Asus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) Review: Slim and Powerful

With AI becoming the talk of the town, chipset and laptop makers are leaving no stone unturned to join this bandwagon. We have Intel with its Core Ultra series, Qualcomm with its Snapdragon X series, and AMD with its new Ryzen AI 300 series. The new AMD Ryzen AI 300 series is a capable chipset that brings a plethora of features and powers the latest Asus Zenbook S 16. The latest offering from Asus is special as it is one of the slimmest, lightest, and fastest 16-inch laptops in the market. The laptop comes with a price tag of Rs 1,49,999 and brings a premium design, a vibrant 3K OLED display, a decent battery life, efficient performance, and more. However, does it have enough arsenal to become a reliable machine? Let’s find out in this in-depth review.

Asus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) Laptop Design: Beautiful and Sleek

• Dimension – 353.6 x 243 x 11.9 mm
• Weight – 1.50kg
• Colours – Zumaia Gray

Asus puts a lot of effort into the design, and this dedication is also shown in the ZenBook S 16. The laptop comes with a new Ceraluminum, a mix of ceramic and aluminium. This makes the lid look stunning, incredibly up close. You also get glossy silver lines running across the lid that really make it stand out. I got the Zumaia Gray colour option, and I liked the design of the laptop, which stands out from the rest of the laptops out there in the market with a stone-like texture.

The Asus Zenbook S 16 comes with a special finish that uses ceramic and aluminum.

 

The laptop is also among the slimmest and lightest laptops in the segment. The laptop weighs roughly 1.5 kg and measures 11.9mm, which makes it exceptionally portable. It fits perfectly in the laptop bag, and you don’t feel much weight, which is good.

However, it is important to note that the screen does not go flat 180 degrees like other 2-in-1 laptops; it only leans to 150 degrees. This is due to the placement of the cooling vents. The vents are, in fact, extremely detailed, with a grid of rounded squares, each featuring two holes for airflow. The speakers are placed through the cuts on the sides of the chassis, similar to the Macbooks.

The Asus Zenbook S 16 comes with a plethora of ports.

 

As for the ports, you get two USB 4.0 Gen 3 Type-C ports with support for display/power delivery, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a HDMI 2.1 port on the left side. You get one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port on the right and an SD 4.0 card reader. That said, the laptop is well-designed and offers a sleek profile and lightweight design, staying true to the essence of the Zenbook series.

Asus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) Laptop Display: Vibrant and Colourful

Display – 16-inch OLED touchscreen
Resolution – 3K (2880 x 1800 pixels)
Refresh Rate – 120Hz

Coming to the display, the Asus Zenbook S 16 features a large 16-inch display with thin bezels around the edges. The review unit has a touchscreen display with a digitiser layer and a protective glass layer on top of the panel. The addition of a digitiser layer does bring some graininess, especially in solid colours like white; it is not that visible as compared to older OLED panels with touch screens.

The laptop comes loaded with a 16-inch 3K OLED display that offers vibrant colours.

 

The OLED panel does bring sharp contrasts and vivid colours to the table. The panel is well-calibrated and out of the box to deliver uniform colours, while the OLED panel keeps light bleeding to a minimum. You can also tune the display as needed using the MyAsus application, which is a good addition. Moving on, if you consider the flickering on OLED panels, Asus has also added an OLED Flicker-Free Dimming mode to counter this.

That said, on the downside, the laptop’s screen is reflective due to the glossy coating. Plus, the brightness is not very bright for outdoor conditions. So, if you might face a bit of trouble looking at the screen in a bright office environment or outdoor cafe. Moreover, the screen is prone to smudges, so it is better to keep a microfibre cloth with you to clean it up.

Asus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) Laptop Keyboard, Touchpad, Speakers, and Webcam: Works Fine

• Keyboard – Backlit keyboard
• Webcam – 1080p Hi-res camera
• Speakers – Six Speakers

The Asus Zenbook S16 comes with a compact backlit keyboard. The LEDs on this are bright enough to highlight the key in dark conditions. Moreover, you also get an ambient sensor that automatically adjusts keyboard brightness levels based on ambient lighting conditions.

Coming to the performance, the keyboard on this device offers a shorter stroke and provides a suitable 1.1mm key travel. Once you get through the learning curve, the keyboard will be quite easy to operate, and the typing experience will feel effortless. The laptop was a daily driver during the entire review period, and I never experienced any sort of tiredness or fatigue during those long typing sessions.

The laptop also comes with a large touchpad slab, which works well during the review period. The touchpad handles all the gestures, like swipes and taps, effortlessly. And you don’t feel any rattling with the physical clicks. Moreover, the company has also added some edge gestures to this machine.

The laptop comes loaded with a large touchpad that offers smooth experience.

 

One can adjust the screen brightness on the right edge, adjust audio levels by sliding the left edge, and move forward/backwards by sliding the top edge. The implementation is good, though it does not come with palm rejection, making it prone to accidental touching. I was annoyed at some point and turned it off completely.

In terms of security, the laptop does not come with a physical fingerprint sensor, but you do get an IR-based camera for Windows Hello support. Frankly, the whole experience was buggy for me as, most of the time, the Windows Hello authentication failed, so I went the old-fashioned way. That said, it also comes with a 1080p camera that offers sharp colours and is usable for video calls.

The audio output is good on this one. The speakers come with smart AMP technology and are tuned with Harman/Kardon. The speakers offer punchy sound output, loud enough to fill a small room. Even at higher levels, sound distortion is minimal, and you get a balanced bass and treble output.

Asus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) Laptop Software: Useful

• Operating System – Windows 11 Home
• Other Features – Copilot Plus

The Asus Zenbook S 16 runs the Windows 11 Home operating system. The device also comes with a Copilot AI tool with multiple use cases. I used Copilot to summarise the articles for easy reading. You also get a dedicated Copilot key on the keyboard to access the AI assistant quickly. That said, it is not marketed as the Copilot+ PC, which is odd as it packs AMD’s NPU that offers 50 TOPS performance, which qualifies it for this title.

The laptop comes loaded with Windows 11 Home edition.

 

That said, you still get a hang of the AI features on this machine by using Amuse, a real-time image generation application that supports AMD’s NPU. So, if you are planning to buy this laptop solely for future AI features, then you might as well consider other options available in the market.

Apart from this, the MyAsus application is the one-stop solution for taking care of most of the features on this laptop. With this app, you get to diagnose the problems, update drivers, and even customise different settings, which is a good thing.

Asus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) Performance: Top-Notch Performance

• Chipset – AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370
• RAM – 32GB LPDDR5X
• ROM – 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD
• GPU – AMD Radeon 890M Graphics

The Asus Zenbook S 16 is indeed a powerful laptop in this price segment. The device is one of the few laptops loaded with all-new AMD Ryzen AI 300 series chipset. The review unit came with AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX370, based on the new CPU architecture and features four performance Zen5 cores and eight efficiency Zen5c cores, all with hyper-threading. The chipset comes with AMD Radeon 890 integrated graphics and also features AMD XDNA 2.0 NPU, which boasts up to 50 TOPS of performance, the highest in the segment.

Benchmark	Asus Zenbook S 16 (2024)	Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1	Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 360
Cinebench R23 Single Core	1917	1,683	11752
Cinebench R23 Multi Core	15,776	9024	10,961
Geekbench 6 Single Core	2,712	2,339	2,380
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	12732	9630	12571
PC Mark 10	4451	6127	6640
3DMark Night Raid	27,358	19,557	25,726
3DMark CPU Profile	7,446	5,031	7,234
3DMark Steel Nomad Light	3,287	1,696	1,721
CrystalDiskMark	5066.63 MB/s (Read)/ 3609.52 MB/s (Write)	4946.10 MB/s (Read)/ 916.91 MB/s (Write)	3754.35 MB/s (Read)/ 2641.51 MB/s (Write)

Coming to the performance, the Asus Zenbook S 16 lives up to the expectations. The laptop can handle most of the tasks you throw at it. Whether it be normal day-to-day usage or some heavy multitasking, you will not face much trouble. In terms of gaming performance, the laptop can handle most casual games with ease, provided you play them in low to medium settings.

The Asus Zenbook S 16 packs a punch in performance.

 

There are different modes that help you get the most out of the laptop’s performance: Speed, Performance, Standard, and Whisper. With the Full Speed mode, the processor runs at 33W of sustained power, while in Performance Mode, you get stable 28W output. That said, the AMD chipset supports up to 55W of sustained power. However, the company has gone with the 33W to provide a quieter performance and sustained battery life.

Asus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) Laptop Battery: Long-lasting and Reliable

• Battery Capacity – 4 Cell, 78 Wh (Typical)
• Fast Charging – 65W USB Type-C Adapter

The battery life of Dell Latitude 7450 2-in-1 is decent as well. The laptop comes loaded with a 4-cell, 78W battery that supports 65W fast charging. The laptop has been a daily driver for a while now, and I comfortably got close to 11 hours of battery life with Standard profile. With Performance or Full Speed mode, you can still get a decent battery life of around 8 and 6 hours. As far as the charging speeds are concerned, it takes almost 2 hours to get fully charged.

Asus Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) Verdict

The laptop offers a good mix of premium design and flagship performance.

 

The Asus Zenbook S 16 does make a good impression with its premium design language and stable performance. The laptop is surely one of the slimmest and lightest laptops available in the segment with the OLED display panel. It also packs a vibrant display and punchy speaker setup that delights multimedia consumption. The performance is top-notch and competitive in this segment. So, if you are looking for a reliable 16-inch laptop that delivers good portability, design, and performance, then you can indeed consider this one.