MacBook Neo killer? Asus laptop under €1,000: great value hides a major flaw

Manufacturers are now competing to produce affordable “MacBook Neo killers”: sub-€1,000 laptops that don’t skimp on looks and in some cases still deliver quality displays.

This Zenbook 14 follows the series’ premium styling but relies on a Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip to keep the price low. There are compromises, as we’ll see, yet this budget-friendly Zenbook is built on solid fundamentals.

Specifications

Design and build

The Zenbook 14 keeps the family’s familiar aesthetic: an aluminum frame and a lid made from Ceraluminum, a material that blends ceramic and aluminum and is marketed as more durable and less prone to scratches.

Outwardly the laptop still looks premium. The textured lid delivers that upscale feel while the keyboard deck and touchpad resist fingerprints fairly well. The chassis feels sturdy — there’s no give when you handle it.

The glacier-blue finish, which caught our eye at Computex, is particularly attractive. Asus has clearly refined the visual identity of its machines over the past few years. At 1.1 kg with a 14-inch screen it’s not the absolute lightest (some Zenbook variants drop below 1 kg), but it remains very portable.

Keyboard and trackpad

Zenbook keyboards have improved notably: the keys now offer a smooth, pleasant feel, a satisfying travel distance and quiet operation. Typing is nearly flawless on this model. Backlighting is included for working in dim environments.

Like the larger Zenbook A16, the trackpad provides a generous surface area, but it lacks haptic feedback. For an ultraportable that can be priced around €1,000, the absence of haptics is disappointing — you’ll have to use the mechanical click instead.

Ports and connectivity

Port selection is somewhat reduced compared with pricier Zenbooks, yet remains practical. On the left edge are two USB‑C ports (USB 3.2 Gen 2, 10 Gb/s) that support charging and external displays, plus a full‑size HDMI 2.1 output and a 3.5 mm audio jack.

On the right side there’s a single USB‑A port (USB 3.2 Gen 1, 5 Gb/s). No SD card reader is present, which is typical for a compact, value‑oriented ultraportable.

Wireless connectivity includes Wi‑Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

Webcam and sound

The integrated webcam is a standard 1080p (about 2.1 MP) unit. With the Snapdragon X platform, image quality is modest: video looks grainy and lacks crisp detail compared with the higher‑end X2 chips available this year. It will do for conference calls but don’t expect exceptional clarity.

Audio performance is acceptable for the form factor and comparable to what you’d hear on a Dell XPS 13. The dual speakers sit under the chassis at the two ends and reproduce clear midrange without excessive distortion. They’re fine for occasional video streaming and music listening.

Display

Asus continues to put OLED panels into some of its more affordable laptops, and this sub‑€1,000 Zenbook 14 is no exception. The 14‑inch OLED has a 1920 x 1200 resolution (16:10). The refresh rate is standard 60 Hz, but the panel covers 100% of the DCI‑P3 color space, which is a plus for creative work. HDR is not supported, and the DCI‑P3 mode in Asus’ MyAsus utility tends to oversaturate colors.

Not having HDR undermines some of OLED’s potential: while you benefit from extremely high contrast thanks to emissive pixels, HDR content would be needed to fully exploit the panel’s strengths. Still, day‑to‑day comfort—office tasks, browsing and video playback—is noticeably better than typical LCDs in this segment.

We measured a peak brightness of about 300 cd/m² in full‑screen mode, aligning with Asus’ claims. That’s adequate for most indoor uses, but the glossy finish will reflect strong ambient light. Don’t expect perfect outdoor usability in bright sunlight.

Compared with the MacBook Neo, the Zenbook 14’s OLED has an advantage in contrast. Apple’s 13‑inch LCD panel can hit higher brightness levels (Apple quotes around 500 cd/m²) and offers a sharper resolution (2408 x 1506), though with different trade‑offs.

Color accuracy is decent: our average Delta E measured 3.33, slightly above the threshold of 3 under which differences become hard to spot. It’s adequate for web and photo work.

Our main complaints are the 60 Hz cap, the lack of HDR, and the reflective coating. Those concessions are understandable given the target price, but they remain drawbacks.

