Asus Zenbook 14 OLED 2024 review: AI is the icing on the cake on this compelling device

Fantastic basics

Despite being a thin machine, it has all the ports that expects from a laptop of this class (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

If you ask me what makes a good ultrabook, I would summarise it in three words — display, performance, and battery life. Asus has nailed all three of these parameters on the Zenbook 14. In fact, this laptop definitely has one of the best displays on a 14-inch laptop that I have tested recently. Plus, the 2K resolution OLED panel with support for touch input makes everything look bright (up to 600 nits of peak brightness) and vivid with excellent contrast. However, there is no 360-degree hinge, so it is not convertible.

Other things that I like about this machine include the keyboard, and especially the trackpad which doubles up as a num pad – a feature which has been common on previous generations of Zenbooks. The speakers are also fairly loud, although the quality and loudness are still not as good as an MacBook Air M1, which definitely sets the bar in laptop audio quality.

But unlike a MacBook, the Zenbook 14 has plenty of ports, including a full-sized HDMI port, USB-A port, USB-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack to continue a dongle-free life. Overall, in terms of hardware capabilities, the latest Zenbook is not that different from its predecessor, and it’s a good thing. However, it does miss out on a microSD slot.

How is the AI experience?

The laptop is powered by the Intel Core Ultra processor (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

Right now, there aren’t many AI-enabled experiences available on the Zenbook 14 OLED. In fact, something like the Galaxy S24 definitely packs more AI features than this laptop. However, it has all the hardware, so developers need to optimise the software to enable various AI features.

It’s also quite difficult to find benchmarking platforms to measure the AI performance of this machine. It does offer Microsoft Copilot, which is available on every laptop running on the latest version of Windows 11 OS. Right now, there are only a handful of software which can truly make use of the NPU.

Microsoft recently announced that it is adding NPU support to DirectML, and developers are expected to incorporate these technologies to make full use of this hardware.

Performance and battery life

The laptop can easily last for an entire working day (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

Alongside the NPU core, this chip also features two additional CPU cores called low-power efficiency (LPE) cores along with the efficiency (E-cores) and performance (P-cores), which work together to improve energy efficiency. The laptop also comes with the Intel Arc graphics, the most powerful integrated GPU that Intel has ever bundled with a mobile processor.

For normal day-to-day tasks like web browsing, working on presentations, or even movie streaming, this laptop performs as fast as most modern laptops. However, for tasks like video streaming, the low-power efficiency cores kick in, thanks to the upgraded Intel Threads Director, which smartly allocates the right cores to deliver the best possible performance while consuming the least amount of power.

The Zenbook 14 is the first Windows laptop on which I have watched three full movies on a single charge with the brightness set to around 50 per cent. I did not notice any heating while doing so. While the battery life on the Zenbook 14 has drastically improved, something like a MacBook Air with Apple Silicon still delivers longer battery life.

Here are some benchmark numbers that we ran on this laptop:

You can even play games on this ultrabook (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

More than AI capabilities, I really liked the fact that the Intel Arc is a fairly capable GPU, which can even handle AAA titles at 720p/1080p settings at 60/30fps. While this might not sound like a lot, especially to those who have laptops with dedicated graphics cards, these numbers indicate that one can definitely play even AAA titles on a laptop that’s much lighter and smaller than most gaming laptops.

I played GTA: V on the Zenbook 14 OLED, and the laptop was able to handle it without any issues at 720p resolution. However, due to the high-resolution display, playing games at 720p or even 1080p makes it look a bit pixelated.

Verdict

A future-ready laptop (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

At an asking price of over a lakh rupees, the Asus Zenbook 14 is clearly a compelling device and it has everything that one expects from a Windows laptop of this class. While it is heavily marketed as an “AI PC” I really cannot see any AI-specific features, but this could change in the coming days. If you are looking for a future-proof laptop, this is definitely one that’s worth considering.