2024 Asus Zenbook S 14 (Intel Core Ultra 200) Review

[@mattzamg]

I had an S 16 for a few days before I returned it. Needs some firmware updates from Asus to fix bugs all over the place. Didn't like the overall build quality, trackpad click felt cheap, the bottom bezel wasn't flush with the screen, the screen felt like it wasn't glued to the lid properly.

[@dontpokethebear3893]

ASUS always seems to do this. They have like 8 lines of laptops and rush each yearly model out the door before making sure its actually a good computer lol

[@thesolver1970]

@@dontpokethebear3893 same issue with their desktop motherboards in terms of BIOS

[@tim3172]

@@thesolver1970 I'm not sure I'd agree on that. Their Intel boards have been very stable and usable with only one or two exceptions stemming from manufacturer issues. I'd largely place their UEFI woes on AMD, which... I mean... factually delivers products in a far more beta state than Intel has. I don't think you really have a decent case for Asus making bad desktop UEFIs. (They are also very aggressive in fixing any bugs, even on older platforms. This includes recent Intel 13/14 and AMD's 7800X3D over voltage/*WAY* over voltage situations.)

[@RidwanGosal]

Well that's insane. I have Asus laptops that are running without a problem. Most are cheap less than 500 usd that I'd assume would break but they haven't.

[@invertthelab6532]

my friend got Asus that aint cheap but their stuff doesn't impress me, the bezel not tight, screen bleeding, and in a year the battery just done

[@testdump4696]

I love your reviews! i do not understand why you do not get more views! people seem to care more about the video production quality than the actual information provided in the video. But I don't! i love the information you give about all of the different products you review.

[@AgentZeroNine1]

Man, non-Apple productivity centric laptops always get an extra dose of railing by reviewers due to not being a high performer in gaming but that same critic is never put on Apple laptops like the air series of laptops. It honestly feels like tech reviewers think the majority of non-Apple laptop owners use their laptop to play AAA games on them or something. Gaming benchmarks are rarely ever a deciding factor for people buying thin and light laptops.

[@BogdanGraurNetwork]

Good point!

[@ryanfeeley2407]

I think its fair to assume anyone buying a Windows laptop is either gaming, or running some creator or engineering software that requires windows on x86. Why else would you be buying it? I guess It's not a walled garden, but it is a swamp.

[@Lemonhandle]

honestly, I'd love a thin and light laptop that I can work on, that can also bash out some reasonable performance in gaming. At 1440p, medium settings, 60fps. The dream, for me. I'd grab this but I have a feeling the trackpad sucks and so the whole experience of using it sucks. Unconfirmed

[@Jmpaul26]

@@ryanfeeley2407 I disagree. Some people don't like experience decisions that Apple makes, whereas Windows gives more flexibility. Doesn't mean they play AAA games or render CAD drawings, though. I love Apple hardware; very well-built, but I'm not in love with the workflows and software experience.

[@franklong6269]

I am glad to see that you have nearly a million subscribers; you deserve it. Some people were rude to you because of your age, but you proved that they are nothing but bigots. I hope you hit a million subscribers soon. You do a great job with your reviews!

[@lenovovo]

Hey Lisa! You know, I wish that I could be excited about computers like I used to be, which was from 1993 to 2000. For the most part, I'm a desktop computer person. The technology was much more exciting for me. I like the bloat ware that came with them and just overall how computers were. After that, things just went south with me. The salt has lost its savor, so to speak. I guess that I have just lost that lovin' feeling for computers and phones. There's nothing left to be desired. Anyways Lisa, enough of my rat and raving ... LOL .... I will ALWAYS continue to watch your reviews though. You're the BEST Lisa!!!! -Melvin - Friday, October 18, 2024 - Colorado Springs, Colorado - 8:23 PM

[@skipper63400]

I love Lisa's reviews, even if they come a bit later out other reviewers, they are the most objective, concise and down to earth. Lisa: Worse performance than last generation, just 2 hours longer battery life. Other reviewers: Amazing battery life, at last competing with Macs, great graphics power, more than enough performance.

[@dcjrsrt10]

You and detriod borg were my all time fav tech reviewers glad to see you are still at it with high end videos

[@JackG79]

Thank u for the honest review. Saved me a lot of money. Will be going with another item.

