Fear and blogging (and prerelease laptop testing) in Las Vegas

At CES, I did what you’re not supposed to do: I brought a pre-production laptop to usage arsenic my superior workhorse during a hectic event. The unproven rifle successful mobility is the caller Arm-based Asus Zenbook A16. It’s a 16-inch laptop that weighs little than a 13-inch MacBook Air and comes pinch a high-end Snapdragon X2 processor. Going into CES pinch a Windows connected Arm laptop moving an unreleased processor sounds for illustration a look for disaster. But to my surprise, speech from pre-production hardware glitches, I came distant impressed.

The Zenbook A16 that Asus sent maine for early testing has a Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme X2E-94-100 chip. It’s 1 of the flagship chips from Qualcomm’s upcoming X2 processor family, sporting 18 cores — six capacity and 12 efficiency. In the A16, it’s paired pinch a monolithic 48GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and a bully 2880 x 1800 / 120Hz OLED display. There’s nary value yet, but Asus rep Anthony Spence tells The Verge it mightiness onshore astir $1,599.99 aliases $1,699.99 — successful the scope of a higher-spec 15-inch M4 MacBook Air aliases an entry-level-ish 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro.

First things first: As a pre-production model, this Zenbook A16 is not fresh for benchmark testing. And bugs cropped up quickly. To sanction a few: Windows Hello look unlocking ne'er worked, and the laptop unexpectedly went to slumber mid-use a fewer times a day. Thankfully, it woke up and resumed wherever I near disconnected wrong seconds each time. These are evidently disconcerting problems, but it’s pre-production hardware moving a Canary build of Windows 11 26H1 that’s exclusive to Snapdragon X2 laptops. I surely felt for illustration that canary sometimes, but I expect the issues should beryllium solved connected last hardware and software. (If not, I’ll beryllium yelling astir it successful an eventual review.)

But contempt the bugs, the A16’s capacity was very good. It was the only machine I utilized during the vacation break to prewrite galore CES news embargoes, and it was snappy from the start. It had nary problem handling my accustomed workload of dozens of Google Chrome tabs crossed 2 aliases 3 virtual desktops, penning successful Google Docs and WordPress, messaging successful Slack and Signal, and simultaneously listening to euphony successful Spotify. But that level of multitasking shouldn’t beryllium a large assistance for this spot and that overmuch RAM. The bigger trial was editing photos successful Lightroom Classic, particularly utilizing it connected the spell successful Vegas astatine CES — wherever I occasionally had to do lightning-fast edits of 50-megapixel RAW images changeable connected my Sony A1 camera.

I brought the Zenbook pinch maine to CES, but I besides brought the M5 MacBook Pro arsenic a fallback. I was fresh to transportation both, aliases driblet the A16 successful favour of the MacBook if needed, but connected time 1 I took a chance and near the MacBook successful my edifice room. I brought the Zenbook from my Razer waifu briefing to CES Unveiled, wherever I mostly shot picturesfor colleagues. The Snapdragon X2 spot was snappy erstwhile editing done the 70-ish photos I changeable while nether that clip crunch.

At times, utilizing Adobe Lightroom Classic connected the Zenbook felt for illustration the velocity I’m utilized to pinch Apple’s chips. RAW images were speedy to import from the built-in SD paper scholar — thing I wish each laptops had. I could quickly cull done pictures successful the Library module, and making speedy brightness and colour adjustments successful the much demanding Develop module was besides fast. The only clip things slowed was erstwhile I took a much heavy-handed attack to colour adjustments (because CES lighting is dreadful), and particularly erstwhile I utilized Lightroom’s masking instrumentality pinch automatic taxable detection.

So my first time astatine CES (which was 2 days earlier the show officially started) worked retired awesome pinch the A16. But connected the pursuing days I changeable hundreds more photos. I had a bunch of appointments and briefings, for illustration my chance to photograph the Lenovo Legion Pro rollable gaming laptop concept, and various mini missions to hunt things down connected the show level — for illustration Asus’ Wi-Fi 8 router concept. That’s erstwhile it started bogging down a small bit.

Lightroom Classic started leaving maine hanging betwixt adjustments and taking full seconds to load full-res images. But that’s really Lightroom gets sometimes connected Windows, and moreover sometimes connected Macs, if you’re trying to activity accelerated and haven’t rebooted successful a while to fto it clear cache aliases optimize the catalog.

On my past afloat time astatine the show, I was much judicious astir closing Lightroom betwixt edit sessions and not leaving unnecessary apps unfastened successful the background. The Zenbook went backmost to emotion for illustration a nimble editing machine. When showing my workfellow Sean Hollister photos from my stroll crossed the Las Vegas Convention Center show floor, I could show he was amazed pinch really quickly I was flipping done high-res shots.

I’d still prime a MacBook Pro for high-demand photograph editing, but the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme helped this Zenbook A16 consciousness much MacBook-like than astir different Windows laptops I’ve utilized — particularly because the bulk of this was connected artillery power. Like M-series Macs, Snapdragon X laptops connection the aforesaid capacity connected artillery and wall power. Intel and AMD processors typically connection noticeably little capacity connected artillery power. We’ll person to spot if it’s the aforesaid communicative pinch the upcoming Intel Panther Lake and AMD Gorgon Point chips. Getting adjacent capacity connected a charger aliases disconnected makes a immense quality erstwhile you’re editing connected the fly, which is portion of why I’ve ever preferred editing connected Mac laptops complete Windows.

If this first sensation of the Snapdragon X2 processors is an indication, Qualcomm’s caller chips should erstwhile again impressment pinch capacity and artillery life — but, if it matters to you, they’ll apt still falter pinch gaming (they’re for illustration Macs successful that measurement too). Many games stay incompatible, and graphically demanding ones that really run, for illustration Cyberpunk 2077 and Resident Evil 4 (2023), are workable but look rather rough.

Despite those shortcomings, I deliberation the Asus Zenbook A16 shows tons of committedness for a thin-and-light Windows laptop pinch bully performance. Though, if value estimates clasp true, that capacity won’t travel cheap. I’m excited to spot what a last reappraisal portion tin do, arsenic this buggy pre-production exemplary already sewage maine done the trenches of CES — a tricky gauntlet for immoderate laptop.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge