My Favorite Laptop for Travel Weighs Less Than a MacBook Air, and It's on Sale for the First Time
The Asus Zenbook A14 not only is the winner of a CNET Editors' Choice Award, but it's one of the lightest 14-inch laptops you can buy right now. When I first saw it at CES 2025, where it won a Best of CES Award for best laptop, I was sure this would be my new travel laptop. After all, you get an OLED screen, Snapdragon X Plus chipset, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage in a design that's lighter than Apple's MacBook Air. While I wasn't sold on the price, the ARM-powered laptop is now on sale for Memorial Day at Best Buy.
This is the first time the Asus Zenbook A14 is going on sale since its launch. My favorite version of it, in the Zabriskie beige color, is available for a discount of $200 this week. As a result, the $1,000 laptop is seeing its price drop to $800 from May 19 to May 26, no special codes needed. If you've been looking for a lightweight, midrange laptop, this Memorial Day sale is your chance to bag the Zenbook A14.
Why I recommend the Asus Zenbook A14
Prakhar Khanna/ZDNET
The Asus Zenbook A14 is one of the best laptops you can buy right now and there are three reasons it's become my go-to device. First, it offers a long battery life, and by long, I mean you can extend it up to two days without needing a charger. I can carry it in my travel backpack without worrying about the availability of a power outlet. In fact, the Snapdragon X variant is only the second laptop CNET has reviewed with a battery life of more than 24 hours, with the HP OmniBook X 14 lasting an hour longer.
That brings me to the second reason I like using the Asus Zenbook A14: its OLED screen. The HP laptop lasted longer during CNET's test thanks to an LCD display, but the Zenbook doesn't compromise on its screen to deliver a stellar battery life.
Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.
You get a 14-inch OLED panel with a 1,920x1,200-pixel resolution. It might not be as sharp as the 2.8K OLED screen on the Asus Zenbook S 14, but you won't find another laptop with this combo of 24-hour+ battery life and OLED display in this price range.
I appreciate the OLED screen for its excellent contrast and deep black levels. In CNET's tests with a Spyder X colorimeter, it showed 100% coverage of the sRGB and P3 spaces and 97% of AdobeRGB. My only slight annoyance is the thick bezels, which make it a little less immersive than other Asus laptops.
Third, the Asus Zenbook A14 is surprisingly lightweight. At just 2.4 pounds, it's the lightest Arm laptop you can buy right now. And Asus hasn't traded build quality for the lightweight form factor. Its Ceraluminum build is both rigid and lightweight, keeping the weight in check without making the laptop feel cheap or flimsy. Plus, it's also scratch, smudge and fingerprint resistant.
Things to keep in mind before you buy the Asus Zenbook A14
Prakhar Khanna/CNET
Asus Zenbook A14's keyboard offers a satisfactory experience and the trackpad is reliable. The A14's Snapdragon X Plus variant (on sale) is more powerful than the Snapdragon X model, but it isn't built for power-intensive tasks. If you want to use power-hungry video editing tools, this laptop is not for you. The M4 MacBook Air might better serve you for this use case.
This Asus Zenbook A14 is for those who are always on the go and want an extra-long battery life without compromising on screen quality. It's a great laptop, particularly if you're looking for an ultralight, ultralong-running laptop for travel.
