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Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2, also known as Lunar Lake, is one of the company’s most crucial processor launches in recent years. It’s the effective answer not just to longtime rival AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series but a wave of system-on-chip (SoC) laptops that include Apple Silicon-based MacBooks and Snapdragon-powered Windows machines. You’re ideally getting long real-world battery life and practical performance on one of the most trusted PC platforms.
ASUS’ Zenbook S 14 is, in many ways, the poster child for that comeback: it’s a slim, premium laptop that should showcase Lunar Lake’s strides forward. Our Zenbook S 14 review found that it’s a great laptop that shows where Intel has caught up – but also those areas where it still falls short.
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Design and Build Quality of the ASUS Zenbook S 14
There’s no skirting around it in this review: the Zenbook S 14 is ultimately a smaller-screen version of the Ryzen AI-based S 16 that launched earlier this year.
But that’s not a bad thing, for the most part:
- The 14-inch Zenbook is sleek at 0.43in thick.
- Moreover, it’s almost disconcertingly light at just over 2.6lbs.
You can easily hold it one-handed or slip it into a packed messenger bag. The weight is competitive with challengers like the Dell XPS 13, but that slimmer profile gives ASUS a slight edge.
It’s also a fairly handsome laptop with some nice touches. The Ceraluminum (a ceramic aluminum blend) lid looks the part while feeling reassuringly solid and textured. It’s not particularly fingerprint-resistant, but you might not mind, given the eye-catching appearance. There’s a restrained, tasteful look with fine details like a cooling vent grille made out of 2,715 machined holes.
If you press down on the casing, you won’t find any significant chassis flex, and the display doesn’t wobble too much while you’re typing.
I do suspect that the system is almost too thin for the Core Ultra Series 2, however. The fans aren’t particularly loud or annoying, but they kick in relatively often. Even a large download can get them spinning. If you were hoping for the virtually silent operation of the fanless MacBook Air or a Snapdragon computer like the Surface Laptop 7, you wouldn’t get it here.
The port selection is better than average. While you’ll have to use one of the two Thunderbolt 4 (USB 4) ports to charge up, you also get:
- USB-A (3.2 Gen 2),
- Headphone jack,
- HDMI 2.1.
You won’t have to hunt for a dongle to plug into a TV or use a legacy peripheral. I wish there was an SD card reader and the headphone jack was further back to avoid tangling cables with other plugged-in devices.
Display, Audio, Webcam, and Input Review: Zenbook S 14’s OLED Shines
Display
The screen is easily the next review highlight of the Zenbook S 14 after its profile. It’s the 3K (2,880 x 1,800) 120Hz OLED touchscreen you’ve seen on some ASUS portables.
However, that still amounts to a rich, smooth-scrolling display with perfect blacks, 500-nit HDR, and accurate colors. The company even touts a Delta E (the measurement of how far a display veers from the real colors) under 1. You can get serious image editing done and still enjoy vivid streaming video sessions.
The choice does have some consequences. While I didn’t encounter OLED burn-in during the review period, it’s possible if you routinely have static content on the screen for hours. And in certain bright lighting conditions, you can see what looks like grit on the surface. The resolution is a good balance between sharpness and energy savings (you can turn off 120Hz if you like). Still, I found myself reaching for a slightly denser Windows display scaling than the 200% default.
Audio
ASUS oversells the audio system. The four-speaker Harman/Kardon array is supposed to provide “bass-enhanced” sound with Dolby Atmos support, but I found it a bit thin on the low end. It’s clear at typical volumes but not what I’d call exciting. The MacBook Pro remains the gold standard if you’re determined to have great built-in sound from a 14-inch laptop.
Webcam
The 1080p webcam is nothing special, although Windows Hello support will quickly log you in without entering a password. ASUS’ AiSense can automatically dim the screen when you’re not looking.
Keyboard
You’ll mostly be happy with the keyboard. The keys are large enough, with good (if slightly stiff) travel and relatively quiet sounds. I found myself accidentally hitting the Windows key a few times, however, and the Copilot key still feels superfluous when it doesn’t do more at present than launch a web app.
