Asus is going big at CES 2025, unveiling multiple new laptops across its various ranges – but one particular model really stood out when I got to take the new machines for a spin.
The Asus Zenbook A14 – look at that name for long enough and it starts to look very much like AIR, something I doubt is purely a coincidence – is a gorgeously svelte Windows 11 laptop, and according to Asus the lightest ever machine to pack the CoPilot+ suite of AI skills.
It really is the weight of this laptop that makes the strongest first impression. When I picked up the 980g machine, I thought briefly I was holding a demo unit – one without the actual components inside.
It’s good looking too, with a simple clean overall look constructed from Asus’ favoured ‘Ceraluminum’ material and a very large trackpad below a comfortable keyboard with 1.3mm of travel.
The Zenbook A14 isn’t all about weight though, and there’s lots more here. The display is fantastic and even though it’s not a touch panel, it ticks a lot of the boxes I look for in a screen of a device aiming to be one of the best laptops around. It’s an OLED panel, with a perfectly adequate FHD resolution, 600 nits of reported peak brightness and 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut.
Asus Zenbook A14 Specs
Inside it’s very much a Qualcomm affair, with either Snapdragon X Elite or newly-announced Snapdragon X chipset running the show. We’ve reviewed lots of Snapdragon X Elite machines, including the Surface Pro 11, and our reviewers have been consistently impressed with the performance.
These Qualcomm chips are also fantastic for endurance – Asus is claiming 32 hours of battery life for certain models and in certain tests – although we’ll need to get this machine into our labs to really know for sure. There’s also the now standard selection of CoPilot+ AI skills, with the addition of Recall when that controversial feature finally becomes available.
Elsewhere, there are RAM options up to 32GB, up to 1TB of SSD, Wi-Fi 7 and a surprisingly strong port selection including two USB 4 capable USB-C ports (both with support for Display Port and Power Delivery for charging), a USB 3.2 port, HDMI 2.1 and, of course, an audio jack. The MacBook Air M4 – arguably one of the machines Asus is looking to rival with this model – can’t compete with those ports.
The Asus Zenbook A14 goes on sale today (January 7) with a starting price of £999.
