ASUS is one of the very few brands pursuing maximum lightness and thinness on its ultrabook devices with the brand holding multiple records of having the thinnest laptop on multiple CPU generations. The advancement has plateaued mainly due to the thermal limitations of the CPUs in terms of their weight and the materials for their thickness. The launch of the Intel Core Ultra 200V mobile CPUs as well as ASUS’ Ceraliminum tech addresses these issues and gave birth to the ASUS Zenbook S 14 UX5406SA. The ASUS Zenbook S 14 is a certified Copilot+ PC featuring the Intel Core Ultra 7 285V CPU.
ASUS Zenbook S 14 – A Closer Look



You have the exact same eco-friendly brown packaging found on its previous Vivobooks. There’s no way to tell the SKUs apart except for the small black strip at the back.
ASUS’ higher-end Zenbook line still uses an eco-friendly brown packaging like its Vivobooks but with more branding. The inner box is where ASUS’ poured the effort with the inner packaging mimicking the ceraluminum finish.

ASUS includes its standard 65W Type-C charger – more than enough to power the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V’s 17-37W TDP as well as the rest of the laptop components.


ASUS uses Ceraluminum on the lid of the Zenbook S 14 – a material made of Ceramic and Aluminum which is commonly used in the aerospace and watch industry. Our colorway is the Zumaia gray which slightly shifts in the shade from light to dark depending on the light.
I personally like the ceramic style finish and its texture. The use of Ceraluminum makes the Zenbook S 14 feel like a premium ultrabook. That said, the material isn’t as resistant when it comes to fingerprint oils as seen in the photos. Simply wiping it off with a microfiber cloth doesn’t clean the smudges off due to the rough texture of the Ceraluminum lid.

Apart from Ceraluminum the lid, the rest of the laptop uses an all-metal CNC resulting to an overall weight of only 1.2kg.

Keyboard layout is the same across all of ASUS’ Zenbook lines, the S 14 included.


The Zenbook S14 UX5406SA is a CoPilot+ certified PC as the Core Ultra 7 258V meets the criteria. it has a

Everything has been well and good with the ASUS Zenbook S 14 so far except for the power button placement. I am heavily against the power button placed within the keyboard deck as it is easily prone to misclicks. ASUS has previously positioned its power buttons outside the keyboard area or on the side of most of its laptops. The anniversary ASUS logo could’ve also acted as a power button for a more premium feel.

ASUS has maximized the trackpad space of the Zenbook S 14 with a 3:2 aspect ratio. Left and right clicks are crisp enough making it one of the best trackpad implementations in ASUS’ lineup.

ASUS compensates the frankly lacking amount of IO with bandwidth. While you’re sacrificing one USB Type-C port for charging, both ports are Thunderbolt 4 with display support so that you can further expand your IO via hubs.

The single USB Type-A port on the right is USB 3.2 Gen 2 with speeds up to 10Gbps. ASUS could’ve easily added another USB Type-C port or a microSD card slot to the side as what we’ve already seen in previous Zenbooks and even Vivobooks.
ASUS Zenbook S14 UX5406SA Lumina OLED Display

Despite its small form factor, ASUS has inserted a 14-inch 2880×1800 16:10 3K OLED display on the Zenbook S 14. Most 13/14-inch laptops these days only have 1200p resolution.



ASUS claims the Zenbook S 14’s display has a 100%-DCI P3 color gamut and our SpyderX Display Analysis Tool was able to measure 100% sRGB, 97% AdobeRGB, and 100% DCI-P3. True the brand’s claim, the ASUS Zenbook S 14’s display is fit for professional photo and video editing with near perfect color accuracy.
ASUS advertises 400 nits of brightness with 500 nits on HDR peak. Our SpyderX colorimeter only measures 366 nits at 100% brightness. It’s barely bright enough to be used outdoors.
Considering its small form factor, high resolution, and color accuracy, the ASUS Zenbook S 14 has one of the best displays available in the market.
MyASUS App


MyASUS app lets you customize the ASUS Zenbook S 14’s settings from different power profiles, display color profiles, sound profiles, and many more. The app also serves as your update hub for the device’s driver updates though you may also receive crucial updates via Windows Update.
Benchmark Setup and Test Methodology
Gadget Pilipinas’ testing philosophy is to provide detail-oriented results as accurately as possible so that our readers can replicate our tests given that these conditions are met. Different benchmarking apps and sequences are used depending on the tested component or device.
We use CapFrameX 1.7.2 Beta as our primary FPS capture and analysis tool for all our gaming benchmarks. The latest build version of Windows 11 Pro and WHQL-certified drivers are used for our benchmarks. Readings such as temperatures and power draws are recorded using HWINFO64, and OCCT Enterprise.
We benchmarked the ASUS Vivobook S 14 UX5406 together with its different power profile settings found in the MyASUS App – Whisper, Standard, Performance, and Full Speed. The main purpose of benchmarking power profiles is to show how aggressive or conservative the manufacturer is regarding thermal management. These profiles will affect the CPU and GPUs’ boosting behavior regarding duration and max clock speed, translating to higher scores and stable framerates.
As part of our 2024 laptop benchmark methodology revamp, we’ve changed how these profiles are tested. Synthetic and Productivity benchmarks include all of the power profiles. We decided to drop the silent or power-saving profile for gaming benchmarks as these lowest profiles generally produce unplayable framerates, especially at 1440p and above resolutions. Moreover, games are tested at the laptop’s native resolution as we expect most, if not, all gamers to game on the laptop’s native resolution.
For more information read our Benchmark Methodology article.
ASUS Zenbook S 14 Synthetic and Productivity Benchmarks
OCCT Benchmark


