This is my detailed review of the AMD-powered 2024 Asus Zenbook S 16 OLED UM5606WA series.
It’s been a while since Asus offered a large-sized Zenbook S model, as their efforts mostly aimed at 14-inch models over the last years. Not anymore, though, as the S16 is now a thin-and-light computer with a 16-inch display.
However, unlike full-size Zenbooks of the past, this laptop is primarily a lightweight and slim ultrabook format , so an alternative for popular portable options such as the Apple Macbook Air 15, Surface Laptop 7 15 or the LG Gram 16 series, but not for all-purpose premium lightweight devices such as a Macbook Pro 16 or a Dell XPS 16. That’s because this series is designed as a low-power model, due to the chassis emphasizing portability, and because it lacks a dGPU.
Instead, this lineup is built on AMD’s latest Strix Point hardware platform, with their top-tier Ryzen AI 9 HX 370M processor on this test unit, alongside 32 GB of RAM and the new Radeon 890M, touted as the most capable iGPU available as of mid-2024. Is that enough to compensate for a dGPU? Well, stick around and you’ll find out.
Before we get this going, just a heads-up, we got this Zenbook S 16 review unit from Asus and tested it with the very early software available at launch. However, I plan on updating the article with later findings as the software matures over the next few weeks, so tag along.
Specs as reviewed – Asus ZenBook S 16 OLED UM5406 laptop
Asus Zenbook S 16 OLED review, UM5606WA series, 2024 model
Screen 16 inch, OLED, 16:10 aspect ratio, touch, glossy,
Processor AMD Strix Point, Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 , 12C/24T, up to 5.1 GHz
Video AMD Radeon 890m, 16 CU, up to 2.9 GHz
Memory 32 GB LPDDR5x-7500 (soldered), up to 32 GB
Storage 2 TB M.2 NVMe SSD (Micron 2400) – single M.2 2280 slot
Connectivity Wireless 7 (Mediatek MT7925) 2×2, Bluetooth 5.4
Ports left: 2x USB-C 4.0 connectors, 1x HDMI 2.1 TMDS, mic/headphone
Battery 78 Wh, 65W USB-C charger
Size 354 mm or 13.92” (w) x 243 mm or 9.57” (d) x 11.9 – 12.9 mm or 0.47” – 0.51″ (h)
Weight 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) + .36 (.8 lbs) for the USB-C charger and cables, EU version
Extras clamshell format with 150-degree hinge, dual-fan dual-radiator vapor-chamber cooling,
Asus offers this laptop in several hardware configurations over the various markets, with either AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 365 or Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processors, 24 to 32 GB of RAM, and 1 to 2 TB of SSD storage. They’ll also offer either touch or non-touch display options.
Design, build quality – refined chassis and ergonomics As mentioned earlier, this Zenbook S 16 UM5606 is a lightweight and slim chassis with a 16-inch display, so it’s meant as an all-purpose laptop for daily use and multitasking, but not for demanding workloads or games.
Asus emphasizes the weight and slim format of this series, and this is indeed lightweight at roughly 1.5 kilos and very slim, but mostly on par with the competition size-wise and actually a little heavier than something like an LG Gram 16. But that’s alright, because the build quality is much sturdier than on the Gram, with thick pieces of aluminum all around and no flex or give or squeaky noise anywhere. I’d even say the build quality is almost a match for Macbooks.
I’ll also add that Asus offer this Zenbook S16 lineup in two color options, a light grey that we have here (called Scandinavian White) and a dark gray alternative (called Zumaia Grey). I haven’t experienced the latter, but this one is beautiful and minimalist. It’s not white as the name might suggest, it’s light grey, but it comes with a white keyboard and touchpad. Not sure how I feel about this aesthetically.
The Zumaia Grey model, on the other hand, seems to be a more unitarian color design, but it will also show smudges and fingerprints more easily. Although, both are made of Ceraluminum, which is a ceramic aluminum that’s supposed to resist fingerprints and scratches better than anodized or coated aluminum pieces.
For what is worth, here are some side by side pics of this white Zenbook S 16 next to the black Zenbook 14.
