Asus Zenbook A14 Laptop Review - Snapdragon X2 Elite against the MacBook Air M5

[Redaktion]

The new Asus Zenbook A14 is one of the first devices with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 Elite ARM processors. The A14 is once again equipped with an OLED screen and ceraluminum chassis and still weighs less than 1 kg, and the CPU performance easily beats Intel and AMD.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-A14-Laptop-Review-Snapdragon-X2-Elite-against-the-MacBook-Air-M5.1261944.0.html

[dumb_oems]

Not interested unless there is a reliable fanless mode (or no hardware fans at all). Until then, I will certainly stick with the Macbook Air for the peace and quiet.

Also the single threaded efficiency is really bad:
M5 - 12.8 Points per Watt
Qualcomm X2 - 5.83 Points per Watt

This is like more than twice as worse as the M5, really embarrassing given the lack of the x64 instruction set compatibility burden.

Overall not a terrible chip, but bad single threaded efficiency and the presence of annoying fans will kill it for a lot of people.

[dumb_oems]

The flickering displays I am not even mentioning...

I would have loved a X2 laptop over Apple's Air, however the absence of fanless SKUs and the presence of annoying flickering head-inducing OLED displays (or really shitty low-res or slow-resp-time IPS) ruled that possibility out.

[Not nad]

Generally, kinda pleasantly surprised, as even in the Kraken browser benchmark it's almost as fast as Air M5. In CrossMark the Air is 20% faster, but in Cyberpunk 2077 the A14 is 58% faster (could this be due to cooling and the A14 having a fan, not sure, as the CP2077 build-in benchmark is short and may not force the Air warm-up enough to throttle?), but in Steel Nomad the A14 is only 16% faster. If the iGPU is indeed this much faster, like in CP2077, this should lead to also much faster prompt processing.

These iGPUs are becoming quite fast and demand a 90 Hz display.

The flickering displays I am not even mentioning...

Agreed.

Not interested unless there is a reliable fanless mode (or no hardware fans at all). Until then, I will certainly stick with the Macbook Air for the peace and quiet.

I agree, this in a fanless chassis would become interesting to compare.
So this is 16.7% lighter than an Air, but the disadvantage is the fan. Indeed, this SoC needs to be released in a fanless chassis.

Also the single threaded efficiency is really bad:
M5 - 12.8 Points per Watt
Qualcomm X2 - 5.83 Points per Watt

Well spotted, but interestingly this doesn't lead to a longer battery life, at least no in their test parkour. There's this vid showing that the Air supposedly doesn't report the actual power consumption (tho this may only be about the iGPU): youtube.com/watch?v=HKxIGgyeISM ("Apple's GPU Power Numbers Are Wrong — I Proved It").

[powder]

dont mind so much the screen resolution, but the super glossy screen without any sign of antireflective/matte coating is like a mirror, exactly like the first model, what makes this ultraportable totally useless for me..
what are they thinking.