Skip to main content

ASUS’ weirdly impressive laptop could be about to launch

The Asus Zenbook Pro 16X is a powerhouse of a laptop with a completely unconventional design. It just released for sale in Europe, which means the Zenbook Pro 16X could be landing in the U.S. soon.

We covered this odd laptop in May, but we weren’t sure then if, or when, the laptop would go on sale. Well, now we know it is on sale at least in the U.K. and other parts of Europe with a starting price of 2,999 British pounds.

Backside of the the Asus Zenbook Pro 16X.
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Asus is no stranger to innovative designs. The Asus ROG Zephyrus duo includes a screen in the keyboard, for instance. But the Zenbook Pro 16X takes things to an entirely new level.

Recommended Videos

For starters, it has a flip-up keyboard. You can adjust the angle of the keyboard to the most comfortable position for your hands and wrists. This has the added benefit of providing greater cooling to the laptop as there are vents under the keyboard, and when it is raised up, hot air can escape. This reduces internal temperature by an 7-degrees Celsius.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Tweeters on either side of the chassis flip up with the keyboard and point directly at you, providing front-facing sound you normally wouldn’t get on a laptop.

There’s also a massive haptic feedback touchpad that is almost as good as a MacBook touchpad. Then there’s an Asus dial to the left of the keyboard. This provides additional functions for popular apps, such as all the Adobe Creative Cloud apps, and many games.

Innovation aside, the Asus Zenbook Pro 16X packs a punch in performance. The high-end model comes with an Intel Alder Lake-H Core i9 processor, 32 GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 2 TB of storage. All of the Zenbook Pro 16X machines include a 16-inch touchscreen OLED display with 4K resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio.

You’ll also get a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU with 6 GB of GDDR6 VRAM with the ability to scale from 75 watts to 95W when needed. Asus includes its custom IceCool Pro twin curved-blade fans and a 5mm cooling pipe to keep everything running quiet and smooth.

The Asus Zenbook Pro 16X's keyboard lifts via a new AAS Ultra mechanism to a seven-degree angle.
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

But this isn’t a gaming machine. Asus is going after the professional video and graphics market with this machine. It includes stable Nvidia Studio drivers for app support, and while gaming will be easy for this machine at 1080p, you won’t want to push it.

Now that the Zenbook Pro 16X is available in Europe, it’s only a matter of time before this high-end performance machine comes to the U.S.

Nathan Drescher
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Nathan Drescher is a freelance journalist and writer from Ottawa, Canada. He's been writing about technology from around the…
Apple’s folding iPhone could launch as early as 2026
Concept render of foldable iPhone.

If you’ve been wanting a folding iPhone, then you might not have that much longer to wait. According to a report from Digitimes, it seems that Apple is working on a foldable iPhone that could debut as early as 2026. This would be a significant development for Apple, as it would be the company’s first foray into foldable display technology and also mark a significant step in the evolution of the iPhone.

We expect the iPhone 16 lineup in just a few more months this year, and next year will be the iPhone 17 series, where we may even see the first iPhone Ultra. But as we look even further ahead, the iPhone 18 family could introduce a foldable iPhone.

Read more
A new Windows alternative could launch on PCs later this year
Huawei Matebook X Pro

After a rough few years in the U.S., Huawei has turned to developing its own operating system for PCs -- and it may finally be arriving later this year.

HarmonyOS, as it's called, has already been in use on smart devices like Huawei wearables and smartphones, but now a version of it may finally land on PCs in the form of HarmonyOS Next.

Read more
OLED laptops are about to get brighter, thinner, and more expensive
A woman holds a laptop with the LG Tandem OLED logo on it.

LG's new Tandem OLED panel is entering mass production, which is good news for upcoming AI laptops. Today, LG announced that it's the first manufacturer to produce the Tandem OLED panel in a 13-inch variant, and the displays are said to be much thinner and lighter while delivering better performance. The catch? This screen upgrade, which is already available in the latest Dell XPS 13 Copilot+ PC, is going to cost you a pretty penny.

Tandem OLED is a display panel design that has mostly been used in cars up until now, and LG is breaking new ground by producing it for laptops. However, it's not the first time we've seen this design applied to consumer electronics, as Apple's M4 iPad Pros utilize Tandem OLED displays.

Read more