CES 2025: Hands on with the airy Asus Zenbook A14

Reading an article about the Asus Zenbook A14 does a disservice to all parties involved. You really need to keep this thing to yourself.

The new 14-inch ultraportable laptop made a splash at CES 2025 in Las Vegas this week as “the world’s lightest Copilot+ PC,” earning a Innovation Award in the Sustainability & Energy/Power category of the tech show and several “best of” nods (including one from us to the CNET group). Made from an innovative material called “Ceraluminum” that is stylish and environmentally friendly, the Zenbook A14 combines a flywheel frame with next-level Qualcomm energy efficiency, a bright OLED display, and a gesture-controlled trackpad – all for a minimum of $899.99.

Credit: Haley Henschel/Mashable

I’m old enough to remember when Steve Jobs slid the first Apple MacBook Air out of a brown envelope. And after spending some time with the Zenbook A14 at Asus’ private CES showroom, I’m tempted to make the bold claim that it feels like the new standard bearer of ultraportable laptops — barring any Windows on compatibility issues ARM. (I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the numbers in its name look a lot like the word “Air.”) It’s a competitively priced, complete AI PC that’s also an absolute beauty.

The scoop on Ceraluminium

Ceraluminium is Asus’ brand name for “plasma ceramic aluminum,” a strong magnesium-aluminum alloy that’s scratch-resistant, shock-resistant, and 100 percent recyclable. A representative of the company told me that it is often used to make luxury watches and aviation technology, and that Asus was the first to employ it in consumer electronics. It was first in the covers of a few previous Zenbooksbut the Zenbook A14 takes things a step further with a fully Ceraluminium chassis. It has a smooth matte texture in person.

Credit: Haley Henschel/Mashable

According to the representative of Asus, the finish of the chassis of the Zenbook A14 involves a unique process of aluminum anodization where its two halves are immersed in a water bath and cleared with high voltage electricity. The color of the chassis depends on the amount of time it spends in water – the longer it is marinated, the darker it is. Asus says its method is better for the environment than traditional aluminum anodization, which requires an acid bath. It also eliminates the need for dyeing.

Asus will sell the Zenbook A14 in two light shades called Zabriskie beige and Iceland gray, which are modern, minimalist neutrals that are still a little grainy up close. (Both have a metallic Asus Zenbook logo on the back of their covers for a nice contrast.) For Asus’ rep, no Zenbook A14s looks exactly the same due to the nature of its finishing process.

I can’t wait to fully try this thing out

The biggest takeaway from my limited time with the Zenbook A14 is also the most obvious, which is that it’s remarkably light and sleek. Everyone who approached the bench where he sat in front of the Asus showroom spent a good minute just standing up and down in amazement (myself included). For reference, it’s up to half a pound lighter and just under a tenth of an inch thicker than the current 13-inch MacBook Air lineup.

Credit: Haley Henschel/Mashable

The build quality and portability of the Zenbook A14 alone should make it a finalist among students and workers on the go to buy a new PC, but its battery life will be one of the things that closes the deal (the another is its price). Asus has rated more than 32 hours of video playback per charge, which beats the longest lasting laptop Mashable never tried for nine hours: “If you leave the house for the day, you can not trust to bring a charger,” the representative of the company told me. I look forward to testing this claim in a future in-depth review.

Other Zenbook A14 highlights include an FHD, non-touch OLED screen with an entertainment-friendly 16:10 aspect ratio and 600 nits of industry-leading HDR brightness. (It’s 100 nits brighter than the M2 and M3 MacBook Airs, FYI.) Its keyboard is comfortable and delightfully clicky, and its touchpad supports Asus’ Smart Gestures feature — you can swipe your fingers to adjust the screen’s brightness of the laptop, change its speaker volume. , and fast forward or rewind videos. It is equipped with two USB4 ports, a USB-A port, an HDMI 2.1 port for connecting an external monitor, and a headphone jack.

Asus offers two different configurations powered by Snapdragon X by Qualcomm serial processors. The Iceland gray model is the lighter of the two at 2.18 pounds. It features a Snapdragon X CPU with 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and is priced at $1,099.99 via Best Buy and The online storefront of Asus. It is set for release at the earliest on Monday, January 13.

Coming in at 2.4 pounds (or exactly the same as a modern MacBook Air), the beige Zabriskie model will be a Best Buy exclusive with a Snapdragon X Plus chipset, 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage. It will retail for $899.99 when it launches in March.