ASUS Zenbook S14 review: A showpiece for Intel’s Lunar Lake AI PC chips

ASUSs latest Zenbook S14, much like the Zenbook 14 OLED we reviewed last December, is a solid ultraportable with one major selling point: Its among the first laptops to use Intels newest CPUs. In this case, its the Core Ultra 7 258V, a processor that sits in the mid-range of the companys Lunar Lake lineup. While Intel touts these chips as its most efficient ever, Ive been curious about what that means for raw performance, especially since they top out with just eight cores.

Based on my testing, I can confirm that the Zenbook S14 delivers the best battery life weve ever seen from an Intel laptop. It reached 16 hours and eight minutes in the PCMark 10 battery benchmark. In comparison, the Zenbook S16 powered by AMDs new Ryzen AI 9 365 chip only hit 12 hours and 47 minutes. The Intel systems timing is close to the 17 hours and 45 minutes we saw from the Dell XPS 13 Copilot+ , which is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite.

While its astounding to see how much progress Intel has made with battery life, that does come with some compromises. In a few benchmarks, the Zenbook S14 doesnt score much higher than Intels last-gen Core Ultra chips, and its often bested by AMDs Ryzen AI on multithreaded tasks. But, as we often say, benchmarks dont tell the entire story.

A gorgeous ultraportable

When I reviewed the Zenbook 14 OLED a year ago, I couldnt 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. Its impressive the moment you open it up and feel its lid, which is built with a material ASUS calls Ceraluminum. As the name implies, its a combination of ceramic and aluminum, and it feels almost uncanny, like something between high-end plastic and smooth metal. Its still premium, but its also distinctly different from most other laptops.

Combining ceramics and aluminum isnt exactly new — ASUS notes that its a popular option for aerospace and watch designs — but we havent yet seen it deployed in laptops. Its not just for looks, either. The material should also be more durable than standard metal. The rest of the Zenbook 14 Ss 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.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

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, theyre still noticeably chunkier than Dells 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. Its 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 Apples 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 its missing is Ethernet and an SD card slot.

Unfortunately, ASUS couldnt get everything right with the Zenbook S14. Its quad-speaker audio system is serviceable, but the sound loses any sort of depth and detail as you ramp up the volume. And while its nice to have a Windows Hello-compatible webcam for fast logins, the 1080p sensor looks far grainier and less detailed than Dells XPS line and the MacBook Air.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Its keyboard also feels merely serviceable, with little responsive feedback while typing. That’s a particular shame, since that’s been a constant complaint we’ve had with ASUS keyboards. At least the touchpad is large and responsive to swipes and multi-finger gestures. You can also adjust the volume and other settings by sliding your finger along the sides of the touchpad.

In use: Capable, but dont stress it

Thanks to Intels Core Ultra 7 258V chip, the Zenbook S14 felt impressively zippy from the start. I breezed through the Windows setup process, downloaded the latest updates and installed my usual testing programs in just a few minutes. It didnt sweat whenever I needed to jump between apps like Spotify, Slack and Evernote, and I didnt notice any of the lag I often see on Windows notebooks bogged down by third-party bloatware. It was always ready to get work done.

In PCMark 10, the Zenbook S14 scored almost exactly the same as the Surface Laptop 7 for Business, which uses the last-gen Core Ultra 7 165H. It also matched the XPS 13 Copilot+ edition, which had a Snapdragon X Elite chip, in the PCMark 10 Applications benchmark. The Zenbooks multithreaded performance was noticeably worse than either of those machines in Geekbench 6, likely due to the reduced core count this generation.

The big selling point for Intels Lunar Lake chips is their dramatically improved NPU (neural processing unit), which can reach up to 47 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of AI performance. In comparison, the previous Core Ultra chips had a significantly less powerful 11 TOPS NPU, while AMDs new Ryzen AI chips reach up to 50 TOPS. (More powerful Lunar Lake chips can hit up to 48 TOPS.) Higher TOPS figures means Copilot+ PCs like the Zenbook S14 will be able to tackle demanding AI workloads more quickly, without impacting overall CPU performance.

Unfortunately, there still arent a ton of AI features to test at the time of this review. Microsofts Copilot+ Windows 11 update for Intel and AMD systems isnt arriving until November, and even that will only include a beta version of the controversial Recall feature. Its also hard to find apps that take advantage of a local NPU — most entries in the Windows Store AI Hub rely on cloud AI processing.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

At least theres Audacitys OpenVino plugin, which Intel developed to show off its AI PC hardware. It offers NPU-powered features like noise suppression and transcription, but it also requires an involved setup process that may be confusing to Audacity novices. I was able to completely remove incessant jackhammering from a five-minute clip in one minute and eight seconds using the NPU alone. Thats not very fast in the world of audio editing (CPU rendering can tackle a noise-filled 90 minute file in three minutes and thirty seconds), but whats key is that the NPU handles the same work using very little power. That could be important if youre stuck editing on battery in a plane or remote location.

I was also impressed by Intels latest Arc 140V GPU, which let me play Halo Infinite between 35 fps and 45 fps in 1080p with low quality graphics settings. Thats far from a smooth experience, but its fascinating to see it from a built-in GPU. Intels graphics also scored well above the Snapdragon X Elite across the board, especially in the Geekbench 6 GPU test.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Pricing and the competition

ASUS launched the Zenbook S14 with a starting price of $1,500, but it’s already slightly discounted at Best Buy for $1,400. That configuration gets you a Core Ultra 7 chip, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. That’s not too shabby, considering the XPS 13 Copilot+ system with a Snapdragon X Elite costs $1,800 when equipped with 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and an OLED display. The Zenbook also doesn’t have the compatibility issues inherent with Snapdragon systems, which have to emulate older Windows apps and can’t run many popular games at all.

As usual, ASUS also delivers far more value than Apple. A MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD costs $1,700, and that’s also stuck with a 60Hz LCD screen.

Wrap-up

The Zenbook S14 leans more on efficiency than raw power, but it’s still an incredible achievement for Intel, a company that used to be infamous for energy-devouring mobile chips. While the Lunar Lake chip’s NPU makes the Zenbook ready for Copilot+ and AI features, its true selling points are its excellent battery life, slick ASUS design and gorgeous OLED display.

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