A Week In The Life of Me and The ASUS Zenbook A14

I’m someone who essentially lives out of their computer. I rebuke the small screen lifestyle of the smartphone. I need a big laptop screen in reach of me at all times. Not only am I falling into rabbit holes of knife sharpening and drag performances every night until the wee hours, but my job is, at the most basic level, computer. Writing, meetings, editing, ideating, creating, more meetings — my work laptop is the crux of my entire livelihood.

That being said, I’m always looking for ways to make my work week easier. Life’s short — cut the corners where you can. And, in this particular week, I needed to cut as many corners as I could. Want an idea of how hectic this week was? It includes a Monday with eight meetings and two deadlines. The fact I lived to tell the tale is a near miracle.

As I began to feel overwhelmed at the mere sight of my calendar for the week ahead, a true knight in shining armour came galloping into my inbox: ASUS invited me to be one of the first to trial the new ASUS Zenbook A14. Now, my usual work computer does the job. But in my experience, nothing compares to a brand spankin’ new laptop that broadens my organisational horizons. ASUS promised the Zenbook A14 would do just that.

I wasn’t just going to take ASUS’ word for it, though. I needed to put this bad boy to the ultimate test. Luckily, I had just the thing: the aforementioned overwhelming work week. So I set out on a mission — could the ASUS Zenbook A14 help me conquer the week ahead? Here’s how it went.

Monday

Now, as I said earlier, there was no easing into this week for me. The universe was throwing me straight into a busy Monday with not so much as a thank you note. Eight meetings, two other deadlines and a work event 30 mins away from the office. Whoever’s up above, give me strength.

But, I was going to let the Zenbook A14 help take the reins, giving me a spare minute to breathe. Luckily for me, one of the things that immediately intrigued me about it is its in-built Copilot capabilities. Essentially, it’s my own AI personal assistant (for the week) and I planned on getting the most out of it. So, when I plopped down at my desk Monday morning, I gave the laptop its first task: inputting all I had to do that day into Copilot (including the times of my meetings and the details of my to-do list).

It was literally as easy as pressing the Copilot key on the keyboard and delivering the prompt. Suddenly, I had a pretty solid plan of attack for the day ahead. Copilot was able to determine what was priority, what wasn’t, and even encouraged me to take regular five-minute breaks (how did it know I’m a workaholic?) I had access to all that help in a matter of seconds thanks to not only the Zenbook A14’s in-built Copilot capabilities, but its red-hot fast Snapdragon X Elite processor. Not to drag my work laptop, but it loves a lag every now and then. Meanwhile, the Zenbook A14 wouldn’t know how to lag if it tried.

OK, against all odds, I made it to all my meetings and met both of my deadlines. I even managed to actually sneak in time for lunch away from the computer. It’s giving, ‘new computer, new me’. Alas, my day wasn’t over. After a very quick post-work drink with a colleague (it was a big day, alright?) I had to hop in a car and head to an event half an hour from the office. As I sunk into the back seat, I had an awful realisation — I forgot to send that important email.

Rummaging through my bag, I pulled out the Zenbook A14. It was in this moment of panic, where I truly realised just how light this thing is. I’m talking ‘I can literally pick it up with my finger and my thumb without resistance’ light. It’s actually under 1kg in weight, but still packs such a punch and doesn’t feel like it’s suffering under what I’m using it for. In fact, the ASUS Zenbook A14 is the world’s lightest Copilot+ PC. Colour me impressed.

Now, this work event was actually a concert (*insert moment of gratitude for how cool my job is here*). But, with a backpack, I knew I was going to have to cloak it and all within it — including my newfound bestie the Zenbook A14. The cloakroom always makes me a teeny-bit nervous, kinda like when you go to the airport and you get caught wondering just how your luggage is being treated once it enters the domain of the baggage handler. What the attendants do with my bag while I’m at the gig is not for me to know. But I did know that my Zenbook A14 would be safe, even if they were throwing the bag across the room.

This is because it literally has military grade laptop durability. It’s been tested for shock, vibration, altitude, high and low temperatures. On top of that, it has ASUS’ own patented Ceraluminum finish on the lid, keyboard frame and case, meaning its sleek style doesn’t come at the cost of toughness. Sure enough, once I collected my bag, the Zenbook A14 still looked virtually untouched. As I *finally* arrived home and put myself to bed, and the Zenbook A14 on charge, I took time to think that this might be the start of a beautiful partnership.

Oh, and did I mention that this laptop cares for your eyes during long screen sessions? It emits hardware-certified low blue-light levels with it’s OLED Lumina Screen? After that day, I needed an actually restful sleep and this computer helped to ensure I got just that.

Tuesday

For my brain’s sake, I was thankful that the busiest day of my week was behind me. Unfortunately, there were still four work days left. Tuesday, a work-from-home day, saw me open my Zenbook A14 at my desk and begin to whizz through my inbox. My Tuesday was less deadline-heavy than Monday, so I focused on menial tasks and getting ahead on other things I was working on. Like any other media slashie, in 2025 you really have to know how to do almost anything, and today’s agenda involved video editing.

Now, given previous experience I’ve had with super-light laptops and editing software, I was nervous. But, to my surprise, it exceeded expectations (again, lag — the Zenbook A14 doesn’t know her!) That Snapdragon X Elite processor made even heftier assignments like video editing run like a breeze on this laptop, and it didn’t even make it sound like a rocket taking off. We probably have the Zenbook A14’s TDP 45W lightweight dual, thermal solution fans to thank for that. Feather-light and cucumber-cool, this laptop was really up to anything I threw at it.