[@brianchen3964]

I had one for the past few weeks. Only reason was the unbeatable battery life(other than Qualcomm) doing work stuff (coding, documents etc), browsing web and watching youtube, i get 10+ hours easy. The fact that arc 140v is good enough for a lot of games if i feel like it (not some super high quality AAA). Its a good laptop. Only focusing on core performance isnt something for me.

[@zynan]

Side note: no cats and no plant-photography during this video. I e been watching your channel for years, and I remember having cameos of your swimming pool and slippery slide in some reviews. 🎉

[@williammaverick]

Here's another pain the butt. Max Tech video about the S14 revealed the epic fail OLED display of the S14, due to it having a literal mirror as a screen. The Macbook's display actually looked more contrastry and deeper black while it being a Mini LED display due to it being far less reflective.

[@user-dv5gm2gc3u]

got a 14 inch Zenbook from 2018 & still liking the looks of it. This one looks awesome too. Have seen reviews it can actually do low to medium settings gaming on integrated graphics, which is pretty cool. Still a bit pricey, but they tend to drop a lot in 6 to 12 months

[@endless_puns]

I'm glad I got the 2023 version with the IPS matte display. I've had the laptop in 6 months and it's been rock solid. Performance has been great for general productivity (Office, web browsing) and entertainment (streaming video) and even some coding (Python for data science tasks). Also has a fingerprint sensor rather than Windows Hello camera, which I really appreciate as the cameras on Windows laptops are never as good as Face ID on Apple (at least on the devices I have tried).

[@FiammaEterna93]

Thank you I was looking for this model review, super helpful 💙

[@timt4689]

Where did you buy the S14 32gb version in the grey option? It's not available on their website (only in white)...

[@matthewbray8323]

Great job as always, Lisa!

[@HydroTech23]

Time 4:08 Which is better than this ? How's it compared to Samsung Book 4, which is more powerful or has better features ? Please

[@mobiletechreview]

In general, the last gen Core Ultra will get you better CPU performance than this new gen Core Ultra. Though graphics performance is a bit better in the latest gen.

[@HydroTech23]

@@mobiletechreview Thanks, keep making Videos they are very helpful God Bless you

[@alfredosalza6328]

Great video as always!

[@pneuma23093]

Great review Lisa. Thank you for cutting through all the hype.

[@last808]

woah, a straight an to the point review. This is nice.

[@DT-vc7hd]

I'm holding out to see if Microsoft releases a Lunar Lake equipped Surface Laptop. For us retro gamer types, this cpu/gpu hits a really nice sweet spot

[@tracywhitt7213]

Thank you for the review, I like your shirt. 😁

[@adyton]

I am using the previous version of this notebook; it is very good, worth of it's money.

[@samuelj2475]

Hi Lisa. I'm curious, do you plan on reviewing the '24 Motorola Razr Plus?

[@thenubianspeaks4329]

I must say you were less enthusiastic about this laptop than a lot of other reviewers, some who did not mention the degradation in performance over the last generation. That is for the most part it is the user satisfaction that is the most important

[@Jrome4life]

Hey Lisa!!! How are you doing? lol great review as always keep up the excellent work.

[@kossuth09]

What do you like between the Asus Zenbook S 14, Dell XPS 13 ,Galaxy Book 5, and Lenovo Yoga Slim in the new Lunar Lake configurations? They are all similarly priced, but the Asus has the most RAM and storage. I would lean towards longer battery life and light gaming/productivity for use.

[@pawelw5030]

glossy screen is big NO for me. i'm waiting for LG Gram Pro with Lunar Lake

[@Unizuka]

for sub 1000$ (probably in early 2025 they will be around that price) this would be a good choice

[@DanielSacilotto]

Was the battery life measured in balanced mode? How much of a difference do the various power settings make to battery life.

[@mobiletechreview]

Yes, Balanced mode. Surprisingly the power settings in both the Asus app and in Windows didn't change benchmark or runtimes much.

[@DanielSacilotto]

@@mobiletechreview Interesting. Does lowering the screen to 60hz make any difference? Does Energy Saver does that by default? Sorry for the barrage of questions, but there is so much conflicting information on this.

[@kauigirl808]

Waiting for it to go on sale 😢

[@DJAYPAZ]

Lisa compare three different CPUs in terms of power consumption and speed. So is the 2nd gen Intel Ultra CPU better or not ?

