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Laptops

ASUS Zenbook S

5owners with an opinion
80%of verdicts positive
2/1positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for design and performance; criticized for battery and ergonomics.

What people wrote

Likes it
The Zenbook S14 is a lovely machine, and you can get it with 32G and 120Hz OLED HDR display without the weight or bulk of a macbook pro. I don't like Windows 11. WSL2 is just about an acceptable Linux, but I don't like how there's no memory ballooning. I had to disable all the sleeping network access mechanisms to make it not run out of battery when suspended. Windows 11 is ugly and unpleasant to use in large part because of the proliferation of different UI themes over the years, which they can't easily remove due to how third party software plugs into things - multiple control panels, multiple Explorer menus, etc. As soon as there is a solid Linux implementation (ideally Debian-flavoured) with competent power management I will switch. That may be a long while off though.
Likes it
M1 with Asahi is a very bad idea, unless you want to be wrestling your computer to barely work. Either get a Framework laptop, or one of the new Asus Zenbook S 16 laptops (I just got one, and it's really nice. Works on Arch Linux with some kernel patches, which can be gotten pretty easily via the linux-mainline-um5606 AUR package).
Doesn’t like it
I didn’t watch this link, but my Zenbook S 16 only gets remotely close to my M2 MBA battery life if the zenbook is in whatever is Windows 11 ‘efficiency’ mode, and then it benchmarks at 50% of the M2. I don’t think the two are remotely comparable in perf/watt.
Likes it
Dunno, my Zenbook S UX393 has a glass touchpad as well (with some mini display underneath) and feels like the one on my MacBook but I can set up three buttons at the bottom, not just one. Moreover, it has 3300x2200 screen with slim bezels and without any insane notch and it can run Linux smoothly without waiting for GPU drivers to be usable.