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2025-02-19
The Asus Zenbook S 16 is a powerful and visually stunning laptop that stands out among its competitors. With its lightweight yet durable design, top-tier performance, and exceptional display, itâs easy to see why this device has garnered attention from tech enthusiasts and professionals alike. While it comes with a hefty price tag, its advanced features, including a 3K OLED touchscreen and AMDâs Ryzen AI processor, make it a strong contender in the premium laptop market. However, its battery life and tendency to run hot might make it less ideal for all users.
Key Takeaways:
- Performance and Design: The Zenbook S 16 is powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 9 processor, integrated Radeon 880M GPU, and 24GB of RAM, offering solid performance for creative tasks like image/video editing and light gaming.
- Stunning Display: Its 16-inch 3K OLED touchscreen delivers vibrant visuals, covers the full DCI-P3 color gamut, and features a 120Hz refresh rate for a smooth experience.
- Unique Build: Crafted from “ceraluminum” (a mix of ceramic and aluminum), the Zenbook is impressively lightweight yet durable, weighing just 3.3 pounds.
- Battery and Heat: Battery life lasts around 10 hours, but itâs not the best in its class. The device tends to run warm, especially under heavy loads.
- Audio: Equipped with Harman/Kardon speakers and Dolby Atmos, the sound quality is surprisingly rich for a laptop.
What Undercode Says:
The Asus Zenbook S 16 has earned praise for its stunning design, performance, and display quality. As someone whoâs tested countless laptops, itâs clear this one is a standout, particularly in the areas of portability and visual fidelity. However, while it shines in design and display, it falls short in certain practical aspects, such as battery life and cooling efficiency.
The 3K OLED touchscreen is undoubtedly one of the Zenbook S 16âs best features. With vibrant, accurate colors, and a refresh rate that ensures smooth motion, it’s perfect for content creators who need precise color accuracy and visual appeal. Whether you’re editing images, videos, or enjoying multimedia content, this laptopâs screen is a treat. The Pantone validation and full DCI-P3 color coverage ensure that the display offers a high degree of color accuracy, a critical factor for those in creative fields.
On the performance side, the Zenbook S 16 delivers strong results, thanks to the AMD Ryzen AI 9 processor and the integrated Radeon 880M GPU. Itâs clear that Asus is focusing on leveraging AI with this chip, with its AMD XDNA 2 NPU designed to improve AI-based tasks. While benchmarks show that it lags behind the Snapdragon X in general workloads, its graphics performance stands out, scoring well in 3DMark Sky Diver and PCMarkâs Digital Content Creation tests. This makes the Zenbook S 16 a solid option for professionals in the creative industry, particularly those focused on image editing and video production. However, for more CPU-intensive tasks, it may not match up to some Intel chips, which are often more optimized for multi-core processing.
Another highlight of the Zenbook S 16 is its build quality. The use of ceraluminum, a combination of ceramic and aluminum, makes the laptop incredibly durable yet lightweight. This material, often used in aerospace, offers strength and scratch resistance, which is ideal for people on the go. The deviceâs weight of just 3.3 pounds makes it easy to carry around, and its construction ensures that it will survive the rigors of daily use without significant wear and tear. However, the keyboard could have been better. The keys are somewhat mushy, lacking the crisp feedback that many users, especially those who type a lot, expect from a premium laptop.
Regarding battery life, the Zenbook S 16âs 10-hour endurance is decent, but it doesnât shine when compared to other premium laptops. For instance, devices powered by Qualcommâs Snapdragon X chips tend to deliver superior battery life, making the Zenbook less ideal for extended travel or long workdays away from an outlet. With high-performance hardware comes the downside of heat, and the Zenbook tends to run warm, especially under heavy workloads. This is due to its shallow rubber foot, which doesnât allow the heat to dissipate as effectively as it could, leading to higher temperatures.
One area where the Zenbook S 16 exceeds expectations is audio. Featuring Harman/Kardon speakers with Dolby Atmos support, the laptop produces rich, full sound that adds depth to movies, music, and video calls. This is a rare feature in laptops, and it elevates the overall experience when consuming media, whether you’re working or relaxing.
While the $1,399 price tag might be on the higher end, the Zenbook S 16 justifies it with its premium design, powerful hardware, and standout display. For professionals in the creative industry, the price is worth it for the color-accurate OLED screen and the performance capabilities, especially for lighter tasks like image editing and video production. However, if you’re after something more budget-friendly or have heavy computing needs, you might want to look at alternatives, such as the Asus Vivobook Pro 15, which offers good performance at a significantly lower price.
In conclusion, the Asus Zenbook S 16 is a beautifully crafted machine that blends style with performance, but it does have its drawbacks. If you prioritize design and display quality over long battery life and heat management, this is a laptop worth considering. However, for those seeking a machine that can handle more demanding tasks without running hot, other options might be better suited to your needs.
References:
Reported By: https://www.zdnet.com/article/ive-tested-hundreds-of-laptops-but-cant-stop-thinking-about-the-brilliant-display-on-this-16-inch-asus/
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