I sold my MacBook Pro this year. As a reviewer, I am always surrounded by new tech and laptops, and I’ve been hunting for a good replacement for my MacBook Pro. Well, after many laptops, I believe that the ASUS Zenbook S 16 is the one that fits me the best.
This laptop fits my needs and my requirements more than any other Windows laptop, so far. I’m also seriously considering not sending this back to ASUS, though I think they wouldn’t be too happy about that, LOL. But I digress.
I am probably already ruining the remainder of this review, as I can honestly say that the ASUS Zenbook S 16 is that freaking good. Estimated reading time: 20 minutes I realize that we all use laptops differently and what my requirements, likes, and dislikes may not be someone else’s. So read on for the full review here, parse the information I provide, and seek a few other reviews from other reviewers you trust.
Once you have gathered all of our opinions, you can make a better choice for you and your needs. In other words, don’t take my review as pure gospel and as the final word. Do your due diligence because everything I love about the ASUS Zenbook S 16 may be everything you hate about a laptop.
Let’s get into the full ASUS Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) with AMD Ryzen AI 9 , review. The Quick Take I usually try to keep these quick takes short, but more often than not, I end up going longer than I should. Maybe the ASUS Zenbook S 16 will be different, and I can keep this simple and short? This laptop is well worth your money.
With a combination of beautiful aesthetics and powerful performance, it’s one of the best Windows laptops on the market now. Things I liked: The design is the nicest I’ve seen in a very long time, even nicer than the MacBook Pro The build quality is ultra-premium with fantastic materials used The 3K OLED display is outstanding The touchscreen is responsive and accurate The keyboard is fantastic, almost as good as the MacBook Pro Performance is excellent with the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 chipset Battery life is fantastic The speakers are stellar, the closest you can get to a MacBook You can upgrade the SSD Price to value is excellent Things I didn’t like: The trackpad is just OK. It’s nice and ample, but the diving board style is not my favorite.
I would have loved to see the haptic trackpad that’s on the Surface 7 Laptop on this laptop. That said, I can at least say that while I don’t like this style of trackpad, it is at least useable. My review unit makes a weird and very slight creaking noise when opening the laptop.
Out of all the laptops I have tested in 2024, the ASUS Zenbook S 16 is easily on the top 5 list and I highly recommend it. Specifications The ASUS Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) sent to me has the following features and specifications: All options included in list ✔️ denotes what was installed on our unit Model: UM5606WA Color: ✔️Zumaia Gray Scandinavian White Operating System: ✔️Windows 11 Home Windows 11 Pro Processor: AMD RyzenTM AI 9 HX 370 Processor 2.0GHz (36MB Cache, up to 5.
1GHz, 12 cores, 24 Threads); AMD XDNATM NPU up to 50TOPS ✔️AMD RyzenTM AI 9 365 Processor 2.0GHz (34MB Cache, up to 5.0GHz, 10 cores, 20 Threads); AMD XDNATM NPU up to 50TOPS Graphics: AMD RadeonTM 890M Graphics ✔️AMD RadeonTM 880M Graphics Neural Processor: AMD XDNATM NPU up to 50TOPS Display: 16.
0-inch, 3K (2880 × 1800) OLED 16:10 aspect ratio, 0.2ms response time, 120Hz refresh rate, 400 nits, 500 nits HDR peak brightness, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, 1,000,000:1, VESA CERTIFIED Display HDR True Black 500, 1.07 billion colors, PANTONE Validated, Glossy display, 70% less harmful blue light, TÜV Rheinland-certified, SGS Eye Care Display, Non-touch screen, (Screen-to-body ratio)90% ✔️16.
0-inch, 3K (2880 × 1800) OLED 16:10 aspect ratio, 0.2ms response time, 120Hz refresh rate, 400 nits, 500 nits HDR peak brightness, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, 1,000,000:1, VESA CERTIFIED Display HDR True Black 500, 1.07 billion colors, PANTONE Validated, Glossy display, 70% less harmful blue light, TÜV Rheinland-certified, SGS Eye Care Display, Touch screen, (Screen-to-body ratio)90%, With stylus support Memory: 32GB LPDDR5X on board Max Total system memory up to:32GB ✔️24GB LPDDR5X on board Max Total system memory up to 24GB Storage: ✔️1TB M.
