Earlier this year, MobileSyrup editor-in-chief Jon Lamont reviewed the Asus Zenbook A14, the company’s small Snapdragon-powered laptop. It looked cute, and when I asked him about it, he only said great things about the laptop, so I had to try it out for myself. And after using it, I’ve come to realize that this could be the perfect laptop for students or commuters.
It’s so incredibly light
The Zenbook A14 is great if you have to go to school or go to work every single day of the week. When I was younger, I lugged around a 17-inch laptop, and wish I had this sub-1kg laptop. Lamont says the laptop is a contender for the ultra-portable crown, and I couldn’t say it better myself.
Seriously, I love the portability of the laptop, with the dimensions of 31.07 x 21.39 x 1.34cm and weighing 0.98kg (2.16lbs), it make sense. It can fit into anyone’s backpack and you won’t even notice that it’s there. It’s not the thinnest laptop ever, but the combination of its weight and dimensions makes it the perfect size for many.
Further, it has the durable, resistant ‘Ceraluminum’ finish all over the device, which looks and feels great, and because it’s durable, if you’re a little rough with your backpack — my brother in college has literally broken a laptop because he’s so rough with his stuff — your laptop has a better chance at surviving.
Making it through the day
And while the A14 is super light, it also has an excellent battery life. You can go well over a day of battery life with the laptop. When I was a student, sometimes I would take out my laptop on my way to school because I was always finishing a last-minute assignment, and it would always suck when I saw that my laptop was about to die. The A14 can keep going throughout the day without a hitch. In fact, I forgot about bringing a charger with me when going away for a couple of days, and it made it through two shifts, and still, I could have pushed it a little further.
It’s incredibly impressive that the laptop could survive this long. Lamont also had a great experience with the battery life, so this is definitely not a one-off.
If you’re someone who travels every day to work or school, I know you can appreciate a big battery.
Value
The Asus Zenbook A14 also has a reasonable price: $1,349 (currently on sale for $949). While this isn’t the most affordable laptop on the market, with such a slim and light chassis and large battery, I would pay that much for it.
And while it’s not the most powerful laptop — the A14 with the Snapdragon X processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD — I’ve had some issues with the laptop slowing down. For instance, when I was editing about 12 photos on Photoshop and had two webpages and multiple tabs open, the laptop had significant slowdowns. But this has only happened when bulk editing photos for a review. On a typical day, I’m editing about two to three photos a day and experience zero slowdown.
The laptop lacks a high-res, 120Hz refresh rate screen, so perhaps if you’re someone who needs to edit pictures or videos, you might not want the A14. However, if students in science, math, English, or even law courses might love the A14.
The Asus Zenbook A14 is available from Asus’ website, Best Buy and Amazon Canada.
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