The trackpad is one of the better examples in this class. It’s smooth, accurate, and works well with multi-finger gestures. ASUS includes a few custom gestures, such as swiping along edges to adjust volume, brightness, and video scrolling. Still, you’ll be glad to hear that they’re difficult to activate by accident. My only gripe is a stiff clicking action.
Performance: How Well Does the Zenbook S 14 Handle Workloads?
The Lunar Lake architecture in the Core Ultra Series 2 is built around not just efficiency but sustained speed. The four performance cores are faster, but the real stars are the four efficiency cores. They’re supposed to provide a huge 68% boost to instructions per clock compared to last year’s Core Ultra, and that helps them shoulder more tasks that would otherwise head to the performance cores. Combined with RAM stacked on the chip, you theoretically get a quicker processor for lengthy workloads (such as video encoding or games) and when you’re unplugged.
In practice? It’s faster but not quite up to the high bar set by AMD’s Ryzen AI, Apple’s M3, or most versions of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite. Synthetic tests bear this out. My review Zenbook S 14 with a 2.2GHz Core Ultra 7 258V and 32GB of RAM managed a very respectable 2,731 single-core score in Geekbench 6, but only 11,088 in multi-core.
The 15-inch Surface Laptop 7 with a Snapdragon X Elite and the same memory only reached 2,115 in single-core, but its 12 cores helped it reach a healthier 13,122 in the multi-core test. AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 HX 970, as you’d expect for a top-of-the-line CPU, does well with typical 2,850 single-core and 15,000 multi-core results. As of this writing, the ASUS machine isn’t available with a Core Ultra 9 in North America, so a direct comparison is difficult.
| Processor | Single-Core Score (Geekbench 6) | Multi-Core Score (Geekbench 6) |
|---|---|---|
| Intel Core Ultra 7 258V | 2,731 | 11,088 |
| Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite | 2,115 | 13,122 |
| AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 970 | 2,850 | 15,000 |
Intel and ASUS can take some credit for giving Apple’s M3-based MacBook Air a good run, though. While Apple remains the champion of single-core with 3,065, it’s only slightly ahead on multi-core at 11,959. The Zenbook mainly falters in an intensive Cinebench R24 benchmark, where its 121-point single-core result compares to a 2022-era M2 MacBook Air, and its 495-point multi-core figure puts it behind Apple’s four-year-old M1.
The Arc 140V integrated GPU is competent. ASUS’ PC handily beat the Surface Laptop 7 in 3DMark’s Steel Nomad Light test (3,253 vs. 1950), and had a clear lead in the integrated graphics-oriented Night Raid test (26,992 vs. 23,387). The real advantages are native ray tracing support and faster on-device AI processing for those apps that can use the GPU. While I wouldn’t want to run most ray-traced games on any integrated graphics hardware, it’s nice to know the option is there.
In practice, the laptop is plenty quick for most common productivity apps. Apart from the fans kicking in relatively often, you won’t have much to complain about even when juggling multiple programs at once – the 32GB of RAM on my Zenbook S 14 review unit helps, of course. And crucially, the performance holds consistently. I didn’t see significant throttling in longer tests, and even unplugging didn’t deal too much of a hit (Geekbench ran near-identically in Balanced on battery versus Best Performance plugged in, for example). That’s been true of MacBooks and Ryzen AI laptops, but it’s good to see Intel joining this camp.
Zenbook S 14 GPU and Gaming Capabilities
Gaming is viable on the Zenbook if you temper your expectations. I could play Destiny 2 very smoothly at 1,440 x 900 with medium detail and no antialiasing, but I wouldn’t push much further than that. Other games that don’t tax the system too much, such as Counter-Strike 2 and Fortnite, also run well. You won’t find many recent 3D games that can handle the native 1800p of the display, however, and you’ll sometimes find yourself dialing the details to “low” to get consistently smooth frame rates in titles like Cyberpunk 2077. Think of this more as a thin-and-light laptop that happens to do a passable job for casual gamers.
Battery Life and Charging Speed of the Zenbook S 14
Intel has been improving battery life in recent years, particularly with the first-generation Core Ultra, but there’s sometimes been a mismatch between the company’s claims and practical reality. A working day’s battery life wasn’t always guaranteed. When Apple and now AMD can deliver that much or more, there’s pressure on Intel to catch up.
