The new Asus Zenbook S14 2026 is a great laptop, but it deserves the Core Ultra X chips with the Arc B390 iGPU

The Asus Zenbook S14 (2026) is once again a very slim and lightweight 14-inch laptop, but despite the excellent design and the powerful sound system, our review verdict is a bit of a mixed bag. The switch to Intel's Panther Lake generation pretty much doubles the CPU performance compared to the old Lunar Lake chip and improves the efficiency, but the premium laptop disappoints in terms of the graphics performance.

Considering we are talking about a premium laptop with this price tag, we would have expected a high-end processor like the new Core Ultra X chips, which are equipped with the powerful Arc B390 iGPU. Instead, Asus uses the Core Ultra 9 386H with the significantly slower iGPU (Panther Lake with 4 Xe cores), which simply affects the overall performance potential of the Zenbook.

There is another issue connected with the CPU choice: If you use the full CPU performance, the fan noise is much louder than before at almost 50 dB(A). While the Whisper mode is still very quiet, the other power profiles will be much louder under load. The new 120 Hz OLED panel is also brighter than before, but there is one issue: The touchscreen layer results in a slightly grainy image impression on brighter contents. Other manufacturers with Samsung panels do not have this problem.

At $1899 with 32 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD, the price of the new Zenbook S14 is still okay considering the current market situation. It is a good choice if you don't play games and don't mind the lower graphics performance. If you want the best Panther Lake iGPU, however, you have to look at the competition. Please see our comprehensive review for more information about the new Asus Zenbook S14.