[@mobiletechreview]

Second gen is better for battery life and heat, slower for CPU performance. 2nd gen is also a bit better for graphics performance.

[@DJAYPAZ]

@@mobiletechreview Thanks for replying. That laptop is very appealing, so much so that it’s on my short list. I’ve had most of the major brand laptops but not Azus. Might be time to give them a try. My main application is using digital audio workstation software. So the on board sound hardware is an important consideration for me. Bye….

[@Chatsworth1979]

Fine review

[@ehyouman]

Here's what Id love...... A sleek well designed looking windows laptop for not a macbook price..... Imagine?!

[@MrErricobalto]

If it's cool, well made and good enough, why should be cheapee than a macbook?

[@oleksandrdubyna4173]

Hi. I have bought this laptop. And I have checked with stock wd ssd and with Samsung 990 pro ssd. And both shows iops 40 times less. On the level of sata ssd. But max speed with 1mb is good( around 7 GB person sec). Could you try some ssd benchmark on this laptop? Thank you

[@mobiletechreview]

We show Crystal Disk Mark, an SSD benchmark, in this review. Stock SSD tested.

[@oleksandrdubyna4173]

@@mobiletechreview nice. thanks . i see. could you compare is it good results or not?

[@Ranguvar13]

Lunar Lake seems really nice but I wish it came with 64GB RAM as an option. Compared to $800 certified used ThinkPad P14s G4 with 7840U and 64GB RAM it’s hard to go with this.

[@invertthelab6532]

nice thin but at some point it's getting too thin

[@andyH_England]

So Windows ultrabooks as it is in late 2024: 1/ AMD are the better-performing ultrabooks but lose out in battery life. GPU is good. 2/ Snapdragon is solid for performance, and battery life on light tasks is great. GPU is subpar, and some still have compatibility issues. 3/ Intel has great performance and battery life for light tasks. But diminishing returns if you want it for anything more intensive. GPU on par with AMD. Of course, the M4 MacBook Pro base arrives in a week or so, and that likely will go straight to the top of the class for efficiency, thermals and performance.

[@marcusst8809]

The thing is, these benchmarks are IMHO not worth anything anymore except for very specific, high performance tasks that 99% of users never do. For everything most users do, the CPUs are so fast that you do not feel the difference between 5000, 10000 or 15000 points. I own an XPS13 with i7-1185 - about 5000 points. An M2 Air with about 9000 points and a Desktop with Ryzen 7 5700x also with about 9000 points. I have no chance to feel the difference between these processors. I do programming, CAD tasks, light Blender, hobby photography, gaming tasks with my devices. Everything is snappy on all of them. Every time something is "slow", a "faster" CPU does not solve it. Then you need a dedicated graphics card (training neural networks, running CAD simulations, rendering scenes, etc.). The CPU is nearly never the bottleneck. I do play AAA titles on the XPS with an eGPU attached and it works like a charm. It's the slowest CPU and it is not the issue. However there is a HUGHE difference between my XPS and the Macbook. The XPS gets very warm, the fans are running even when the processor is at 2% utilization, battery life is about 3-4 hours (it has a 4k display though). Compared to the M2, the device is annoying to use (even though the keyboard and screen of the XPS are muuuch better and overall I like it more). The Macbook doesn't even have a fan - it is dead silent, battery life is 12++h, you can use it on the couch on your lap without ever having to worry about airflow. Even if you do demanding things, the battery is still good for 5-6h where the XPS dies in 1-2h. THAT is a huuuge difference. Therefore I really value the shift in focus Intel has done. 10k or 15k points in synthetic benchmarks don't matter anymore (like Lisa said, 3 year old gaming CPUs are slower!). But 4h battery life and constant noise or 12+h battery life and mostly silent is a huge difference. I am really looking forward to replace my XPS with a lunar lake model.

[@wswsd3279]

I don't like the operating system on the apple products it just feels miserable for engineering related software

[@alexey.karamanov]

The best reviewer ever. 🎉

[@williammaverick]

Lisa you really are special. This is the first Lunar Lake video I've watched that didn't just do all praises and actually got objective and critical about the new chip from Intel. All other videos about it was like the second coming of Christ and that the X Elite was killed in an instant. Thank you for revelation!

