PerfectRec’s portability rating takes into account the volume and thickness of the laptop as well as its weight.
PerfectRec’s Build Quality Score incorporates case materials, display and keyboard flex, hinge quality, chassis rigidity, and overall reliability.
Our assessment of build quality includes many details that are difficult to quantify.
Our laptop experts use their best judgment to produce the final score.
PerfectRec’s Battery Life rating is based on hours of battery life in typical usage scenarios.
The Keyboard Quality score is based on the PerfectRec experts’ assessment of tactile feedback, typing comfort, keyboard reliability and typing noise.
PerfectRec’s Content Creation Score takes into account the many different features of the laptop that make it more or less suitable for photo editing, and video editing work.
In addition to a strong emphasis on overall performance, this score also places very high importance on screen quality. Heat management, storage, keyboard and speaker quality are also incorporated, with fan noise rounding out this score.
General Use Screen Quality:3.8 The general use screen score is based on the screen technology, contrast ratio, resolution, brightness, color gamut and color accuracy. This score does not take into account specialized display features for specific use cases, such as high refresh rate for gaming.
The ASUS Zenbook 14 has a solid CPU and GPU combination for everyday tasks and some light gaming, but its battery life is not specified, which could be a concern for those needing longevity on a single charge. While it offers good portability, its moderate storage and RAM might limit performance for heavy multitasking or more demanding applications.
PerfectRec’s Software Development Score takes into account the many different features of the laptop that make it more or less suitable for software development.
In addition to a strong emphasis on overall performance, this score also places very high importance on screen quality. Heat management, storage, keyboard and speaker quality are also incorporated, with fan noise rounding out this score.
PerfectRec’s Operating Noise Score is based on fan noise measurements. Laptops with a fanless design, such as Macbooks, receive the maximum score.
The ASUS Zenbook 14, with its AMD Ryzen 5 CPU and Nvidia MX450 GPU, delivers a moderate level of performance suitable for less demanding engineering and design tasks but may not be ideal for more intensive workloads. Additionally, while the laptop's IPS screen offers good color coverage and quality, professionals who require extremely accurate color representation or advanced GPU capabilities might find it lacking.
PerfectRec’s Gaming and AI Score strongly emphasizes graphics processing capability as well as AI performance, while also taking into account other factors that impact suitability for gaming and AI work.
While performance (especially graphics performance) is the most important factor determining this score, we also give modest weight to screen quality, heat management, keyboard quality, and storage.