Its a name for a material that can only come from a marketing department.
I smirkedthe first time I heard the term, but the joke has died since then.
Instead, I have to take issue with the laptops performance, at least for this model.
The Asus Zenbook S 14 has a great feel and finish, from the exterior to the screen. The only thing that isn’t unique is the CPU performance.© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Theres something to be said about a cover material that feels and looks unique.
Theres also the newLunar Lake Intel Core Ultra chiphoused inside.
Both those features are solid, though you have to ignore the hype.
© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
Asus Zenbook S 14
It’s a unique looking ultra-light laptop with plenty of ports.
Performance at $1,400 is lacking, so it may be worth checking out the version for $1,500.
Pros
Cons
The latest 16-inch Zenbooks housed an AMD processor.
© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
This is the first Lunar Lake Gen 2 laptop Ive had the chance to use in earnest.
According to Asus, it does.
Instead, it doesnt match its full potential for $100 less.
© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
The unique material feels akin to plastic but with more texture.
Theres a nice sound when you tap on the shell.
The laptop is only .47 inches thick and weighs 2.65 pounds.
© Photo: Artem Golub / Gizmodo
For comparison, a13-inch MacBook Airclocks in at 2.7 pounds, and aDell XPS 13starts at 2.6 pounds.
It meant that I didnt have to plug in a port hub to use an external monitor during use.
The Zenbooks keys took a bit of getting used to.
The keys sport a limited 1.1 mm of travel with near-silent sound.
It was simply okay to jot down on, but nothing stood out.
I certainly did, but the function row keys are where theyve always been.
I dont need to learn new gestures for functions on every keyboard Ive ever used.
Its a similar screen asAsus ROG Zephyrus G 14from earlier this year.
Its not the brightest display, maxing out at around 500 nits of peak brightness.
I dont put much stock in laptop webcams, but the Zenbooks was especially low-res.
In other tests, it was sadly subpar.
The difference was around 1,000 points off in multi-core options.
I had no issues with browsing tasks.
As for its gaming potential, I wouldnt tout this version of the Zenbook S 14 as a shoo-in.
In my Cyberpunk benchmark, I could only achieve 25 FPS on low to medium options with XeSS running.
In multiple days of testing, it lasted an average of 8 hours before needing to be plugged in.
Thats as good, if not better, than the recent ARM, at least as promised by Intel.
Take the Zenbook as an example of what battery life really means in actual usage.
Thats not even considering the battery life when doing more intensive tasks.
I hope to finish these tests soon, and Ill update the review once theyre complete.
However, Asus is truly only promising the all-day battery, and in that way, it delivers.
I say that even though I dont have direct experience with that version of the laptop.
Its the direction PCs are heading anyway.
These new Zenbook laptops and all Lunar Lake-bearing devices are Copilot+ certified.
It just feels somewhat diluted by middling performance, even if its quite capable of its price.
Its design oozes cool, but youll want more power to match.
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