ASUS ProArt P16 Laptop Review – The Ultimate Creative Powerhouse for Designers

Technology has been busy in recent months. While many brands aim to release their Q4 lineup by the end of the Q3 period, giving customers a good heads-up heading into the Christmas period, 2024 has been slightly different. There have been many releases across the various technology landscapes and brands. While ASUS already has a healthy lineup, the brand continued to push new frontiers in late Q3, heading into Q4 with the release of plenty of new laptops. We’ve already covered a few samples in the Vivobook and Zenbook ranges in the commercial and office categories, but there remains another – the ProArt range. Switching things from the more business-focused to the creative, the ASUS ProArt features a range of powerful laptops for designers. The ASUS ProArt P16 (H7606) is the flagship of this range, which I’ve recently put through its paces.

Premium Build and Minimalist Design

The ASUS ProArt P16 is a minimalist yet elegant laptop. With its clean lines, it resembles ASUS’ ROG Zephyrus lineup. A utilitarian design with robust features for on-the-go usage wherever you may find yourself. 

It’s also quite a sleek build, albeit a bit heavy. It weighs just under 2KG at 1.85KG. However, it’s not the heaviest device I’ve had the luxury of playing around with, and it doesn’t break your bag while you are carrying it around in your backpack, either. 

Port Selection and Practicality

There are several ports scattered throughout its build. This includes a Type-C 3.2 and 4.0. Both USB ports double up as display and power delivery (with slightly different specifications for each). There are two additional USB Type-A ports for good measure. Other ports include an HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm combo auxiliary, and an SD card reader, rounded off with the DC input. 

The Apple M3 Max MacBook Pro’s direct competitor is somewhat heavier and larger in this department. Aesthetically, you could argue which is more presentable regarding looks, but my preference lies with the P16.

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A Stunning 16” 4K OLED Display

Bolted to the ASUS ProArt P16 is a relatively large 16” screen. The OLED panel has a 4K resolution measured at 3,840×2,400px, which includes a 0.2ms response time and a 60Hz refresh rate. Additional specifications include 500 nits brightness and HDR10 support, a 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, VESA certification for HDR True Black 500, and Pantone validation. The panel also supports touch, has a screen-to-body ratio of 88%, and includes stylus support with the stylus.  

Its 16” size is a good middle ground. It’s not too small for designers to struggle with the resolution and not too big to add weight when moving between tasks. The 4K resolution is also excellent, while many other devices offer a lower 2K option. 

Overall, the visuals are brilliant. The OLED panel provides the best colours, is bright and bold, has excellent contrast, and is clear with its 4K resolution. It’s the perfect match for designers, creatives, and office workers, and it also doubles in your downtime by playing games or watching movies. 

High-End Specifications for Power Users

There is plenty of hardware packed into the diminutive frame of the ASUS ProArt P16. It has an AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 HX 370 CPU with a 2.0GHz processor (36MB Cache, up to 5.1GHz, 12 cores, 24 Threads). With AI support and future-proofing, it also includes an NPU – an AMD XDNA™ NPU clocked up to 50TOPS. 

This is paired with an NVIDIA® GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU for ultimate performance capabilities. It also includes an onboard AMD Radeon 890M GPU for less computationally expensive tasks. 

It features 32GB LPDDR5X onboard RAM and a 1TB M.2 NVM PCIe® 4.0 SSD. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) (Triple band) 2×2 and Bluetooth 5.4. 

The battery is a 90WHrs, 4S1P, 4-cell Li-ion unit.

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Performance That Matches Ambition

With all that power packed under the hood, there are very few tasks the ASUS ProArt P16 cannot complete – and quickly complete. As an everyday laptop, the P16 is a workhorse. 

ASUS has included plenty of software and hardware tools to streamline your creative options, including its ProArt software line and physical shortcuts, such as the additional DialPad on its large touchpad. It works well for the most part, but a learning curve exists to make the helpful shortcut a shortcut. Two to three weeks wasn’t enough time to become very efficient with it myself, and I often made mistakes. 

The laptop is more than capable of managing everyday office and design work. However, during your downtime, users can power up their favourite AAA games and maximise all that power under the hood. The only negative aspect is that the OLED panel is limited to 60Hz, while most dedicated gaming units offer 120Hz and above.

Battery Life: Adequate for Most Creative Needs

The battery life of the ASUS ProArt P16 is more than adequate. Rundown testing delivered an average uptime of around 10 hours (multiple open tabs streaming 1080p video content on average brightness). This is still sufficient to power you through an entire workday but not comparable to other similar devices capable of charging in excess of 12- and even 18-hour shifts. As such, we can conclude that the battery life is on par, neither tremendous nor in any way bad.

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Is the ASUS ProArt P16 Worth Purchasing? 

ASUS has knocked it out of the park with the ProArt P16. Although it was designed as a creativity tool for designers and creatives, it’s much more than that. It handles anything you can throw at it and is an excellent gaming device if required, largely thanks to its powerful GPU and CPU pairing. Its 16” 4K touchscreen is impressive, offering stylus support for any doodling necessities. Overall, it works great. 

The caveat with such an all-around device almost always lies in its pricing. With a price point north of R60,000, you will not likely find it equipped for most budgets. However, this is a high-end laptop with premium features and more than justifies its price point.