As far as usability and ergonomics go, my only nits with this series are the fact that the screen doesn’t go back flat to 180 degrees like on other Zenbooks and that the front lips are sharp and can bite into the writs in certain cases. At least the armrest is generous. And the fact that the screen only leans back to 150 degrees is due to the cooling design, with the exhausts placed on the rear edge and under the screen. Hot air is pushed to the back of the laptop and away, and not upwards into the display. More on that later.
These aside, no complaints. Solid build quality, good grip on the desk, and plenty of ports. There is this punctured grill at the top of the laptop, which seems to be for ventilation purposes over the internal components. That means there are no up-firing speakers, instead the audio comes through the cuts on the sides of the chassis, much like on Macbooks. The sound quality is still solid here, although not quite on par with the sound on the Zephyrus G16. More on that in a bit as well.
Back to those ports, this laptop offers USB-C 4.0 slots on the left edge, a full-size HDMI, a full-sized USB-A, and a full-sized SD card reader. Plus an audio jack. So everything you’d want in this sort of portable chassis. My only nit is not having USB-C ports on both sizes – as it is, you can only charge this device on the left side, which for me is fine, but might not be for some of you.
Overall, this Asus Zenbook S 16 is a solid design in its space of thin-and-light computers with a large display. I would have much preferred having a 180 screen on this kind of laptop, but other brands get along without one, so I reckon this will as well. Compared to other Windows laptops of the same kind, this is sturdily built and offers excellent connectivity, alongside the beautiful design, vibrant OLED display, and punchy speakers.
Keyboard, touchpad on the Zenbook S 16 UM5606 The keyboard on the Zenbook S 16 seems similar to the ones implemented in other Zenbooks, with a minimalist layout and a lot of space to the side that’s not used for up-firing speakers.
However, once you get to type on this keyboard, you’ll notice that it’s a shorter-stroke implementation than on 14-inch Zenbooks, which once more is a consequence of the slim chassis design. I’m used to shallow keyboards and was able to get along fine with it after a while, but I still don’t think this is quite as good of a type as the keyboards on the other Zenbooks or the 2024 Zephyrus models. For general use, I’d say this is plenty fine, but I’m not sure it will be a top pick for heavy typists.
This keyboard is also backlit, with white LEDs. Generally, white keycaps with white lighting mean poor contrast in most conditions, but the LEDs on this Zenbook are very bright and actually offer a perfectly usable experience in all situations. Uniformity is fine as well, but for some reason, the lighting doesn’t seem to reactivate with a swipe over the touchpad once it times out, as on other Zenbooks, but only when pressing a key. I hope this is a bug on my unit and not a step-back design wise.
The touchpad is a huge glass surface, white in color as well, and smooth to the touch. It handles swipes, gestures, and taps smoothly and without hiccups. It’s also a very sturdy implementation and didn’t rattle at all with firmer taps on this unit, and even the physical clicks in the corners are smooth and not that clunky. So overall, this is one of the best touchpads available in this segment today.
Unlike on other Zenbooks, this doesn’t act as a virtual numeric keypad. Instead, it integrates some gestures on the left and right edge, allowing you to adjust the screen’s brightness and audio levels by touching and dragging. This works, but it’s rather unnecessary when those commands are already available as keyboard shortcuts.
For biometrics, there’s no finger sensor in the power button with this generation of Zenbooks, but you do get a capable IR webcam with Windows Hello support.
Beautiful 120Hz 16-inch OLED display Once more, you’re only getting OLED display options on this Zenbook series, so glossy finishes in either touch or non-touch implementations. No matte IPS option at all.
Our configuration is the touch variant of the 16-inch 3K Lumina OLED panel, with a digitizer layer and a layer of protective glass on top of the panel. Non-touch versions are also available.
Now, because this implementation is touch and includes a digitizer layer, it does show some graininess on solid colors, especially noticeable on white backgrounds when browsing and editing documents. However, with this 2024 OLED panel, the grain is not nearly as noticeable as on older OLED touch devices, the the point where you might not even notice it at all unless told about it. This grain greatly bothered me with 2022/2023 OLED models, but it has no evolved to where I could get used to it.
This aside, this panel is a sharp OLED, with 3+K pixel resolution, beautiful colors, and perfect blacks and contrast. It’s still not very bright, though, at just a under 400 nits sustained brightness. Peak HDR brightness is 500 nits, for what that matters, but daily use brightness is sub 400 nits. Paired with the glossy finish, that means this display might only be barely adequate when using this laptop in very bright office environments, or outdoors.