There are plenty more laptop deals going live this week. We've also pulled together all the best Memorial Day deals.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Tom's Guide
2 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
iOS 26: All the new features coming to your iPhone
Apple is gearing up to reveal iOS 26 (or iOS 19, if the name-change rumors are inaccurate) at WWDC 2025. While a potential name change is interesting, what'll make or break the company's next significant OS update are the new features. Apple needs to offer something compelling with iOS 26, as the last few updates have been relatively minor (Apple Intelligence being the most significant new feature, which has been plagued with problems). Thankfully, the rumor mill has been churning out potential new iOS 26 features regularly, and it sounds exciting. Here are the most significant new features we expect to see when Apple launches iOS 26 at WWDC 25. The centerpiece of the next version of iOS is reportedly a massive visual overhaul. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has three key focuses for the new interface: simpler to use, faster to navigate and easier to learn. "The big thing with this redesign is consistent controls, icons, buttons, user interface dynamics and mechanisms across both iOS and macOS," said Gurman in a report. A big look at what iOS 26 could look like came from a Jon Prosser video. This isn't a final look at the OS, as it's leaked mockups, but it could give us a strong indication of what to expect from the new design. This is expected to be the biggest shakeup to the iOS look and feel since iOS 7, which launched 12 years ago. That's a long time for a popular OS to remain relatively stagnant, so I'm very excited to see what Apple does. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Apple has to knock it out of the park with Apple Intelligence. Whether the company calls it Apple Intelligence 2.0 or something else entirely, the original launch wasn't good. Apple typically doesn't launch a half-baked product, but that's precisely what happened with the company's race to catch up in the AI space. Some new changes expected to arrive on iOS 26 include: Siri's AI upgrades, new third-party AI integrations, iPhone battery improvements and expanding AI into more apps. Siri in particular is way behind Google Gemini Live and ChatGPT. Apple isn't rumored to have a true competitor that can handle live conversations and multi-modal support for audio and video until next year. But we could could get other promised upgrades like personal context awareness (think emails, photos, and calendar), on-screen awareness, and deeper app integration in iOS 26. It just might not happen right away. The biggest thing Apple needs to do is make Apple Intelligence good. As the main selling point of iOS 18, it underdelivered. The company has another chance to make a good impression, as users want the AI built into their phone to work well. However, if Apple drops the ball again, it might be tough to win users over. While this might seem like a minor change, knowing how long it'll take your phone to charge is a helpful feature when you're in a hurry. And this should be an iOS 26 feature. According to some reputable leakers, you'll be able to look at your iPhone's lock screen and see how long you must wait for a full charge. Knowledge is power, and this feature is most definitely a powerful one that's worth getting excited about. Like any major OS update, Apple is expected to add numerous accessibility features to iOS 26. Some of these features will only be useful for specific individuals, but others can significantly speed up workflows for everyone. Apple announced that it will add App Store labels, systemwide Reader mode, and more. Here's the complete list of features coming to the accessibility side of things: We've also heard rumblings that Apple will introduce new first-party apps and make significant updates to some existing ones. There will be a new Apple Games app, according to reports. Essentially, it will replace the often-forgotten Game Center app and add new functionality that was previously unavailable. For mobile gamers, this alone is worth getting excited about, as it signals that Apple still considers games an essential part of iOS. Other rumored updates include live translation in the Translate app, allowing it to further compete with Google Translate (which can now be made the default on iOS). Apple is also expected to enhance the Health App with Apple Health+. Features include food logging, educational videos, and AI coaching are on the table. Finally, Messages is expected to play better with RCS, further bridging the divide between Android and iOS. Here's a rundown of other small tweaks you might expect to see on iOS 19:
The Verge
2 hours ago
- The Verge
Pokémon Violet and Scarlet's Switch 2 update is as good as it looks
