Review Verdict: As ASUS’ second stint with ARM-powered laptops, the Zenbook A14 feels more refined with the wider ARM support across several Windows apps. While you’re only getting an IPS display and the speakers are subpar, you can’t go wrong with this ultralight laptop that can last you more than a workday without needing a charge. 

Pros

• Great battery life
• More apps support ARM chips
• Adequate ports despite being featherweight

Cons

• Keycap texture is slippery
• Only an IPS display
• Speakers aren’t great

ARM laptops powered by Snapdragon chips are on the rise, and ASUS is one of the brands that believe in it. We’ve seen their efforts with last year’s VivoBook S 15, and ASUS is looking at a lower price point with the Zenbook A14, which uses the base Snapdragon X chip and is one of their lightest laptops to date. As ASUS’ second attempt at ARM laptops, should you consider the Zenbook A14 over your usual x86-based laptop?

 

ASUS Zenbook A14 Review Philippines: Design

From the technical seminar to using the Zenbook A14 as my daily driver, the one that attracted me the most was how light it was. With a weight of just 899 grams, the Zenbook A14 is one of the lightest–if not the lightest–laptops I’ve ever tried, beating other sub-1kg laptops I’ve used in the past. The Zenbook A14 is so light, it’s even lighter than my 11-inch iPad Air with the Magic Keyboard–and I could barely feel its weight in my bag unless I physically checked the contents of my bag.

Despite being a featherweight, ASUS made sure that the Zenbook A14 is durable with its trademark Ceraluminum for the entire laptop chassis. Its finish does a great job in repelling smudges, which I appreciate as it helped keep the Zenbook A14 spotless at all times. Opening the lid only takes one hand, and its hinge is smooth–though you lose out on ASUS’ ErgoLift hinge that’s found on their other Zenbooks.

One thing I appreciate about the Zenbook A14 is that you still get a good port selection: not just the usual two USB-C 4.0 ports and headphone jack, but also a USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, and a full-sized HDMI port, saving me from lugging around additional dongles when I’m on the go.

 

ASUS Zenbook A14 Review Philippines: Display and Speakers

You have a 14-inch IPS display with a WUXGA (1920×1200) resolution on the Zenbook A14. While we wished it was an OLED panel like the Snapdragon X Elite-powered VivoBook S 15, the IPS panel was good enough for my use case, which consisted of writing articles, bulk editing photos, editing a few video clips, and binge-watching my favorite YouTube videos.

ASUS Philippines explained to us that their decision to use an IPS panel is for better battery life. Using it as my daily driver, it’s a fair compromise on ASUS’ part, with the peak brightness being serviceable enough for using the ZenBook A14 outdoors.

If there’s one thing that the Zenbook A14 falls behind, it has to be the bottom-firing speakers. These have to be the most sub-par set of speakers I’ve used on a ZenBook, as they sounded tinny especially when you crank up the volume. As much as I find the speakers as the biggest disadvantage of the Zenbook A14, I’d give ASUS some slack as it is very hard to place a decent pair of speakers in an ultra-thin chassis. Honestly, I’m fine with the less-than-stellar speakers as long as it is both light and power-efficient–more on the latter in this review.

 

ASUS Zenbook A14 Review Philippines: Keyboard and Trackpad

While the Zenbook A14’s matte texture is great for the entire laptop in general, I can’t say the same for the keyboard. While it has the same layout as your usual Zenbook–including the same keycap spacing and key travel–the surface of the keycaps feels a bit slippery when you’re typing long documents.

I’ve had several instances where I accidentally hit the caps lock key where I was only supposed to press the A and Q keys–and it took me a while to get used to the slightly slippery surface of the keycaps. Other than the slippery surface, the Zenbook A14 has a decent keyboard considering how thin and light it is.

I was impressed more with the trackpad, as it is generously large and easy to navigate with it. It is tactile enough that I’ve barely had accidental presses with it, especially when I want to use the right-click button.

 

ASUS Zenbook A14 Review Philippines: Internals and Battery Life

The Zenbook A14 comes with a Snapdragon X processor, and our review unit has 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB PCIe 4.0 storage–the latter being expandable. Comparing CPU performance, the Snapdragon X trails behind Intel’s Core Ultra 7 (series 2) processors, which is not bad considering that it uses a different CPU architecture.

The Snapdragon X’s weakness is with GPU performance, where the scores we got are lower compared to the integrated GPUs found on equivalent Intel and AMD laptop chips. With that in mind, the Zenbook A14 is not meant for gaming (add to the fact that there are only a few titles that support ARM) but is completely usable for productivity and multimedia work.

One of the concerns people have with ARM Windows laptops is software compatibility. This was a problem last year when we reviewed the VivoBook S 15 last year, but things improved significantly this year. Using the Zenbook A14 as my daily driver, I was able to use native ARM versions of Adobe Lightroom, Slack, Spotify, and Google Chrome without running into any issues. In fact, with ARM-native software, the Zenbook A14’s performance is comparable to my MacBook Pro M1. That shows that Qualcomm is making big improvements with its ARM chips for Windows laptops.

Aside from its power efficiency as an ultra-thin laptop, the Zenbook A14’s biggest strength is its battery life. The one available in the Philippines has a 48wHr battery, and I was amazed at its endurance. While we only registered 6 hours and 31 minutes in our video loop test, it was a different story with real-life use. Having to deal with multiple event coverages and a few meetings in between, I managed to use the Zenbook A14 for the entire 9am to 7pm workday–and still have enough juice left to play a few YouTube videos at the end of the day.

Charging the Zenbook A14 is done using 65w USB-PD charging, and the included charger is the smallest laptop charger we’ve seen from any laptop brand, I appreciate its versatility: aside from USB-PD, ASUS’ tiny 65w charger also supports other fast charging protocols like SuperVOOC and FlashCharge, making it a handy charger for your phones and tablets.

 

ASUS Zenbook A14 Review Philippines: Wrap-up and Conclusions

Windows ARM laptops have come a long way, and 2025 looks to be a bright year to buy one. ASUS’ Zenbook A14 proves that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips are capable enough for productivity and multimedia work while providing excellent battery life–all in a laptop that’s incredibly light and slim.

ASUS Zenbook A14 Review Philippines: Price

The Zenbook A14 is priced at Php 65,995. You can buy it at Authorized ASUS stores, and you can find the full list here.