Finally, we should also account for the nearly instantaneous response times and 120Hz refresh rate of this panel, which makes it a fine choice for gaming, especially paired with the updated Radeon 890M iGPU in the AMD Strix Point hardware. More on that in a bit.
Anyway, here’s what we got in our tests, with an X-Rite i1 Display Pro sensor :
Panel HardwareID: Samsung SDC41AF (ATNA60CL10-0);
Coverage: 100% sRGB, 95.8% Adobe RGB, 99.9% DCI-P3;
Type: 10-bit, 120 Hz;
Measured gamma: 2.19;
Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 381.85 cd/m2 on power;
Min brightness in the middle of the screen: <5 cd/m2 on power;
Contrast at max brightness: 1:1;
White point: 6500 K;
Black on max brightness: around 0 cd/m2;
PWM: Yes, to be discussed.
The panel came well-calibrated out of the box and turned up uniform in color and luminosity. Plus, since this is an OLED panel, you don’t have to concern yourself with light bleeding or blooming or other such inconveniences. If interested, this article goes indepth over the OLED panel technology available in laptops .
You do have to account for flickering on OLED notebooks, but even that is less of an issue on Asus devices if you stick to using the flicker-free OLED Screen dimming option available in the myAsus app instead of lowering the brightness with the regular controls available in Windows. Not as convenient, but definitely recommended when using the laptop at night in dim environments.
Hardware and performance – AMD Strix Point Ryzen processor, Radeon 890M iGPU Our test model is a top-specced configuration of the 2024 Asus Zenbook S 16, code name UM5606WA, with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor and AMD Radeon 890M integrated graphics, 32 GB of LPDDR5x-7500 memory, and a middling 2 TB gen4 SSD.
Disclaimer: This unit was sent over for review by Asus. I tested it with the software available as of late-July 2024 (BIOS 308, MyAsus 4.0.16.0 app, AMD Adrenaline 24.10.18.08 drivers). This is the launch-day software package, so things might change as the laptop matures over the next weeks and months. I plan to follow BIOS/Software updates and update the article where needed.
Spec-wise, this series is based on AMD’s Ryzen AI Strix Point hardware platform, with Ryzen AI 9 HX processors and Radeon 880/890 integrated graphics.
Our configuration is the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, a hybrid design with 12 Cores and 24 Threads. This is a new CPU architecture with 4 Performance Zen5 Cores and 8 Efficiency Zen5c Cores, all with Hyper-Threading. This is the highest-tier Ryzen AI processor of this generation, however, it only runs at about 28-33W of sustained power in this ultraportable design, as you’ll see in a bit, and that affects its performance compared to other implementations.
A mid-tier AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 10C/20T processor is also available on the more affordable configurations of this Zenbook S 16, paired with Radeon 880M graphics. However, Ryzen AI 7 or Ryzen AI 5 platforms are not available for this series.
Graphics are handled by the integrated AMD Radeon 890M chip on this Ryzen 9 370 configuration, an RDNA3.5 new iGPU design with 16 Compute Units and max clock speeds of up to 2.9 GHz. The Ryzen 9 365 configuration comes with Radeon 880M graphics, which is a 12 CU design and should perform slower than the 890M variant even in this power-limited chassis.
Our configuration also comes with 32 GB of LPDDR5x-7500 memory. 24 GB configurations are also available in some markets, mostly paired with the Ryzen 9 AI HX 365 processor.
For storage, Asus opted for a mid-level PCIe gen4 Micron 2400 SSD drive here, which is ok for regular use, but will struggle with sustained transfers. There’s only a single M.2 slot inside, and not two.
Nonetheless, the SSD is the only upgradeable component on this laptop. To get inside you need to remove the back panel, which is held in place by a couple of Torx screws. All these screws are easily accessible and not hidden underneath any of the rubber feet, as on older Zenbooks. Just be aware that these screws are still of two sizes, so make sure you put them back in the right order.
Inside you’ll find the motherboard with the thermal module, the battery, speakers, and the SSD and WiFi slots. Everything is packed up nicely, with no space left unused.