In fact, while I was editing, I wanted to introduce a slightly more complex scene transition — except I had no idea how to pull it off. But gone are the days of scrubbing through an online video trying to follow step-by-step. Now, I just press the Copilot button (or hold alt+space) and ask Copilot to explain how to make this transition like I’m five-years-old. Suddenly, it all made sense, and another day was smashed with the help of the Zenbook A14, and with a little extra flair. We love to see it.

Wednesday

You know what I don’t love to see? That I’ve forgotten to charge my laptop overnight. You know when I don’t love to see this? In a packed office day where desks are all taken up and I’ve got nowhere to charge my laptop. I took a seat at a communal office table, miffed at how the day was beginning, before opening the Zenbook A14 and realising… that I still had a lot of battery left. Like, a lot. I had used this computer all day yesterday to edit videos, and there was still a decent amount of battery left? This is the future you’d go back in time to impress your ancestors with, honestly.

But, yes, one of the Zenbook A14’s most impressive qualities IMO is that it has a long-lasting 70Whr battery, lasting up to 32 hours. 32 HOURS! In a world where it feels like all my devices can barely make it to lunch without giving me a low battery warning, this is a very welcome change. Suddenly, being seated away from my team at a communal table wasn’t so bad (though I was missing a good desk-to-desk yap).

Another problem that plagues slim and lightweight laptops is that there’s often next to no ports. Good luck if you want to use an external mouse AND a hard drive. But, on the Zenbook A14, shortage of ports is not a problem. With two USB-C, one USB, one HDMI and one headphone port, I could still hook the laptop up with all my comfort accessories without worrying about getting an adapter. A dongle-free life is one I’m striving towards, and this computer is a giant leap in the right direction.

As the day drew on, desks started freeing up and I was finally able to charge the laptop. It’s been so good to me over the past 48 hours, I shouldn’t be running it to 1% as thanks. So, as it hit 5%, I popped it on charge and took my lunch break (and ate a delish chicken concoction using a recipe inspired by telling Copilot what I had in the work fridge because I was stumped for ideas).

I returned 45 minutes later and, would you believe, this computer stunned me again. Having been just on charge for 45 minutes, it had gone from 5% battery to 59% battery. And given its long-lasting battery power, this amount easily takes me through to the end of the day. Between a multi-day battery life and that incredible quick-charge ability, the Zenbook A14 is kind of making all my other devices eat dust in that respect. At least I know that if I’m short on time, or if I forget a charger, all hope isn’t lost.

Thursday

My last busy day of the work week, and I legitimately had a spring in my step thanks to this computer. No task unachievable, no deadline unmeetable, no question un-Copilotable. Thursday was spent bouncing around editing articles, videos and photos. By this point, I knew the Zenbook A14 would handle with ease. And, after I popped in details of all my tasks into Copilot with a push of a button, I knew exactly the order in which I should tackle them.

Now, I usually use external monitors to help with these types of tasks. But, by chance, I moved to another desk without monitors so I could truly lock in and focus. It was then that I realised those monitors were doing me a disservice when it came to photos and videos. The Zenbook A14’s huge 16:10 OLED NanoEdge screen meant I could see the images on my screen in incredible detail and ultra-vivid colours. 

It didn’t matter that what I was editing was a silly, little drive-thru video of me and my colleague. I’d been looking at clips and stills of this video on-and-off all week. But it wasn’t until I was looking at it directly on the Zenbook A14 that I noticed the detail. Shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, considering its display is the Display HDR True Black 500 Certification, meaning it’s showing being the deepest possible blacks and insane colour accuracy. Who knew a laptop would quite literally have me looking at the world completely differently?

Friday

Between you and me, I had two separate work events on Thursday evening. I woke up on Friday feeling… not 100%. A solid 89%, let’s say. Luckily for me, my Friday was all about making some edits to some articles. This meant I was giving both myself and Zenbook A14 a chance to take it easy.

This also served as a great opportunity to use Copilot to not just help me tick things off my to do list, but to ensure I’m doing them all the very best I can. I ran the articles I was editing through Copilot and asked to outline where I could switch sentences from passive to active voice. It wasn’t about getting Copilot to do it for me. It was getting it to show me where improvements could be made, so I was actually able to retain information. With such an easy to access resource like the Zenbook A14’s in-built Copilot function, why wouldn’t you try and maximise how it can help you?

As the day came to an end and I prepared for a night of doing absolutely nothing at all, I opened the Zenbook A14 (which hadn’t been charged in over 24 hours — still blows my mind) to browse potential TV shows I could lazily watch as I rotted on the lounge. It was then I noticed how clean the laptop still looked. No smudges on the keys, no signs of wear or scratches anywhere. My regular at-home keyboard shamefully has a smorgasbord of crumbs, dust and who knows what else. The Zenbook A14 still looked like it hadn’t been used at all. Even the Copilot button, which I’d been mashing often, had not a smudge.

The Zenbook A14 sports smudge-free keycaps (why isn’t this a thing always?) meaning the laptop always looks slick, and not as grubby as my at-home keyboard. Couple that with the Ceraluminum finish, and this thing is still as chic as when I unboxed it. Even after all I put the Zenbook A14 through, I’d just found another thing that impressed me.

One thing is clear: the ASUS Zenbook A14 didn’t stop impressing me from Monday through Friday. With its staggering Copilot capabilities, that powerful Snapdragon X Elite processor, its barely-there weight, its incredible display and those blessed smudge-free keycaps, this is a computer that was able to turn what I thought would be a work week from hell into something heavenly from start to finish.

And you can get your own right now. Trust me — if the ASUS Zenbook A14 can survive the hazing I put it through this week, it can survive anything you challenge it with. It’s not going to make your to-do list disappear. But it’s going to help you so much in your day-to-day, you’ll wonder why you ever settled for anything less.