2024 is really the year of AI notebooks. I have already covered one ASUS productivity notebook powered by the Snapdragon X CPU and now it is AMD’s turn. This new ASUS Zenbook S16 is the brand’s fancy Ryzen AI device that has been completely redesigned to usher in a new future of tech.
Watch this review below:
There’s a lot to enjoy here from a tech point of view. The product includes ASUS’s trademarked Ceraluminum material, a new AMD Ryzen AI processor, a super thin body at 1.1cm, a 3K 120Hz OLED display and a six-speaker sound system.
But with all those fancy changes, what compromises did ASUS make to build an almost impossible piece of tech?
ASUS Zenbook S16 (UM5606) Design
This new Zenbook S16 looks familiar but at the same time, comes with quite a number of impressive design changes. ASUS says it has been redesigned and from the moment I had this in my hands, I felt the difference. The S16 is impressively lightweight. It is only 1.5 kg and at its thickest point, is 1.1cm.
The unit is a 16-inch notebook, so it comes in at 35cm x 24cm. The device is made from what ASUS says is Ceralumium. The company claims it is a combination of aluminium and ceramic. The result is a sturdy shell with a matte finish. The material also contributes to the device’s light design and provides enough heat dissipation to keep it cool too.
The lid features the ASUS Zenbook diagonal pattern and the bottom includes a few rubber pads for grip. From a build point of view, the entire notebook feels incredibly sturdy. Even the lid doesn’t wobble when typing and the base stays in place.
When closed, the thin design factor is out of this world. To hold this device in your hand, even in between two fingers and have it so incredibly thin honestly feels like the future.
The unit houses most of the ports you’ll look for in a modern-day notebook except for an Ethernet port. But given how thin this device is, it isn’t possible. On the right-hand side, you’ll find the SD Card reader and USB A 3.2 Gen 2 port. On the other side, there’s an HDMI 2.1 port alongside 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports.
One of these ports will be used for charging the device using the 65W adapter in the box. Both ports support power delivery so you can swap between the two. Lastly, there’s a 3.5mm audio jack.
So far so good right? ASUS has built the Zenbook S16 with every criticism and complaint in mind. Every user and scenario has been taken into consideration.
ASUS also impressed me from the inside too. The keyboard’s chiclet layout is wide and spacious. The only issue I had was the small shift keys. The keyboard includes the Copilot AI button and full LED backlighting. The lights are bright and even in bright light, are clear to see.
The trackpad is another standout for me. This massive trackpad is 15 x 10cm and feels so smooth to use. Everything from gestures, swipes and clicks felt amazing on this pad. If you have ever used a MacBook Pro touchpad, this is on par now. It makes getting around an absolute breeze.
Then we have the OLED screen which is another standout feature on the Zenbook S16. This panel is so beautifully bright and big. It takes up the majority of the lid space leaving thin bezels around the display. The screen can reach a brightness of 400 nits in SDR and 500 nits in HDR. The OLED tech also delivers punchy colours that look highly saturated. To add, this display is also a touchscreen with full support for the ASUS Pen.
ASUS does promise 400 nits but I measured slightly lower at 380. It isn’t the end of the world here because that is still quite bright. The panel has also been calibrated to almost perfection with 100% SRGB and DCI-P3 colour gamuts. It features 95% Adobe RGB which is also good.
Thanks to the resolution of 2880 x 1800, everything I did on the display looked crisp and clear. The higher resolution also meant consuming content was more enjoyable and working on Windows meant I had more space to place more windows and tabs.
Speaking of consuming content, the Zenbook S16’s speaker system is also quite a standout for me. Sound is delivered clearly while at the same time, features a powerful kick you don’t often find on a notebook. It will make Zoom calls sound good while at the same time, background music and movie watching are thoroughly enjoyable too.
Lastly, it comes with a 1080p webcam. I never thought I would see the day. I have complained about 720p webcams in notebooks for years and we finally have reached this milestone. Praise be to the tech gods. With that being said, the webcam is great. It handles exposure well and the AI features combined with the higher resolution, will make all your video calls look much better. Of course, that is when Copilot+ comes to AMD chips. For now, it is exclusive to Qualcomm.
Overall, I have no complaints about the design of this Zenbook S16. Believe it or not but I don’t think ASUS has designed something so close to perfection in the past. It simply delivers everything you’ll look for in a notebook. The thin form factor is just an added benefit at this rate.
ASUS Zenbook S16 Performance
Before I get into the benchmarks for this device, I should mention the specs and upgradeability. The Zenbook S16 comes with a 2TB 2280 SSD with no empty socket to add another storage option. It also comes with 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM soldered onto the motherboard so again, no way to increase this. Those two components are more than enough for what this device offers, mind you.
From a CPU perspective, the unit includes the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip. It has a base clock of 2.0GHz and a boost clock of 5.1GHz. The chip has a max TDP of 54W and runs as low as 15W when idle.
Benchmarking the chip, I can say that the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 shows a lot of promise. In various scenarios, this chip beats the Intel Ultra 7 155H and in others, it struggles. In single-core performance on Geekbench 6, also beat the Snapdragon X Elite. It also shows higher performance across AI tasks than the Qualcomm chip.
I tested both AI and performance in a range of benchmarks. Here are the results from the tests I ran.
- Cinebench R24
- Multi-Core: 795
- Single-Core: 112
- PC Mark10
- Overall: 7202
- Essentials: 10155
- Productivity: 10193
- Spreadsheets Score: 13 678
- Writing Score: 7596
- Digital Content Creation: 9793
- Photo Editing Score: 15034
- Rendering and Visualization: 9178
- Video Editing: 6807
- App Start-Up: 12 994
- Video Conferencing: 7953
- Web Browing Score: 10134
- Geekbench
- Single-Core: 2877
- Multi-Core: 13480
- Geekbench AI
- Single-CPU – 2731
- Half Precision Score – 796
- Quantinized Score – 4965
I also ran a 3D test to see where we sat. While you’ll likely not do much gaming on this device, it can run games under certain conditions, believe it or not. The Zenbook S16 showed promise in both TimeSpy and Steel Nomad tests. I also ran a Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark because why the hell not?
- 3DMark TimeSpy
- Overall: 3380
- Graphics: 3032
- CPU Score: 9721
- 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
- Overall: 3161
- Frames: 23.42FPS
- Cyberpunk 2077 2880p (Medium – FSR Performance)
- Average: 19
- Min: 13
- Max: 30
Overall, the AMD Ryzen AI HX 370 is a capable chip. Tests showed it can manage 3D workloads, AI and day-to-day activities. It does get warmer than the Snapdragon which means you’ll hear the fans on this notebook. I barely heard them when using the Vivobook S. But fan noise isn’t bad and could be a lot worse.
Lastly, the battery life on this device was decent. The 74Wh battery cell can last well into the 14-hour mark at 50% brightness. It charges pretty fast and lasts a long time. You’ll be able to leave your charge at home with this.
The ASUS Zenbook S16 does fall short in some performance tests but that doesn’t make the unit incapable of delivering power. This is a great productivity notebook with a good battery and an incredible design. It really does speak volumes for ASUS when it comes to the brand’s ambitions and where it wants to move forward in the tech space. I don’t know where the Zenbook range will go from here. This product is on the cusp of perfection. Sure, the processor does struggle in some tasks but as a package, this is one of the best notebooks I have used to date.
ASUS Zenbook S16 OLED
Summary
The ASUS Zenbook S16 is a thin and powerful notebook with a 16-inch OLED display, AMD Ryzen AI processor, and impressive design. It offers good performance, a long battery life, and a great keyboard and trackpad. Despite some shortcomings in performance tests, the Zenbook S16 is a great productivity notebook with a promising future.