I touched grass and now space gray laptops make me sad

Summary

Tech and natural materials blend into Asus’s eco-friendly gadgets.
I’d love to see devices with more personal, tactile textures trending.
Asus’s innovative design reignites the debate on tech personality.

When you think of one of the most famous tech brands in the world, your mind doesn’t often jump to “nature” as an affiliated thought. However, that’s exactly a leap Asus wants you to make. In fact, I’m sure it would argue that they shouldn’t be two separate thoughts, especially after I was able to attend its Design You Can Feel exhibition in Milan earlier this week.

Asus showed off its patented Ceraluminum, an artistic collaboration with Studio INI, and, perhaps most importantly, unveiled its new Ceraluminum Signature Edition series of Zenbooks. Each finish in the series was inspired by four different natural landscapes and positions Asus’ mission to create devices with nature in mind at centerstage.

It was evident throughout the event itself — all over Milan’s Galleria Meravigli, there were nods to nature: dried grass stalks, mossy table settings, and even vibrant flowers (and that’s not even counting the new Zenbooks and their respective displays, either). The technology and earthy elements went together perfectly — thanks to some acutely talented designers and artists — and it spurred some thinking. What if we removed even more degrees of separation between technology and nature through the hardware itself?

ASUS Zenbook S 14

A thin-and-light Windows 11 laptop that ships with the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 (Series 2) processor and a 14-inch 3K OLED display.

Design You Can Feel surrounded by dry grass.

Asus’ Design You Can Feel exhibition opens on April 8 in Milan

It’s a Design I Can Feel, alright.

Technology and natural materials

Asus

I think Asus is onto something. Yes, its eco-friendly process for manufacturing Ceraluminum should be something other companies should strive to emulate, but I’m not just talking about the environmental responsibility factor. Its Signature Edition series was created to actually remind the user of nature as they’re using the Zenbook, touching the Ceraluminum, and especially enjoying the appearance and unique patterns.

Meanwhile, as I’m typing away on my MacBook Pro somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, the last thing on my mind is any kind of outdoor space, let alone soil or plants. The colorway I chose is called “space hray,” and I don’t think Apple could’ve chosen a name less down-to-earth than that — quite literally.

If my next computer could come in mahogany, I’d drop Apple in a heartbeat.

It’s not just in the name, either. Ceraluminum is on the right track with more of a stone-like feel as opposed to cold metal, but I think the tech giants can get more creative, like Motorola’s new woodgrain Razr+ 2025, if that leak is to be believed. Listen, if my next computer could come in mahogany, I’d drop Apple in a heartbeat.

Colors and patterns can only do so much. What we need is texture, and that’s where companies can get unique very fast. People are loyal to their particular operating systems at this point — now is the time for a hardware powerplay. People don’t want perfect, they want personal. The best thing a company like Apple or Samsung could do is put their ‘perfect’ operating systems into unique, natural housing.

You’re going to want to add Asus’ Ceraluminum to your rock collection

The assignment was ‘inspired by nature,’ and Asus delivered.

Hardware personality is dead

To revive it, maybe we really do need to touch grass

Four new limited editions of the Zenbook.

Asus

We’ve seen the same trends in other industries. Surely you’ve heard of the infamous millennial grays and beiges, and surely you’ve noticed the greyscale-ification of cars on the road. Everything is black, grey, white, or another neutral nowadays. I don’t think we need to go back to mid-19th century maximalism, but it was nice when your device had some of an identity beyond being a grey brick or slab.

The new Zenbook chasses are the first stab of personality I’ve felt dent the laptops department. I even said on-site to an Asus rep: “The Terra Mocha isn’t my favorite, it’s the least conventional.”

I would certainly swap out all my technology if I could have a collection of wooden, stone, and mossy-feeling devices.

I automatically put the warm brown, speckled chassis into the “not typical tech” box. Blue, white, and grey — the other colorways with their own unique patterns, of course — were designs I felt like I could take to the coffee shop and not turn too many heads. However, the brown stopped me in my tracks. Who on earth would make a laptop brown?

Terra Mocha Zenbook in front of a rocky place.

Asus

The moment the words were out of my mouth, my opinion turned on its head. To be conventional was the point. Its uniqueness stopped me in my tracks and made me wonder “why?” Asus got me — that exact questioning is what connected me to the inspiration: a windswept desert all the way in Jordan.

Sure, you can get bright-colored cases or even neons from manufacturers. But there’s something to be said about designs that could actually connect you directly to nature. What if there was a way to incorporate a mossy or wooden texture into device hardware? Innovations would have to make them not so natural that it required upkeep, of course, but what a chance to make one-of-a-kind devices?

I would certainly swap out all my technology if I could have a collection of wooden, stone, and mossy-feeling devices.

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The manufacturing nightmare

Conform or perish

This dream might not leave Asus’ limited-edition Zenbooks for quite some time. From sourcing to manufacturing, standards to recognition, and waste to too many imperfections, there’s a lot that would go wrong with the mission of incorporating natural materials into mainstream flagships. Companies don’t want to sell any ‘imperfect’ devices, and natural materials are unpredictable. There’s a beauty to the madness, but there is, in fact, madness.

Companies don’t want chaos — they leave that to artists who aren’t trying to pump out millions of models per year. However, Asus’ new Zenbooks are art in their own right, from the Ceraluminum to the gorgeous colorways. I hope that its competitors — I’m looking at you, Apple and Lenovo — take note and possibly bring the idea of nature back to the whiteboard room.

We don’t need minimalism in everything we own. And if I could look at the devices I use all day, every day, and think about something other than the contents of my operating system, our tech wouldn’t become as useless when the screen goes black.