Somewhere between the hand that lifts a machine and the mind that expects weight, the ASUS Zenbook A14 arrives as a small argument about what a laptop must be. Shown first at CES, where the press was startled by how little it weighed, it now reaches buyers at $1,099 with ample memory and storage, and a cheaper sibling is promised for March. Its lightness owes much to a new chassis that grows its protective skin from the aluminum itself rather than laying a coating over it, a quiet change in how the object is made. Whether its generous promise of a day, or many, of battery life survives ordinar
ASUS Zenbook A14 Named Best Laptop of CES 2025, Pairing Ultralight Build With Snapdragon X Battery Claims
Everyone was dumbfounded: it felt hollow, like a dummy PC
Somewhere between the hand that lifts a machine and the mind that expects weight, the ASUS Zenbook A14 arrives as a small argument about what a laptop must be. Shown first at CES, where the press was startled by how little it weighed, it now reaches buyers at $1,099 with ample memory and storage, and a cheaper sibling is promised for March. Its lightness owes much to a new chassis that grows its protective skin from the aluminum itself rather than laying a coating over it, a quiet change in how the object is made. Whether its generous promise of a day, or many, of battery life survives ordinary use will only be settled by testing that has not yet been done.
When Daniel Rubino, editor-in-chief of Windows Central, picked up the ASUS Zenbook A14 at CES, the room fell quiet with surprise. The machine felt almost hollow, absurdly light for something so capable, and the press around him could hardly believe it weighed just under a kilogram.
ASUS has now put the laptop on sale. The model available today, the UX3407, starts at $1,099 with 32GB of memory and a 1TB drive, and a $899 version is due in March. It runs a Snapdragon X processor, carries a bright 14-inch OLED panel, and qualifies as a Copilot+ PC with a 45 TOPS neural engine for AI work. It also keeps useful ports, including two USB 4.0 connections and HDMI 2.1.
For a machine this light, the battery stands out. A 70WHr cell is far larger than most ultralight laptops carry, and ASUS claims up to 19.5 hours of web browsing on a charge. Those numbers come from the manufacturer, not from independent testing, and the true result remains to be seen.
The lightness comes partly from Ceraluminum, a material that grows an oxidized layer out of the aluminum itself in an electrolytic bath, rather than adding a coating. ASUS says it is fully recyclable and durable, and this laptop applies it to the whole chassis, not just the lid as before. The open question is whether the battery lives up to its promise.
When Windows Central's editor-in-chief, Daniel Rubino, picked up the ASUS Zenbook A14 at CES, he and the other members of the press in the room were thrown by how little it weighed. His description was that everyone was dumbfounded, because the machine felt hollow, like a dummy PC, and was absurdly light. The laptop weighs 2.2 lbs, just under 1 kg.
ASUS has now put that laptop on sale. The model available today, the Zenbook A14 (UX3407), starts at $1,099 and comes with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. A cheaper version is due in March at $899. The Zenbook A14 was also named best laptop of CES 2025, at a show where several major manufacturers unveiled new machines.
The version on sale runs on a Snapdragon X processor and has a 14-inch FHD+ screen that reaches 600 nits of brightness. It is a Lumina display, which is the best OLED technology ASUS currently offers. The chip and the rest of the hardware qualify the machine as a Copilot+ PC, and its NPU is rated at 45 TOPS, which should suit it to AI tasks. Ports include two USB 4.0 connections, an HDMI 2.1 port, a 3.5mm audio combo jack and a USB 3.2 Type-A port.
Two other details stand out for a machine this light. Inside is a 70WHr battery, much larger than what is typical of a super-light laptop. And it can be opened with one hand, which is uncommon among laptops under 1 kg.
The battery is the basis for ASUS's headline claim of up to 32 hours of offline video playback. Few people use a laptop only to play stored video, so the more relevant figure is ASUS's estimate of 19.5 hours of web browsing on one charge. Windows Central's assessment is that even if the laptop falls a few hours short of that, it should still comfortably last a full day, and depending on workflow could stretch across several days. These are manufacturer figures, not independent test results.
The weight comes partly from the chassis material, Ceraluminum, which combines aluminum and ceramic. It debuted on the Zenbook S 16 and Zenbook S 14. It is made by submerging aluminum in hot water in an electrolytic bath, which grows an oxidized layer and gives the material its color options and finish. Windows Central notes that this is friendlier to the environment than aluminum anodization.
ASUS describes the result as an oxidized layer that grows out of the aluminum in a bath of pure water and minerals. It is not a coating but remains part of the aluminum it grew from, which ASUS says makes it 100% recyclable. The material is also described as durable, flexible and resistant to smudging.
The A14 goes further than its predecessors here. Earlier laptops used Ceraluminum only for the lid, while the Zenbook A14 uses it for the entire chassis. The open question is the battery: independent testing will show whether the 19.5-hour browsing figure holds, and the $899 model arrives in March.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
We all were dumbfounded as it felt hollow, like a dummy PC. It's absurdly light.— Daniel Rubino, Windows Central editor-in-chief
Möchten Sie die ganze Geschichte?
Das Original lesen bei Windows Central ↗
Society & Civil Rights