We’ve tested the previous ProArt P16 variants as well, those built on AMD Ryzen AI with an Nvidia RTX 5090 dGPU. That’s still available alongside this RTX Spark version, which is more compact and more lightweight.

The two are fairly different, with that one focused on dGPU performance for workloads and games, and this RTX Spark update offering a faster processor and the unified memory setup that allows excellent functionality with LLMs and AI. But at the same time, this is an ARM platform, with all the associated quirks and particularities.

Down below, we discuss this ProArt P16 chassis and especially what to expect from this RTX Spark hardware. Our review unit implements the higher-tier Spark N1X specs, with the 20-core Grace CPU and the 6144-CUDA-core Blackwell GPU, along with 128 GB of fast LPDDR5x-9400 RAM on this configuration. This sells for $6999 in the US, making it the most expensive Spark notebook today.

The unified memory makes this platform particularly interesting, as you can allocate the included amount for either system memory or graphics memory. Our review unit is set at 64 GB RAM and 64 GB vRAM, but you can also opt for as little as 32 GB RAM and up to 96 GB vRAM, depending on your needs. The higher amount of video memory makes this a prime choice for Local AI implementations using the latest and most advanced LLMs that won’t work as smoothly on devices without this kind of vRAM. But it’s not just the RAM, but the entire package of Nvidia apps and software bundled along, including CUDA, Tensor, DLSS, and others.

At the same time, if you’re not into AI workflows and LLMs, the overall worth of this series is rather questionable, all things considered. You’ll find out why in this article.

Specs Sheet – Asus ProArt P16

Design and ergonomics

This is a larger variant of the Asus ProArt P14, in a 16-inch chassis, and overall one of the nicest-looking and feeling premium devices out there.

It has a unibody metal design and feels hefty and well-made. It’s compact and thin for a device of this size, and weighs just about 1.8 kilos, significantly less than its direct competitors such as the Dell XPS 16 or the Apple MacBook Pro 16. And that’s without sacrificing sturdiness, cooling, or the battery.

Asus offers it in either black or light-silver, and while I preffer the aesthetics of this black variant, I do have to warn about how easily this shows smudges and finger oil, and especially about the anodized aluminum coating potentially chipping away around the sharper edge on the lid part. My unit already has some minor scuffs, and I noticed similar scuffs on the P14, and both are brand new devices. You won’t have to deal with any of these issues on the Neo White variant, which is a much more carefree option. It doesn’t look as classy, though.

Speaking of, Asus keep branding minimalist on this ProArt series and take out that nasty lightbar they put on the Zephyrus models on the lid.

Ergonomics are mostly fine with this series as well, except for the screen that only opens to about 150 degrees or so, and not all the way flat. I prefer 180-degree displays on portable laptops, but perhaps this aspect won’t matter that much on this 16-inch option.

This aside, no complaints. The hinges are stiff and smooth to adjust at the same time; there’s a gap on the front lip that allows you to easily grab and lift the display; the edges around the interior chassis are beveled and friendly on the wrists, and there are no annoying lights in the way. No light on the power button either, which is a dedicated button and not part of the keyboard. There is a status LED on the front lip, active all the time when the laptop is plugged in, but even that one is not placed in the line of sight, so it will hardly bother you even when using the notebook at night in a dark room.

The IO includes pretty much everything you’d need, with USB-C 4.0 ports on both sides, full-size USB-A and HDMI, an audio jack, and a proper SD card reader.

Before we wrap up this section, here’s how this ProArt P16 compares to the ProArtP14: that one is way more compact and lighter as well.

Keyboard, haptic touchpad

This ProArt P16 offers an excellent keyboard and a huge glass haptic touchpad, which has one annoying flaw.

The keyboard is a standard Asus Zephyrus layout, with full-size keys, a slight dish in the keycaps, and 1.7 mm of travel. It lacks any extra custom keys or a NumPad section. I prefer this sort of minimalist layout on a 16-inch chassis, but I know some of you don’t.

This keyboard provides proper feedback and response, and overall is one of my favorites in this class of portable notebooks.

As a side note, the plastic keycaps show finger oil over time on this black variant. That’s not an issue with the Neo White color variant with the light-silver keycaps; however, that version suffers from poor contrast between the keycaps and the white LED backlighting.

Speaking of, the keyboard is backlit with white LEDs and three brightness levels to choose from. The bottom setting is dim enough for night use, while the other two get very bright. Still, plenty of light creeps out from underneath the keycaps, which is annoying in this class and price segment.

Display – Tandem OLED, touchscreen

The display on this ProArt P16 RTX Spark generation is a slight refresh of the Tandem OLED 4K 16-inch panel implemented in the x86 variant of this ProArt P16 series, and arguably one of the best laptop panels available today.

Asus calls it a Lumina Pro OLED panel. It’s a modern Tandem OLED from Samsung, with 30-120 Hz refresh and VRR, .2 ms response times, 4K 3840 x 2400 px resolution, 100% DCI-P3 color coverage, and higher sustained and peak brightness levels than regular OLEDs: 700 nits sustained, 1600 nits peak. For comparison, the OLED on the Zephyrus G16 is 2.5K resolution with 240Hz refresh, 500 nits sustained brightness, and 1100 nits peak.

This display is a touchscreen with Gorilla Glass on top and an anti-reflection filter. It’s still glossy, but overall usable in bright light environments. And although it’s a touch OLED, it’s not as grainy as others. In fact, the grain can be observed as a slight muddiness when using this display at lower brightness levels, and is less pronounced when ramping up the brightness over 70%.

Here’s what we got in our tests, with an X-Rite i1 Display Pro sensor:

• Panel HardwareID: Samsung ATNA60HC05-0;
• Coverage: 100% sRGB, 98.2% Adobe RGB, 99.3% DCI-P3;
• Type: 10-bit with HDR, 120 Hz;
• Measured gamma: 2.22;
• Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 711.25 cd/m2 on power;
• Min brightness in the middle of the screen: <5 cd/m2 on power;
• Contrast at max brightness: 1:1;
• White point: 6500 K;
• Black on max brightness: 0 cd/m2;
• PWM: Yes, to be discussed.

PWM is used at brightness levels lower than 80%, and at a frequency of around 1 kHz, which the human eye can notice. I myself noticed some flickering on this panel at lower brightness, especially over darker full backgrounds. Asus offers a DC-dimming option for adjusting the brightness in the myAsus app, which mitigates this issue to some extent, but that means you cannot adjust the brightness with the standard F5/F6 keys.

Hardware and performance – Nvidia RTX Spark

Our test model is a top-specced configuration of the 2026 Asus ProArt P16, code name H7607BA, with an Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20-core processor and Blackwell integrated graphics with 6144 CUDA Cores, 128 GB of LPDDR5x-9400 memory, and a 2TB gen4 SSD.

Disclaimer: This is a review unit offered by Asus. The latest tests included are based on the software available as of mid-October 2026 (BIOS 304, MyAsus 4.4.10.0 app, RTX Spark Nvidia Studio Driver 617.42). This is launch-day software; thus, some aspects can change with future updates.

This laptop runs on Nvidia RTX Spark hardware, which is a new ARM-based SOC (system-on-a-chip) design.

The hardware is available in two variants at launch: a top version with a 20-core CPU and a 6144-CUDA-core GPU, and a slightly lower-tier option with an 18-core CPU and a 5120-CUDA-core GPU. The CPU cores are based on Nvidia’s Grace platform, and the GPU cores are Nvidia Blackwell. The hardware supports unified LPDDR5x memory, PCIe gen5 lanes, and the Full Nvidia stack of technologies: CUDA, TensorRT, NVFP4, DLSS, Ray Tracing, Reflex, and GSync. They’re connected via an Nvidia NVLink interface.

These allow for various capabilities in creator software and decent gaming abilities with the help of DLSS. The 6144-core GPU comes close to a dedicated GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile, as long as we’re discussing games made to run natively on ARM. More on that further down, as it’s an important aspect to understand here.

The unified memory that goes up to 128 GB is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this platform, as it allows splitting the implemented memory between active memory and video memory. WE set out 128 GB configuration with 64 GB system RAM and 64 GB vRAM.

Storage and the WiFi module are the only upgradable components inside this laptop. There are two M.2 2280 SSD slots inside, with support for dual-sided SSDs and PCIe gen5 speeds. However, Asus ships the laptop with gen4 storage – there’s a SanDisk PC SN5100S drive on our unit, which performed better than the 1TB Samsung drive in the P14.

You need to remove the back panel to get to the components. It’s held in place by a few Torx srcrews, of different sizes. A pop-up screw in the bottom right corner makes it easier to remove the back.

At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that this RTX Spark is an ARM-based platform; thus, it runs the ARM version of Windows and software that needs to be optimized for ARM. That’s the same as on Qualcomm laptops: standard apps are available in native variants made for ARM, but older or specific software runs through emulation or might not work at all. That’s especially a concern as this hardware is targeted at professionals with specific software requirements.

Asus offers three power profiles for this ProArt P16, pegged at different noise levels. They’re available in the ProArt Creator Hub control app, alongside other settings.

The TDP settings are about 10W higher on each mode than on the smaller ProArt P14 notebook. That has a noticeable impact on internals/external thermals, and a slight impact on the actual performance.

Here are some logs for video streaming, light use, and heavier browsing.

Benchmark results and performance summary

With that out of the way, let’s get into more serious loads.

The CPU performance is solid on this laptop in sustained loads and not impacted by throttling in any way, but the internal thermals are a little higher than on the tested ProArt P14, since the sustained TDP is higher as well: 80W on Performance here, vs. 70W on the P14. We measured temperatures in the mid-80s to high-80s  °C in a 30-min Cinebench 26 run, with the laptop raised off the desk.

At the same time, this unit doesn’t pass the 3DMark Stress test, which means there’s a slight GPU performance drop as the heat builds up inside the system. However, it only fails the test by a minimal margin. At the same time, the ProArt P14 passed the test.

Let’s get into benchmarks.

We ran our standard set of tests with the laptop on Performance mode (80W sustained TDP, up to 95W PL2) and the screen set at its default 4K resolution. We also used Nvidia Studio drivers for these tests.

Here’s what we got.

• 3DMark 13 –CPU profile (x64): max – 6840, 16 – 6156, 8 – 4426, 4 – 2475, 2 – 1276, 1 – 657;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike (x64): 23079 (Graphics – 28742, Physics – 25753, Combined – 8765);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal (arm): 9066, 41.97 fps;
• 3DMark 13 – Speed Way (arm): 2996;
• 3DMark 13 – Steel Nomad Light (arm): 13261, 98.24 fps;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy (x64): 13142 (Graphics – 12862, CPU – 14997);
• 3DMark 13 – DLSS (x64): 19.57 fps DLSS Off, 65.19 fps DLSS On.
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 7284;
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 17454;

• Aida64 Extreme, memory test: 134122 MB/s read, 223645 MB/s write, 14.3 ns latency;
• GeekBench 6.6.0: Multi-core: 20159, Single-Core: 3096;
• GeekBench 7.1.0: Multi-core: 23206, Single-Core: 2678;
• GeekBench AI 1.7.0 (ONNX, CPU): Single: 1673, Multi: 3350, Quantized: 6341;
• CineBench R15 (x86, best run): CPU 3651 cb, CPU Single Core 261 cb;
• CineBench 2024 ARM: CPU 1704 (10 min run), CPU Single Core 133 pts;
• CineBench 2026 ARM: CPU multiple threads: 7041 (10 min run), CPU single thread: 560 pts.

And here are some work-related benchmarks, on the same Performance profile:

• Blender 5.2.2 ARM: Classroom – CPU compute: 3m 31s;
• Blender 5.3.0 ARM: Classroom – CPU compute: 3m 30s;
• Blender 5.3.0 ARM: Classroom – GPU compute: 29.14s – CUDA, 14.44s – Optix;
• Blender 5.3.0 ARM: Barbershop – CPU compute: 15m 32s;
• Blender 5.3.0 ARM: Barbershop – GPU compute: 1m 31s – CUDA, 2m 32s – Optix;

• ComfyUI – Flux.2 text-to-image in FP8, Turbo mode – 22.22s;
• ComfyUI – Flux.2 text-to-image in NVFP4, Turbo mode – 17.02s;
• ComfyUI – LTX-2.3 22B text-to-video in FP8, Egyptian Queen – 51.74s;
• ComfyUI – LTX-2.3 22B text-to-video in NVFP4, Egyptian Queen – 51.16s.
• MLPerf Client – Flux 2 Klein 4B (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, NVFP4): 37.13 images/min;
• MLPerf Client – Flux 2 Klein 4B (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, FP8): 27.01 images/min;
• MLPerf Client – Qwen 3 8B (Nvidia llama.cpp CUDA GPU): 45.51 E2E (s);
• MLPerf Client – Llama 3.1 8B (Nvidia llama.cpp CUDA GPU): 45.98 E2E (s);

• SPECviewperf 15 – 3DSMax 08: 6.41;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Blender 01: 27.99;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Catia 07: 3.59;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Creo 04: 3.11;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Energy 04: 21.95;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Enscape 01: 14.31;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Maya 07: 10.76;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Medical 04: 16.53;
• SPECviewperf 15 – SNX 05: 0.37;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Solidworks 08: 13.14;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Unreal Engine 01: 52.30;

• V-Ray Benchmark: CPU – 18832, CUDA – 2395;
• Puget Benchmark (1.0.7) – Adobe Photoshop (27.11) – 11532 points;
• Puget Benchmark  – Adobe Premiere – tbu;
• Puget Benchmark – DaVinci Resolve (20.3) – tbu;

These results are within 2-8% higher than on the ProArt P14, due to this P16 running at higher power.

For sustained CPU loads, let’s take Cinebench 26 on a couple of similar-powered platforms:

• ProArt P16 – Nvidia Spark RTX N1X, 20-Core, ARM, 80W: CPU multiple threads: 7041, CPU single thread: 560 pts;
• ProArt P14 – Nvidia Spark RTX N1X, 20-Core, ARM, 70W: CPU multiple threads: 6592, CPU single thread: 543 pts;
• AMD Ryzen AI 9 Max+ 395, x86, 70W: CPU Multiple Threads: 6816, CPU Single Thread: 464 pts;
• AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, x86, 85W: CPU Multiple Threads: 5031 pts, CPU Single Thread: 482 pts;
• Intel Core Ultra 9 386H, x86, 70W: CPU Multiple Threads: 5084, CPU Single Thread: 521 pts;
• Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, ARM, 45W: CPU multiple threads: 6935, CPU single thread: 620 pts

Competitive performer overall, trading blows with the competition. The X2 Elite Extreme comes out as the fastest option in both multi-thread and single-thread loads, despite running at much lower power, but that’s only available in a single product and isn’t as competitive on the GPU side.

Speaking of which, this platform is an SOC with an integrated iGPU. The only real alternative is AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ hardware, with the Radeon 8060S iGPU, and even that is nearly a two-year-old platform – but AMD is coming with updated hardware soon.

So, when pitching the RTX Spark iGPU against the Ryzen AI Max iGPU, here’s where we are:

• 3DMark Speed Way: 3005 Spark P16, 2892 Spark P14, 1916 AMD (native on all);
• 3DMark Port Royal, RT: 9066 Spark P16, 8752 Spark P14, 5464 AMD (native on all);
• 3DMark Time Spy Graphics, RT: 12862 Spark P16, 11999 Spark P14, 10273 AMD (x86 versions, thus emulated on Spark);
• Uniengine Extreme: 7284 Spark P16, 7071 Spark P14, 6005 AMD (x86 versions, thus emulated on Spark).

For the native ARM tests available on Spark, the GPU on the Nvidia platform is about 50% faster than the iGPU on the AMD platform. For the emulated x86 tests running on Spark, the difference is only about 20% or so in favor of the Nvidia chip.

At the same time, this Spark GPU scores about on par with an RTX 5070 Mobile 115W in Speed Way and Port Royal. But when looking at emulated x86 benchmarks, it scores lower than an RTX 5060. Thus, the overall performance of this hardware is highly dependent on whether the software runs emulated in an x86 variant or is available in a native ARM version.

That’s even more obvious when looking at the SpecViewPerf test results scored here, which are all over the board and cannot be compared with the scores recorded on x86 platforms.

With that out of the way, though, I want to touch on two other aspects concerning the AI capabilities of this platform: MLPerf Client (evaluates LLM inference and image-generation performance) and ComfyUI (runs various LLM tasks based on user input).

For these, I’m looking at two references I had around: the same AMD Ryzen AI 9 Max+ 395 platform, and a full desktop PC running a Ryzen 9 9955HX3D and an RTX 5080 dGPU.

First, here are the results for LLM inference in the MLPerf Client Qwen 3 8B test (lower is better):

• ProArt P16 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (Nvidia llama.cpp CUDA GPU): 45.51 E2E (s);
• ProArt P14 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (Nvidia llama.cpp CUDA GPU): 46.29 E2E (s);
• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (AMD ORT GenAi Ryzen AI NPU-GPU): 187.79  E2E (s);
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (Nvidia llama.cpp CUDA GPU): 19.80 E2E (s);

Then, here are the results for text-to-image generation in the MLPerf Client – Flux 2 Klein 4B  test (higher is better):

• ProArt P16 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, NVFP4): 37.13 images/min;
• ProArt P16 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, FP8): 27.01 images/min;
• ProArt P14 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, NVFP4): 36.28 images/min;
• ProArt P14 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, FP8): 26.63 images/min;
• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (AMD Diffusers RyzenAI NPU): 6.25 images/min;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, NVFP4): 81.01 images/min;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, FP8): 75.58 images/min.

And here are the results for text-to-image generation in ComfyUI using Flux.2-dev 32B (time to generate a specific image based on text input, faster is better):

• ProArt P16 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (NVFP4): 17.02 s;
• ProArt P16 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (FP8): 22.24 s;
• ProArt P14 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (NVFP4): 17.29 s;
• ProArt P14 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (FP8): 22.67 s;
• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (FP8): 188.84 s;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (NVFP4): 16.78 s;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (FP8): 19.79 s.

And here are the results for text-to-video generation in ComfyUI using LTX-2.3 22B (time to generate a specific video based on seed image and text input, faster is better):

• ProArt P16 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (NVFP4): 51.55 s;
• ProArt P16 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (FP8): 50.50 s;
• ProArt P14 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (NVFP4): 52.33 s;
• ProArt P14 Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (FP8): 52.79 s;
• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (FP8): 359.55 s;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (NVFP4): 48.11 s;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (FP8): 39.79 s.

Overall, the Spark chip runs minimally faster in the ProArt P16, but the gains are within a few percent. At the same time, the P16 runs warmer internally and on the touch, which is a negative I’m not comfortable with.

Standard and Whisper modes

These modes set lower fan noise levels and TDP levels: 55W with 40 dBA fans on Standard mode and 45W with sub-35 dBA fan noise on Silent.

I only ran a few tests for Whisper mode:

• DMark 13 – Fire Strike (x64): 18737 (Graphics – 22911, Physics – 23851, Combined – 6971);
• 3DMark 13 – Speed Way (arm): 2544;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy (x64): 10023 (Graphics – 9561, CPU – 13813).
• CineBench 2026 ARM: CPU multiple threads: 6155 (10 min run), CPU single thread: 558 pts.
• Blender 5.2.2 ARM: Classroom – CPU compute: 3m 58s;

This ends up performing at about 80% of the platform’s capacity in Performance mode, with much quieter fan noise.

For comparison, here are the same tests on the ProArt P14 on its Whisper Mode profile, at 35W TDP and 35 dBA noise floor.

• DMark 13 – Fire Strike (x64): 17345 (Graphics – 20561, Physics – 22771, Combined – 6855);
• 3DMark 13 – Speed Way (arm): 2067;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy (x64): 8436 (Graphics – 8027, CPU – 11864).
• CineBench 2026 ARM: CPU multiple threads: 5464 (10 min run), CPU single thread: 542pts.
• Blender 5.2.2 ARM: Classroom – CPU compute: 4m 19s;

At the same time, this ProArt P16 model ends up 10-15% faster than the ProArt P14 on the same profile, as it runs at higher power. So if you need fast performance in a quieter package, the P16 is the better choice here.

Gaming Performance

I only got to test two games on this laptop, both emulated x86 titles and tested with the in-game benchmarking tools. We’ll update this section later, hopefully with some native ARM games if possible.

Here are the results:

Once more, these results are within a few percent of what we got on the ProArt P14 at slightly lower power. At the same time, Whisper mode delivers roughly 75% of the framerates of Performance mode, with lower thermals and quieter fan noise.

This SPark N1X is not a gaming chip by any means, but nonetheless, in supported AMR native titles, matches the capabilities of a dedicated RTX 5070 Mobile GPU. With emulation, it’s slightly slower than an RTX 5060, which is still not awful. And don’t forget DLSS 5.0 support is coming later in the year.

For a more detailed look at temperatures and general behaviour between the different profiles, check out our coverage of the ProArt P14. For some reason, HWinfo did not log the GPU in any way on this unit, so I couldn’t record the same data.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others

The cooling module inside this ProArt P16 notebook includes dual fans, dual radiators, and two mid-sized heatpipes.

For comparison, here are the cooling modules on the two ProArt versions: the heatpipes are longer and slightly thicker on the 16-inch unit, and the fans and heat sinks are slightly different as well.

Despite these differences, the P16 runs warmer than the tested P14, as it pushes more power into the hardware between the different modes.

As far as the noise levels go, expect 48 dBA on Performance, 40 dBA on Standard, and sub-35 dBA on Whisper mode.

With daily use, the fans keep idle for the most part on the Whisper and Standard modes, but they remain active all the time on Performance and are audible in a silent room. I haven’t noticed any coil whining or electronic noises either.

As for the external temperatures, the chassis keeps cool with light use, with the warmest spot at around 32-35 C. That’s despite running on pretty much passive cooling.

*Daily use – Whisper mode – video streaming, fans idle at 0 dB

With demanding loads, a warm spot develops in the middle of the chassis, around the H, B, N keys. This goes towards 50s °C on Performance mode, and over 50s on the underside. That’s despite the fans running vigorously. Somehow, this ProArt P16 runs noticeably warmer than the more compact ProArt P14, which I wasn’t expecting.

The hotspot drops on Standard and Whisper mode, though, under 45 °C. However, the middle keyboard area is barely at a comfortable level to the touch even on these profiles.

*Gaming – Whisper mode – playing Cyberpunk for 30 minutes, fans at <35 dB
*Gaming – Performance mode – playing Witcher for 30 minutes, fans at ~48 dB

For connectivity, there’s the latest-gen Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 through a Mediatek chip on this Nvidia RTX Sparl configuration. Everything performed fine during my time with the laptop.

Audio is handled by a set of 6x speakers that fire upwards and downwards, with two main dual-sided woofers and an extra pair of tweeters. They’re punchier and louder than on the ProArt P14, and similar to the speakers on the Zephyrus G16. Overall, the audio on this laptop is among the best available on a Windows laptop, and close to the MacBook Pro audio quality.

The camera, on the other hand, is merely decent. It’s 2MP and placed at the top of the display, gets a wide camera angle, and the image quality is meh, not great (still feels better somehow than on the ROG Zephyrus notebooks, even if that’s a similar 2 MPx shooter). It lacks a cover, but at least there’s IR functionality with Windows Hello support.

Battery life

There’s a 99.9 Wh battery inside this 2026 ProArt P16, which is impressive for a device of this size and weight.

Here’s what we got in our battery life tests, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~50 brightness). I’ve also set the Windows 11 power mode to Best Power Efficiency.

• ~7.5 W (12+ h of use) – idle, Whisper Mode, screen at 0%, Wi-Fi ON;
• ~9 W (10+ h of use) – idle, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 13-15 W (~ 6-7 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 11-12 W (~8 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 12-14 W (~7-8 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 15-20 W (~5-6 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.

This is even less efficient than the ProArt P14, with the 4K OLED display taking its toll. Realistically, expect about 5-6 hours of mixed use on a charge and about 8 hours of video play. Competing x86 implementations can easily beat that these days.

This configuration ships with a 140W USB-C charger, a dual-piece design with long cables. The USB-C cable is braided and detachable, but overall I find the charger rather bulky and would have preferred Asus’s single-cable 140W GaN design on this premium lineup.

Price and availability- Asus ProArt P16

At the time of this article, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark series is listed in stores around the world.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area.

In the US, the base-level version starts at $2799 for an N1X 18C configuration with the lower-tier 5120-CUDA-Core GPU, 24 GB of RAM, and 512 GB SSD storage, while the N1X 20C model with 32 GB RAM / 1 TB SSD variant jumps to $3399. The same goes for 3399 EUR over here, and 3299 GBP in the UK.

Regardless, this notebook makes sense primarily in its configurations with 64/128 GB of RAM. Asus offers the 64 GB variant for $4499 in the US, 4299 EUR in Germany, and 4199 GBP in the UK. The 128 GB variant with 2 TB SSD storage goes for $6999 in the US and 6699 EUR over here.

Overall, the lower-specced ProArt P16 versions are priced within reason compared to other RTX Spark options, but the 64/128 GB configurations are more expensive than competing RTX Spark devices at similar levels. They’re more expensive than the ProArt P14 as well.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area.

Final thoughts- Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark review

Much like the ProArt P14, this larger P16 model is one of the better notebook designs available out there in its segment of powerful premium ultraportables.

It weighs just 1.8 kilos, while being a sturdy high-end chassis with solid ergonomics and a big battery inside. It bundles a beautiful 4K Tandem OLED display, punchy speakers, and an excellent keyboard, all among the best available on any notebook today.

However, this runs on an Nvidia RTX Spark ARM-based platform, and that means it’s not the right choice for everyone. As a professional or creator, it could be for you, but you’ll need to make sure that the software that you need works properly on this hardware, and ideally is available in an ARM native variant; otherwise, you won’t get the most out of this hardware. As a gamer, this performs about on par with an RTX 5070 notebook, best-case scenario, so it’s nowhere near as capable as dedicated gaming machines with dGPUs onboard. As for general mixed use, this is fast, but at the same time an expensive series and not as efficient on battery power as other modern platforms.

That leaves running Local AI, agents, and LLMs on a mobile platform, which is where the RTX Spark hardware excels today. If that’s what you need, then this is an option to consider, or at least look at what it can do compared to alternatives. However, if you’re not into AI, you’re most likely better off with a traditional x86 notebook such as the ROG Zephyrus G16 or a Razer Blade 16 in this segment.

This wraps up my time with this ProArt P16 series. Looking for your thoughts and feedback down below.

The article Asus ProArt P16 review (Nvidia RTX Spark N1X, 16-inch chassis) appeared first on .

We’ve also tested the ProArt P16 16-inch variant, and the review is available here if you’re interested in the same hardware in a larger chassis with a larger display.

The P14 is the more compact and lightweight of the two, weighing under 1.5 kilos and taking up about the same footprint as an Apple MacBook Pro 14 or an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. In fact, the ProArt P14 and the Zephyrus G14 are a similar overall chassis, but with some design and ergonomics changes for the ProArt variant. While the Zephyrus is primarily a gaming notebook, the ProArt is a series targeted at creators and professionals, but both offer serious performance in their compact formats.

Down below we discuss the particularities of this ProArt P14 chassis, arguably one of the better available out there today, but the elephant in the room for this lineup is the Nvidia RTX Spark hardware, nonetheless.

Our ProArt P14 review unit implements the higher-tier Spark N1X specs, with the 20-core Grace CPU and the 6144-CUDA-core Blackwell GPU, along with 128 GB of fast LPDDR5x-9400 RAM on this configuration. This sells for $6499 in the US. Variants with 32 GB of RAM start at $3099 in the US and 3299 EUR over here in Europe, while variants with 64 GB of RAM are also available (for around 4500 EUR here).

The RAM is what makes this platform particularly interesting, as the memory is shared between the CPU and GPU, and you can allocate the included amount for either system memory or graphics memory. Our review unit is set at 64 GB RAM and 64 GB vRAM, but you can also opt for as little as 32 GB RAM and up to 96 GB vRAM, depending on your needs.

The higher amount of video memory makes sense for LLMs and Local AI implementations, which I believe is the main reason to look into an RTX Spark notebook. But RAM is darn expensive today, so the higher-specced variants of this laptop cost an arm and a leg. For reference, a top-specced Apple MacBook Pro 14 with the M5 Max hardware and 128 GB of RAM sells for $6699, so about on par with the top ProArt P14, while a 128 GB variant of the HP OmniBook X 14 starts at $5199, the Surface Laptop Ultra goes for $5899, and a Lenovo Pro 9n goes for a little over $6000.

Specs Sheet – Asus ProArt P14

Design and ergonomics

As mentioned earlier, this ProArt P14 is a refined iteration of the ROG Zephyrus G14 chassis discussed a few months ago in this review.

It comes in either black (Nano Black) or light silver (Neo White), with a cleaner lid and more minimalistic branding than on the Zephyrus. The aesthetics are exquisite, and I personally consider this black one of the nicest-looking and well-made notebooks ever touched.

Sure, being a dark anodized aluminum finish, it does show smudges and finger oils quite easily. Furthermore, the finish is rather fragile alongside the sharper edges, particularly on the lid part, where the coating gets thinner and can dent and chip away, just like on other anodized products. The interior edges are beveled, at least, so that part should be fine. Overall, this aspect isn’t a concern at all on the lighter color variant, but it can be visible over time on this black finish. My unit already shows some scuffs on that lid edge.

Otherwise, this is a rock-solid and premium-feeling computer. The matte aluminum feels excellent to the touch, and the chassis doesn’t bend or flex or squeak in any way, not even along the underbelly.

Size-wise, this is one of the more compact higher-performance 14-inch laptops out there, about on par with the Zephyrus G14 or a MacBook Pro 14 in footprint, but slightly slimmer than both. At the same time, at 1.5 kilos or so, it’s nowhere near as lightweight as a 14-inch ultrabook, but those aren’t as powerful or equipped with a 90Wh battery like this one is. Nonetheless, we’ll discuss how this ProArt P14 compares to the ProArt PX13 later in the article, which is an even more compact x86 AMD Ryzen AI Max configuration that can also be specced with up to 128 GB of RAM.

Functionally, I appreciate the grippy rubber feet and the friendly edges around the main chassis, although I did notice two rather pointy corners around the indent on the laptop’s front lip. This indent was added to the ProArt series and was missing on the Zephyrus, and it allows you to easily pick up and open the display, something I struggled with and complained about on the G14. At the same time, the screen still doesn’t open all the way back flat, which can be annoying when using this device on the lap or in cramped spaces – I much preffer a 180-degree display on this sort of ultraportable device.

That aside, however, there’s nothing to complain about. There are no annoying lights in the line of sight, and the power button is a separate subtle button, not part of the keyboard. There is this status LED on the front lip, but it’s out of sight and only active when the laptop is plugged in.

The IO includes pretty much everything you’d need, with USB-C 4.0 ports on both sides, full-size USB-A and HDMI, an audio jack, and a proper SD card reader.

Before we wrap up this section, here’s how this ProArt P14 compares to the larger ProArt P16 with the 16-inch display.

And here is the Asus ProArt P14 next to the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025 variant; there’s a slightly different refreshed 2026 model available in the meantime).

Keyboard, haptic touchpad

The inputs on this ProArt P14 are borrowed from the Zephyrus G14 series as well.

The keyboard is a standard Asus Zephyrus layout, with full-size keys, a slight dish in the keycaps, and 1.7 mm of travel. It lacks the extra custom keys implemented on ROG devices, though.

This keyboard provides proper feedback and response, and overall is one of my favorites in this class of portable notebooks.

As a side note, the plastic keycaps show finger oil over time on this black variant, and you’ll need to clean them off once every couple of days. That’s not an issue with the Neo White color variant with the light-silver keycaps; instead, contrast from the white LED backlighting is way worse on that option.

Speaking of, the keyboard is backlit with white LEDs and three brightness levels to choose from. The bottom setting is dim enough for night use, while the other two get very bright. Still, a fair bit of light creeps away from underneath the keycaps, which is annoying in this class and price segment.

The touchpad is haptic and is a huge matte glass surface. It works fine with gestures and taps and everything, although I still struggled with certain actions such as clicking and dragging, where I preffer regular physical clickpads instead.

That aside, Asus made this surface so large and left little to no separation at the top and bottom, and that means ghost touches from your clothes are happening quite often when using this on the lap.

Finally, when it comes to biometrics, there’s an IR camera on this laptop, but not fingerprint sensor.

