Asus’ lightweight 16-inch laptop is a formidable MacBook Air alternative

I already put Asus’ new Zenbook A16 through the wringer when I brought a pre-production unit with me to CES. I loved it for its ample power in an impressively light 16-inch chassis. It’s speedy enough for part-time content creation, it’s got lengthy battery life, and its large OLED screen is crisp and vivid.

Now, the final production model is here, priced at $1,599.99 for a configuration with a whopping 48GB of RAM — a spec-to-price balance that’s unheard of, especially in these uncertain times. All the strengths I witnessed from its pre-production days are still present, and the early hardware issues and software bugs I encountered have been fixed (as they should have). The result is a unique Windows laptop for anyone seeking the most screen real estate in one of the lightest and most capable packages, and a worthwhile alternative to a 15-inch MacBook Air.

The Zenbook A16 is primarily available in the US in one configuration with a nearly-top-of-the-line 18-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-94-100 chip. It also includes that plentiful 48GB of RAM (which is soldered) and 1TB SSD. Its sharp looks are owed to its fantastic looking 16-inch, 2880 x 1800 / 120Hz OLED display and Asus’ Ceraluminum coating, wrapping the chassis in a satiny finish. The A16 has more cozy vibes than your average laptop, thanks to that lightly textured feel and its unique beige color. This is peak beige (complimentary or derogatory, depending how you feel).

The pre-prod model I used back in January wasn’t ready for benchmark testing, but the final A16 and its new X2 Elite Extreme chip most definitely is. After putting it through a full suite of tests across Geekbench, Cinebench 2026, PugetBench, Blender, and more, I can confidently say: damn, it’s pretty good! The 15-inch M5 MacBook Air it’s aimed to compete with still wins most head-to-heads, but the Zenbook shows its strengths in multi-threaded CPU performance across Geekbench and Cinebench. It’s even hot on the MacBook’s heels in the PugetBench Photoshop test (which is CPU intensive).

Turning to the Intel Panther Lake-equipped Asus Zenbook Duo, the Zenbook A16 handily wins in both single and multi-core CPU performance tests. The Zenbook Duo has the much bigger advantage in graphics tests thanks to its beefier Arc B390 GPU. But you pay much more for the Duo’s graphics chops (and its second screen), as it costs $700 more than the Zenbook A16.

The A16’s performance scores track with my real-world experience using it to edit 50-megapixel RAW files in Adobe Lightroom Classic, where it often felt reminiscent of base M4 and now M5 MacBooks. I could blaze through my edits, even on battery power. And speaking of battery life, the A16 is yet another example of a Snapdragon laptop that easily lasts an eight-hour work day of mixed usage (Chrome tabs, some video calls, and a little streaming). I got through a day just like that, with nearly 90 minutes of collective video calls, and I still had 30 percent battery leftover to use for my evening.

The rest of the Zenbook A16 is also well put together: a hinge that easily opens with one finger, a nice feeling keyboard with deeper key travel than MacBooks, a solid mechanical trackpad, and some decent speakers. The trackpad is hinged at the top, piano key-style, but it clicks well in its lower half. Listening to music on the A16 sounds nice and fairly full, but it lacks bass, as you’d expect. And the downward-and-outward-firing speakers get partially blocked when resting the laptop on your legs, altering the sound. It just doesn’t have the same level of oomph the 15-inch MacBook Air is capable of, but overall this is still a pretty complete package for a thin-and-light (and large) laptop.

My biggest knock against the Zenbook A16 remains my same problem with all Arm-based Windows laptops: the gaming situation. Qualcomm deserves some credit for putting in the work to get more games running on Windows on Arm (now up to 2,400 supported titles from the initial 1,200), but it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to x86 Windows. Easy Anti-Cheat is now supported, so games like Fortnite are playable on Snapdragon laptops. But Elden Ring Nightreign (one of my personal faves for online live service games) still doesn’t work, despite also using Easy Anti-Cheat. Qualcomm and Microsoft need to keep building momentum and getting more developers and publishers to update their games for Arm. I just can’t help knocking Snapdragon laptops for this, because one of my main draws to using Windows is being able to play just about any game I want. I’m fine with settling for potato quality graphics on an integrated GPU, as long as I can play whatever the mood calls for.

With proper game support, a laptop like the Zenbook A16 could one day be the MacBook Air killer (or closer to one) that it’s positioned to be. It’s a great alternative as it stands now, but you have to want Windows and be willing to play the same roulette of “Is this game supported?” just like Mac users do.

My own nerdy gamer needs aside, I’m relieved to see the Zenbook A16 is hitting the market with this much RAM and performance for $1,600. It may not be a MacBook Air killer, but it’s an interesting alternative that isn’t just an also-ran. I’d still suggest most people just go with the MacBook Air, and if you really need more power or more ports (including that handy SD card slot) the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro is also right there. But that’s also a chunkier and much heavier laptop. The Zenbook A16 offers an intriguing and refreshing twist: a light-but-large laptop with very good performance and enough RAM to weather the ongoing storm of a global memory shortage.

Now let’s hope Asus doesn’t just jack up the price in a few months like we’ve started seeing elsewhere.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge