Asus Zenbook S 16 (2024) evaluate: unbelievable efficiency and flexibility

Asus’ Zenbook S 16 is without doubt one of the first laptops to characteristic AMD’s flagship Ryzen AI processor, the one which’s purported to be quicker than Intel and Qualcomm at gaming, content material creation, and AI — and match inside a pocket book that AMD says is lighter and thinner than the MacBook Air. It sounds just like the makings of an ideal, do-it-all Home windows laptop computer.

However Asus has to persuade folks they need to purchase this AMD-powered laptop computer now, when machines operating on Qualcomm’s new chips may do all of the issues most individuals want and with battery life that far outstrips conventional chips. To be the laptop computer hit of the summer season, Asus must outshine all the Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops that had been launched a number of months in the past in not simply velocity, but additionally in battery life, high quality, consolation, apps, options, and value. That’s the mountain AMD and Asus need to climb. 

Laptops at all times include some type of compromise, whether or not that’s efficiency, battery life, or one thing else. I’ve discovered the Zenbook S 16 isn’t the proper, do-it-all laptop computer. However it balances day-to-day duties and power-user options significantly better than most productiveness laptops — and that makes it among the best I’ve used.

The Zenbook S 16 is a slim 16-inch laptop computer with a base configuration of 24GB of reminiscence, a 1TB SSD, and AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 365 processor for $1,400. It additionally has a 2880 x 1800 (3K) touchscreen OLED show with a 120Hz refresh charge and a comparatively massive 78Wh battery. I examined the $1,700 configuration with 32GB of reminiscence and the quicker Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip.

It’s spectacular that Asus match such a big battery into the Zenbook’s 0.47-inch thick chassis and that the entire laptop computer weighs solely 3.31 kilos. Larger laptops are sometimes extra annoying to hold round, and a few of that has to do with the battery. However the Zenbook feels extra like a 13- or 14-inch laptop computer, so I forgot about its precise dimension.

The keyboard placement makes the laptop computer really feel smaller, too. Asus pushes the keyboard nearer to the entrance of the laptop computer by protecting the trackpad to an affordable dimension and putting the speaker grille in again, making it simpler for me to sort on it. I can attain all the best way to the operate row with out eradicating my palms from the palm rests. With most 16-inch laptops, I wind up typing like I’m Factor from The Addams Household with my wrists floating up within the air. 

The keys additionally come near the total, satisfying press of a low-profile desktop keyboard with out sounding clacky or pingy.

It’s handsome, too. The outer physique is put via a particular course of that creates a tough, ceramic oxide layer over the floor of the aluminum chassis, giving it a stunning texture that feels tough and clean on the identical time. Asus additionally stored the identical attractive geometric traces that sparsely beautify the lid like its earlier Zenbooks.

It’s more and more normal to see a 3K, 120Hz OLED on a machine priced just like the Zenbook S 16. The show has vivid colours and deep contrasts, and it makes this laptop computer much more gorgeous.

Efficiency is the place this laptop computer has a definite benefit over Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops. For video calls, streaming music, and different on a regular basis duties, AMD’s Ryzen AI chip and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips have the identical responsiveness I’d anticipate from processors of their caliber. However AMD distinguishes itself with superior graphics efficiency, which makes the Zenbook S 16 surprisingly succesful at gaming and content material creation for such a transportable machine.

Being on the x86 Home windows platform means most video games actually will simply work on the Zenbook. Shadow of the Tomb Raider will crash on an Arm-based Snapdragon laptop computer if I attempt to run the sport at something larger than 1080p decision and low graphics. However I can run the identical sport on the Zenbook S 16 on the identical decision on excessive spec, and it’ll not solely run nice — it is going to additionally stand up to twenty extra frames per second.

The built-in GPU nonetheless isn’t highly effective sufficient to run a sport like Cyberpunk 2077 natively on such a high-resolution laptop computer, however AMD’s upscaling expertise, FSR 2.1, might help make it playable. With that on, the decision set to 1080p, and upscaling set to extremely efficiency, Cyberpunk averaged 77fps for me. The one upscaler presently out there to video games operating on Qualcomm laptops is Auto Tremendous Decision, and whereas it’s not unique to these Snapdragon laptops, utilizing it ends in plenty of flickering of nice traces. I’d not play this sport that means. 

For inventive duties, like rendering 3D photographs in Blender, the Zenbook S 16 is straight-up quicker than each Snapdragon laptop computer I’ve examined. Presently, Blender doesn’t assist Qualcomm’s built-in Adreno graphics on its Snapdragon chips, even with a local Arm64 model of that program out there (nonetheless in alpha). The AMD-powered Zenbook S 16 runs quicker as a result of this system can really use each the CPU and GPU.

AMD stated its Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip can be quicker than the M3 Professional in Apple’s MacBook Professional, too, however that didn’t pan out in my testing. The Zenbook S 16 didn’t really feel any slower in on a regular basis purposes, however the top-tier Ryzen AI chip is definitely slower than the MacBook Professional by a number of complete minutes in a real-world Blender check.