Display – touch Tandem OLED

The display on this ProArt P14 is a modern 14-inch 3K Tandem OLED, a step-up over the standard OLED implemented in the Zephryus G14. For comparison, the ExpertBook Ultra is the only other implementation of this Tandem OLED that we’ve tested so far.

That, however, is a matte touch variant, while this one is a glossy touch one with an anti-reflection coating and Gorilla Glass on top – it still shows some reflections in strong light, but the high brightness allows it to be perfectly usable even in these conditions. Furthermore, having a clearer non-matte finish makes sense on this sort of device potentially targeted at creators and graphic artists, where the matte diffuser would have interfered with color/contrast accuracy in certain use cases.

In fact, one of the main advantages of Tandem OLEDs over regular OLEDs is the higher brightness: 600 nits sustained, up to 1600 nits peak HDR. The other advantages are the potential improvements in longevity, as well as better efficiency on battery power, as explained in this article that discusses the laptop OLED panels available today.

That aside, this is a sharp panel at 3K (2800 x 1800 px) resolution, offers 100% DCI-P3 color coverage, supports 30-120Hz refresh rate with VRR and .2ms response times. And while still a touch OLED, it’s not as grainy as regular touch-OLED implementations of the past.

However, one particularity of OLEDs is the PWM flickering when lowering the brightness. Asus handles this better than other OEMs, as it allows for a flicker-free brightness adjustment option in the MyAsus app. You might find it frustrating at first on this laptop, though, as the regular F5/F6 shortcuts for adjusting brightness won’t always work, and a pop-up will point you towards using the MyAsus brightness setting.

Hardware and performance – Nvidia RTX Spark

Our test model is a top-specced configuration of the 2026 Asus ProArt P14, code name H7407BA, with an Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20-core processor and Blackwell integrated graphics with 6144 CUDA Cores, 128 GB of LPDDR5x-9400 memory, and a 1TB gen4 SSD.

Disclaimer: This is a review unit offered by Asus. The latest tests included are based on the software available as of mid-October 2026 (BIOS 304, MyAsus 4.4.10.0 app, RTX Spark Nvidia Studio Driver 617.42). This is launch-day software; thus, some aspects can change with future updates.

This laptop runs on Nvidia RTX Spark hardware, which is a new ARM-based SOC (system on a chip) design.

The hardware is available in two variants at launch: a top version with a 20-core CPU and a 6144-CUDA-core GPU, and a slightly lower-tier option with an 18-core CPU and a 5120-CUDA-core GPU. The CPU cores are based on Nvidia’s Grace platform, and the GPU cores are Nvidia Blackwell. The platform supports unified LPDDR5x memory, PCIe gen5 lanes, and the Full Nvidia stack of technologies: CUDA, TensorRT, NVFP4, DLSS, Ray Tracing, Reflex, and GSync. They’re connected via an Nvidia NVLink interface.

These allow for serious capabilities in creator software and AI apps, as well as decent gaming abilities with the help of DLSS. The 6144-core GPU comes close to a dedicated GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile, as long as we’re discussing games made to run natively on ARM. More on that further down, as it’s an important aspect to understand here.

The unified memory that goes up to 128 GB is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this platform, as it allows splitting the implemented memory between active memory and video memory. This way, up to 96 GB of vRAM can be allocated to the GPU, thus allowing the ability to run the most advanced LLMs (local language models) and AI agents. For comparison, AMD’s Strix/Gorgon Halo platform offers a similar memory implementation, but without the CUDA and other tech offered here by the Nvidia chip, while a dedicated mobile Nvidia chip only gets up to 24 GB of dedicated vRAM in the RTX 5090 configurations.

Storage and the WiFi module are the only upgradable components inside this laptop. There’s a single M.2 2280 SSD slot inside, with support for dual-sided SSDs and PCIe gen5 speeds. However, Asus ships the laptop with gen4 storage – there’s a Samsung PM9C1b drive on our unit, which performed rather erratically in our tests.

You need to remove the back panel to get to the components. It’s held in place by a few Torx srcrews, of different sizes. There’s a pop-up screw in the bottom right corner, which facilitates the process of removing this back panel.

Hardware aside, it’s very important to acknowledge that this RTX Spark is an ARM-based platform; thus, it runs the ARM version of Windows and software that’s either natively designed for ARM or emulated x86 software.

That’s the same as on Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops, where these days most of the standard apps are available in native variants made for ARM, but older or specific software runs through emulation and might struggle, or might not work at all. This is especially a concern here, as this Spark hardware is targeted at professionals and isn’t meant for casual use in the same way as some of the Snapdragon chips are. So it needs to properly run the pro-level applications these potential buyers would need for their activities.

Asus offers three power profiles for this ProArt P14, pegged at different noise levels. They’re available in the ProArt Creator Hub control app, alongside other settings.

Manual mode allows for custom power levels and a noise-curve fan profile. The options are more limited than on other devices.

The laptop performs fine on Standard with regular use and runs quietly and coolly. Both Standard and Whisper modes allow for idle fans. The overall thermals are excellent on this laptop, and the fans keep quiet and barely audible with daily use and multitasking.

Here are some logs for video streaming, light use, and heavier browsing.

Benchmarks results and performance summary

With that out of the way, let’s get into more serious loads.

I cannot run the standard Cinebench R15 loop test on this hardware, since I cannot log the hardware’s power in the same way as on x86 platforms. Furthermore, there’s no ARM native version of Cinebench R15, thus the scores on this platform cannot be compared with the results on x86 Intel and AMD models.

Instead, Cinebench R24 and 26 are ARM native and can be used for comparisons, as you’ll see in a bit.

What’s important here is that the hardware performs consistently and doesn’t run very hot with sustained CPU loads in this compact chassis. Furthermore, the platform passes the 3DMark Stress test, which runs the same test for 20 loops and looks for variations in scores between runs, as the heat builds up in the system. This laptop passes the test both flat on the desk and when placed on a stand, which means thermals do not impact the sustained mixed-use and GPU performance in any significant way.

Let’s get into benchmarks.

We ran our standard set of tests with the laptop on Performance mode (70W sustained TDP, up to 95W PL2) and the screen set at its default 3K resolution. We also used Nvidia Studio drivers for these tests.

Here’s what we got.

• 3DMark 13 –CPU profile (x64): max – 7087, 16 – 6547, 8 – 4800, 4 – 2490, 2 – 1248, 1 – 634;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike (x64): 21821 (Graphics – 26714, Physics – 24944, Combined – 8520);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal (arm): 8752, 40.52 fps;
• 3DMark 13 – Solar Bay (arm): 52534, 199.75 fps;
• 3DMark 13 – Speed Way (arm): 2892;
• 3DMark 13 – Steel Nomad Light (arm): 12896, 95.53 fps;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy (x64): 12330 (Graphics – 11999, CPU – 14621).
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 7071;
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 17481;

• Aida64 Extreme, memory test: 134134 MB/s read, 224799 MB/s write, 14.2 ns latency;
• GeekBench 6.6.0: Multi-core: 20087, Single-Core: 3091;
• GeekBench 7.1.0: Multi-core: 23192, Single-Core: 2677;
• GeekBench AI 1.7.0 (ONNX, CPU): Single: 1671, Multi: 3347, Quantized: 6327;
• CineBench R15 (x86, best run): CPU 3497 cb, CPU Single Core 246 cb;
• CineBench 2024 ARM: CPU 1697 (10 min run), CPU Single Core 131 pts;
• CineBench 2026 ARM: CPU multiple threads: 6592 (10 min run), CPU single thread: 543 pts.

And here are some work-related benchmarks, on the same Performance profile:

• Blender 5.2.2 ARM: Classroom – CPU compute: 3m 34s;
• Blender 5.3.0 ARM: Classroom – CPU compute: 3m 32s;
• Blender 5.3.0 ARM: Classroom – GPU compute: 29.8s – CUDA, 15.1s – Optix;
• Blender 5.3.0 ARM: Barbershop – CPU compute: 15m 39s;
• Blender 5.3.0 ARM: Barbershop – GPU compute: 1m 32s – CUDA, 2m 38s – Optix;
• Blender Benchmark 3.3.0: Classroom – 85.57, Monster – 175.55, Junkshop – 129.41 samples per minute;

• ComfyUI – Flux.2 text-to-image in FP8, Turbo mode – 22.67s;
• ComfyUI – Flux.2 text-to-image in NVFP4, Turbo mode – 17.29s;
• ComfyUI – LTX-2.3 22B text-to-video in FP8, Egyptian Queen – 52.79s;
• ComfyUI – LTX-2.3 22B text-to-video in NVFP4, Egiptian Queen – 52.33s.
• MLPerf Client – Flux 2 Klein 4B (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, NVFP4): 36.28 images/min;
• MLPerf Client – Flux 2 Klein 4B (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, FP8): 26.63 images/min;
• MLPerf Client – Qwen 3 8B (Nvidia llama.cpp CUDA GPU): 46.29 E2E (s);
• MLPerf Client – Llama 3.1 8B (Nvidia llama.cpp CUDA GPU): 46.26 E2E (s);

• SPECviewperf 15 – 3DSMax 08: 6.50;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Blender 01: 54.50;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Catia 07: 4.08;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Creo 04: 3.12;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Energy 04: 43.20;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Enscape 01: 43.00;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Maya 07: 17.62;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Medical 04: 42.76;
• SPECviewperf 15 – SNX 05: 0.38;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Solidworks 08: 12.71;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Unreal Engine 01: 62.43;

• V-Ray Benchmark: CPU – 18716, CUDA – 2414;
• Puget Benchmark (1.0.7) – Adobe Photoshop (27.11) – 11111 points;
• Puget Benchmark  – Adobe Premiere – tbu;
• Puget Benchmark – DaVinci Resolve (20.3) – tbu;

So where are we with these results (which, remember, are tested on launch-day software, thus certain aspects could change over time)?

For sustained CPU loads, let’s take Cinebench 26 on a couple of similar-powered platforms:

• Nvidia Spark RTX N1X, 20-Core, ARM, 70W: CPU multiple threads: 6592, CPU single thread: 543 pts;
• AMD Ryzen AI 9 Max+ 395, x86, 70W: CPU Multiple Threads: 6816, CPU Single Thread: 464 pts;
• AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, x86, 85W: CPU Multiple Threads: 5031 pts, CPU Single Thread: 482 pts;
• Intel Core Ultra 9 386H, x86, 70W: CPU Multiple Threads: 5084, CPU Single Thread: 521 pts;
• Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, ARM, 45W: CPU multiple threads: 6935, CPU single thread: 620 pts

Competitive performer overall, trading blows with the competition. The X2 Elite Extreme comes out as the fastest option in both multi-thread and single-thread loads, despite running at much lower power, but that’s only available in a single product and isn’t as competitive on the GPU side.

Speaking of which, this platform is an SOC with an integrated iGPU. The only real alternative is AMD’s Ryzen AI Max+ hardware, with the Radeon 8060S iGPU, and even that is nearly a two-year-old platform – but AMD is coming with updated hardware soon.

So, when pitching the RTX Spark iGPU against the Ryzen AI Max iGPU, here’s where we are:

• 3DMark Speed Way: 2892 Spark, 1916 AMD (native on both)
• 3DMark Port Royal, RT: 8752 Spark, 5464 AMD (native on both)
• 3DMark Time Spy Graphics, RT: 11999 Spark, 10273 AMD (x86 versions on both, thus emulated on Spark)
• Uniengine Extreme: 7071 Spark, 6005 AMD (x86 versions on both, thus emulated on Spark)

For the native ARM tests available on Spark, the GPU on the Nvidia platform is about 50% faster than the iGPU on the AMD platform. For the emulated x86 tests running on Spark, the difference is only about 20% or so in favor of the Nvidia chip.

At the same time, this Spark GPU scores about on par with an RTX 5070 Mobile 115W dGPU in Speed Way and Port Royal. But when looking at emulated x86 benchmarks, it scores lower than an RTX 5060. Thus, the overall performance of this hardware is highly dependent on whether the software runs emulated in an x86 variant or is available in a native ARM version.

That’s even more obvious when looking at the SpecViewPerf test results scored here, which are all over the board and cannot be compared with the scores recorded on x86 platforms.

With that out of the way, though, I want to touch on two other aspects concerning the AI capabilities of this platform: MLPerf Client (evaluates LLM inference and image-generation performance) and ComfyUI (runs various tasks based on LLMs).

For these, I’m looking at two references for comparison (that I had around at this time): the same AMD Ryzen AI 9 Max+ 395 platform, and a full desktop PC running a Ryzen 9 9955HX3D and an RTX 5080 dGPU. Of course, it would make sense to compare the findings with other notebook platforms as well, such as Panther Lake + dGPU or Apple MacBook M5 Pro/Max, but I did not have these at my disposal for this review.

So, here are the results for LLM inference in the MLPerf Client Qwen 3 8B test (lower is better):

• Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (Nvidia llama.cpp CUDA GPU): 46.29 E2E (s);
• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (AMD ORT GenAi Ryzen AI NPU-GPU): 187.79  E2E (s);
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (Nvidia llama.cpp CUDA GPU): 19.80 E2E (s);

Then, here are the results for text-to-image generation in the MLPerf Client – Flux 2 Klein 4B  test (higher is better):

• Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, NVFP4): 36.28 images/min;
• Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, FP8): 26.63 images/min;
• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (AMD Diffusers RyzenAI NPU): 6.25 images/min;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, NVFP4): 81.01 images/min;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (Nvidia Diffusers CUDA GPU, FP8): 75.58 images/min.

And here are the results for text-to-image generation in ComfyUI using Flux.2-dev 32B (time to generate a specific image based on text input, faster is better):

• Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (NVFP4): 17.29 s;
• Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (FP8): 22.67 s;
• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (FP8): 188.84 s;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (NVFP4): 16.78 s;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (FP8): 19.79 s.

And here are the results for text-to-video generation in ComfyUI using LTX-2.3 22B (time to generate a specific video based on seed image and text input, faster is better):

• Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (NVFP4): 52.79 s;
• Nvidia RTX Spark N1X 20C (FP8): 52.33 s;
• AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (FP8): 359.55 s;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (NVFP4): 48.11 s;
• AMD 9955HX3D + RTX 5080 (FP8): 39.79 s.

For inference, the desktop PC comes out much faster, but for content generation, the Spark notebook is nearly on par with the PC. The AMD Ryzen platform is way slower in all these tests.

Using NVFP4 for image/vidoe generation is recommended for Spark as the better balance of speed and quality. It’s not always faster than using FP8, but I find the results better quality and more accurate. For example, here are the two images generated with Flux, on FP8 orNVFP4. I’ve also included details on the text input and used models for this task.

I didn’t get to run other models and tests, but the sky is the limit. What’s important here is the ability to load and use complex models alongside the capabilities of the CUDA cores and Optix/DLSS technologies. This mix is not offered by other Windows-running mobile platforms at the moment, as far as I can tell. However, I cannot discuss Mac platforms, since I have no experience with LLMs on those and don’t have a modern M5 MacBook Pro around to test out.

Standard and Whisper modes

These profiles set lower fan noise levels and TDP levels: 45W with 40 dBA fans on Standard mode and 35W with sub-35 dBA fan noise on Silent.

I only ran a few tests for each mode. Here’s Standard.

• 3DMark 13 – Speed Way (arm): 2258;
• CineBench 2026 ARM: CPU multiple threads: 5973 (10 min run), CPU single thread: 542 pts.
• Blender 5.2.2 ARM: Classroom – CPU compute: 4m 00s;

And here’s Whisper:

• DMark 13 – Fire Strike (x64): 17345 (Graphics – 20561, Physics – 22771, Combined – 6855);
• 3DMark 13 – Speed Way (arm): 2067;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy (x64): 8436 (Graphics – 8027, CPU – 11864).
• CineBench 2026 ARM: CPU multiple threads: 5464 (10 min run), CPU single thread: 542pts.
• Blender 5.2.2 ARM: Classroom – CPU compute: 4m 19s;

Both are competitive profiles, and the dip in scores is acceptable given the much lower fan noise. Whisper mode ends up performing at about 75-80% of the platform’s capacity in Performance mode, at sub-35 dBA noise levels.

Gaming Performance

I only got to test two games on this laptop, both emulated x86 titles and tested with the in-game benchmarking tools. We’ll update this section later, hopefully with some native ARM games if possible:

Here’s what we got:

These results are generally 10-15% slower than what we measured on an RTX 5060 notebook, so about on par with our findings in the synthetic tests. However, for games that run natively on ARM, I’d expect the frame rates closer to a dedicated RTX 5070 mobile chip.

As far as internal thermals go, there’s very little we can get with HWinfo from this platform, aside from GPU speeds and temperatures. Here’s a summary of the existing power modes, in Cyberpunk:

• Performance with the laptop flat on the desk: 4.0 GHz CPU Clock, ~2.0 GHz GPU Clock, 75 °C on the GPU, 48 dBA;
• Performance with the laptop raised off the desk: 4.0 GHz CPU Clock, ~2.05 GHz GPU Clock, 69 °C on the GPU, 48 dBA;
• Manual mode with max fans, laptop raised off the desk: 4.0 GHz CPU Clock, ~2.15 GHz GPU Clock, 74 °C on the GPU, 50+ dBA;
• Standard modes, laptop raised off the desk: 4.0 GHz CPU Clock, ~1.6 GHz GPU Clock, 64 °C on the GPU, 40 dBA;
• Whisper mode, laptop raised off the desk: 4.0 GHz CPU Clock, ~1.3 GHz GPU Clock, 60 °C on the GPU, 35 dBA;

A few thoughts:

• thermals are impacted when placing the laptop on a stand, allowing for better airflow underneath the chassis and into the fans;
• Manual mode allows for a minimal performance increase, as it runs the hardware at 80W TDP, compared to only 70W on Performance;
• fan noise is quite high on Performance mode at 48 dBA, and I can see why you’d preffer the other profiles instead;
• both Standard and Whisper modes are competitive, despite the lower TDP that impacts the GPU Clocks. In real-world use, framerates in Whisper mode are about 65-70% of Performance mode.

All in all, this Spark platform is not meant for gaming; it’s neither as capable as dedicated Nvidia hardware, and it is crippled by being an ARM architecture where software support becomes an extra issue. At the same time, it can run games well enough when enabling DLSS. And keep in mind we’re only looking at DLSS 3.5 here in emulated x86 titles. For native AMR games and upcoming DLSS 5.0 over the next few months, the gaming performance is going to improve significantly (in those supported games, of course).

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others

The cooling module inside this ProArt notebook includes dual fans, dual radiators, and two mid-sized heatpipes.

All in all, the cooling does a solid job here. It supports 70W TDP on Performance mode with louder fans and acceptable thermals in the 70s to 75s °C, or around 45W TDP on Standard with quieter fans and lower thermals. However, I’d still keep this laptop raised off the desk when running sustained loads on it – the laptop doesn’t overheat by any means, but this allows it to run cooler.

As far as the noise levels go, expect 48 dBA on Performance, 40 dBA on Standard, and sub-35 dBA on Whisper mode.

With daily use, the fans keep idle for the most part on the Whisper and Standard modes, but they remain active on Performance and are audible in a silent room. Hence, you’ll want to take the laptop off Performance mode for general use, as much as possible. The other profiles won’t impact the laptop’s overall feel and run quieter. I haven’t noticed any coil whining or electronic noises either.

As for the external temperatures, the chassis stays cool with light use, with the warmest spot at around 32-34 °C. That’s despite running on pretty much passive cooling.

*Daily use – Whisper mode – video streaming, fans idle at 0 dB

With demanding loads, a warm spot of around 41-45 degrees °C develops in the middle of the chassis around the C, V keys, and at the top. The touchpad and keyboard, and generally the areas that you’re mostly coming in contact with, stay in the mid-30s to high-30s °C.

These are fair temperatures for a powerful ultraportable chassis, although that bottom hotspot around the Space key can be somewhat uncomfortable at times on the metal chassis, especially in warmer environments. We’re testing at around 23-24 °C ambient, but things would be different in a hotter place.

*Gaming – Whisper mode – playing Cyberpunk for 30 minutes, fans at <35 dB
*Gaming – Performance mode – playing Witcher for 30 minutes, fans at ~48 dB

For connectivity, there’s the latest-gen Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 through a Mediatek chip on this Nvidia RTX Sparl configuration. Everything performed fine during my time with the laptop. At the same time, this is an M.2 module and can be easily upgraded if needed.

Audio is handled by a set of 6x speakers that fire upwards and downwards, with two main dual-sided woofers and an extra pair of tweeters. At first glance, this is similar to the audio system on the Zephyrus G14, but the speakers are actually physically smaller, since this lineup implements a larger battery than the Zephyrus. Nonetheless, these get loud and sound good.

The camera, on the other hand, is merely decent. It’s 2MP and placed at the top of the display, gets a wide camera angle, and the image quality is meh, not great (still feels better somehow than on the ROG Zephyrus notebooks, even if that’s a similar 2 MPx shooter). It lacks a cover, but at least there’s IR functionality with Windows Hello support.

Battery life – not great, not terrible

There’s a 90 Wh battery inside this 2026 ProArt P14, larger than on other 14-inch notebooks.

Here’s what we got in our battery life tests, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~50 brightness). I’ve also set the Windows 11 power mode to Best Power Efficiency.

• <5 W (15+ h of use) – idle, Whisper Mode, screen at 0%, Wi-Fi ON;
• ~5.5 W (15+ h of use) – idle, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 12-15 W (~ 6-7 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 8 W (~11 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 7.5 W (~12 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 15-18 W (~5-6 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.

Idle and video streaming runtimes are fairly competitive. But actually using the laptop inside the browser sips energy quickly, and thus runtimes with actual mixed use aren’t impressive, at about 5-7 hours of real-life use. Not great compared to other mobile platforms out there, which run more efficiently with light use as well. Nonetheless, the efficiency is at least somewhat compensated by the big battery.

This configuration ships with a 140W USB-C charger, a dual-piece design with long cables. The USB-C cable is braided and detachable, but overall I find the charger rather bulky and would have preferred Asus’s single-cable 140W GaN design on this premium lineup.

Price and availability- Asus ProArt P14

At the time of this article, the Asus ProArt P14 is listed in stores around the world.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area.

In the US, the base-level version starts at $2599 for an N1X 18C configuration with the lower-tier 5120-CUDA-Core GPU, 24 GB of RAM, and 512 GB SSD storage, while the N1X 20C model with 32 GB RAM / 1 TB SSD variant jumps to $3099. The same goes for 3399 EUR over here, and 2999 GBP in the UK.

Regardless, this notebook makes sense primarily in its configurations with 64/128 GB of RAM. And those are expensive: closer to 6500 USD and 6000 EUR for the 128 GB variant with 2 TB SSDs.

Overall, these prices are more or less on par with other RTX Spark configurations in the entry-mid level configurations, but the prices go bonkers for the 64GB and 128 GB variants, while rivals offer their similar-tier Spark variants for less.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area.

Final thoughts- Asus ProArt P14 review

Hardware-wise, this ProArt P14 is a spectacular notebook in its segment. On the outside, this is a refinement of the popular Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 chassis, with cleaner and more professional aesthetics, especially in this black version discussed here. It also bundles a Tandem OLED touch display, punchy speakers, good IO and usable inputs.

Inside, this is powered by an Nvidia RTX Spark platform, with up to 128 GB of unified memory, upgradable SSD storage, and a 90 WH battery.

However, this is a higher-performance ARM platform. On the CPU side, it’s competitive against most alternatives in the mobile space, and its iGPU capabilities are mid-level, in the range of a 5060-5070 GeForce dedicated GPU. However, the system’s actual real performance is highly dependent on whether the app that you’re running is made natively for the ARM environment or is an emulated x86 variant. The performance gap between the two is significant.

Now, we’ve discussed this before in our coverage of Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 laptops; this whole software compatibility thing is tricky. Daily apps such as browsers, office, Teams, and the like work fine, but when it comes to specific and professional software, things get more nuanced, and you’ll need to research whether the apps that you’re interested in are available in ARM variants or not. Right now, this support is rather a promise for the future than a reality.

But there is one aspect where this Spark hardware does well: Local AI use. My experience is limited in this field, but the few creator models tested in ComfyUI, Blender, and Unreal Engine worked smoothly on this ProArt P14. Plus, the unified memory allows you to juggle allocation between system RAM and video RAM, allowing the ability to load and use the most advanced LLMs locally without additional token costs. Whether that’s important is going to make or break this laptop for you, and, in fact, all the other Nvidia Spark devices of this first generation. Because otherwise, standard x86 platforms are less of a hassle and even more powerful and more efficient on battery power within a similar price range. Hence, the Zephyrus G14 remains a serious alternative to this ProArt P14, and we’ll discuss the two more indepth in a separate article.

This wraps up my time with this ProArt P14 series. Looking for your thoughts and feedback down below.

The article Asus ProArt P14 review (Nvidia RTX Spark N1X, 14-inch Tandem OLED) appeared first on .

Now, these aren’t necessarily similar computers, aside from the fact that they are premium-tier ultraportable designs built on the latest hardware specs and with the latest features available nowadays.

The X1 Carbon is surely one of my favorite notebooks in its segment, especially in its latest variant with improved serviceability and cooling capacity; however, the high price of this flagship ThinkPad model and/or the limited configurability options in some markets (such as the lack of higher-performance Panther Lake Core Ultra H and X in the US) could drive some of you towards alternatives. And we’re discussing those alternatives today.

Having used and tested all these devices, I’d reckon my thoughts and impressions will come in handy when looking to choose one over the other. Here are quick links to each section, if you want to jump straight to the segment that interests you:

• X1 Carbon vs. MacBook Air;
• X1 Carbon vs. ThinkPad T14s, T14;
• X1 Carbon vs. Yoga 9i 2-in-1;
• X1 Carbon vs. Zenbook S14.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon vs. Apple MacBook Air

Choosing a MacBook Air over an X1 Carbon entirely depends on your software requirements, since the MacBooks run MacOS and their suite of apps, while the ThinkPad is a Windows notebook. If you’re fine with either environment, then a MacBook is worth considering; otherwise, jump straight to the other sections of the article where we compare the X1 Carbon with other Windows ultrabooks.

If you’ve read some of my other articles, you might know that I’m a MacBook Air 13 user myself, which is my travel laptop and has replaced the XPS and ThinkPads used for that role in the past. I chose a MacBook for its efficiency, for the fanless daily-use experience, and for the overall value it provides – yes, nowadays the MacBook Airs are among the more affordable premium-tier ultraportables out there. These are still the main selling point for the MacBook Air 13, and even for the MacBook Air 15 if you need a slightly larger display and you’re willing to pay a little extra for it.

On the other hand, MacBooks do get expensive as you spec them up with extra RAM and especially storage, but at least the base-level specs are reasonable, with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB SSDs.

So here’s a summary of the build, display, and inputs of these two devices:

• both are premium designs and builds – MacBooks have a unibody aluminum chassis, while the X1 Carbon is a mix of magnesium, aluminum, carbon fiber, and plastics;
• the X1 Carbon is lighter than MacBooks, starting at 1 kilo for the OLED variant; the MBA 13 starts at 1.3 kg, while the MBA 15 starts at 1.5 kg;
• the X1 Carbon is a more ergonomic chassis, with friendlier edges, a screen that opens flat to 180 degrees, and better IO;
• the edges are sharp on the wrists on the MacBooks, and the displays only open up to about 135 degrees.;
• the IO is limited to USB-C only on the MacBooks (plus MagSafe and audio jack), while the Carbon offers all sorts of ports;

• there are better quality display options on the ThinkPad, especially the matte OLED; the IPS options on the MacBook Airs are fine overall, but only 60 Hz and not quite on par with the OLED in image quality – although, even that’s somehwat debatable;
• the displays are glossy on MacBooks, and matte on the ThinkPad;
• there’a a touchscreen option on the Carbon, but not on the MacBooks;

• the audio is incomparably better on the MacBooks;
• the ThinkPad is a more comfortable and ergonomic typer, while the keyboards on the MacBooks provide shallower feedback;
• both implement haptic touchpads; I personally prefer the functionality of the smaller touchpad on the ThinkPad, as the touchpad on the Airs is too large and you have to accept occasional ghost touches when using them on the lap.

Specs and performance-wise, the latest X1 Carbon is built on Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 hardware, with improved performance and efficiency over the past hardware generations. Lenovo also updates the cooling module to handle higher-power settings, and that’s without sacrificing noise levels: the Carbon is one of the quietest Windows ultraportables we’ve tested.

Of course, it’s not quieter than a MacBook Air, which runs fanless. It’s also not necessarily a faster performer, and here’s where things get tricky. There are three different types of Panther Lake specs that you can choose from, regular Core Ultra with a lower-tier CPU/GPU, Core Ultra H with a faster CPU, and Core Ultra X with both a fast CPU and GPU. Thing is, only the former options are widely available, while the latter two are only offered in some markets. So if you need the faster specs, you might not be able to get them in your country – like in the US, for instance.  And even the faster specs aren’t necessarily faster than the latest Apple silicon with multitasking and sustained use – they do offer better graphics, though.

With the MacBooks, the specs are uniform across the world, with up to Apple M5 hardware on the latest generations. Furthermore, the unitary control over the hardware and software allows these Apple computers to work in a way most Windows don’t, both in terms of how quickly they can do certain things and in terms of daily-use efficiency. You’re also getting longer runtimes on battery on the MacBooks, especially on the 15-inch version with the larger 66Wh battery, but the Panther Lake X1 Carbon doesn’t fall short either.

One final aspect that I’ll touch on here is serviceability and repairability, where this latest X1 Carbon has an edge over pretty much every rival, and especially over Apple computers. These are designed for easier serviceability than in the past, while Apple makes it way more difficult to repair their devices in case something breaks. Or at least more expensive to repair.

All in all, if you need a daily-use premium laptop, you’re fine with the Apple OS and ecosystem, and only have a middling budget, a MacBook Air is going to do right by you, and for a fair bit less than you’d pay for an X1 Carbon – the Air 13 starts at $1299 and the Air 15 at $1499 vs. from $2000 for the Carbon, in the US. On the other hand, if you need a flagship-grade Windows ultraportable that will last for a long while and provides excellent daily-use ergonomics, the X1 Carbon is the one to get.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon vs. ThinkPad T14 and T14s

While the X1 Carbon is the flagship ThinkPad model, the T14s and the T14 are the more conveniently priced mid-level options that most people actually end up buying.

They share a common design language and common ergonomics and functionality. The X1 Carbon and the T14s are the more lightweight options, as materials such as carbon fiber and magnesium alloys are used in their construction, while the T14 gets mostly an aluminum and plastic build.

Here are the size and weight numbers of these three lineups, for comparison:

• ThinkPad X1 Carbon – 313 mm or 12.30” (w) x 216 mm or 8.49” (d) x up to 16.85 mm or 0.66″ (h), from 1 kg (2.2 lbs);
• ThinkPad T14s – 313 mm or 12.30” (w) x 220 mm or 8.64” (d) x up to 18.56 mm or 0.73″ (h), from 1.07 kg (2.35lbs);
• ThinkPad T14 – 314 mm or 12.35” (w) x 222 mm or 8.73” (d) x up to 21.95 mm or 0.86″ (h), from 1.32 kg (2.9lbs).

The standard T14 is somewhat boxier and bulkier than the other two, although that’s something you’ll mostly notice when having it side-by-side with the other two, and not necessarily when using it on its own.

The T14 also feels a little different to the touch, with a finish that is slightly rougher to the touch and not the soft, smooth finish of the other two, and comes with a different IO layout that includes an extra LAN port, but with the USB-Cs all tucked on a single side – the other two spread them on both edges, which can be more convenient. Otherwise, these offer similar 180-degree displays, friendly edges, solid I/O, and excellent inputs.

Speaking of, all these feature the iconic ThinkPad keyboard design with 1.5 mm of travel and the TrackPoint in the middle. The X1 Carbon, however, is the only one available with a haptic touchpad option, while the other two only get the standard mylar clickpad with dedicated buttons at the top.

You’re also getting a dedicated power button on the T14, and not a power key as on the other two. Both designs integrate a finger-sensor. Another details you’re going to notice around the keyboard are the speaker grills on the T14, while the other two only implement bottom-firing speakers; however, the audio quality is rather mediocre on all these ThinkPads.

The configuration options vary between these lineups, although all are offered with latest-gen Panther Lake Core Ultra specs in various SKUs and either IPS or OLED displays.

However, the X1 Carbon is the only one to offer a touch OLED variant, while the other two only get a non-touch OLED, or a touch/non-touch IPS. The bezels are also minimally larger around the screen on the T14.

