Asus Zenbook S 14 (2026) Review

Introduction

The Asus Zenbook S 14 (2026) is one of my most anticipated laptops of this year.

On paper, it takes the basis of one of our favourite laptops from last year, the Asus Zenbook S14 OLED, and makes some handy upgrades over its predecessor to make it a more complete laptop. Think a brand new Intel Panther Lake chip, a brighter OLED screen and a bigger battery as the headlines. 

Of course, that comes alongside a similarly sharp and functional design as the older model, meaning this new Zenbook is as pretty as it is potent. For rivals, think the likes of the smaller Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro, the Apple MacBook Air M4, and the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI. 

With the new Zenbook S 14 (2026) carrying a £1599.99 price tag, it’s certainly a premium choice that’s going to have to do a lot to become one of the best laptops we’ve tested. I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last couple of weeks to find out.

Design and Keyboard

• Durable and lightweight finish
• Slender, with a capable port selection
• Snappy keyboard and decent-sized trackpad

Asus has often impressed with the blend of style and functionality afforded by its Zenbook range in the past, and that’s no different with the Zenbook S 14 (2026). It’s available in two colours, a darker grey, and a lighter two-tone white and grey finish, with my sample shipping the former. It’s similar to the Space Gray of modern MacBooks and looks excellent.

This laptop features Asus’ innovative ceraluminum material on the lid, a blend of aluminium and ceramic for lightness and durability, while the rest of the chassis is machined aluminium. It tips the scales at just 1.2kg, making it rather light for a 14-inch laptop, and easily portable in a bag or rucksack when I’ve taken it out to use for work.

In spite of being just 12.9mm thin at its thickest point, Asus hasn’t left the Zenbook S 14 (2026) bereft of ports. The left side houses a pair of Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, plus an HDMI 2.1 port, and a headphone jack. On the right, you’ll find a USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port. For the thickness, that isn’t too bad; a card reader or second USB-A would have been a nice inclusion if I’m being picky.

Open up the lid, and you’ll find a compact keyboard layout with function row, arrow keys, and little else for extras. In typical Asus fashion, it’s a snappy and tactile keyboard that’s one of the most comfortable you’ll find on a laptop of this size. 

The trackpad here is smooth as silk and has a tactile but dampened feel that’s akin to a modern MacBook in one way or another. It’s of a decent size for a 14-inch laptop, too.

Display and Sound

• Sharp, detailed OLED screen
• Brighter with more contrast and dynamic range than its predecessor
• Similar downwards-firing speaker arrangement

Asus has kept with a similar screen to the last model in some respects, sticking with a compact and detailed 14-inch 3K, or 2880×1800, resolution OLED panel that’s sharp and vivid thanks to a higher peak brightness figure against the old model. For good measure, this is also a 120Hz screen for slick on-screen action.

The main upgrade for the Zenbook S 14 (2026)’s screen is that it has boosted the peak brightness. There is now a peak HDR brightness of 1100 nits against the older one’s 500 nits, plus support for DisplayHDR True Black 1000. There is also a bump up in SDR brightness, as I noted with my colorimeter, with a peak of 461.7 nits, which makes images rather vibrant.

To go with this, there are deep blacks and gorgeous contrast. with a measured 0.01 and 33700:1, respectively, to provide some serious dynamic range and keep this as one of the best screens you’ll find on a 14-inch laptop. The 6500K colour temperature is also perfect.

The virtually perfect colour accuracy that the Zenbook S 14 (2026)’s screen comes with is no surprise. To be specific, we’re getting 100% coverage of both the mainstream sRGB and creative DCI-P3 gamuts, while Adobe RGB coverage at 93% is also excellent, making this screen an ideal pairing for both mainstream and more colour-sensitive workloads.

The speakers on the Zenbook S 14 (2026) remain downwards-firing, meaning placing the laptop on a softer surface, such as a bed or sofa, can impact performance. They are nonetheless decent, offering solid clarity and body with an okay amount of low-end.

