ASUS ZenBook A16: Snapdragon continues to improve, but there are still some compromises

Take a 16-inch laptop. Fit it with a 3K 120 Hz OLED screen, an 18-core processor, 48 GB of memory and a 70 Wh battery. Now try to make it weigh 1.2 kilos. ASUS has managed to do just that with the Zenbook A16. And that’s probably the most impressive thing about it: it feels as though someone has left half the computer at home.

The credit goes to the Ceraluminum chassis, a material that’s a cross between aluminium and ceramic. But above all, it’s down to Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme platform. This is ARM’s second real foray into the Windows PC market, and this time it feels as though they’ve come well prepared. Inside is the X2E-94-100 model, with 18 cores and an NPU capable of 80 TOPS for artificial intelligence workloads. ASUS offers up to 48 GB of LPDDR5X and a 2 TB SSD. Given the cost of memory, 48 GB is ‘a lot’ for anyone wanting to work with AI locally.

In everyday use, it’s not the benchmarks that are interesting. It’s the silence. Browsers, Office, video conferences and dozens of tabs are unlikely to set the fans in motion. Snapdragon works like those highly efficient colleagues who get everything done without making a fuss about it in meetings.

Battery life is also one of its strongest points. In real-world tests carried out by international reviewers, battery life ranges from 10 to 16 hours, depending on the workload; ASUS claims over 21 hours in more controlled conditions. In short, the charger can finally stop being a permanent fixture in your rucksack.

Then there’s the display. The 2880×1800-pixel, 120 Hz OLED panel boasts perfect blacks, rich colours and a level of fluidity that suddenly makes a standard 60 Hz LCD look outdated. The downside is the glossy finish: under bright light, the screen can turn into an expensive mirror.