Thin, light and powerful

Laptops are right now the lifeblood of many offices that have had to adopt a work from home culture over the last 14 months The problem is most of these laptops are underpowered have terrible battery life and are just too bulky to carry aroundA standard laptop weighs anywhere between 2 and 3 kg with some going all the way up to 4 kg These usually sacrifice weight for additional battery life and a powerhungry processor under the hood The new Asus Zenbook 14 serves up a laptop that weighs in at just 13 kg Thatrsquos not the only place it has shed numbers at 158 mm it is also one of the thinner laptops aroundIn the box you get the machine a very tiny power brick a USBC to audio port convertor a USB 30 ethernet adapter and a laptop sleeveThe Zenbook 14 has fewer ports than your standard laptop There are two USB 32 typeC ports present on the left side you can use either to charge the machine On the same side there is a fullsize HDMI 20b port as well in case you need to connect the laptop to an external projector or a monitor On the right the Zenbook has a MicroSD slot and a USB 32 typeAThe outside material is made of metal which makes its overall weight seem even more impressive Open it up and there is a fullsized edgetoedge keyboard thatrsquos missing the number pad The numpad has been integrated with the touchpad This is not the first time ASUS has done this it works but isnrsquot as convenient as having an actual number pad When I wanted to use the calculator I often found myself using the numbers integrated with the keys rather than the numpad builtin to the touchpadThe screen on the Zenbook 14 is interesting as well The display is a FullHD IPS LED panel with a 100 per cent sRGB colour gamut It is not a touchscreen and while this isnrsquot a dealbreaker for me I am sure many users may want a touchcapable machine The bezels around the screen are really thin the display has an impressive 90 per cent screen to body ratio Also located in this bezel is an HD web camera with an integrated IR sensor The two combined can be used to log in to the machine without having to type a password or enter a pinConsidering this is a 14inch laptop the size of the keyboard is pretty impressive I found it easy to use and it felt pretty durable I wasnrsquot a big fan of the silver colour keys because it didnrsquot work well with the white backlit keys The backlighting made it a little harder to use in a bright room In a slightly darker room this problem went awayI canrsquot believe ASUS managed to fit a Ryzen 7 5700U in such a small form factor The CPU is very powerful and it has an integrated graphic card as well The machine was very comfortable running GTA V and Forza Horizon That said I donrsquot think most modern games will work smoothly The laptop I tested had 16GB of RAM which is not user upgradableWhile performing super intensive tasks and gaming the computer does heat up but not as much as you would expect it to At the back of the laptop there is a small bump that lifts the rear anytime the screen is open to provide for better airflow and a better typing positionPowering all of this is a 67Wh 4cell lithiumpolymer battery The battery gave me between 12 and 14 hours of run time With heavier applications this battery life can reduce significantly Overall the UM425 has possibly one of the best battery performance I have seen on a laptopThe Zenbook 14 starts at Rs 96990 which is high However you have to remember that it is packed with features in a very tiny frame which makes it a worthy investment So if you are looking to buy a lightweight and powerful laptop with insane battery life go in for this one you will not regret it