Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606 (Ryzen AI 9) review: I think AMD just killed the MacBook Air
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A new challenger has entered the arena! The Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606 is the first of many to offer AMD’s latest Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, which boasts AI capabilities comparable to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite. Does the Zenbook S16 deliver the goods to match AMD’s horsepower?
The Asus Zenbook S16 impressed me right from the start with its excellent performance and impressive graphics, topped off with long-lasting battery life and a decent 16-inch OLED display packed into a one-of-a-kind chassis. Despite all of those goodies, it suffers from a mediocre keyboard and touchpad experience and a slow SSD.
But if you can look past those flaws, the Asus Zenbook S16 has a lot to offer. It could even find a place on our best Asus laptops page. But will it? Let’s find out.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Specs
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Price and configurations
I tested the higher-end Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606 ($1,699), which features an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, AMD Radeon 890M Graphics chip, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 16-inch, 2880 x 1800, 120Hz, OLED touch display.
Downgrading to the $1,399 model gets you a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU, Radeon 880M Graphics chip, and 24GB of RAM.
Want something cheaper? Check out our best laptops under $1,000.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Design
Someone must’ve clipped the Zenbook S16’s wings because this baby fell from heaven. Its gorgeous pottery-white hood is crafted from Ceramic-Ceraluminum. That’s a mouthful that translates to a mixture of aluminum and ceramic, which provides a pottery-like texture. There are also sleek lines of glossy silver and a tiny Asus Zenbook logo in the top left. I love the way this thing looks and feels.
Popping open the lid reveals a standard aluminum white deck with a neat keyboard tucked in the center and vents just above it. Embedded in the vent on the right is the Zenbook logo, which looks very Star Trek-esque. The touchpad takes up a large chunk of the deck, while the display is almost completely bezel-less. However, at the top, the webcam lacks a privacy shutter.
At 3.3 pounds and 13.92 x 9.57 x 0.47 ~ 0.51 inches, the Asus Zenbook S16 is nearly as light and thin as the MacBook Air. It falls within a similar range as the MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) (3.3 pounds, 13.4 x 9.35 x 0.45 inches), LG Gram SuperSlim (2.18 pounds, 14 x 8.95 x 0.43~0.49 inches), and Asus Vivobook S15 S5507 (3.2 pounds, 13.88 x 8.93 x 0.58~0.63 inches).
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Ports
For its 0.5-inch thin chassis, the Zenbook S16 offers an impressive array of ports.
Look to the left, and you’ll find an HDMI port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a headphone jack, while the right side offers one USB Type-A port and a full SD card slot.
If you still need more ports, check out our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Display
I love an OLED display but does the Asus Zenbook S16’s 16-inch, 2880 x 1800, 120Hz panel do justice to the technology it implements? Yes and no. It’s beautiful from an average user's perspective, but its competition does it better.
I watched the latest Borderlands trailer, and the scene where the gang stands in a graffitied corridor painted a yellowish hue that almost looked like Windows Night Light was enabled. However, in the vault scene, the lights cast a vivid blue upon the polyhedral objects in the room. Since the display is glossy, it did catch some light from the window behind me. Assuming you’re in a dark space, the panel is bright enough to capture details like the shelf of candles behind Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis. The panel is also sharp, flaunting each strand on the actors’ heads.
According to our colorimeter, the Zenbook S16 clocks in 79.7% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, short of the average premium laptop (86.2%). It’s more colorful than the MacBook Air (77.5%) and is close to the Asus Vivobook S15 S5507 (82.8%), but the LG SuperSlim (139%) crushes them all.
At 357 nits, the Zenbook S16 gets decently bright, but it doesn’t beat the average premium laptop (458 nits). This results from the Mini-LED displays that populate that category with up to 1,000 nits of brightness. The Zenbook S16 is dimmer than the MacBook Air (482 nits), LG SuperSlim (384 nits), and Vivobook S15 (370 nits). Despite that, if you’re using HDR, it climbs to 582 nits. It’s just unfortunate that Windows HDR isn’t good.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Keyboard and touchpad
I don’t like it. I tried typing away on the Asus Zenbook S16, and the experience was marred by short key travel and a mushy sensation. There wasn’t that pleasant bounce to navigate me to the next key. Instead, I had put more effort into typing than I would’ve liked.
I managed 75 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, falling short of my usual 81-wpm average. That’s not only due to the poor bounce but also the key spacing. There’s no numpad on the Zenbook 16, which I’m indifferent about, but it changes the ergonomics of a 16-inch notebook. So if you’re used to typing on a laptop with a numpad, that’ll take time to get used to.
The 5.9 x 3.9-inch touchpad is pleasantly smooth, but its clicker is shallow. I have mixed feelings about haptic-touchpads, but that would feel better than clicking on this device.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Audio
Stuffed with six side-firing speakers, the Zenbook S16 is bumpin’ with quality audio flaunting that bass.
I listened to Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” and the opening percussion finally gets some justice in a set of laptop speakers. The drums had a gentle but meaningful impact, which is refreshing compared to the muted, hollow speakers I’ve heard before. The vocals sound ethereal, hitting mids and highs without getting too sharp. The background synths can get a little lost as the cymbals are more prominent, but the overall sound is solid.
With the Dolby Access app, you can adjust presets like Game, Movie, Music, or Voice, and there’s also Dynamic, which adjusts the audio automatically.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Performance
The Asus Zenbook S16 is the first of many laptops with AMD’s new Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip. It easily cracked through a couple of dozen Google Chrome tabs and a handful of YouTube videos while Spotify popped off in the background.
On the Geekbench 6.3 overall performance test, the Asus Zenbook S16 scored 13,282, which crushes the average premium laptop (9,130). It even outpaces the MacBook Air’s M3 (12,052) and the LG SuperSlim’s Intel Core i7-1360P (10,282). However, the Vivobook S15’s Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 (14,522) crossed that finish line first.
The results landed the same when we tested how fast the Zenbook S16 could transcode a 4K video to 1080p on our HandBrake benchmark. The Zenbook S16 took second place (5:08) and beat the category average (7:08). Meanwhile, the Vivobook S15 slotted first (4:27), and the MacBook Air (6:30) and LG SuperSlim (10:41) trailed behind in third and last, respectively.
Oof. Asus’ 1TB SSD tanked this test, transferring 25GB of multimedia files at a rate of 908 megabytes per second. It's been a minute since I've seen a rate under 1K, and it definitely fails against an average premium laptop (1,377 MBps). The LG SuperSlim (1,692 MBps) and Vivobook S15 S5507 (1,296 MBps) were lightning-fast in comparison.
However, the Blackmagic Read/Write tells a different story. The Zenbook S16 scored 3,207/2,978 MBps, while the MacBook Air hit 2,968/3,167 MBps. There's give and take on that front, so it's mostly a draw. But it's important to remember that it's not a real-world test, unlike ours.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: AI performance and features
We’ve had to change how we test AI PCs with the slew of Copilot+ PCs coming in. While the Zenbook S16 isn’t marketed as a Copilot+ PC, like the laptops with Snapdragon X Elite chips, it meets the requirements with the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. It comes with the XDNA 2 NPU, a processing unit specifically for AI. Our testing will adapt as more AI PCs launch, but let’s see how the Zenbook S16 did.
On the Geekbench ML 0.6 AI performance test, the Zenbook S16 got an ONNX/CPU score of 3,377, beating the Vivobook S15’s 2,913. None of its other competitors took this test, but it does surpass the HP Spectre x360 14 2024 (2,876) and the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Q425M (2,971). While this test only measures CPU performance, it’s impressive to see AMD’s AI capabilities surpass Qualcomm’s.
Again, while it is not marketed as a Copilot+ PC, it benefits from plenty of Copilot features. The most obvious one is Recall, which you might’ve heard is controversial. This is like the History button on your browser, except it applies to everything you do on your PC. A little spooky, but the information is designed to be stored locally. And you do have the option to adjust the type of information stored. Right now Recall is limited to Windows Insiders and disabled by default.