Furthermore, while the X1 Carbon is an exclusive Intel platform, the T14s is available with AMD or Snapdragon specs as well, while the T14 is also available with AMD Gorgon Point hardware. So there’s a broader range of hardware options to choose from on these two, which translates into a broader price range as well. And even for the Intel specs, if you want the Core Ultra X7 hardware with the Arc B390 GPU, that’s only offered on the Carbon and not on the other two. And even the Core Ultra H specs are mostly only offered on the Carbon, albeit still not everywhere.

As far as the thermal design and the cooling go on these ThinkPads, the X1 Carbon and the T14s are the superior options with the more advanced dual-fan cooling. They run very quietly as well, all things considered. Rather surprisingly, given their slim profiles. The T14 is a more basic single-fan cooling design, but with a thicker heatpipe and larger fan. I preffer dual-side implementations; they’re just better at thermally balancing things out across the chassis.

On the other hand, though, the thicker T14 does allow for higher sustained power profiles: 40W TDP on Performance, vs. 30W on the other two, and around 25W on Balanced on all.

The battery, on the other hand, is a little smaller on the Carbon and the T14s, at 58 Wh, while the T14 can be configured with either a 60 Wh or a 75 Wh battery. Choosing between the IPS and OLED panels will go on to make a notable difference in runtimes as well.

This video below goes in depth on the specifics of the X1 Carbon and the mainstream ThinkPad T14. Surely worth at least a look.

All in all, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon remains the flagship model that offers all the latest, nicest features, including the haptic touchpad, the touch OLED, and the more powerful Intel specs.

The ThinkPad T14, on the other hand, while somewhat chunkier and heavier, does offer a LAN port, upfiring speakers, and a larger battery, alongside both Intel and AMD specs.

Finally, the ThinkPad T14s comes in between, mostly similar to the Carbon in size, build, and functionality, but offered with Intel, AMD, or Snapdragon specs.

There’s a place for each of these, especially based on their local prices in your region. Lenovo mostly asks a premium for the Carbon, but even the other two don’t come significantly more affordable, and if that’s the case and you’re after the Intel specs, the Carbon is the one I’d get.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon vs. Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1

We’ve tested both of these laptops, and here are our indepth reviews: ThinkPad X1 Carbon, Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition.

The Yoga 9i is Lenovo’s premium consumer ultrabook and comes as a convertible 2-in-1 format with a display that goes all the way to the back. It’s mostly made for laptop use, but can be transitioned into a tablet as well if needed.

Compared to the X1 Carbon, the Yoga 9i is a different design and build, with an aluminum unibody. Both are 14-inch formats, but the Yoga is significantly heavier at 1.3 kg, while the Carbon starts at 1 kg in its OLED non-touch magnesium variant.

In all fairness, Lenovo does offer a convertible ThinkPad X1 2-in-1 variant, which weighs about 1.3 kilos and is an aluminum build. Nonetheless, all things considered, the Carbon is a much lighter and thinner device.

Aesthetically, the Yoga is a somewhat cleaner-looking device and comes in a dark-blue color, while the X1 Carbon gets a handful of branding elements on its black chassis. Functionally, they’re both solid options, and even the ports are fairly similar on the two.

They’re both pretty solid typers, although I do preffer the ThinkPad layout and springier keyboard feedback. There’s also the TrackPoint on the Carbon and a haptic touchpad, while the Yoga offers a glass regular clickpad.

For the displays, the Yoga 9i is only available with a glossy OLED touchscreen, while the Carbon can be configured with either IPS or OLED panels in touch or non-touch variants. The OLED is an anti-glare implementation, so it is better at cutting off reflections and glare in strong-light environments, but with an impact on the perceived colors and image quality when looking at the screen from an angle.

As for the audio, the Yoga 9i implements some punchy main speakers and tweeters in the hinge, so the overall sound quality is much nicer than on the X1 ThinkPad.

As far as the specs go, the Yoga 9i is only offered with the lower-power Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 specs. The Carbon gets similar specs in most regions, but can also be configured with Core Ultra H and Core Ultra X7 specs in some markets. Nonetheless, in the US, the two are both powered by similar Core Ultra 7 355 platforms, which is adequate hardware for general use and multitasking, but not for more serious loads. That’s perhaps fine on a device like the Yoga 9i, but might not suffice for the needs of potential X1 Carbon business and professional buyers.

I’ll also add that both implement similar power settings and dual-fan cooling. The Carbon, however, runs quieter, but also warmer across the keyboard deck.

Here’s a thermal reading of the X1 Carbon on its 30+W TDP performance mode, at around 35 dBA.

And here’s the Yoga 9i, at 35W and 40 dBA fan noise.

Finally, there’s a 70 Wh battery inside the Yoga, and only a 58 Wh battery inside the X1 Carbon. When looking at OLED configurations for the two, the Yoga is going to offer slightly longer runtimes, but that changes if you configure the Carbon with the more efficient IPS display instead.

Both these laptops are expensive options, starting at above 2000 USD on the US market or 2500 EUR over here in Europe. That might change over time and between regions, especially if you’re looking at a higher-spec version of the ThinkPad.

All in all, the design, the glossy OLED, the punchier audio, and the larger battery are the main aspects differentiating the Yoga 9i from the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The latter, however, offers the configurability and serviceability of the ThinkPad lineup, alongside its particular design language.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon vs. Asus Zenbook S14

We’ve tested both of these laptops, and here are our indepth reviews: ThinkPad X1 Carbon, Zenbook S14.

The Zenbook S14 is an option to consider if you’re looking for a traditional ultraportable laptop for heavier multitasking use and within a more affordable price package.

It’s still not a cheap laptop by any means, at 1800-2000 EUR over here, but that’s for a Core Ultra 9 386H configuration with 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD, and an OLED display. A similar ThinkPad X1 Carbon goes closer to 3K for the Ultra 7 356H specs. There’s no X7 hardware on the Zenbook, though, so if you need the Arc B390 iGPU, that remains exclusive to the ThinkPad. Furthermore, there’s no Core Ultra 7 355 variant either, in case you don’t need the extra CPU performance of a Core H platform.

The two are both premium designs and about the same size and weight, although the X1 Carbon is lighter in its OLED variant with the magnesium chassis.

Asus offers the Zenbook in either a dark or light gray, which aren’t striking in any way, but they’re functional designs. However, I don’t like the limited screen angle on the S14, and I much preffer a 180-degree display on an ultraportable notebook. In fact, the ergonomics of the Carbon series are superior, with the screen angle, the friendlier edges, and the IO that includes USB-C ports on both sides.

The ThinkPad is a better typer as well, as Asus pushed into creating a thin chassis with this ZenBook, and that only left room for a shallower keyboard with 1.1 mm of stroke depth. It’s a fair typer if you appreciate this sort of shallower implementation, but most will favor the ThinkPad keyboard instead. I also preffer the haptic touchpad on the ThinkPad with the larger bezels towards the keyboard and the laptop’s front lip. Plus, there’s a fingerprint sensor on the ThinkPad and a better camera.

When it comes to the displays, the Zenbook S14 is offered with a modern OLED panel with touch. The same panel is offered on the ThinkPad, but in an anti-glare variant, either touch or non-touch. The touch versions show some grain on both devices, a standard quirk of touch OLEDs.

Here’s how the two displays look in bright light: the glossy variant on the S14 and the anti-glare one on the X1 Carbon. Just keep in mind that, reflections aside, the glossy coating allows for better image quality and viewing angles. Plus, Asus offers a flicker-free option for brightness adjustment, which is not available on the Lenovo.

Specs-wise, we already covered the main advantage of the Zenbook S14 lineup, with the Core Ultra 9 386H specs. However, keep in mind that the same thin chassis forces Asus to implement a thinner cooling module as well, even if it’s a more advanced vapor-chamber module, which means they need to run the fans noisier than on the Carbon. However, the Zenbook ends up running cooler with sustained loads.

Here’s a thermal reading of the X1 Carbon on its 30+W TDP performance mode, at around 35 dBA.

And here’s the Zenbook at 28W TDP and 45 dBA fan noise.

They haven’t sacrificed the battery, however, with a 77 Wh one inside the S14, so this lasts longer on a charge than the X1 Carbon with its 58 Wh battery.

They also didn’t sacrifice the speakers, which sound richer and louder than on the Carbon.

All in all, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the more functional design of the two, with the 180 display, better typing experience, and quieter fan noise. It’s also available in a handful of configuration options that are not offered by the ZenBook.

However, if you need those exact Core Ultra 9 H specs in this sort of ultraportable format, and can live with the shallower keyboard and noisier fans, this Zenbook is a solid choice at a fraction of what a similarly specced X1 Carbon sells for.

The article Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon vs. MacBook Air, ThinkPad T14 and T14s, Yoga 9i 2-in-1, Zenbook S14 appeared first on .

Both are top-of-the-line offers in Asus’s/Lenovo’s lineups, targeted at professionals looking for a premium experience and longevity, paired with the latest specs and features available in a 14-inch portable format. Both are available with extended warranty options, and both are new chassis designs for their 2026 model years. At the same time, both are expensive options, among the priciest in the ultraportable space.

Of course, the X1 Carbon has been around for more than a decade, but this Gen14 variant is an updated design focused on serviceability, repairability, and performance, with higher-power specs and improved cooling compared to the previous generations. The ExpertBook Ultra, on the other hand, is the first of its kind, with even more advanced cooling, a larger battery, and a Tandem OLED matte display option.

We’ve used both laptops for at least a few weeks and covered them in previous detailed reviews:

• review of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen14,
• review of the Asus ExpertBook Ultra.

This article is a more direct comparison of the two. We’ll also follow up with a few more comparison articles that pitch these against other interesting ultraportable options that we’ve tested, such as the Apple MacBook Air, Asus Zenbook S14, or the Lenovo Yoga 9i 2-in-1.

Specs sheet – Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen14 vs. Asus ExpertBook Ultra

Design, build quality, ergonomics

Both are excellently built devices, made out of various advanced alloys. The ExpertBook Ultra has an aluminum unibody with a ceramic exterior coating, while the ThinkPad X1 Carbon has a carbon-fiber lid, a magnesium-alloy main chassis (for the OLED variants), and some plastic parts.

Functionally, both are rock solid and very well made. Both meet MIL-STD standards for reliability, etc, but that’s just standard these days on a premium ultraportable.

However, I rather preffer the overall feel of the ThinkPad, as the materials feel softer and friendlier to the touch. The finish on the ExpertBook is coarser, like fine sandpaper to the touch. I do expect this to age better, though, since the ceramic coating resists scratches; plus, it hides smudges and fingerprints much better than the ThinkPad’s black surface.

Aesthetically, the X1 Carbon looks just as expected, with the iconic ThinkPad branding elements spread around the lid and armrest. A bit heavy on the branding, but a familiar approach for long-term ThinkPad users. The ExpertBook is a cleaner design overall, but I feel that it is still searching for an identity, with the interior elements focused on the ExpertBook brand, while on the lid there’s an older-styled chromed Asus logo. Furthermore, Asus does offers the ExpertBook Ultra is two color options, dark gray or light gray, while the ThinkPad is just the standard black.

These aside, the ExpertBook is minimally more compact and thinner, and a little heavier. That’s because the X1 Carbon variant that we have here is the OLED non-touch option; the IPS touch gets to around 1.15 kg as well, as that is an aluminum main chassis, not a magnesium one as on the OLED models. Overall, though, we can easily tell the two are about similar in size and weight.

Functionally, the X1 Carbon comes out on top in some regards. The edges are more tapered and friendlier on the wrists, and the screen is easier to open up and goes all the way back to 180 degrees, while the screen on the ExpertBook only offers a limited opening angle of around 140 degrees. That, for me, is darn hard to accept on this sort of ultraportable device that won’t just live on a desk all day.

At the same time, the ExpertBook offers up-firing speakers, while the ThinkPad does not. The overall audio quality is a notch better on the ExpertBook.

One nice aspect about both is the IO, with plenty of ports for devices of this size, including USB-Cs with Thunderbolt 4 on both edges.

One final aspect that we must cover as we discuss the two chassis is the focus on repairability for this latest X1 Carbon generation, where the keyboard deck can be easily taken out and repaired, and everything inside is serviceable, including the USB-C ports. The ExpertBook Ultra is a brand new model, and for the time being, it’s unclear whether Asus can provide the same level of serviceability and support as Lenovo does for their ThinkPads. Sure, Asus throws in 3 years of default warranty for the model, extendable up to 5 years, and do offer fast on-site support in some regions, but whether their service can actually match Lenovo’s in real life remains to be seen, and will most likely vary between countries. Realistically, if this serviceability aspect is crucial for you, my money would be on the ThinkPad, with a better chance of finding parts long-term and potentially better support as well.

Keyboard, haptic touchpad

Both lineups offer excellent keyboards, with solid feedback and overall good typing experience. Both offer about 1.5 mm of key travel, and fairly similar stroke responses.

The layouts include a full set of main keys and smaller function keys at the top, but where the two differ is around the arrow keys, where the ThinkPad includes dedicated PgUp/PgDn keys. Both include power buttons as the top right key, with integrated finger sensors.

Both keyboards are backlit, with white LEDs. Contrast is rather poor on this lighter variant of the ExpertBook, but at the same time, these keys do hide finger oil easily and don’t need to be cleaned as often as the black keys on the Lenovo.

The keyboards are splash-resistant on both devices and offer an option for auto-lighting.

For the touchpads, Asus put a huge haptic glass surface on the ExpertBook, while on the ThinkPad you can opt for either a haptic glass unit as we have on this review model, or for a more traditional clickpad with physical buttons. However, the buttons are placed at the top on both, for TrackPoint use.

Overall, the haptic implementations work fine on both devices. However, Lenovo made the surface a little smaller, leaving a few mm of space at the front lip, while the touchpad on the ExpertBook goes all the way to the front. That causes ghost touches and clicks when using the device on your lap or in very tight spaces, where clothes get in contact with the surface, and overall this is a blunt example of form over function. A smaller touchpad with some bezels wouldn’t have looked perhaps as nicely in the pictures, but would have worked better.

Finally, as far as biometrics go, there are webcams with integrated IR and fingerprint sensors on both these devices.

Display – matte OLEDs on both

Both of these offer 14-inch 16:10 displays with either OLED or IPS panels.

However, the most widespread options are the anti-glare touch OLED on the ExpertBook Ultra and the anti-glare non-touch OLED on the X1 Carbon. There are differences between them, though.

Asus puts a newer-generation Tandem OLED on the Ultra, with higher peak and sustained brightness (600 nits sustained, 1400 nits peak), and theoretically improved reliability and efficiency. They also cover the panel with a layer of Gorilla Glass matte, which is a pretty good anti-glare coating. You’re not quite getting the same matte finish as on matte IPS, but it’s an interesting transition from most other glossy OLEDs.

Lenovo implement an anti-glare OLED as well, which they call AGARAS (“anti-glare/anti-reflective/anti-smudge). It’s a standard WOLED, not quite as bright as the Tandem OLED on the ExpertBook. It’s still a 2026 OLED generation, though, so brighter than previous-gen OLEDs, at 500 nits sustained with 1000+ nits peak.

Furthermore, the OLED on the ThinkPad is non-touch, thus everything looks clean and sharp on it. The OLED on the ExpertBook is touch, and the digitizer layer does add a slight amount of grain, mostly visible on light backgrounds or when reading/editing texts. It’s not as visible as on older touch OLEDs, but it’s still there.

These aside, the two panels are the same 2.8K 2880 x 1800 px resolution and offer 30-120Hz VRR. At the same time, both panels use PWM, but the Asus offers a flicker-free option to adjust the brightness (it’s in the MyAsus app, and not through the standard Windows ways).

I’ve added below a few more images of the ThinkPad X1 (semi-gloss OLED, 500 nits), ExpertBook Ultra (semi-gloss OLED, 600 nits), and the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 (glossy OLED, 500 nits), with a window just behind the camera, to better showcase the differences in reflections and perceived content between these when used in stronger light environments.

Both of the semi-gloss finishes do a solid job cutting off reflections, but you’ll still want to look at these straight-on, as there’s a way the finish diffuses light that impacts the perceived contrast and colors. You can use these in stronger light, but the experience is still not without some inconveniences – I do preffer this over having glare and reflections, at least. I’ll also add that there’s a notable difference in whites and how colors look on the ExpertBook Ultra in these conditions; partially due to the Tandem OLED getting brighter on the ExpertBook, but perhaps due to the differences in the anti-glare layers as well. For strong light use, the OLED on the ExpertBook would be my first choice, but the one on the ThinkPad is mostly fine as well.

Hardware and performance

Here are our review models:

• ThinkPad X1 Carbon Aura Edition, with an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H processor and Intel graphics, 32 GB of LPDDR5-8533 memory, and a 1 TB gen4 SSD.
• ExpertBook Ultra with an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H processor and Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics, 32 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 memory, and a very fast 2TB gen5 SSD.

So we don’t quite have the same configurations on the two, but the X1 Carbon is available with a Core Ultra X7 as well in some markets. However, in others, it’s only offered with lower-tier Core Ultra 7 355 specs, so based on where you are, the performance potential of the X1 Carbon is going to differ. For the ExpertBook, however, things are perhaps simpler, as this mostly comes with the X7 specs, although it is also offered with a Core Ultra 7 356H in some markets as well.

Nonetheless, the two are both built on Intel Panther Lake hardware, with soldered RAM and an accessible M.2 2280 SSD. The ExpertBook can be configured with up to 64 GB of RAM in some areas, while the ThinkPad only goes up to 32 GB.

Here are the internals on both. There are beefier fans on the ExpertBook, a larger battery, and larger speakers. That space left unused on the ThinkPad is for the 5G cellular modem, which is optional.

As far as the software goes, Asus offer their MyAsus and Lenovo their Vantage, with various control options. There are a couple of extras offered in the Asus app.

The power profiles, however, are a little different on the two:

• top profile: 30-35W mixed sustained with ~33 dBA fans on the ThinkPad, 45W mixed sustained on the ExpertBook with 38-42 dBA fans;
• mid profile: 25W mixed sustained with ~30 dBA fans on the ThinkPad, 30W mixed sustained on the ExpertBook with 30-35 dBA fans;
• lower profile: 12W mixed sustained with <30 dBA fans on the ThinkPad, 15W mixed sustained on the ExpertBook with <30 dBA fans.

Overall, the ThinkPad is set to run quieter. Sure, the ExpertBook has a power advantage at the very top, which is going to make a difference for the Core Ultra X7 configurations, but hardly otherwise. I expect most ot keep these laptops on their mid-level profiles anyway, where the power and performance differences are small, but the X1 Carbon still runs noticeably quieter.

As far as the actual performance goes, here’s a quick look at the sustained CPU capabilities in the Cinebench loop test. –

The ExpertBook scores a little higher on the Performance profile than the X1 Carbon, despite the two running at similar 45W power levels in this CPU test. The CPU averages high-80s °C on the ExpertBook at this level, and high-90s °C on the ThinkPad.

For the mid profile, the X1 Carbon didn’t quite work as expected in this CPU test, greatly limiting the TDP. Thus, the ExpertBook scores much higher, but if both samples were to work as intended, their results would be much closer.

For the 3DMark stress tests, the two units pass the stress test both when kept flat on the desk and when placed on a stand. So thermals are never an issue with sustained loads on either of them.

Benchmark results and performance summary

For these tests, the ExpertBook Ultra is set on Performance mode (45W sustained CPU and mixed-use TDP), while the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is set on Best Performance 45W sustained CPU, 30 W sustained mixed use). Both are at their default resolutions of 2.8K.

On the CPU side, the Core Ultra X7 358H and the Core Ultra 7 356H are very similar; thus, the slight performance advantages for the X7 are mostly due to the fact that it runs at higher power in the ExpertBook (on their Performance profiles).

On the GPU side, the Arc B390 with 12x GPU cores is a completely different beast than the Intel iGPU with only 4x GPU cores, thus, it scores more than 2x higher.

What’s more important is that both CPU platforms already perform within 90% of their capacity at around 30W, on the mid-level profiles. I haven’t run all the tests in the X1 Carbon Balance mode, due to this profile not functioning properly in some apps.

Gaming Performance

We ran a couple of games on the Performance profiles of the two configurations, at FHD+ resolution, with Low/Lowest graphics settings. Here are the results.

Sure, the ExpertBook with the Ultra X7 and Arc B390 GPU delivers way higher frame rates in all the tested titles, but even the standard Panther Lake Intel iGPU is not that shabby. Furthermore, expect almost similar results for the X1 configuration of the X1 Carbon, as the 30W power envelope is almost enough for full iGPU capabilities on the B390 variant.

Internally, the hardware runs notably cooler inside the ExpertBook at similar power levels. However, that rarely happens, as the Asus laptop generally runs at higher TDP limits. Nonetheless, we measured temperatures in the high-70s to low-80s °C at 45W on the ExpertBook and low-90s °C on the X1 Carbon at 40W. Further down, around the 30W limit, the ExpertBook runs in the low-70s °C, and the X1 Carbon runs in the low-80s °C. At the same time, keep in mind that the X1 Carbon runs generally quieter than the ExpertBook.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others

Here are the cooling modules on the two.

First, the ExpertBook Ultra.

And here’s the ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

There are larger fans and radiators, as well as more heatpipes on the Asus notebook. Thus, no wonder it runs cooler internally.

As far as the noise levels go, on the ExpertBook we measured 40-42 dBA on Performance, 30-35 dBA on Standard, and sub-30 dBA on Whisper mode. In comparison, on the ThinkPad we measured up to ~33 dBA on Best Performance at head level, around 30 dBA on Balanced, and sub-30 dBA on Best Power Efficiency modes. Thus, the ThinkPad runs quieter.

And here are the chassis-level thermals.

With daily use, both laptops run cool to the touch and keep mostly quiet. The fans remain idle with light use, and I haven’t noticed any coil whine or electronic noises on either of them.

With sustained loads, here’s the ExpertBook on the Performance profile.

And here’s the ThinkPad on the same profile. It runs slightly warmer around the keyboard, and both develop a hotter spot in the mid to high 40s °C around the same place, above the keyboard.

For audio, Asus squeezed a set of 6x speakers on the Ultra, while the X1 Carbon only hosts a more basic set of dual speakers. As a result, the ExpertBook is one of the better-sounding Windows ultraportables, while the X1 Carbon delivers just average sound quality.

Finally, both implement cameras above the display, with IR functionality. The 5 MPx camera on the ThinkPad is quite decent (1st image), but the 2MPx camera on the ExpertBook looks bad.

Battery life

There’s a 70 Wh battery inside this Asus ExpertBook Ultra, and only a 58 Wh battery inside the Lenovo X1 Carbon.

Here’s what we got in our battery life tests on the ExpertBook, with the screen set at around 120 nits.

• <5 W (14 h of use) – idle, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 6-8 W (~8-11 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 5 W (~13-14 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 5.5 W (~12-13 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 7-10 W (~7-10 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.

And here’s the ThinkPad.

• <3 W (~20 h of use) – idle, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 6-7 W (~8-9 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 4-5 W (~13 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 4 W (~15 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 8-10 W (~5-8 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON.

Both run efficiently, but the ExpertBook is going to last longer on a charge due to its larger battery.

Both laptops ship with USB-C chargers. The Lenovo’s is a 65W dual-piece design with plenty of cables, while Asus’s is a single-piece design, but with a higher 90W capacity. I’d say both OEMs should do a better job of pairing these lineups with their more compact chargers offered on their other lineups, preferably single-cable designs with detachable USB-C.

Price and availability

Here’s where things get tricky.

The Asus ExpertBook Ultra is mostly available all around the world in the Core Ultra X7 configuration. However, US availability seems rather limited to Asus’s store and B&H Photo, with an MSRP price of $3599 for the 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD configuration.

Over here in Europe, the same goes for 3000 to 3200 EUR, while on the UK market, Asus offers a Core Ultra 7 356H variant for as low as 2000 GBP. The 356H configuration is also available in some other European countries, but not everywhere.

For the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, that’s only available with lower-model Core Ultra 5 325 and Core Ultra 7 355 specs on the US market, starting at around $2300. That’s way less than what Asus asks for the ExpertBook over there, but at the same time, with lower-tier specs across the board. Core 5/7 configurations of this sort are meant for casual use and some lighter multitasking, and it’s a pity Lenovo don’t offer beefier platforms for this series.

They do, however, offer Core Ultra H and Ultra X7 specs in Europe. The Core Ultra 7 356H variant goes for around 2600 EUR in Germany and 3K GBP in the UK, while the X7 368H configuration starts at around 2800 EUR in Germany.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations on the Asus ExpertBook Ultra in your area.

And this one for more details on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon.

All in all, finding the two in similar variants on the same market seems to be tough and only possible here in Europe, at least for now. Overall, Lenovo offers the X1 Carbon at slightly lower prices between markets, but that’s also mostly because they don’t offer it with the X7 specs.

Final thoughts- ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen 14, Aura Edition vs. Asus ExpertBook Ultra

The ExpertBook Ultra is so close to being the best device in its class, a premium ultraportable with serious performance capabilities and the latest features and specs. It’s built really well, offers good inputs and IO, comes with arguably the best 14-inch panel available today and some of the better audio in the Windows ultrabook space, and delivers solid performance with balanced thermals and noise levels across the available profiles. It also lasts for a long time on a charge, thanks to the implemented 70 Wh battery.

However, ergonomically and functionally, some things were left unpolished. The screen doesn’t open flat, the ceramic finish feels harsh to the touch, and the IO isn’t as smartly positioned as on the ThinkPad. Furthermore, that giant touchpad that goes all the way to the front of the chassis can be quite annoying when using this device on the lap, due to ghost touches registered from your clothes. These might sound like nitpicks, but they do matter for a device of this caliber and price.

The ThinkPad, on the other hand, does all these better, and just generally feels friendlier and more familiar in real use. It’s also backed up by Lenovo’s service, parts, and warranty, which I’d reckon are important when buying a device of this sort that you’re most likely going to keep along for many years.

At the same time, sure, it’s not as fast as the ExpertBook, doesn’t run as cool, doesn’t sound as nice, and doesn’t last as long on battery use. But it still satisfactorily checks all these boxes, within reason.

So at the end of the day, I’m torn between these two. Personally, I don’t need an Ultra X7 platform on a device of this sort, and that’s why the ergonomics, serviceability, and generally more affordable pricing of the X1 Carbon draw me to its side. You, however, most likely have different needs and requirements, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on these two down below in the comments section.

The article Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon vs. Asus Expertbook Ultra comparison appeared first on .

Briefly, the narrative for Googlebooks is simple: laptops primarily meant as companions for Android phone users, designed to seamlessly integrate with your phone and enhance your experience with the help of a larger display, keyboard and touchpad, ports, etc. That doesn’t mean you can’t use these as standalone computers, but that’s not how they excel.

Hardware-wise, Google sets a selection of quality criteria regarding the build, displays, hardware specs, and functionality for these Googlebooks, and that’s why the launch-day models are premium devices that cost a fair bit more than the standard Chromebooks available so far, including those higher-tier Chromebook Plus models. But at least they included some bundled subscriptions that can shave about $250 off those prices.

Functionally, these devices run Googlebook OS, an update of the Chrome OS offered so far in Chromebooks. This allows you to run standard Android phone apps, as well as apps optimized or created specifically for a desktop environment. Furthermore, the OS integrates closely with Google’s various services, including Gemini AI, with various potential benefits.

Now, one could easily call these Googlebooks Chromebooks on steroids, with a hefty price tag. And that’s at least half-true, although you’d better research the specifics of the software/hardware package offered before concluding whether these are right for you or not. You’ll just not buy these for the same reasons as with an inexpensive Chromebook, that’s for sure. And given the price level, schools and the likes won’t gobble them up as they do with inexpensive Chromebooks.

Furthermore, I must note that these Googlebooks are not meant to replace Chromebooks. The two sets of devices will coexist alongside, at least for a while.

Googlebook OS software, Gemini Intelligence

We’ll briefly go over the software particularities of the Googlebook OS that runs on these devices (and might be compatible with some existing Chromebooks as well, although that’s a topic for a different article).

Googlebook OS is designed to offer a universal software experience on all Googlebook devices, regardless of model and brand. It’s meant to provide a seamless experience between an Android phone and a laptop chassis, with full access to the phone from the desktop environment. The phone and laptop connect through Bluetooth/WiFi, which means the two need to be in proximity to each other.

Once connected, the laptop can mirror your phone screen and all its functionality, allowing you to use it from the desktop and without actually having to pick up the phone. The desktop OS looks and feels much like the latest core Android versions from Pixel devices, with similar notifications, quick settings, widgets, and general UI. Just scaled up to a larger display.

Furthermore, with Continue On, you can pick up a task from your phone on the laptop and benefit from the larger display, keyboard, etc. For instance, let’s say you’re working on a spreadsheet on your phone; you can then open up the laptop and continue working on the same file on the bigger screen. However, just note that only some apps allow this functionality, as Continue On requires work from the app creators to enable this seamless integration.

When it comes to apps, Googlebook OS works with the Chrome browser just like Chromebooks, or supports all the apps available in the Google Play Store. However, the Play Store interface will let you know whether some apps are specifically created for desktop use, or at least optimized for it through dynamic rescaling for the bigger screen. Apps not optimized for desktop will run in a phone-like window.

Real support for desktop-grade apps is in fact going to be crucial for the potential success of this series. Since Google seems committed to the environment, they’ve mentioned they’re working with 3rd-party developers to create desktop apps for Googlebook OS. Among those, Adobe apps should get such versions, although it’s unclear how close these are going to be to their Windows/Mac variants. For now, the existing Adobe apps (Premiere, Photoshop) are those already available for Android.

Among other things, Google showcased a few software particularities of this OS, starting with the file manager that integrates with all the content associated with your Google account (drive, phone, laptop) or even third-party apps such as Dropbox, and gives you quick access to all this content. Besides access, it includes an AI-powered smart search that lets you search not just file names, but also inside files and images.

This is just one of the AI enhancements provided by the Googlebook environment, with Gemini Intelligence baked in. You also get functions like Rambler and Create my Widget that work with the AI as well, as well as the ability to quickly launch an AI task by jiggling the mouse cursor (which Google calls magic pointer). Rambler can be quite interesting, as an enhanced voice dictation assistant that transforms your verbal instructions into actual actions, tasks, or apps – you can create a widget with specific data in it, you can launch search instructions, or even create an app by simply describing it. Of course, part of this is still marketing, as with all AI assistants today, so the actual benefits of using Gemini in this environment are going to vary for each and everyone of you.

Other more practical aspects worth mentioning are the inclusion of a 12-month Google AI Pro subscription (which gives 5 TB of Cloud storage space and improved access to Gemini/Antigravity), 3 months of YouTube Premium, and a few others. These bundles are worth about 250 USD/EUR, and can weigh down the overall cost of these devices if you’re already using those services. However, it’s unclear how these offers apply to already existing subscriptions – I’d hope they add up?

There’s also a GeForce Now subscription included with Googlebooks, which should deliver a solid gaming streaming experience in supported titles. However, some sources mention that Google noted in their pre-launch calls that other ways of playing games are coming to Googlebooks as well, but without giving more details. Since Steam can run on Chromebooks, hopefully a desktop-grade version is coming to Googlebook OS as well.

And then there’s also full access to the Linux terminal, which can make these devices particularly interesting for Linux users and developers. As far as the Linux experience goes, Googlebook OS provides access to a full Debian Linux environment through the Terminal app, which means it can run native Linux applications. From what I understand, the installed apps don’t appear in the standard app drawer, at least for now. It’s also unclear whether Linux supports 2D/3D graphics acceleration, among other things.

For builders and programmers, Googlebook includes the Antigravity agent development platform, allowing building and deploying apps right on the device. Developers also get a full terminal environment to run agentic coding tools like Claude Code or Antigravity CLI. That’s a topic to further look into if particularly interested in this matter.

Finally, Google mentions up to 10 years of updates and security patches for the Googlebook OS, which means they’re quite invested in making these devices and software platform stick around for the long term.

I’d also watch this video below for more details on the OS and Googlebook hardware.

As well as this video, which answers a few more questions that most other creators didn’t touch on, such as support for Windows, gaming, and third-party applications.

