I still don’t really understand what ‘ceraluminum’ is, but I like it
Asus Zenbook S 16: Two-minute review
The Asus Zenbook laptop line has long been one of my favorites, sitting among the best ultrabooks alongside rivals like Dell’s XPS series and the LG Gram collection. Now, Asus has given its premium laptop lineup a fresh lease on life, thanks to AMD’s mighty new Ryzen AI chips and the magic of something called ‘ceraluminum’.
I’ll get further into that mysterious new material further down in this review, but here’s the short version: the lid of the new Asus Zenbook S 16 is made from a futuristic composite of aluminum and ceramic, giving it a soft matte feel while also being more durable, lighter, and fingerprint-resistant than the traditional aluminum and plastic used in the construction of most modern laptops.
Of course, a fancy outer casing doesn’t guarantee you’re getting a high-quality product. But the Zenbook S 16 delivers a premium experience in other areas too, with great performance across a variety of workloads and a generally very comfortable user experience.
Although I always spend at least a full workweek using any laptop I review in lieu of my regular daily driver (the ever-faithful HP Spectre x360), I was actually forced to use this laptop for a few days. See, my boiler needed replacing, and unfortunately, it’s situated in my home office – meaning that for two days, I was jettisoned from my desktop setup to the breakfast bar downstairs while the installation engineer resolved my lack of hot water.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a creature of habit, and was initially unhappy to be displaced from my usual workstation. But honestly, I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t drop Asus a line politely asking (read: begging) to keep this Zenbook. The 16-inch OLED touchscreen is gorgeous, and the large touchpad and keyboard make for a very comfortable user experience. It’s perhaps the closest I’ve felt to using a MacBook Pro while actually on a Windows laptop – and while I’m a known macOS hater, I’ve always maintained that Apple’s Mac products are very well-designed devices.
Starting at $1,599 / £1,499 / AU$2,999, the Zenbook S 16 isn’t exactly cheap, but for that price tag, you’re getting some pretty impressive performance and a really, really nice piece of physical hardware. I’ll dig into the details more in the Price and Availability section, but the key takeaway here is that the value proposition is solid.
There’s only one real drawback here, in my opinion: the battery life. It’s perfectly serviceable, don’t get me wrong, but it’s nothing spectacular within the current market space. Still, it’ll last you through a full day’s work and then some – so as long as you don’t mind putting it on charge overnight.Asus Zenbook S 16: Price and availability
How much does it cost? Starts at $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,999
When is it available? Available now
Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia
With a price tag starting at $1,599 / £1,499 / AU$2,999, the Asus Zenbook S 16 certainly leans towards the premium end of the market, but you’re getting plenty of bang for your buck here.
There are a few different configurations, with the main difference being the Ryzen processor model and the amount of RAM. Every model comes with the same 3K OLED display and 1TB of storage – a 2TB model would’ve been nice, but at least the SSD is user-upgradable. The base configuration, priced as above, comes with a Ryzen AI 7 350 chip and 24GB of RAM (an unusual amount, but still better than the more commonplace 16GB industry standard).
My review unit is a higher-end model, featuring a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor and 32GB of RAM, and it will cost you $1,799 / £1,599 – and at the time of writing, this model unfortunately isn’t available in Australia. I say ‘unfortunately’ here because for my money, that extra $200 / £100 is well worth it for the internal hardware upgrade.
For comparison, a 16-inch MacBook Pro will cost you $2,499 / £2,499 / AU$3,999 – and that’s just for the base M4 Pro model. Granted, there’s no denying that Apple’s pro-grade laptop can offer better performance in many areas than this Zenbook, but the point stands that the Zenbook S 16 is very good value for money.
Price score: 4.5/5Asus Zenbook S 16: SpecsAsus Zenbook S 16: Design
Super comfortable keyboard and trackpad
Ceraluminum casing is impressive
Surprisingly lightweight
Aesthetically speaking, this is undeniably one gorgeous laptop. With the ‘Scandinavian White’ colorway, it feels as clean and striking as any of the best laptops.