Our favorite Copilot+ PC features include Windows Studio Effects and Live Captions. AI-art-generating programs are also available, but they are controversial as they scrape the internet for real artists’ work without their consent and use that to fuel their own “art.”
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Graphics
Whispers about the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX implied that it could be useful for gaming, as its integrated AMD Radeon 890M GPU is stronger than your average chip. But can you really game with it?
On the 3DMark Night Raid benchmark, a synthetic DirectX 12 test for integrated graphics, the Zenbook S16 scored 28,213, surpassing the average premium laptop (20,889). It also made short work of the LG SuperSlim’s Intel Iris Xe Graphics (16,447) and the Vivobook S15’s Qualcomm Adreno (26,046).
On the Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm benchmark (Medium, 1080p), the Zenbook S16 averaged a strong 63 frames per second. That tramples the average (50 fps) as well as the LG SuperSlim (25 fps) and Vivobook S15 (21 fps), which produced unplayable scores.
We also ran the Zenbook S16 through more intensive games, like Shadow of the Tomb Raider. On the highest settings, 1080p benchmark, it scored 27 fps. While that is not a playable frame rate, it’s high enough that if you turn down a few settings the game should run smoothly.
It crossed 30 fps on the Far Cry 6 benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), averaging 35 fps. There’s a similar trend on the Borderlands 3 benchmark (Badass, 1080p) where it hit 32 fps (comparatively, the MacBook Air’s M3 chip scored 17 fps).
Is the Zenbook S16 a gaming laptop? No. Can it game? Absolutely.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Battery life
AMD has proved its battery life chops before, but does it do so again with the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370? Yes, but it’s not particularly exceptional.
On the Laptop Mag battery test, the Zenbook S16 survived for 11 hours and 35 minutes. That surpasses the average premium laptop (11:17), but it died before the MacBook Air (15:03), LG SuperSlim (11:38), and Vivobook S15 (12:53). So while the Zenbook S16’s battery life is long, it’s not record-breaking like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Webcam
I’ve seen worse webcams, but the Zenbook S16’s shooter isn’t great.
I am impressed that the contrast is balanced enough to not overexpose my ceiling due to the light fixture or the window in the background. It also captures color rather well, maintaining the sanctity of the bright My Hero Academia poster behind me. However, where it does fail is the detail. The picture is incredibly fuzzy. It looks fine from far away, but look closely, and you won’t be able to tell which pixel is your skin and which is your glasses. You might not need one of the best webcams, but it couldn’t hurt.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Heat
The Zenbook S16 gets a little warm, but nothing too toasty.
After streaming a 15-minute video, it clocked in at 96 degrees Fahrenheit on its underside, which is around our 95-degree comfort threshold. The center of the keyboard and touchpad hit 100 degrees and 87 degrees, respectively. Meanwhile, the hottest it got was 106 degrees, located about an inch upwards from the Windows sticker on the underside near the vent.
As stated above, this machine can get some gaming in, so it might get a little spicier than our recorded results.
Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606: Software and warranty
MyASUS is all you need. It provides access to your device settings, system diagnostics, system updates, and warranty. You can monitor the Zenbook S16’s CPU, memory, battery, and hard disk space. There are additional display and audio settings.
This is an AI PC, so there are additional features as mentioned above.
The Zenbook S16 UM5606 comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how Asus performed on our Tech Support Showdown ranking.
Bottom line
The Asus Zenbook S16 UM5606 has the makings of a great laptop, from its incredible performance and graphics to its long battery life and stellar design. However, our connection with laptops starts with the keyboard and touchpad. Unfortunately, it’s not very good here.
If you’re looking for a better input experience, you can try the MacBook Air 15. The Zenbook S16 does beat it in performance, but the MacBook offers much longer battery life, a brighter display, and a more comfortable keyboard and touchpad.
However, for those who plan on using a discrete keyboard or are willing to get used to the Zenbook’s ergonomics, it’s a great choice as an AI powerhouse.
