The MacBook Air M3 from Apple represents the latest successful ultraportable laptop that the company has built on fast and efficient Apple Silicon chips. It is one of the best laptops ever made, and Windows devices have struggled to keep up. Now, Intel introduced a new chip series, the Core Ultra Series 2, also known as Lunar Lake, aiming to correct things with much better efficiency. The Asus Zenbook S 14 is one of the first laptops to be introduced with the new chip series. Can it compete?
Specifications and Configurations
| Asus Zenbook S 14 (UX5406SA) | Apple MacBook Air M3 | |
| Dimensions | 12.22 × 8.45 × 0.47-0.51 inches | 11.97 inches × 8.46 inches × 0.44 inches |
| Weight | 2.65 pounds | 2.7 pounds |
| CPU | Intel Core Ultra 7 258V | Apple M3 (8-core) |
| GPU | Intel Arc 140V | 8-core GPU 10-core GPU |
| RAM | 16GB LPDDR5X RAM 32GB LPDDR5X RAM |
8GB 16GB 24GB |
| Display | 14.0-inch 2.8K (2880 × 1800) OLED, 120Hz | 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display with 16:10 aspect ratio (2560 × 1664) IPS technology |
| Storage | 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD | 256GB SSD 512GB SSD 1TB SSD 2TB SSD |
| Ports | 2 x USB-C with Thunderbolt 4 1 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 1 x HDMI 2.1 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack |
2 x USB-C with Thunderbolt 4 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack 1 x MagSafe 3 |
| Touch | Yes | No |
| Wireless | Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4 |
Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth 5.3 |
| Webcam | 1080p with infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello | 1080p |
| Battery | 72Wh | 52.6Wh |
| Operating System | Windows 11 | macOS Sonoma |
| Price | $1,399+ | $1,099+ |
| Rating | 4 out of 5 stars | 4 out of 5 stars |
There are not many configurations of the Zenbook S 14 available yet. Our review unit costs $1500 with the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V chip, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display.
The MacBook Air M3 has several options available. The base model costs $1099 with the M3 CPU with 8 cores, 8-core GPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB capacity, and a 13.6-inch IPS display at 2560 x 1664 resolution. Upgrades to RAM and storage cost $200 for 16GB or 512GB, $400 for 24GB and 1TB. The upgrade to 2TB is $800. Our review unit costs $1699 for the 8-core CPU/GPU M3, 16GB RAM, and 1TB SSD. The advanced configuration with 24GB RAM and 2TB SSD is $2299.
When configured similarly, the price of the MacBook Air M3 is $100 more. This makes it close enough that other factors weigh more heavily.
Design
The MacBook Air M3 is an incredibly thin laptop while maintaining the excellent build quality typical of Apple and a sturdy structure. It is made from a single piece of aluminum using CNC machining, with an elegant aesthetic available in four colors. The Zenbook S 14 is also a very thin laptop, using Asus’s « Seraluminum » material for a very lightweight but strong build. It is also a good-looking laptop, available in dark gray or white with a geometric pattern on the lid.
Both laptops feature high-quality hinges that can be opened with one hand. While the MacBook Air looks dense and cool in the hand, the Zenbook has a warm texture. Overall, it is unlikely that anyone would buy either laptop based solely on its shape and appearance.
The Zenbook S 14 features a very good Asus keyboard that you’ll find in the entire ZenBook lineup. It has plenty of spacing and large keycaps, as well as backlit keys and speed. The MacBook Air uses Apple’s excellent Magic Keyboard, which is my favorite. It has a perfect design, comfortable keys, and the most precise keys on a laptop today. The touchpad on the Zenbook looks fine but it’s almost too big, leaving a very small wrist rest. The Force Touch trackpad on the MacBook Air is perfectly sized and works great, with the Force Click feature adding extra stability. The keyboard and trackpad are strengths of Apple.
The Zenbook S 14 has convenient connectivity, with two Thunderbolt 4-compatible ports, and modern wireless connections. Both laptops have 1080p webcams, with the Zenbook using an infrared camera with Windows 11 facial recognition compared to the MacBook Air’s Touch ID fingerprint reader. The Zenbook supports Studio Effects software for improving video conferences.
Performance
The Intel Lunar Lake chips aim to directly compete with Apple Silicon. We reviewed the Zenbook S 14 with the Core Ultra 7 258V processor, an 8-core chip with a 17W power capacity (four performance and four power-efficient cores) and 8 threads. It uses the latest integrated graphics, Intel Arc 140V. The MacBook Air uses Apple’s M3 chip with eight CPU cores and eight or 10 GPU cores. We reviewed the faster version.
In our benchmarks, the MacBook Air M3 was faster in all tests except the handbrake test. It was faster in both single-core and multi-core tests. And its GPU was over twice as fast in the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme benchmark.
This doesn’t mean the Zenbook S 14 is a slow laptop. It’s just that the MacBook Air M3 is noticeably faster.
| Geekbench 6 (Single/Multi) |
Cinebench R24 (Single/Multi/Battery) |
Handbrake | 3DMark Wild Life Extreme |
|
| Asus Zenbook S 14 (Core Ultra 7 258V / Intel Arc 140V) |
2,738 / 10,734 | 112 / 452 | 113 | 3,240 |
| Apple MacBook Air M3 (M3 8/10) |
3,102 / 12,078 | 141 / 601 | 109 | 8,098 |
Display
The Zenbook S 14 features a 14-inch, 2.8K OLED display with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. It is a beautiful screen with vibrant and dynamic OLED colors and deep blacks. This is compared to the MacBook Air’s 13.6-inch, 2560 x 1664 IPS display with a 60Hz refresh rate.
While the MacBook Air screen is a very good example of IPS technology, being very bright and reasonably colorful, the Zenbook’s OLED panel has much wider color gamut and nearly perfect black levels. Color accuracy was oddly poor in our review unit, but that’s unusual and likely an anomaly. The Zenbook’s screen will be appreciated by creators and media consumers.
| Asus Zenbook S 14 (OLED) |
Apple MacBook Air M3 (IPS) |
|
| Brightness (nits) |
313 | 496 |
| AdobeRGB Range | 95% | 87% |
| SRGB Range | 100% | 100% |
| DCI-P3 Range | 100% | 99% |
| Color Accuracy (DeltaE, lower is better) |
4.92 | 1.24 |
| Contrast Ratio | 28,310:1 | 1,480:1 |
Portability
The MacBook Air is the thinnest laptop you can buy, with the Zenbook S 14 being slightly thicker. Despite having a larger screen, the Zenbook has nearly the same width and depth, and weighs almost the same. Both are extremely portable laptops.
When it comes to battery life, the Zenbook S 14 is on par with the MacBook Air M3 like any modern laptop running Windows. We were only three hours behind in our web browsing test and one hour in our video loop test. Both laptops achieved almost the same result in the Cinebench R24 multi-core test.
| Web | Video | Cinebench R24 |
|