As far as the software goes, this ZenBook gets the standard MyAsus app which allows control over the power profiles, battery and screen settings, updates, etc.
There are four performance/thermal profiles to choose from:
Full Speed – allows the hardware to run at 28-33W sustained, with the fan ramping up to ~40 dB;
Performance – allows the hardware to run at 28-33W sustained, with the fan ramping up to ~40 dB;
Balanced/Standard – allows the hardware to run at 15 to 28W in sustained loads, with the fan ramping up to ~35 dB;
Whisper – limits the CPU at 10W to favor fan noise of sub 30 dB.
As far as I can tell, these power modes aren’t quite finalized at this point, and should get further refined with later software.
We’ll discuss performance in a bit, but first, here’s what to expect in terms of speeds and temperatures with daily chores such as streaming video, editing text, or browsing the web.
Productivity Performance and Benchmarks – AMD Ryzen AI Strix Point, Radeon 890M graphics On to more demanding loads, we start by testing the CPU’s performance in the Cinebench R15 loop test.
On the Full Speed mode, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor runs at around 33W of sustained power, with temperatures in the mid-80s Celsius, and fan-noise levels of ~40 dB. These result in sustained Cinebench scores of around 2650 points.
Not a lot differed on Performance mode, where the CPU still runs at 33W and 40 dBA for most loops, but then gradually dropped towards 28W sustained. At 28W, the scores drop to around 2450 points, and temperatures stabilize around low 80s C.
Standard and Whisper mode performed erratically on this unit, but I was able to make them run how I think they were intended playing with the Windows power modes. That means the Standard mode stabilizes at around 15W of sustained power with 35 dBA fans, and Whisper mode at 10W of stabilized power with sub 30 dBA fans. The scores drop a fair bit compared to the higher power modes, of course.
Nonetheless, take these with a big lump of salt, as the power modes might be adjusted with future software updates.
Finally, our sample performed very well on battery, stabilizing at around 28W of power on the Performance mode. That’s on par with the plugged-in Performance profile.
All these are illustrated in the graph below.
To put these in perspective, here’s how this Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 implementation fares against other hardware platforms available in current and past-generation 14-inch thin and light laptops .
This is faster than Intel Meteor Lake (Core Ultra 7 155H, Core Ultra 9 185H) or AMD Hawk Point (Ryzen 9 8945HS, Ryzen 7 8840HS) platforms running at similar power. But at the same time, the platform can greatly benefit from higher power, as you can tell from our findings on the ProArt P19, where the same Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor runs at 80W and scores 30% higher.
We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and in Blender. We measured similar behavior, power limits, fan noise, and temperatures for the Full Speed modes, but things got erratic on the Standard and Whisper modes.
In some cases, the system limited the power to those modes to constant settings, but in others it kept the power juggling between 28W and lower settings – 15W for Standard and 10W for Whisper, resulting in very erratic results and performance. I’ll update this once we get new software.
We then ran the 3DMark CPU profile test.
Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook, on the Performance profile. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time. This unit easily passed the test, which means the performance is not impacted in longer-duration sustained loads, as the heat builds up.
Benchmarks results and performance summary With that out of the way, let’s get to some benchmarks. We ran our standard set of tests with the laptop on Full Speed mode and the screen set at its default 2880 x 1800 px 3K resolution.
Here’s what we got.
3DMark 13 –CPU profile: max – 7290, 16 – 6798, 8 – 5117, 4 – 3804, 2 – 2166, 1 – 1111;3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 7505 (Graphics – 7946, Physics – 25618, Combined – 3031);3DMark 13 – Night Raid: 27269 (Graphics – 33310, CPU – 13449);3DMark 13 – Steel Nomad, Light: 3205.3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 3598 (Graphics – 3241, CPU – 9599).
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 1600;Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 5008;
PCMark 10: 7391 (Essentials – 10511, Productivity – 10946, Digital Content Creation – 9524);GeekBench 6.2.2 64-bit: Multi-core: 11967, Single-Core: 1964;CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 2683 cb, CPU Single Core 298 cb;CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 6873 cb, CPU Single Core 767 cb;CineBench R23: CPU 17484 pts (best run), CPU 17180 pts (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 1950 pts (best run);CineBench 2024: GPU – pts, CPU 997 pts (best single run), CPU 997 (10 min run), CPU Single Core 113 pts;Kraken v1.1, Edge: 336.6 ms;x265 HD Benchmark 64-bit: 24.49 s.
