A gorgeous ultraportable
When I reviewed the Zenbook 14 OLED a year ago, I couldn’t help but point out how dated it looked. It was practically the same as ASUS’ laptops from a decade ago (albeit with slimmer screen bezels). Not so with the Zenbook S14. It’s impressive the moment you open it up and feel its lid, which is built with a material ASUS calls “Ceraluminum.” As the name implies, it’s a combination of ceramic and aluminum, and it feels almost uncanny, like something between high-end plastic and smooth metal. It’s still premium, but it’s also distinctly different from most other laptops.
Combining ceramics and aluminum isn’t exactly new — ASUS notes that it’s a popular option for aerospace and watch designs — but we haven’t yet seen it deployed in laptops. It’s not just for looks, either. The material should also be more durable than standard metal. The rest of the Zenbook 14 S’s body is made out of a solid block of metal, but ASUS added some unique tweaks there as well. The lower part of the case features a geometric grille above the keyboard, consisting of 2,715 circular cooling vents. ASUS claims this design enhances airflow while also keeping dirt and dust out.
ASUS 14-inch 3K “Lumina” OLED display dominates the Zenbook S14, and it delivers everything I want from a modern laptop screen. It sports a fast 120Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of peak brightness. While its bezels are relatively thin compared to older ASUS systems, they’re still noticeably chunkier than Dell’s latest InfinityEdge screens on the XPS 13 and 14. The system would look much sleeker if ASUS could shave off more of its bottom and side bezels. Most importantly, though, the OLED display looks glorious, with deliciously dark black levels and colors that pop off the screen.
The Zenbook S14 is surprisingly sturdy for a 14-inch laptop that weighs 2.65 pounds and measures 0.47 inches thin. It’s slightly lighter and a hair thicker than the most recent 13-inch MacBook Air, and feels similarly polished. Notably, it also offers many more useful ports than Apple’s ultraportable. The S14 includes two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C connections, a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port, a headphone jack and even an old-school USB Type-A port. The only thing it’s missing is Ethernet and an SD card slot.
Unfortunately, ASUS couldn’t get everything right with the Zenbook S14. Its quad-speaker audio system is…