There’s a new contender in the market, vying for the spotlight in the thin-and-light all-purpose laptop arena: the Asus Zenbook S 16. When it comes to ultraportable laptops, the MacBook Air has long been the benchmark for slimness, portability, and performance. But with the ZenBook S 16, featuring the new Ryzen AI processor, Asus claims it’s as thin and light as the MacBook Air, but with a much larger 16-inch OLED screen.
That’s a bold claim, but in this review, we’ll take a closer look at the Asus Zenbook S 16 to find out if it truly delivers on its promises.
Asus Zenbook S 16: Design
The Zenbook S 16 weighs only 1.5 kilograms. So it is a 16-inch laptop that’s as light and slim as a 15-inch MacBook Air. That alone is a massive win in my book, especially considering it’s packing a powerful processor and a large battery, but more on that later.
Now Asus has managed to fit a lot into a surprisingly compact frame. The Ceraluminum finish gives it a premium look and feel which this Zumaia Gray colour that my unit came in, really brings out. Think of a smooth, ceramic-like texture with a geometric design that combines the durability of aluminum. It’s a design that feels both futuristic and professional.
Moving on, the port selection includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port, and an SD card slot, which is great for content creators who need to offload photos or videos directly.
The screen, however, is where this laptop really shines.
Asus Zenbook S 16: Display and Audio
The Zenbook S 16 sports a 3K OLED HDR NanoEdge display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. It’s bright, vibrant, and incredibly detailed. Whether you’re working on creative tasks or watching media, the colors pop, and the high refresh rate makes everything feel fluid.
The OLED’s low blue light certification also helps reduce eye strain, which is a big deal if, like me, you spend a lot of time staring at a screen. Also, I was equally impressed by the speakers.
The ZenBook S 16 is equipped with an impressive six-speaker system powered by Harmon. And when combined with that OLED display, the audio experience is nothing short of immersive. The bass is surprisingly deep for a laptop, and the overall sound is rich and clear.
Whether you're watching movies, listening to music, or attending a video call, the speakers definitely elevate the experience.
With the Dolby Atmos certification, and it’s safe to say the viewing experience here is top-notch, setting it apart from many other thin-and-light laptops.
Asus Zenbook S 16: Keyboard and Trackpad
For someone who types as much as I do, the keyboard experience is crucial. Typing on the Zenbook S 16 is comfortable and the keys on the ZenBook S 16 have a decent amount of travel.
The trackpad is also notably large and smooth though I did find it a little less responsive towards the edges. Now this did bug me a bit since the trackpad is significantly large for my hands to almost intuitively go for the edges while working.
Asus Zenbook S 16: Performance and Storage
What really sets the ZenBook S 16 apart is its performance. Powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, this laptop packs a serious punch—at least on paper.
We ran a few benchmarks, including Geekbench and Cinebench, and the results were incredibly impressive. It even proved to be strong competition against Intel’s 14th Gen i9 processors.
With these specs, you wouldn’t expect any issues with general usage, and true to form, it handled everything with ease. The laptop effortlessly kept up with my habit of running hundreds of tabs and apps simultaneously. Even with apps running in the background, performance remained smooth and fast—no slowdowns or lag. The fan hardly ever kicked in, and the laptop stayed cool, even after long sessions.
On top of that, it comes with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD—more than enough for what this laptop is designed to handle.
Gaming is where the Radeon 890 M integrated GPU comes into play. For casual games, the performance is impressive. I also ran shooters like Valorant without any issues, but for more demanding AAA titles, like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, you might notice some drops in frame rate.
Now since this isn’t really a gaming laptop, we couldn’t run benchmarks for performance like Unigine Superposition. The integrated GPU on this laptop is not powerful enough with only 290MB of VRAM, and around 16GB of shared memory.
Still, for an all-purpose notebook, the Asus Zenbook 16 definitely impresses with its gaming experience.
Asus Zenbook S 16: Battery and Charging
Moving on to the battery life, the ZenBook S 16 is decent, offering about 9 to 10 hours of use on a full charge. It won’t match the MacBook Air’s 15 plus hours, but for most people, it’s more than enough to get through a day of productivity work.
Also considering the performance you’re getting with the Ryzen AI chip, that’s a pretty solid battery life.
Asus Zenbook S 16: AI Features
Now, lets circle back to that Ryzen AI processor powering this. AMD has positioned this as an AI-powered chip, capable of running on-device AI applications. While this is exciting, the use cases for AI are still quite limited on the Zenbook S 16, that includes Microsoft’s Copilot Plus features.
Having said that, Asus has included a couple of AI apps like StoryCube for managing your media, and Amuse for AI-generated images. An interesting addition for better organisation.
Asus Zenbook S 16: Other features
If you’re into creative work, the Zenbook S 16 also comes with an included stylus which I think is a really nice touch. It’s fine for note-taking or digital art, though I wouldn’t rely on it for intensive drawing work.
The camera is also decent – a 1080p webcam that supports Windows Hello. Video calls don’t get too grainy on this one.
Asus Zenbook S 16: Verdict
So, after spending time with the ZenBook S 16, I can say it’s a compelling option in the premium price segment. At a price of Rs 1,49,990, almost at par with the 15-inch MacBook Air, it’s a 16-inch Windows laptop that combines power, portability, and a stunning touchscreen OLED display in a sleek, premium design.
While the performance is at par for general browsing and light gaming, the battery life is not the best in class. That said, for professionals and creatives who value style, functionality, and a touchscreen display that immediately ramps up the cool factor by degrees, the ZenBook S 16 is an outstanding choice. Whether for work, entertainment, or a bit of both, it’s a well-rounded all-purpose laptop.
