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LAS VEGAS—With dozens of collective CES events under our belts here at PCMag, we thought seen it all, and perhaps we have. But we apparently hadn’t yet smelled it all.
Asus’ curiously named Adol 14 Air is a laptop with an aroma diffuser built in to keep your immediate workspace smelling pleasant with a fragrance of your liking. As you can see in the video above (and in our deeper dive below), we stuck our noses into this demo to show you how it works.
(Credit: John Burek)One up-front disclaimer: This laptop is currently sold only in China. Asus showcased it at CES 2025 to gauge interest in potentially expanding it to other regions.
An Ultraportable That Performs Scentsationally
On the outside, the laptop looks much like any other ultralight. (It’s actually based on an existing Asus Vivobook chassis that keen observers of laptops might recognize.) The exception is the quarter-dollar-size disk in the middle of the lid, which vaguely resembles a speaker and is raised slightly from the lid surface. This is the aromatherapy diffuser, which stays locked in place (even with the lid open) and dispenses the fragrance.
(Credit: John Burek)
(Credit: John Burek)To remove the scent module, you place your fingers on the top of the disk and twist, which (if you do it right) unlocks the metal module, popping it out from its circular recess. It took quite a few tries to get the twist action down. The disk itself is perforated on top, and if you pry it open (it splits in half), you can access the scent source: a smaller, white disk inside, made of a hard, tile-like material and embedded with scent.
(Credit: John Burek)
(Credit: John Burek)This is where the fun begins. Asus supplies a set of fragrance disks as accessories for the Adol, which it had on hand to display and smell-test. (Their English names on the packages included The Way You Raise Me Up, Rose of Man’s Land, Be a New Her, and Basil and Mandarin.) The tile-like disk has the scent embedded in it.
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(Credit: John Burek)From the sample disk that was inserted in the Adol on display, we noted a faint floral aroma, which was pleasant and far from overbearing. (It didn't aggressively scent the area like, say, a spritz from a can of air freshener, or an aggressive room deodorizer.)
Rosemary and RAM: How Adol Works
The scent disks come in little sachets, like jaunty tea bags. Alternatively, you can add your own scent to a spent insert disk, using essential oils or perfumes you already have. If an insert loses its potency, just add a few drops of your own stuff to reinvigorate it.
You'll find no connections or circuits inside the scent disk's recess; the diffuser is not an electrical component. Rather, the heat from the screen and the rest of the components passively do the job. This is a neat contrivance and accounts for the subtle nature of the scent. (Perhaps if you were to fire up a strenuous workload, Adol might emit more scent as the processor heats up, a sort of lavender CPU-utilization gauge.)
(Credit: John Burek)The Adol comes in several striking, uncommon colors: a rose gold/copper, the lavender, a beige with an opal sheen (aka "Sweet Heart"), and a sage green. In its current form (again, not an available model in the US), the Adol is a 14-inch machine with a 2,880-by-1,800-pixel-resolution OLED display and up to an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor and 32GB of memory. Asus also offers, as an optional accessory, a cushy travel case designed by fashion designer Anna Sui to complement the laptop. The cases are velvet-lined and color-coordinated with the shade of Adol you choose.
(Credit: John Burek)Even if you don't warm up to the idea of the diffuser, the lid design and the system colors are striking by themselves. Quirky? Bet on it. But a pleasant-smelling compute companion should keep your workspace fresh, even if your ideas are coming up stale.
As noted, Adol is sold only in China right now. We have no relevant dates or pricing to share for North America or other markets. Any future launches in different regions are hypothetical, but we hope we haven't seen the last of Adol. We enjoyed nosing around this most unusual PC.