And here are some work-related benchmarks, on the same Full Speed profile:
Blender 3.4.1 – BMW Car scene- CPU Compute: 2m 10s ;Blender 3.4.1 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 5m 13s;Blender 3.6.5 – BMW Car scene- CPU Compute: 2m 16s ;Blender 3.6.5 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 5m 19s;
PugetBench – DaVinci Resolve: 688;PugetBench – Adobe Photoshop (25.5): -;PugetBench – Adobe Premiere (24.2.1): -;
SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 40.95;SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 33.25;SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo: 54.60;SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy: 21.54;SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 125.32;SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical: 41.03;SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 134.22;SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 76.76;V-Ray Benchmark: 12789 – CPU, 313 – CUDA.
This Zenbook is a solid performer for its class of portable and lightweight laptops.
The AMD Strix Point hardware is faster in both single and multi-core than the AMD Hawk Point and Intel Meteor Lake implementations, and the Radeon 890M GPU seems to have an edge in graphics tests as well, although the differences here as smaller vs. the Radeon 780M and especially the Intel Arc iGPU in the Core Ultra processors. We’ll have more detailed separate articles comparing these platforms once the software matures for the Strix Point Zenbook.
Ryzen AI 9 HX 370M performance vs. Ryzen 7 8840HS, Core Ultra 7 155H, Ryzen 7 7840U But for now, here’s a very brief comparison of these results with a few other Intel and AMD platforms available so far in this space.
Zenbook S 16 UM6506, Zenbook 14 UM3406 ,Zenbook 14 UX3405 ,Zenbook 14X UX3404 ,Yoga Slim 6 ,
3DMark – Fire Strike 7505 (G – 7946, P – 25618, C – 3031)
7192 (G – 7760, P – 25926, C – 2733)
8094 (G – 8768, P – 21127, C – 3234)
5618 (G – 6043, P – 24479, C – 2094)
7368 (G – 7919, P – 22331, C – 2893)
3DMark – Time Spy 3598 (Graphics – 3241, CPU – 9599)
3146 (Graphics – 2828, CPU – 8701)
3497 (Graphics – 3179, CPU – 8104)
2029 (Graphics – 1774, CPU – 11107)
3216 (Graphics – 2883, CPU – 9352)
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme 1600
1605
1884
1156
1498
CineBench R23 (best run) 17484 cb – multi core,
14626 cb – multi core,
12485 cb – multi core,
14712 cb – multi core,
15194 cb – multi core,
Blender 3.01 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute 5m 12s
6m 41s
8m 41s
7m 28s
6m 20s
PugetBench – DaVinci After Effects 688
567
462
473
500
SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 40.95
30.75
22.33
14.91
25.52
SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 33.25
34.06
16.39
14.08
29.78
SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 125.32
123.55
72.42
57.65
113.68
Whisper mode, much quieter at sub 30 dBA This laptop runs fairly quietly on Full Speed and Performance modes, at about 40 dBA at head-level, but some might be interested in an even quieter experience.
Here are some benchmark results for the Whisper mode, in which case the fans are barely audible in any environment and won’t go over 30 dBA:
3DMark 13 –CPU profile: max – 7184, 16 – 6698, 8 – 5223, 4 – 3556, 2 – 1926, 1 – 1062;3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 7472 (Graphics – 7958, Physics – 25187, Combined – 2974);3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 3109 (Graphics – 2815, CPU – 7645);Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 1538;CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 6285 cb, CPU Single Core 752 cb;Blender 3.01 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 7m 37s.
There’s a minimal decrease in scores in the shorter-duration loads such as 3Dmark or Uniengine, but be very careful, these results are misleading for actual demanding loads.
That’s because for those short loads the CPU runs at about 28W of power for about a minute or so. However, as heat builds up with longer tests, the system eventually throttles the power to 10W. However, what happens here is a constant juggle between 10W and 28W of power, and not a stable power-cap as on other Zenbooks. I’d reckon that’s still due to the early nature of the software on this unit, and might be updated to a fixed power cap later on. So these results here might change later on.
