Asus’ Lightweight 16-inch Laptop Is A Formidable Macbook Air Alternative

I already put Asus’ caller Zenbook A16 done nan wringer when I brought a pre-production portion pinch maine to CES. I loved it for its ample powerfulness successful an impressively ray 16-inch chassis. It’s speedy capable for part-time contented creation, it’s sewage lengthy artillery life, and its ample OLED surface is crisp and vivid.

Now, nan last accumulation exemplary is here, priced astatine $1,599.99 for a configuration pinch a whopping 48GB of RAM — a spec-to-price equilibrium that’s unheard of, particularly successful these uncertain times. All nan strengths I witnessed from its pre-production days are still present, and nan early hardware issues and package bugs I encountered person been fixed (as they should have). The consequence is simply a unsocial Windows laptop for anyone seeking nan astir surface existent property successful 1 of nan lightest and astir tin packages, and a worthwhile replacement to a 15-inch MacBook Air.

The Zenbook A16 is chiefly disposable successful nan US successful 1 configuration pinch a nearly-top-of-the-line 18-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-94-100 chip. It besides includes that plentiful 48GB of RAM (which is soldered) and 1TB SSD. Its crisp looks are owed to its awesome looking 16-inch, 2880 x 1800 / 120Hz OLED show and Asus’ Ceraluminum coating, wrapping nan chassis successful a satiny finish. The A16 has much cozy vibes than your mean laptop, acknowledgment to that lightly textured consciousness and its unsocial beige color. This is highest beige (complimentary aliases derogatory, depending really you feel).

The pre-prod exemplary I utilized backmost successful January wasn’t fresh for benchmark testing, but nan last A16 and its caller X2 Elite Extreme spot astir decidedly is. After putting it done a afloat suite of tests crossed Geekbench, Cinebench 2026, PugetBench, Blender, and more, I tin confidently say: damn, it’s beautiful good! The 15-inch M5 MacBook Air it’s aimed to compete pinch still wins astir head-to-heads, but nan Zenbook shows its strengths successful multi-threaded CPU capacity crossed Geekbench and Cinebench. It’s moreover basking connected nan MacBook’s heels successful nan PugetBench Photoshop trial (which is CPU intensive).

Turning to nan Intel Panther Lake-equipped Asus Zenbook Duo, nan Zenbook A16 handily wins successful some azygous and multi-core CPU capacity tests. The Zenbook Duo has nan overmuch bigger advantage successful graphics tests acknowledgment to its beefier Arc B390 GPU. But you salary overmuch much for nan Duo’s graphics chops (and its 2nd screen), arsenic it costs $700 much than nan Zenbook A16.

The A16’s capacity scores way pinch my real-world acquisition utilizing it to edit 50-megapixel RAW files successful Adobe Lightroom Classic, wherever it often felt reminiscent of guidelines M4 and now M5 MacBooks. I could blaze done my edits, moreover connected artillery power. And speaking of artillery life, nan A16 is yet different illustration of a Snapdragon laptop that easy lasts an eight-hour activity time of mixed usage (Chrome tabs, immoderate video calls, and a small streaming). I sewage done a time conscionable for illustration that, pinch astir 90 minutes of corporate video calls, and I still had 30 percent artillery leftover to usage for my evening.

The remainder of nan Zenbook A16 is besides good put together: a hinge that easy opens pinch 1 finger, a bully emotion keyboard pinch deeper cardinal recreation than MacBooks, a coagulated mechanical trackpad, and immoderate decent speakers. The trackpad is hinged astatine nan top, soft key-style, but it clicks good successful its little half. Listening to euphony connected nan A16 sounds bully and reasonably full, but it lacks bass, arsenic you’d expect. And nan downward-and-outward-firing speakers get partially blocked erstwhile resting nan laptop connected your legs, altering nan sound. It conscionable doesn’t person nan aforesaid level of oomph nan 15-inch MacBook Air is tin of, but wide this is still a beautiful complete package for a thin-and-light (and large) laptop.

My biggest sound against nan Zenbook A16 remains my aforesaid problem pinch each Arm-based Windows laptops: nan gaming situation. Qualcomm deserves immoderate in installments for putting successful nan activity to get much games moving connected Windows connected Arm (now up to 2,400 supported titles from nan first 1,200), but it’s still a driblet successful nan bucket compared to x86 Windows. Easy Anti-Cheat is now supported, truthful games for illustration Fortnite are playable connected Snapdragon laptops. But Elden Ring Nightreign (one of my individual faves for online unrecorded work games) still doesn’t work, contempt besides utilizing Easy Anti-Cheat. Qualcomm and Microsoft request to support building momentum and getting much developers and publishers to update their games for Arm. I conscionable can’t thief knocking Snapdragon laptops for this, because 1 of my main draws to utilizing Windows is being capable to play conscionable astir immoderate crippled I want. I’m good pinch settling for murphy value graphics connected an integrated GPU, arsenic agelong arsenic I tin play immoderate nan temper calls for.

With due crippled support, a laptop for illustration nan Zenbook A16 could 1 time beryllium nan MacBook Air slayer (or person to one) that it’s positioned to be. It’s a awesome replacement arsenic it stands now, but you person to want Windows and beryllium consenting to play nan aforesaid roulette of “Is this crippled supported?” conscionable for illustration Mac users do.

My ain nerdy gamer needs aside, I’m relieved to spot nan Zenbook A16 is hitting nan marketplace pinch this overmuch RAM and capacity for $1,600. It whitethorn not beryllium a MacBook Air killer, but it’s an absorbing replacement that isn’t conscionable an also-ran. I’d still propose astir group conscionable spell pinch nan MacBook Air, and if you really request much powerfulness aliases much ports (including that useful SD paper slot) nan entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro is besides correct there. But that’s besides a chunkier and overmuch heavier laptop. The Zenbook A16 offers an intriguing and refreshing twist: a light-but-large laptop pinch very bully capacity and capable RAM to upwind nan ongoing large wind of a world representation shortage.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge