We fell in love with ASUS’ new Lunar Lake Zenbook at IFA 2024

Finding Zen at Intel’s Lunar Lake Launch

OC3D is at IFA 2024, which means that we have seen a lot of new products. As always, some are more interesting than others, with ASUS’ new Lunar Lake Zenbook models landing on the impressive side of the spectrum.

We saw ASUS’ new Zenbook S 14 at Intel’s Lunar Lake launch event and later at ASUS’ IFA briefing. Our very own Tom Logan is on the ground, and if I’m honest, I think he’s in love.

Dell dropped the ball with their new XPS laptops

OC3D’s Lord and Master (Owner and Editor), Tom Logan, is a creature of habit. He won’t mind me saying this. His current laptop is a Dell XPS, and he likes it. Therefore, the next generation of Dell XPS machines is of obvious interest. Even at first glance, it was clear to us that Dell had done something wrong here. Even looking at these images of these new XPS 13 laptops has me feeling the ick.

What’s wrong? It’s the keyboard. Square keys, minimal spacing – just asking for mistypes and accidental button presses. Did the keyboard feel good? No… We were hands-on, and we did not like the feel of it. Simply put, this is not a laptop that I would want to use long-term. Tom Logan, who initially looked at this laptop with “upgrading” in mind, simply said, “No, I hate the keyboard”. Your opinions may differ from ours regarding keyboards, but our opinion is that Dell has ruined a perfectly good XPS laptop with this keyboard design.

Thank god! A proper laptop keyboard!

On the other side of the room, we spotted ASUS’ new Zenbook S 14, and the first thing we looked at was a keyboard. Yes, it may look somewhat standard, but standard designs are standard because they work. Feeling the keys filled us with relief. You’d be surprised how revolting “bad” keyboards are to people who need to type for a living.

Now that we have removed the bad taste of the XPS 13 from our mouths (fingers?), we can give the new ASUS Zenbook a proper look.

ASUS Zenbook and Intel Lunar Lake

Two flavours of Zenbook were before us. One in “Scandinavian White” and the other in “Zumania Gray”. Both featured Intel’s new Series 2 Core Ultra CPUs, 14-inch 3K 120Hz ASUS Lumina Touchscreens and a large 72Wh battery.

As Intel Lunar Lake machines, these PCs are Copilot+ ready, feature 48 TOPS NPUs, and feature Intel ARC Xe2 graphics. Add on WIFI 7 support and a 4-speaker Harman/Kardon Dolby Atmos speaker system, and we have something special here.

You can read more about our thoughts on Lunar Lake here. TLDR, Intel are killing it with these new low-power CPUs.

Ceraluminum – a future-era material for Zenbooks

One major fear for laptop users is scratching the rear of their screen. After all, nobody wants to ruin the look of their premium laptop. ASUS knows this and has invested time into developing a scratch-resistant aluminium material. This new material is Ceraluminum, a type of aluminium that has been made into a high-tech ceramic composite.

ASUS introduced Ceraluminum at Computex with their Ryzen AI 300-based Zenbook S 16 systems. This material is returning with their new Lunar Lake Zenbook systems. This material gives the rear of ASUS’ new Zenbooks a warm ceramic feel and the strength of aluminium. More importantly, this material is highly scratch-resistant. In fact, they even had some material samples sitting around for IFA attendees to touch and some handy rocks and grit to test its scratch resistance. It also appears to be less of a fingerprint magnet than standard aluminium (no, I will not say “Aluminum”…).

Other Lunar Lake Zenbook specifications

Other features of ASUS’ Zenbook are its large 16:10 trackpad, FHD AiSense IR camera, and full range of I/O ports, which include HDMI 2.1, 2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB4 Type-C), Audio combo, and USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A. The notebook itself weighs 1.2kg and is 1cm thick, making it easy to transport.

Cooling-wise, this laptop sports a rear plate with 2715 CNC machined cooling vents, which are designed to deliver enhanced cooling efficiency and a strong aesthetic.

Having seen it twice, we are walking away from IFA very impressed with ASUS’ new Lunar Lake Zenbook S 14. It has a good keyboard and a great-looking screen and feels excellent. Personally, I like the Zumania Gray version, but fans of the site will know that Tom (TTL) preferred the Scandinavian White model. We can agree to disagree on that point, but we can agree that we both wanted to casually stow these laptops away in our backpacks… We have kindly asked ASUS if we can review one of these laptops to give Lunar Lake a spin and see how their new “Ceraluminum” material holds up to some real-world use. Perhaps we will have a review of this laptop in the future or one of its Ryzen AI 300 cousins.

You can join the discussion on ASUS’ new Lunar Lake Zenbook S 14 and S 16 Notebooks on the OC3D Forums.