OCCT is a popular benchmark and stability testing tool among overclockers, enthusiasts and system integrators
CINEBENCH 2024

Maxon’s Cinebench benchmark is one of the most iconic benchmark applications used by reviewers and enthusiasts. The latest Cinebench 2024 uses the latest rendering architectures, including Intel’s Embree ray tracing technology and other advanced features from AMD and Intel that allow users to render the same scene on the same hard.
PROCYON – ADOBE PREMIERE PRO VIDEO EDITING BENCHMARK

Procyon benchmark suite is developed by the UL, the same team behind 3DMark and PCMark benchmarks. The UL Procycon video editing benchmark uses Adobe Premiere in a typical video editing workflow. The benchmark starts by importing two video project files with various edits, adjustments, and effects – the second project uses several GPU-accelerated effects. Each project is exported in 1080p with H.264 encoding and again in 4K with HEVC H.265. The reported score is based on the time taken to export all four videos.
PCMark10

From the same developers of the popular game benchmarking tool 3DMark, PCMark 10 is a benchmarking app for measuring a whole PC’s performance. It covers a wide variety of tests to reflect common tasks performed in a modern workplace. We selected PCMark 10’s extended benchmark and reported both the overall score and Digital Content Creation Score.
V-RAY 6

V-Ray Benchmark is a stand-alone version of V-Ray developed by Chaos Group. It is designed to test the CPU and GPU by rendering sample scenes at a fixed amount of time. V-Ray is a plug-in mostly utilized by 3D computer graphics software applications mainly for industrial design, product design, architecture, film, and video game production. V-Ray is not limited to 64-threads as it supports multi and mega-threading.
SuperPI 32M

SuperPI is a single-threaded benchmark application that lets the CPU calculate Pi(π) to the nth digit. In this benchmark, we selected the Pi calculation to 32M, the highest available for the app.
wPrime 1024M

wPrime is a benchmark tool similar to SuperPI, but the former takes on finding prime numbers using Newton’s Method. The benchmark is set to calculate 1024 million prime numbers, and the performance is measured according to calculation time.
GeekBench 6.3

Geekbench is a multi-platform benchmark used to gauge CPU performance and compare them across Windows, Mac, and Mobile. Geekbench 6 is the latest version and doesn’t rely on memory more than the previous Geekbench 4, making it a great tool to measure both single-core and multi-core CPU performance.
CORONA RENDERER

Corona Renderer is an unbiased photorealistic render available for Autodesk 3Ds Max, Maxon Cinema 4D, and as a stand-alone application. Its popularity, similar to Blender, led Chaos Group to develop a benchmark version of the app which runs using Corona Renderer 1.3. Workstation systems, especially CPUs, can utilize Corona Benchmark as up to 72 threads can be used in the benchmark, making it very suitable for CPUs with various price segments.
BapCo CROSSMARK
Crossmark is one of the few native cross-platform benchmark tools available for Windows, Android, Linux ChromeOS, iOS, and macOS. It measures overall system performance and system responsiveness using models of real-world applications making it a great comparison point across multiple platforms.
ASUS ZenBook S 14 UX5406 SSD Benchmark


Compared to the Vivobook’s Micron QLC SSD, ASUS used a WD SN560 SSD – a much faster SSD thanks to it being a TLC drive. We measured around 5,000MB/s read and 3,500MB/s write with our quick CrystalDiskMark benchmark.
ASUS ZenBook S 14 UX5406 Battery Life

Yes, we tested several times to confirm and the Zenbook S 14 UX5406 managed to have around 12-18 hours of battery life depending on the power mode. Thanks to the Ultra 7 258V’s efficient power consumption and the 72wHr battery is more than enough to offset the high power consumption of OLED displays resulting in an all-day battery life.
ASUS ZenBook S 14 UX5406 Temperatures

Regardless of power profile, ASUS has been conservative in maximizing the Ultra 7 258V’s power as we only capped at 96°C unlike what we saw on our previously reviewed ASUS laptops which had a 1°C TJMax temps on their fastest profile.
Conclusion – Premium

The ASUS Zenbook S 14 UX5406 is nothing short of premium. The combination of the design and build quality are nothing like we’ve seen before thanks to the Ceraluminum finish. And it’s not just the looks, ASUS backs it up with the highest specs possible that could fit the 12.9mm chassis all while staying light at only 1.2kg. Mind you, that’s with a considerably large 72wHr battery as most ultrabooks that are even thicker have 60wHr. Combine that with the efficiency of the new Intel Core Ultra 7 258V and you have an all-day companion.

The ASUS Zenbook S 14 transcends from your normal office laptop to a mini productivity ultrabook thanks to the combination of its specs, color-accurate OLED display, and battery life. And yes, it also transcends the 5-digit mark as it’s priced at Php 109,995. While there are other laptops that excel in other aspects, what the Zenbook S 14 offers is an almost-perfect balance between specs, features, design, and price – Not to mention you’re getting something unique with the Ceraluminum lid.
That said, it’s “almost” perfect as you still have some quality-of-life things that could improved such as the power button placement and IO ports. Nonetheless, these are not deal breakers as these can be solved either by a slight adjustment period or via accessories. So, if you want a premium ultrabook that delivers not only in looks but also in performance, then the ASUS Zenbook S 14 brings something new and unique to the table.
Grant is a Financial Management graduate from UST. His passion for gadgets and tech crossed him over in the industry where he could apply his knowledge as an enthusiast and in-depth analytic skills as a Finance Major. His passion allows him to earn at the same time help Gadget Pilipinas' readers in making smart, value-based decisions and purchases with his reviews and guides.