A14 gets smarter, A16 gets stronger, but they’re still both lightweight — ASUS expands Zenbook lineup with faster Snapdragon power and bigger OLED options

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Last year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) saw the unveiling of a laptop that quickly became a standout, earning our “Best Laptop of CES 2025” award. It went on to become one of our top-rated and most discussed devices all year.

The ASUS Zenbook A14 is a standout thin and light Windows laptop, and it was one of the first to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. I gave it a great review (4.5 out of 5 stars), and now, at CES 2026, ASUS is releasing an updated version with even more power.

The new Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 chip is impressive, but the laptop design remains largely the same. What’s really interesting is the upcoming 16-inch model, which will be among the first to feature Qualcomm’s fastest laptop processor. I’m really looking forward to it!

The OG but better, and a new big sibling

Let’s start with the basics: the 2026 ASUS Zenbook A14 isn’t a radical redesign, which is pretty expected. The biggest update is the new processor option: you can now configure it with the latest Snapdragon X2 chips, including a powerful Snapdragon X2 Elite version with up to 18 cores and an incredibly fast 80 TOPS Neural Processing Unit (NPU).

This results in a significant boost in performance, particularly for gaming and tasks that use artificial intelligence. While that’s positive, it’s not particularly groundbreaking. I’m disappointed ASUS didn’t also upgrade the 14-inch OLED screen to a smoother 120Hz refresh rate—it’s currently only 60Hz—and that will likely affect my overall review score.

However, the ASUS Zenbook A16 is the standout device. It keeps the same attractive design but features a larger 16-inch screen and improved performance.

The Zenbook A14 is even better now, but the A16 is the real star of the show this year.

The new Zenbook A16 is one of the first laptops to feature the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme processor. This chip boasts 18 cores, can reach speeds up to 5.0GHz, includes Qualcomm’s best-ever graphics processing unit, and offers significantly faster memory performance than previous Snapdragon X2 chips.

The Zenbook A16 offers up to 48GB of incredibly fast memory, along with an SD card reader and a stunning 2.8K OLED screen. This display boasts a smooth 120Hz refresh rate and can get very bright – up to 1,100 nits with HDR content. Despite all these features, it remains one of the lightest 16-inch laptops available, weighing under 3 pounds (about 1.2 kilograms).

I usually prefer smaller, 14-inch laptops, but I’m really intrigued by the larger 16-inch version of this Zenbook. If the new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme processor performs as well as expected, this laptop could easily be one of the best Windows laptops released this year.

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2026-01-12 23:43