Software

Windows 11 on ARM is now familiar territory. Compatibility has improved year after year, including support for more applications and even some games. In practice, only a relatively small number of programs won’t run on a Snapdragon chip.

Asus ships the machine with its MyAsus app, which is useful for switching power profiles and accessing display settings for the OLED panel (color profiles, panel protection, etc.). It’s a handy control center for tuning the laptop.

Performance

This review covers the Qualcomm Snapdragon variant of the Zenbook 14, equipped with the Snapdragon X1‑26‑100 (not the Plus or Elite version). The SoC offers an 8‑core/8‑thread configuration with boost up to 2.97 GHz. Our test unit included 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM; a cheaper 8 GB configuration is available for €799.

Both SKUs share the same storage options: a 256 GB SSD in the base config and higher capacities in other SKUs. We ran our usual benchmark suite to compare this Zenbook with competing machines in the same class.

Note that RAM is soldered to the motherboard, so you cannot upgrade from 8 to 16 GB after purchase — choose your memory at the time of order. The SSD occupies an M.2 slot and is replaceable; Asus specifies single-sided M.2 modules as compatible.

Benchmarks

The Snapdragon X’s performance profile is familiar and confirmed by our tests. In Cinebench R26, the Zenbook 14 scored about 2332 points in multi‑core and 383 points in single‑core. That places it slightly behind the HP OmniBook 5, which benefits from a wider chassis, but still ahead of the MacBook Air M3 in multi‑threaded workloads (except for single‑core) and well ahead of the MacBook Neo. It remains outperformed by Intel Core Ultra 5 and AMD Ryzen AI 7 chips found in larger 16‑inch models such as the Honor MagicBook 16 and HP OmniBook X Flip 16.

Heat dissipation advantages from a larger chassis explain part of those differences, but the gap underscores the Snapdragon X’s limits in this Zenbook. In particular, this is the slowest Qualcomm chip in our single‑core database, trailing even some older Intel Core i5s. Everyday responsiveness suffers because many common tasks—office work, web browsing, streaming—depend heavily on single‑thread performance.

On the GPU side, the integrated Adreno X1‑45 has never been Qualcomm’s strong suit. In our graphics tests it lands between AMD’s Radeon 820M and the 840M/860M range, far behind Apple’s A18 Pro used in the MacBook Neo.

That means occasional gaming is possible only at low settings, and creative applications will be constrained if you expect serious performance. The Zenbook 14 was not designed as a content‑creation powerhouse, and competing chips at similar price points offer more versatility.

Storage performance is modest for a near‑€1,000 laptop: sequential read speeds around 2.4 GB/s and write speeds near 2.0 GB/s. There are cheaper laptops with even slower drives, but these figures reflect the compromises that go into keeping costs down.

Cooling and noise

During light productivity work the Zenbook 14 is effectively silent and can be inaudible. Push the SoC with intensive video encoding or gaming, or block its vents, and the fan becomes noticeably louder — though still far from gaming‑rig volume levels. Surface temperatures seldom exceed 40 °C, so thermal behavior remains acceptable.

Battery life

The unit ships with a 50 Wh battery and a 68 W USB‑C charger in the box.

In our mixed office test (browsing, word processing, occasional streaming) at 50% screen brightness, we recorded between 17 and 18 hours of continuous use. Qualcomm’s efficiency continues to be a strong point, a trend that has held since its early ARM laptops.

Price and availability

The same Asus chassis is available with AMD Ryzen AI 7 345 or Intel Core Ultra series 3 processors. Those variants typically include a larger 70 Wh battery (versus 50 Wh in the Snapdragon model) and some offer a 3K OLED at 120 Hz, but they cost significantly more: in Spain the AMD configurations start at €1,199 and Intel versions go up to around €1,799.

The Snapdragon Zenbook 14 base model (8 GB RAM, 256 GB storage) starts at €799. Our review unit with 16 GB RAM and larger storage is priced at €999. That puts it above the MacBook Neo in sticker price, but the Zenbook offers double the RAM compared with the Neo’s fixed 8 GB option, which should help in multitasking — though the real‑world difference may not be dramatic.