Asus Vivobook S14 Copilot+ laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

MANILA -- The Asus Vivobook S14 is a smart-looking ultraportable laptop that promises great battery life using Intel's power-efficient 'Lunar Lake' chipset.

While the Vivobook brand has traditionally been positioned as Asus' more affordable line of notebooks (comparable to the midrange segment in smartphones), the Taiwanese tech firm seems to have pushed the brand up the value chain with its latest offerings.

This latest model, which also comes with Copilot + PC branding, has the solid build quality, as well as the top line features of Asus' more premium Zenbook line from a couple of years ago. It is light, it's thin, it's solidly built, and it has most of the features you would want in a business-oriented ultraportable, even though it seems to be marketed to students.

However, along with all these upgrades come a bump up in price. Is the higher sticker worth it?  

Specs-wise, the Vivobook S14 can hang in there with business laptops. It has the power-sipping Intel Core Ultra 7 256V chip, a 14-inch OLED screen with a 1920 x 1200 resolution, 16GB of LPDDR5X memory, a 1TB SSD, and a 75Wh battery.

Asus Vivobook S14 Copilot+ laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

Our review unit came in the 'neutral black' color, which looked really elegant, especially with the minimalist branding on the cover and the matte finish. My only gripe is that it can catch fingerprints easily, so you may need to wipe it occasionally.

Carrying the laptop was easy as it weighed just 1.3 kg, but despite the light weight, it didn't feel flimsy at all. There was no creak or bending when handling the unfolded notebook from one side. It felt really solid. 

Asus even says the notebook has passed the US MIL-STD 810H military-grade standard, which means it went through several tests including tolerance for high and low temperature, shock, vibration, rapid atmospheric pressure changes or low-pressure settings, moisture and dust. So yeah, it's supposed to be tough enough for use in the world's most demanding military.

You can also easily unfold the laptop with one hand--no fumbling around the lid needed. I also liked the 16:10 aspect ratio of the screen, which is great for doing work, although I think a 4:3 ratio would have been better.

The screen is really good. It's bright, the colors are vibrant, and the OLED screen gives deep blacks. A 60Hz refresh rate may seem a bit old-fashioned in an age when even midrange smartphone screens can go 120Hz, but it wasn't a big issue for me in my line of work. Gamers, however, may find this refresh rate a bit limiting.

Asus Vivobook S14 Copilot+ laptop. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

At the top of the screen is a full HD webcam with IR features, which allow you to use the Windows Hello feature. Logging in was a breeze thanks to this.

The typing experience on this laptop is also pretty good- the keys are sufficiently clicky, not mushy at all. Its trackpad is also fairly big and responsive. It also has RGB backlighting.

The built-in speakers were OK for viewing videos, though I felt that they could use a bit more punch and bass. Listening to Metallica was OK, but Cypress Hill sounded soft (yes, Gen-Xer here).

People who work with a lot of peripherals will love the number of ports on this notebook. It has two USB-A ports, two USB-C Thunderbolt ports with support for display and power delivery, one HDMI 2.1 port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a Micro SD card reader.    

But the biggest selling point of the laptop is definitely its power efficiency. Intel's new laptop chips claim being as good as or even better than the Qualcomm Snapdragon chips that started making inroads into the PC space last year.

Asus claims a battery life of up to 27 hours, but this was on a video playback test based on ideal conditions. In my own day-to-day use, the Vivobook S 14 always got me through a whole day of work without needing to be plugged in.

I do most of my work on a browser, with sometimes more than 30 tabs open--I have multiple YouTube tabs open, various Google Apps, Microsoft Teams and Outlook, as well as news websites and social media sites. I also usually have the screen at 70 percent brightness- sometimes at 100 percent when I work in bright outdoor surroundings. After a 9-hour shift, I would usually still have around 20 percent charge.

The Asus Vivobook S14 Copilot+ laptop can get you through a whole day of work without needing to be plugged in. Arthur Fuentes, ABS-CBN News

The laptop also has an interesting power management feature that lets you extend the battery life and keep working even when the charge falls below 20 percent.

If you're a business traveler who needs to lug a laptop to airports or attend conferences or meetings abroad, or if you're a digital nomad who likes to work in cafes and gardens or at the beach or some log cabin up in the mountains, you will appreciate the untethered experience that this laptop can give you.

But like I said earlier, the convenience and power come at a price. The Vivobook S14 sells for P82,995. However, a comparable Macbook Air with the same RAM and storage can cost much more.