ASUS ASUS - Zenbook 14 14" FHD+ OLED Touch Screen Laptop - Intel Core Ultra 5 with 8GB Memory - 512GB SSD - Jasper Gray Review

The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED has a stunning screen and a super-portable design, but it's held back by only 8GB of RAM. It's fine for very basic use, but most people should look for a model with 16GB. Not worth it for anything beyond light tasks.

The ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED is a sleek ultraportable that nails the basics for on-the-go work. It's thin, light, and built around a gorgeous OLED touchscreen that makes everything look great. The Intel Core Ultra 5 chip and Intel Evo certification promise solid performance and battery life for everyday tasks, but the 8GB of RAM is a tough sell in 2024.

The Intel Core Ultra 5 125H is a capable chip for web browsing, office apps, and media consumption, landing in the 63rd percentile for CPU power. The integrated Intel Graphics are fine for the basics but land in the 53rd percentile, so don't expect to game or do serious creative work. The real star is the 14-inch OLED display, which hits 500 nits and covers 100% DCI-P3 color, making movies and photos pop. The 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM is the clear bottleneck, ranking in the bottom quarter of all laptops. It'll handle a few tabs and apps, but heavy multitasking will feel sluggish.

At $640, this is a tricky one. You're paying a premium for the excellent OLED screen and ultraportable design. The CPU and build quality are good for the price. But that 8GB of RAM is a deal-breaker for many, as it severely limits what you can do with the laptop long-term. If you only need a beautiful screen for light tasks and value portability above all, it's okay. If you need to do real work, the RAM holds it back, making it feel overpriced for the specs you get.

Compared to the Apple MacBook Pro, you get a touchscreen OLED and more ports for a fraction of the price, but you lose out massively on performance, battery life, and the Apple ecosystem. Against the ASUS ProArt PX13, you're looking at a much less powerful machine without a dedicated GPU, but you save a lot of money and get a similar OLED experience. The Lenovo Legion and MSI Vector are in a different league for gaming and power, but they're also much heavier and have worse battery life. This Zenbook sits in a niche of premium-feeling portables with a killer screen but compromised internals.

Skip this if you need to do real work. If you regularly have more than 10 browser tabs open, run office apps alongside communication tools, or plan to keep the laptop for more than two years, the 8GB of RAM will become a frustrating bottleneck. Also, skip it if you need any graphics power for photo editing, video work, or gaming—the integrated GPU isn't up to the task.

Buy this if your top priorities are a beautiful, portable screen for media consumption, light office work, and web browsing, and you're on a strict budget for an OLED laptop. It's a great second machine or travel companion for someone who doesn't push their computer hard. For everyone else, the 8GB RAM is a hard stop.