I tested the new Asus Zenbook and I cant think of a better 16-inch laptop for travelling with but there are certain tasks I cant recommend it for

Date:
Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:23:17 +0000

Description:
The Asus Zenbook A16 promises plenty of power in an ultralight form but is
it suitable for your needs?

FULL STORY ======================================================================Asus Zenbook A16: Two-minute review The Asus Zenbook A16 is a large laptop that aims to shoehorn premium performance into a portable package. It certainly achieves the latter; I was impressed by just how light and thin the unit really is, especially when you consider its 16-inch diagonal. Its much easier to carry around than many of its rivals.

Whats more, it looks good. The beige colorway of my review unit was a refreshing change to the dour shades of many laptops, while the mottled pattern on the lid adds further interest, making it one of the best laptop choices if youre after a unique design. The Ceraluminium material might have
a ridiculous name, but its build is anything but. While its incredibly light, its also quite solid. Meanwhile, the lid offers plenty of stability while still being easy to open and close. The bezel around the display isnt quite
so premium, but thankfully its very minimal, which helps to maximize screen space as much as possible.

Another impressive aspect of the Zenbook A16s design is the variety of physical connectivity options. Despite that slender chassis, you get three
USB ports (two Type-C and one Type-A), an HDMI port, a combo audio jack, and
a full-size SD card reader. (Image credit: Future) Asus Zenbook A16 UX3607 at ASUS for 2,099.99 This generous selection puts other similarly thin laptops
to shame, although I was mildly disappointed to see nearly every port loaded on one side. Not splitting the USB-C ports across both sides is an especially aggravating decision, considering both can be used for charging and
connecting to external monitors.

The Zenbook A16 is a capable general-purpose machine. It makes light work of basic productivity and entertainment tasks, including 4K streaming. However, it falls down somewhat when gaming. It cant handle AAA titles all that well, performing worse than other laptops with similar integrated graphics.

Some heat can be felt towards the back and left side of the base, but this is far from troubling. The fans also produce a noticeable sound, but mercifully this isnt as disruptive as some other examples. Get daily insight,
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The display is the highlight of the Zenbook A16, though. The crystal-clear 3K resolution is ideal for screen size, while the OLED technology ensures a deep contrast and a vibrant color palette. It also has plenty of brightness, which helps to prevent pesky reflections from ruining the viewing experience.

Thanks to the light actuation and spacing of the keys, the keyboard is easy
to use. Theres also a little more travel and dampening to presses than is typical for a laptop keyboard, which only adds to the tactility and feedback. Its a shame, though, that theres no number pad and few navigation keys.

On the other hand, the touchpad of the Zenbook A16 is more practical. Its large surface area makes navigation easier, while the useful side gestures
are convenient and functional. There were only a few occasions when I accidentally triggered them (and cursor movement) when typing, which is a
much better hit rate than Ive experienced with other large touchpads.

Battery life is impressive, too. The Zenbook A16 lasted a full 24 hours in
our movie playback test, which is considerably longer than comparable models. For perspective, the 16-inch Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro I tested only managed
14 hours in the same test.

However, it cant match the Samsung for performance and sheer design quality, despite being about the same price. This means that unless you prize portability above all else, the Zenbook A16 mightnt offer the best value compared to some stellar rivals. Asus Zenbook A16 review: Specs Swipe to scroll horizontally Row 0 - Cell 0

Base

Review Row 0 - Cell 3

Price

TBC

$1,699.99 / 2,099.99 (Aus TBC) Row 1 - Cell 3

CPU

Snapdragon X (X1-26-100) (up to 2.97GHz, 8 cores)

Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (X2E-94-100) (up to 4.7GHz, 18 Cores) Row 2 -
Cell 3

GPU

Qualcomm Adreno (integrated)

Qualcomm Adreno (integrated) Row 3 - Cell 3

RAM

32GB LPDDR5X

48GB LPDDR5X Row 4 - Cell 3

Storage

1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD

1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD Row 5 - Cell 3

Display

WUXGA (1920 x 1200) OLED, 16:10, 60Hz

3K (2880 x 1800) OLED, 16:10, 120Hz Row 6 - Cell 3

Ports and Connectivity

2x USB-C (4.0 Gen 3 with support for display / power delivery, 40Gbps) 1x USB-A (3.2 Gen 2), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, 1x SD 4.0 card reader; Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4

2x USB-C (4.0 Gen 3 with support for display / power delivery, 40Gbps) 1x USB-A (3.2 Gen 2), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, 1x SD 4.0 card reader; Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Row 7 - Cell 3

Battery

70Wh

70Wh Row 8 - Cell 3

Dimensions

13.9 x 9.5 x 0.7 inches (354 x 242 x 17mm)

13.9 x 9.5 x 0.7 inches (354 x 242 x 17mm) Row 9 - Cell 3

Weight

2.4lbs (1.1kg)

2.9lbs (1.3kg) Row 10 - Cell 3 Asus Zenbook A16 review: Price & availability (Image credit: Future) $1,699.99 / 2,099.99 for top model TBC in Australia Some rivals offer better value The Asus Zenbook A16 is available from April 7th in two guises: both get Snapdragon CPUs, but one is the X1-26-100 with 8 cores and the other the X2E-94-100 with 18 cores. The models also have different RAM sizes (32GB and 48GB) and display resolutions (2880 x 1800 at 120Hz and 1920 x 1200 at 60Hz). Both come in two colorways: gray and beige.

