I first noticed ASUS’s new Zenbook A14 when I was at the CES show in Las Vegas. Thanks to some cool innovations, including new materials, a very slim and light body, AI tech and a super long battery life, it looked like something I’d want under my arm. Now that’s selling in Australia, let’s take a closer look.
What are the Zenbook A14’s features?
All up, the Zenbook A14 is designed to tackle the day-to-day tasks that most of us will need to do, along with a good dose of AI assisted work, be it looking up things, generating words or images, and the like.
This is a Microsoft Co-Pilot+ PC so it ticks off the required boxes including an AI optimised Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, Windows 11 Home (with CoPilot), and a 14 inch OLED display.
ASUS Zenbook A14 (UX3407RA) specifications:
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Price (AUD) | $2,599 |
| Warranty | 12 months |
| Model | UX3407RA-QD063WS |
| Color | Iceland Gray, Zabriskie Beige |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Home (ASUS recommends Windows 11 Pro for business) |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon® X Elite X1E-78-100 Processor (42MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz, 12 cores, 12 threads) |
| Graphics | Qualcomm® Adreno GPU |
| Neural Processor | Qualcomm® Hexagon NPU with up to 45 TOPS |
| Display | 14.0-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200) OLED, 16:10 aspect ratio, 0.2ms response time, 60Hz refresh rate, 600 nits HDR peak brightness, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, VESA CERTIFIED Display HDR True Black 600, Glossy, 90% screen-to-body ratio |
| Memory | 32GB LPDDR5X on board |
| Storage | 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe® 4.0 SSD |
| Expansion Slots | 1x M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 |
| I/O Ports | 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (up to 10Gbps) 2x USB 4.0 Gen 3 Type-C (supporting display/power delivery, up to 40Gbps) 1x HDMI 2.1 TMDS 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack |
| Keyboard & Touchpad | Backlit Chiclet Keyboard with 1.3mm key travel, Precision touchpad |
| Camera | FHD camera with IR function supporting Windows Hello |
| Audio | Smart Amp Technology Built-in speakers Built-in array microphone |
| Networking | Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) (Triple band) 2×2 + Bluetooth® 5.4 (*Bluetooth® version may change with OS version) |
| Battery | 70WHrs, 3-cell Li-ion |
| Power Supply | Type-C, 90W AC Adapter (Output: 20V DC, 4.5A, 90W; Input: 100-240V AC 50/60Hz universal) |
| Weight (official) | 0.98 kg (2.16 lbs) |
| Dimensions (W x D x H) | 31.07 x 21.39 x 1.34 ~ 1.59 cm (12.23” x 8.42” x 0.53” ~ 0.63”) |
| Built-in Apps | – StoryCube – MyASUS – ScreenXpert – GlideX |
| MyASUS Features | – System diagnosis – Battery health charging – Fan Profile – Splendid – Tru2Life – Function key lock – WiFi SmartConnect – Link to MyASUS – TaskFirst – Live update – ASUS OLED Care – AI Noise Canceling – AdaptiveLock |
| Military Grade | US MIL-STD 810H military-grade standard |
Materials and design
Pick up the A14 and you’ll notice immediately that it’s light, weighing just under 1kg – 991 grams according to my scale. This makes it easy to move around one-handed, and it almost feels like there’s nothing inside, but there is of course. It’s also great to tote around, be it along the hallways at work or to and from the office. It probably weighs less than your bag or carry case, but more on that.
The Zenbook A14’s lid, keyboard frame and base are made of Ceraluminum. This is ASUS’s own combination of ceramic and aluminium materials that the company developed. The net result is a wear, scratch, stain and fingerprint resistant material, which feels both sturdy and light. It also meets the MIL-STD 810H standard for reliability and durability, and can absorb some sock when dropped.
Not worrying about nicks and scratches great, so you can be a little cautious about what comes in contact with your laptop when putting it away or even resting things on it. While I generally prefer metallic cases, I must admit that once I got used to the feel of Ceraluminum, which initially seemed a bit like plastic, and then more of a smooth ‘stone’, it’s both practical and pleasing to the eye.
