MOJO (FOR) WORKING

As summer holidays fade into the rear-view mirror, treat yourself to much more than a new pencil case with our pick of the latest in productivity gear - whether you're a roving coffee-shop worker, surfing between Teams calls at home in your pyjamas, or off to uni for the first time

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ASUS ZENBOOK S 13 OLED

The super-compact Zenbook range has been around for over a decade, but during that time it's always kept pace with the latest advancements in laptop tech. This Windows 11 Pro model is no different, with a 2.8K OLED HDR NanoEdge display on top of a 13th-gen Intel brain and Xe graphics.

You also get speedy LPDDR5 memory, a 6500MB/s SSD and dual Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, along with support for both Dolby Vision and Atmos (though predictably the speakers aren't the loudest). In short, you'd have to work hard to find something with a sharper edge- and performance just isn't an issue.

And it's so light - this is almost a sub-ultraportable. It's around 200g lighter than Apple's MacBook Air and the non-touchscreen version of Dell's XPS 13, both of which are perennial favourites for us. So this model does up the ante in terms of out-and-out portability.

See the grey

Design-wise it doesn't step too far out of the box, but the basalt grey finish is smart, with a mosaic-style design on the lid. Some sustainable materials have been used, including ocean plastics and eco-friendly ceramic aluminium.

As you rotate the screen open, the laptop elevates so the backlit keyboard is presented to you at a conveniently raised angle (the hinge can also rotate until the screen is flat for easy collaboration). Those keys feel great - keyboards on ultraportable laptops have improved so much over recent years, and this is one of the best. The trackpad is a little too easily clicked for our liking but you soon get used to that.

Life got bold