[@Unizuka]

yep, not sure why tech youtubers tend to do that unless they were sponsored, they did the same with the x elite during launch, only few actually gave us an objective review.

[@thesolver1970]

Great review! I'm dedicated to the X1 Carbon/Yoga lineup and I have a few to say the least! My daily drivers are a mix of 3/4th gen X1 Yogas (intel 8th gen i7) and X1 carbon gen 8 (10th gen i7). All with 500 nit screens. Nothing has compelled me to upgrade as they still are pretty powerful for what I do with great battery life. I do have a no name intel 12th gen 12500H 17" laptop for other things and desktop with 13th gen i7 and yes an iPad Pro M4. My issue is, my thinkpads are so good, how does this zenbook compare to lhe latest X1s, because one day, I will have to upgrade as nothing lasts forever and the iPad Pro is not the revelation (software wise) I thought it would be. Stick with X1s?

[@arodOTG]

You have a really great ratio of power to performance considering your machines. Save the money and get what life you can out of the machines you have. I feel this video was targeted to those in the market for something new and comparable in BATTERY life to that of the new Snapdragon offerings.

[@thesolver1970]

@@arodOTG yeah also just realised does this ASUS have cellular! Maybe not, which is a zero for me. All my portable machines have SIM cards

[@arodOTG]

@@thesolver1970 I remember having a cellular X1 sometime back.. Truly underrated feature.

[@mikephilpot]

So not a huge upgrade from the first generation Asus 14 OLED?

[@shaun1900]

Other than being an S model

[@bobasquid3339]

Thumbs up for your review👍 thumbs down for Asus. My experience, their products are crap.

[@McGanja420]

why no more number pad? Dam you Asus

[@tim3172]

My Asus OLED 14" 1240P is going to the recycler because it's infuriating to use with only 8GB of RAM and not upgradable. I tried to replace it with a 155H model (Q425MA), but that one had some kind of bug where it wouldn't go over 300Mhz* on any core for any reason, even after reflashing UEFI, Windows reinstall, etc. I'm not sure I can stomach more than the cost of both of those laptops for a decent replacement. *Yes, literally 300MHz, Pentium 1 speeds. Make sure you update to W11 24H2 to allow you to remap that useless CoPiLoT button.

[@fduran6993]

Linux?

[@akin242002]

The good: Single core CPU performance, iGPU, excellent screen, Thunderbolt 4 ports, amazing battery life, and full X86 compatibility. Great for everyday office workers in finance and insurance companies/departments. The bad: Multi-core CPU performance is only ok for 2024. Look elsewhere if you need a CPU powerhouse.

[@KL-xv5gj]

Cost a lot for me to fix!

[@xspager]

Remember when people were frying eggs with their AMD CPUs? (f* I'm old)

[@stankramer6262]

but you can get a M2 MacBoook Air for less money

[@arodOTG]

I always love this argument

[@cm42019]

Worse screen. Smaller screen. For the same weight. With less ram and storage. It should cost less.

[@KL-xv5gj]

l stay away from ASUS. Not cheap, but batteries not durable. I got a ZenBook Slim, suddenly out of order. Also the tablets died or battery life went out. Durability still room for improvement, although good designs

[@Havanu81]

Arent these user replaceable? Also, i believe most laptop batteries used by different manufacturers come from the same factory. Economy of scale.

[@HisHighnessSirKing]

For the love of God can someone explain why laptops still ship with HDMI ports? They look so ugly! What is the need when all monitors and displays can be connected using a USB-C to USB-C or even USB-C to HDMI cable!

[@WHITELIONNYC]

🚨🛑As much as I have thought of buying an Asus to replace my Dell XPS, the reviews I read on Best Buy have me thinking to just get another Dell XPS.🛑🚨

[@patekreol974]

super

[@Texas_1985]

What's with the meh review? Arm processor level battery life, x86 compatibility, Apple M1 level single threaded performance, 4X graphics performance over the previous generation. This is basically flawless for anyone looking for a windows laptop that is not doing video editing or AAA gaming.

[@mobiletechreview]

The meh is that CPU performance dropped vs the last gen from Intel. Typically we see performance go up, even if not by a huge amount, from one gen to the next.

[@mmadevgame]

trash tier intel multi-core performance for such a huge price

[@luigibru8677]

Overpriced

[@Cleisthenes607]

Can it fit a double sided SSD say 4tb or 8tb?