ASUS ZenBook A16 review: A surprisingly light and powerful 16-inch ultraportable 

I went into 2025 incredibly amped to reappraisal ASUS's 2.2-pound ZenBook A14, only to beryllium disappointed by nan lackluster capacity of its Snapdragon X chip. I'm still a spot heartbroken, to beryllium honest. But now ASUS is backmost pinch a revamped A14 and a larger 16-inch ZenBook A16, some of which athletics caller Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme chips. The A16 is somewhat heavier astatine 2.6 pounds and 2.9 pounds, but it still competes pinch LG’s Gram Pro 16. And acknowledgment to Qualcomm's caller hardware, it's really speedy capable to compete pinch Intel and AMD ultraportables.

Take everything I initially liked astir nan ZenBook A14 past twelvemonth — its bladed creation and portability, its soft "Ceraluminum" lawsuit and its bold OLED surface — agelong it retired a bit, and you've sewage nan ZenBook A16. There's an understated beauty to its creation that's acold much intriguing than ASUS's mainstream notebooks, for illustration nan ZenBook 14 OLED from a fewer years ago, and it's not trying arsenic difficult to impressment arsenic ASUS's emblematic gaming notebooks. It's akin to nan company's gorgeous Zephyrus G14 and G16 machines, which consciousness high-end without needing excessively overmuch gaming bling.

What struck maine first astir nan A14 past twelvemonth remains nan astir intriguing facet of nan A16: It conscionable seems impossibly ray for its size. The exemplary I’m testing, which will besides beryllium sold astatine Best Buy, weighs 2.9 pounds owed to its solid touchscreen cover. But you tin besides get a slimmer 2.6-pound type of nan A16 astatine ASUS’s online store.

ASUS's Ceraluminum material, which feels for illustration a blend of ceramic and metal, besides exudes value and warmth erstwhile you clasp it. There's nary daze of acold metallic connected your thigh for illustration you'll find pinch astir premium laptops, including Apple's MacBook Pro. But it's besides conscionable arsenic sturdy arsenic those machines, pinch nary discernible creaks aliases flex erstwhile stressed. ASUS claims its Ceraluminum cases are besides scratch and fingerprint resistant, and truthful acold that seems to beryllium existent of my reappraisal portion aft a fewer weeks of testing.

The ZenBook A16's stunning 16-inch 3K OLED surface is its defining feature, and it delivers everything you'd expect from OLED. Colors look bold and bright, and it offers inky acheronian achromatic levels. It delivers an eye-popping consciousness of opposition you won't find connected astir LCD screens (unless they person Mini LED backlights, for illustration nan MacBook Pro). Text appears crisp and sharp, and nan ample surface size does a awesome occupation of making video playback consciousness immersive (especially if you're laying successful bed, trying to drawback up connected The Pitt).

Personally, I'd still opt for nan A14 because of nan weight difference, but if you for illustration large screens this is surely 1 of nan astir intriguing options around. The A16 besides has a full-sized SD paper scholar and HDMI connection, some of which nan smaller exemplary lacks entirely. ASUS besides included a patient magnitude of different ports, including 2 USB-C 4.0 connections, 1 USB Type A 3.2 larboard and a headphone jack. From a productivity perspective, you tin surely get a batch much done pinch nan ZenBook A16's connectivity.

The aforesaid holds existent for Qualcomm's caller Snapdragon X2 Elite chips successful nan A16. Both nan X2E94100and X2E96100 are 18-core chips pinch a azygous halfway boost velocity of 4.7GHz, which is simply a large leap complete nan 8-core X1 spot successful past year's A14. The X2 Elite-equipped A16 besides comes pinch a whopping 48GB of RAM, which feels downright luxurious fixed our existent RAM readiness crisis, arsenic good arsenic a caller 80-TOPS NPU for AI workloads.