Hardware requirements for Googlebooks

Software aside, Google imposed a set of hardware criteria required for Googlebooks. Here are the important ones:

• these devices need to be premium chassis and builds, made entirely out of premium materials such as aluminum, magnesium, and carbon-fiber alloys; so no plastic parts on the chassis;
• they need to come with a touchscreen, and the panels can be either OLED or LCD, but with good quality panels with sufficient brightness and rich colors;
• must offer a backlit keyboard, and the keyboard layout has a few quirky particularities: all fonts are lowercase, there’s a mandatory G key, and an unusual CapLock key that defaults to Quick Insert (but also acts as Caps Lock with the combination of Shift + key);
• must run on higher-end processors, either Core Ultra Series 3 or Qualcomm X Elite at launch (with later updates as new platforms are launched);
• must include a Glowbar on the lid, which is a narrow RGB functional lightbar – shows battery state by default, but can be customized as well.

So that means these Googlebooks are higher-class premium notebooks with high-quality displays and inputs, as well as modern and fairly capable hardware specs. All these explain their price tags. In fact, most of these designs are iterations of what each OEM already offers in the Windows space, at even higher prices today.

Complete list of Googlebook laptops

There are only five Googlebooks available at launch, in the Fall of 2026, with more most likely coming later on. They’re made by partner OEMs, and there’s no actual Google Googlebook, like in the past when Google offered the Pixelbook notebooks.

As mentioned already, most of these are premium-tier devices selling for between $899 and $1299 in the US, 999 to 1199 EUR in Europe, and £999 to £1199 in the UK. These are only available in a few markets at launch, shipping from early October 2026.

There are a few aspects that make some of these options stand out from the bunch.

For instance, the XPS 13 is the most compact option, but is also the only one available with an IPS display, bundles a smaller battery, and has very limited USB-C-only I/O. It’s also built on Snapdragon X hardware, which is a 2024 platform, but still a decent and efficient performer in this sort of lightweight software environment. The HP Googlebook 14 is the only other option built on the same Snapdragon hardware, with still limited IO, but with a chassis and keyboard that resemble the popular EliteBook X series.

That aside, the other three are built on more recent and more capable Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 hardware, with either Core Ultra 5 or Ultra 7 processors. Among them, the Acer Googlebook 14 is the only convertible format and the most affordable of the entire roster, while the Lenovo option is the largest model with a 15-inch display, and the Asus variant comes in between as a clamshell 14-incher that still only weighs 2.2 lbs. In fact, this chassis is similar in many ways to the ExpertBook Ultra chassis, which is a much more expensive Windows device (albeit with faster hardware and a Tandem OLED display in the Windows variant). What also sets the Asus Googlebook apart from the other options is the full IO and the fact that it comes with an anti-glare OLED display, while the other options are all glossy.

Here are more exact details of these Googlebooks. We’re filling in the blanks as we go, so if you spot any mistakes or details that should be corrected, let me know.

I’ll also leave you with some images of these Googlebooks.

That’s about it for now, but we’re updating the article as it goes.

At this point, I don’t expect these to be widely successful. Chromebook fans don’t seem to take the pricing well – sure, you get the premium construction and features, but 1K for a companion Android device is hefty. However, the Google AI Pro, YouTube Premium, and even GeForce Now software bundled should be considered in your decision as well; if you’re already using those, buying a Googlebook shaves off their cost, which amounts to about 200-300 USD/EUR/GBP.

Furthermore, some places like BestBuy in the US bundle a few extras as well, such as a pair of Google Pixel Buds 2am, which are also worth about 130-150 USD/EUR.

Still, these are not Google’s first try with high-end, expensive Chrome devices. Remember the Pixelbooks and how well those sold in their day? Things might end up differently this time around, but as mentioned already, the potential success of this environment is going to depend on how Google convinces third-party app developers to create desktop-grade apps for Googlebook OS. Sure, you’re not going to get everything that’s available on Windows/Mac, but the basics need to be there in functional and supported desktop variants.

As for regular Windows/Mac buyers, they are hardly at all in the market for these “Android laptops”. Still, perhaps some people currently using Windows ultraportables might steer away to this subclass if these Googlebooks can eventually provide the functionality they would require for their daily chores. What do you think?

I also wonder if Google is just launching the premium, expensive options right now and will bring mid-tier options later as well, closer to what existing Chromebook Plus devices offered over the last few years. After all, there’ve been rumors of some MediaTek-powered options like a Sapphire/Duet Lenovo tablet running Googlebook OS, but that hasn’t been announced yet. I’ll keep you posted.

The article The complete list of Googlebook laptops, including Best Googlebooks appeared first on .

That means we’re looking at the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 platform (AMD Gorgon Point) versus the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H (Intel Panther Lake), as well as versus a few other options from AMD, such as the Ryzen AI 9 Max+ 395, Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, or the Ryzen AI 7 450, just so you can better understand what sets these apart.

The results and findings we’re discussing here are based on our detailed reviews of fairly similar implementations, most of them in the premium segments of jack-of-all-trades notebooks, such as the:

• Lenovo Legion 7a (AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470);
• Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (Intel Core Ultra 9 386H);
• Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i (Intel Core Ultra 9 386H);
• Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (AMD Ryzen AI 7 HX 370);
• Lenovo Legion 5a (AMD Ryzen AI 7 450).

With that out of the way, let’s get started with the general specs of these platforms. However, keep in mind you can’t draw any real performance conclusions based on these numbers, but they help you understand the general particularities of each platform.

We’ll start with a look at these platforms’ sustained performance at higher power levels that maximize the hardware’s potential.

A few findings:

• for the most part, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 and the Intel Core Ultra 9 platforms perform within 5-10% of each other in this sustained CPU load, with a minimal advantage for the AMD hardware;
• there’s hardly any difference between the Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 and the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370;
• all these are only mid-level performers by today’s standards, where the more powerful platforms score at least 50% higher, including the Strix Halo Ryzen AI 9 Max+ 395 implemented in ultraportable designs;
• the Ryzen AI 7 450 comes at about 75% of the performance of the Ryzen 9 options, due to implementing fewer cores and threads;
• all these devices run loudly and hot on their higher-tier profiles and power levels, and we’re discussing alternatives down below.

Here’s what to expect from these platforms at mid-level profiles and more acceptable noise levels. Furthermore, keep in mind the hardware generally runs at lower thermals as well at these levels.

At around the 50-60W power level, these platforms still deliver about 90% of their capabilities at higher power, with quieter fan noise and cooler internal temperatures.

At the same time, the drop in performance for the AMD Strix Halo Ryzen AI 9 Max+ chip is more significant, but that platform still beats the other options by a generous margin.

And here’s what to expect when pegging this hardware at lower power levels, which is either what you’re getting on the Silent/Quiet profiles for the devices mentioned so far, or what you can expect from ultraportable implementations of this hardware.

The AMD Gorgon Point and Intel Panther Lake chips still deliver about 70-80% of their max capabilities at these lower power levels, which is impressive and allows for still solid performance with quiet fan noise and comfortable thermals.

Even towards 25-30W, the Intel chip is still a decent performer at about 65% of max capabilities. That’s what you’re getting with the few ultraportable implementations of the hardware, such as the Asus Zenbook S14.

More CPU benchmarks

Let’s get to the standard CPU benchmarks in the following table.

Keep in mind we’re only discussing the CPU capabilities of each implementation, since the graphics performance varies between units, as each device bundles different GPUs.

These scores further reflect how close the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 and the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H platforms are in general performance, with minor advantages for the AMD hardware in sustained multi-threaded loads and a similar minor advantage for the Intel platform in single-core scores.

However, the results tend to vary more significantly with specific workloads. For instance, in Blender, the AMD Ryzen 9 chip scores 15-20% higher than the Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra 9.

Most heavy workloads put more significant stress on the GPU, though, and for that I’ve added a few results from SpecViewPerf of the few RTX 5060 configurations we’ve tested, at either 90-100W TGP or 65-75W TGP. Hardly any difference between these platforms, including the device built on the slower Ryzen AI 7 chip.

Gaming capabilities

We’re going back to the same AMD/Intel + RTX 5060 configurations for a few gaming tests.

However, take these results with a big lump of salt, since there are notable design differences between the Legions and the Yogas that favor the former: the existence of a MUX and better cooling.

I haven’t tested a comparable Core Ultra 9 + RTX 5060 with a MUX device for a more accurate comparison; hence, the results in the following table can be misleading and lead you to the wrong conclusions. In real-life and in comparable implementations, there shouldn’t be a notable difference in framerates between the Ryzen AI 9 and the Core Ultra 9 platforms.

Efficiency and Battery Power

Here are some battery life results on these tested devices. We’re looking at the average power draw with each platform, as the actual runtimes can differ based on the battery size, which varies somewhat between units.

The gains in efficiency are significant for the 2026 Intel and AMD platforms compared to their predecessors.

The Core Ultra 9 386H Panther Lake chip has an edge in general multitasking and video streaming over all the AMD options, but even the Gorgon Point AMD Ryzen AI 9 and AI 7 chips still run way more efficiently than the past Strix Point implementations.

AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 – Legion 7a

• 10-12 W – text editing in Google Drive, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 9-10 W – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 12-20 W – browsing in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;

Intel Core Ultra 9 386H – Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i

• 8-10 W – text editing in Google Drive, Battery Saver Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 6.5-7 W – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Battery Saver Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 10-12 W – browsing in Edge, Adaptive Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON.

Intel Core Ultra 9 386H – Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i

• 8-10 W – text editing in Google Drive, Battery Saver Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 6.5-7 W – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Battery Saver Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 9-12 W – browsing in Edge, Adaptive Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON.

Intel Core Ultra 9 386H – Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 

• 8-11 W – text editing in Google Drive, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 6-7 W – Netflix 4K HDR fullscreen in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 9-13 W – browsing in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON.

AMD Ryzen AI 9 370 – Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 

• 14 W – text editing in Google Drive, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 14 W – Netflix 4K HDR fullscreen in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 16-20 W – browsing in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;

AMD Ryzen AI 9 370 – Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 

• 12 W – text editing in Google Drive, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 15 W – Netflix 4K HDR fullscreen in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 16-18 W – browsing in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;

AMD Ryzen AI 7 450 – Legion 5a

• 10 W – text editing in Google Drive, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 10 W – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 12-20 W – browsing in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;

Conclusions

All in all, both the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 and the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H are compelling mobile platforms, and you won’t go wrong with any of them.

Sure, some minor differences would favor one side over the other, with the most notable one being the improved efficiency of the Panther Lake hardware, which translates into slightly lower thermals and longer battery life in general use, but the 2026 AMD Gorgon Point options are not trailing the Intel hardware by that much.

At the same time, though, Intel hardware is generally implemented in higher-tier and more expensive products, while the AMD Ryzen AI 9 can be found in more affordable mid-tier devices, and that can make a difference for many of you, especially when considering 2026 prices for Windows laptops. Furthermore, if battery life is not that important for you, I’d still go with an AMD Strix Point device from last year, which offers similar and even better performance than the 2026 updates, for potentially a fraction of the cost.

The article AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 vs. Intel Core Ultra 9 386H (and Ryzen AI 7 450, Ryzen AI 9 HX 370) appeared first on .

We’ve followed and tested the popular G14 series since its inception, as one of the most popular lineups of 14-inch premium and high-performance notebooks available in stores around the world.

This 2026 iteration refreshes on a chassis design used for the last two years, so the general aesthetics and ergonomics don’t change in a significant way. On the inside, however, this generation transitions to Intel Panther Lake hardware for the first time since its launch (has been an AMD platform so far), bundles higher-power graphics and beefier cooling, and offers an updated OLED display.

There are, in fact, two G14 main variants this year, one still built on the previous GA403 2025 chassis, which is still an AMD platform with lower-tier graphics, and this new GU405 variant that we’re discussing here. My review unit is a higher-level Core Ultra 9 386H + RTX 5070Ti 12 GB configuration of the Zephyrus G14 GU405, arguably the most interesting option available this year, but we’ll discuss the other configurations as well in the article.

Follow this link for details on the latest available Zephyrus G14 GU405 configurations and prices.

All in all, while not a brand new series, this G14 GU405 is an impressive refresh for the lineup. I’ve gathered my thoughts and impressions on it down below, as we’ll follow up with a comparison between the 2026/2025/2024 Zephyrus G14 models in a separate article.

Specs Sheet – ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GU405

The series is available in a multitude of configurations; just note that Asus implements two chassis versions across them. One lighter and thinner chassis with a more basic cooling module and lower power settings, implemented on the 5060/5070 variants, and the beefier chassis on the 5070Ti/5080 models that we’re mostly discussing in this article.

Design and ergonomics – slightly heavier, stronger built

This 2026 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Gu405 is identical in almost every way to the previous G14 iteration from 2025, reviewed in this article.

Even when having the two side by side and closely looking at every detail, the differences are minor: the bottom panel and rear-side of the laptop around the exhausts has been slightly refreshed, and the lightbar zone on the lid looks and behaves a little differently (it’s got a different darker coating that blends in with the general aesthetics and the LEDs can be controlled individually now, instead of in zones as in the past). And yes, the stickers on the updated version are updated as well, since this model is based on Intel hardware now.

Furthermore, Asus mention they have internally reinforced the CNC unibody chassis to make it firmer. I can’t really tell the difference, since the previous generations were already built well imo. This is one of the nicest laptops available out there; it doesn’t bend or flex or squeak, even if the chassis doesn’t feel quite as rock-steady as on a MacBook or a Razer Blade. But it’s very close, and I doubt anyone can realistically complain about the build quality in any way.

These aside, Asus still offers the series in two color variants, a darker one called Eclipse Gray, the one we have here, and a lighter one called Platinum White, which is rather a light gray design with a white keyboard.

I prefer the Gray variant; it just looks neater and more professional to me, although it does smudge more easily, so keep that in mind when choosing it. The white version is more blend-looking, and the silver chassis with a white keyboard isn’t that appealing or even functional for me. I’ve added some images of the two variants down below (the white one is a GA403 2026 in these images, but the Intel variant looks the same).

As mentioned earlier, the lower-specced variants of this G14 GU405 are slightly different, thinner and lighter: 1.55 -1.58 kg and up to 18.3 mm thick for this 5070Ti configuration, versus sub 1.5 kg and up to 16.3 mm thick for the 5060 variant. Minor differences.

Ergonomics are still mostly fine with the series, with smooth materials, well-made hinges, friendly edges and corners, and no annoying lights in the line of sight.

But there are still some things Asus can improve here. The display only opens up to about 130 degrees – I find that limiting for lap and on-the-go use, where a full 180-degree display would be greatly appreciated. Asus pretty much cloned the opening angle from MacBooks in 2024, and hasn’t bothered changing it ever since. Perhaps that might not be an issue for you, but it’s something that bothers me personally on a portable design.

I also find it a bit uncomfortable to quickly pry open the lid, since there’s no real notch or edge on the front lip for my fingers to grab onto. That means you’ll have to use both hands to open this up more often than not. Not something significant, but still worth mentioning.

Finally, the touchpad is just too large for its own good, and that impacts its usability. And the micro holes over the speakers that flank the keyboard can gather dust and first over time, so better make sure you’re keeping this tidy.

As for the IO, there’s a proper selection of ports around the sides on this generation, with USB-A and C ports, HDMI, an audio jack, and a full-size SD card reader as a novelty, replacing the microSD reader of the past. That’s an important update for a creator-targeted laptop such as this one. The USB-Cs are spread on both sides, but only the one on the left side supports Thunderbolt 4.

Keyboard and touchpad – excellent

Inputs haven’t changed in any way between the last 3 G14 generations either.

That’s fine when it comes to the keyboard, which is a proper ROG layout with excellent feedback and general feel to it. You get the extra macro keys at the top left and the decently spaced arrow keys, although these are short and not full-sized.

The typing experience is alright overall, with proper response and quiet clicks. The coating on the keys is a little weird, harsher than the norm, but I got used to it quickly. Overall, this is arguably better than the keyboard on the Blade and on par with a MacBook Pro for me.

The keys are RGB lit, with bright LEDs and good uniformity. There’s no zone or per-key light control, though; this is merely a single-zone RGB implementation. Doesn’t bother me, but might bother some of you – the Blade offers better light control.

Just keep in mind that the keyboard on this darker color offers excellent contrast, but the white keyboard on the other color can get quite frustrating, to the point where you’ll want to only use the lighting in dimmer conditions. One more reason why I prefer this color variant for the G14 series.

The touchpad situation hasn’t changed either, and that’s unfortunate. Asus implemented a huge matte glass touchpad here, which generally feels and works fine.

However, it’s just too large and doesn’t offer enough physical separation from the keyboard and from the laptop’s front lip. This is especially problematic when using this on the lap, as clothes can easily create ghost touches and clicks. Aesthetically, sure, this looks awesome, but the functionality is lacking, and I prefer a design that works over one that looks good. Hopefully Asus will change this in future iterations.

As for biometrics, the main camera supports IR with Windows Hello, but there’s no finger sensor in the power button.

Screen – updated OLED

The display on this 2026 Zephyrus G14 is still a 14-inch 16:10 OLED, but with a newer-generation panel that’s now noticeably brighter both in general use, where earlier OLEDs struggled the most, or in peak HDR.

So while older OLEDs peaked at around 400 nits max sustained brightness, this one goes over 500 nits. It might not seem like much, but it enhances the usability of this laptop in brighter environments, especially since the coating on the display is still a form of glossy, although with an anti-glare coating that limits reflections in bright light to a fair extent. This doesn’t seem to have changed between generations, so the extra brightness is the one making all the difference here. I’ve added an image of this G14’s screen next to a glossy OLED on a Zenbook, to showcase what the anti-glare finish does.

Just to be fair, though, this is still only a regular OLED, so not quite as bright as the Tandem OLEDs implemented in other notebooks. There’s no 14-inch Tandem that can match the speed/refresh requirements of this series for now, so perhaps we’ll get one in the future.

Other than that, this offers what you can expect from an OLED: rich, punchy colors, dark blacks and contrast, fast response times and refresh for games, with GSync support, and clean-looking images across the board, as this is a non-touch implementation.

Anyway, here are the technical specs of this OLED panel:

• Panel HardwareID: Samsung SDC422B (ATNA40HQ06-0);
• Coverage: 100% sRGB, 95.0% AdobeRGB, 100% DCI-P3;
• Measured gamma: 2.21;
• Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 521.91 cd/m2 on power;
• Min brightness in the middle of the screen: <5 cd/m2 on power;
• Contrast at max brightness: 1:1;
• White point: 6414 K;
• Black on max brightness: 0 cd/m2;
• PWM: Yes (discussed above).

Furthermore, this implements the standard technologies meant to reduce burn-in and flickering implemented across all Asus OLED devices, with the flicker-free dimming setting available in Armoury Crate. That’s going to prove useful if you plan on using your notebook in a dim room at night, at lower brightness levels.

Hardware and performance

Our test model is a higher-specced configuration of the 2026 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 refresh, code name GU405AR, with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070Ti 12GB dGPU, 64 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 memory, and a fast 2 TB gen4 SSDs.

Disclaimer: Our review unit was sent over by Asus. All the results were recorded using the software available in mid-July 2026 (BIOS 302, Armoury Crate 6.5.7.0, and GeForce Studio drivers 596.36). There’s a more recent BIOS 305 available in the meantime, as of late July.

In terms of specs, this Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 GU405 series is built on the latest Intel and Nvidia hardware currently available.

The Intel Core Ultra 9 386H is the top mobile processor in Intel’s Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 lineup. It’s a hybrid design with 4 high-performance cores, 8 efficiency cores, 4 low-power efficiency cores, and a total of 16 threads. It runs at 70-57W sustained TDP in this chassis, which is enough to deliver top performance. It’s still an H class processor, though, so make sure your expectations are set the right way.

On the GPU side, the 2026 Zephyrus G14 is available with a range of Nvidia Blackwell GeForce RTX 5000 chips: RTX 5080 16GB (130W), 5070 Ti 12GB (130W), or 5070 8GB and 5060 8GB (115W). Due to running at lower power, the 5060/5070 variant use a slightly more basic cooling module.

Asus have increased the GPU TGP a fair bit on this generation, to 130W, up from 100W on Turbo in the past. They’ve also increased the crossload max TDP as a result, which allows for a notable boost in performance in the graphics side. More on that in a bit.

This chassis still has a MUX switch, G-Sync support on the main display, and either regular Optimus or Advanced Optimus.

For memory and storage, the laptop features fast onboard LPDDR5x RAM and a single M.2 2280 SSD slot – not sure if this supports gen5 SSD, but it comes with gen4 only out of the box. Our review unit came with 64 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 memory and a fast 2 TB Sandisk Gen4 SSD.

You need to take out the back panel to get inside to the components, by removing a couple of Torx screw; two screws are hidden behind some plastic caps, towards the rear. These screws are of different lengths, so make sure you put them back the right way. And there’s a pop-up screw in the bottom right corner, which I don’t remember seeing before on this series.

Inside, the SSD and the Wi-Fi module are M.2 formats and user-replaceable, while everything else is onboard. The cooling module has been further beefed up to support the updated hardware settings.

On the software side, these laptops come with the standard Armoury Crate suite that you get on all ROG models. It gives you access to power profiles and various settings for the fans, keyboard, audio, OLED screen, and more.

Fair profiles overall, although set quite noisy to handle the aggressive power levels for a device of this caliber.

Silent mode is supposed to run at a higher 80W TGP according to the Asus materials, but that wasn’t the case on my unit. The newer BIOS might change that.

The 5080 variant pegs the same power limits, while the 5060/5070 support 10-15W lower settings on both the CPU and GPU.

Before we jump to the performance section, here’s how this laptop handles everyday use and multitasking on the Silent profile, unplugged from the wall.

Performance and benchmarks – Core Ultra 9 386H sustained use

With that out of the way, let’s move on to the performance testing.

We’ll start with the Cinebench R15 CPU loop test.

The differences in performance for the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor are minor between the power modes available on this Zephyrus. There’s about a 20% difference between Silent mode (40W) and Turbo mode (70W). The CPU runs hot on all modes, though, at 90+ C on Turbo and Manual and at 80+C on Performance and Silent. There’s also a difference in fan noise between these profiles.

Beyond that, this Cinebench loop test shows just how closely the current mobile laptop platforms are in performance, both Intel and AMD.

Here are a couple of other implementations of the 386H hardware, next to a Ryzen 9 Strix Point in the previous-gen G14 and a Ryzen 9 from 2 years ago. The Ryzen 9 HX 370 is the fastest performer in this test, while the Panther Lake implementations score 5-10% lower. So if sustained CPU performance is what you’re primarily after, a Core Ultra 9 386H isn’t necessarily the one to go for; especially when considering how much these 2026 cost these days.

We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and Blender – Classroom, which resulted in similar findings to what we explained above. We measured ~80 W for Manual, ~70W for Turbo, ~50W for Performance and 40W for Silent.

We also ran the 3DMark CPU test on the Turbo, Manual, and Silent profiles, to better showcase the minor gap in performance between these modes.

Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time. This review unit passes the test both with the laptop flat on the desk and with it raised on a stand to improve airflow underneath the chassis.

Next, we ran the entire suite of tests and benchmarks on the Turbo profile with the GPU set to Standard mode (Advanced Optimus), and with the screen set at the native 3K resolution.

All these tests are running on Nvidia Studio drivers.

Here’s what we got:

• 3DMark 13 –CPU profile: max – 10544, 16 – 10538, 8 – 6538, 4 – 4229, 2 – 2284, 1– 1184;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 34444 (Graphics – 42045, Physics – 32954, Combined – 15054);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal: 10666;
• 3DMark 13 – Speed Way: 4138;
• 3DMark 13 – Steel Nomad: 3677;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 16198 (Graphics – 16282, CPU – 15744);
• 3DMark 13 – DLSS: DLSS Off – 21.54 fps, DLSS On – 85.13 fps, 395% performance difference.

• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 9704;
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 29000;

• Aida64 Extreme, memory test: 116735 MB/s read, 118892 MB/s write, – MHz latency;
• PCMark 10: 9642 (Essentials – 10751, Productivity – 17398, Digital Content Creation – 13004);
• GeekBench 6.6.0: Multi-core: 17440, Single-Core: 2931;
• GeekBench AI 1.7.0 (ONNX, CPU): Single: 4708, Half: 1672, Quantized: 7693;
• CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 3408 cb, CPU Single Core 317 cb;
• CineBench R23: CPU 21579 pts (best run), CPU 21105 pts (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 2118 pts (best run);
• CineBench 2024: CPU 1267 (10 min run), CPU Single Core 126 pts;
• CineBench 2026: GPU – 65660 pts, CPU Multiple Threads – 5084, CPU Single Core – , CPU Single Thread – 521 pts.

And some work-related tests, on the same Turbo profile.

• Blender 4.3.2 – BMW Car scene- CPU Compute: 1m 55s ;
• Blender 4.3.2 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 13.86s (CUDA), 6.96 (Optix);
• Blender 4.3.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 5m 07s;
• Blender 4.3.2 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 27.25s (CUDA), 15.77 (Optix);
• Blender 5.1.2 – BMW Car scene- CPU Compute: 1m 44s ;
• Blender 5.1.2 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 13.23s (CUDA), 6.80 (Optix);
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 4m 12s;
• Blender 5.1.2 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 27.64s (CUDA), 14.65 (Optix);

• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax 07: 169.15;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia 06: 84.81;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo 03: 118.25;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy: 53.91;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya 06: 518.71;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical 03: 50.26;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX 04: 32.07;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SW 07: 342.02.

• SPECviewperf 15 – 3DSMax 08: 68.39;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Blender 01: 78.45;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Catia 07: 62.23;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Creo 04: 110.23;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Energy 04: 52.67;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Enscape 01: 50.10;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Maya 07: 191.36;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Medical 04: 49.66;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Solidworks 08: 29.68;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Unreal Engine 01: 82.71;
• V-Ray Benchmark: CPU – 14681, CUDA – 2133, RTX –  3062.

On the CPU side, this is a higher-power version of the Core Ultra 9 386H platform, and it delivers the best this processor has to offer. Even if the CPU runs at slightly lower sustained power than in the Zephyrus G16, the two offers similar capabilities in sustained CPU loads.

On the other hand, compared to last year’s Ryzen 9 AI 370 HX Zephyrus G14 implementation, the scores in CPU sustained loads are actually about 5% lower for the Intel update, while on single-core performance the Intel variant has a slight edge of about 5-7%. So when it comes to overall CPU performance, the two generations are neck in neck, as the main benefit of this Panther Lake chip is efficiency, with an impact on thermals in sustained loads and runtimes on battery power.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5070Ti in this machine runs at up to 115W in Turbo mode and performs well at that power limit. It scores about 10% higher than the 5070Ti at 100W in Turbo mode in the previous-gen Zephyrus G14, although the gap shrinks in mixed loads. However, a notable benefit of the 2026 implementation is the 12 GB of vRAM on the 5070Ti, compared to only 8 GB on previous-gen models.

As far as the other configurations go, expect the RTX 5080 variant to score 10-15% higher, while the 5070, when available, is going to score roughly 15% lower.

Furthermore, the graphics performance increases somewhat in Manual mode, which allows the GPU to go up to 130W TGP with Dynamic Boost.

All in all, this Zephyrus G14 GU405 is arguably the fastest compact Windows laptop around 1.5 kilos available today.  Its main rivals either haven’t been updated to 2026 specs, or/and don’t match its power settings and/or are heavier and chunkier. And that main alternative is the Razer Blade 14 in the 14-inch Windows space, and the MacBook Pro 14. This is actually a faster performer in the M5 Pro/Max configurations, and is an option to consider for programming and creative work, but less so for gaming, where the Windows environment still holds and advantage.

Manual mode – higher power, but 52 dBA noise levels

This Zephyrus G14 laptop runs at around 48 dB on the Turbo profile, which is quite loud. Manual mode allows for higher CPU and GPU power settings, but with even higher fan noise at 52 dAB and higher overall temperatures.

Still, if you want to squeeze the best performance out of this device and you’re okay with using headphones to cover up the fan noise, here are the benchmark results for this profile.

We maxed out the CPU/GPU settings and maxed out the fans for these tests.

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 10478, 16 – 10596, 8 – 6649, 4 – 4252, 2 – 2289, 1 – 1181;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 35750 (Graphics – 44669, Physics – 32642, Combined – 15183);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal (RTX): 11367;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 17118 (Graphics – 17377, CPU – 15789);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 10356;
• CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 21326 cb, CPU Single Core 2091 cb;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 4m 08s.
• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 177.04;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 91.55;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 537.01;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 32.42;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 364.95.

The CPU performance doesn’t change significantly for this profile, while on the GPU side, we’re looking at roughly 5% gains in scores, due to the higher TGP in this mode – 125-130W vs 115W on Turbo. possible here (up to 160W  – more like 150W in reality, vs. up to 135W on Turbo). However, the gains are minor for mixed sustained loads, as showcased by the Blender and Specviewperf tests.

Overall, not a profile I’d consider, given the noise, thermals, and limited performance gains.

Performance mode – mid level, at ~42 dBA

This Zephyrus G14 laptop runs at around 48 dB on the Turbo profile. Performance mode keeps fans quieter around 42 dBA, with still solid capabilities.

Here’s how this 2026 Zephyrus G14 GU405 scored on the Performance profile:

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 10370, 16 – 10478, 8 – 6716, 4 – 4255, 2 – 2307, 1 – 1193;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 30828 (Graphics – 38370, Physics – 29835, Combined – 12717);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal (RTX): 9632;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 14936 (Graphics – 14799, CPU – 15765);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 8584;
• CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 19394 cb, CPU Single Core 2128 cb;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 4m 30s.
• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 159.42;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 84.64;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: -;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 31.57;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 322.08.

We’re looking at 90% of the CPU scores on Turbo, which isn’t bad considering the CPU runs at lower power limits in this mode, and reaches notably lower internal temperatures.

On the GPU side, this profile scores about 85-90% of Turbo mode.

A competitive mid-level profile.

Silent Mode – still fast, and quieter at sub 35 dBA

Silent mode is quieter at sub-35dBA. Here’s how the laptop scores on this profile.

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 10180, 16 – 10197, 8 – 6482, 4 – 3933, 2 – 2262, 1 – 1171;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 23019 (Graphics – 24563, Physics – 31520, Combined – 12272);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal (RTX): 4912;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 8834 (Graphics – 8231, CPU – 15117);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 5685;
• CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 18215 cb, CPU Single Core 2106 cb;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 4m 45s.
• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 115.22;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 62.82;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 372.67;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 29.95;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 210.20.

The CPU performance remains excellent, at around 80% of Turbo mode, despite this mode imposing a 40W power cap. Thermals are kept lower than on Turbo, even with the much quieter profile.

The GPU, however, performs at about 60% of Turbo mode, due to the aggressive power limit. The materials provided by Asus mention a higher sustained TGP for this mode, but our unit only ran at about 45W TGP, hence the lower scores. Perhaps a higher limit might be set with later BIOS updates, and there’s always the option for a custom profile (with GHelper) that would better balance thermals and performance at this sort of noise level.

Performance Mode on PD power

PD power on this Zephyrus G14 isn’t meant for sustained loads, as the system can only pull 100W of power via USB-C. However, here’s what we got on Performance mode hooked up via a 100W USB-C PD charger:

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 9936, 16 – 9945, 8 – 6547, 4 – 4185, 2 – 2257, 1 – 1177;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 22665 (Graphics – 23953, Physics – 32574, Combined – 12189);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal (RTX): 4917;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 8819 (Graphics – 8219, CPU – 15054);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 4999;
• CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 18330 cb, CPU Single Core 2060 cb;
• Blender 4.3.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 4m 43s.
• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 98.72;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 59.65;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: -;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 30.34;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 216.98.

These results are close to Silent mode with the laptop plugged in via the main charger, so competitive on the CPU side, and not much on the graphics side, where this mode delivers about 50% of what the laptop does on Turbo when plugged in.

Overall, this mode is adequate for general multitasking, and it can handle heavier tasks if needed, within reason. It’s not meant for gaming or heavy GPU load, though.

However, I noticed that the system doesn’t seem to pull any energy from the battery on this G14, which could suggest there’s some sort of power passthrough offered here. That’s unlike other ROG laptops, which pulled from the battery with sustained mixed use. I didn’t get to properly test this, so you might want to check other sources as well if you plan on using the laptop with a compact PD charger more often than not.

Gaming performance – Ryzen AI 9 + GeForce RTX 5070Ti Max-Q

With benchmarks out of the way, let’s see how this Zephyrus G14 handles modern games.

We tested a couple of different games on the various available profiles at the native 3K (2880 x 1800 px) and at the QHD+ (2560 x 1600 px) resolution, with the Nvidia GPU set on Ultimate dGPU mode.

For consistency with other reviews, the laptop is raised off the desk. I also kept the laptop on Studio drivers and haven’t changed to Game Ready drivers for the gaming tests – doing that might change the results in some games.

