CES 2025: Asus Zenbook A14 – the Lightweight Laptop I’ve Been Dreaming Of
I’ll be carrying a MacBook Pro in my backpack throughout CES 2025, and even a day into the event I’m tired of it. Perhaps that’s why Asus is set to take Apple’s throne with a new laptop that’s not just lighter than the Pro, but lighter than even the smallest MacBook Air.
Dubbed the Zenbook A14 (you can guess what the “A” stands for), this laptop has a starting weight of 2.18 pounds and a maximum weight of 2.4 pounds. Yes, there are ” light ” laptops that technically surpass this figure, but what’s impressive here is the weight-to-performance ratio.
While other laptops with similar chips typically weigh around 2.6 pounds, this laptop manages to pack perfectly respectable mid-range Snapdragon X and Snapdragon X Plus chipsets into the smallest form factor I’ve ever held, and frankly I think my (much weaker, but admittedly a bit old) iPad may be heavier.
What makes this possible is the laptop’s “ceraluminum” body, which is essentially just a fancy way of saying it’s made of ceramic and aluminum, with a little bit of Asus’ secret sauce thrown in. Marketing jargon aside, everything they do works, because aside from feeling like I need to lift 10 pounds at once to get a decent bicep curl, the Zenbook A14 looks pretty cool, too.
Instead of being dyed, the ceramic is colored by immersion in electrolyte water and minerals during production. It also gives it a slight porosity that adds subtle texture and visual detail without overwhelming it, giving the whole thing a premium feel. Ceraluminum isn’t new, but the A14 is the first Asus laptop to have the entire body made from it, not just the lid.
There are only two colors available at the moment – gray and beige – and each has different prices and configurations. The beige version is cheaper and, paradoxically, has a more advanced Snapdragon X Plus chip. It’s priced at $899, but what holds it back compared to its sibling is 16GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage. The $1,099 gray Zenbook A14, while not skimpy, has 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, and is a lighter model that weighs 2.18 pounds rather than 2.4.
In case you’re wondering, while its dimensions aren’t as prominent as its weight , the A14 is also quite thin, measuring 12.23 x 8.42 x 0.53-0.63 inches (exact thickness varies by configuration).
However, regardless of the model, Asus claims this is the lightest Copilot+ PC yet. While I’m still not crazy about the AI features found in the Copilot+ , the Snapdragon PC processors are a good buy at this price point, although if $899 is still too much for a thin and light laptop, there’s also an updated range of plastic laptops Vivobook. which offer the Snapdragon X for $200 less.