Asus Zenbook S 16 (2024) review: A well-balanced Windows laptop

ASUS’s big push The company’s efforts to reinvent laptop technology have finally paid off, with the Zenbook S 16 making the company a serious contender in the mid-range laptop market and beyond.

It’s best to start with the most visible upgrade: the chassis. Rather than relying on the typical metal and plastic design, Asus has invented a new material it’s calling Ceraluminum, which the company says is the result of four years of research that combines aluminum and a type of ceramic into a new compound.

The details are complicated and not entirely clear, but it essentially combines two materials into something that is, in theory, stronger, lighter, and more resistant to wear and corrosion. Cera Aluminum is only used on the top lid of the new Zenbook S, but it’s something you’ll notice right away. It looks like plastic, but has the rigidity of metal, and it’s easy to see how thin and light the screen and lid are.

The laptop is available in two colours – Zumaia Grey and Scandinavian White – I received the latter, which is a light grey with a silvery tint, while the Zumaia option is a very dark colour.

The 16-inch display has enough space for a spacious keyboard, but the lack of a number pad leaves a lot of dead space on either side. The half-height arrow keys are offset and placed below the Shift button, making them easier to access than many other laptops, which have their arrow keys crammed amongst other things. However, I found the keyboard action a bit blurry. The keyboard backlighting is very bright, and frankly too strong at full power. Finally, the large touchpad includes smart gesture support, supporting user-customizable three- and four-finger shortcuts. Once you get the hang of it, it can speed up your work significantly.

Asus has equipped the Zenbook S 16 with its new AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 CPU (paired with a Radeon 880M GPU), 24GB of RAM, and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive. The touchscreen has a resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 pixels. Expansion ports are all side-mounted and include two USB-C connectors with USB4 support (one is needed for charging), a USB-A port, an HDMI output (full-size), and a full-size SD card reader.