The new ASUS Zenbook A16 is here, and it’s remarkably thin and light! It’s the lightest laptop I’ve ever tested, and it still looks great too.
Watch this review below:
The ASUS Zenbook A16 offers strong performance and a stunning 3K OLED screen, making everything look fantastic. Honestly, it’s hard to find anything to dislike about this laptop – I loved its size, weight, design, and overall performance. It might just be my favorite tech product of the year so far, so let’s take a closer look.
The ASUS Zenbook A16 is a 16-inch laptop designed to compete with the 16-inch MacBook Pro. Despite its large screen, it’s surprisingly thin and light. ASUS built the exterior with a special material called Ceraluminum, a blend of ceramic and aluminum, making it both durable and easy to carry.
The A16’s performance is immediately noticeable. It feels fantastic to hold and use, and its lightweight design is so impressive that it sometimes feels surprisingly hollow, like it’s made of plastic.
The ASUS A16 is impressively lightweight at just 1.3 kilograms. It measures 35cm in length, 24cm in width, and is only 1.38cm thick at its slimmest point. The review unit we received, called Zabriskie Beige, has a beautiful brown color that resembles a piece of marble.
This notebook has a very understated design – it avoids bright logos or busy patterns. The only branding is the simple ‘ASUS Zenbook’ text on the lid. It’s a sophisticated look that’s both minimalist and eye-catching, and I appreciate the design choices ASUS made.
The underside of the device is just as well-designed, with a simple, uncluttered appearance. It includes two rubber strips, a large cooling vent, and speaker openings. The design is completely symmetrical, giving it a sleek and polished look.
The ASUS Zenbook A16’s appealing design extends to its interior. It features a smooth glass trackpad that matches the laptop’s color scheme, and the keyboard—though slightly condensed—is a subtly darker shade, creating a nice contrast. The keys are backlit with bright white LEDs, making them easy to see in most lighting conditions.
Using the ASUS Zenbook A16 is a genuinely pleasant experience. The large trackpad is ideal for both everyday tasks and gesture control, offering a smooth, comfortable feel with accurate, responsive clicks. I especially appreciate its solid build – it doesn’t wobble or feel flimsy, which is something I really dislike in a trackpad.
The keyboard is comfortable to type on. The keys have a decent amount of travel, though they feel a little soft. I’d prefer a more tactile click when I press them, as it would feel more responsive. However, I think I’d adjust to the feel with regular use.
The interior is fairly simple. You’ll find a Zenbook logo on the upper right of the keyboard, and the screen’s edges include a full HD webcam plus infrared for Windows Hello facial recognition security.
The laptop features a stunning 16-inch 3K OLED display with a resolution of 2880 x 1800. The screen is professionally calibrated for accurate colors, covering 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, and is VESA certified. It’s bright at 500 nits, supports HDR for vibrant visuals, and even includes HDR True Black for deep blacks. ASUS has also incorporated eye care technology to reduce strain.
I couldn’t be happier with this display – it’s truly outstanding. Although my testing showed a brightness of around 430 nits (slightly below the advertised 500), it’s ideal for daily tasks and enjoying movies or videos. I especially loved the vibrant colours brought to life by the OLED technology, and the smooth 120Hz refresh rate makes everything feel incredibly responsive.
The ASUS Zenbook A16 has a good selection of ports. On the left side, you’ll find two USB 4.0 ports that support power delivery and video output, plus an HDMI 2.1 port and a headphone/microphone jack. On the right side, there’s one USB 3.2 port and an SD card reader.
This ASUS laptop boasts powerful hardware, including a fast 1TB SSD and a generous 48GB of RAM. It’s worth noting that the RAM is permanently installed and can’t be upgraded. While you can’t add another SSD to expand storage, 48GB of RAM is still a substantial amount for most users.
As you might have guessed, the ASUS Zenbook A16 doesn’t use Intel or AMD processors. Instead, it features the new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme chip, which performs exceptionally well.
This processor can reach speeds of up to 5.0 GHz on a single core and 4.4 GHz when using multiple cores. It features 18 cores and 18 threads, and can handle up to 228GB of data per second. Its built-in AI processing unit is capable of up to 80 TOPS (trillions of operations per second).
Let me explain this simply. This laptop is really powerful – it’s great for anyone who creates things, uses a computer every day, or is a student. It has a Snapdragon X2 Extreme chip that delivers excellent performance, and it’s also efficient, meaning the battery lasts a long time and it doesn’t overheat.
Overall, this laptop is very quiet during everyday use. The fan rarely turns on – I almost never heard it, except when running demanding tests. You won’t be bothered by fan noise during typical tasks.
I ran some tests on the ASUS Zenbook A16 to show how its performance compares to newer, more powerful processors from Intel and AMD.
CPU PROFILE
- MAX THREADS: 10318
- 16 THREADS: 9182
- 8 THREADS: 5369
- 4 THREADS: 3095
- 2 THREADS: 1665
- 1 THREAD: 859
The ASUS Zenbook A16 isn’t designed for gaming, but it performs incredibly well for everyday tasks. I was really impressed with how smoothly it ran, and it reinforces my belief that Snapdragon chips are the way forward for laptops – this model is a great demonstration of that.
Seeing Windows 11 run smoothly with apps opening and working perfectly feels like a major breakthrough for Snapdragon processors. I’ve tested Snapdragon chips before, but this is the first time I’ve really noticed a significant improvement, and I didn’t encounter any app compatibility issues.
The ASUS Zenbook A16 delivers a fantastic overall experience. It boasts a beautiful display, surprisingly loud speakers, and impressive performance. Plus, the battery lasts a long time – around 12 hours with the screen at medium brightness.
The battery life is my main complaint. ASUS claims up to 21 hours, but I only consistently got around 10. A larger battery – 83Wh instead of the current 70Wh – would have made it perfect. However, it does charge incredibly quickly, gaining about 40% charge in just 30 minutes, which is a definite plus.
The ASUS Zenbook A16 delivers on its promise of being a strong competitor to the MacBook, but it’s held back by ongoing issues with Windows. It’s frustrating to deal with constant interruptions like unwanted pop-ups, the Copilot assistant, problematic updates, frequent restarts, and pre-installed apps you didn’t ask for. These issues really detract from the overall experience.
The ASUS Zenbook A16 is a truly impressive laptop and represents a high point for ASUS. However, like many excellent laptops, its potential is limited by the constraints of the Windows operating system.
Once you accept its limitations, the ASUS Zenbook A16 is truly excellent – it’s exactly what I was hoping for. While a longer battery life and touchscreen would be nice, those are minor details. ASUS has created a Windows laptop that should easily last four or five years.
Visit the ASUS website here for more information on the Zenbook A16.
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2026-05-04 09:15