Asus Zenbook S 16 (2024) Review: A Well-Balanced Windows Laptop

Asus’ large push to reinvent its laptop tech has lastly come to fruition, and the Zenbook S 16 makes the corporate a severe contender within the midrange laptop space and past.

It’s maybe finest to start out with essentially the most seen improve: the chassis. Slightly than counting on the everyday design of metallic or plastic, Asus has invented a brand new materials known as Ceraluminum, which it says is the results of 4 years of labor to mix aluminum and a sort of ceramic into a brand new compound.

The main points are complicated and never fully clear, however basically it bonds the 2 supplies into one thing that, in concept, is stronger, lighter, and extra immune to put on and corrosion. Ceraluminum is used solely on the higher lid of the brand new Zenbook S, however you’ll discover it instantly. It appears to be like like plastic however has the rigidity of metallic, and it’s straightforward to see how skinny and lightweight it permits the display screen and lid to be.

The laptop computer is obtainable in two colours: Zumaia grey and Scandinavian white. I acquired the latter, which is extra of a silvery gentle grey, whereas the Zumaia choice may be very darkish.

The 16-inch show gives ample room for a spacious keyboard, although there isn’t any numeric keypad, leaving a number of lifeless area on both aspect. The half-height arrow keys are offset, positioned under the Shift button, making them extra handy to entry than these on many different laptops that cram them in amongst every part else. I did discover the keyboard motion to be a bit mushy, nonetheless. The keyboard backlighting is extraordinarily vibrant, and admittedly too intense at full energy. Lastly, the massive touchpad contains Good Gesture assist, which helps three-finger and four-finger shortcuts the consumer can customise. When you get the cling of them, they’ll actually velocity up your work.

Beneath the hood, Asus has outfitted the Zenbook S 16 with the brand new AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 CPU (paired with a Radeon 880M GPU), 24 GB of RAM, and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive. The touchscreen’s decision is a stable 2,880 x 1,800 pixels. Growth ports are all side-mounted and embody two USB-C connectors supporting USB4 (one is required for charging), a USB-A port, HDMI output (full-size), and a full-size SD card reader.

{Photograph}: Christopher Null