Standard mode performs roughly the same, but the power cap is a little higher at 15W and the intervals between the power fluctuations are longer. The fans also run at about 35 dBA on Standard.
For general use, though, both Whisper and Standard modes are excellent on this unit, providing snappy and smooth performance. However, these sorts of power settings might cause higher energy requirements than with a more traditional approach.
Gaming Performance We also ran a couple of DX11 and DX12 games on the Performance profile of this Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 + Radeon 890M configuration, at FHD+ resolution, with Low/Lowest graphics settings. I threw in a few other platforms for comparison.
Here’s what we got.
Low settings Zenbook S 16 2024 – Zenbook 14 2024 –Zenbook 14 2024 –Zenbook 14X 2023 –
Dota 2 80 fps (46 fps – 1% low)
76 fps (44 fps – 1% low)
81 fps (58 fps – 1% low)
74 fps (55 fps – 1% low)
Far Cry 6 54 fps (46 fps – 1% low)
46 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
43 fps (28 fps – 1% low)
–
Horizon Forbidden West 40 fps (30 fps – 1% low)
35 fps (26 fps – 1% low)
–
–
Shadow of Tomb Raider 72 fps (56 fps – 1% low)
65 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
54 fps (3o fps – 1% low)
43 fps (28 fps – 1% low)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 60 fps (38 fps – 1% low)
45 fps (33 fps – 1% low)
44 fps (26 fps – 1% low)
32 fps (23 fps – 1% low)
Dota 2, Horizon FW, Witcher 3 – recorded with MSI Afterburner in game mode;
Tomb Raider, Far Cry 6 – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities.
All these games are playable here with these settings, including newer titles. And keep in mind that we’ve switched FSR off in Horizon, thus you could get better framerates in the newer titles that support this technology.
Compared to the previous Ryzen Hawk Point platform with Radeon 780M graphics, the updated Radeon 890M iGPU allows for 15-30% higher framerates in the tested titles. It also performs significantly faster than the Intel Arc iGPU integrated into the Core Ultra 7 155H Meteor Lake platform. That’s rather surprising considering the benchmark scores of the two are much closer.
At the same time, I must also mention that the Radeon 890M doesn’t run at its full capabilities in this sort of mid-powered design, and it would require a design with roughly 45W of sustained power for max performance. I’d reckon that could mean 10-15% improved scores and framerates over what we have here.
With that out of the way, let’s go through some CPU/GPU logs.
First, the Full Speed mode. The hardware runs at 33W of constant power as long as you bump up the laptop off the desk to improve the airflow of cool air into the fans. As far as noise and temperatures go, the fans spin at 40 dBA with games, and the CPU stabilizes at temperatures in the low to mid 80s C.
Keeping the laptop flat on the desk causes the temperatures to spike over 85 C, and when that happens, the system automatically power limits the CPU for about 10-15 seconds, and then gets back to running at 33W.
We noticed the same behavior on all the other power profiles, and especially on Standard and Whisper modes, where the juggle between low and high power modes is constant and regardless of whether we kept the laptop flat on the desk or placed it on a stand to favor cooling. I’ve included some logs for those modes below.
For now, due to the early nature of the software on this unit, I can’t draw proper conclusions on these modes.
That’s also why I haven’t included gaming results for Standard and Whisper modes either. But I plan to update this section if/when Asus addresses this aspect. For now, Standard and Whisper modes don’t work as they’re supposed to on this Zenbook S 16 unit, based on my experience with many other Asus Zenbook and Vivobook laptops tested over the years and how the power modes worked on those. So keep around for updates.
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others Asus went with a dual-fan dual-radiator vapor-chamber thermal module here.
Now, despite the complexity of this cooling module and the low-power hardware design, the cooling on this Zenbook S 16 is barely adequate for this chassis, once more a result of pursuing the creation of such a slim device. As shown earlier, the hardware runs hot with demanding loads and the system even has to limit the power to prevent it from overheating. Now, this behavior might change with future software tweaks, but the reality of physics cannot be changed. Perhaps Asus at least manage to make Standard mode better balanced than it is at this point.
As far as the noise levels go, expect 40 dBA on Performance, 35 dBA on Standard, and sub 30 dBA on Whisper mode.
