Our Verdict

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 is a really good CPU, but until someone can staple a better GPU to it, or slide it into a handheld where it could really shine, it only makes a mediocre gaming laptop.

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The Asus ZenBook A16 is one of the first Snapdragon X2 laptops on the market, boasting the Elite Extreme version of the chip. With 18 cores, 12 of which are Performance cores running at 4.4 GHz, and the other six being Efficient cores running at 3.6 GHz, this laptop is designed for productivity and multitasking.

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One of the main advantages of the Snapdragon X2 is its exceptional single-core performance, beating the desktop Core Ultra 7 265KF and mighty Ryzen 9 9955HX in the single-core test. It also beats those chips in the Geekbench multi-core test, along with the Core Ultra 9 275HX from the Alienware 16 Area 51, and roughly the same as the 14-core M4 Pro in a 16in MacBook Pro.

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However, the elephant in the room is Panther Lake, which is going to be appearing in new laptops at the same time as the X2. In Geekbench, the X2 and Core X9 388H both score over 3,000 points in the single-core test, with the X2 marginally in front, but in multi-core the gap widens, probably because the Intel chip only has four of the full-fat performance cores and 16 in total.

Moving over to the Cinebench single-core CPU rendering test, which has been known to bring laptops to their knees and in which 100 is a respectable score, the X2 scores 151. A laptop running the X9 388H scores 130 in this test, and the multi-core rendering workout goes the same way, with the X2’s 1391 beating the Panther Lake chip’s 1173.

Despite its exceptional CPU performance, the Asus ZenBook A16 still uses an integrated Adreno GPU, which is the weakest part of the package. However, it’s not bad for an iGPU, supporting DX12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, and putting out enough frames to play games in 1080p as long as you don’t mind medium to low settings.

The laptop’s display is one of its best features, with a 2.8k 16:10 OLED screen, 120Hz refresh rate, and 500 nits of brightness. It’s sharp, colourful, and perfect for productivity and multitasking.

The battery life is also exceptional, at least if you’re just looping a video, at which it kept going for almost 17 hours. However, make it work a bit harder and that’s going to drop, and there’s a fan to keep it cool when it’s under load.

In conclusion, the Asus ZenBook A16 is a capable laptop with a weaker GPU. It’s perfect for productivity and multitasking, but if you’re looking for a gaming laptop, you might want to look elsewhere.