Here are the results:

• Black Myth, Cyberpunk, Horizon FW – recorded with MSI Afterburner fps counter in campaign mode;
• Far Cry 6, Red Dead Redemption 2, Tomb Raider – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities;
• Red Dead Redemption 2 Optimized profile based on these settings.

All games run great on this machine, and even Silent mode is surprisingly competitive. DLSS helps a lot, especially in titles that support DLSS 4.0+ and MFG.

Compared to the 2025 Ryzen 9 + RTX 5070Ti 115W configuration, this variant delivers up to 10% higher framerates in games when comparing Manual models with the highest GPU TGP settings (130W for this generation, 115W for the previous one). However, the gap gets lower on Turbo mode.

Now, the materials provided by Asus claim a TGP of 80W sustained for Silent mode, but that wasn’t the case on our unit, where the TGP was around 45W only. So there’s a chance your units might be able to run better on the default Silent mode later in the year, although I wouldn’t hold my breath for it given my experience with past ROG devices.

However, what you do get is the possibility to create custom profiles on these ROG laptops, either with Armoury Crate in Manual mode, or better yet with GHelper, which allows wider and more granular control over the fan speeds and temperatures.

On this unit, I created an Optimized 40 dBA profile with the following settings in Armoury Crate: 53% fans CPU/GPU, balanced sys fan, 85C CPU limit, 80C GPU limit. That translates to results of 104 fps (22 fps – 1% low) in Wukong with 4x MFG and 2.5K resolution, with a GPU TGP of around 100W. That’s better than the default Performance mode and with quieter fan noise.

If you aim for a lower noise level for your profile, you’ll have to use GHelper, since Armoury Crate doesn’t allow setting speeds lower than 49% for the CPU/GPU fans. I’d reckon a very competitive profile around 35 dBA can be comfortably set here, able to deliver about 70% of the gaming performance on Turbo, and with decent thermals around 80C on the internal components. I didn’t get the time to further pursue that profile, though.

Let’s go over some logs for the various profiles.

First, Turbo mode with the laptop flat on the desk. The laptop runs warm to hot in this mode, with temperatures in the 80-85 °C on both the CPU and the GPU. The performance, at least, is not impacted in significant ways, and these temperatures are actually a little lower than on the 2025 AMD-based G14.

Bumping the laptop off the desk to increase airflow underneath the chassis and into the fans allows lower thermals. We measured 75-80 °C on the CPU and GPU between the tested titles. Quite impressive for a device of this kind.

Then there’s Manual mode that allows you to max out the CPU/GPU and the fans’ speeds. That means the fan noise jumps to 52+ dBA for this mode. We measured ~75°C on the CPU and ~77-80 °C on the GPU with these settings, due to the extra power pushed into the hardware. Still fine temperatures, but the roughly 5% gain in performance isn’t necessarily justified by the louder fans. Not a profile I’d consider.

Performance mode allows the laptop to run a little quieter (42 dBA) and cooler, while the framerates take a 15-20% hit compared to Turbo mode. We measured temperatures in the low 70s °C on the CPU and GPU in this mode, with the laptop off the desk.

Finally, there’s Silent mode, which keeps the fan noise under 35 dBA and delivers about 60% of the gaming performance possible on Turbo.

We measured ~70°C on the CPU and mid 60s °C on the GPU in this mode, so there’s room for a bump in allocated power for this mode, which a potential increase in performance. Not sure if Asus is going to do that with future BIOS updates, but you can always pursue it yourself with GHelper, as mentioned earlier and as explained in this previous guide about optimizing quiet gaming on the Zephyrus G14 series.

Gaming on PD power is possible and offers framerates on par with Silent mode plugged in via the main charger. The system doesn’t seem to pull any power off the battery on this unit, unlike on the Zephyrus G16 tested recently.

We get similar results on battery power, but expect this notebook to only last for a little over an hour of gaming.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others

The cooling module on the 5070Ti/5080 variants offers two fans, two radiators, and a multitude of heatpipes over the main components. There’s no vapor chamber here.

The RTX 5060 / 5070 versions use a somewhat more basic cooling system with three fans (smaller main fans, extra system fan), two radiators, and fewer and slimmer heatpipes.

For comparison, here’s the cooling module in the 2025 AMD Ryzen 9 + RTX 5070Ti configuration. Not that different.

Overall, this generation runs cooler internally by a fair bit, in all modes. I still recommend keeping it off the desk for sustained gaming/work sessions though, for better airflow into the fans and overall lower thermals than when keeping this flat on a desk.

As for noise levels, I measured:

• 52 dBA in Manual mode
• 48 dBA in Turbo
• 42 dBA in Performance
• Under 35 dBA in Silent

In everyday use, the laptop is quiet and comfortable to the touch. The fans stay off most of the time in Silent mode, and while they keep active on Performance and Turbo, they’re hardly audible even on these profiles.

*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Silent profile,  fans at ~0 dBA

During heavy tasks and gaming, the chassis heats up a fair bit, but the areas you actually touch stay comfortable — usually around 35–40°C, which are excelent value for a device of this size and power. The hottest spot develops in the middle of the chassis, around the YUH keys.

Overall, the chassis temperatures on this generation are a few degrees lower than on the previous model.

*Silent – Performance, raised off desk – playing Cyberpunk for 30 minutes, fans at ~35 dB
*Gaming – Performance, raised off desk – playing Cyberpunk for 30 minutes, fans at ~42 dB
*Gaming – Turbo, raised off desk – playing Cyberpunk for 30 minutes, fans at ~48 dB

Connectivity is handled by an Intel BE211 solution, offering Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. They perform well.

The audio system uses six speakers (well, a pair of dual-sided main woofers, and an extra pair of smaller tweeters), and the sound quality on this series is really good for a smaller laptop. It’s not quite as clear or as punchy as the sound of the Zephyrus G16, though, and not quite a match for the MacBook Pro 14 either. But it’s close.

The webcam, placed above the screen, offers an FHD sensor that provides decent images in good lighting, but it struggles in low light. Asus need to upgrade their webcam modules on these ROG devices — the competition is ahead in this area. The camera comes with an IR sensor for facial recognition.

Battery life

There’s a 73Wh battery inside this laptop, which I’d say is fine for its format and weight, especially since the efficiency has improved with this Panther Lake series.

Here’s what we got on our review unit in terms of battery life, with the laptop on Standard GPU mode in Armoury Crate, Best Battery Efficiency in Windows power settings, and the screen set at a brightness of around 120 nits (~50% brightness).

• 7-9 W (~8-10 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 5-6 W (~12-14 h of use) – 4K fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 5-6 W (~12-14 h of use) – Netflix 4K HDR fullscreen in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 8-12 W (~6-9 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON.

The Panther Lake hardware platform delivers significantly longer runtimes across the board, but especially with casual, lighter use. This generation can run for nearly twice as long in certain loads as the previous AMD G14s did.

For comparison, here’s what I got on the 2025 AMD Strix Point Zephyrus G14 configuration.

• 12 W (~5-6 h of use) – idle, Silent  Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 15 W (~4-5 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Silent  Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 14 W (~5-6 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 17 W (~4-5 h of use) – Netflix 4K HDR fullscreen in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 18 W (~4-5 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;
• 75 W (~1 h of use) – Gaming – Witcher 3, Performance Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON, no fps limit.

The 5070Ti/5080 configurations of this laptop ship with a 250W charger, a dual-piece design with long cables, mid-sized by today’s standards. It comes with Asus’s square plug that sticks to the side.

There’s a smaller 200W charger on the 5060/5070 configurations.

USB-C charging is supported as well, up to 100W. PD is meant for everyday multitasking, but not for sustained loads. Here’s a comparison of the main 250W charger and a 100W ROG USB-C PD charger.

Price and availability- Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 GU405

The 2026 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is available across the world at the time of this article, but only in the upper-tier configurations.

Follow this link for updated configurations and prices in your region at the time you’re reading this article.

Here’s what we mostly found at the time of this review:

• Zephyrus G14 GU405AW – Core Ultra 9 386H, RTX 5080 16GB, 64 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD – from $4799 in the US, €4299 in Germany;
• Zephyrus G14 GU405AR – Core Ultra 9 386H, RTX 5070Ti 12GB, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD – from $3599 in the US, $4799 in Canada, €3299 in Germany, £3099 in the UK;
• Zephyrus G14 GU405AR – Core Ultra 9 386H, RTX 5070Ti 12GB, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD – from $3199 in the US.

Mind-boggling prices. The lower-tier specs are not yet available, but perhaps will be later in the year.

In the meantime, last year’s Zephyrus G14 GA403 sells for about 1000-1500 USD/EUR less, with the 5070Ti configuration available at the time of this article for ~2600 USD in the US and ~2800 EUR in Europe. Sure, there’s a brighter display, higher-power and more efficient hardware, and better cooling for the 2026 refresh, but the price increase between generations is insane.

Follow this link for updated configurations and prices in your region at the time you’re reading this article. Buying from our affiliate links helps support our work. Thank you!

Final thoughts- 2026 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 GU405 series review

Asus have refined the Zephyrus G14 lineup over the years, and much like with the 2026 larger Zephyrus G16 lineup, this refresh of the 14-inch model might not seem like much on a first look. Once you look into the details, though, here are the important advantages for the 2026 model:

• this gets a newer-gen and brighter OLED, with the extra 100 or so nits of brightness making this display more versatile and more usable in strong light conditions; It helps with HDR content as well, as a side benefit;
• this generation switches to Intel Panther Lake hardware – this offers roughly the same performance as the AMD Strix Point hardware in the previous G14, but runs cooler in this updated chassis and more efficiently on battery power;
• this design allows for higher GPU power than the previous generation, which translates in 5-10% gains in graphics performance;
• internal and external temperatures are lower on this 2026 refresh;
• runtimes on battery are way longer on this generation.
• pricing has gone up significantly.

So all in all, this is arguably the best 14-inch performance compact laptop available today in the Windows space, especially since Razer haven’t updated the Blade 14 this year. But it’s also hundreds and thousands of dollars more expensive than the 2025 generation for similar-tier specs, which means the older model is just a better value option at this point. It’s going to run warmer and won’t last as long on battery, and it comes with a dimmer display, but all things considered, I’d reckon many will accept these tradeoffs given the price gap between generations.

And then there’s the MacBook Pro 14 to discuss as well, which starts at $2000 for the M5 model and at $2500 for the M5 Pro. We’re living times where MacBooks sell for less than similar-tier Windows premium options. For general use and creator/programming/engineering work, there’s a good chance one of these MacBook Pros are better-value options than the 2026 Zephyrus G14. At $3699, where the 5070Ti G14 sells at, you can configure a M5 Max with the 20 Core GPU, 64 GB of RAM and 1 TB SSD, which runs circles around the Zephyrus in raw performance. The G14, on the other hand, holds an advantage in games and specific applications that aren’t optimized for Macs, so there’s that to consider as well.

Long story short, the 2026 Asus ROG Zephyrus is an excellent notebook in its class, just darn expensive, just like every other higher-specced Windows laptop today. This wraps-up my review, but I’d love to hear your thoughts and impressions on this series down below in the comments section.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 GU606 2026 doesn’t seem like a huge update over the previous G16 generations at first glance. However, it is an overall more versatile offer in its premium portable segment of 16-inch all-purpose notebooks. The main selling points adding up to this refresh are the brighter OLED display, the updated cooling module and the versatility of the Intel Panther Lake hardware that offers improved efficiency, which translates in longer runtimes and potentially more comfortable general experience when looking to balance out noise, thermals and capabilities. Too bad 2026 laptop tech is so darn expensive, though.

The article Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 review (GU405 2026 gen, Intel Panther Lake, RTX 5070Ti) appeared first on .

This follows up on the Intel Lunar Lake V and Arrow Lake H platforms, binding them altogether under a common platform. Panther Lake hardware still combines a complex processor with Intel’s latest cores and technologies with several types of Intel iGPUs.

That means the roster of Panther Lake CPUs is diverse, with three distinct sub-lineups meant for different types of devices:

• Core Ultra 5/7 300, up to Core Ultra 7 365 – meant for ultraportable ultrabooks; replaces Lunar Lake V hardware (Core Ultra 7 258V);
• Core Ultra X7/X9 300H, up to Core Ultra X9 388H with Arc B390 graphics – meant for high-performance ultraportables without a dGPU;
• Core Ultra 7/9 300H, up to Core Ultra 9 386H – meant for high-performance portable notebooks, mostly paired with a dGPU; replaces Arrow Lake H hardware (Core Ultra 9 285H).

Thus, it’s essential to understand the specifics of each of these sub-lineups so that you can choose the one that best suits your requirements. We’ll delve into this further down in the article, while also analyzing the performance of these Core Ultra Series 3 platforms; then we’ll compile lists of all the available notebooks built on this hardware.

Intel Panther Lake hardware and specs explained

Panther Lake is Intel’s latest mobile platform as of early 2026, an SOC (system-on-chip) platform built on the Intel 18A process node (the first of its kind, as previous platforms were built on TSMC technology). Panther Lake CPUs are also called Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors.

These are some of the main particularities of this hardware:

• a scalable multi-chiplet architecture that allows for multiple variants of real products;
• up to 16 CPU Cores, with a mix of 4x Performance, 8x Efficiency, and 4x Low-Power Efficiency cores;
• updated Intel iGPUs with 3rd generation Xe cores (Battlemage architecture), up to 12 Xe3 Cores on the Arc B390 implementation, and 4 Xe3 Cores on the standard iGPU;
• added XeSS3 support with multi-frame generation;

• updated NPU5 with ~50 TOPS of AI performance;
• memory support up to LPDDR5x-9600 or DDR5-7200;
• support for Thunderbolt 5, up to 20 PCIe lanes (with Thunderbolt 4 controller built in on chip);
• improved efficiency across the board, including on the higher-tier SKUs.

On the CPU side, the compute tile for these Panther Lake platforms combines two types of cores: Cougar Cove for Performance cores, and Darkmont for the Efficiency and LP-E cores. Cougar Cove is an optimization of the Lion Cove cores implemented with Arrow Lake hardware, with optimizations on Memory Disambiguation (for more reliable performance), TLB Enhancements (allowing complex workloads to run more reliably and faster), and Branch Prediction (for improved performance and efficiency). More on this over here.

Darkmont builds and optimizes the Skymont E-Core architecture used previously, with a multitude of optimizations as well. Follow that link above for a more indepth look into the particularities of this platform.

At the end of the day, what Panther Lake promises (and delivers, for the most part) is up to 10% single-core performance over Lunar Lake (and 15% over Arrow Lake), with increased power efficiency.

For multi-threading, Panther Lake offers up to 50% higher performance than Lunar Lake at similar power levels, and a 10-20% performance uplift from Arrow Lake.

On the GPU side, the series integrates updated Xe3 cores, with either 4, 10 or 12 Cores. The Core Ultra X9 and X7 options get 12 Xe cores with 16 MB of L2 Cache in the Arc B390 chip, there’s also a Core Ultra 5 with 10 Xe cores in the Arc B370 chip (why isn’t this called an Ultra X5, though???), while all the other options integrated a standard Panther Lake iGPU with 4 Xe cores and 4 MB of L2 cache. The 4x iGPU is built on Intel 3 technology, while the 12x iGPU is built with TSMC. The latter also occupies a larger physical space on the processor die.

Furthermore, it’s also important to note that Xe3 cores incorporate Ray Tracing units, as well as Super Sampling with multi-frame generation, a first outside the Nvidia realm so far.

As a whole, the 12x iGPU delivers 50% higher performance than the Arc 140v Lunar Lake iGPU at around 30W of power, and the gains increase slightly at higher power.

With that out of the way, here’s the complete roster of Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 hardware.

Out of these, the Ultra X7 358H and Ultra X9 388H are the high-performance options with the Arc B390 12x iGPU, the chips that provide the best overall performance in standalone implementations, and the chips we’ll find on the higher-tier models this year.

There’s also the Ultra 5 338H that stands out as an interesting middle-grounder, with a 12 Core CPU and 10C iGPU Intel Arc B370. Rather weird that they didn’t call this an Ultra X5, like the other options with Arc graphics.

Then there are the Ultra 9 386H and Ultra 7 356H, which are either meant as standalone implementations for mainstream portable designs, or bundled with a dGPU for higher-performance laptops. The standalone units aren’t powerful on the CPU side, but offer rather little in graphics capabilities, trailing previous-gen Lunar and Arrow Lake Arc 140V/140T hardware.

And then there are the efficient low-power Ultra 7 365 and Ultra 5 325 options, direct successors for Lunar Lake hardware, with 8 CPU cores and the same 4x cores iGPU. These are fine for casual use and offer efficient runtimes, but don’t get them for serious multitasking and demanding loads.

Here’s a more indepth look at the main Panther Lake SKUs.

And here’s a specs comparison with Arrow Lake H (2025), Lunar Lake V (2024), and Meteor Lake H (2023) platforms.

Just keep in mind that directly comparing these numbers doesn’t make much sense, because while these are all hybrid designs with various amounts of P and E Cores, the actual cores differ between generations, with various improvements and performance/efficiency gains as we move through the generations.

Panther Lake Performance – Core X9 388H, Core X7 358H vs. Arrow Lake Core Ultra 9 285H, Lunar Lake Core Ultra 7 258, AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

As we’re running our tests and reviews, here’s a brief analysis of the performance you should expect from the higher-tier Intel Panther Lake hardware we’ve tested so far (with updates to follow), next to similar implementations of Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake, and Strix Point (with Gorgon Point being identical) platforms.

You can tell how the CPU performance scales between generations, with notable gains in multi-threaded performance for the Panther Lake options, even compared to the Arrow Lake implementation. AMD’s Strix/Gorgon Point hardware remains competitive, but is still 10-15% behind Panther Lake.

For more details on how the Core Ultra 9 386H performs in a full-size implementation and at 60+W TDP, check out our review of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 over here. In just a few words, even at 28W, the Core Ultra 9 386H still delivers about 70-80% of its maximum performance possible at higher power.

On the GPU side, the Arc B390 implementations are in a class of their own, and even a mid-powered 30W implementation delivers about 90% of the potential graphics performance. From our tests, a 35W power setting delivers max graphics performance and ~90% of the CPU performance possible at higher power with these chips.

Compared to Radeon and previous-gen Intel Xe iGPUs, the B390 holds a significant advantage for 40-50% in our test, but the 4x iGPU is much slower at about 40% of the Arc B390 scores, and about on par with the Radeon 890M.

However, the beefier Radeon iGPUs offered with AMD’s Strix Halo and Gorgon Halo hardware, as well as the entry-tier Nvidia chips (RTX 4050/5050), are still faster performers, as we’ll discuss in a different article. But for what it is worth, those also require more power for full capabilities.

Panther Lake Gaming Performance

We also ran a couple of games on these platforms, at FHD+ resolution, with Low/Lowest graphics settings. Here’s what we got.

Once more, the Arc B390 outpaces everything else by a wide margin. We’ll discuss how it fares against the Radeon 8060S Strix Halo iGPU in a separate article.

And keep in mind I haven’t activated XeSS or frame generation for any of these tests. These technologies make a notable difference where supported – for instance, the framerates jump to around 110 fps in Cyberpunk with XeSS and FG switched on.

You’ll find more details in our reviews, linked down below as we finalize our tests.

List of all laptops built on the Intel Panther Lake hardware (Core Ultra Series 3)

This section lists all the available notebooks built on Panther Lake Core Ultra 7/9 Series 3 hardware.

However, I’ve split them into three different categories:

• portable performance laptops built on Core Ultra X7/X9 hardware with the Arc B390 12x iGPU;
• ultraportable and mid-range options built on Core Ultra hardware, with either the higher-performance 16C, 4x iGPU options (Arrow Lake H follow-ups), or the efficient 8C, 4x iGPU variants (Lunar Lake V follow-ups).
• high-performance models that bundle Core Ultra hardware with Nvidia dGPUs.

So here we go. First, the Ultra X9 388H or Ultra X7 358H premium ultraportables (for what it is worth, the differences in real-life capabilities between these two chips are minimal to none).

There are many highly interesting options in this tier, starting with the Asus ExpertBook Ultra, Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon and Lenovo ThinkPad X9 15P pro-tier business laptops, and continuing with the refreshed Dell XPS, Lenovo Yoga Slim Ultra and Asus Zenbook DUO lineups. If you have the budget (2000+ USD/EUR) and are looking for a competent premium daily driver, this is where you’ll most likely find it.

Most of these lineups mentioned earlier are also available with the lower-tier hardware.

However, some of the most compact, thin, and lightweight options or some of the more affordable options are only offered with Core Ultra 300 (up to Core Ultra 7 356) and Core Ultra 300H (up to Core Ultra 9 386H) specs, without the top-end iGPU (both because the X7/X9 SKUs are expensive and because they require more power to run at proper capacity). These options are listed further down.

Most of these devices are mid-tier options and the more affordably-priced Panther Lake configurations you’ll find in stores these days. The Acer Swift Edge and Asus Zenbook S14 models stand out as exceptions, as more premium devices not offered with Ultra X specs – they’re still excellent daily drivers as long as graphics capabilities are not that important to you.

Finally, these are the higher-performance laptops with Core Ultra 300H + RTX 5000 hardware.

The majority of these are 16-inch formats, with some more compact 14 and 15-inch variants.

These notebooks are all premium-tier offers that should meet most expectations. Among them, the Asus ROG Zephyrus models stand out with their higher-power GPU configurations, while the Lenovo Yoga Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra have what it takes to become prime alternatives to the versatile Apple MacBook Pro 16.

That’s about it for now.

Stay around for updates to these lists as more laptops built on Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 platforms are launched, and we get to review them. And if you spot any model that should be in here and isn’t mentioned yet, get in touch in the comments section below.

The article The complete list of Intel Panther Lake laptops (Core Ultra X9 388H & X7 358H, Ultra 9 386H, Ultra 7 355) appeared first on .

This X1 Carbon revision is a complete revamp of the series, and not just a spec bump like some of the previous-gen variants. Sure, Lenovo updated it to the latest hardware platform of the year, namely Panther Lake, in several different CPU/GPU options, but they also redesigned the chassis from scratch to improve serviceability and reliability on one end, as well as allow for higher power settings or/and cooler temperatures with serious multitasking and sustained demanding loads.

All these make this X1 Carbon 2026 generation one of the best ultraportables on the market, if not the best. This lineup is faster than before, lasts longer on battery, still offers a multitude of specs and display options to choose from, and should last longer with the way the new chassis is designed to allow easier repairs, something the X1 Carbon hasn’t offered in about a decade. On top of these, ergonomics are stellar on this 14th-gen lineup, with some of the tiny quirks of older Carbons being addressed, which is frankly where this outmatches all its rivals. We’ll discuss all these particularities further down in the review.

Our configuration is the mid-range jack-of-all-trades Core Ultra 7 356H with 32 GB of RAM, which offers a competent 16C/16T processor in a fairly-priced package. However, we’ll also cover the top-tier Ultra X7 358H option that bundles alongside the far more capable Arc B390 graphics, as well as the entry-tier Core Ultra 7 355, which isn’t as powerful as the other two, but is the most widespread option between markets and the one available in the more affordable Carbon variants.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area, at the time you’re reading this article.

Specs sheet – Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen14, Aura Edition

Lenovo also offers this series in several configurations, all based on the Intel Panther Lake platform. The important options are the following (as well as their vPro-capable alternatives):

• Intel Core Ultra X7 358H / 368H vPro – 16C/16T processor with Arc B390 graphics, 12 Xe GPU cores;
• Intel Core Ultra 7 356H / 366H vPro – 16C/16T processor with Intel graphics,4 Xe GPU cores;
• Intel Core Ultra 5 255, Ultra 7 355 / 365 vPro – 8C/8T processors with Intel graphics, 4 Xe GPU cores.

We’ll discuss them all in the hardware and performance section further down.

Design and functionality

This X1 Carbon gen14 looks and feels much as you’d expect from a premium ThinkPad: an all-black design with soft materials, in a lightweight chassis that feels premium and well made.

Design-wise, there are a bunch of iconic pieces of branding on this chassis, with the ThinkPad X1 logo on the lid and the ThinkPad engraving on the armrest. Furthermore, this unit is the FIFA World Cup 26 Edition, which adds an extra muted icon on the lid, with the World Cup Trophy and FIFA writing. The standard variants lack this extra detail, but are otherwise identical.

But while at first look this 2026 generation looks and feels just like previous-gen X1 Carbons, internally this is a completely new design. In fact, Lenovo revolutionized the entire main chassis in order to create more space inside and improve the hardware’s serviceability and repairability. They implemented what they call a Space Frame design, which means the motherboard is more compact and integrates components on both the top and the bottom, resulting in extra interior space that was used for higher-capacity fans and larger heatsinks, in order to push more power into the hardware and allow for better performance.

Furthermore, this design implements a removable base plate that includes the keyboard, touchpad, and armrest, something we haven’t seen in ThinkPads in a very long while. It also allows for more internal parts to be swappable and replaceable if required, such as the IO ports, the fans, the speakers, the battery, and of course the SSD and the 4G/5G module.

With all these changes, this 2026 X1 chassis remains about the same size and weight as before. However, there are actually some differences between the various configurations, with the main chassis on the OLED version being thinner and lighter and made out of a magnesium alloy, while the IPS variants are made out of aluminum and are slightly thicker and heavier. For example, our review unit with the non-touch OLED weighs just .99 kg, while the touch IPS configuration with a 5G module weighs closer to 1.15 kg.

The ergonomics of this series are darn perfect. The soft rubber feet offer excellent grip on a flat surface; all the materials are smooth and grippy, and there are no sharp edges or corners whatsoever.

Of course, the dark smooth coatings are going to show smudges, but even that aspect is not quite as bad as you’d expect. There’s an image above showing how this unit looks after using it for a couple of days and before cleaning it for the photos: you’ll notice some finger oil on the armrest and on some of the keys, but none of those surfaces look that bad.

I also like the entire thought process on how the screen opens up and adjusts: there’s a notch that allows perfect grip when picking up the display, the hinges work smoothly and yet keep the screen firmly set up without moving, and then the hinges open up flat to 180 degrees. If you need more than that, Lenovo offers a 2-in-1 version of this laptop as well, with the X1 2-in-1 convertible. Just be aware that’s a heavier device, and not that easy to find in most markets.

Finally, I’ll mention how the keyboard deck seamlessly integrates within the main frame, without leaving any cracks around. And the edges are all smooth and blunted and friendly on the wrists. There’s no other laptop that feels as grippy, robust, and friendly to the touch as this one does. I just hope the coatings won’t peel and chip off with time.

As for the IO, this generation improves some of my nits with the older designs: Lenovo put USB-C ports on both edges now, and they moved away the power button that was too easy to press by mistake in the past, and pretty much had to be disabled in the settings. These aside, there are still full-size HDMI and UBS-A ports on this ultraportable chassis, and a Lock. But what’s still missing is a card-reader – with an SD card reader, this would have been the perfect IO.

All in all, this 2026 gen14 ThinkPad X1 Carbon is the ultimate ultraportable laptop design: it looks and feels much like a classic ThinkPad, offers excellent ergonomics and practicality in a premium lightweight format, and is now an easier chassis to open up, service, and repair when needed, which should keep this going for longer. If you’ve been here on Ultrabookreview.com for a while, you might remember I was an avid ThinkPad user back in the day, and I’m glad to see the paradigm shift brought up by this chassis.

Keyboard, touchpad

I can’t tell for sure whether Lenovo changed the keyboard on this 2026 X1 Carbon in any way compared to the previous iterations.

On a first look, it appears that they have not, but actually using this keyboard for the last weeks or so, I find it somewhat shallower than I remember from past Carbons. That’s not an issue for me, as I prefer this sort of shallow short-stroke keyboard, but it is something to further look into in other reviews – most mention this is an excellent keyboard and none that I’ve seen complain about the stroke depth. This still offers 1.5 mm of key travel on most keys (with 1.35 mm on the keys around the TrackPoint), much like on the 13th-gen variant.

Regardless, I got along well with this keyboard; it’s a fast, accurate, and fairly quiet typer. One of the better in this segment.

The layout is standard for a ThinkPad, with black smooth keycaps, properly sized and spaced, and somewhat smaller arrow keys grouped together with the PgUp/PgDn keys. There is one aesthetic difference, however, as the writing on the keys is now in the middle of the keycaps, and not on the top-left as in the past.

Furthermore, new for this generation is the addition of the power button at the top-right part of the keyboard – not a fan; it takes time to get used to, as I prefer having the Delete key in that position. In the past, the power button did not interfere with the keyboard, as it was positioned on the edge, and the finger sensor was implemented instead of the right CTRL key. At least this new layout brings back that right CTRL, which I know some will appreciate. They could have swapped the Delete and Power/finger sensor key, though; I’ve seen that trick implemented well on a few other devices.

The keys are backlit, with white LEDs and two brightness levels to choose from (as well as an Auto mode). They’re not very bright, and a fair bit of light spill from underneath the keycaps – but this system works well enough overall.

For the touchpad, Lenovo offers either a standard clickpad with physical top buttons (meant for TrackPoint use), or a haptic touchpad without physical buttons. I have the latter on this review unit, which is made out of matte glass; the regular clickpad is a plastic (Mylar) surface.

This haptic implementation comes with a button area at the top, that can either be enabled or disabled in the settings. If disabled, the entire surface works as a large touchpad for swipes, taps, etc. If enabled, only the lower part underneath the graphical line works as a touchpad, while that top area works as buttons for TrackPoint users. Regardless, if you’re a die-hard TrackPoint user, the classic design with physical buttons is probably the one I’d recommend, although some hardware configurations might just force you into the haptic options – upper-tier variants just come with the haptic touchpad as standard.

Overall, I found this haptic version just fine for general use, and I’d expect most potential buyers to prefer this variant.

I also appreciate how the design leaves enough physical space between the touchpad and the keyboard at the top, and the laptop’s front lip at the bottom. This is a functional approach that minimizes potential ghost touches when using this computer on the lap, an issue I constantly experience on my MacBook Air, which implements an oversized touchpad that spans closer to the front lip. That’s also an issue on the competing ExpertBook Ultra or the XPS 14, for that matter.

For biometrics, there’s both a finger sensor and an IR camera on this laptop. It’s good to have both options.

14-inch display – matte OLED, but IPS options as well

The X1 Carbon is still available with 14-inch 16:10 displays, with either IPS or OLED panels, both in matte anti-glare implementations.

The IPS panel is a more basic option: 1920 x 1200 px resolution, 60 Hx refresh, 500 nits of brightness, 1200:1 contrast, 100% sRGB colors. It’s brighter than the IPS options in previous Carbons, but is still a rather mediocre display for a device of this caliber.

The OLED panel, on the other hand, looks much nicer and is the one we have here, in the non-touch variant. There’s also a touch version available. The standard non-touch is the one I’d get, since it offers excellent viewing angles and none of the screen-door effects caused by the digitizer layer on the touch variants.

To be more precise, this panel is what Lenovo calls the AGARAS (“anti-glare/anti-reflective/anti-smudge) OLED in the non-touch variant. As far as the finishing goes, the anti-glare on this OLED cuts off reflections quite well and makes the laptop usable outdoors in bright light. I’d call this a semi-gloss finish, as it’s not as matte as a traditional IPS matte finish, but is a versatile jack of both worlds – clean looking, and not a reflective mirror.

The panel itself is a newer-gen OLED from Samsung, with 500 nits of SDR brightness. That means it’s not the same OLED implemented on the ExpertBook Ultra, which is an even brighter variant. Otherwise, this is what you’d expect from an OLED: punchy, beautiful, and fast.

Here are the technical specs of this OLED panel:

• Panel HardwareID: Lenovo LEN41F1 (Samsung ATNA40HQ09-0);
• Coverage: 100% sRGB, 92.9% AdobeRGB, 100% DCI-P3;
• Measured gamma: 2.21;
• Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 523.30 cd/m2 on power;
• Min brightness in the middle of the screen: <5 cd/m2 on power;
• Contrast at max brightness: 1:1;
• White point: 6254 K;
• Black on max brightness: 0 cd/m2;
• PWM: Yes (discussed above).

Just make sure you understand the particularities of this OLED tech and use it responsibly with static backgrounds. And be aware of the OLED flickering, which could be a deal-breaker for this panel if you plan on using your laptop at night, at low brightness levels. The IPS panel option doesn’t flicker in any way.

Now, back to the semi-gloss finish, of course there’s a difference between how the content is perceived on the screen indoors or used outside, as shown by this image. But that’s the case with every other screen. The complaints about the contrast and colors looking muted on this screen version are rather exaggerated imo.