2 NVMeTM PCIe® 4.0 SSD 2TB M.2 NVMeTM PCIe® 4.
0 SSD Expansion Slots (includes used): 1x M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0×4 I/O Ports: 1x USB 3.
2 Gen 2 Type-A (data speed up to 10Gbps) 2x USB 4.0 Gen 3 Type-C with support for display / power delivery (data speed up to 40Gbps) 1x HDMI 2.1 TMDS 1x 3.
5mm Combo Audio Jack SD 4.0 card reader Keyboard & Touchpad: Backlit Chiclet Keyboard, 1.1mm Key-travel Precision touchpad, With Copilot key Camera: FHD camera with IR function to support Windows Hello Audio: Smart Amp Technology Built-in speaker Built-in array microphone Harman/Kardon (Premium) Network and Communication: Wi-Fi 7(802.
11be) (Tri-band) 2 2 + Bluetooth® 5.4 Wireless Card (*Bluetooth® version may change with OS version different.) Battery: 78WHrs, 2S2P, 4-cell Li-ion Power Supply: TYPE-C, 65W AC Adapter, Output: 20V DC, 3.
25A, 65W, Input: 100-240V AC 50/60GHz universal Weight: 1.50 kg (3.31 lbs) Dimensions (W × D × H): 35.
36 × 24.30 × 1.19 ~ 1.
29 cm (13.92” x 9.57” x 0.
47” ~ 0.51”) Built-in Apps: StoryCube MyASUS ScreenXpert GlideX MyASUS Features: System diagnosis Battery health charging Fan Profile Splendid Function key lock Wi-Fi SmartConnect Link to MyASUS TaskFirst Live update ASUS OLED Care AI Noise Canceling Microsoft Office: 1-month trial for new Microsoft 365 customers. Credit card required.
Microsoft 365 Personal 1-year included Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 + Microsoft 365 Basic Microsoft Office Home 2024 Military Grade: US MIL-STD 810H military-grade standard What’s In The Box ASUS Zenbook S 16 Power Brick w/attached USB-C cable Manuals and Documentation Design The design of the ASUS Zenbook S 16 is, simply, amazing. There are a fair number of laptops that have been released in 2024 that look great, but the S 16 is in another class and at another level. The company has a material called Ceraluminum which is what the lid is made of, while the bottom plate and chassis is traditional aluminum.
Not much to talk about when it comes to traditional aluminum, apart from the grade they use for the ASUS Zenbook S 16 is premium. But, Ceraluminum is worth talking about. This material is a combination of ceramic and aluminum.
ASUS calls this a high-tech ceramic that is revered by the aerospace and luxury watch industries. Ceraluminum is supposed to be stronger and resist wear more effectively than normal aluminum laptops. It has a matte look and feel to it and is supposed to resist fingerprints better than other materials.
My unit has been fine, no fingerprints, but I don’t think greasy chicken fingers will do it any favors. The ASUS Zenbook S 16 comes in two colors, Scandinavian White, and Zumaia Gray. The white looks really sleek and clean, while the gray looks stunning and minimal.
ASUS has engraved the ASUS logo into the lid, which gives the design a nice modern look to it. The words ASUS Zenbook are also engraved at the top of the lid. The ASUS Zenbook S 16 is only 3.
31lbs and 0.43 inches (1.09 cm).
Flipping the ASUS Zenbook S 16 over, you’ll find the usual things on the bottom of a Windows laptop. That is a very long venting grille and two long feet that provide excellent stability on a desk. ASUS makes it simple to get into the S 16 with visible and easily removable screws.
Along the right side of the laptop you’ll find one USB-A port, the full-sized SD card slot, and two microphones. Along the left side you’ll find two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port, and a headphone jack. As ports go, this isn’t that bad, considering the state of ports on modern laptops in general.
It would have been nice to have another Thunderbolt 4 port on the right side, but this isn’t a horrible port selection. Opening the ASUS Zenbook S 16 up, you’re greeted with that beautiful 16” 3K OLED panel that has slim bezels and just looks spectacular. Turning your eyes down to the deck, you’ll find a very impressive keyboard and trackpad, along with a precision machined venting system that looks like a work of art.
They also worked in the ASUS logo along that grille, and it looks clean and minimal. Under the deck you’ll find the six speaker Harman Kardon system, which is fantastic, more on that later. The keyboard is full-sized and there is no number pad here.
BRAVO! I really dislike number pads as the symmetry of the laptop is jacked up and doesn’t give me a comfortable experience. I like a centered trackpad and a regular keyboard with a number row. So this keyboard fits me perfectly and it has a great feel to it.
