I Tested the Asus ProArt P16 Laptop and It Delivers the Goods for Creators

Asus ProArt laptops vary in price, size and capabilities, from the mighty Studiobook Pro mobile workstations to the smaller and more affordable PZ13 detachable two-in-ones. In the middle sits the P16, which attempts to be everything to everyone and, remarkably, succeeds more than it doesn’t.

As with all great laptops, the key to the ProArt P16’s success is balance. A beautiful display loses a lot of its value if it’s not paired with powerful enough components to make good use of it. And while packing a laptop with high-end components and an eye-catching screen sounds great on paper, the shine comes off quickly if the cost is more than the sum of its parts. 

The ProArt P16 handles this juggling act with aplomb. It boasts a big, beautiful 16-inch 4K OLED alongside enough graphics horsepower to deliver the performance in Adobe and CapCut that creators crave inside a reasonably slender, lightweight chassis. And while it’s not cheap, the ProArt P16 is priced appropriately for what’s on offer. The end result: A laptop for creators we don’t have to think twice about recommending, and earning an Editors’ Choice award. 

An impressive middle child

The P16 slots in between Asus’ pricey Studiobook and Studiobook Pro models and the entry-level PX13 and PZ13 units. There are a few different ProArt P16 models listed at Asus ranging in price from $2,200 to $2,900. My review configuration is available at Best Buy for $2,500.

The ProArt P16 series is built around an AMD Strix Point processor, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. While the Strix Point line was developed to accelerate AI processes, with an included NPU that can manage 50 TOPS on its own, the HX 370 is a solid processor well equipped to handle heavier CPU loads. Alongside my test system’s RTX 5070, the HX 370 brings a Radeon 890M to the table to handle lightweight graphics processing without spinning up the discrete GPU and its accompanying heat and noise, and likely helping with battery life.

Our P16 test system also features an ample 32GB of RAM and a roomy 2TB SSD, a welcome inclusion for video editors and gamers who both tend to require capacious storage. The 16-inch OLED display features a 4K (3,840×2,400-pixel) resolution and touch support. The port selection is fairly standard, but includes an SD card slot — something creators will appreciate.

The Asus ProArt P16 starts at £2,500 in the UK and AU$4,599 in Australia.

Asus ProArt P16 performance

AMD’s Strix Point processors (the Ryzen AI 300 series) are designed to balance performance, when required, against efficiency, when possible, to reduce power requirements and maximize battery life. As our benchmark suite and battery test (the P16 ran for 10 hours and 52 minutes) show, the HX 370 masterfully executes. However, while it was no surprise that the P16 was competitive in CPU testing against similarly positioned laptops, the graphics/GPU tests yielded slightly more mixed results.

The P16 largely delivered the sort of 1080p gaming experience you’d expect from a laptop packing an RTX 5070, but some aberrations stood out. For instance, in the Guardians of the Galaxy benchmark (at 1920×1080, High settings), the P16 delivered the lowest FPS in the group, troubling given that its GPU was the most capable, and that the test included two laptops with a previous-gen RTX 4070 and one with an RTX 5050. It also consistently delivered the lowest frame rates in our Assassin’s Creed Shadows testing, regardless of settings, against machines with an RTX 5050 or 5060. 

The graphics chip isn’t the only factor in a gaming benchmark, and many of the competitors packed Intel CPUs rather than AMD equivalents. That said, the specs are quite similar across the laptops you’ll see in the performance charts below, or advantageous for the P16, in other categories, so its underwhelming gaming performance is a bit troubling. My disappointment was mitigated, however, because it still delivered roughly the kind of gaming performance I’d expect from a machine meant for content creation. That is, solid but not blazing frame rates.

Speaking of blazing, the P16 can run hot. Despite a lower plate that’s more than 60% vent, the P16 gets pretty sweltering, pretty fast. If you plan to actually use the P16 in your lap even for slightly intensive tasks, you may need to limit your session length, especially if you’re susceptible to aural distraction. When the fans kick on, they’re impossible to ignore, and they tend to run frequently under any kind of moderate to heavy load.

Welcomed simplicity

In another life, I spent many years reviewing gaming hardware and peripherals, and that experience may have left me with a bias toward flashing RGB LED rainbow lighting and over-the-top, flashy designs. That said, I found the P16’s simple, understated design very refreshing.