As for the general muddiness of this finish on white/light backgrounds and small texts, that’s a particularity you’ll just have to accept with OLED panels. It doesn’t appear different to me than on glossy OLEDs. I’ve added one more image of the Yoga 9i (bottom, glossy) and the ThinkPad X1 (top, matte), and I’m not really seeing a real difference in image quality between the two finishes.

Finally, I’ve added below a few more images of the ThinkPad X1 (semi-gloss OLED, 500 nits), ExpertBook Ultra (semi-gloss OLED, 600 nits), and the Yoga 9i 2-in-1 (glossy OLED, 500 nits), with a window just behind the camera, to better showcase the differences in reflections and perceived content between these when used in stronger light environments.

Both of the semi-gloss finishes do a solid job cutting off reflections, but you’ll still want to look at these straight-on, as there’s a way the finish diffuses light that impacts the perceived contrast and colors. You can use these in stronger light, but the experience is still not without some inconveniences – I do preffer this over having glare and reflections, at least. I’ll also add that there’s a notable difference in whites and how colors look on the ExpertBook Ultra in these conditions; partially due to the OLED getting brighter on the ExpertBook, but could be caused by a difference in the anti-glare layer. For strong light use, the OLED on the ExpertBook would be my first choice, but this one on the ThinkPad is mostly fine as well.

Hardware and performance

Our review model is a mid-specced configuration of the 2026 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Aura Edition, with an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H processor and Intel graphics, 32 GB of LPDDR5-8533 memory, and a 1 TB gen4 SSD.

Disclaimer: This review unit was provided by Lenovo for this article. We tested it with the software available as of late July 2026 (BIOS N4OET51W – 1.14, Vantage 4.2601.31.0, Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8860). This is a mature software package, 3+ months after the series was launched.

Spec-wise, this series is based on Intel’s Panther Lake hardware platform, with Core Ultra Series 3 processors and either Intel Graphics or Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics. Panther Lake is an updated SoC (System on a Chip) architecture for 2026.

The CPU on this review unit is the Core Ultra 7 356H, a hybrid design with 16 Cores (4x Performance, 8x Efficiency, and 4x Low-Power Efficiency) and 16 Threads. These are Intel’s latest-gen Cougar Cove and Darkmont cores, and are designed to balance performance and efficiency in a way not possible with past iterations.

Previously, the X1 Carbon gen13 was built on Intel Lunar Lake 200V hardware, which ran efficiently but didn’t offer much in performance, as well as some later Arrow Lake U variants, which improved on the CPU performance. With the Panther Lake Core Ultra H hardware, the gen14 refresh is significantly faster in sustained CPU loads and offers a 15% boost in IPC.

On the GPU side, however, the Core Ultra 7 356H bundles an entry-tier Intel Graphics iGPU with only 4 Xe GPU cores. That makes it slower than the past Arc chip in the Lunar Lake platform, so this is not meant for any graphics-intensive chores or for gaming.

For that, Lenovo offers the Core Ultra X7 358H configuration (or the X7 368H vPro equivalent), which bundles a similar 16C/16T processor, but adds an Intel Arc B390 iGPU with 12 Xe Cores, the fastest iGPU technology available in this sort of format today. This option isn’t available worldwide, though, and costs a fair bit extra where available.

Furthermore, Lenovo also offers Core Ultra 5 335 and Core Ultra 7 355 variants of this X1 Carbon, which are lesser 8C/8T processors with the basic Intel Graphics 4 Xe cores. In just a few words, the Core Ultra 5 355 and the Ultra 7 355 are identical in what they can do, with minimal speed differences between them. These variants are far more affordable than the other two, but limit the notebook’s sustained performance capabilities, so are primarily an option to consider for lighter casual use and moderate multitasking. Think of these as a follow-up for the past Lunar Lake variants, but with more limited graphics.

The RAM on this notebook is onboard, with 32 GB of LPDDR5X-8533 on this unit. Configurations with 64 GB of RAM LPDDR5X-9600 memory are available as well, but only in some markets, and only paired with the Core X7 hardware.

For storage, there’s an M.2 2280 SSD slot inside the laptop. Our unit comes with a middling gen5 Micron drive, and you can buy the laptop with various amounts and types of storage. Or you can opt to upgrade the drive yourself. Dual-sided SSDs up to gen5 8 TB will work in this unit.

The SSD is the only upgradeable part on this laptop. The components are hidden behind the back panel, which can be easily taken out, as it is held by only four screws, self-retaining and with Philips heads. That hasn’t changed from the previous chassis design, this being one of the easiest laptops to get into.

The image below showcases the more compact mainframe, the larger fans and the full 2280 SSD slot. The unused space at the left is where the 4G/5G module slots in, if opted for.

As far as the software goes, this ThinkPad gets the Lenovo Vantage control app with access to the power profiles, battery and screen settings, updates, etc.

There are three performance/thermal profiles to choose from:

• Best Performance – allows the hardware to run at 65W peak with 30-35W sustained in mixed-use and 45W sustained in taxing CPU loads, while the fans ramp up to ~33-35 dBA;
• Balanced – allows the hardware to run at 65W peak, and then settles at 25W sustained in mixed-use, with the fans ~30-32 dBA;
• Best Power Efficiency – limits the CPU to 12W sustained to favor fan noise <30 dBA.

You can access these modes by hitting the F8 key, or find them in the Vantage App, under Device Settings >> Power.

These power modes are fairly well designed, although they could use a little more tweaking. Raise the dbA limit for Best Performance to around 35 dBA, and make sure the Balanced mode performs reliably, as right now it’s quite effy. For instance, I only got this Balanced mode to work properly by manually disabling Smart Modes and selecting the Working option from the list, and even then it didn’t work as it should with all tasks.

Before we move on, here are a handful of logs with daily use on the existing Best Power Efficiency profile.

Productivity Performance and Benchmarks

On to more demanding loads, we start by testing the CPU’s performance in the Cinebench R15 loop test.

On the Best Performance Profile, the Intel Core Ultra 7 356H processor peaks at around 65W of power for brief seconds, and then stabilizes at 45W, with temperatures in the mid-90s °C, fan levels under 35 dBA, and scores of around 2700 points. That’s with the laptop raised off the desk.

On Balanced, the system doesn’t perform as it should and sets a 12W power limit. It should work somewhere around 25W instead, but as mentioned, the Balanced mode proved quirky on this notebook. At 25W, this processor should return scores of around 2200 points, with temperatures in the low 70s °C, which would be fair results for a mid-level profile at around 30 dBA.

Best Efficiency Mode should be the one settling for the 12W power limit, with fans way under 30 dBA. With these settings, the scores drop to only 1300 points.

Finally, our sample performed excellently on battery power, stabilizing at 45W of power in Performance mode, with similar scores as when plugged in.

All these are illustrated in the graph below.

To put these in perspective, here’s how this Core Ultra 7 356H implementation fares against other hardware platforms available in current and past-generation thin and light laptops.

First, this hardware is much faster than the Core Ultra 258V in the 2025 X1 Carbon or the Core Ultra 155H in the 2024 X1 Carbon.

Then, the Ultra X7 358H at similar power performs about the same, while the Ultra 7 355 is notably slower, both options available for this chassis.

Finally, AMD and Qualcomm offer hardware that can score 10-30% higher in sustained multi-threaded loads. However, that hardware is either not available in formats similar to this ThinkPad, or/and struggles with compatibility with 3rd party software, as is still the case with the Qualcomm platform. So while these hardware options exist in theory, they do not in actual products that potential Carbon buyers could reliably choose instead.

We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and in Blender. We measured similar behavior, power limits, fan noise, and temperatures, with Balanced mode actually working properly in these tests.

We then ran the 3DMark CPU profile test.

Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook, on the Performance profile. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time. This unit passed the test both flat on the desk and raised on a stand, which means the performance is not thermally limited over time.

Benchmark results and performance summary

With that out of the way, let’s get to some benchmarks. We ran our standard set of tests with the laptop on Best Performance mode (30 to 45W sustained TDP) and the screen set at its default 2.8K resolution.

Here’s what we got.

• 3DMark 13 –CPU profile: max – 9706, 16 – 9765, 8 – 6104, 4 – 4048, 2 – 2178, 1 – 1137;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 6601 (Graphics – 7218, Physics – 28706, Combined – 2362);
• 3DMark 13 – Solar Bay: 12062.
• 3DMark 13 – Steel Nomad Light: 2498.
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 3426 (Graphics – 3033, CPU – 12967);
• 3DMark 13 – XeSS: XeSS Off – 6.67 fps, XeSS On – 19.08 fps, 186.1% performance difference.

• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 1647;
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 4607;

• Aida64 Extreme, memory test: 117562 MB/s read, 119279 MB/s write, – MHz latency;
• PCMark 10: 8619 (Essentials – 11126, Productivity – 15015, Digital Content Creation – 10400);
• GeekBench 6.6.0 64-bit: Multi-core: 15571, Single-Core: 2762;
• GeekBench AI 1.7.0 (ONNX, CPU): Single: 4503, Half: 1835, Quantized: 8363;
• CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 2937 cb, CPU Single Core 302 cb;
• CineBench R23: CPU 18151 pts (best run), CPU 16729 pts (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 2030 pts (best run);
• CineBench 2024: CPU 1012 (10 min run), CPU Single Core 119 pts;
• CineBench 2026: CPU multiple threads: 4141 (10 min run), CPU single thread: 497 pts.

And here are some work-related benchmarks, on the same Best Performance profile:

• Blender 5.1.2 – BMW Car scene – CPU Compute: 2m 04s ;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 5m 23s;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute, OneAPI: 2m 17s;

• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax 07: 17.78;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia 06: 15.06;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo 03: 26.11;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy 03: 4.12;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya 06: 79.25;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical 03: 9.61;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX 04: 6.60;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Solidworks 07: 38.36;
• SPECviewperf 15 – 3DSMax 08: 17.87;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Blender 01: 18.88;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Catia 07: 9.90;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Creo 04: 26.97;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Energy 04: 9.39;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Enscape 01: 13.80;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Maya 07: 80.21;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Medical 04: 21.01;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Solidworks 08: 25.02;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Unreal Engine 01: 38.27;
• V-Ray Benchmark: CPU – 12868, CUDA – 346.

This is an interesting mobile platform designed for serious multitasking, quite capable on the CPU and RAM ends, but not that much when it comes to graphics.

This profile tends to set a high TPD limit in heavy CPU multi-threaded tests, close to 45W, but then drops this limit towards 30-35W in mixed-use, most likely in order to keep internal thermals at bay. 30W is still plenty enough power for the Intel Graphics iGPU, and should barely suffice for the Arc B390 as well, something to consider if you’re looking at an X7 358H configuration instead.

The Core Ultra 7 356H offers solid single-core performance and good multi-threaded capabilities. This lightweight X1 Carbon implementation performs within 80% of what a full-power Core Ultra 9 386H can do in something like an ROG Zephyrus G14, and comes at about 90% of a Core Ultra X7 358H at similar power levels.

Sure, alternative platforms from Qualcomm can run faster in multi-threaded loads, but then there’s the matter of software compatibility to consider. And while AMD Strix/Gorgon Point hardware can also run somewhat faster, you’re not really going to find that in similar devices. So all in all, this Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 H hardware in this properly-powered implementation is one of the more competitive daily-drivers and multitaskers available in the ultrabook space today.

On the GPU side, however, the Intel Graphics chip with only 4 Xe cores isn’t much of a performer. It’s slower than the Arc 140T/140V iGPUs implemented in 2024/2025 models, and slower than the Radeon 890M chip on AMD devices. Furthermore, it’s less than half the performance of the Arc B390 bundled with the X7 358H chip on this laptop. So you’re not getting this hardware for graphics-intensive tasks.

The next section explains how this Core Ultra 7 356H implementation compares to the Ultra X7 358H and Ultra 7 355 configurations in overall capabilities.

Panther Lake Core Ultra 7 356H vs. Panther Lake X7 358H, Core Ultra 7 355, others

Here’s a very brief comparison of these results on the Panther Lake Ultra 7 356H implementation versus a few other Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm platforms available in the ultraportable space today.

The results for the X7 358H and the Ultra 7 355 are especially interesting, as those platforms are offered on the X1 Carbon as well, at least in some regions they are. So you can better understand the performance differences between these options on this sort of chassis.

Briefly, the 7 358H platform can deliver ~5-10% higher scores in multi-threaded loads, with minimal gains in IPC. However, the Arc B390 is more than 2x faster in graphics loads, with a similar real impact in actual applications and games. So if you need graphics capabilities in this sort of device, you just have to opt for something with a B390 iGPU in it.

As for Ultra 7 355, that delivers about 60% of the sustained CPU performance offered with the 16C/16T options, and is still a little bit faster than the Lunar Lake Core Ultra 7 258V implemented in the previous-gen X1 Carbon 2025. Hence, the Ultra 5 355 and the Ultra 7 355 configurations are meant for light to medium use, but not ideal for heavier loads.

Balanced Mode – still fast, at around 30 dBA

Balanced mode keeps the fans even quieter and sets a middling power limit of around 25W in sustained loads.

However, I only got this Balanced mode to work properly at times by manually disabling Smart Modes and selecting the Working option from the list. And even this trick didn’t work for all tests and activities. Keeping this setting on Auto or on other options impeded the profile, and imposed a 12W power limit on the hardware. So for the time being, Balanced mode seems to be bugged; something to keep in mind, and something Lenovo will hopefully address with future software updates.

Anyway, here are some benchmark results for this mode (those that worked):

• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 6241 (Graphics – 7166, Physics – 19032, Combined – 2097);
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 3329 (Graphics – 2976, CPU – 10159);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 1612;
• CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 12919 cb, CPU Single Core 2012 cb;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 6m 36s.

Minor differences in the GPU tests, and 20-25% differences on the CPU side in the few tests that actually allowed this Balanced mode to work properly at its 25W power limit.

Gaming Performance

While this ThinkPad X1 Carbon is not a gaming laptop or an iGPU-oriented platform either, we ran a couple of DX11, DX12, and Vulkan games on the Performance profile of this Core Ultra 7 356H configuration, at FHD+ resolution, with Low/Lowest graphics settings. I threw in a few other platforms for comparison.

• Cyberpunk, Horizon, Witcher 3 – recorded with MSI Afterburner in game mode;
• Far Cry, Tomb Raider – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities.

While not nearly as capable as the B390 chip in games, most titles are still playable, even heavier ones once you enable XeSS and Frame Generation where supported. Most results are quite close to what we measured on the Lunar Lake platform last year – the higher CPU power that allows the iGPU to run at full potential here, as well as the updated Xe 3rd generation cores on this Panther Lake iGPU, allow for these fair results here.

Let’s go through some logs.

On Best Performance, the system runs at 30-40W of sustained power between the tested titles, which is still plenty for the iGPU to perform at its maximum potential.

What’s interesting is that the 35-40W limit is maintained while the laptop is raised off the desk, with temperatures just shy of 80 °C at 35W and close to 90 °C at 40+W. The system automatically decides on the target power between titles, although it just doesn’t have to run at 40+W with this iGPU.

Flat on the desk, the internals jump over 80 °C, and then the system gradually drops the allocated power towards 30W, perhaps to keep the thermals at bay. As a result, internals usually don’t go over 80s °C while using the laptop flat on the desk, but that again might vary between games; the sustained power levels are different between the two scenarios.

Gaming on Balanced mode sets a 25W power limit, with temperatures in the mid-60s °C. The performance drops minimally, and the fans run quieter at sub-30 dBA.

Then there’s the Best Power Efficiency mode, which sets a more aggressive 13W limit, with an impact on GPU speeds and general performance. Not a profile meant for gaming or any serious activity.

Finally, the laptop performs well on battery power, on par with the plugged-in mode. Just don’t expect to game for longer than an hour or so.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others

The cooling module on this laptop is rather minimal, with two fans, two heatsinks, and a single heatpipe.

For comparison, this is the cooling module on the previous 13th-gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2025. Smaller fans and heatsinks and a similar single heatpipe.

Despite this, Lenovo can drive 45W of sustained power on this laptop at sub-33 dBA, yet that’s with high internal temperatures in the low 90s °C with sustained multi-threaded CPU loads. That’s toasty! For mixed-use, on the other hand, the system tends to settle at around 35W with temperatures in the low 80s °C, which is a more acceptable sweet spot.

There’s still perhaps room to further bump the fan speeds on the Best Performance mode here, to around 35 dBA, with perhaps a further impact on the internal temperatures.

What I must mention is that these updated fans on the gen14 X1 Carbon no longer experience the same high-pitched hissing as the past fans, and that means they’re perceived as quieter with heavy loads and hardly noticeable at all with general use. Furthermore, these fans idle often with casual use, regardless of the selected power profile or if the device is plugged in or runs on battery power.

Anyway, as far as the noise levels go, we measured up to ~33 dBA on Best Performance at head level, around 30 dBA on Balanced, and sub-30 dBA on Best Power Efficiency modes.

As for thermals, the chassis stays comfortable with general use, with the warmest spot at ~35 °C around the 7,8 keys. This can increase towards 40 °C with heavier, longer-time multitasking, but overall the laptop never felt uncomfortable to the touch or on the lap.

*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Best Power Efficiency Mode, fans at 0 dB

With demanding loads, a similar hotspot that goes into the high 40s and close to 50 °C develops around the same area, at the top of the keyboard.

However, the touchpad and keyboard areas that you’ll usually come in contact with barely warm up past 40s °C, which isn’t bad considering the size of this device and the high internal temperatures. Lenovo were able to properly isolate the internals from the external magnesium chassis.

*Gaming – Best Performance mode – playing Witcher for 30 minutes, fans at ~35 dB

For connectivity, there’s the latest-gen Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 through an Intel BE201 module on this laptop. Everything performed fine during my time with these laptops. An optional 4G or 5G Qualcomm Snapdragon X61 internal module is available as well for this series.

Audio is handled by a set of stereo speakers that fire from the bottom and sides, and not through the keyboard as in the past. They can get quite loud and offer decent audio quality, a slight improvement over the previous X1 Carbon, and fairly close to the better-sounding audio systems available in the 14-inch space. They’re not MacBook Pro like speakers, but they’re close to what direct rivals such as the XPS 14 or the ExpertBook Ultra offer.

The camera, on the other hand, goes up to a 10 MPx shooter with IR, TOF, and a physical shutter. This is one of the better webcams available on a Windows ultrabook today, even in dimmer light, with fair image quality and good sharpness, and a wide viewing angle. Just keep in mind that this 10 MPx camera is an extra option, and the base camera is 5 MPx and still fairly good.

Battery life – excellent runtimes

There’s a 58 Wh battery inside this X1 Carbon Aura Edition, about on par with past X1 Carbon generations and smaller than what other premium 14-inch laptops offer today. Including those around a similar 1kg weight limit, such as the ExpertBook Ultra or the LG Gram.

Here’s what we got in our battery life tests on this configuration with the matte OLED display, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~60% brightness). I’ve also set the Windows 11 power mode to Best Power Efficiency.

• <3 W (~20 h of use) – idle, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 6-7 W (~8-9 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 4-5 W (~13 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 4 W (~15 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 8-10 W (~5-8 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON.

The platform offers excellent efficiency and allows for solid runtimes even with the mid-sized battery. And I expect the Core Ultra 5 325/Ultra 7 355 variants to run even more efficiently.

For comparison, here are my results on the Lunar Lake configuration from last year, equipped with the entry-tier IPS display:

• 5-6 W (~10 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 3.5 W (~15 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 4 W (13+ h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Best Power Efficiency Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 7-9 W (~6-8 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Balanced Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.

These are a little bit better than on the refreshed version with the OLED display, but close.

So all in all, Panther Lake meets the efficiency of Lunar Lake while significantly increasing this notebook’s overall multitasking capabilities. Win Win!

The laptop ships with a 65W USB-C charger. The brick is highly compact, but the dual-piece design with all the cables adds in plenty of bulk. I would have appreciated a more modern design with the plug integrated within the brick and a long detachable cable (and even perhaps two USB-C ports). As it is, this charger design isn’t quite up to par with the general feel of this laptop.

Price and availability- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Aura Edition gen14 is available across the world at the time of this article. However, not all options are available everywhere, and since this is a premium business model, you might not be able to find it through the standard retail shops in some regions, so you should ask the specialized shops or go straight to Lenovo’s website, where available.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area.

For the US, for instance, the X1 Carbon is only offered in the lower-tier Core Ultra 5 325 and Ultra 7 355 specs, with up to 32 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage. These start at around $2200, but pricing adds up quickly once you check 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage; that’s without accounting for any special/timely discounts, which Lenovo throw in often once their lineups are a few months old.

Over here in Europe, the base model starts at around 2300 EUR, but all the other options are available as well, including the Core Ultra 7 356H model tested here and the top Core Ultra X7 358H configurations. The 356H/32GB/1TB variant is listed at a little under 3000 EUR, while the 358H/64 GB/1TB goes north of 3500 EUR.

Regardless of your option, I’d surely go with one of the OLED display options; they’re all matte and beautiful and merely cost pennies more than the base unappealing IPS.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area.

Final thoughts- ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen 14, Aura Edition

There are many reasons why the X1 Carbon is such a beloved lineup in the premium ultraportable notebook space, and this generation actually takes its versatility even further.

Ergonomics, practicality, and configurability are what mostly set these Carbons apart from everything else out there. And that’s on top of the design language and general feel of ThinkPads, which I personally am a big fan of.

Compared to the Carbons of later years, this 2026 gen14 variant brings a change in internal design, with a chassis that focuses on serviceability and reparability, but without sacrificing anything in return. This notebook still looks and feels as a Carbon, still weighs about 1 kilo, still offers plenty of ports and excellent inputs, and still comes in a multitude of configurations, both when it comes to the hardware platform and the display options – no other lineup offers three different types of Panther Lake hardware, based on your performance needs and your budget, and either IPS or OLED display options, albeit the IPS panel isn’t that enticing.

Of course, all these don’t come cheap. The X1 Carbon has always been the flagship ThinkPad, and that’s especially the case today, with the crazy pricing of RAM/SSD pushing notebooks to insane levels.

And then, this series is not without rivals, with premium options such as the Asus ExpertBook Ultra or the HP EliteBook X, as well as the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 and perhaps the MacBook Air 13 if you’re OK with something a little heavier and different. They all have their own advantages and quirks, but all things considered and as long as within your budget, the X1 Carbon is so darn perfect in nearly every way.

This wraps up my time with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen14, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and impressions on this generation further down in the comments section.

The article Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon review (gen 14 2026, Panther Lake Core Ultra, matte OLED) appeared first on .

This is a newer model in the Legion lineup for 2026, as more compact and lighter-weight than the other options, while still offering the premium build, design, and ergonomics expected from a 7-series device, which includes Lenovo’s higher-tier notebooks.

The 7a moniker means this is built on an AMD Ryzen hardware platform, alongside Nvidia RTX 5000 graphics. Thus, this Legion 7a aims to be a competitive all-purpose jack-of-all-trades, with mid-level performance in demanding loads, but snappy capabilities for daily use, as well as better efficiency than other Legions built on more powerful Intel HX and Ryzen HX platforms.

Furthermore, this is also Lenovo’s most affordable 7-series Legion at this point. Follow this link for updated configurations and prices on the Legion 7a in your region at the time you’re reading the article.

I’ve used this laptop for a while and gathered my thoughts and impressions in the review below, where I’m also comparing it to the larger, more powerful Legion variants, as well as similar premium portable options offered by Lenovo in the Yoga series (the Yoga Pro 7i and Pro 9i), as well as those offered by the competition.

Specifications as reviewed – Lenovo Legion 7a multimedia laptop

Design and construction

This Legion 7a is one of my favorite chassis available in this niche of premium and portable all-purpose laptops with a full-size 16-inch display, where devices such as the MacBook Pro 16, Asus Zephyrus G16 and ProArt P16, Razer Blade 16, or the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i compete, to name just some of the popular ones that come to mind. Ergonomics are what mostly set this apart from the other options, as you’ll see in a bit.

The build quality is solid overall, with a sturdy metal main chassis and a sturdy lid. The underbelly, however, is a thinner sheet of metal and creaks sometimes when grabbing the laptop.

All the aluminum parts are softly coated, feel very nice to the touch, and hardly show any smudges or finger oil on this color. They do show dirt, though, and I’d expect that micro-grill under the display to gather dust and dirt over time and end up rather difficult to clean.

Now, in theory, you can get this Legion 7a series in either white or dark blue, but mostly this Glacier White variant is available in stores. That further adds to the uniqueness of this series, but at the same time limits its appeal for potential buyers who would rather not buy a white computer. Ideally, both color options should be more widely available.

The design is somewhat hit and miss for me, with a clean interior (once you peel off those stickers at the right), but not my favorite lid with that big dark-chromed LEGION writing in the middle that stands out too bluntly on this white variant – a more subtle logo in a corner would look nicer. There’s no RGB of any kind, and when it comes to its overall size, this 7a model is more compact, thinner, and lighter than the other Legions, including the Legion 7i. It’s slimmer and lighter than the mid-tier Legion 5a model as well.

The sides are still the brushed bare-aluminum finish previously seen on the Legion 7i, but the actual edges are slightly dulled now and made from the same softer white finish used for the main chassis and the lid. That makes them more comfortable on the wrists than on the Legion 7i. Just keep in mind that this white coating is painted aluminum nonetheless, so you’ll want to treat the laptop as nicely as possible to prevent chips and scratches, especially around the corners and edges.

Now, about the ergonomics, I already mentioned the sturdy and nice metal materials, and I’ll add the roomy interior and the friendly blunted edges and corners all around. The hinges add to the overall premium experience; they’re soft and easy to operate with a single hand, and allow opening the display all the way flat to 180 degrees. However, I would say they’re a little weak past a given point, which means the screen can move out of place if you pick up the laptop and move it around with the display open. But they’re still at an acceptable level overall.

One thing that must be mentioned and bothers me on all Legions is the always-on lit power button placed in the top-middle part of the chassis, under the display, styled as the Legion O logo. This lights in various colors based on use mode and power profile, but still cannot be switched off entirely (or I couldn’t find the way to do it? Please let me know if they’ve added a way that you know of), which annoys me when using the notebook at night or watching a movie in the dark.

As for the IO, that’s lined on the back and on the edges. I appreciate how the power plug and the HDMI ports are behind the screen, and the fact that every type of needed port is offered here, including USB-C 4.0 ports and a full-size SD card reader. Having a USB-C on either side or one at the back would be a welcome addition, but even this aspect is not that important on this sort of device, since you’ll most likely not charge via USB-C most of the time.

Finally, I’ll just leave you with some images of the Nubula color option as well, just to better understand what to expect from that color.

Keyboard, touchpad

The keyboard on the Legion 7a is the standard Legion design seen over the last few years, with a main deck of keys and a smaller NumPad section to the left, which shifts the typing position and the touchpad to the left of the chassis. I rather prefer centered keyboard layouts without a NumPad, but I know many of you favor this sort of layout.

Another mostly unique particularity of these Legion keyboards is the full-size and well-spaced arrow keys.

Now, this keyboard types well. The keys have a smooth matte finish, with a small dash in them and 1.6 mm of stroke depth. The feedback is right, and overall I expect most of you to get along fine with this implementation. For me, it didn’t quite type as fast or accurately as others I’ve used over the years, but I can’t tell for sure why; everything seemed fine about the user experience. I did find this a little noisy, though.

The keys are RGB backlit, with 24-zones to choose from. Few color options offer any sort of contrast on white keys; that’s why I prefer having the lights disabled completely during the day, and only activate them when needed at night. There doesn’t seem to be an actual Auto mode with a light sensor, and a fair bit of light creeps out from underneath the keycaps.

The touchpad is PTP (smooth plastic), not glass, but feels right to the touch and proved reliable with general use. I also appreciate how Lenovo kept the design standard, offering a regular clickpad of average size, with generous borders on the top and bottom, which ensures ghost touches or fake clicks are never an issue, not even when using the laptop on the lap. I preffer this function over design approach.

Finally, as far as biometrics go, the camera at the top supports IR, and there’s no finger sensor.

16-inch modern OLED display, non-touch

The display on this Legion 7a is a 16-inch 16:10 OLED in a non-touch glossy implementation.

This is a recent-gen Samsung OLED panel, with 500 nits of sustained brightness and up to 1000 nits peak HDR brightness. That aside, contrast and blacks are the standards expected from OLEDs, and the fast refresh rate of 240Hz and quick response times of under 1ms make this a solid choice for watching movies and playing games.

The fact that this is non-touch is important, as texts and light colors look clean and smooth, unlike on most touch variants. At the same time, there’s no protective glass over the panel, like on touchscreens, but the finish is still reflective.

Here’s what we got in our tests, with an X-Rite i1 Display Pro sensor:

• Panel HardwareID: Samsung SDC421B (ATNA60HU02-0);
• Coverage: 100% sRGB, 94.6% Adobe RGB, 100% DCI-P3;
• Type: 2.5K 2560 x 1600 px, 10-bit, 240Hz;
• Measured gamma: 2.15;
• Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 497.24 cd/m2 on power;
• Min brightness in the middle of the screen: <10 cd/m2 on power;
• Contrast at max brightness: 1:1;
• White point: 6380 K;
• Black on max brightness: 0 cd/m2;
• PWM: Yes, to be discussed.

Overall, this is a solid modern OLED. Just keep in mind that it’s still a reflective finish, and it suffers from the standard OLED flickering that comes with the technology, at brightness levels other than 100%. However, this panel flickers at a high frequency of around 1.5 GHz; thus, this detail it shouldn’t concern most of you.

Hardware and performance

Our test model is a mid-specced configuration of the 2026 Lenovo Legion 7a gen11, code name 16AGP11, with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 8GB dGPU, 32 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 memory, and 1 TB of fast SSD storage.

Disclaimer: This is a retail unit provided by Lenovo for this review. It was tested on the software available as of mid-August 2026 (BIOS TPCN27WW, Legion Space 1.10.11.6, Nvidia Studio Driver 610.88). This is mature software, so little can change with later software updates.

Spec-wise, the 2026 Legion 7a is built on the latest AMD and Nvidia mobile hardware available to date.

The Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 is the highest-tier AMD Gorgon Point SKU for this year. It’s a hybrid design with 4x Zen5 Performance and 8x Zen5c Efficiency Cores, and runs at 80-90W of sustained power in this chassis, which is enough to ensure you’re getting the best this platform is capable of.

At the same time, Gorgon Point is only a minimal refresh of the existing Strix Point platform, thus more or less 2024 AMD tech rebadged under a new name. It’s still a fair performer for this more portable lightweight format, but its efficiency is not competitive against the Intel Panther Lake options of this generation. That means higher thermals under load and shorter battery runtimes, as you’ll see in a bit.

For the GPU, this 2026 Legion 7a series is only offered with a mid-powered mid-range Nvidia Blackwell GeForce RTX 5060 8GB (115W). The design includes a MUX and either regular Optimus or Advanced Optimus.

Lenovo’s spec sheet mentions an RTX 5070 12GB GPU option available for this series as well, but I’m not seeing that in stores anywhere at the time of this review.

The series comes with onboard LPDDR5x memory, either 32 or 64 GB. Our unit is the 32 GB variant, which is what you’ll mostly find in stores anyway.

For storage, there are two M.2 SSD slots, both gen4. One supports smaller 2242 drives on a PCIe 4.0 x4 connection, while the other supports full-size 2280 SSDs, but only on an x2 connection. Our unit bundles a fast 1 TB SSD, from a proprietary brand called UMIS.

The SSDs and the WiFi module are M.2 formats, upgradable. To get inside, you need to remove the back panel, held in place by a handful of screws. They’re of different sizes, so make sure you put them back the right way. Inside, you’ll notice the small main SSD format and the pretty measly speakers, with plenty of unused space around them. There’s also unused space at the front, around the battery.

This laptop bundles Lenovo’s updated Legion Space control software, offered with Legions since 2025. It’s still not the most intuitive piece of software, but it gets things done once you figure it out. The available power profiles are standard for a Legion: Quiet, Balance, Performance, and Custom, with the latter offering various settings for the CPU/GPU and fan control.

Anyway, here are the power limits and targeted fan noise levels for each of the default profiles:

These are standard settings for recent Legions, and they’re all fairly versatile for a device of this format. Balance mode is perhaps a bit aggressive on the settings and noise floor for a mid-level profile.

Before we jump to the performance section, here’s how this laptop handles everyday use and multitasking on the Quiet profiles, unplugged.