It’s not the best in the business, Apple and Lenovo are slightly better at keyboards, but this one is very nice and comfortable. I’ll take it. I will say, some users may not like the smaller arrow buttons on this laptop, I don’t use them all that often, but I did notice they were skinny when I did have to use them.
The trackpad is huge, and it has a decent feel to it. I wish it were a haptic trackpad, like the ones found on the Surface 7 Laptop and the MacBook lineup. I’m not a fan of diving board style trackpads, but this one was pretty decent.
I don’t do a lot of clicking and pushing anyway, so what was more important to me was that the touch responsiveness was good, and that it was. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 sticker and several other stickers are on the deck as well. I wish Windows PCs didn’t feel the need to put these stickers on the deck.
Overall, the ASUS Zenbook S 16 is perhaps the best-looking Windows laptop design of 2024. I really love the build quality, the looks, the premium materials, and the weight of this laptop. Display The ASUS Zenbook S 16 packs an outstanding 16” 3K Lumia OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate.
This combo delivers vibrant and deep colors with those typical inky blacks, OLED’s are known for. The high 120Hz refresh rate is perfect for content creators and even gamers will enjoy this panel, though I wouldn’t categorize this laptop as a gaming machine. Color accuracy is fantastic, covering 100% of the sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts, making it an excellent choice for professionals in graphic design, video editing, or any field requiring precise color representation.
The peak brightness hits 500 nits, and I have seen some reviewers ding this laptop for its outdoor performance. While I would agree that under direct sunlight, this panel might struggle. If you’re not under direct sunlight, it does rather well outdoors.
The OLED panel on the ASUS Zenbook S 16 does an exceptional job of handling HDR content with more dynamic range, which makes consuming content such as movies and games even better. Off axis viewing can get a little hairy if you’re in a place that reflects off the display. This is a very glossy display, so viewing it directly is the best bet.
Though off-axis, viewing carries very little weight for me because I am always directly in front of my laptop and I don’t often show my screen to people. The ASUS Zenbook S 16 also comes with touch capability, and you can use the ASUS Pen 2.0 with it if you purchase that separately.
Touch responsiveness is exceptional, and all gestures worked flawlessly. If you’re a big fan of poking your display with your meat sticks, then you’ll love this panel. Overall, the ASUS Zenbook S 16 display does not disappoint, at least it didn’t disappoint me.
I appreciate the display’s clarity and color vibrancy thanks to the OLED technology. The footprint of the display is perfect, just enough bezel to make it look like a display and just little enough to make it look classy. The 120Hz refresh rate is fantastic, and the only thing I have left to say is.
Microsoft should have put this display into the Surface 7 Laptop, and ASUS should have put the trackpad from the Surface 7 Laptop into the S 16. But I guess we can’t have it all. Software The ASUS Zenbook S 16 I have runs Windows 11 Home, but you can choose to have it configured with Windows 11 Pro.
There’s not much to say about Windows, it works excellent, and I still love what Microsoft has been doing with it. There are a few things to talk about when it comes to CoPilot and AI capabilities and AMD. The new AMD Ryzen AI 9 processors are the company’s new AI-focused chips.
These chips now come with not only the CPU, but also an NPU. AMD aims to enhance everyday tasks with the NPU, for the user. But I’ve personally not seen much benefit from any of these new AI features from any chipmaker.
Maybe they’re coming? On top of Windows 11, ASUS has a few extras packed into the ASUS Zenbook S 16, like the MyASUS app, which offers customization options for display settings, fan profiles, and system updates, providing a user-friendly interface for managing hardware features. One advantage the ASUS Zenbook S 16 and AMD have is that this is still x86 architecture and that means all x86 apps will work perfectly well, without having to use emulation. AMD’s ARM competition cannot claim the same.
Microsoft introduced CoPilot+ this year and this is one of the laptops with that. This is Microsoft’s AI-driven software that aims to make life easier for you. I have seen no advantages in having this software, and I have used it occasionally for simple questions and silly AI-generated images.
Overall, the software experience is everything you’d expect from Windows and the extra MyASUS app isn’t a bad thing, it’s helpful. But the AI features Microsoft has touted, well, they are still in infancy and more of a novelty at this point. Perhaps they will figure out how to make them useful, aside from data collection on their part.
Performance The ASUS Zenbook S 16 I’ve been working on sports the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 and new AMD Radeon graphics, paired with 24GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. I honestly have had nothing but a great experience with this configuration. I have been able to maintain my normal workflow that I have on my desktop.
