[00:02] the Zenbook A14 and A16 with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 chips. The Zenbook A16 with the Elite Extreme processor gives you great CPU performance both unplugged and plugged in. It's got a beautiful 16-in touchscreen and decent battery
[00:16] life for a somewhat reasonable price, especially when you consider it comes especially when you consider it comes with 48 gigs of RAM. The A14 is the 14-in version and is a bit cheaper while still giving you class-leading CPU
[00:28] performance. Its screen isn't as good, but its battery life is better. This all being said, these are Qualcomm laptops that run the ARM version of Windows. We ton of different professional apps where we found that more run than when these X
[00:43] chips were first released 2 years ago, but there are still some that don't run particularly when you factor in the middling performance of these chips' integrated GPUs. To cut a long story short, we feel the A16 is a very good
[00:57] laptop for most software developers. The A14 is a good laptop for a programmer who maybe doesn't care about the screen as much. If you are just buying one of these for basic use though, these are hard to recommend over Apple's MacBook
[01:11] Airs. Those deliver a better all-round experience for most users and they're cheaper. If you want to buy any of the laptops we discussed today, we've linked them down below as well as several other alternatives. Or you can check out our
[01:23] prices right across retailers to show you whether they are actually a good deal. Now, let's get into the meat and potatoes. These Zenbooks look unique, for sure. There is a speckled pattern to the lid that looks nice, but they are
[01:37] also the exact color of my grandmother's minivan growing up. This color is going to be very subjective. Some people can't stand beige and others think it looks refined. Personally, I do like the look of this laptop. It's just not as
[01:52] universally compatible with everyone's style as the silver Macbooks. For something more neutral, I would prefer the dark gray our ZenBook Duo Colors aside, they have a smudge resistant coating over the whole
[02:04] chassis, which avoids pesky fingerprints. Both ZenBooks are super the same size class, which makes them a joy to bring with you, even the 16-in. But, there is a catch to the ZenBook's lighter weight and unusual coating. They
[02:18] lead to it feeling less premium than competitors who have aluminum chassis. it's still well-built with minimal deck flex and screen flex. There is only a lid, which you don't normally get with aluminum laptops. It doesn't even happen
[02:34] on the Neo, for example. The hinges on both ZenBooks are also opened with one hand, and they have a nice little notch at the center to help these high-quality laptops for their price. Most of us here even think they
[02:48] feel pretty premium. They just don't compare to a MacBook. The display on the 16-in is much more noteworthy than the 14, so we'll start there. The A16 has a 16-in 2880 by 1800 OLED panel, which gets up to 500 nits of brightness and
[03:02] refreshes at up to 120 Hz. It's pixel density is over 200 PPI, which makes small text look super crisp for someone like a coder, who we think this laptop On top of that, it supports touch and pen, which would be good for some light
[03:15] creative work like Photoshop or Affinity, which I found it also does We didn't detect any screen door effect or noticeable PWM flickering, which this display. The only thing worth considering on the
[03:28] A16 screen would be the fact that it's glossy and doesn't quite get bright enough to combat reflections, particularly if you're outdoors or have display, on the other hand, has a few cons. It's a 1920 by 1200 OLED panel
[03:42] goes up to around 400 nits of brightness. It is not a touchscreen, and we also detected some PWM flickering at lower brightness levels. The MacBook Air gives you a crisper, brighter display for the same money. Somewhere the Macs
[03:56] keyboard. The key travel on these ZenBooks is around 1.3 mm, which I find more enjoyable to use than the 1 mm Magic Keyboard on the Macs. There is a and they are a bit more clicky. I tend to prefer that feedback. Josh likes
[04:13] If you're looking for a quiet keyboard to sneakily type on during a meeting, this isn't it. Other than that, the layout is standard, and many people will be glad to see the keyboard on the 16-in is centered instead of including a num
[04:26] pad. On the trackpad, I think it's one of the better mechanical ones I've used. click, although the click is a bit loud as well. Palm rejection seemed to work well in my experience on both the 14 and the 16, but that tends to be more of an
[04:40] rather seen one of those on both of these, but for mechanical ones, these example of where the A16 takes things just a little further than the A14 to give you a bit more value. They both have two 40-gigabit USB-C ports on the
[04:55] left, also known as USB 4, then an HDMI 2.1 port and a headphone mic combo jack. On the right, they have a 10-gigabit USB-A port, but the A16 also gives you a fast SD card reader, which is a great addition. Unfortunately, neither of them
[05:09] offers charging on the right side. For speakers, I would say these laptops sounded pretty good. The bass was decent, and it only really got muddy listen. >> [music]
[05:47] sounds on the Zenbook A16, and it also has IR for Windows Hello. Here's how the 1080p webcam looks and sounds on the Zenbook A14 in studio lighting. We feel that both the A16 and A14 look a little oversaturated. Here's how the A16's
[06:01] webcam looks in normal lighting in my office. Still not great as far as the colors go. And here's how the A14 looks in normal lighting in my office. Now, if Qualcomm X2 processors, you might have already seen how our A16 performs, but
[06:15] I'll still go over the highlights. The Zenbook A16 with the X2 Elite Extreme chip does phenomenally well in CPU tasks, pulling ahead of Windows competitors in terms of both single and multi-core. The Macs keep their crown in
[06:28] single core, but Qualcomm's results are still impressive. Core for core, we don't see the A16's chip beat out the much more expensive 18-core M5 Pro chip in Apple's 16-in MacBook Pro, but it beats similarly priced competition
[06:42] handedly. The A14 also performs very well, beating out modern Intel and AMD as well as the base M5 10-core, which is once again impressive for the price. If you're looking for CPU performance exclusively,
[06:55] both of these laptops are extremely compelling. When we look at how much power the A16 draws, it may seem like a lot at first, and it's certainly more than the MacBooks, but it is more efficient than Intel or AMD.
