No laptop has ever gotten this close to beating the M3 MacBook Air

Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

Apple’s MacBook Air M3 represents nan latest of nan company’s very successful thin-and-light laptops built astir Apple Silicon’s accelerated and highly businesslike chipsets. It’s 1 of nan best laptops made, and Windows machines person had a difficult clip keeping up.

Now, Intel has introduced a caller chipset, nan Core Ultra Series 2, besides cognize arsenic Lunar Lake, that intends to rectify things pinch overmuch amended efficiency. The Asus Zenbook S 14 is 1 of nan first laptops introduced pinch nan caller chipset. Can it compete?

Specs and configurations

There aren’t galore configurations of nan Zenbook S 14 disposable yet. Our reappraisal portion costs $1,500 pinch an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V chipset, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display.

The MacBook Air M3 has respective options. The guidelines exemplary costs $1,099 pinch an 8-core CPU/8-core GPU M3 chipset, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB, and a 13.6-inch 2560 x 1664 IPS display. RAM and retention upgrades see $200 to upgrade to 16GB aliases 512GB, and $400 to spell to 24GB and 1TB. An upgrade to 2TB is simply a whopping $800. Our reappraisal portion costs $1,699 for an 8-core CPU/10-core GPU M3, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. The high-end configuration pinch 24GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD is $2,299.

So, erstwhile configured similarly, nan MacBook Air M3 is $100 more. That makes them adjacent capable that different factors will measurement more.

Design

Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

The MacBook Air M3 is an incredibly bladed laptop while still maintaining Apple’s accustomed fantabulous build value and coagulated chassis. It’s CNC machined retired of a azygous chunk of aluminum, and it’s an elegant artistic successful 1 of 4 colors. The Zenbook S 14 is simply a beautiful bladed laptop arsenic well, and it uses a “ceraluminum” (Asus’ word) worldly to beryllium very ray and yet sturdy. It’s a good-looking laptop arsenic well, coming successful either acheronian grey aliases achromatic and pinch a geometric shape connected nan lid.

Both laptops person nan accustomed value hinge that opens pinch 1 hand, and while nan MacBook Air feels dense and acold successful hand, nan Zenbook has a lukewarm texture. The bottommost statement is that cipher is apt to bargain either laptop based solely connected their look and feel.

The Zenbook S 14 has nan very bully Asus keyboard that you’ll find connected nan full ZenBook line. It has plentifulness of spacing and ample keycaps, arsenic good arsenic ray and snappy switches. The MacBook Air uses Apple’s fantabulous Magic Keyboard, which is my favorite. It has a cleanable layout, comfortable keys, and nan astir precise switches connected a laptop today. The Zenbook’s mechanical touchpad feels Ok, but it’s almost excessively large, leaving a very mini thenar rest. The MacBook Air’s Force Touch haptic touchpad is perfectly sized and useful great, pinch nan Force Click usability that adds further features pinch a firmer “click.” The keyboard and touchpad are Apple strengths.

Connectivity favors nan Zenbook S 14, which has a mates of bequest ports to spell pinch nan aforesaid 2 Thunderbolt 4 connections. And it has much up-to-date wireless connectivity. Both laptops person 1080p webcams, and nan Zenbook uses an infrared camera pinch Windows 11 facial nickname compared to nan MacBook Air’s Touch ID fingerprint reader. The Zenbook supports Studio Effects package that enhances videoconferencing.

Performance

Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

Intel’s Lunar Lake chipsets are aimed astatine competing straight pinch Apple Silicon. We reviewed nan Zenbook S 14 pinch nan Core Ultra 7 258V, a 17-watt, 8-core (four Performance and 4 Low Power Efficient), 8-thread chipset. It uses nan newest Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics. The MacBook Air uses Apple’s M3 chipset pinch 8 CPU cores and 8 aliases 10 GPU cores. We reviewed nan faster version.

In our benchmarks, nan MacBook Air M3 was faster successful each but nan Handbrake test. It was faster successful some single-core and multi-core tests. And its GPU was much than doubly arsenic accelerated successful nan 3DMark Wild Life Extreme benchmark.

It’s not that nan Zenbook S 14 is simply a slow laptop. It’s conscionable that nan MacBook Air M3 is meaningfully faster.

Display

Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

The Zenbook S 14 uses a 14-inch 2.8K OLED show moving astatine up to 120Hz. It’s a beautiful show pinch OLED’s accustomed bright, move colors and inky blacks. That compares to nan MacBook Air’s 13.6-inch 2560 x 1664 IPS show moving astatine 60Hz.

While nan MacBook Air’s show is simply a very bully illustration of IPS technology, and it’s very agleam and reasonably colorful, nan Zenbook’s OLED sheet has overmuch wider colors and near-perfect blacks. Our reappraisal portion had oddly mediocre colour accuracy, but that’s different and apt an outlier. The Zenbook’s show will beryllium appreciated by creators and media consumers.

Portability

Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

The MacBook Air is nan thinnest laptop you tin buy, and nan Zenbook S 14 is only a small thicker. In spite of having a larger display, nan Zenbook is astir nan aforesaid width and depth, and it weighs astir nan same. These are some very portably laptops.

When it comes to artillery life, nan Zenbook S 14 comes astir arsenic adjacent to nan MacBook Air M3 arsenic immoderate caller Windows laptop has managed. It’s only 3 hours down successful our web-browsing trial and an hr down successful our video-looping test. And nan 2 laptops managed astir nan aforesaid successful nan demanding Cinebench R24 multi-core test.

Two very bully laptops, but nan MacBook Air wins a adjacent one

These are some awesome laptops. The Zenbook S 14 leverages nan Intel Lunar Lake chipset for awesome artillery life, which is an early triumph for nan platform. It’s a nicely designed and built laptop, and it really doesn’t person immoderate important flaws.

The MacBook Air is besides adjacent to perfect, and it’s meaningfully faster pinch somewhat amended artillery life. It has a overmuch amended keyboard and touchpad, and mostly a very elegant design. It’s a spot much expensive, but worthy it — though if you must person Windows, past nan Zenbook S 14 is simply a awesome choice.