Blender can crash on any laptop computer if it doesn’t have sufficient video RAM, together with on earlier generations of AMD Zenbooks. However I didn’t have that challenge with the Zenbook S 16. It has plenty of reminiscence, and AMD now permits you to allocate as much as 75 p.c of it on to the GPU. After I devoted 16GB of RAM to graphics and ran Blender’s Agent 327: Operation Barbershop demo — a scene with complicated lighting and a check I usually run solely once I’m testing gaming or workstation laptops — it ran easily and didn’t crash. It didn’t render as quick, nevertheless it completed the job with out points.

Laptop computer makers often need to sacrifice one thing to have the thinnest and lightest laptop computer attainable. Most frequently, that’s a compromise in efficiency — however Asus as a substitute appears to have sacrificed some battery life to get as a lot efficiency out of AMD’s chip as it will probably.

The Zenbook S 16’s battery life let me down a bit, not as a result of the laptop computer isn’t moderately long-lasting, however as a result of it will get solely 11 hours with a big, 78Wh battery. Asus’ predominant Qualcomm Snapdragon competitor, Samsung’s 16-inch Galaxy Book4 Edge, has practically an identical weight and dimensions, and it will get 14 hours with a battery that’s 23 p.c smaller. However I’m okay with this tradeoff given how I may use the Zenbook S 16 as my main laptop computer for writing articles, modifying high-resolution pictures, and light-weight gaming — and it has a way more snug keyboard.

The Zenbook S 16 can also be unusually dangerous at estimating its personal battery life. The taskbar battery icon would say 95 p.c remaining with an estimated run time of 8.5 hours, then a number of minutes later, it will have fallen to 87 p.c remaining however with an estimated runtime of 12.5 hours. This went on for hours. Certain, battery estimations can fluctuate, however they ping-ponged chaotically on this laptop computer, so I by no means may get a good suggestion of how a lot battery was left.

Asus’ new Zenbook S 16 comes with one flagship AI app: StoryCube. It’s supposed that can assist you consolidate your pictures and movies from the cloud onto the laptop computer and robotically type and set up all the pieces with on-device AI. It sounded prefer it might be helpful for me since I’ve a foul behavior of not organizing the pictures I add to the cloud. However it didn’t work in any respect, and Asus couldn’t inform me why. Asus says it ought to take simply 24 minutes to generate an AI album for each gigabyte of knowledge, however I let this system run for twenty-four complete hours and nothing occurred. 

The Zenbook S 16 additionally helps the most recent model of the AI picture technology app Amuse. It really works, however utilizing it with AMD’s NPU makes it run slower, not quicker. It took twice as lengthy to generate pictures with the NPU on, and it’s on by default if you first open this system.

And whereas Microsoft has made a giant push round Copilot Plus PCs this summer season, the Zenbook S 16 isn’t a part of that program at launch, so it doesn’t have AI-powered options like Cocreator and Reside Translation. These are presently solely out there on Snapdragon laptops, however they’re purported to be coming to AMD Ryzen AI laptops by the top of 2024. 

If you happen to’re occupied with shopping for this laptop computer solely for its AI capabilities, I’d maintain off. I’m nonetheless determining how most individuals can benefit from AMD’s 50 TOPS NPU in a means that’s genuinely helpful day-to-day.

If you happen to’re in search of a big, highly effective, comparatively skinny, and light-weight machine, Zenbook S 16 is a good all-rounder laptop computer. I’ve examined virtually all the brand new Qualcomm laptops, and none of them can match its general efficiency or native assist for apps. Though it’s bigger than most Qualcomm laptops, it doesn’t really feel prefer it. The one factor it’s a must to sacrifice is a number of hours of battery life, and for me, the efficiency and dimension are extra vital. 

However should you really feel in another way, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge was the perfect Qualcomm machine I examined this summer season for its battery life and dimension. There’s additionally at all times Apple: regardless of AMD’s daring claims, Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air beat the Zenbook on each efficiency and battery life in my assessments.

There aren’t any Intel laptops that I’d presently advocate over the Zenbook S 16 that hit the identical candy spot. Whereas I did just like the MSI Status 16 AI Evo’s 4 to 6 hours of additional battery life, it’s nowhere close to as fairly or as simple for me to sort on or carry round. And whereas the 2024 Dell XPS 14 additionally involves thoughts, you’re solely solely about an hour or two of additional battery life that’ll value you round $500 extra.

Because the Zenbook S 16 isn’t actually a devoted gaming or creator laptop computer, I’d advocate the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 for that. In my assessments, it will get two to 3 occasions higher 1080p gaming efficiency with out upscaling and rendered my Blender scene in mere seconds. It nonetheless manages six and a half hours of battery life in a thin-and-light chassis, too.

The Zenbook S 16 didn’t fairly stay as much as all of the efficiency claims AMD made about it, nevertheless it got here shut and actually impressed me within the course of. It’s a 16-inch productiveness, gaming, and content material creation machine that does all these issues surprisingly effectively and is definitely simple to hold round. All it’s a must to surrender in return are these few hours of battery life. It’s a mix that provides as much as make this my favourite 16-inch Home windows laptop computer of the summer season.

Pictures by Joanna Nelius / The Verge