I recently did something sort of unusual: I went to a preview event for a game that's been out for almost three years. I've played around 400 hours of Pokémon Scarlet, according to my Nintendo Switch, since it was released in late 2022. It's safe to say I know the game pretty well. And yet, when I was invited to preview Pokémon Scarlet and Violet on the Nintendo Switch 2 ahead of the new console's launch, I gladly took the opportunity to see three-year-old games I already own. I wanted to find out just how much they'd improved. I have a high jank tolerance with games — it builds character — but I'm well aware of Scarlet and Violet 's shortcomings on the original Switch. There's lag. The frame rate is… inconsistent. There are online connectivity issues. For a lot of people, performance problems overshadowed what was otherwise a great new generation of Pokémon games. With the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, and the accompanying free performance update for Scarlet and Violet, that might finally change. Starting up the demo of Pokémon Scarlet on the Switch 2 at The Pokémon Company International's office in Bellevue, Washington, I knew immediately where I wanted to go first: Casseroya Lake, sometimes called 'Lag Lake,' where the games' graphical issues are most apparent. On the original Switch, the game really chugs when you're on the lake; the frame rate takes a dive, and it struggles to render more than a handful of pokémon in your immediate vicinity. Exploring the liveliest open areas and encountering the pokémon that populate them is one of Scarlet and Violet 's biggest strengths, but on the Switch, Casseroya Lake is dull and empty at best and impossible to navigate at worst. Playing on the Switch 2, however, Casseroya Lake ran beautifully. There were far more pokémon in view (and I was immediately accosted by a torpedo-like Veluza, same as it ever was), and the lag and stuttering I'd come to expect were nonexistent. I battled that Veluza with no problems. I stumbled upon a Slowpoke outbreak and sent out my Clodsire to auto-battle them — no lag. I found a wild Tera Pokémon and watched the Tera animation play out, looking sharper than I'd ever seen it. (I was playing in docked mode at a station set up by TPCi, so maybe that last one could be credited to the TV. But still.) It was the same case everywhere I went during my 30-minute demo: a stable and smooth frame rate, significantly faster load times, and far more pokémon populating the world. The Switch 2 update is not a complete overhaul of the graphics themselves — the grass textures looked just as unremarkable as always to my eye, for example — but it does seem to eliminate the performance issues that have dragged Scarlet and Violet down for nearly three years. It's a noticeable improvement in the world, in battle, in Tera raids, and even in menus. Is it praiseworthy for a game to simply run well? Maybe not. I don't pretend to know how games are made on a technical level, or really any level, but I know they're not easy to make. And I had enough fun with Pokémon Scarlet to play for 400 hours without the performance issues bothering me much. But it did feel bittersweet, briefly, to think how much more these games could have shone if they'd run well in the first place. Then, in the last five minutes of my demo, as I waded in a different body of water to confirm that it too ran smoothly, I saw it: among the pods of Buizel dotting the shore, a shiny. A good portion of my 400 hours in Scarlet were spent shiny hunting, because even though the alternate-color versions of pokémon are not quite as hard to find as they were in previous games, I get excited every time I see one, without fail. It's the perfect encapsulation of the kind of joy Scarlet and Violet have to offer: exploring a lively area and finding something special. I caught the shiny Buizel despite knowing that it wasn't my save file and not mine to keep. The Switch 2 update is arguably arriving a bit late for my Scarlet save file, depending on how many hours you think are reasonable to spend playing this game. But I also own Violet, and I have played about two hours of that version total. Looking at the shiny Buizel I didn't get to keep, I realized I was really excited to have a reason to play Violet finally — to rediscover what I liked most about these games, in a state that does them justice.
Business Insider
3 hours ago
- Business Insider
Nvidia dethrones Microsoft as the world's most valuable publicly traded company with a $3.45 trillion market cap
The AI chipmaking giant led by CEO Jensen Huang surpassed Microsoft after its stock jumped 3% to close at $141.40 on Tuesday. Nvidia now boasts a market cap of $3.444 trillion, edging out Microsoft's $3.441 trillion based on data from Nasdaq. The last time Nvidia held the top spot was on January 24. Since last June, it has been competing with Apple and Microsoft for the title of the top market cap company. The rise in Nvidia 's value came a week after the company reported Q1 revenues that beat Wall Street expectations at $44.06 billion, which makes for a 69% year-over-year increase. Confidence in Nvidia remains high despite the company expecting to lose $8 billion in revenue over the next quarter due to the Trump administration's new chip export control policies, which prevented it from selling its H20 chips developed specifically for China's market. Huang has expressed dissatisfaction over chip controls during the earnings call and in media appearances that followed. "On export control, China is one of the world's largest AI markets and a springboard to global success. With half of the world's AI researchers based there, the platform that wins China is positioned to lead globally," Huang said during the May 28 earnings call. "Today, however, the $50 billion China market is effectively closed to US industry." "Export controls should strengthen US platforms, not drive half of the world's AI talent to rivals," Huang added. Immediately after the earnings call on May 28, Nvidia shares shot up nearly 5% after trading hours, and as of June 3, had gained nearly 24% over the past month. Overall, this week, investors flocked to chip stocks. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF climbed 2%, while individual companies like Micron Technology also gained as much as 4%.
