Finally, a worthy MacBook Pro alternative with a design and feature set that gets my excited

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• The Asus ProArt P16 is disposable now, starting astatine $1,900.
• It pairs almighty hardware with a suite of customizable options designed for creatives.
• The heavy personalization requires engagement from the user, the immense trackpad won't beryllium everyone's cupful of tea, and the ultra-glossy show tends to glare.

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Asus' ProArt bid consists of sleek laptops with high-end hardware for creatives. At the apical of the enactment is the caller AMD-powered ProArt P16, which exudes powerfulness and show with a sleek, all-black signifier factor, elephantine trackpad with Asus' proprietary DialPad, and a superb display. 

I had a accidental to spell hands-on with the ProArt P16 a fewer months agone and recovered it to beryllium a highly susceptible instrumentality with a batch of earthy power. However, it besides requires immoderate customization and optimization to get the astir retired of it. Before I interaction connected that, let's instrumentality a look astatine the hardware.

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The ProArt P16 has 32GB of memory, an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, and a 12-core, 24-thread spot with a 50 TOP NPU. This beardown halfway powers the device's originative endeavors, whether video editing, utilizing precocious animation oregon graphic plan programs, oregon simply multitasking with a fistful of antithetic apps and dozens of browser tabs.

One of the champion parts of this laptop, however, is its display. The 500-nit, 3840 x 2400 solution AMOLED touchscreen show delivers a crisp, agleam representation with a glossy, premium coating. Powered by the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, it features DLSS 3 (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and enactment for ray tracing.

Although it tin present a bully gaming experience, it's held backmost a spot by the 60Hz refresh rate, which is portion of the give-and-take of the device's wide diagnostic set. Asus' determination to bounds the refresh complaint is disappointing, but it keeps the terms constituent debased and solidifies its intended usage lawsuit arsenic a creator-first machine. 

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In that vein, it comes with a stylus that feels precise and responsive, particularly connected the smooth, glossy display, which feels similar a blank canvas beckoning you to sketch on. The pen connected this laptop is bully capable for artists and designers to usage seriously, arsenic each excessively often, they're either excessively laggy oregon excessively barebones to warrant using. Here, however, it's snappy and responsive and comes with assorted capabilities that enactment successful tandem with the DialPad to powerfulness customizable, single-click actions. 

I besides admit that this laptop is not a 2-in-1. Convertible laptops are often forced to power to tablet mode if you privation to usage them with a stylus, arsenic pressing connected the show successful laptop mode pushes it down unless you enactment it with your hand. 

The ProArt P16 was designed with this successful mind, arsenic the show locks into spot astatine its furthest angle. Instead of folding backmost from the unit of the pen, it stays upright with a generous grade of bend. Just support successful caput that pushing backmost excessively hard volition effect successful the beforehand of the instrumentality lifting disconnected the desk. 

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The Asus DialPad is different unsocial diagnostic that creatives volition emotion to tinker with. If you haven't seen it before, it's a small, raised instrumentality connected the trackpad that tin beryllium customized to activate antithetic settings, similar changing brushwood sizes successful Photoshop oregon cutting, pausing, oregon rewinding successful CapCut oregon Premiere. The DialPad's tiny carnal size makes activating and scrolling done the "wheel" accelerated and easy, particularly for communal features.

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET

My lone gripe astir the DialPad was that it took a infinitesimal to acceptable up. It came disabled connected the laptop retired of the box, requiring maine to activate it with a circumstantial motion connected the trackpad that isn't evident unless you look it up (you property the icon successful the apical close country of the trackpad, past rapidly descent diagonally down toward the mediate of the trackpad). As 1 of this laptop's premier features, wouldn't it marque consciousness to a) person it enactment retired of the container and/or b) diagnostic an casual setup tutorial?

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Once it was activated, however, I rapidly became a fan. I admit however granular the customizations tin be, and they're utile adjacent beyond originative usage cases. In fact, I recovered that immoderate of the astir useful cases were successful productivity apps and successful the browser, enabling speedy functions during the workday for predominant actions. 

Asus/ZDNET

The different Asus programs that travel with the laptop are utile to varying degrees, not to notation that they were alternatively dilatory to occurrence up. Asus' "Muse Tree," for example, took an unexpectedly agelong clip to instal and get going. I had a accidental to spell hands-on with this app previously, and though it's a precise chill idea, I'm inactive connected the obstruction regarding its usefulness. 

The high-end and satisfying keyboard has perfectly soundless keys. Similarly, the trackpad is massive, extending from the keyboard to the borderline of the device, and has a velvety matte texture. One downside is that I had immoderate occupation getting it to relation astatine a precocious capableness successful a peculiarly acold office. If your hands are connected the acold side, you mightiness acquisition immoderate dilatory responses. 

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This could perchance beryllium adjusted with optimization, which is the different large happening I'd similar to notation astir this laptop. In my experience, Asus laptops respond peculiarly good to optimization settings crossed the board. The ProArt P16 is simply a cleanable illustration of this; antithetic profiles oregon settings parameters tin drastically impact performance, ranging from artillery beingness to velocity and responsiveness.

This besides applies to Windows updates, peculiarly regarding demanding workloads. When I archetypal fired up this laptop, for example, its show was noticeably worse until I went done the bid of Windows updates for the OS, updated drivers, and followed up with the database of updates successful the MyAsus app. 

The P16's show improved aft I updated it, and it was past optimized further erstwhile I got utilized to the DialPad and configured the trackpad and powerfulness profiles. 

Kerry Wan/ZDNET

All of this is to accidental that the ProArt P16, for me, was not a laptop that came acceptable to spell retired of the container but alternatively requires immoderate personalization and attraction to get the astir retired of it. This applies to its affluent diagnostic set, but it takes a infinitesimal to incorporated it into originative workflows. Ultimately, this is simply a bully thing, arsenic it encourages innovation connected the user's portion to interruption retired of cloned UIs and workflows that each look the same. 

Putting a much factual fig to its performance, successful our benchmarking tests, the ProArt P16 placed determination successful betwixt the M3 MacBook Pro and the M4, though it should beryllium noted that it's much connected par with the M3 than Apple's latest M4 product.  

Lastly, let's concisely notation the battery. This is simply a laptop with a almighty suite of hardware and a 16-inch AMOLED display, truthful I wasn't expecting overmuch going into my testing. However, I was pleasantly amazed astatine however robust the artillery is, particularly erstwhile paying attraction to power-saving settings. 

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I easy got implicit 10 hours of artillery beingness with mean usage and intermittent high-demand tasks. However, with intensive originative tasks and dense multitasking, you tin expect astir 7 hours earlier connecting to an outlet. 

ZDNET's buying advice

If you're looking for a almighty laptop with coagulated hardware and a rich, dynamic diagnostic set, I urge the Asus ProArt P16 arsenic a coagulated prime for precocious creators who privation to situation the presumption quo and bask tinkering with customization settings to maximize originative output. 

However, if you're looking for an out-of-the-box originative powerhouse, I urge the Apple M3 oregon M4 MacBook Pro. It has each the almighty hardware acceptable to tackle originative tasks and couldn't perchance beryllium easier to acceptable up. If you similar the ProArt P16 but privation thing a spot much accessible, Asus' ProArt PZ13 is a much compact mentation astatine astir fractional the price. 

Update log:

• This communicative was primitively published connected December 6, 2024, and was updated connected November 12, 2025, aft a thorough information cheque and changes to the pricing.