The top model costs $1,699.99 (and 2,099.99 in the UK), while the pricing for the base model is yet to be confirmed. This is also the case for the pricing and availability of both models in Australia.

This is undeniably an expensive laptop. Its similarly priced to the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro , which is about as premium as they come. Graphical performance is also superior to that of the Zenbook A16, handling AAA games much better. Its nowhere near as light, though.

If you need even more graphical power but want to keep that 16-inch form factor, the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10 is a better alternative. Granted, its performance doesnt match up to the very best gaming laptops , but the mere fact that it has a dedicated GPU and a powerful one at that means it can handle demanding titles, as well as video editing and other creative duties, far better than any machine without one. Asus Zenbook A16 review: Design (Image credit: Future) Very light and thin Interesting Ceraluminum construction Generous port selection There are a few aspects of the Asus Zenbook A16s design that made me sit up and take notice. The first was my review units beige finish, which is a breath of fresh air in a world of monochromes (although it should be said that a gray model is also available).

The second is the Ceraluminum construction, which looks and feels softer and more inviting than the hard and sterile materials of other laptops. I also appreciated the mottled finish of the lid, which looks more like paper and adds an interesting aesthetic element.

However, the standout aspect of the Zenbook A16 is its incredible lightness. When coupled with its ultra-thin chassis, this must be one of the most portable 16-inch devices out there. The soft, rounded sides of the base make it more comfortable to pick up and hold, too. (Image credit: Future) Despite its featherweight construction, build quality is also good. The base feels reasonably solid, while the hinge for the lid provides smooth and easy adjustments, as well as sufficient stability once set in place. The screen bezel is a little disappointing: although its very thin, the material quality is a step down. It isnt flush or integrated into the screen, either, as it is on the best MacBooks , but this is a minor quibble.

Theres an admirable number of ports on the Zenbook A16. There are two USB-C ports, both of which employ the USB 4 standard, supporting both charging and external monitor connections. Its a shame that theyre both on the left; it wouldve been more practical if they were split across both sides, to improve amenability for varying setups.

Also on the left are the combo audio jack and an HDMI jack, which means this side is somewhat overcrowded; by contrast, the right only gets a single USB-A port and an SD card reader. Still, its hard to complain when theres this much variety at all; similarly large and thin laptops cant compete. Asus Zenbook A16 review: Performance (Image credit: Future) Great general performance
Lacks graphical pedigree Sharp and bright display Asus Zenbook A16 benchmarks 3DMark: Night Raid: 34,017; Fire Strike: 6,672; Steel Nomad: 646; Solar Bay: 12,960; Solar Bay Unlimited: 12,549; Solar Bay Extreme: 1,352; Solar Bay Extreme Unlimited: 1,303 Geekbench 6.5: Multicore: 15,075; Single-core: 3,779 Cinebench R23: Multi Core: 9,370; Cinebench R24: Single Core: 89; Multi Core: 452 Crossmark: Overall: 1,840; Productivity: 1,652; Creativity: 2,132; Responsiveness: 1,634 Passmark Overall: 5,613.1; CPU: 16,825.4; 2D Graphics: 567.6; 3D Graphics: 4,243.7; Memory: 3,559.5; Disk: 46,745.8 BlackMagicDisk: Read: 4,832MB/s; Write: 4,330MB/s HandBrake 4K to 1080p: 86fps Total War: Warhammer III: 1080p, Medium: 53fps Total War: Warhammer III: 1800p, Ultra: 15fps Battery Life (TechRadar movie test): 24 hours and 5 minutes The general performance of the Zenbook A16 is respectable. The Snapdragon X2 Elite
Extreme chip in my review unit handled typical everyday workloads well, such as light productivity and entertainment. It also streamed 4K content without issue, and the copious 48GB of RAM certainly helped with multitasking, too.

Graphical performance was disappointing, though. It failed to complete Puget Benchs Adobe Premiere benchmark, due to an effect failing to render in time an error Ive experienced with other laptops lacking dedicated graphics, although some such models did complete the test successfully.

Also, it didnt run Cyberpunk 2077 in a playable state with the Ray Tracing: Low preset selected. This isnt too surprising given the aforementioned integrated graphics, but I have tested laptops with similar solutions that
did manage to run the game at the same settings more smoothly.

Adjusting the allocation of the shared memory to favor graphics tasks helped somewhat, but not by much and certainly not by enough to justify the considerable increase in heat and fan volume.

I found the sweet spot between performance and visual fidelity was achieved
on the Zenbook A16 by switching to the Ultra preset (which disables Ray Tracing), lowering the resolution to 1080p, and enabling Frame Generation.

During such intensive workloads, some heat can be felt at the top of the keyboard and the left-hand side of the base. In fact, this can even occur
when the Zenbook A16 is under moderate loads, but fortunately the
temperatures are far from worrisome or uncomfortable. Fan noise can be heard in such cases as well, but this is muted to a greater extent than on some other laptops, and is therefore less distracting. (Image credit: Future) Perhaps the highest-performing aspect of the Zenbook A16 is its display. The 3K resolution is sufficiently sharp for a display this large, while the 120Hz refresh rate provides plenty of smoothness. And since it uses OLED
technology, contrast is deep and colors are vibrant. The screen is shinier than many Ive seen, which does mean reflections can make themselves known,
but thankfully the high brightness levels stop them from dominating the image entirely.

I found the keyboard great for typing with. The generous spacing and
lightness of the keys makes fast and accurate inputs a cinch, while their extra dampening and travel over those of other laptops imparts more
satisfying feedback. I always feel its a shame, though, when a 16-inch laptop misses out on a number pad. There arent any navigation keys, either, save
from a Delete / Insert key.

Thankfully, the touchpad on the Zenbook A16 is more practical. It stretches from almost the very bottom of the base to the bottom of the keyboard, providing a large area that makes for easy navigation. It also has an incredibly smooth surface, which only makes it more enjoyable to use.

And while its also wide, its narrow enough to prevent the palms of your
thumbs from resting on it constantly. Even when mine did, there were only a few occasions when this contact triggered cursor movement or the side
controls for volume and brightness which, incidentally, function very well.

There are other slider controls on the touchpad besides these: gesturing
along the top edge allows you to scrub back and forth on video and audio content, while swiping diagonally from the top-right corner launches ScreenXpert, Asus tool for managing app windows and multiple displays.
Despite the usefulness of these Smart Gestures (as theyre called), its a
shame that none of them can be customized. Asus Zenbook A16 review: Battery life (Image credit: Future) Outlasts rivals by a wide margin Still not the best of the best, though The battery life of the Zenbook A16 is very impressive. When I ran a movie on a continuous loop, it managed to last just over 24 hours. This makes it much more enduring than other large laptops,
such as the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro and MacBook Air 15-inch , both of which lasted half as long in the same test.

However, there are laptops that can do even better: the HP OmniBook 7 14-inch , for instance, managed 26 hours, again in the same test, while the MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ managed over 30 hours. So while the Zenbook A16s endurance is certainly remarkable, its not the absolute best in the broader laptop market. Should I buy the Asus Zenbook A16? Swipe to scroll
horizontally

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

Hugely expensive, and the fact is other similarly priced rivals are better overall.

3.5 / 5

Design

The Ceraluminium construction is incredibly light, although its perhaps not quite as premium as others. There are a pleasing number of ports, too.

4 / 5

Performance

For workaday use, the Zenbook A16 is very good, and its excellent display showcases content brilliantly. Graphical performance leaves a lot to be desired, though.

4 / 5

Battery Life

Among the best for a large laptop, outlasting rivals by a long way. However, it cant match the very best laptops.

4.5 / 5

Total

The super light design and excellent display are big plus points for the Zenbook A16, but the middling graphical performance and high price hamper its value compared to the alternatives.

4 / 5 Buy it if You want something large but light I haven't come across a lighter 16-inch laptop. Coupled with its ultra-thin design, the Zenbook A16
is a great travel companion. You want a great display Large, bright, sharp, and vibrant everything you could want from a display, although its a little too reflective at times. Don't buy it if You want graphical power Creatives and gamers will be disappointed its even worse than other laptops with integrated graphics. Youre on a budget The Zenbook A16 is certainly
expensive, and there are better performers with a more premium design for a similar price. Asus Zenbook A16 review: Also consider Samsung Galaxy Book6
Pro For something more premium, consider the Galaxy Book6 Pro. Its metal body is a cut above the Zenbook A16s, and feels more sturdy as a result. Performance is also excellent, outdoing the Zenbook A16 on graphical tasks, even though it likewise has no dedicated GPU. Its very expensive, though.
Read our full Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro review . Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10 The Legion 7i has the advantage of a dedicated GPU, which means it eats up graphics-intensive tasks, such as video editing and gaming. Its not the absolute best in class on the latter front, but its certainly capable enough for many players. Whats more, it has an even more premium design than the Zenbook A16. Read our full Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10 review . How I tested the Asus Zenbook A16 (Image credit: Future) Tested for several days Used for numerous tasks Plenty of laptop reviewing experience I tested the Asus
Zenbook A16 for several days, during which time I used it for general browsing, light productivity, streaming content, and gaming.

I also ran our series of benchmark tests, designed to assess all aspects of performance. I also ran a movie on a continuous loop to test the battery
life.

Ive reviewed a large number of laptops previously, across a broad range of price points, form factors, and use cases. First reviewed: April 2026 Read more about how we test Asus Zenbook A16 UX3607: Price Comparison 2,099.99
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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/laptops/asus-zenbook-a16-review


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