I have all the same apps installed, and I can work without being afraid that the S 16 can handle my workload. Grant it, my workflow and workload are probably far different from yours, but it worked for me. Multitasking and browsers open with as many as 30 tabs, all functioned perfectly fine.
Even with all my normal apps open, streaming music or even streaming a movie in the background was not an issue. I do a lot of photo editing in Affinity Photo, sometimes with as many as 20 photos open at once. This was also very smooth with no stutter or app lag.
I also do my video editing in DaVinci Resolve Studio, mind you, I don’t do heavy editing like full-length movies or shorts. Most of my videos are my unboxing and podcasting videos. But those all ran perfectly fine on this laptop, no issues with DaVinci Resolve or the laptop behaving badly.
Everything was smooth as a baby’s bottom. Gaming is another task some of you may want to do on the ASUS Zenbook S 16 and I want to tell you, it can be done. But this is not a gaming machine, and if you’re a serious gamer who needs every frame and every ounce of power with the best performance you can possibly get, this isn’t it for you.
Casual gamers or gamers who want to just play a quickie now and then, the S 16 can handle that just fine. I’m not saying it can’t handle gaming. I am saying that snooty gamers, who are difficult to please, should probably just stick to a proper gaming laptop.
Overall, the performance on the ASUS Zenbook S 16 is outstanding. This laptop does everything I need it to and everything I want it to, and it does it in a light and thin design that looks freaking spectacular. Camera There’s not a lot to report on the FHD camera on the ASUS Zenbook S 16, it’s fine.
I will say that webcams on Windows laptops have improved a lot. Not only higher resolution, but also a few features you can use to blur backgrounds and whatnot. Overall, the webcam performs well for what you probably need it for.
Conference calls and Zoom calls. Oh, it also has an IR camera that supports Windows Hello and that works very well, one of the better IR Windows Hello cameras I’ve seen. Battery Life There has been a lot of talk about battery life on these new AMD chips, as well as some other competition.
Battery life seems to be a major improvement and that is causing the market to suddenly have an influx of really great battery oriented laptops. The ASUS Zenbook S 16 is no slouch when it comes to battery life. I will say, out of the gate, that the Snapdragon laptops I’ve used to have this AMD chip beat by a very narrow margin.
I will also say that battery life is very dependent on how you use a laptop and how you have your performance and battery settings set. I always have my battery settings set to balanced, but I also have my screen brightness at full and my backlit keyboard on all the time. I don’t stream a lot of video content while I am working, but I do listen to music in the background via Apple Music.
For an idea of my workflow on most laptops. I write articles and reviews most of the day on WordPress, check email via my Canary email client, browse the web on Firefox/Brave/Edge, edit photos in Affinity Photo, use Caseium image compression, sometimes I use CoPilot. I also do lots of social media, Apple Music streaming, and I edit videos in DaVinci Resolve.
For my use case and how I use my laptop, I was able to get around 14 hours of use on this laptop on one charge without plugging in. The battery did drain faster while doing heavier video and photo editing and some light gaming. But this is expected, to me anyway.
I know some users out there are very demanding and think the battery should last 4,000 hours to play Fortnite online, and if it doesn’t, they get pissy. Overall, I think the battery life on the ASUS Zenbook S 16 is stellar, and it lasts all day for my needs. You may have a different use case, and it may perform differently for you.
Price/Value You can get into the ASUS Zenbook S 16 starting at $1,399 and that price can go up to $1,699 depending on the configuration. To me, the Zenbook S 16 offers a positive price to value comparison. I think there is more than $1,400 of worth here.
This really us an excellent laptop and even though I joke about ASUS not getting this back, they will, I probably will buy one of these for myself. Except in white. Wrap Up 2024 has been a crazy year for laptops and laptop processors.
AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm have all introduced some major groundbreaking CPU’s and that has made countless laptops worth looking at. I have used the new Snapdragon PCs, I’ve even used the new Intel 200V series, and this AMD Ryzen 9 AI series. I think the CPUs and GPUs being offered this year are competing at a very neck to neck pace so for once, it comes down to choosing a laptop based on its build, feel and look.
Of all the laptops I have used so far this year, the ASUS Zenbook S 16 has my vote as the best one on the market. While it isn’t perfect, for me, it checks numerous boxes that I want. In some of our articles and especially in our reviews, you will find Amazon or other affiliate links.
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