Signature Edition Zenbook Series laptops from ASUS
The Taiwanese tech brand is redefining the physical design of laptops with stunning designs inspired by Earth’s natural landscapes and made from an innovative new material.
If you’re anything like me, your laptop is practically an extension of yourself, a constant companion that follows you from coffee shops to client meetings and late-night editing sessions to inspiration-fuelled travels. It’s not just a tool; it’s the canvas where our ideas take shape, the engine that powers our creative processes, and often, the face we present to clients. It’s also our window into the world, where we experience everything from entertainment to world events.
So, I don’t think you have to be a nerd to care about the design of your laptop. Like a chair or desk, you need it to be both functional and beautiful. Yet, for years, you’ve had to compromise between the two.
Consider, for example, my MacBook Air M1. Yes, it’s sleek, yes, it’s gorgeous. Unfortunately, it’s so ultrathin that there’s no room for ports, which means that whenever I need to connect it to something like a monitor or TV, I’m left clumsily juggling docks and dongles. Laptops with more ports, though, typically aren’t as lightweight and won’t look as good.
Once upon a time, you’d have expected Apple to work on this problem and eventually present a radical new design that squared this circle. But recent history suggests they’ve become more interested in gradually iterating existing lines and watching the cash flow in.
This leaves the field wide open for competitors to pursue new design ideas that fundamentally reinvent the laptop. And from where I’m standing, the company making the biggest strides here right now is the Taiwanese brand ASUS. So when they invited me to see their new products at Milan Design Week, I jumped at the chance.
While their main release to the public, the Zenbook A14, is impressive, it was the as-yet-unreleased Signature Edition Zenbook range that really grabbed my attention. I’ll be honest: I can’t remember when I’ve been this entranced by the physical design of a laptop.
Ceraluminum: the material making it all possible
What’s so different about these laptops, fundamentally, is what they’re made of. ASUS has developed a proprietary material called Ceraluminum—essentially a process of ceramising aluminium that makes it 30% lighter and three times stronger than traditional anodised aluminium.
Laptops made from this can be thick enough to include the ports you need (most notably, an HDMI slot) while still remaining super-light and running cool. As ASUS sees it, it’s the best of both worlds: the premium feel and durability of ceramic with the lightness of aluminium.
They also claim that the manufacturing process is remarkably eco-friendly. While traditional aluminium anodisation relies on acids and produces hazardous waste, Ceraluminum production uses pure water and high voltage, resulting in a 100% recyclable material with no organic compounds, VOCs, or heavy metals in the wastewater.
That’s important to ASUS because their fundamental design philosophy is to bring the look and feel of nature into tech, to create “design you can feel”.
Nature-inspired design
While many companies pay lip service to that approach in their PR and marketing, it’s not always that obvious in the actual products. That certainly can’t be said for the four limited-edition Signature Edition Zenbooks that ASUS unveiled at Milan Design Week.
Each features a chassis made entirely from Ceraluminum, and they come in four nature-inspired finishes, each representing different dramatic landscapes. This gives them a look and feel that’s totally different from the monocoloured chassis I’m used to seeing on laptops.
What’s fascinating is that these finishes aren’t achieved with added pigments; the distinct colours and textures are precisely controlled through electric current, voltage and mineral formulas during the ceramisation process. So it’s not like looking at a laptop with a decal stuck to it; these devices look more like bespoke, individually made art objects.
Each has a unique tactile quality, too—smooth yet somehow organic—that begs to be touched. Thankfully, though, they appear to be entirely smudge-free.
Geldingadalir, Iceland
Vaadhoo Island, Maldives
Wadi Rum, Jordan
Pamukkale, Turkey
Of course, these aren’t just pretty faces. Inside, they’re powered by the latest AI-enabled Intel Core Ultra processors, feature ASUS Lumina OLED displays, and have dedicated Windows Copilot keys.
I can’t get more specific than that: ASUS is still working on the details and hasn’t even committed to releasing these laptops. They plan to gather feedback first and then have a think. But among the journalists here, at least, feedback was very positive. Interestingly, there was something of a gender split, with me and other men generally preferring the black slate-like ‘Iceland-Geldingadalir’ designs, while this was the least favoured among the women (although this was hardly a scientific sample, of course).
Design you can feel
ASUS didn’t just drop these beautiful devices on a pedestal and call it a day. This was Milan Design Week, after all, a global event where every brand worth its salt creates an art installation to express its design philosophy. Hence, ASUS hosts its own ‘Design You Can Feel’ exhibition at the Galleria Meravigli, creating a full sensory experience around the concepts of materiality, craftsmanship, and AI.
The highlight was a specially commissioned installation by Studio INI. This experimental design and research studio created a kinetic, biomimetic sculpture that reacted to visitors’ presence. As you walked up and down on it, like a model on a catwalk, its fronds opened and closed, and your motion data was used to create AI-generated visualisations.
This was a lot of fun for guests, but it also had a serious point: evoking the tactile quality of Ceraluminum (which was used to make it) while demonstrating how AI can enhance creative expression.
Elsewhere in the exhibition, playful interactive exhibits told the design stories behind various ASUS products, including its ProArt, Adol, Vivobook and ROG devices. From a laptop that emits different fragrances (a real product, currently only available in China) to weighing scales that balanced laptops with chess pieces, there was something delightfully tangible and fun about the whole experience. A refreshing change from the often sterile tech showcases us journalists are used to.
Want one now? Meet the Zenbook A14
While the Signature Edition Zenbooks stole the show, they’re not quite ready for consumer hands yet. However, many of their qualities can already be found in the new Zenbook A14 (UX3407)—the first ASUS laptop to feature an all-ceraluminum build.
Weighing under 2.5 lbs, the A14 is the lightest 14-inch Copilot+ PC on the market and comes in Iceland Gray or Zabriskie Beige. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Series processor, which enables an impressive 32 hours of battery life on a single charge—genuine multi-day usage that creative professionals on the go will appreciate.
The A14 also showcases ASUS’s commitment to balancing beauty and functionality. It has a healthy complement of ports (two USB 4.0 Type-C, one USB 3.2 Type-A, HDMI 2.1, and a 3.5mm audio jack), an ASUS Lumina OLED display, and advanced AI features courtesy of Qualcomm’s Hexagon NPU. All in all, it’s an intriguing alternative for creatives who might traditionally default to MacBooks.
A new era for creative tools?
I’ll be honest; my expectations for this show weren’t that high. A lot of brands stumble into Milan Design Week with great intentions but haven’t really thought things through. So they end up with a nice-looking art installation, but the connection to the product seems quite weak, and you find the marketing waffle has to do a lot of heavy lifting to tie it together.
In contrast, ASUS’s exhibition made me excited about laptop design for the first time in years. Once released, the Signature Edition Zenbook Series could very well represent a new watermark for laptop design, where technology and art form a new path forward. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a Zenbook A14.
Fundamentally, it seems like ASUS is the laptop brand most interested in pushing forward physical design right now. Who knows, maybe they could even steal Apple’s crown as the go-to for creatives. There’s a long road ahead, of course, and given the burgeoning trade wars, all this may become moot. But all other things being equal, I think ASUS is definitely a challenger brand to watch.