With daily use, the fans keep mostly idle on all profiles, and even when they might kick in with heavier multitasking, they’re inaudible even in a very quiet environment. I also haven’t noticed coil winning or electronic noises on this unit.
As for external temperatures, the chassis keeps cool with light use, despite being mostly passively cooled.
Overall, the daily-use experience here is among the best I’ve experienced so far in a portbale Windows laptop. That’s both a consequence of the vapor-chamber cooling and of the efficient AMD hardware.
*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Whisper Mode, fans at 0 dB
With demanding loads, on the other hand, this laptop runs hot on Performance and Full Speed modes, with a hotspot of 50++ C in the top side of the chassis, over the hardware. The bottom runs even hotter, with a hotspot close to 60 C.
However, you’re not going to come in touch with those areas during daily use, and the surfaces that you are actually touching rarely go over 40 C, thus this doesn’t feel unpleasantly hot in actual use not even when running demanding workloads and games for hours.
*Gaming – Performance mode – playing Witcher for 30 minutes, fans at ~40 dB
For connectivity, there’s the latest-gen Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 through a Mediatek module on this laptop. This performed fine during my time with the laptop, but there were reports of inconsistent behavior with older MediaTek chips in the past, so I’d make sure to carefully look into this if I were to buy this laptop.
Audio is handled by a set of 6x speakers that occupy a lot of space inside the chassis, and fire through grills positioned on the sides of the chassis. They sound right and punchy for this class, with good volumes and quality. But they’re not quite on par with the speakers on the Zephyrus G16, perhaps because of how the sound squeezes through those narrow side cuts, as opposed to having up-firing speakers as on the Zephyrus. But for a portable Windows laptop, the audio quality here is excellent.
Finally, there’s an FHD camera placed at the top of the screen, flanked by microphones. The image quality is alright in good lighting, and not much in bad light. There’s also IR functionality with Windows Hello support, but no physical privacy cover. On top of these, an ALS sensor is also part of the camera ensemble as well.
Battery life – excellent runtimes with Hawk Point There’s a 78 Wh battery inside this 2024 Asus Zenbook S 16, well-sized for a thin-and-light device, but not the largest available in the segment.
Here’s what we got in our battery life tests, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~50 brightness) and at its default 120Hz refresh rate. I’ve also set the Windows 11 power mode to Best Power Efficiency.
5 W (~15 h of use) – idle, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;6-8 W (~10-12 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;6 W (~13 h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;5.5 W (~13 h of use) – Netflix fullscreen in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;8-10W (~8-10 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON;40 W (~2 h of use) – Gaming – Dota 2, Standard Mode, screen at 50%, Wi-Fi ON.
These are excellent runtimes, thanks to the efficiency of the AMD Strix Point hardware platform and that big battery. And don’t forget this laptop runs on early software, so runtimes might even improve over time. And I’m saying that because these runtimes are roughly on par with the AMD Hawk Point and Intel Meteor Lake implementations tested by us in the Asus Zenbook 14 models.
Furthermore, the screen doesn’t automatically switch from 120Hz refresh on battery power, but you can do this manually and push the runtimes a little further.
The laptop ships with a compact 65W USB-C charger. It’s a single-piece design with a long and thick cable and a USB-C plug. The cable detaches from the charger, like on Macbooks. A full charge takes about 2 hours.
Price and availability- Asus Zenbook S 16 OLED At the time of this article, the Asus ZenBook S 16 UM5606WA is listed in some stores.
In the US there’s an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 365 configuration with 24 GB of RAM, 1 TB of SSD storage, and the non-touch 3K display, listed at $1399 at Best Buy. We also get the same model here in Europ from 1699 EUR.
However, we also get the higher-specced model reviewed here, with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor and 32 GB of RAM, which is a slightly faster processor with better graphics. This also comes with a touchscreen. However, this variant is listed at 2200 EUR, so much pricier.
Other configurations might be available as well over the different regions, so stay tuned for updates.
In the meantime, follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your area .
Final thoughts- Asus Zenbook S 16 OLED UM5606 review This Zenbook S 16 UM5606 excels as a daily driver for casual use, browsing, streaming, Office work, and light to medium multitasking. It is a large-screen ultrabook, and thus larger than the average portable chassis, but still lightweight and perfectly fine to grab to school or work.
