The new Asus Zenbook S16 is not only very sleek, but it also offers a great package for all your daily tasks
If the design of your new laptop is very important for you, you should have a look at the new Asus Zenbook S16. The 16-inch laptop offers a very slim chassis (1.1-1.3 cm) and only weighs 1.5 kg, so it is on par with the slightly smaller Apple MacBook Air 15. You do not have to make compromises in terms of quality, because the stability of the metal-ceramic chassis is excellent and it is also nice to touch. Our review unit in a dark grey color simply looks stunning, but you can also get white version. Despite the key travel of just 1.1 mm, the keyboard still offers a very comfortable typing experience.
The CPU is the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 465, which is just a small update compared to last year's model. Thanks to faster memory and higher power limits, however, the performance is still slightly better than before. If you really need the full power, though, the fans will get very loud. For everyday tasks we therefore recommend one of the other two power profiles, where the fans are usually much quieter.
Asus also improved the OLED screen that now also supports touch inputs. The result is that bright surfaces appear slightly grainy at a close distance, but this should not be a big issue from a normal sitting distance. The brightness was improved and it now reaches around 1100 nits in HDR mode, so it is more than twice as bright as before. As per usual, Asus includes very accurate color profiles for sRGB as well as P3, so picture editing is possible as well. The only thing we would like to see is a fast SD-Express card reader.
Considering the other aspects, it is not easy to find any bad things. The memory is still soldered and you can only install a single SSD, but this is a result of the slim chassis. In return you now get a slightly bigger battery and the overall runtimes are very good (13 hours in our Wi-Fi test). There are rivals with Intel's Lunar Lake platform with even more stamina, but the results should be sufficient for the majority of users.
Priced at €1799, the Zenbook S16 is not cheap, but you get a very high-quality all-round device for all your daily tasks. Please see our comprehensive review for more information on the new Aus Zenbook S16.
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