{"id":517973,"date":"2026-04-07T17:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/517973\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T17:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:17:12","slug":"asus-zenbook-a16-review-a-formidable-macbook-air-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/517973\/","title":{"rendered":"Asus Zenbook A16 review: a formidable MacBook Air alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"

I already put Asus\u2019 new Zenbook A16 through the wringer when I brought a pre-production unit with me to CES<\/a>. I loved it for its ample power in an impressively light 16-inch chassis. It\u2019s speedy enough for part-time content creation, it\u2019s got lengthy battery life, and its large OLED screen is crisp and vivid.<\/p>\n

Now, the final production model is here, priced at $1,599.99 for a configuration with a whopping 48GB of RAM \u2014 a spec-to-price balance that\u2019s unheard of, especially in these uncertain times<\/a>. 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

$1600<\/p>\n

The GoodIncredibly light for such a capable 16-inch laptopGreat battery life and a lovely OLEDVery good performance with lots of RAMHell yeah, an SD card slotThe BadBeige color isn\u2019t for everyone (though the satin finish is nice to touch)The usual Windows on Arm disclaimer \u2014 compatibility issues with some specialized apps and many gamesOkay speakersScreen: AWebcam: BKeyboard: BTrackpad: BPort selection: BSpeakers: CNumber of ugly stickers to remove: 3<\/p>\n

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\u2019 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).<\/p>\n

The pre-prod model I used back in January wasn\u2019t ready for benchmark testing, but the final A16 with its new X2 Elite Extreme chip most definitely is. After putting it through a full suite of tests across Geekbench, Cinebench 2026, Puget Bench, Blender, and more, I can confidently say: Damn, it\u2019s pretty good! The 15-inch M5 MacBook Air<\/a> it\u2019s 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\u2019s even hot on the MacBook\u2019s heels in the Puget Bench Photoshop test (which is CPU-intensive).<\/p>\n

Turning to the Intel Panther Lake-equipped Asus Zenbook Duo<\/a>, 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\u2019s graphics chops (and its second screen), as it costs $700 more than the Zenbook A16.<\/p>\n

Asus Zenbook A16 \/ Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-94-100 \/ 48GB \/ 1TBMacBook Air 15 \/ Apple M5 \/ 16GB \/ 1TBAsus Zenbook Duo (2026) \/ Intel Core Ultra X9 388H (Panther Lake) \/ 32GB \/ 1TBAcer Swift 14 AI \/ Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (Lunar Lake) \/ 32GB \/ 1TBAsus Zenbook S16 \/ AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (Strix Point) \/ 32GB \/ 1TBMicrosoft Surface Laptop 13-inch \/ Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 \/ 16GB \/ 512GBMacBook Neo \/ Apple A18 Pro \/ 8GB \/ 256GBCPU cores18101681286GPUAdreno X2-90M5 (10 cores)Arc B390 (12 cores)Arc 140V (8 cores)Radeon 890M (16 cores)Adreno X1-45A18 Pro (5 GPU cores)Geekbench 6 CPU Single3643417530092609282824373402Geekbench 6 CPU Multi2204416567172681069013565114278508Geekbench 6 GPU (OpenCL)4110147661568392898435991939119798Cinebench 2026 Single628727528Not testedNot testedNot tested518Cinebench 2026 Multi632734133993Not testedNot testedNot tested1466Puget Bench for Photoshop10931115138773659873484773Not testedPuget Bench for Premiere Pro (2.0.0+)Not tested6186154920Not testedNot testedNot testedNot testedPuget Bench for DaVinci Resolve (2.0.0+)Not tested45378Not testedNot testedNot testedNot testedNot testedBlender classroom test (seconds, lower is better)1984661Not tested308486Not testedBlender cosmos test (seconds, lower is better)670Not tested204Not tested862Not testedNot testedPremiere 4K Export (lower is better)6 minutes, 38 seconds2 minutes, 53 seconds3 minutes, 3 secondsNot testedNot testedNot testedNot testedSustained SSD reads (MB\/s)7092.917049.456762.155200.835060.843840.781735.91Sustained SSD writes (MB\/s)5694.947480.555679.414662.053665.423476.621684.053DMark Time Spot (1080p)5289Not tested98475955Not testedNot testedNot testedPrice as tested$1,599.99$1,499$2,299.99$1,299.99$1,700$999.99$599<\/p>\n

The A16\u2019s 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 workday 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 left over to use for my evening.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

USB-A and an SD card slot on the right.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

HDMI, USB4, and an audio jack on the left.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A good keyboard and solid trackpad.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Couchouflage.<\/p>\n

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\u2019d expect. And the downward-and-outward-firing speakers get partially blocked when resting the laptop on your legs, altering the sound. It just doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019t help knocking Snapdragon laptops for this, because one of my main draws for using Windows is being able to play just about any game I want. I\u2019m fine with settling for potato-quality graphics on an integrated GPU, as long as I can play whatever the mood calls for.<\/p>\n

With proper game support, a laptop like the Zenbook A16 could one day be the MacBook Air killer (or closer to one) that it\u2019s positioned to be. It\u2019s a great alternative as it stands now, but you have to want Windows and be willing to play the same roulette of \u201cIs this game supported?\u201d just like Mac users do.<\/p>\n

1\/3Healthy competition without straight-up imitation. You love to see it.<\/p>\n

My own nerdy gamer needs aside, I\u2019m 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\u2019s an interesting alternative that isn\u2019t just an also-ran. I\u2019d 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s hope Asus doesn\u2019t just jack up the price in a few months like we\u2019ve started seeing elsewhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asus Zenbook A16 specs (as reviewed)<\/p>\n

Display: 16-inch (2880 x 1800) 120Hz OLED touchscreen, up to 1,100 nits peak brightness in HDRProcessor: Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-94-100 (18-core), Adreno X2-90 GPURAM: 48GB (soldered)Storage: 1TB SSDWebcam: 1080p with IRBiometrics: Windows Hello facial recognitionConnectivity: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4Ports: 2x USB 4 (Type-C), 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type-A), HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm combo audio jack, SD 4.0 card slotWeight: 2.87 pounds \/ 1.3kgDimensions: 13.92 x 9.54 x 0.54 ~ 0.65 inches \/ 353.6 x 242.3 x 13.7 ~ 16.5mmBattery: 70WhPrice: $1,599.99<\/p>\n

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto \/ The Verge<\/p>\n

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See All Windows<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I already put Asus\u2019 new Zenbook A16 through the wringer when I brought a pre-production unit with me…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4774,786,59,143218,10800,696,129,227,86,56,54,55,2869],"class_list":{"0":"post-517973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-asus","9":"tag-gadgets","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-laptop-reviews","12":"tag-laptops","13":"tag-microsoft","14":"tag-reviews","15":"tag-tech","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom","20":"tag-windows"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}