or white, and I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get the white version. It has a really clean look, whereas the gray is a bit drab. I would have liked tohave seen a darker gray color option rather than the very businesslike shade that’s offered.

All this shares a lot in common with the larger Zenbook S 16, which launched earlier and was powered by the new AMD Ryzen AI 300 series.

As laptops like the MacBook Air and Surface Laptop are adopting rounded corners and softer edges, the Zenbook S 14 remains sharp and angular. That’s in everything from the keycaps to the chassis itself. I have to say I prefer displays with rounded corners, as many laptops are using this year, though I can appreciate just how slim these bezels are.

One of the concerns with this type of design is comfort — the last thing you want is your palms pressed up against sharp edges. The Zenbook S 14 gets close in that regard, specifically because of the placement of the vents at the top of the keyboard deck. These vents do a nice job of keeping heat away from the keyboard, but it shrinks the available space for your palms. I have fairly big hands, though, and it wasn’t a problem. If you have particularly large hands though, it could get uncomfortable.

Unlike some other Zenbooks, this model doesn’t use an ErgoLift hinge to prop up the laptop off the table when open. I like this choice, and Asus gets around the design change by adding some tall rubber feet on the bottom of the device for improved thermals.

Keyboard and trackpad

I like both the keyboard and trackpad on the Zenbook S 14, even if it’s not my favorite example of either. Asus has been using this keyboard for a while now, and it’s plenty snappy, though it always takes me a day or so to really feel comfortable on it. The 1.1mm of key travel is fairly shallow, but Asus attempts to balance it with a sharp bottoming-out action. The keycaps have a subtle texture to them, as do the palm rests and rest of the keyboard deck. It’s not my favorite texture — but again, I found myself getting used to it in a day or two.

The trackpad is quite large, taking a cue from the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. Moving across the trackpad is smooth, and I never felt like it was imprecise. However, the click is a bit too chunky for my taste. It takes too much effort to depress the click, which can get tiresome. It’s especially noticeable coming from so many laptops that use a haptic feedback trackpad. At this price, I’d prefer Asus to switch to one, as is the case with the Surface Laptop 7th Edition.

The trackpad does have a few unique features, though. By default, swiping up or down on the right side of the trackpad automatically adjust display brightness, while swiping across the left side controls volume. When I remembered them, I found both of these to be pretty handy. I never accidentally triggered the actions, and I found them to be faster than hunting around the keyboard for the correct function key.

There’s no fingerprint reader, so you’ll need to rely solely on facial recognition for Windows Hello.

Ports

The Zenbook S 14 has a great selection of ports. It has HDMI 2.1, two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, and a headphone jack. One of those USB-C ports will need to be used for power, of course. Unlike the MacBook Air, the Zenbook S 14 can support connecting up to two 4K 60Hz monitors.

The addition of USB-A is useful too. If only Asus had also included an SD card slot, I’d be completely happy with these ports for my day-to-day tasks.

I am happy about the wireless connectivity, though. The Zenbook S 14 has the latest speeds with both Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

Display

This is a 14-inch laptop display with a resolution of 2880 x 1800 pixels. More importantly, it’s an OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It’s a very pretty screen, as most of these OLED panels are. In the MyAsus app, you’ll find a variety of different color modes available. Interestingly, the default mode is Vivid, which offers a nearly perfect color gamut, hitting 100% sRGB, 100% P3, and 96% AdobeRGB.

I should mention that this isn’t the brightest display in the world. Asus markets its 500-nit “peak brightness,” which, of course, means it’s not what you’ll be seeing when commonly using the laptop. In SDR, it maxes out at just 313 nits, which is bright enough in most cases, but just can’t compete with something like the Surface Pro 11 or M4 iPad Pro with its tandem OLED panel. Of course, OLED displays aren’t known for being bright, even when the pure blacks help make up for that.

One oddity in my review sample’s display was around color accuracy. Asus claims the device is factory-calibrated and has a Delta-E of under 1.0. But all my tests, regardless of the different color modes I used, all put out Delta-E scores of over 4.0, which I assume is some kind of bug. I’m in contact with Asus about what the problem might be, but it’s safe to assume that something about the test or panel is showing up incorrectly.

Overall, though, I was very pleased with the panel. I’m excited for these OLED displays to get brighter in the future, but in terms of clarity of motion, contrast, viewing angles, and color gamut, OLED makes a huge difference.

Performance

The Core Ultra 7 258V is Intel’s new processor for thin-and-light laptops, meaning the emphasis here is on efficiency rather than brute force. In other words, it’s all about putting out as much performance as possible while consuming as little power as possible.

Here are some things to note right out of the gate: this chip is not a big step up from the previous generation. In fact, in some cases, it sits at performance parity or even steps back. Intel will say the lack of performance gain is worth the trade-off for the huge jump up in performance — and maybe it’s right. As laptop buyers, we all want a device that is ultra-powerful and long lasting, but there will always be compromises that need to be made. The sacrifice here is definitely around multi-core performance.

Scores in both Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R24 tell the same story: a decent step forward in single-core performance and a step back in multi-core performance. The comparison against the HP Spectre x360 14 with the last-gen Core Ultra 7 155H is a good example. This is a similar-sized device that is by no means a performance leader in the category. And still, the older Core Ultra 7 155H is 8% faster than the Core Ultra 7 258V in multi-core tests.

You might say this is an unfair comparison, as Intel’s H-series chips are still coming and the V-Series are just 17-watt chips, representing a new class of processor. Intel’s confusing and inconsistent naming has obscured comparisons, but for now, these V-series chips seem to sit right in between the performance of previous-gen U and H-series chips. Regardless of how you slice it, Series 2 doesn’t represent a significant jump in multi-core CPU performance over its predecessor, especially since laptop manufacturers were putting H-series chips in laptops as small as the Dell XPS 13 just earlier this year.

The Handbrake scores are perhaps the most telling of the situation. The Zenbook S 14 encodes video 46% slower in Handbrake than a laptop like the Acer Swift Go 14, a midrange device with a Core Ultra 7 155H in it. That’s not a good look.

Single-core is where things are more on Intel’s side. Intel’s chips have been fairly stagnant there, but the Core Ultra 7 258V takes a decided step forward, shown most notably in its Cinebench R24 score, where it has a lead over the Snapdragon X Elite.

Intel has stiff competition, though. The Apple M3 is still the more powerful chip, remaining as the single-core champion, and while the Snapdragon X Elite’s performance varies depending on the device, it’s still the more powerful chip. Meanwhile, the Ryzen AI 300 series makes an impressive single-core showing with its HX 370 chip. That might not sound like a fair comparison to make — but remember, AMD stuffed that into a 13-inch laptop, the ProArt PX13.

The other important aspect of this chip is the performance of its integrated graphics. That’s not usually the case with a laptop of this kind — it’s not like people are buying this for hardcore gaming. But Intel has made some big claims about the Arc graphics that could potentially speed up tasks like video editing — and yes, even gaming.

The Core Ultra 7 258V does provide some decent gen-over-gen GPU performance gains, especially compared to its Snapdragon X Elite counterpart. In some specific comparisons, Intel’s part gets nearly double the scores in 3DMark Time Spy. And it fares better in some more challenging games too. I nearly averaged 60 frames per second (fps) in Cyberpunk 2077, so long as graphics were set to Low, resolution was lowered to 1200p, and FSR 3 with Frame Generation was turned on. Still, it feels kind of magical to play on a laptop like this.

Just don’t expect to smoothly play the latest graphically intense titles, such as Black Myth: Wukong. I ran the benchmar a few times at different settings and couldn’t average over 35 fps. And, yes, laptops with a discrete GPU still represent a massive leap in GPU performance, so if you can benefit from it, it’s worth considering a more powerful laptop like Asus ProArt PX13 or even the Dell XPS 14.

But if you’re looking to play some Fortnite, the Zenbook S 14 performs admirably for a laptop this thin thanks to the Intel Arc 140V graphics.

Webcam and speakers

The webcam is 1080p and is adequate in capturing video for work calls. It can get awfully grainy in lower lighting, but does a good job of prioritizing skin tone to brighten up images. It’s not great, but it’s certainly serviceable if your daily work requires the occasional video call.

The speakers fare a bit better. The laptop uses a four-speaker setup; two along the sides and two under the keyboard. Again, the audio produced is not great per se, but they are serviceable for a broader range of activities. Videos and even music sound decent enough for casual listening. The lack of bass is noticeable, of course, but that’s true of nearly all laptops of this size outside of MacBooks.

Battery life

There’s no more important test for this laptop than battery life. The laptop has a large 72 watt-hour battery, which results in some very impressive battery life. Of course, it’s the extreme efficiency of the the Core Ultra Series 2 chip that adds this much battery life, as the previous-gen model had the same size of battery.

Just how good is it? Well, I ran three separate battery tests on the laptop. The most impressive was actually the Cinebench multi-core rundown to test how long the laptop lasts on the heaviest load. A multi-core Cinebench test is an extreme task, and the Zenbook S 14 managed to last over three and a half hours. That makes it the longest-lasting laptop I’ve tested on Cinebench, beating even our previous champ, the M3 MacBook Air.

The Zenbook S 14 also did very well in our web-browsing test, which cycles through a series of heavy websites until the battery dies. It lasted for 16 hours and 47 minutes, beat only by the MacBook Air, which remains untouchable on this test, as it won by a few hours. There were a huge variety of battery results from Intel’s previous-gen Meteor Lake laptops, but this one lasted a couple hours more than even the longest-lasting Meteor Lake machines.

Most importantly, it’s beating Snapdragon X Elite laptops by 2 to 3 hours depending on the model. That’s a huge win for the Zenbook S 14 and for Core Ultra Series 2.

Hanging in the balance

As a review of a new Intel processor, I have to admit I’m slightly let down. The battery life is there, and that’s no small feat. But the CPU performance represents more of a lateral move, which is never what you want to see in a new generation.

On the other hand, battery life is likely the metric that you’ll care more about in this type of laptop. A slightly faster CPU won’t make your web browsing, YouTube watching, and Slack chats go any faster. You may, however, notice a few extra hours of battery life. From the Windows side of things, it’s the official battery life champion, and considering how much pressure the Snapdragon X Elite devices put on Intel, I’m thoroughly impressed.

But we have to remember — a device like the Zenbook S 14 is the ideal case for Intel’s new chips. The battery life gains are a positive first sign for this generation of Intel-powered laptops, but I have concerns about how these chips will play out in laptops that require more performance. Still, none of that takes away from what the Zenbook S 14 achieves on its own.

The larger question remains: Does this device stand up against a Snapdragon X Elite laptop like the Surface Laptop 7th Edition? I’d say yes. That’s despite the fact that cheaper configurations aren’t being offered at the moment, and I have a few gripes with the design, such as the size of the palm rests or the overly loud mechanical trackpad. The Surface Laptop 7th Edition has a better balance of premium features to make it a superior MacBook alternative, but the OLED screen and fantastic battery life of the Zenbook S 14 more than make up for the difference.