Asus has named its latest laptop the Zenbook A14, and when you squint, ‘A14’ looks a lot like ‘AIR’. I don’t think that’s an accident, even though this PC has a 14-inch screen, which is where the number comes in. The A14 is lightweight and has incredibly long battery life, two staple features of the MacBook Air line up.

Those two things alone have meant I’ve loved using this laptop. I’m a sucker for small or lightweight gadgets, and the A14 delivers, weighing under 1kg at 980g. It makes such a difference when using it on my lap or carrying it around all day in a bag. Backache, begone.

Asus calls the laptop’s material ‘ceraluminium’, a silly word that’s a combination of ceramic and aluminium, but the result is a pleasant matte finish, even if the lid is slightly flimsy. The ‘Asus Zenbook’ branding on said lid is subtle, and the grey version I tested is inoffensive, with a beige also available.

Inside, a 14-inch OLED screen steals the show. It’s wonderfully bright when you need it to be, but at £1,099, I missed the lack of touchscreen. Unlike some, I find it quite easy to switch between Windows and Mac laptops thanks to mainly living in Google cloud apps, but being on Windows 11 is usually a plus when you can reach up and scroll pages or select buttons with touch.

The lack of touch the A14 is likely to keep the panel thin and price down, but it’s a shame, especially when the trackpad is a step below the best. It’s quite clunky to physically click and can’t match the MacBook Air’s responsiveness and haptic, non-moving tech.

That said, there are gestures hidden in swiping along the edges of the trackpad to adjust things such as volume and screen brightness. This is a great addition and works well.

The display is a 60Hz screen, which is fine in my book, but again for the price you might have expected a zippier 120Hz. Asus’s software is thoughtful though, defaulting to not using the battery-slurping HDR setting if you’re unplugged from the mains. This option noticeably boosts brightness and vibrancy for videos and games.

The keyboard is great to type on. The keys are novelty spaced and you can get into a good typing flow with good key noise and feedback. I’d prefer a full-size return key, but otherwise everything is present and correct. It’s also well backlit but lacks an auto-brightness option, instead making you scroll through three settings via a function key.

Asus claims the A14 can run for up to 32 hours when looping video, but no one actually uses their computer like that. I didn’t get anywhere near that figure when using the machine as my main device for work, but I regularly eked five or six hours of constant usage from it before I became concerned about plugging back in.

That’s similar to what you’ll get when you really tax the M3 MacBook Air, but Apple’s laptop is still the market leader when it comes to laptop longevity at this price point. But if you are a Windows fan, the A14 more than delivers. With light usage using mainly apps within Google Chrome, I could use the PC for a whole eight hour work day on a single charge. Even five years ago this was a pipe dream, and a lot of this success is down to the chipset inside.

The A14 I reviewed has the entry-level Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor, silicon that’s a step down from the X Elite I tested in the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge. This opens up the world of Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant, with a dedicated key present and correct on the keyboard. It works well enough, though it’s not a tool I am currently interested in using. If you want a ChatGPT-esque assistant to do web searches and help you write content though, it’s here.

Windows Hello, the facial recognition system that uses the webcam and other sensors to unlock your PC for use, log in to apps or authenticate your identity to access passwords or make payments, is lightning fast here too. That’s down to the high-end chip, paired with 16GB RAM. I’ve tested lesser laptops where it takes a lot longer to process the data, but the experience on the A14 is almost seamless. The laptop quickly wakes from sleep when you open the lid, another plus for the X chip when compared to more sluggish Intel systems.

The dual speakers on the Zenbook are on the bottom, which isn’t ideal as they can be muffled if placed on a lap. I prefer speakers on the top of the unit so they’re never covered. Despite this, when on a table the speakers here are more than adequate for a Netflix marathon and get plenty loud, with Dolby Atmos and Snapdragon Sound support. The latter guarantees top quality audio if you pair the laptop to a compatible set of headphones.

The Zenbook has two USB-C ports, a USB-A port, HDMI and a headphone jack, which is about the sweet spot for modern laptops with most accessories served by this selection. I’d also love an SD card slot, but it’s a minor niggle.

Windows 11 is very snappy on the laptop, and the operating system often gets a bad rep as it can lag on lesser hardware. Thankfully, the A14 is more than powerful enough to keep things ticking over whether you’re web browsing, photo editing, watching a film or number crunching in Excel. Video editing might be pushing it though, as I saw tiny performance hiccups when multitasking between Photoshop and several other apps simultaneously.

The enbook A14’s £1,099 price tag is £100 more than Apple’s brand new M4 MacBook Air, which though we haven’t yet tested it is very likely to outperform the Asus’s Snapdragon X chip, as the M3 model, which is now discontinued, does. Asus offers 1TB of storage, which easily trumps Apple’s 256GB entry-level options, though.

It all means the Zenbook A14 is a great everyday Windows 11 laptop for most people. But if you’re someone who wants the absolute best power for the price, the MacBook Air is still the top choice. For Windows fans, this could be the new go-to at this price point, with a killer combination of specs, features and design.

You can buy the Asus Zenbook A14 from Asus in the UK.