Asus ZenBook S 14 first impressions: potentially one of the best Windows ultrabooks of 2024 | Tech Tips

Intel is pushing out its Lunar Lake series mobile CPUs and ASUS, being one of the key manufacturing partners, has come up with the updated ZenBook S 14. The late 2024 model is not just a simple upgrade to Intel’s Lunar Lake platform, but features a complete redesign of the chassis. It is claimed to be slimmest ZenBook that the company has ever made with a thickness of just 1.1 cm.

At first glance, the refreshed Zenbook S 14 looks similar to earlier Zenbook 14 models, but closer inspection reveals some key improvements. The new S 14 feels more robust, with a stronger lid and underbelly, along with MIL-STD 810H military standard certification. Despite that, the laptop weighs only 1.2kg.

The lid features a ceramic and aluminium combination that ASUS calls Ceraliminum. This is the same material that was seen on the larger Zenbook S 16 that launched with AMD earlier this year. Having an appealing sandstone-like texture, it resists fingerprints and scratches better than traditional metals. It also comes in two colour options: Scandinavian White and Zumaia Grey. 

A notable design feature is the area above the keyboard, which has a geometric grille with 2,715 CNC-machined cooling vents. ASUS claims this improves airflow by up to 50 percent, ensuring efficient heat dissipation even at the laptop’s peak TDP. Additionally, there is an ultra-slim vapour chamber, a bi-layer graphite sheet, and a dual-fan system, resulting in up to double the heat dissipation compared to previous models. 

The notebook is slightly thinner, shorter, and lighter than its predecessors (31.03 x 21.47 x 1.19 ~ 1.29 cm). The port layout has also been updated, with most I/O ports now on the left side for better usability. While the selection of ports remains unchanged, including two USB-C Thunderbolt ports, a USB-A, HDMI 2.1, and an audio jack. For wireless connectivity, there is tri-band Wi-Fi 7(802.11be) and Bluetooth 5.4.

The laptop retains its 14-inch 2.8K 120Hz OLED display which offers excellent colour and contrast, making it ideal for daily use. I do wish the brightness was higher as it is currently at 400 nits, but it’s nice to see ASUS incorporating a flicker-free dimming solution that helps manage OLED flicker issues at lower brightness levels. The company has confirmed that a touch and non-touch variant of the ZenBook S 14 will be launched in India.

I did notice that the screen’s tilt is limited to 130 degrees, unlike the previous 180-degree flexibility. While this may restrict usability in some situations for certain users, I could live with it. Overall the build quality and design upgrades make the new Zenbook S 14 a solid refresh.

The keyboard has a key travel distance of 1.1mm which is shallower than the 1.4mm on prior models. In my few minutes of using one of the demo units at the showcase, I didn’t mind the shorter travel distance, but I need to properly test it out to come to a conclusion. You also get white backlighting and a large glass touchpad with additional volume, screen brightness and video seek gestures. 

Other notable features include an IR-enabled 1080p webcam with Windows Hello face recognition and a quad-speaker system tuned by Harman Kardon. 

Powering the laptop is Intel’s latest Core Ultra Series 2 chips with the high-end configuration featuring an Intel Core Ultra 9 288V processor, Intel Arc XE 140V graphics, 32GB LPDDR5x-8533 memory, and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4.0 SSD. 

Upgrade to the previous-gen Meteor Lake architecture, Lunar Lake has a similar SoC layout that integrates all key components onto one chip, including CPU, GPU, NPU, and RAM. This helps in optimising performance, drastically reduces latencies, and offers a more efficient system. Lunar Lake (Intel Core Ultra Series 2) comes with improved performance and efficiency cores, along with a more powerful NPU (neural processing unit) which is capable of 48 TOPS (tera operations per second).

One does have to consider that there are no separate RAM slots, with 16GB or 32GB of RAM embedded in the SoC, depending on the processor model. The updated Arc Xe2 graphics provide up to 8 Execution Cores, offering reasonable performance for integrated graphics, although differences between Core Ultra 5, 7, and 9 SKUs should be minimal in this regard. 

Last, but not least, thanks to Intel’s revamped chips ASUS says that the new ZenBook S 14 can offer up to 27 hours of battery life (1080p video playback). While that sounds impressive, a proper real-life productivity test is necessary to get an actual estimate of how much the 72Whr unit can deliver. The laptop comes bundled with a 65W USB Type-C charging brick that offers fast charging speeds of 0 to 60 percent in 49 minutes.

The latest Zenbook S 14 doesn’t bring a dramatic change in terms of design compared to previous versions. Despite that, it feels impressive. It is highly compact and feels premium to hold and use. I can’t say much about the performance, but from what Intel suggests, the new chips are surely going to deliver on the promise of performance and efficiency.

Pricing for the new ZenBook S 14 starts at Rs 1,49,990 for the 32GB + 1TB variants and you can purchase the laptop starting September 25th. Customers who pre-order by September 24th, 2024, will enjoy exclusive perks valued at Rs. 17,389 for just Rs. 1, including a 2-year extended warranty, 3 years of damage protection, and branded earbuds.

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