Asus’s new Vivobook Professional 16X arrives out there simply in time to go head-to-head with Apple’s newly up to date MacBook 16. That might show to be both good timing or horrible timing. It is horrible if it would not show in a position to compete with Apple’s new wunderkind, good if it may possibly, considerably because it undercuts the entry-level M3 MacBook Professional 16 when it comes to value.
As a bundle, the brand new Vivobook Professional 16X ticks all of the containers. Satisfaction of place goes to a 120Hz 3,200 x 2,000 OLED display however buried inside, you will see that a 24-core Intel Core i9-13980HX processor with 32GB of RAM, an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU, a high-capacity 90Wh battery and a spacious 1TB SSD.
ASUS Vivobook Professional 16X: Design
The Vivobook Professional 16X is a considerably angular affair, very like all the present era of Vivobook machines. It is a good, although generic piece of design and is offered in two colourways: Cool Silver and Zero Diploma Black. For 2023, Asus has made efforts to scale back the burden by incorporating extra recycled plastic into the chassis and physique, so the brand new mannequin weighs an impressively low 1.9kg.
The exterior dimensions of 333 x 249 x 22mm are par for the 16in laptop computer course and make it narrower than the MacBook Professional however a bit of thicker. Regardless of the elevated use of plastic, it is a stable laptop computer, although the aluminum lid is a bit more wobbly than I might have favored. Like many Asus laptops, it meets the US MIL-STD 810H military-grade normal for resistance to shock, temperature, and particle ingress.
On the best aspect of the Vivobook Professional 16X, you will discover two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 video output that may assist 8K/60Hz video, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 information port, and a 3.5mm audio port. On the left are a second USB-A port, the DC jack for the 230W energy brick, a gigabit RJ-45 port, and an SD card slot.
The eagle-eyed amongst you’ll have seen that the second Thunderbolt port is new for 2023, as is the SD card slot, with the 2022 mannequin having a much less helpful (definitely for skilled photographers) MicroSD card receptacle.
Eradicating the bottom is a simple affair, and as soon as inside, you may entry the wi-fi card, each SODIMM RAM mounts, and the SSD bay, although sadly, there is not area for a second SSD. Our check machine’s 1TB Solidigm SSD returned poor sequential learn and write speeds of three,365MB/s and a pair of,042MB/s, respectively. We have seen MacBook Professional’s return double these speeds. The wi-fi card is an Intel AX211 part that helps 6Ghz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.3.
ASUS Vivobook Professional 16X: Keyboard, touchpad, and webcam
The 2-tone gray keyboard is straightforward on the attention, and the excellence between the darkish gray enter keys, mild gray alphanumeric keys, vivid pink escape key and the twill-pattern on the Enter key is not fully a matter of aesthetics. We discovered it improved our give attention to the central a part of the keyboard when typing. The keys have 1.4mm of journey and a clear motion with a optimistic finish cease. The motion is fully silent.
Behind the keys is a three-level white backlight, which we suspect works higher with the darker keys of the black mannequin than the gray keys of our silver mannequin, however that is extra a matter of private style.
The trackpad is a spacious 130 x 85mm affair with a clean floor and agency, optimistic nook click-action. Swipe in from the highest proper nook, and the Asus DialPad involves life. Spin your finger round this, and you’ll alter system settings like the amount or brightness and now additionally set it to regulate something you can assign a Home windows keyboard shortcut to.
Although initially supposed to work intently with Adobe’s artistic apps, the DialPad has developed right into a extra broadly useful characteristic on Asus’ artistic laptops. The DialPad is managed through Asus’ ProArt Inventive Hub software program, which comes preloaded, although it’s a must to obtain the DialPad CP plug-in from the Microsoft Retailer. As soon as arrange, you should use the DialPad for all method of shortcuts, like zooming out and in of your net browser or controlling the Spotify app.
For a premium laptop computer, the webcam is a bit of underwhelming. Granted, it may possibly report video at 1080p and 30fps however photos look grainy even in well-lit environments. It is no match for the MacBook Professional’s webcam and needs to be higher for the cash. The webcam would not assist Home windows Hey facial recognition, so you might be restricted to the one-hit fingerprint scanner constructed into the ability button for biometric safety. At the very least the digicam has a bodily safety shutter.
Subsequent to the digicam array is a sensor that detects ambient mild ranges so the system can alter the brightness of the show and keyboard backlight to finest fit your surroundings.
ASUS Vivobook Professional 16X: Show
The show is a really spectacular 16-inch, 120Hz OLED affair. It is pretty much as good as any OLED display obtainable on any laptop computer. The three,200 x 2,000-pixel panel is not fairly as sharp because the MacBook Professionals at 235dpi to 254dpi, however the distinction is past the human eye to discern. It is vivid, too, hitting 385cd/m2 in SDR mode and 605cd/m2 in HDR mode, incomes it a Vesa DisplayHDR True Black 600 certificates.
There may be colour aplenty because of some giant gamut volumes of 147% sRGB, 104.2% DCI-P3, and 101.3 Adobe RGB, all validated by Pantone. The show can also be beautifully correct, with Delta E variances of simply 0.76 vs the sRGB profile with the sRGB clamp on and 0.81 vs the DisplayP3 profile with the display within the respective colour mode. These outcomes are outstandingly good.
