I am a die-hard fan of thin-and-light notebooks — as a frequent traveller, I prefer to carry the lightest notebook that combines power, long battery life, and form, and the one that I can trust. The MacBook Air has been my go-to everyday laptop because it caters to my needs, and I’m sure it also does for others. I didn’t want to consider other options — perhaps due to loyalty — until AMD approached me to review the new Asus ZenBook S 16, one of the first laptops to feature the flagship Ryzen AI processor.
I tested the ZenBook S 16 with 32 GB of memory and the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip. It also features a 2880×1800 (3K) touchscreen OLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, a large 78Wh battery, a 1 TB SSD, and a built-in AMD Radeon 890 M GPU. As of now, Asus has yet to launch the ZenBook S 16 with AMD’s latest Ryzen AI processor in India, so I don’t have concrete information on the release date or pricing. Internationally, the model I tested retails for $1700 (or approximately Rs 1,42,722).
I had six questions before switching to the ZenBook S 16
* Is it too big?
* How good is the display?
* Can I type for long hours on the keyboard?
* What’s the battery life like?
* Is it possible to run games on it?
* Will I be able to run legacy programmes?
Testing the ZenBook S 16 with the faster Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Asus ZenBook S 16 review I did not feel the notebook get warm or hot, as is typically the case with Intel-powered notebooks.
I tested the ZenBook S 16 with 32 GB of memory and the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip. It also features a 2880×1800 (3K) touchscreen OLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, a large 78Wh battery, a 1 TB SSD, and a built-in AMD Radeon 890 M GPU. As of now, Asus has yet to launch the ZenBook S 16 with AMD’s latest Ryzen AI processor in India, so I don’t have concrete information on the release date or pricing. Internationally, the model I tested retails for $1700 (or approximately Rs 1,42,722).
hat sets this laptop apart is the new Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip. And I mean it. The competition in the silicon space is cutthroat, and while consumers now have options to choose notebooks running ARM-based PC chips from Apple and Qualcomm, AMD maintains its strength, rivalling its closest competitor, Intel, with its legacy PC architecture. Throughout my tests, I saw performance gains over previous-generation AMD processors, and these gains were evident in whatever tasks I undertook.
Simple computing tasks like running multiple Chrome tabs, writing and filing stories, and streaming music were faster, as you would expect from a newer processor. However, I found the new Ryzen chip to be slightly more powerful for tasks relevant to creators, such as photo and video editing, playing games, and running pro-grade apps. There was no noticeable load time. I ran multiple programmes in the background, edited a short video in 4K, and had 35 Chrome tabs open while editing documents on Google Docs. It just worked.
I did not feel the notebook get warm or hot, as is typically the case with Intel-powered notebooks. The fan kicks in only occasionally, and the processor stays cool. Whether the laptop is plugged in or unplugged, you get similar performance. AMD’s new Ryzen chip is extremely powerful and is much more efficient. For me, though, where AMD’s chip which is based on the x86 Windows platform has a lead over a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Apple M3 Silicon, for matter, is access to legacy programmes and applications designed for Windows operating systems. Gaming is another area where AMD’s chip has a lead over the competition, though I’d say the GPU isn’t powerful enough to run all AAA games smoothly (Cyberpunk 2077, for example) on the Asus ZenBook S16.
The AI stuff is meh
AMD, like others, has been marketing their new laptops as designed for artificial intelligence because the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) allows the device to run on-device Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI apps. For now, at least, the use cases for AI are still quite limited. On the ZenBook S 16, two applications demonstrate the use cases of generative AI: Asus’ StoryCube, which is essentially an intelligent repository for all your media, and the AI image generation app, Amuse. In my opinion, both apps don’t show the full potential of what AI can do.
I’d like to make one thing clear: although the ZenBook S 16 has the specs that qualify it as a Copilot Plus PC, neither Asus nor AMD is marketing it as such. This means many of the AI-powered features like Co-Creator and Live Translation aren’t available on the ZenBook S16 yet, but they are expected to be rolled out by the end of the year.
The ZenBook S 16’s 78Wh battery can last between 9 and 10 hours, based on my tests. While this isn’t exceptional and likely won’t beat the MacBook Air M3, which can easily exceed 15 hours, it is still quite decent. To be clear, I used the ZenBook S16 for productivity work almost every day with the notebook unplugged. I’m sure a Snapdragon-powered notebook might offer slightly longer battery life; however, the trade-off is that you can’t edit heavy videos or play games on it. Regardless, the battery performance of the ZenBook S16 is significantly better than most Intel-powered laptops. Observations.
* The battery estimation on the ZenBook S 16 fluctuates. After several days of use, I struggled to gauge how much battery was left.
* In ideal lighting situations, the 1080 p camera (supports Windows Hello) on the ZenBook S16 showed minimal grain, and the colours appeared reasonably accurate.