2026 ASUS ExpertBook Ultra Review: The Best Panther Lake Laptop Yet
February 24, 2026
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2026 ASUS ExpertBook Ultra
Summary
Finally we have a Panther Lake laptop that actually lives up to Intel's hype. Great screen, haptic trackpad, super lightweight, stellar performance, and more!
Table of contents:
Laptops in this Article
14 Inches | 1 TB | 24 GB | M5 10-Core | M5 10-Core GPU
On Sale
Good Deal
14 Inches | 1 TB | 32 GB | Core Ultra 7 258V
On Sale
Great Deal
Pros
Chassis
In terms of looks, there's nothing super special about this laptop. It's a bland light gray. In terms of practicality? It excels. Not to mention it comes with a 3 year warranty by default.
- Super portable
- Less than 2.5lbs
- More compact than a MacBook Pro 14
- Tapered edges
- Well-built
- Durable coating
- Minimal screen flex
- Minimal keyboard deck flex
- Strong hinges
- Drop-tested
Ports
A fantastic selection for a laptop this size, although we are missing Thunderbolt 5 and an SD card reader compared to the MacBook.
- Left
- USB-C Thunderbolt 4 (charging capable)
- HDMI 2.1
- USB-A 10Gbps
- Headphone/Mic Combo Jack
- Right
- USB-C Thunderbolt 4 (charging capable)
- USB-A 10Gbps
14 Inches | 1 TB | 24 GB | M5 10-Core | M5 10-Core GPU
Pros
- Excellent performance
- Very long battery life
- All round premium laptop
- Exceptionally quiet and mostly feels cool to the touch
- Very premium - Great speakers, webcam, trackpad, keyboard, dsiplay
- Extremely fast storage
Cons
- An incremental update that doesn't change much from the M4 version
- No Wi-Fi 7
- Not good for gaming
- No Thunderbolt 5
Display
Gorgeous Tandem OLED Display. Content looks clear and vibrant. Small text is still easy to read on such a small screen.
- Crisp 14" 2880x1800 Panel (242 PPI)
- 120Hz refresh rate makes moving content look smooth
- Matte, anti-reflective coating
- Very bright at ~700 nits SDR
- Fantastic color accuracy
- True blacks
Our only negative is the screen door effect due to its coating. This means colored pixels are visible on bright white content. This is also present on Apple's nanotexture screens.
Keyboard
Unlike prior categories where we were comparing to MacBook Pros, we feel the best keyboards are on Lenovo ThinkPads. Luckily, it manages to stay competitive with those.
- 1.5mm key travel
- Fast and accurate typing was a breeze
- Key presses felt clicky, but weren't loud
The backlight is the only negative on this keyboard. White light against light gray keys is basically illegible. We'd recommend turning on the adaptive backlight setting because it works very well and you won't have to worry.
14 Inches | 1 TB | 32 GB | Core Ultra 7 258V
Pros
- Fantastic 4k Webcam
- Great screen options
- Effective anti-reflective coating on the display
- Accurate haptic trackpad
- Great speakers
- Good port placement
Cons
- Missing the red Trackpoint
- Base model display is lower resolution with a worse webcam
- Pricey
- Port selection is limited
- Its performance is at the lower end for similar laptops
On Sale
Trackpad
In a word? Wonderful. Large, glass, haptic, and super smooth. Clicks feel responsive. It also has an edgeless design that looks very sleek. None of our testers had any palm rejection issues either, which is a huge win for a haptic trackpad this large.
Performance
- Strong CPU Performance in Cinebench, better than many competitors
- Likely due to its higher 45W sustained power limit (PL1)
- Decent iGPU Performance in Timespy and other gaming benchmarks
- Around 80% of the dedicated 95W RTX 4060 in the ProArt PX13
- Not as strong as more modern dedicated GPUs
- Playable framerates at 1200p on medium-high settings in many games
- Falls behind in more demanding titles or at its native 2.8k resolution
Heat & Fan Noise
Even during performance tasks like Cinebench and gaming, we see very low amounts of fan noise from the ExpertBook. Because of this, it does get a bit warm, but it stays reasonably comfortable to use. It never gets too hot.
Cons
Creative Tasks
Photoshop is very usable on this machine. I (Cierra) was also able to review a video or two on this laptop using Adobe's Premiere Pro. That just consists of scrubbing a timeline and leaving markers. Anything more than that is a no-go for video-editing. It performs decent enough for simple projects but it's certainly not a designated creator laptop. Its performance in 3D rendering is also middling.
Battery Life
Alright, saving the worst till last. Battery performance and battery life. Most Panther Lake laptops we’ve tested do amazingly well here. Unforuntaely the ExpertBook falls short. It lowers its performance a little when unplugged. But more importantly, it doesn’t last nearly as long as we'd hoped. Less than 9 hours, which is around 30% less than its competitor the XPS 14 with the same CPU. That one lasts 12 and a half.
14 Inches | 1 TB | 32 GB | Core Ultra X7 358H
Pros
- Looks stunning
- Extremely well constructed
- Haptic trackpad
- Physical function row (vs previous model)
- Very good battery life (especially the non-X cpu models)
- Best-in-class speakers
- Punchy Tandem OLED screen (on select models)
Cons
- Low-travel keyboard leads to typing errors and takes time to get used to
- Very limited ports (USB-C only)
- CPU is underfed power (X7 and X9 models should be avoided)
Summary
Besides its two cons, we really do love everything else about this laptop and we're excited to see it hit shelves soon. When it does, we'll update this article with a link to purchase it.