Colour-wise, mine came in Zabriskie Beige, with a tonally matched keyboard, and is a refreshing change from the traditional, or you can also choose the Iceland Grey version.
Keyboard and trackpad
The Zenbook A14’s keyboard action is quick, with a medium amount of travel (1.3mm) in the keys, plus it’s not excessively clicky. I was able to get up to my full typing speed in a few minutes, and the main keys are full-sized and well-spaced. However, there’s a thin row of function keys at the top that are less than half as deep, but these are easy enough to use on occasion.
For typing in darker places, there are three levels of keyboard lighting settings, the top one being quite bright. I couldn’t find an automatic setting that turns this on or off depending on ambient lighting, however.
As expected, there are dedicated Windows and CoPilot keys, although I found that the power button is oddly placed, as it’s one key in on the top row, with the DEL/INS in its place. With many laptops, you just reach for the outer-most key on the right to wake it up.
There’s a large trackpad too, which comes with virtual edge zones for swiping volume, screen brightness, and media forward/back. While it’s not a haptic model, it still feels quite responsive and not overly sensitive to accidental brushes with your fingers or thumbs.
Performance
The Zenbook A14 iSnapdragon Elite X chipset, runs at 3.4GHz with integrated Adreno graphics. The Elite X’s Hexagon NPU punches out 45TOPS with the complete chipset managing a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 45 Watts. This spec also includes 32GB of DDR5X RAM, which is ideal for more intensive tasks too, like editing video, coding, and on-device Machine Learning.
My benchmark tests were conducted with the Zenbook A14 unplugged, running in balanced power mode settings. Essentially, the way that most people would use it when away from mains power. For comparison, I ran the same tests on an HP OmniBook Ultra, which has Intel’s Core Ultra 7 installed.
| Benchmark | ASUS Zenbook A14 (3.2GHz Snapdragon X Elite, 32GB RAM) | HP OmniBook Ultra Flip (2.2GHz Intel Core Ultra 7, 32GB RAM) |
|---|---|---|
| Speedometer 3.0 (Edge) | 20.8 | 21.3 |
| Speedometer 3.0 (Chrome) | 17.3 | 15.3 |
| Geekbench 6 CPU Single-Core | 2,371 | 2,000 |
| Geekbench 6 CPU Multi-Core | 14,308 | 9,272 |
| Geekbench 6 GPU | 19,244 | 24,379 |
| Geekbench 6 AI Single Precision | 1,935 | 1,755 |
| Geekbench 6 AI Half Precision | 2,850 | 946 |
| Geekbench 6 AI Quantized Score | 6,182 | 3,583 |
| Cinebench 2024 Single-Core | 69 | 100 |
| Cinebench 2024 Multi-Core | 470 | 464 |
| CrystalDiskMark 8.0.5 Read (MB/s) | 6,991 | 6,613 |
| CrystalDiskMark 8.0.5 Write (MB/s) | 6,083 | 4,821 |
Disclaimer: Benchmark results can vary based on specific configurations and testing conditions.
From the results, it was interesting to note where the Zenbook A14 came out on top. Its Solid State Drive was faster, which certainly lends to its responsiveness. Geekbench 6.0 and Cinebench 2024 revealed the Snapdragon’s faster Single Core score, while the Intel chip held its own on Multi-Core tasks. The Zenbook scored considerably better on AI tasks too, including Half-Precision and Quantised scores. Overall, both machines will probably feel similar on general real-world tasks, however, the Zenbook would likely outlast it battery-wise for the same amount of work, but more on this later.
My general activities consisted of web browsing, checking emails, video conferencing with Teams, streaming YouTube and Netflix and asking CoPilot to look up various things. The Zenbook A14 took them in its stride without noticeable fan noise, heating up on the bottom or struggling in any apparent way.