[07:08] The Zenbook A14 seems to be at a more optimal power level, though, since it gets 83% of the performance of the A16 with only 54% of the power draw. Which brings me to my next point. Likely because it draws more power, our Zenbook
[07:24] A16 gets quite warm in our CPU stress test. It also gets surprisingly loud. The A14 does a bit better here, but still not great. In actual use, Seth and I found both stayed much cooler and quieter than the Cinebench test would
[07:38] indicate. However, if you do plan to max out the CPU for an extended period of time, we'd caution you on the A16 specifically. Another option for a more laptops in their default performance mode. That standard mode on the A16, for
[07:53] example, performs at about 80% while drawing less power, staying quieter, and not getting quite as warm on the keyboard deck. 6,000 is still an incredible score for a laptop. For the A14, it's a very similar story in its
[08:06] default standard mode. You get most of the performance for less fan noise. Now, let's look at graphics performance. The new Qualcomm integrated GPU is a huge slightly faster when paired with the Elite Extreme chip in our A16. That
[08:21] being said, at this price point, there are far better options. If you go with Intel and AMD, you can get an Nvidia GPU. If you are sticking to integrated, Intel's X chip with its B390 is a bit faster, as is the M510 core. But, this
[08:35] isn't the full story. Many games and apps don't run natively on the ARM version of Windows. And even if they do, they aren't as optimized. For example, in Cyberpunk, Intel's integrated GPU pulls further ahead. You'll notice the
[08:47] MacBooks have the same problem as the Qualcomm chips here. These games aren't as optimized for those platforms. Seth and Josh tested a ton of games and apps which I've linked below. League of Legends wouldn't install due to
[09:00] anti-cheat, and Marvel Rivals had some visual artifacts. So, if you're planning to do even casual gaming on the side, we'd recommend a laptop with a dedicated GPU at this price, or Panther Lake if you know your titles are lighter.
[09:13] Qualcomm is still a gamble for gamers. In creative tasks, it's better than gaming, but still a mixed bag. I took on the A16 one weekend and used it for publishing and photo editing work in Affinity, and it did great. I primarily
[09:26] used the Pixel and Layout apps. I don't recall any slowdowns or stutters for anything I was doing, and our Photoshop benchmark aligns with this. Not only that, but it never got too warm or loud, which made my photo editing sessions
[09:38] I also used it to review one of our videos back at the office, and it was usable. Some stuttery playback, but watchable at 1/2 resolution. Fan noise was a bit louder, but not obnoxious. Realistically, at the price point of the
[09:52] video editing, as you can see in our graph. However, NVIDIA laptops have fan noise, and if you don't want that, better than Qualcomm. When it comes to the Zenbook A14, it
[10:05] wasn't usable at all. Premiere fully freaked out and crashed due to OpenCL saying it was out of resources, even though I was only playing at a quarter resolution. It shouldn't be the fact that it only has 16 gigs of RAM, because
[10:18] we have played these videos back on other laptops that have that amount, but perhaps this is due to a lack of optimization. The A14 just wasn't usable If you're looking for performance in other professional applications,
[10:32] including 3D work, engineering, and programming, check out that other video, but I'll summarize. We found these laptops are great for photo editing, like I said, and most programming. But, if you're using other professional apps,
[10:45] it's better to avoid these laptops unless you are absolutely certain what you're running will run and run well. For battery life, the A16 keeps up with the MacBook Pro 14 with the M5 Pro chip at about 9 hours, which is decent, but
[10:57] not as good as the one with the base M5. The A14 lasted longer at around 11 hours, only being beat out by the MacBook Pro 16, which has a much larger 100 Wh battery. This is a great result. Something else to consider here is how
[11:09] well the laptops both perform unplugged, which makes their battery results even more impressive. For Linux, we've seen some reports that Fedora 44 finally need to use the ARM version with some kernel runtime parameters, so we did
[11:23] this and still couldn't get it to boot at all. We also tried a custom Ubuntu ISO that has been confirmed to run on a few Snapdragon laptops, but we weren't able to boot there either. Linux still seems to be a no-go. As far as
[11:36] upgradeability goes, you can only really replace the full-sized M.2 SSD and the battery in these laptops. We were surprised to only see one slot in the 16, especially considering they had plenty of room. I feel like I've made my
[11:49] point. Qualcomm is absolutely heading in the right direction. The ZenBook A 16 in particular is very competitive at its price, particularly for coders. The A 14, less so. It has a smaller, lower resolution screen, which makes it more
[12:02] appealing for light users. But, if you are just looking at one of these for that kind of thing, we don't want to see you paying more for the incredible CPU performance if it won't benefit you. We'd recommend you just buy the MacBook
[12:14] Air, which is a more premium feeling laptop. It's around the same price and its CPU is plenty powerful. If either of the ZenBooks start to come with the lower-tier X Plus chips for less, our conclusions might change. So,
[12:26] recommendations. Thanks for watching and I hope you all have a wonderful rest of I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day.