LAS VEGAS—With dozens of collective CES events under our belts here at PCMag, we thought we’d seen it all, and maybe we have. But apparently we hadn’t done it yet wind all of them.
The curiously named Asus Adol 14 Air is a laptop with a built-in aroma diffuser to keep your instant workspace pleasantly scented with a scent you like. 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)
A disclaimer in advance: This laptop is currently only sold in China. Asus showcased it at CES 2025 to gauge interest in its possible expansion to other regions.
An ultraportable that performs beautifully
From the outside, the laptop looks a lot like any other ultralight. (It’s actually based on an existing Asus Vivobook chassis that keen laptop watchers can spot.) The exception is the quarter-dollar-sized disk in the middle of the lid, which vaguely resembles a speaker and is slightly raised from the surface of the the lid. This is an aromatherapy diffuser that stays locked in place (even with the lid open) and dispenses fragrance.
(Credit: John Burek)
(Credit: John Burek)
To remove the scent module, place your fingers on the top of the disc and twist, which (if done correctly) unlocks the metal module, pulling it out of its circular slot. It took quite a bit of effort to get the twist action down. The disc itself is perforated at the top, and if you open it (split in half), you can access the source of the scent: a smaller, white disc inside, made of a hard, plate-like material and embedded with fragrance.
(Credit: John Burek)
(Credit: John Burek)
This is where the fun begins. Asus offers a set of scent discs as accessories for the Adol, which it had on hand to display and smell test. (Their English package names included The Way You Raise Me Up, Rose of Man’s Land, Be a New Her, and Basil and Mandarin.) The plaque-like disc has the fragrance imprinted on it.
(Credit: John Burek)
From the sample disc that was inserted into the exposed Adol, we noticed a faint floral scent that was pleasant and far from overpowering. (It didn’t scent the area as aggressively as, say, a spray from a can of air freshener, or an aggressive room deodorizer.)
Rosemary and RAM: How Adol works
The fragrance discs come in little pouches, like crazy tea bags. Alternatively, you can add your own fragrance to a spent insert disc, using essential oils or perfumes you already have. If an insert loses its power, simply add a few drops of your stuff to revive it.
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You won’t find any connections or circuits inside the perfume disc cavity; the diffuser is not an electrical component. Instead, the heat from the screen and the rest of the components do the work passively. This is a neat contrivance and accounts for the delicate nature of the fragrance. (Perhaps if you were building a heavy workload, Adol might emit more scent as the processor heats up, a sort of lavender CPU usage gauge.)
(Credit: John Burek)
Adol comes in some surprising and unusual colors: a gold/copper rose, lavender, a beige with an opal sheen (aka “Sweet Heart”), and a sage green. In its current form (again, not a model available in the US), the Adol is a 14-inch machine with a 2,880-by-1,800-pixel OLED display and up to an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor and 32GB of memory. . Asus also offers, as an optional accessory, a comfortable travel case designed by designer Anna Sui to complement the laptop. The boxes are velvet lined and color coordinated with the shade of Adol you choose.
(Credit: John Burek)
Even if you don’t understand the idea of the diffuser, the design of the lid and the colors of the system are amazing in themselves. Weird? Bet on it. But a nice-smelling computer companion should keep your workspace fresh, even if your ideas are old.
As mentioned, Adol is only sold in China at the moment. We do not have corresponding dates or prices to share for North America or other markets. Any future launches in different regions are hypothetical, but hopefully we haven’t seen the last of Adol. We enjoyed poking around this most unusual computer.
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About John Burek
Executive Editor and Director of PC Labs
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