Performance

• A new powerful Panther Lake chip inside
• Underwhelming graphical performance
• Fast SSD and sensible RAM capacity

The Zenbook S 14 (2026) has seen a move to a run of new processor options, with my sample shipping with the most powerful Intel chip this laptop can be specced with – the Core Ultra 9 386H.

The Core Ultra 9 386H is technically an Intel Panther Lake processor, although it isn’t one of the top-end X-prefixed chips that benefit from the new B390 iGPU. It’s nonetheless a potent chip that appears to be the successor to the Core Ultra 9 285H I tested in a range of 2025 laptops with 16 cores, 16 threads, and a boost clock of up to 4.9GHz.

In running the Zenbook S 14 (2026) through the Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R23 benchmark tests, there’s a marginal improvement to single and multi-threaded performance over the Core Ultra 9 285H in laptops such as the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo (2025). Multi-threaded performance is also stronger than the new Gorgon Point APU inside the Asus Zenbook S 16 (2026), owing to a greater number of cores on Intel’s part.

The 3DMark Time Spy score achieved here, and by extension the gaming numbers, aren’t impressive, though. Unlike the Core Ultra X9 388H and X7 358H chips, the Core Ultra 9 368H processor here isn’t bestowed with the beefed-up iGPU that Panther Lake chips have already become synonymous with Panther Lake. We’re seeing just 17.46fps in Cyberpunk 2077 and 27fps in Returnal at 1080p, with bumping up the resolution leading to a single-figure FPS slideshow.

My sample came shipped with 32GB of fast DDR5 RAM, providing a fair amount of headroom for multitasking and more intensive workloads, while there’s also a decently capacious 1TB SSD to get excited about for storin’ all kinds of stuff on. With measured read and write speeds of 7053.97 MB/s and 5816.75 MB/s, it’s a reasonably brisk one, too.

Software

• Reasonably clean Windows 11 install
• Some pre-installed Asus apps
• Also comes with Copilot+ AI features

The Zenbook S 14 (2026) comes with Windows 11 and a reasonably clean install, too. There isn’t much in the way of bloatware with regard to an unwanted anti-virus or similar, although there are some pieces of software courtesy of Asus that come pre-installed.

There is MyAsus, which comes as part of the taskbar when you first open the Zenbook S 16. This is where you can check on everything from battery level and enabling battery care modes to choosing which type of workload the Zenbook S 16’s network connection prioritises.

In addition, there is also GlideX, which is where you can manage tasks such as casting or mirroring the Zenbook S 14’s screen to other devices wirelessly, or transfer files across the same network. You can also enable remote access to a mobile device, too. The Storybook app is designed as another means of organising photos and videos, using AI to recognise faces and file your photos for you, which is handy.

There is also enough AI horsepower from the Core Ultra 9 386h chip inside to mark this laptop as a Copilot+ PC, providing access to Microsoft’s AI functionality for generative powers and filters in the Photos and Paint app, as well as the clever Windows Studio webcam effects for background blurring, auto framing and maintaining eye contact. With the latest version of Windows 11, there is also the controversial Microsoft Recall feature.

Battery Life

• Lasted for 18 hours 28 minutes in the battery test
• Capable of lasting for two working days

Asus has slightly upgraded the battery capacity of the Zenbook S 14 (2026) to 77Whr, theoretically meaning it should last longer than the old model. There isn’t a specific claim made regarding this laptop’s endurance, for reference.

In running the PCMark 10 video loop test at the requisite 150 nits of brightness, this Asus laptop managed 18 hours and 28 minutes before conking out. That’s some serious endurance, and easily means you’ll be able to get two working days out of this laptop before needing to plug it back in. The runtim,s is ahead of the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI, although slightly behind Samsung’s Galaxy Book6 Pro, for reference.

The Zenbook S 14 (2026) also comes with a slightly higher wattage 68W USB-C power brick whose charging speeds are in and around rival devices, with a 50% charge taking 41 minutes, and a full charge taking 88 minutes.

Should you buy it?

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