Performance and benchmarks – AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 + Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060

On to more demanding loads, we start by testing the CPU’s performance by running the Cinebench R15 test for 15+ times in a loop. For consistency with other reviews, we keep the laptop raised on a stand.

Here’s what we got:

• Performance mode – scores of 3200 points, 45-46 dBA fan noise, 85-90W sustained TDP, power limited at 100 °C;
• Performance mode with the laptop flat on the desk – slightly lower scores as the TDP is thermally limited to around 80 W;
• Balance mode – similar scores of 3200 points, 38 dBA fan noise, 80W TDP, internal temperatures around 95 °C (no thermal throttling);
• Quiet mode – scores of 2850 points, ,30 dbA fan noise, 45W TDP, internal temperatures around 65-70 °C;
• Balance mode on PD – scores of 2950 points, 35 dBA fan noise, 50W TDP, internal temperatures around 65 °C;
• Balance mode on battery power – scores of 2800 points, <30 dbA fan noise, 45W TDP, internal temperatures around 65-70 °C.

The differences in performance are limited, within only 15% between all these modes. This AMD Ryzen AI 9 platform already delivers 90% of its potential at 50-60W TDPs. Above that, the CPU heats up a fair bit, and at 80+ W runs at over 90 °C in this chassis.

To put these findings in perspective, here’s how this AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 implementation fares in this test against other mobile platforms offered in similar devices.

This performs mostly similarly to the previous-gen Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 platform, which was to be expected, since the 470 is merely a minor refresh of the 370. It also scores about on par with the Panther Lake Core Ultra 9 386H, which is what most 2026 rival models are built on – but that platform has its advantage in efficiency, as we’ll discuss further down. Nonetheless, both require serious cooling at higher power levels over 75W TDP.

Furthermore, this Ryzen 9 470 ends up about 20% faster than the mainstream Ryzen AI 7 450 platform offered on the entry-tier configurations of this Legion 7a, as well as other mid-tier products such as the Legion 5a.

At the same time, the Intel Core HX hardware in the Legion 7i and the full-size Legion Pro notebooks is still 50% faster in this sort of CPU multi-threaded load. So if you need a powerful CPU for sustained loads, get that one instead.

We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and Blender – Classroom, which resulted in slightly lower sustained power levels: almost 90W+ sustained for Custom with max fans, thermally limited, 85W sustained on Performance, 65W sustained on Balance, and 45W sustained on Quiet.

We also ran the 3DMark CPU test on the Performance and Quiet profiles.

Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time. This unit fails the test both when kept flat on the desk and, surprisingly, when raised up on a stand, which means the performance is somewhat impacted when the heat builds up inside the chassis. More on that in the gaming section down below.

Next, we ran the entire suite of tests and benchmarks on the Performance profile with the GPU set on Hybrid mode and running on Nvidia Studio Drivers, and with the screen set at the native 2560 x 1600 px resolution. The laptop is placed on a stand for the best cooling performance and consistency with other reviews.

Here’s what we got:

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 10755, 16 – 10109, 8 – 7317, 4 – 4537, 2 – 2352, 1– 1189;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 27383 (Graphics – 31076, Physics – 31587, Combined – 11922);
• 3DMark 13 – Port Royal: 7307;
• 3DMark 13 – Speed Way: 2795;
• 3DMark 13 – Steel Nomad: 2605;
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 11188  (Graphics – 11499, CPU – 9705);
• 3DMark 13 – DLSS: DLSS Off – 15.51 fps, DLSS On – 64.91 fps, 418% performance difference.

• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 6518;
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 19403;

• Aida64 Extreme, memory test – ;
• PCMark 10: 9205 (Essentials – 10699, Productivity – 16020, Digital Content Creation – 12349);
• GeekBench 6.6.0: Multi-core: 15671, Single-Core: 2952;
• GeekBench AI 1.7.0 (ONNX, CPU): Single: 3744, Half: 1833, Quantized: 7432;
• CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 3450 cb, CPU Single Core 317 cb;
• CineBench R23: CPU 24113 pts (best run), CPU 23974 pts (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 2059 pts (best run);
• CineBench 2024: CPU 1237 (10 min run), CPU Single Core 119 pts;
• CineBench 2026: GPU – – pts, CPU Multiple Threads – 5031 pts, CPU Single Core – 644 pts, CPU Single Thread – 482 pts.

And some work-related tests, on the same Performance profile.

• Blender 5.1.2 – BMW Car scene- CPU Compute: 1m 39s ;
• Blender 5.1.2 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 20.84s (CUDA), 9.13 (Optix);
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 3m 45s;
• Blender 5.1.2 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 43.26s (CUDA), 20.21 (Optix);

• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax 07: 106.98;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia 06: 70.63;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo 03: 108.67;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy: 38.50;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya 06: 406.04;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical 03: 37.65;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX 04: 23.81;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SW 07: 256.60.

• SPECviewperf 15 – 3DSMax 08: 31.10;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Blender 01: 54.18;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Catia 07: 45.46;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Creo 04: -;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Energy 04: 38.35;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Enscape 01: 37.26;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Maya 07: -;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Medical 04: 37.58;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Solidworks 08: 21.85;
• SPECviewperf 15 – Unreal Engine 01: 69.66;
• V-Ray Benchmark: CPU – 14790, CUDA – 1592, RTX –  2476.

Overall, this is a competitive mid-tier performer.

On the CPU end, this Ryzen 9 Gorgon Point hardware trails the Intel Panther Lake options by about 5% in IPC and single-core performance, but outmatches them in sustained multi-threaded loads by about 10%. That’s also partly because the CPU runs at a higher sustained TDP here than the Intel part does in most rivals (85-90W for the AMD hardware here vs. 70-75W in the Intel models). At around 70W, the platforms would perform neck and neck.

At the same time, this Ryzen hardware doesn’t outperform previous-gen AMD or Intel specs in any major way. So you’re getting similar overall capabilities to 2024-2025 platforms.

As for the Intel Core HX platform that powers the Lenovo Legion 7i series, that’s 50% faster in CPU multi-threaded chores, so definitely the better option for this sort of demanding activities. But that hardware doesn’t run as efficiently on battery power.

Finally, we need to discuss the AMD Ryzen AI 7 450 CPU option that’s also offered on this series, for about 100-200 USD/EUR less than the 470. That comes with 4x Zen5 and 4x Zen5c cores, while the 470 gets four extra Zen5c cores. For general use and multitasking, there’s hardly any noticeable difference between the two, while in sustained CPU loads, sure, the 470 ends up performing about 20% faster. If that’s important to you, then sure, get the 470 configuration; for most buyers, though, the 450 variant is going to be plenty enough.

On the GPU side, this series is only offered with a mid-tier RTX 5060 GPU, which is a fine performer overall for multitasking, most workloads, and even most games (with DLSS and FG). However, this GPU can be limiting for some of you, especially since it comes with only 8 GB of vRAM. As a result, the slightly lower-power RTX 5070 12GB chip offered in the Yoga Pro 7i/9i 2026 models is a more versatile offer overall.

Furthermore, the 5070Tis bundled with competing options from other brands are 25-40% more capable, while the RTX 5080 configurations are 50-70% faster.

Custom Mode – max power, 52+ dBA noise

Custom mode allows for a multitude of CPU/GPU power customizations and fan settings.

I maxed out the CPU and GPU settings, set the fans to their max RPMs, and placed the laptop on a stand to improve airflow into the fans and underneath the chassis. At max, the fan noise reaches 52 dBA at head level, much louder than in Performance mode.

Here’s what we got.

• 3DMark 13 –CPU profile: max – 10389, 16 – 9450, 8 – 7090, 4 – 4535, 2 – 2361, 1 – 1197;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 26939  (Graphics – 31474, Physics – 31081, Combined – 11813);
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 11444 (Graphics – 11659, CPU – 10364);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 6516;
• CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 23848 cb, CPU Single Core 2064 cb;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 3m 43s.

These results are on par with Performance mode, as the CPU and GPU already run at sufficient power levels on that profile. These settings don’t make any sense here.

Balance Mode – low power, 38 dBA noise

Balance mode is the mid-level profile that keeps fan noise low at only ~38 dBA, with a slight impact on power levels and general performance.

Here’s what we got in this case:

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 10290, 16 – 9381, 8 – 6990, 4 – 4508, 2 – 2303, 1 – 1187;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 24856 (Graphics – 27979, Physics – 30664, Combined – 11719);
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 10106  (Graphics – 10053, CPU – 10418);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 5470;
• CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 22567 cb, CPU Single Core 2060 cb;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 3m 48s.
• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 100.90;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 66.36;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 388.10;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 23.09;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 240.13.

On the CPU side, we’re still looking at about 95-98% of what’s possible in Performance mode, even in Blender. On the GPU side, the 5060 capped at 75W still scores about 85-90% of Performance mode.

Furthermore, despite the much quieter fan noise, thermals are lower overall in this mode, generally in the mid-70s °C. So a highly competitive mid-level profile overall, even though I still think Lenovo could push the noise floor towards 40 dBA for even slightly better thermals.

Quiet Mode – lower power,  sub 35 dBA noise

Quiet mode limits the CPU/GPU power even more to keep noise levels at sub-30 dBA and temperatures still in check.

Here’s what we got:

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 9074, 16 – 7552, 8 – 4536, 4 – 2675, 2 – 1480, 1 – 787;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 21554 (Graphics – 24753, Physics – 26034, Combined – 9678);
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 8830 (Graphics – 8730, CPU – 9449);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 4911;
• CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 19125 cb, CPU Single Core 1352 cb;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 4m 15s.

The CPU performs at about 80-85% of its max capacity in multi-threaded loads, but only at about 60% in single-core IPC, which is rather weird; the GPU runs at about 75% of what it can do in Performance mode – overall fair results for this sort of profile. Thermals are even better than in Balance mode, in the low to mid-60s °C.

Balance Mode on PD power

I tested this laptop on USB-C power delivery with a 100W ROG PD charger. I don’t have a Legion PD charger to test if that would change things in any way.

Here’s what we got in terms of benchmark results on Balance mode on USB-C PD power:

• 3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 8764, 16 – 8370, 8 – 6438, 4 – 4195, 2 – 2257, 1 – 1170;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 19396 (Graphics – 20783, Physics – 28235, Combined – 9846);
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 7550 (Graphics – 7293, CPU – 9438);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 4115;
• CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 20466 cb, CPU Single Core 2036 cb;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 4m 01s.
• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 77.24;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 51.35;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 305.84;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 22.93;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 177.68.

Decent results on the CPU, but rather limited on the GPU, lower than on Quiet with the main charger plugged in – I wouldn’t necessarily use the laptop on PD charging for any sustained loads more than occasionally, especially as it seems to pull energy out of the battery as well, and that can affect the battery long-term.

For general use and multitasking, though, this use case makes perfect sense, especially if you don’t want to lug around the bulky main charger for your commutes or travels.

Gaming performance – Gorgon Point Ryzen AI 9 + GeForce RTX 5060

With benchmarks out of the way, let’s see how this Legion 7a handles modern games.

We tested a couple of different games on the various available profiles at the native QHD+ (2560 x 1600 px) resolution, with the Nvidia GPU set on dGPU mode and running on Nvidia Studio drivers. For consistency with other reviews, the laptop is raised off the desk.

Here are the results:

• Black Myth, Cyberpunk, Horizon FW – recorded with MSI Afterburner fps counter in campaign mode;
• Far Cry 6, Red Dead Redemption 2, Tomb Raider – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities;
• Red Dead Redemption 2 Optimized profile based on these settings.

Fair results overall, with most games playable even at 2.5K resolution and Ultra settings. DLSS with FG makes a big difference where available, of course.

Just keep in mind that the RTX 5060 only comes with 8 GB of vRAM, and that can be a limiting factor in some recent AAA titles. If your framerates are far worse than expected, make sure the settings are not exceeding the memory limits, and drop the graphics details until the experience becomes consistent.

For what it’s worth, the Core Ultra 7 275HX + RTX 5070 115W configuration of the Legion 7i outscores this model by about 10-15% in the tested games, while the Core Ultra 9 386H + RTX 5060 100W configuration in the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i scored 10-20% lower somehow (that doesn’t include a MUX). At the same time, the Core Ultra 9 386H + RTX 5070Ti configuration in the ROG Zephyrus G14 delivers 25-30% higher frame rates on average.

With that out of the way, let’s go through some CPU/GPU logs.

First, here’s the laptop on Performance mode, raised off the desk.

We measured internal CPU/GPU temperatures in the mid to high-70s °C, with fan noise levels of 45 dBA at head-level. The GPU generally runs at around 95W TGP between the tested titles, a little lower than expected or than tested on the Legion 5a model (which averages 105W TGP for this profile).

Keeping the laptop flat on the desk doesn’t change the performance in any notable way, but it does lead to the hardware and chassis running hotter. We measured closer to 78-80 °C on the CPU/GPU in this use case, so I’d keep the laptop raised off or on a stand as much as possible.

As for the Custom mode, this allows for higher GPU TGP at closer to 110-115W, with fan noise levels of 52 dBA at max. Thermals are still measured in the mid to high 70s °C with these settings, and the overall frame rates are only marginally higher than on Performance mode, within 5-7%. Not a mode I’d use here.

Balance and Quiet modes, on the other hand, are very interesting options.

Balance mode keeps fan noise under 38 dBA with CPU/GPU temperatures in the lower to mid 70s °C, while the delivered frame rates are still fine, at about 80-90% of Performance mode.

Quiet mode keeps the noise floor under 30 dBA, with even lower CPU/GPU temperatures in the 60s °C, with frame rates at about 70% of Performance mode.

I’d consider both these modes for playing casual games on this Legion 7a, even over the noisier Performance profile.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others

The cooling module on this Legion 7a is rather simple, with two fans, two average-sized heatsinks, and three heat pipes.

For comparison, the cooling in the Legion 7i is somewhat beefier, with larger heatsinks and thicker fans; that’s because the 7i is a larger and thicker chassis and needs to cope with a more power-hungry Intel Core HX platform.

This module works fine and allows for solid performance out of this AMD platform, with fair internal temperatures in mixed use, as long as you keep this laptop raised off the desk with sustained taxing loads. We’re generally looking at internal temperatures in the mid-70s °C for sustained mixed use. Flat on the desk, the fan intake gets choked, and the internal temperatures rise by about 5 °C.

I’ll also mention that sustained CPU loads where more than 80W of TDP power is pushed into the CPU can be a limiting scenario here, causing the AMD hardware to run hot and even throttle around the 100 °C mark. However, if you’re looking for a laptop that delivers solid performance in this sort of scenario, perhaps a Ryzen AI 9 shouldn’t be the one to get anyway.

As far as the noise levels go, expect 52 dBA on Custom mode, 45 dBA on Performance, 38 dBA on Auto, and sub-30 dBA on Quiet.

With daily use, the fans rarely idle, regardless of power profile or whether the laptop is plugged in or unplugged. They do shut off eventually with light use on battery power. At the same time, these fans spin slowly and inaudibly in a normal environment, and there are no annoying speed fluctuations with multitasking. I also haven’t noticed coil whine or other sorts of electronic noises on my unit. Overall, the fans are unnoticeable, unless you keep the laptop in a perfectly quiet room.

External temperatures are excellent overall, with most surfaces keeping under 30 °C.

*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Quiet Mode, fans at <30 dB

With demanding loads, most of the chassis still stays comfortable when using the laptop in Performance mode and raised off the desk, with the middle of the keyboard hitting low-40s °C, while the sides and armrest average in the mid-30s °C. A much warmer hotspot develops at the top of the keyboard, though, just next to the power button.

Keeping the laptop flat on the desk leads to somewhat higher thermals, by a few degrees.

As for the other profiles, both Balance and Quiet mode run slightly cooler all over the chassis.

Overall, these are fair thermals for a thinner design with this sort of hardware, even with the hotspot at the top and bottom.

*Gaming – Balance mode – playing Cyberpunk for 30 minutes, fans at ~38 dB
*Gaming – Performance mode – playing Cyberpunk for 30 minutes, fans at ~45 dB

For connectivity, there’s the latest-gen Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 through a Realtek module on this laptop. Everything performed fine in my time with this laptop.

Audio is suposedly handled by a set of four speakers; the specs mention separate woofers and tweeters, but I’m only seeing a pair of rather small speakers inside (they’re perhaps dual-sided speakers). The sound comes out through the bottom, and while these can get averagely loud at about 80 dBA, the quality is mediocre, with limited bass. Audio quality is the most noticeable weakness of this series. Overall, these speakers are a little louder than on the Legion 7i model, but the sound is mostly similar and subpar for a multimedia laptop in 2026.

Finally, there’s a 5MPx camera placed at the top of the screen, flanked by microphones. It’s the same one implemented in other Legions and Yogas, a wide-angle camera that provides fine images in good light, and decent images in dimmer conditions. Comes with a camera kill-switch on the laptop’s right edge, and offers IR with support for Windows Hello.

Battery life

There’s an 84 Wh battery inside this Lenovo Legion 7a, which is a little smaller than what the competition offers in this space.

Here’s what we got in our battery life tests, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~50% brightness) and the default 60Hz refresh rate (switches to 60Hz automatically when unplugged). I’ve also set the Windows 11 power mode to Best Power Efficiency.

• 7 W (~12 h of use) – idle, Quiet Mode, screen at 0%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 10-12 W (~6-8 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 9 W (~9-10 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 9 W (~9-10 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 12-20 W (~4-7 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 90 W (<1 h of use) – Gaming  – Cyberpunk, Balance Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.

Decent runtimes all things considered, although this is the least efficient platform of this generation, in the higher-performance mobile space. Furthermore, anything related to the browser was quite heavy on efficiency here, with serious variations in power draw between tabs and apps, even with light use such as editing texts in Google Drive. That means mileage with general use can vary greatly, from only 4 hours and up to 8 hours on a charge.

For comparison, here’s what we got on the Legion 7i on the Intel Arrow Lake Core HX platform.

• 15-18 W (~5-6 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 18-20 W (~4-5 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 14-16 W (~5-6 h of use) – 4K Netflix with Dolby Vision, fullscreen in Edge, Quiet Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 18-22 W (~4-5 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Balance Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.

Shorter runtimes across the board, and especially with video streaming.

At the same time, here’s the Yoga 9i Pro on the Panther Lake platform and with the Tandem OLED display; this runs significantly more efficiently.

• 8-10 W (~9-10 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Battery Saver Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 7-7.5 W (~12-13 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Battery Saver Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 6.5-7 W (~13-14 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Battery Saver Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 10-12 W (~8-9 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Adaptive Mode, screen at 40%, Wi-Fi ON.

This series ships with a 245W charger, a pretty bulky charger for a laptop of this kind.

USB-C charging is supported as well, and is an option worth considering for regular use and multitasking, but not for heavier workloads or games.

Price and availability – Lenovo Legion 7a series

At the time of this article, the Lenovo Legion 7a series is widely available in most markets. You’ll mostly find it in the White variant, though the Nebula dark-blue color is available as well in some markets, especially directly on Lenovo’s own websites.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area.

The exact model tested here, the Legion 7a with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 processor, 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD, and the RTX 5060 GPU specs, goes for 2399 USD in the US, 2200-2350 EUR in Europe, and 2200 GBP in the UK. These are fairly competitive prices in all markets for 2026 standards, and don’t account for any occasional sales or discounts that can shave a few hundred off the retail price.

At the same time, a configuration built on the AMD Ryzen AI 7 450 processor is available as well, generally for 100-200 USD/EUR/GBP less. That’s a fine option for general use and multitasking, and generally the one I’d recommend for most buyers anyway. It is ~20% slower under sustained loads than the Ryzen 9 470, but I don’t expect you’re buying this Legion 7a for its sustained CPU performance capabilities anyway. No other important variations are offered, so no higher-tier GPU options of any kind.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area, at the time you’re reading this article.

Final thoughts- 2026 Lenovo Legion 7a review

This Lenovo Legion 7a is overall a competitive lightweight all-purpose laptop. It’s built well, functional and ergonomic, offers proper inputs and IO, and a beautiful modern-gen OLED display.

Internally, it’s built on an AMD Ryzen platform with mid-range Nvidia RTX graphics, alongside fast memory and a fast SSD, and these specs will suffice for most general use, serious multitasking, as well as most work/school/gaming requirements. Of course, there are faster options out there, both for the CPU and especially for graphics capabilities, but those are generally larger and heavier formats, and surely much more expensive.

In fact, this Legion 7a is more affordable than pretty much any 2026-generation alternative, as you’ll see in a bit. But first, I must touch on the three potential issues that you’ll have to accept with this series: it mostly comes in the white variant in most regions, the speakers provide poor sound quality, and the efficiency on battery power offered by this AMD platform is not on par with the devices built on Intel Panther Lake hardware.

At the same time, though, most of the competing Panther Lake options are higher-tier and higher-priced options bundled with more powerful 5070Ti/5080/5090 GPUs, starting at well over 3K USD/EUR. And even those few 5060 models are generally more expensive than this Legion, such as the Yoga Pro 9i or the Pro 7i we’ve tested recently.

From what I’m seeing, the only somewhat similar option you could consider instead is the base-level Razer Blade 16, but even that is more expensive than this Legion outside of the US, and only comes with a Ryzen AI 9 365 CPU. And then there’s the even more affordable Lenovo Legion 5a model, as well, but that’s not quite as compact or lightweight or premium-feeling. We’ll have a separate article comparing the Legion 7a and 5a options in due time. Finally, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i is another potential alternative, a more standard design in a more compact premium chassis, more efficient than the Legions, but at the same time not quite as capable in graphics loads due to implementing a lower-powered RTX chip.

So all in all, this Lenovo Legion 7a is arguably the most competitive device of its kind, a premium lightweight 16-inch jack-of-all-trades laptop for the average user. Too bad Lenovo didn’t put more effort into better audio here; there’s plenty of room inside that chassis for more capable speakers, and it would have made a notable difference on this sort of device.

Anyway, this wraps up my time with the Lenovo Legion 7a. Looking for your questions, thougths and feedback in the comments section below.

The article Lenovo Legion 7a review (2026 gen11, AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, RTX 5060) appeared first on .

This remains Asus highest-tier series of consumer thin-and-light laptops. What we have here is the more compact 14-inch variation, as it’s also offered in a 16-inch variant, the Zenbook S16. In fact, the 2026 update of this Zenbook S14 is mostly a refinement of the existing S14 chassis, with a lid redesign, an updated OLED display, as well as more powerful Panther Lake hardware, tweaked cooling and power settings, and a slightly larger battery.

Overall, these changes enhance an already exciting product, making it both more versatile for daily use and more capable in sustained work/school loads that benefit from a 50% faster processor. However, this generation comes with a higher price premium than in the past over a more standard portable notebook such as a Zenbook 14 (tested here in the AMD variant), and its ultra-slim format still inherits a few practical compromises that can be difficult to accept at this level, all things considered.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations on this Asus Zenbook S14 premium lineup, at the time you’re reading this article. Buying from our links earns us a small commission and helps support our work. Thank you!

I’ve used this laptop for a few months this year and have gathered my thoughts and impressions below in the article.

Specifications – Asus Zenbook S14 OLED UX5406AA

Design, build quality, ergonomics

Asus put their effort into creating an ultra-slim and lightweight premium notebook with this series.

The result was an exquisite premium design with somewhat questionable ergonomics back in 2024 when the original S14 was unveiled, and even more questionable today, when a handful of revised or new alternatives were further released.

I’m not a fan of pursuing a thin, slim format in a laptop, as that always comes with compromises. With this series, the build quality is excellent, with a firm chassis all around and premium materials. They did redesign the lid for this generation, in an effort to keep the design language consistent within their entire Zenbook lineup – this S14, the A14, and the refreshed 14 models all implement a similar approach on the lid, with ASUS Zenbook written in chrome in the middle. Looks fine, although I’d prefer a non-chromed writing somewhere in a corner, as one the previous designs.

Asus keep offering the series in two color options: a lighter gray called Scandinavian White, and a darker option called Elephant Grey (was previously called Zumaya Grey, could be slightly different for the refreshed variant). We have the latter one here. Here’s an image of the two.

The IO wasn’t sacrificed, and we’ll get to that in a bit. They didn’t skimp on the battery size either, implementing one of the largest ones available in the 14-inch ultrabook niche.

The sturdy materials and big battery make the overall weight of 1.2 kilos perfectly acceptable for this series, even if some alternatives are a little lighter – the ExpertBook Ultra or the Zenbook A14, in particular. I don’t mind the extra weight though, especially as I prefer the feel of the CNC aluminum unibody main deck on this Zenbook S14 over that of the Ceraluminum chassis on those options, which feels somewhat cheaper to the touch. Ceraluminum is still used for the lid here, but not for the other parts. This Ceraluminum is a patented ceramic coating on top of the aluminum sheet, that adds durability and scratch resistance and won’t chip away as easily as anodized finishes do. The entire chassis still meets the US MIL-STD-810H military-grade standard for durability, which is common for higher-tier devices these days.

So what are those compromises then? The shallow keyboard is one, although, as you’ll see further down, this actually types surprisingly well for such a low-travel implementation. Another is the limited screen opening angle, with the hinges only opening to about 145 degrees, and not all the way flat as they should on a versatile ultraportable. I don’t have the previous-gen S14 around anymore, but my notes mentioned that opened yup to around 130-degrees, and this refresh seems to open more than that.

And finally, the one that’s invisible at first: the cooling module that needs to run loud in order to cope with the implemented hardware at only average power levels. While the ExpertBook Ultra or the ThinkPad X1 Carbon never ramp fans over 40 dBA, this pushes 45 dBA noise, for lower power settings. That’s loud for an ultrabook and even close to much more powerful gaming notebooks.

In fact, the entire cooling design on this chassis is the reason the display doesn’t open up on the back either, as it would block the vents on the back edge. With a slightly thicker main chassis, that wouldn’t have been a concern, and nobody would have complained about 2-3mm of extra thickness that would have resulted.

And since we’re still discussing the cooling module, there’s this CNC-machined part above the keyboard with a few hundred tiny holes in it, designed to help with ventilation. While it sure looks unique and fancy, it’s not a good idea in practice, as these grills will eventually gather dust and dirt and would be difficult, if not even impossible, to clean.

And while I’m nitpicking on this design, the front lip is sharp and can bite into the wrists. It’s not as sharp as on a MacBook, though, and this laptop’s slim profile actually brings this lip so close to the desk that it somewhat mitigates its aggressiveness.

One final aspect I’ll touch on here is the IO, where this notebook meets most expectations, with HDMI, USB-A, USB-Cs with Thunderbolt 4, and an audio jack. I’ll still complain about almost all ports being placed on the left edge; I preffer the convenience of at least having USB-C slots on both sides, for better versatility with different setups.

Overall, this is a well-built and good-looking chassis, arguably the best-made Zenbook so far. However, it just aims at being thinner than it needs to be, and that impacts the screen’s angle, the cooling potential, the keyboard, and even the IO. All these could have been so much better with a slightly thicker chassis. Hopefully, next time.

You might argue my impressions are more bitter than this chassis deserves, and perhaps you’re right; I’m just bothered by the unmet potential this could have had if they considered practicality and usability more carefully. They matter a whole lot more than a super thin body.

Zenbook S14 vs Zenbook A14/14, ExpertBook Ultra, Thinkpad X1 Carbon, MacBook Air

I’ll leave you with a couple of images of the Zenbook S14 series next to a few alternatives I had on hand.

First, the white Asus Zenbook S14 (previous-gen), next to the Asus Zenbook A14 (gray) and standard Asus Zenbook 14 (black).

And here it is next to the Asus ExpertBook Ultra.

And finally, next to the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon and Apple MacBook Air 13.

Let me know if you’re interested in more detailed comparisons between these lineups.

Keyboard, touchpad

The inputs on this Zenbook S14 series are peculiar, unlike the excellent ones found on most other Zenbooks.

The keyboard is a standard layout, with most keys properly sized and spaced, and smaller half-sized arrow keys. The power button is a key as well, but it’s not the top-right one – I’d still disable it from the settings to prevent accidentally putting the laptop to sleep. The keycaps are a slightly darker grey than the chassis, and a finish that feels a little rough on the fingers, not as smooth as on regular laptop keyboards. That’s fine by me, though, especially since this coating does an excellent job at repelling smudges.

However, the peculiarity of this keyboard is the short travel depth of only 1.1 mm, while regular Zenbooks are 1.4 or 1.5 mm. This changes the typing experience and makes the actuations clickier and noisier; the Space key is even louder than the others.

I’ve seen some complaints on the Internet about the keyboard leaving an imprint on the display’s glass, due to the keys actually touching the glass. This happens all the time on my MacBook Air, and it bothers me having to constantly clean the screen, but I haven’t noticed this at all on this Zenbook unit. They might have changed this somehow on this refresh, although, in all fairness, I don’t personally recall noticing this on the past S14 or S16 models either.

Now, despite these, I actually got along very well with this keyboard; it proved to be one of the fastest and most accurate ultrabook keyboards I’ve used in a while, even faster than on the standard Zenbook 14. I didn’t expect this at all, as I resented the keyboard at first, but eventually got used to it over time. Nonetheless, I feel that this keyboard is still going to be perceived as a downgrade by most potential buyers, and a sacrifice made for the sake of making this laptop as slim as it is.

The keys are backlit, with white LEDs that get quite bright. Little to no light creeps out from underneath the keycaps here, unlike on other Zenbooks, so that’s a positive change. In the past, I found the lowest brightness level too high for comfortable use in a dark room, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore with this generation. The lowest level is acceptable, although it could still be a little dimmer. The top level is very bright and perfectly fine for outdoor use, especially with the contrast provided by these darker keycaps.

And then there’s the touchpad. It’s a smooth glass surface that works fine with taps and gestures and regular use. It even incorporates some gimmicky extra gestures for adjusting the screen’s brightness or volume.

Thing is, this touchpad is just too large and leaves a minimal gap at the front, allowing for misclicks and ghost touches from your clothes when using this device on your lap. More and more laptops are unfortunately designed like this, with oversized touchpads with tiny margins; that includes the MacBook Air or Asus’s newest ExpertBook Ultra series, among others. A smaller touchpad with enough margins around is far more practical, like on the X1 Carbon.

Finally, for biometrics, the camera at the top of the display supports IR, but there’s no finger-sensor.

14-inch OLED display, bright

The display on the Zenbook S14 is a 14-inch 16:10 format, with an OLED panel and touch. A non-touch alternative is mentioned in the specs, but I don’t think that’s offered with actual retail products anywhere.

Asus have updated the panel for this refresh, though, implementing the newer-generation Samsung OLED with higher brightness, which they call a Lumina OLED: 500 nits sustained and up to 1000 peak HDR. That’s a notable change over the sub-400-nit panel on the previous S14, making the laptop far more usable in brighter light.

Of course, as a touchscreen, this is still a reflective surface, but the increased brightness compensates for the glare to some extent. Furthermore, this comes with a digitizer layer that adds the grainy screen-door effect that bothers me on touch OLEDs; it’s not as pronounced as on older-gen low-resolution OLEDs, but it’s still there, making fine text and light backgrounds appear slightly dirty.

These aside, this is a standard OLED with deep blacks and contrast and punchy colors.

Here’s what we got in our tests, with an X-Rite i1 Display Pro sensor:

• Panel HardwareID: Samsung SDC422A (ATNA40HQ05-0);
• Coverage: 100% sRGB, 95.1% Adobe RGB, 100% DCI-P3;
• Type: 2.8K 2820 x 1800 px, 10-bit, 120 Hz;
• Measured gamma: 2.25;
• Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 500.67 cd/m2 on power;
• Min brightness in the middle of the screen: <10 cd/m2 on power;
• Contrast at max brightness: 1:1;
• White point: 6280 K;
• Black on max brightness: 0 cd/m2;
• PWM: Yes, to be discussed.

Calibration lowers the sustained brightness to around 450 nits on average. It’s not necessary for most use cases, since the panel already looks accurate out of the box, with only a minor skewness of the White Point.

All in all, this is one of the better touch OLEDs in this segment, albeit not quite as bright or nice as the matte Tandem OLED on the ExpertBook Ultra. Just make sure you understand the particularities of OLED panels on Windows devices before buying one, especially if it’s your first try at the tech.

Hardware and performance – Intel Core Ultra 9 Panther Lake

Our test model is a mid-specced configuration of the 2026 Asus Zenbook S14, code name UX5406AA, with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor and Intel integrated graphics, 32 GB of LPDDR5x-8533 memory, and a middling 1TB gen4 SSD.