The aluminium dual-fan cooling system also did a decent job of reducing thermal throttling when I was pushing the Zenbook hard with colour grading tasks using 4K MXF video clips in DaVinci Resolve 19.
Extra-long battery life
The Zenbook A14 has quite an efficient design with a TDP (Thermal Design Power) rating of just 45 Watts. Coupled with a large 70Wh battery, ASUS expects that you can achieve a massive 32 hours of battery life in ideal conditions. Keep in mind that this figure was achieved when just playing continuous full HD video.
It estimates 28 hours when streaming Netflix and 19.5 hours for general tasks such as replying to emails, sending updates on social media and online shopping. Regardless if you’re watching the entire series of Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Indiana Jones and Star Wars back-to-back or doing a mixture of office, online and entertainment tasks, the Zenbook will keep going for hours.
In my experience, the A14 lasted two days without a charge, and the battery life only started to really dip quicky during benchmark testing for this review.
There’s a 90-Watt charging brick included, which looks good and is fairly compact, however, it’s a shame about the the bulky full-sized mains cable that connects it to a power socket. ASUS should really figure out how to integrate the plug directly into the brick instead, like Apple’s MacBooks.
The Zenbook’s 3-cell battery has improved tech versus the previous model too, with a longer usable life and 20 percent more charge cycles.
When charging with it, however, the A14 can go from zero to 60% in a speedy 49 minutes, and fills up completely in just over an hour.
OLED screen
ASUS is a proud proponent of OLED displays, and offers them as standard across its laptop range. The 14in model on the Zenbook A14 is as you’d expect – bright, responsive, great blacks, vibrant colours and a fantastic viewing angle. This is a WUXGA panel, with a 16:10 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1920 x 1200. While a higher res screen might be nice, and there are 3K OLEDs in ASUS’s range, this addiotnal detail would also detract from battery life.
In terms of brightness, the panel runs at 400nits, but can go up to 600nits in HDR mode, so you can enjoy HDR movies or games.
Keep in mind that this isn’t a touchscreen however, nor does the screen fold completely flat, as there are other 2-in-1 models in ASUS’s range to tackle those things.
ASUS also includes software to reduce chances of burn-in, increase the colour gamut up to P3 for content creation, photo and design work, illustrations, etc.
Camera and sound
I tried out the camera and audio with my regular Teams meetings. Visually, the camera manages exposure well, and avoids blowing out my windows and overhead lights. Skin tones are also quite accurate compared to the HP’s camera
In terms of microphone quality, I’m told that my voice was clear, and there was noise cancellation going on to drown out the traffic outside my window.
For listening to music and videos, there’s Smart Amp technology for added clarity, but like most laptops, they don’t have a lot of bass or volume. Nothing bad here and fine for watching content, however, if comparing, the HP OmniBook Ultra’s speakers were a tad louder with more depth.
Connectivity
Connecting to other devices is well covered too with HDMI for video, a 3.5mm headphone jack, two USB-A ports and two USB-C 4.0 plugs. USB-C 4.0 is very fast with 40Gbps transfer speeds, plus it supports up to 100W power delivery to make quick work of charging the 70Wh battery.
It’s great also to see support for Wi-Fi7, which is the latest Wi-Fi standard and can support blistering wireless transfer speeds. While there aren’t many Wi-Fi 7 routers out there yet, this is great for future-proofing.
Should you buy it?
Overall, there’s little to not like about ASUS’s Zenbook A14. More importantly, it delivers on the key pillars that are important for most people – battery life, screen quality, portability, durability and performance. Plus it’s all wrapped up in an attractive and scratch-resistant case.
Price-wise, for $2500 in Australia, it’s competitive against other premium laptops with similar capabilities, such as the 14in HP OmniBook Ultra and even has the edge in terms of storage space over the new MacBook Air with M4 chip.
All up, it’s a very light and capable machine that you can tuck under your arm with the assurance that it will get the job done.
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