HDR efficiency is vastly spectacular, with infinite distinction and beautifully saturated colours. Whether or not you might be simply watching video gaming or creating HDR content material, the Vivobook Professional 16X’s show is a pleasure to behold, even when it may possibly’t match the searing brightness of the MacBook Professional’s Mini LED show.
Asus claims a 0.2ms response time for the display. Whereas we’re unsure about that –G2G response occasions are like electrical automobile ranges, to be taken with greater than a pinch of salt – movement constancy is great, with hardly any discernible ghosting or smearing. Gaming and 3D modeling animations look excellent on the Vivobook.
ASUS Vivobook Professional 16X: Specs and efficiency
The Vivobook Professional 16X goes just like the satan himself is chasing it, because of the Nvidia GPU having a TGP of 140W relatively than being tuned down as you usually discover in “artistic” laptops and a MUX change to assist extract the utmost body fee.
In our normal 4K multi-media benchmark, the Vivobook scored 587 factors, which is a superb rating and one solely considerably bettered by the most recent era of fire-breathing uber-gaming laptops from Asus ROG and Alienware.
For comparability, the Vivobook Professional 16X’s little brother, the Asus Zenbook Professional 14, a laptop computer that’s hardly missing on the efficiency entrance, scored 461. The distinction is right down to the additional 10 CPU cores the Professional 16X has (2 Efficiency, 8 Effectivity) and the upper TGP setting on the RTX 4070 GPU. The M2 Professional MacBook Professional scored 418 factors. I will be to see how a lot the brand new M3 chipset closes that hole once we get the brand new MacBook Professional in to check.
The Cinebench R23 multi-core rating of 25,669 and the PCMark 10 rating of 8,239 put the Vivobook Professional 16X comfortably inside the highest decile of laptops we have examined at ITPro.
Graphics efficiency is equally spectacular, with the Vivobook operating the SPECviewperf 3Dsmax-07 3D modeling check at 96fs and scoring 12,060 within the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark. The Vivobook Professional X16 will not disappoint in the event you fancy heavyweight gaming. It managed to run Cyberpunk 2077 at FulllHD and with raytracing at 60fs. Forgo ray tracing, and that quantity will bounce to 98fs.
Regardless of its spectacular degree of efficiency, the Vivobook Professional 16X retains its cool. When operating the FurMark GPU stress check, the GPU temperature peaked at 82°C, however the exterior casing by no means turned greater than heat to the contact with exterior temperatures peaking at 38℃ within the heart of the keyboard deck. Fan noise peaked at 67dB(A) which is appropriate for a laptop computer operating on such high-power parts.
Battery life is the Vivobook Professional 16X’s Achilles’ heel. Run the Nvidia GPU laborious (on battery energy, it will not exceed 67% TGP), and the 90Wh battery will drain in round one hour. In our normal battery rundown check utilizing VLC to loop an SD video with the show set to 170cdm/2, the battery lasted for 3 hours quarter-hour, an enchancment however nonetheless a poor displaying contemplating the battery capability. As at all times, Apple guidelines the roost relating to battery life, however that is irrelevant if, like me, you do not spend a lot time away from an influence socket.
ASUS Vivobook Professional 16X: Is it price it?
The Vivobook Professional 16X is offered in two variations. One with a 165Hz 2,560 x 1,600 IPS display an Intel Core i7-1365HX CPU, and the Core i9 OLED mannequin we have now on check. The Core i7 mannequin is mostly on sale for round £2,000, however some retailers have the OLED machine on sale for a similar worth, which makes it an absolute steal.
The brand new M3 MacBook Professional 16 has a beginning worth of £2,599, however you solely get 18GB of mixed RAM and 512GB of storage in comparison with Asus’s 32GB of system RAM, 8GB of vRAM, and a 1TB SSD. In case you up the MacBook Professional’s spec to that of the Vivobook, you’re looking at a ultimate invoice of £3,200, a substantial premium for a laptop computer whose benefits are restricted to a lot superior battery life, sooner storage, and a greater webcam.
In comparison with the 2022 Vivobook Professional 16X, Asus has made some worthwhile upgrades past the next-gen CPU and GPU such because the addition of a MUX change, an additional Thunderbolt 4 port, and shifting from a MicroSD to an SD card slot. Given the Vivobook Professional 16X’s degree of efficiency and extraordinary omnicompetence, it is laborious to not describe it as wonderful worth, particularly when you may choose up the OLED mannequin for a similar worth because the IPS model.
ASUS Vivobook Professional 16X specs
| Show | 16-inch 3,200 x 2,000 OLED, 16:10 facet ratio, 120Hz refresh fee, 385cd/m2 brightness (SDR), 605cd/m2 (HDR) |
| Processor | Intel Core i9-13980HX |
| GPU | Nvidia RTX 4070 |
| RAM | 32GB DDR5 |
| Ports | Thunderbolt 4 x 2, USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 x 2, HDMI 2.1 x 1, Gigabit RJ-45 x 1 |
| 3.5mm audio jack | Sure |
| Digital camera | Digital camera 1080p webcam with privateness shutter |
| Storage | 1TB PCIe 4 SSD |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth v5.3 |
| Weight | 1.9Kg |
| Dimensions | 333 x 249 x 22mm |
| Battery Capability | 90Wh |
| Working System | Home windows 11 House |