The majority of the machine is the matte black of a sleek alien obelisk, and I love it. The only relief is the small ProArt logo and name tucked into a corner of the lid, and even the lettering there is black on black. The keyboard is backlit by default, though not obnoxiously so, and the lighting can be customized or disabled. One small ding is the width of the bezel around that otherwise near-perfect OLED; the bottom bezel, in particular, is aggressively thick.

The thoughtful design is also showcased by the P16’s dimensions. It fits easily in a backpack or messenger bag, coming in at a mere 14 inches wide by 9.7 inches deep and well less than an inch thick, tapering from 0.7 inches to 0.6 inches in thickness. And it weighs only a little more than 4 pounds. It’s impressively slim and light for a high-performance 16-inch laptop. I do wonder, however, if the desire to keep the P16 so compact contributed to its heat output and subsequent fan noise.

The keyboard and touchpad are also winners. Though I prefer a deck with a number pad on such a large laptop and one that’s positioned a little lower on the keyboard deck, I did love the large individual keys and their responsiveness. Palm rejection helps with the keyboard being tucked so far up, and it’s hard to begrudge the touchpad its extra real estate, given how well it’s designed.

Though it’s mechanical and not the slick haptic glass of some high-end creator laptops, the touchpad nonetheless delivers a premium feel. It also includes an Asus DialPad, a feature that could be dismissed as a gimmick, but instead proved itself a genuine value add.

The DialPad sits in the upper left corner of the trackpad (a major reason why the generous size of the pad is so key). Its circular design allows you to call up a radial menu of options for any number of apps, and it’s a great, easy-to-access replacement for hotkeys. Many apps, including creator favorites like Adobe Premiere, come with handy preset functions, but you can also map custom commands. Beyond quick calling commands, the DialPad can also be used to adjust system volume, scrub through video footage or a number of other dial/wheel/scrollbar-based actions. 

A gorgeous, creative portal

Part of why I like the simple, all-black design is that it helps highlight the most arresting piece of the P16: the display. It’s a 4K, 16:10 HDR OLED touchscreen that is genuinely striking, particularly for visual showcases like landscape stills or high-resolution screenshots from fantasy/sci-fi films and games. As I’ve come to expect from the latest generation of OLED technology, the deep blacks and vivid colors are astonishing.

It’s rated for 500 nits of HDR peak brightness, but it came up short of that figure. In our tests with a Spyder X Elite colorimeter, it managed to hit a maximum of 397 nits in HDR mode (and 368 nits in SDR). With its deep blacks and incredible contrast, the OLED panel still looked stunning even if it couldn’t match its brightness rating. Its color performance was outstanding, with 100% coverage of the sRGB and P3 gamuts and 95% of AdobeRGB.

Another knock against the display is its refresh rate, which is just the standard 60Hz. For a panel backed up by such impressive hardware, I’d like to see at least double that. It may not be as vital for creators, but gamers will be disappointed to be locked to a 60 frames per second max. This limitation is likely one of the ways Asus combats the price bloat we see in other high-end OLED laptops. Another cost-cutting method is the P16’s baffling lack of a stylus.

The webcam tucked into the top bezel delivers quality visuals. It’s a 1080p camera that provides vibrant colors and is a great fit both for quick selfies and video calls. 

While a lot of creator laptops come loaded with cumbersome bloatware that you’ll uninstall as soon as you hit the desktop, the P16 includes some genuinely useful tools. The heart of the software package is the ProArt Creator Hub. It does double duty as a system monitor, with creator-focused features like a color management panel, as well as a launchpad for other apps. In the Creative Land tab, you can quickly launch Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite and Asus’ own MuseTree (an AI image generator), StoryCube (media storage management) and more.

Is the Asus ProArt P16 worth buying?

For creators with the requisite bankroll, the ProArt P16 is an easy recommendation. It’s purpose-built to help creators transform their vision into reality, from the macro (the big, beautiful OLED) to the micro (the touchpad’s helpful DialPad). Backed by Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 graphics, it’s an extremely capable workday companion that can double as a suitable gaming machine for anything short of 4K. While I wouldn’t recommend it for someone explicitly shopping for a gaming laptop, if you’re a creator with a day job who likes to gun down aliens after a long work session, the P16 covers both ends of that equation.