If my Zenbook S 14 review unit is any indication, Intel has. The 72Wh battery was remarkably resilient in my testing and could handle a mix of web browsing (with many tabs open), Photoshop, company chat, music streaming, a video meeting, and even two hours of gaming while still making it through an eight-hour day at a comfortable 40% screen brightness. You can expect considerably more runtime in less demanding situations. If you’ve been looking for a laptop that can last a lengthy workday without having to watch the battery life indicator, this is a superb option.
The PC supports fast charging over USB-C, including with the 65W adapter that comes in the box. You’ll get from empty to a 50% charge in 40 minutes, and a full charge in two hours. The gotcha, as mentioned earlier, is that staying plugged in takes away one of your ports. There’s no dedicated (and trip-resistant) power jack like Apple’s MagSafe or Microsoft’s proprietary Surface connector. This won’t be a problem if you dock with a hub or monitor, or rarely attach wired peripherals. Still, it’s worth noting if you tend to bring more than one external device with you.
Software: The Zenbook S 14 Isn’t an AI PC Yet
The Zenbook S 14 is one of the first Intel-based computers to get Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC label and the functionality that goes with it. Or rather, it will be. ASUS has only promised to deliver those features through a later software update, so the system that’s currently shipping misses out. You won’t get AI-assisted file searching, on-device image generation, or similar perks. And when the Recall activity search feature is still months away, you might have to wait longer to get everything Microsoft touted in June.
ASUS picks up a bit of the slack. StoryCube uses AI to automatically generate photo and video collections as well as highlights. Otherwise, there’s not much else. There’s a Copilot key on the keyboard to bring up a prompt, but that’s hardly special when it simply points to the cloud. Even Intel’s own AI Playground app wasn’t ready for Core Ultra Series 2 as I wrote this.
After that, the only additions to Windows 11 are ASUS’ familiar utilities. MyASUS helps you manage your system and get help. ScreenXpert provides extra ways to control app windows across displays. And GlideX can use your Android or iOS devices as extensions of your virtual desktop, although the free version is ad-supported and limits you to one device over Wi-Fi.
The issue, as you might guess, is that the competition isn’t standing still. Snapdragon-based computers already have the existing Copilot+ PC feature set, while Apple plans to release the Apple Intelligence beta for Mac users in October. If you value AI enough that it shapes your purchasing decisions, you could be waiting a while before the Zenbook becomes a smart buy.
Intel’s main advantage is compatibility. Like with AMD PCs, this laptop can run virtually any software Windows 11 supports. You won’t have to check for app compatibility or run things in emulation. And while the need for speciality apps is shrinking, many offices and schools insist on x86-based Windows machines for their must-run programs.
Should You Buy the ASUS Zenbook S 14?
I enjoyed using the Zenbook S 14 during my review stint. It’s evidence that Intel-equipped laptops have come a long way in terms of real-life performance. You can use a Lunar Lake portable like this for real work without limiting the apps you run or taking a huge hit to longevity.
Credit also goes to ASUS for nailing the hardware. The Zenbook is far from a novel design, but it’s very hard to fault apart from the fan noise. It’s easy to carry just about anywhere and has a premium build you don’t always see, even at the $1,400 starting price for a version with 16GB of RAM and a lower-spec Core Ultra 7 256V (the upgraded model I tested costs $1,500).
There’s just one problem: there are alternatives that might be more enticing. It’s too early to deliver a verdict on competing Core Ultra Series 2 models, but you can expect choices from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and other heavyweights. Snapdragon machines already offer the battery life and sleek profiles if you don’t mind losing some app support.The M3 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are quieter and still very speedy if you aren’t attached to Windows, and an M4 MacBook Pro might be just around the corner.
The value is there, at least. The decent minimum RAM, sharp OLED screen, and 1TB of included storage won’t make you feel guilty about sticking with the base version. That’s just as well since you can’t upgrade the RAM after the fact due to its placement on the CPU. You’ll definitely want to buy the model with 32GB of memory if you’re determined to have a future-proof PC.
Lunar Lake isn’t a decisive blow for Intel. It still needs active cooling and is not as fast as some rivals. The AI functionality is also undercooked and could be for months. But it’s a huge step in the right direction, and ASUS uses the technology well.