Disclaimer: This is a review unit offered by Asus. The laptop is tested at launch with the software available as of mid-August 2026 (BIOS 308, MyAsus 4.0.73.0 app, Intel V32.0.101.8974 driver). This is mature software, so little can change in future updates.

Spec-wise, this series is based on Intel’s Panther Lake hardware platform, with Core Ultra Series 3 processors and Intel integrated graphics. Panther Lake is an updated mobile architecture for 2026.

The CPU on this review unit is the Core Ultra 9 386H, a hybrid design with 16 Cores (4x Performance, 8x Efficiency, and 4x Low-Power Efficiency) and 16 Threads. The Performance Cores are built on the Cougar Cove architecture, while the Efficiency cores are the refreshed Darkmont architecture, as explained in this indepth article on Panther Lake laptops.

There are no configurations with Core Ultra X7/X9 hardware for this Zenbook S14 series, but you can get some models with Core Ultra 7 356H or Core Ultra 7 355 specs. The 356H is more or less identical in capabilities to the 386H tested here, while the 355 is a lower-performance option, an 8Core processor that directly succeeds the Ultra 7 258V in the previous Zenbook S14 generation. We’ve tested that platform in this notebook.

The RAM on this notebook is onboard, with 32 GB of LPDDR5X-8533 on this unit. Configurations with 16 GB of RAM are available as well.

As far as graphics go, the Panther Lake Core Ultra 300H processors bundle an Intel iGPU with updated 3rd-generation Xe3 Cores. There are only 4x of these cores on these 300H processors, unlike on the X7/X9 variants that get the Arc B390 iGPU with 12x of these cores. So the GPU capabilities of this standard plaform are significantly lower; however, they’re close to the previous-gen Arc 140V/140T iGPUs implemented with Arrow Lake H and Lunar Lake V platforms.

For storage, Asus opted for a mid-range PCIe gen4 Samsung PM9C1b SSD drive here. I’d reckon that’s what you’ll get with retail units in your local stores.

The SSD and the WIFI chip are the only upgradeable components on this laptop. To get inside, you need to remove the back panel, which is held in place by a handful of Torx screws. They’re of different sizes, so make sure you put them back in their right place.

As far as the software goes, this Zenbook gets the standard MyAsus app, which allows control over the power profiles, battery, and screen settings, updates, etc.

There are four performance/thermal profiles to choose from:

• Performance – 28W sustained TDP, with ~45 dBA fan noise at head level;
• Standard – only ~17W TDP in sustained loads, with 35 dBA fan noise;
• Whisper – further limits the CPU at ~12W, with fan noise of sub 30 dBA.

I’d recommend keeping the laptop on Standard, which is fine for most regular use. However, the power cap is aggressive here for this mode, and you can feel that at times with more serious multitasking. And here’s where the Performance profile comes up, which offers faster processing capabilities in sustained CPU loads, but runs noisier. Perhaps Asus could have ramped the TDP for Standard mode closer to 20W, to make that more compelling across the board.

We’ll discuss performance in a bit, but first, here’s what to expect in terms of speeds and temperatures with daily tasks such as streaming video, editing text, or browsing the web.

Productivity Performance and Benchmarks

On to more demanding loads, we start by testing the CPU’s performance in the Cinebench R15 loop test.

The Core Ultra 9 396H processor quickly stabilizes at 28W on Performance mode, with temperatures in the mid-80s °C and fan levels of 45 dBA. That’s with the laptop bumped up from the desk. These limitations are a result of the ultra-thin format of this chassis, but even so, this generation actually runs a little cooler and at higher power than the previous Lunar Lake variant.

The scores average around 2300 points, which is competitive for such as compact and slim device.

On Standard, the system limits the fan to around 35 dBA and the power gradually stabilizes at 17W, with temperatures in the very low 70s °C. The scores end up at around 1700 points, 25% lower than on Performance.

Then, Whisper mode keeps the fans even quieter at 30 dBA, but the TDP is limited to 12W, which makes the scores drop to around 1200 points, which is a little over half of Performance mode.

What’s interesting is that the overall performance of this generation is notably improved over the original Core Ultra 7 258V model. Even on Standard, this is faster than the previous generation at full blast. More on that in a bit.

Finally, our sample performed very well on battery, stabilizing at 28W of power in Performance mode. That’s on par with the plugged-in Performance profile.

All these are illustrated in the graph below.

To put these in perspective, here’s how this Core Ultra 9 386H implementation fares against other hardware platforms available in current and past-generation thin and light laptops.

This is a mid-tier performer in the 14-inch ultrabook space. It’s 50% faster than a Core Ultra 7 355, a Core Ultra 7 258V, or a Ryzen AI 7 445, popular ultrabook platforms that power similar devices. At the same time, it’s not as fast as a Core Ultra X7 at higher power, available in some top-end 14-inch models, or as the few Ryzen AI 9 365/465 or Ryzen AI 9 HX 370/470 options out there, although these AMD variants are rarely implemented in similar devices.

Furthermore, the Qualcomm X2 Elite hardware or the Apple M5 silicon are faster as well in this sort of CPU-heavy task; just make sure the software particularities of those platforms are right for you.

We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and in Blender. We measured similar behavior, power limits, fan noise, and temperatures.

We then ran the 3DMark CPU profile test.

Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook, on the Performance profile. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time. This unit passes the test. More on that in the gaming section.

Benchmark results and performance summary

With that out of the way, let’s get to some benchmarks. We ran our standard set of tests with the laptop on Performance mode (28W sustained TDP) and the screen set at its default 2.8K resolution.

Here’s what we got.

• 3DMark 13 –CPU profile: max – 8864 , 16 – 8835, 8 – 5471, 4 – 3617, 2 – 2083, 1 – 1134;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 6576 (Graphics – 7195, Physics – 27882, Combined – 2356);
• 3DMark 13 – Solar Bay: 11888.
• 3DMark 13 – Steel Nomad Light: 2160.
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 3478 (Graphics – 3095, CPU – 11684);
• 3DMark 13 – XeSS: XeSS Off – 6.05 fps, XeSS On – 16.79 fps, 177.5% performance difference.

• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 1677;
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 4686;

• Aida64 Extreme, memory test: 108562 MB/s read, 120987 MB/s write, 90.6 MHz latency;
• PCMark 10: 8955 (Essentials – 10880, Productivity – 17305, Digital Content Creation – 10349);
• GeekBench 6.3.2 64-bit: Multi-core: 16506, Single-Core: 2825;
• CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 2797 cb, CPU Single Core 294 cb;
• CineBench R23: CPU 16758 pts (best run), CPU 14658 pts (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 2035 pts (best run);
• CineBench 2024: CPU 922 (10 min run), CPU Single Core 123 pts;
• CineBench 2026: CPU multiple threads: 3572 (10 min run), CPU single thread: 504 pts.

And here are some work-related benchmarks, on the same Performance profile:

• Blender 4.3.2 – BMW Car scene – CPU Compute: 2m 33s ;
• Blender 4.3.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 6m 58s;
• Blender 4.3.2 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute, OneAPI: 2m 46s;
• Blender 5.0.1 – BMW Car scene – CPU Compute: 2m 36s ;
• Blender 5.0.1 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 6m 38s;
• Blender 5.0.1 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute, OneAPI: 2m 10s;
• Blender 5.1.2 – BMW Car scene – CPU Compute: 2m 30s ;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 6m 05s;
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute, OneAPI: 2m 22s;

• SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax 07: 18.67;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia 06: 17.66;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo 03: 30.72;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy 03: 3.96;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya 06: 89.91;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical 03: 9.71;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX 04: 6.94;
• SPECviewperf 2020 – Solidworks 07: 40.20;
• V-Ray Benchmark: CPU – 11386, CUDA – 322.

This Zenbook S14 is a solid CPU performer in its niche, as few other 14-inch ultraportables offer Core Ultra Series 300 H hardware these days. Most implement the mainstream mobile Ultra 7 355 chip instead, with fewer CPU cores 30% diminished performance. And very few implement higher-tier AMD Gorgon Point hardware that can outmatch this Panther Lake H platform.

There are, however, a handful of more powerful alternatives built on the Core Ultra X7/X9 chips with the superior Arc B390 iGPU. Among those, the Asus ExpertBook Ultra, the Dell XPS 14, the Framework Laptop 13, the HP EliteBook X, or the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon come to mind. These are generally even more expensive, though, but for good reasons in most cases. We’ll discuss them in the conclusions section.

At the same time, though, it’s important to mention that this Zenbook runs noisily on the Performance profile at 45 dBA. That’s close to a full-size gaming laptop such as the Zephyrus G14, which allows for significantly higher CPU power and overall performance. The noise is a compromise you’ll have to accept for the sustained CPU potential here. The majority of those alternatives mentioned earlier run quieter on their similar-tier profiles.

In fact, I’d expect most buyers to eventually keep this notebook on the Standard profile and sacrifice some of the CPU potential for quieter fan noise and lower thermals. Thus, if this series jumped on your radar for the powerful CPU implemented in the ultra compact and slim chassis, well, the noise aspect should be considered heavily in your decision as well: either accept it for what it is, or accept that this laptop isn’t going to run as fast as expected when opting for the quieter Standard profile.

As for the graphics capabilities, the Panther Lake Intel Graphics with 4x Xe cores is merely an average platform these days, even somewhat slower than the previous-gen Intel Arc 140v/140T options or the AMD Radeon 880M/890M chips.

Panther Lake Core Ultra 9 386H vs. Panther Lake Core Ultra X7 358H, Lunar Lake Core Ultra 7 258V, Ryzen AI 7 445

Here’s how this Core Ultra 9 386H implementation compares against the previous-gen Lunar Lake Core Ultra 258V in the same Zenbook S14 chassis.

It’s about 50% faster in sustained CPU loads, and about 20% slower in the GPU tests, while the differences in actual workloads vary between apps. Still, if you need this for video editing, programming, and other activities that would benefit from a more capable CPU, the generational gains are significant.

At the same time, this comes close to the capabilities of the similar platform implemented in the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, but that laptop runs much quieter and applies higher sustained power settings, due to its superior cooling and chassis design that doesn’t primarily focus on being ultra-slim, as this Zenbook S14 does.

In fact, Asus offers a much more compelling implementation as well with their latest ExpertBook Ultra series, which can be specced up to a Core Ultra X7 358H hardware. This delivers similar CPU performance paired with a much more potent Arc B390 iGPU, more than 2x faster than the Intel Graphics option offered here.

Finally, I’ve added Core Ultra 7 355 and Ryzen AI 7 445 platforms as well, which OEMs offer on their mid-tier and more budget-friendly devices this year. Both are notably slower in sustained CPU loads, at about 70% of what the 386H scores, while on the GPU end, the Intel option implements a similar Intel iGPU, while the Radeon 840M chip on the AMD hardware is much slower, at about 50-60% of the Intel chips.

Standard modes, much quieter at 35dBA

With fan-noise levels up to 45 dBA at head-level, this laptop runs noisly on Performance mode, louder than the competition on their similar top profiles.

Hence, I expect most to rather look into the Standard profile that keeps the fan noise under 35 dBA.

Here are some benchmark results for this Standard mode:

• 3DMark 13 –CPU profile: max – 7410, 16 – 6972, 8 – 4538, 4 – 3284, 2 – 1933, 1 – 1085;
• 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 5829 (Graphics – 6638, Physics – 19894, Combined – 1960);
• 3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 2868 (Graphics – 2563, CPU – 8845);
• Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 1435;
• CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 14658 cb, CPU Single Core 2035 cb.
• Blender 5.1.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 8m 22s;

This mode gradually limits the CPU’s TDP to 17W in sustained loads, which takes a notable toll on performance in heavy CPU tasks. The Blender test, for instance, shows a 30+% increase in rendering time when going with this profile.

The GPU performance takes a hit as well, ending up at only about 80% of what it can do at higher power in Performance mode.

For general use, however, this is a compelling profile, but perhaps it would make more sense to target a slightly higher 20W TDP level instead. Thermals would allow it even with the 35 dBA noise floor.

Gaming Performance

We also ran a couple of games on the Performance profile of this Core Ultra 9 386H + Intel Graphics configuration, at FHD+ resolution, with Low/Lowest graphics settings. I threw in a few other platforms for comparison.

• Cyberpunk, Horizon, Witcher 3 – recorded with MSI Afterburner in game mode;
• Far Cry, Tomb Raider – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities.

All these games are playable here with these settings, including newer titles. Enabling XeSS makes a nig difference where available, and overall, your expectations of such a laptop that only bundles a mid-tier iGPU should be realistic.

And here’s what to expect if you plan on running games on the quieter modes.

The frame rates are still decent on Standard mode, with the much quieter fan noise. Once more, this profile is where I’d expect most will use the laptop, even with games.

With that out of the way, let’s go through some CPU/GPU logs.

First, Performance mode with the laptop flat on the desk. This mode stabilizes at 28W TDP, which is sufficient for the GPU to run at its full potential. The hardware warms up, though, reaching high-70s °C and low-80s °C, despite the fans running at 45 dBA.

Bump the laptop off the desk and these thermals drop to low and mid-70s °C, as the airflow into the fans and underneath the chassis is not as limited.

Then, Standard mode keeps the fan noise lower at 35 dBA, with a 20% drop in GPU speeds and performance, since the TDP is limited at 17W and the GPU clocks end up limited as well. Internals run coolly in this mode, in the mid-60s °C, with the laptop raised off the desk.

I haven’t tested gaming in Whisper mode, as that applies and even lower 12W TDP limit with more limited GPU speeds.

The laptop performs well when unplugged, with Performance mode unplugged or plugged in delivering similar frame rates.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others

Asus went with what looks like an advanced thermal module on this laptop, with dual fans, dual radiators, and a vapor chamber.

For comparison, this is the cooling module on the previous Zenbook S14 generation.

Asus updates the fans on the newer generation, as well as some of the vapor chamber that covers the hardware.

Nonetheless, the thin profile only allows for a miniaturized cooling module, however well engineered it might be. There’s just no way around physics: small fans need to spin fast to push decent airflow, the vapor-chamber is thin, and the heatsinks are only a few mm in height, so they can only expel little heat. I’ve added an image of the heatsink with a screwdriver next to it, for a better understanding of how thin it is.

Once more, what I’m trying to showcase here is how this laptop would have benefited from a slightly thicker chassis that would have allowed a larger cooling module, which would have then translated to lower noise levels and maybe even higher power levels for the implemented Core Ultra 9 hardware.

As it is, the laptop doesn’t run hot by any means as long as you keep it raised off the desk for sustained loads, but it does run loud. And the design doesn’t allow just tweaking down the fans, because then the temperatures would jump out of check.

As far as the noise levels go, expect 45 dBA on Performance, 35 dBA on Standard, and sub 30 dBA on Whisper mode.

With daily use, the fans stay mostly idle on all profiles.  I haven’t noticed coil whine or electronic noises on this unit.

As for external temperatures, the chassis keeps cool with light use, with most areas under 30 °C and a slightly warmer spot developing at the top of the chassis.

— updating

*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Whisper Mode, fans at 0 dB

With demanding loads, a hotspot of around 42-45 °C develops on the top side of the chassis in Performance mode, while the hottest spot on the bottom isn’t much warmer either. However, the keyboard and armrest areas run at much more comfortable levels, around the low 30s °C.

Overall, these are excellent thermals for a laptop of this kind, especially given the internal CPU temperatures in Performance mode. Asus implement a few sheets of graphite alloy to separate the hardware from the aluminum chassis, and that seems to work well, preventing the exterior from heating up.

Furthermore, opting for Standard mode leads to even lower temperatures around the chassis, despite the fans running much slower and quieter. That’s because Standard mode applies that aggressive power limit, though.

*Gaming – Performance mode – playing Witcher for 30 minutes, fans at ~45 dB
*Gaming – Performance mode – playing Witcher for 30 minutes, fans at ~35 dB

For connectivity, there’s Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 on this laptop, through a standard Intel module. Everything worked smoothly during my months with this laptop, without hiccups, disconnects, or other issues.

Audio is handled by a set of four speakers (two main woofers, two smaller tweeters) that fire through the cuts positioned on the side and bottom of the chassis. There are no speakers at the top of the keyboard; that grill is for ventilation only.

The sound quality is quite good for the ultraportable class, with good volume and decent quality.

Finally, there’s a 2MP camera placed at the top of the screen. It’s a rather lousy-looking camera, even in good light, and hardly usable at all in dimmer environments. It doesn’t offer a privacy cover. It does support IR for Windows Hello, at least.

Battery life – excellent runtimes with Gorgon Point

There’s a 77 Wh battery inside this 2026 Asus Zenbook S14, excellently sized for such a compact and slim ultrabook, and slightly larger than the 72Wh battery in the previous generation.

Here’s what we got in our battery life tests, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~50 brightness) and at a 60 Hz refresh rate (switches automatically to 60Hz when unplugging the laptop, and back to 120Hz when plugged in). I’ve also set the Windows 11 power mode to Best Power Efficiency.

• 3 W (20+ h of use) – idle, Whisper Mode, screen at 10%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 6-7 W (~12-14 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 5-6 W (~13-15 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 5 W (~15 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Whisper Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 7-10 W (~7-10 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 35 W (~2 h of use) – Gaming  – Witcher 3, Performance Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.

Solid runtimes and plenty for a full day of use without the need to recharge. That’s thanks to the efficiency of the Intel Panther Lake hardware and that big battery. On par with recent Intel and AMD (with exceptions) platforms, and a tad under what the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 hardware achieves.

For comparison, these results are almost identical to what we measured on the previous-gen Lunar Lake configuration, despite this being a Core Ultra H implementation.

• <4 W (15+ h of use) – idle, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 6 W (~12 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 4.5 W (15+ h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 4.5 W (15+ h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 6-9 W (~8-12 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;
• 35 W (~2 h of use) – Gaming  – Dota 2, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.

The laptop ships with a 65W USB-C charger, a compact format that integrates the plug and comes with a detachable USB-C cable. Just keep in mind that you’re most likely getting the laptop without a charger in the EU, due to recent regulations.

Price and availability- Asus Zenbook S14 OLED

At the time of this article, the Asus ZenBook S14 series is widely available everywhere.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area.

This 2026 Zenbook S14 UX5406AA configuration with the Core Ultra 9 386H processor, 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD, and the OLED touchscreen is listed at $1899 in the US, 1900-2100 EUR over here in Europe, and 1999 GBP in the UK. However, expect discounts as we get into the second part of the year; for instance, I’ve already seen this selling for $1649 in some US stores.

At the same time, the previous Zenbook S14 UX5406SA generation is still available, and for quite a bit less: around $1400 or so in the US, and 1400-1600 EUR over here. That’s for a Lunar Lake 258V configuration and a dimmer OLED, of course, but still a potentially interesting option for casual use and daily multitasking.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area.

Final thoughts- Asus Zenbook S14 UX5406AA review

All things considered, this Zenbook S14 is a fairly interesting device. It’s the best-made and best-feeling Zenbook, on par with popular premium alternatives such as the Dell XPS 14 or the MacBook Air 13, while also lighter, more compact, and with arguably fewer obvious compromises. Although it is, nonetheless, a sum of compromises.

My general tone has been quite bitter throughout this review, but that’s because Asus could have made this so much more versatile by implementing a slightly thicker design with enough room for better cooling and a standard Zenbook keyboard. Instead, they aimed at creating a thin chassis, and that brought the compromises mentioned already: the loud noise under sustained loads, the shallow keyboard, or the limited screen opening angle. On top of that, the touch OLED showcases grain on texts and light backgrounds.

Overall, though, if you’re willing to accept these aspects and want a device that feels premium, performs well, offers plenty of ports, a beautiful display, and punchy audio, this Zenbook S14 should be on your list. Compared to the previous generation, this refresh offers a hardware platform that’s better able to handle demanding chores when needed, a brighter OLED, a slightly updated cooling module that allows for lower thermals overall, and a refreshed lid design – minor changes, but they add up. At the same time, this refresh runs louder under load, something you’ll either have to accept or opt to set the laptop on the mid-level power profile and lose some of the performance potential for a much more enjoyable experience.

These aside, of course, this Zenbook S14 is an expensive series, significantly more expensive than the previous generation back in 2024. But then again, everything is expensive these days, and its potentially more functional alternatives actually sell for a whole lot more. Thus, all things considered, this is actually among the more affordable options in its premium niche.

Among those alternatives, the Asus ExpertBook Ultra, the HP OmniBook X, or the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon come to mind, all available in more powerful Core Ultra X7 configurations, with better cooling modules and matte OLED displays with less grain. But all these sell for way more than the Zenbook. The MacBook Air M5 is another alternative worth considering, as long as you’re OK going the Mac route – these days MacBooks are somehow better-value products than many of the options in the Windows space – but don’t expect the Air to be a flawless product, though, it’s got its own quirks with the shallow keyboard, limited IO, sharp edges, and so on.

This wraps-up my time with the 2026 refresh of the Asus Zenbook S14 UX5406AA. Hope this article helped you in your research, and I’m looking for your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.

The article Asus Zenbook S14 longer-term review (2026 UX5406AA, Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra 9 386H, OLED) appeared first on .

We’ve covered the majority of Zenbook lineups over the years. This 2026 model is a hardware refresh of the 2024 and 2025 AMD Zenbook 14 UM3406 series, built on the same chassis and with the same overall features and perks. We’ve discussed the 2024 variant here, and the 2025 update here.

For this 2026 refresh, Asus offers the series with AMD Gorgon Point hardware, which is a minor refresh of Krackan Point. Much like in the past, this AMD model targets a lower price segment, around 1000 USD and 900 EUR/GBP MSRP. Given 2026 prices, that’s competitive, and most likely we’ll see further discounts later in the year, especially when the even newer Zenbook 14 UX3480 models become available.

Follow this link for updated prices and configurations on the Zenbook 14 lineup in your area.

Our configuration is an AMD Ryzen AI 7 445 with 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD, and a 2K WUXGA OLED touch display. These are the top specs for this generation.

I’ve used this laptop for a few months now and gathered my impressions and thoughts in this article. I’ve also used the previous Zenbook configurations for longer.

Specs sheet – Asus Zenbook 14 UM3406 

Design and functionality

This is the standard Zenbook 14 chassis offered over the last few years, and overall one of the best mid-range ultraportable laptop designs at around the 1000 USD/EUR/GBP mark. In the past, Zenbooks of this type sold for less, but these days, even coming under 1K is impressive.

Despite being a mid-range product, this is well built, good-looking, and more practical than most other devices on the market, including something like a higher-tier Zenbook S14 or a MacBook Air. It doesn’t compromise on anything important either, and weighs about 1.3 kilos, which is not bad for an all-metal chassis with a touchscreen, decent cooling, and a 75 Wh battery inside. The non-touchscreen variant comes out lighter at 1.2 kilos, and is slimmer as well, as it lacks the extra glass layer over the OLED panel.

Aesthetically, this is as subdued as it gets, with the black color and minimal branding elements. The laptop is an aluminum build all around with a matte anodized finish, and comes in black, so it shows finger oils and smudges easily, both on the lid and on the inside; you’ll need to constantly clean this off to keep it looking alright. That aside, though, there’s little else to complain about.

As far as ergonomics go, this Zenbook offers uncompromised inputs and a large armrest, and the screen’s hinges are well made and open up to 180 degrees, which is a must for me on a portable chassis. There’s no bad flex in the lid or in the main deck, and the rubber feet offer good grip on a desk. Furthermore, there’s no annoying LED in the line of sight, unlike on older Zenbooks.

Of course, I can nitpick about a few specifics, such as the rather sharp front lip that might bite into your wrists when using the laptop on a cramped desk; but even these aren’t as sharp as on a MacBook, for comparison.

The cooling design is a little awkward as well, as it occupies some of the right edge and leads to most of the IO being crammed on the left. This sort of cooling with the fans on one side and the hardware on the other isn’t my favorite overall, as I prefer the more balanced dual-fan approach implemented on the Vivobook S14 series, but it does the job overall, without one side of the chassis feeling much warmer than the other even in sustained loads.

As far as the IO goes, most ports are on the right edge, including two USB-Cs, the full HDMI, and the audio jack. One of the USB-C ports supports USB 4.0, and both support video and charging. Ideally, I’d prefer having USB-Cs on either site; that would be more convenient and versatile with different setups.

For what it’s worth, Asus announced a follow-up Zenbook 14 AI UX3480 lineup coming later this year, which brings the series’ design closer to the existing Zenbook A14 models. That means more rounded edges and corners, and Ceraluminum replacing the anodized aluminum parts, which does a better job of fending off smudges and resisting scratches, and comes in a few more color options. I’m not necessarily a fan of this finish and design, but I guess it makes sense to have a more unified chassis for all hardware platforms, Intel, AMD, and Snapdragon. We’ll test and discuss these updates when they’re eventually available.

For what it’s worth, here’s how the current Zenbook 14 (black) looks next to the Zenbook A14 (grey), for a peak into the future design language of the Zenbook 14 UX3480 lineup. The Zenbook S14 series is included as well, in white, as a higher-tier model with more premium materials and some higher-end specs.

Keyboard, touchpad

I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again: this Zenbook 14 generation offers some of my favorite inputs available on portable notebooks today.

Perhaps I’m a little biased on this keyboard, having used it for so long over the years, but I find it one of the most accurate and comfortable typers in this segment. The keys are softly coated, have a small dash in them, and travel 1.5 mm into the frame. They’re also firm and quiet when pressed fully. For what it’s worth, though, the black finish on this variant does show finger oil easily, so keep that in mind.

The keys are backlit, with white LEDs and three brightness levels to choose between. Some light creeps out from underneath the keycaps, especially from under the top-row of Function keys, which is an aspect perhaps Asus could improve on their future lineups.

The touchpad is wide and averagely tall. It can double as a Numeric touchpad with a press of the icon in its top right corner, but what’s important is the smooth feel and reliable experience with general use. Physical clicks are fine as well.

Furthermore, Asus leaves enough space around this touchpad to limit ghost touches, an aspect that more and more ultra-portables compromise on these days, as they implement huge touchpads with small margins. This is something that bothers me greatly on my MacBook Air.

14-inch OLED display

There’s a 14-inch 14:10 display on this series, with average-sized bezels and a camera, sensors, and microphones at the top .

As far as I can tell, Asus offers this 2026 generation with 2K OLED panels, either touch or non-touch. My unit is the touch variant. Asus does mention the 2.8K 120Hz panel option potentially available for this series as well, but I’m not seeing it on actual retail products, as Asus are aiming for the 1K price-point with this lineup.

This is an older-gen OLED and not the brighter variant implemented on other 2026 ultrabooks. That means its max sustained brightness tops out at under 400 nits (and actually more like 350 nits on this touch variant), and the refresh rate is only 60Hz; however, the blacks, contrast, and colors are still as good as they get with the tech. Paired with the glossy finish, this display is hardly usable in any bright-light environments, and even with regular use you’ll have to keep it at 80-100% brightness for a comfortable experience.

That means you should be extra careful about dealing with static Windows interfaces, especially if you plan on keeping this for many years. You’ll want to prevent burn-in as much as possible.

Furthermore, as a touch OLED of this generation, this shows the dreaded grain screen-door effect on light backgrounds, especially visible when reading/editing text. This isn’t an issue on the non-touch variant, something to keep in mind when deciding on the available configurations. At the same time, the non-touch variant lacks the extra layer of protective glass over the OLED panel.

Hardware and performance

Our test model is the top-specced configuration of the 2026 Asus Zenbook 14 UM3405GA, with an AMD Ryzen AI 7 445 processor and Radeon 840M graphics, 32 GB of LPDDR5-7500 memory, and a 1 TB gen4 SSD.

Disclaimer: This is a retail unit I got for testing. Our results are based on the software available as of mid-August 2026 (BIOS 305, MyAsus 4.0.66.0, AMD Adrenalin 25.20.42.11). This is mature software.

Spec-wise, this series is based on the 2026 AMD Gorgon Point hardware platform, with Ryzen AI processors and AMD Radeon graphics.

Our review unit is a Ryzen AI 7 445 processor, a hybrid design with 6Cores (2x Zen5, 4x Zen5c), 12Threads, up to 4.6 GHz speeds, and 24 MB cache.

On the GPU side, the Ryzen AI 7 445 bundles a Radeon 840M iGPU with only 4 RDNA3.5 cores. That’s only 1/3 of what you’re getting with the Ryzen 9 Radeon 890M hardware.

Thing is, this Ryzen AI 7 445 is a rebranded variation of the Ryzen AI 5 340 Krackan Point SKU, and not a follow-up to the Ryzen 7 AI 350 implemented on the previous Zenbook 14 UM3406KA, which offered 4x Zen5/4x Zen5c CPU cores and a Radeon 860M with 8 CUs. A Ryzen 7 450 chip is available as part of the Gorgon Point roster, but not implemented on the 2026 Zenbook 14 for now. We might see a follow-up Ryzen AI 9 465 build on the Zenbook 14 UX3480GA later in the year, although that might not be offered if Asus still decides to target a lower-price point with the AMD configuration, leaving the more competent specs for the Intel Panther Lake variant.

As a result, the 2026 refresh is a slower performer across the board than the 2025 model. That’s not something you can easily tell just based on the specs alone, and it can confuse potential buyers who would expect this refresh to perform better than last year’s version, since this is a newer Ryzen 7 AI 400 chip.

Our configuration also comes with 32GB of LPDDR5-7500 memory. 16 GB variants are also available.

For storage, Asus opted for a fast PCIe gen4 Samsung drive here, perfectly fine for general use in this sort of laptop. Some configurations ship with Micron drives, which aren’t quite as fast.

The SSD and the WiFi chip are upgradeable, although the WiFi is not an M.2 format. Getting inside is fairly simple; you need to take care of a few Torx screws and take out the back panel. The screws are all the same size, unlike on older Zenbooks.

As far as the software goes, this ZenBook gets the standard MyAsus app, which allows control over the power profiles, battery, and screen settings, updates, etc.

There are four performance/thermal profiles to choose from:

• Performance – ~28W sustained CPU power and up to 55W SDP, with the fans up to ~42 dB;
• Standard – 20W in sustained loads, with the fans up to ~35 dB;
• Whisper – limits the CPU to 15W to favor fan noise of sub 30 dB.

I’d keep the laptop on Standard for general use, whether plugged in or not, and on Performance for more sustained loads where higher power settings make sense.

We’ll get to that in a bit, but first, here’s what to expect in terms of speeds and temperatures with daily chores such as streaming video, editing text, or browsing the web.

Productivity Performance and Benchmarks – AMD Ryzen AI 7, Gorgon Point

On to more demanding loads, we start by testing the CPU’s performance in the Cinebench R15 loop test.

In Performance mode, the Ryzen AI 7445 processor peaks at 55W and then gradually drops towards the 28W SPL limit. The scores end up at around 1600 points, with temperatures in the mid to high-70s °C and fan-noise levels of ~42 dBA.

The Standard mode keeps the fans quieter, at 35 dBA, and the CPU quickly drops to 20W of sustained power, with temperatures in the high-60s °C and scores of around 1350 points.

Whisper mode keeps the fans quieter at sub 30 dBA, with the power stabilizing at 15W sustained and temperatures in the very low-60s °C. The scores drop to 1200 points, which is about 75% of Performance mode.

And then there’s Performance mode unplugged from the wall, where this notebook performs identically to Performance mode plugged in.

All these are illustrated in the graph below.

To put these in perspective, here’s how this AMD Ryzen AI 7 445 implementation fares against other hardware platforms available in current and past-generation thin and light laptops.

This is about 20% slower than the Ryzen AI 7 350 implemented in the previous-gen Zenbook 14, due to having fewer CPU cores. It also performs fairly similarly to a recent Intel Core Ultra 7 355 Panther Lake platform at similar power, and a little faster than popular Intel Core Ultra 7 256V/258V Lunar Lake models. Thus, this is a decent platform for light use and daily multitasking.

However, there are many other faster implementations in the ultraportable realm, from all brands: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm. Furthermore, plenty of the previous-gen Intel/AMD implementations are faster in this multi-threaded load.

We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and in Blender. We measured similar behavior, power limits, fan noise, and temperatures as described above.

We then ran the 3DMark CPU profile test, on Performance and Whisper modes.

Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook, on the Performance profile. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time. This unit easily passed the test both raised up and flat on the desk, which means the performance is not impacted by heat buildup in longer-duration sustained loads.

Benchmark results and performance summary

With that out of the way, let’s get to some benchmarks. We ran our standard set of tests with the laptop in Performance mode (~28W sustained TDP) and the screen set at its default 2K resolution.