Among the strong suits of this series are the beautiful design and sturdy build quality, better than of other Zenbooks, the vibrant display and punchy speakers, as well as the versatile hardware implementation that allows for snappy, cool and quiet daily use performance, as well as long runtimes.
At the same time, this laptop is not quite made for demanding loads, despite the AMD Ryzen AI hardware being faster than the hardware available so far in competing devices. But, in its quest towards portability, Asus could only squeeze a mid-powered implementation of this hardware here. Nonetheless, as long as you understand what this laptop can and cannot do, you’re going to be fine with it.
My real nits with this series are the limited screen angle, as the cooling design did not allow for 180-degree hinges here, and perhaps the shallow typing experience that is not quite on par with what other Zenbooks provide.
Bottom point, despite its ergonomic quirks, this laptop could be a great choice for many of you in its segment, as long as you understand that this is a large-screen ultrabook and not a powerful all-purpose portable laptop.
That wraps-up my time with this Asus Zenbook S 16 OLED UM5606WA series, but stay around for updates, and get in touch with your thoughts and comments down below, I’d love to know what you think of Asus’s approach to this lineup.
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Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com . I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.
NikoB
August 1, 2024 at 2:46 pm
From review:
"Type: 10-bit with HDR500, 120 Hz;"
"Black on max brightness: 0 cd/m2;"
A review on another site (~20000:1) and the lack of an official "True HDR 400" label clearly indicates that there is no "infinite" black. It is worth drawing the readers' attention to this. This model, despite having AMOLED, to its shame, does not actually support the HDR10 standard.
In general, as I already wrote on another site, it seems that buying new models makes sense compared to Zen4 Phoenix models (which, even after a year, to AMD's shame, are in real shortage even in the US / EU, if we take really adequate 15.6 "+ models), only with significantly less noise at the same performance as Zen4 Phoenix (which requires the correct power consumption profiles from the factory and the ability to flexibly configure the owner through the proprietary software for tuning PL1 / PL2 and other parameters) and at a comparable price, since the presence of an improved NPU unit gives practically nothing in practice to an ordinary buyer, and igpu, although improved (including due to a sharp improvement in efficiency (80% + of the theoretical bandwidth now, compared to 60-65% previously) of an outdated 128-bit memory controller with the same morally outdated lpddr5 7500 modules, but this is clearly not enough for igpu to reach the level of modern dgpu, without soldering in SoC VRAM of 512-1024 bits with a bandwidth of at least 300 GB/s. Increasing the number of shader and other units becomes pointless (as well as increasing the number of processor cores) with a small bandwidth – hence the race to increase the L1-L4 cache in order to somehow hide this key drawback of the x86 architecture – an outdated memory controller with a 128-bit bus more than 15 years old, against the background of progress with HBM3+ in server chips and a bandwidth of more than 1 TB/s.
Actually, this is why there is again the same shameful lack of support for DP2.0+/UHBR20 for 8k monitors, which is declared only for Strix Halo with a 256-bit memory controller and lpddr5 8000 – the reason is still the same – insufficient bandwidth of the memory controller for such tasks.
We are waiting with a delay, Strix Halo, although it will consume too much, even by the standards of previous architectures – consumption has increased from 54W to 70 on average, which indicates a clear slowdown in improvements in TSMC technological processes – each new improvement is given harder and harder to show the consumer a real increase in hardware performance and support for new technologies (like mass 8k panels, especially in monitors, where the ppi is clearly insufficient, which we have been waiting for more than 10 years) …
Robert
August 10, 2024 at 1:41 pm
It not have numpad(!!!) but it 16 inches notebook. It not have full featured usb4 (with egpu support). Sorry, but these late 2024 asus notebooks are not looks nice for me. Even with hx370 platform, just will looking for another brand.
Andrew
September 15, 2024 at 3:33 pm
I’ve been looking into getting the new Asus Zenbook S16 and noticed something odd. The 1TB SSD version is only about $5 less than the 2TB version. I’m curious as to why the price difference is so small. Is the 2TB SSD somehow slower or lower quality than the 1TB SSD, or is there another reason behind this minimal price gap? Would appreciate any insights! Thanks!
Andrei Girbea
September 16, 2024 at 4:19 pm
Shouldn't be any slower. Probably some sales offer on the 2TB model?