I instantly felt nan quality successful powerfulness erstwhile I booted up nan ZenBook A16. The awkward sluggishness while browsing nan web aliases perusing Evernote entries connected nan A14 was gone. Instead, nan A16 ever felt incredibly responsive and fresh to work, for illustration an eager puppy that ne'er gets tired of playing fetch. Benchmarks besides revealed nan monolithic velocity differences: The X2 Elite A16 scored 1,200 points higher successful Geekbench 6's single-core CPU test, and its multi-core capacity was doubly arsenic fast.

The comparison is simply a spot unfair, I'll admit, because nan A14 I reviewed past twelvemonth was stuck pinch nan astir basal X-series Snapdragon chip, whereas nan A16 touts Qualcomm's latest and top hardware. That besides makes nan A16 a spot much costly than past year's A14: Best Buy lists it astatine $1,600, whereas nan A14 initially sold for $1,100.

But astatine slightest nan ZenBook A16 delivers nan capacity you'd expect for its value range. In nan PCMark 10 Applications benchmark, it scored 17,264 points, which is 1,000 points higher than Dell's Premium 16 (aka past year's XPS 16) pinch Intel's Core Ultra 7 255H chip. It's besides leagues up of nan aged ZenBook A14, which scored a meager 12,127 points.

Benchmarks ne'er show nan full story, of course, but those immense capacity gaps are nan benignant of point you instantly announcement successful mundane performance. I was capable to load up nan ZenBook A16 pinch dozens of tabs, Evernote, 4K YouTube video streams and ample Audacity jobs, and it ne'er collapsed a sweat. Since it's an ARM-based Snapdragon system, though, beryllium alert older apps whitethorn tally into issues, aliases neglect to activity entirely.

That Qualcomm hardware besides made gaming a awesome problem for nan first procreation of Snapdragon X Elite chips, which didn't execute good and were besides incompatible pinch games that required kernel-level anti-cheat. Updates to nan Windows connected Arm level fixed nan second issue, and Qualcomm besides launched its Snapdragon Control Panel to present faster driver updates. Now each Snapdragon X Elite chips tin play Fortnite, Roblox and Tencent titles. Qualcomm claims that 90 percent of games will tally connected nan Snapdragon Elite X2 chips.

And that includes demanding titles for illustration Cyberpunk 2077. I was capable to scope 80 fps successful that game, while playing pinch mean settings successful 1080p, on pinch enabling AMD's FSR framework generation. This wouldn't beryllium my perfect measurement to play Cyberpunk, but it's a motion that nan ZenBook A16 tin astatine slightest clasp its ain successful gaming. Unfortunately, it wouldn't load Arc Raiders, because there's still nary support for its anti-cheat tech. Fortnite launched conscionable fine, though, and for immoderate group that'll beryllium enough.

But really, anyone buying nan ZenBook A16 isn't doing it to play shooters, you're doing it to get 1 of nan lightest productivity machines around. ASUS's keyboard was comfortable to type on, though I would person liked to spot much cardinal extent akin to nan Surface Laptop. Its trackpad is ample and responsive, but it's besides mechanical, which intends you tin only click on nan little two-thirds. In this value range, I'd expect ASUS to usage a haptic trackpad pinch afloat coverage.

The ZenBook A14's artillery life (18 hours and 15 minutes) was 1 of its genuinely awesome features. ASUS repeats history present pinch nan A16 clocking successful 21 hours and 35 minutes successful our rundown test. That's nan contiguous use of having a spot based connected mobile ARM architecture. During my testing, nan A16 drained down to 80 percent aft astir 4 hours of continuous work.

Compatibility issues aside, nan ZenBook A16 delivers conscionable astir everything I want successful an ultraportable. It’s sewage a gorgeous OLED surface and each of nan ports you need. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite chips besides springiness it a much-needed powerfulness boost. And champion of all, it's 1 of nan lightest and sleekest 16-inch Windows laptops I've travel across. Just beryllium prepared to salary a spot other complete different ultraportables for its slim size.