2024 is the era for AI PCs and the just-launched Asus Zenbook S16 comes packed with the new AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processors and brings much-needed improvements over AMD’s past processors. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor powering the laptop comes AI-ready, making it a premium showcase for Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs.
DESIGN
The Asus Zenbook S 16 boasts a stunning, high-end design with a Ceraluminium finish, combining matt ceramic(less prone to fingerprints) and aluminum for improved wear resistance, corrosion protection, hardness, and lifespan. The ASUS Zenbook S 16 series meets US MIL-STD-810H military-grade standard, ensuring durability and sustainability.
The lid features a metallic geometric pattern with the ASUS monogram. Regarding colour options, the laptop is available in Zumaia Gray and Scandinavian White.
The laptop features a 16-inch form factor made with a CNC process and integrated molding technique for improved durability. It is also ultraportable at 1.5kg with a side profile of 11mm.
The Zenbook S 16 comes with an advanced cooling system that smoothly adapts to any task for quiet and efficient performance, featuring dual fans, an ultra-slim vapor chamber, and a geometric grille design to maintain optimal 28-watt TDP without throttling, ensuring whisper-quiet operation under 25 dB during light workloads.
The Zenbook S16 features a newly designed ErgoSense touchpad that is 40% larger than the previous model, measuring 150.3 x 99.5 mm, providing a more comfortable user experience. The touchpad also has a 0.23 mm click depth, 1.4 times longer than the previous model. It enables multitouch gestures in Windows, allowing users to launch frequently-used applications or functions with three- or four-finger shortcuts, for quick access to commonly used settings and apps. You can control brightness, volume, and video scrolling using the smooth multi-touch surface around the edges.
The Zenbook S 16’s backlit keyboard with 19.5 mm pitch, 1.1mm key travel and commonly used function keys ensures comfortable and accurate typing, replicating the comfort of a desktop PC keyboard.
The ASUS Zenbook S 16 boasts a 16:10 OLED HDR NanoEdge8 touch display(stylus support) with 2880 x 1800 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate featuring a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, up to 550-nits peak brightness(HDR content), and 0.0005 nits of deep black brightness for a vibrant and detailed viewing experience. Additionally, it offers 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, HDR content support, and certifications including VESA DisplayHDRTM 500 True Black, Dolby Vision, and Pantone® Validation.
The new Zenbook series offers a customizable color gamut function, allowing users to quickly switch the display’s color settings, including ultra-vivid native color, sRGB for web content, DCI-P3 for cinema, and Display P3 for everyday viewing. Users can access these settings via the Splendid page in MyASUS.
ASUS OLED laptops emit 70% less blue light than LCD panels and are certified by TÜV Rhineland for safety and quality. They come with OLED Care software to protect the display from burn-in, and a screensaver activates after 30 minutes of inactivity to prevent image persistence.
The ASUS Lumina OLED laptops provide incredibly detailed and lifelike visuals, featuring a cinema-grade 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, making it perfect for color-intensive projects.
In general, users will like the laptop’s design and ergonomics.
AUDIO
The ASUS Zenbook S16’s slim body houses a six-speaker sound system, including two high-frequency tweeters and four low-frequency woofers, delivering powerful and crystal-clear sound for entertainment and communication.
The ASUS Zenbook S16’s audio system, meticulously tuned by the ASUS Golden Ear team and certified by Harman Kardon®, delivers superior sound quality with louder volumes, richer depth, and enhanced surround-sound effects compared to similar-sized laptops.
The ASUS Zenbook S16 comes with dual speakers supported by Dolby Atmos®, offering users an immersive listening experience with customizable equalizer settings.
The ASUS Zenbook S16’s audio system includes a smart amplifier and ASUS Audio Booster software, resulting in a volume boost of up to 5.25X for a more powerful audio experience across various media.
WEBCAM
Zenbook S 16 features ASUS Two-Way AI Noise Cancelation to ensure clear communication during video calls through the 1080p webcam. The ClearVoice Mic function offers four modes to enhance voice quality, including filtering out ambient noise, normalizing individual voices, and filtering out ambient noise for clearer recording.
The Zenbook S16 comes with the ASUS AiSense Camera, which has an FHD IR camera for Windows Hello face recognition and a sensor that adjusts display brightness and color temperature based on ambient light levels for an optimal viewing experience.
The ASUS Zenbook S16 also incorporates an advanced 3D noise-reduction technology that effectively reduces random noise in low-light conditions, improving image quality without sacrificing exposure or detail levels.
PORTS
The ASUS Zenbook S16 series comes with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, each supporting up to 40 Gbps data bandwidth, DisplayPort, and Power Delivery, along with a full-sized HDMI 2.1 (TMDS) port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, and an audio combo jack, making it easy to connect to external 4K displays, storage devices, or expand connections. It also has an SD card reader.
The Zenbook S 16 can now connect up to three external monitors using AMD’s new processors and its rich selection of I/O ports, including HDMI and USB-C ports.
CONNECTIVITY
The ASUS Zenbook S16 comes with Wi-Fi 7, offering faster speeds and improved reliability, with a potential maximum data rate of almost 5.8 Gbps, making it 4.8X faster than Wi-Fi 6/6E and enabling high-quality 8K video streaming and faster file downloads.
PERFORMANCE
The ASUS Zenbook S 16 features upto 12-core AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processor, up to 32 GB of LPDDR5X-7500 memory, and a 2 TB PCIe® 4.0 x4 NVMe M.2 SSD. It ships with Windows 11 Home.
The AMD Strix 12-core processors are built on AMD’s latest ZEN 5 architecture, offering up to 12 computing cores and 24 threads for improved multitasking performance. They also integrate AMD RDNATM 3.5 architecture-based RadeonTM graphics and AMD XDNATM 2 architecture-based NPU that dishes up to 50 Tera Operations per Second (TOPS) for advanced AI capabilities, unlocking new possibilities, accelerating multitasking, enhancing real-time video quality, boosting productivity, fostering collaboration, and paving the way for future advancements.
The Zenbook S 16 offers an advanced AI experience with improved security, speed, and personalization, thanks to its latest AI-enabled processors, integrated AI engines, Copilot in Windows, and ASUS AI applications.
Windows Copilot is a robust assistant that aims to boost user productivity and streamline the Windows experience, providing a variety of features to simplify daily tasks, from locating files to managing computer functions.
When compared to its competitors, the Zenbook S16 excels and ranks high in both single-core and multicore performance, courtesy of its AMD processor, allowing seamless high-frame-rate gaming experiences in graphic-intensive games like Cyberpunk 2077, thanks to AMD’s FSR upscaling technology.
You’ll be well taken care of in terms of creative and productive work.
BATTERY
The Zenbook S 16 features a 78 Wh battery and USB-C® Easy Charge, allowing for convenient all-day battery life and compatibility with various USB-C chargers, providing close to 12 hours of battery life.
Easy USB-C® Charging provides 4.5-watt charging with non-Power Delivery chargers, such as portable chargers or USB Type-A to USB-C® chargers, and matches the charging speed to the connected Power Delivery charger’s power output.
The Battery Health Charging feature extends battery life up to 3 times and offers three modes: Full Capacity, Balanced, and Maximum Lifespan. In Full Capacity mode, the battery charges to 100% for extended on-the-go performance. Balanced mode charges the battery to 80% for a balance of power while preserving battery quality, while Maximum Lifespan mode only charges the battery to 60% to maximize its life.
VERDICT
The Zenbook S16 offers a stylish ultra-slim design, a display to feast on, and a powerful combination of CPU, GPU, and NPU capabilities which offers excellent value for professionals in the business and creative fields.
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
Asus Kenya is yet to announce local pricing and availability details, but global prices start from $1399. Pre-orders can however be made here.
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