Review: ASUS ProArt P16 (H7606) 2024 laptop

Review unit on loan from ASUS Singapore

The ASUS ProArt P16 (H7606) is a 16-inch 4K+ OLED touchscreen laptop designed for creative professionals. The laptop comes equipped with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, configurable with up to 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, 4070 or 4080.

Price starts from USD 1900 and this review unit that I have is priced at SGD 4599 with the 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070.

Bottom line

Design looks good and build quality is solid. Display is bright, vibrant and sharp. I don't have any benchmarks for you except to say that the processor and RAM is able to handle multi-tasking, photo and video editing with ease. I was able to get 60FPS when playing Red Dead Redemption 2.

Downsides. Display refresh rate is 60Hz which to me isn't really a downside for a laptop for visual content creation. Battery life of 5-6 hours is not surprising for me for a Windows workstation laptop. One minor quibble is the edges outside of the keyboard should slope towards the keys rather than have a vertical drop.

This laptop is expensive but it delivers performance and experience that thankfully matches its price tag.

Specifications

• Processor: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, AMD Radeon 890M Graphics
• Display: 4K OLED touchscreen, 60Hz
• Colour support:100% DCI-P3
• Brightness:400 nits typical, 500 nits HDR
• Contrast:1 million to 1
• Camera:1080P with face unlock and auto-brightness
• RAM: Up to 64GB
• Storage: Up to 2TB SSD
• Operating System: Windows 11 Pro
• Ports:2x USB 3.2 gen 2 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 gen 2 Type-C, 1x USB 4 Type C, HDMI 2.1, SD card reader, DC in
• ConnectionWifi 6E, USB-A to Ethernet adapter
• Battery Life: Up to 8 hours
• Weight:1.85kg
• Dimensions:
  35.49 x 24.69 x 1.49 ~ 1.73 cm (13.97" x 9.72" x 0.59" ~ 0.68")

Things included

• Laptop
• Backpack
• 200W charger with proprietary port
• USB-A to Ethernet adapter
• Quick start guide, warranty card

The laptop supports ASUS Pen 2 (SA203H) but that is not included.

Design

Design of the laptop looks clean and simple. Build quality is solid and feels extremely durable. The weight of 1.85kg for 16-inch laptop is quite impressive. FYI, a 16-inch Macbook Pro is 2.14kg.

Ports on the left are power, HDMI v2.1, USB 4 Type-C, USB 3.2 gen 2 Type-A and 3.5mm audio jack

Ports on the right are USB 3.2 gen 2 Type C, USB 3.2 gen 2 Type-A and full-size SD card (huge bonus)

Keyboard is of good size with speakers that have good details, bass and surround. Keys are backlit, there's Fn lock, and the typing experience is excellent. One thing I don't like about the keyboard is there's no right Ctrl and instead you get the Microsoft CoPilot key. The black does not like greasy fingers.

The keyboard boundary are vertical drops instead of slope and when you can sometimes feel the edge when hitting keys by the left, right and bottoms. Minor quibble that's all.

Touchpad is big with left and right click areas. It's not a haptic touchpad but it works well. ASUS Dial is built-into the touchpad by the top left and can be enabled by swiping inwards from the top right. ASUS Dial can be configured to provide shortcuts that update automatically depending on the app you're using. I don't really use ASUS Dial but it's there if you need it.

Display

The 16-inch 4K+ OLED touchscreen display looks stunning. It is bright, vibrant and sharp. Display aspect ratio is 16:10

I measured colour support for 100% sRGB, 90% NTSC, 92% AdobeRGB, 100% P3 and a maximum brightness of 318 nits. This display is reasonably colour accurate.

Thanks to the 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, you can get deep blacks and true HDR effect. Creating visual content, watching videos and gaming on such a big and beautiful display is satisfying.

Do note that OLED displays have Pulse Wave Modulation (PWM) and people with sensitive eyes may be affected. If you're not sure whether you're affected by PWM, it's best to go look at laptops with OLED displays in person to test.

The 1080P camera has Windows Hello and auto-brightness works well enough. The laptop will also sense when you're not around and power off the display to conserve energy.

Performance

I don't really run benchmarks for my laptop reviews because numbers don't really convey actual user experience, and benchmarks are only useful when compared to other benchmarks.

This review unit comes with 64GB RAM and the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 which is a 12-core 2Ghz processor with boost clock speed up to 5.1Ghz. The laptop is able to edit photos and 4K videos with ease.

The fans just rev up slightly when using using Cycles to preview 3D renders in Blender.

Gaming performance with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is good too. I was able to get 60FPS playing Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1920 x 1200 resolution.

If you play a lot of games, you can consider the ASUS Zephyrus G16.

Pen support

The display supports the ASUS Pen 2 (SA203H) which uses Microsoft Pen Protocol 2. The pen supports tilt, pressure and palm rejection. The pen is sold separately.

I don't expect people will be drawing on a laptop display, but the pen works well enough for writing. Diagonal line wobble or jitter is not too serious.

Battery life

Battery capacity is 90Wh. Battery life is around 5-6 hours. Not surprising for a Windows workstation laptop.

Conclusion

The ASUS ProArt P16 is probably one of the best workstation laptops for visual content creators in the market currently.

It has a big, beautiful and reasonably colour accurate OLED display that's so satisfying to look at and work with.

The laptop is powerful and can handle heavy workflow without lag, and does well with gaming.

When you're paying this much for a laptop, you better be sure the laptop is great, and this is a great laptop for those who have the budget.

Another laptop to consider is the ASUS Zephyrus G16 which is a gaming laptop that also has an OLED display. Which to choose probably comes down to which design you prefer.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Simple and clean design
+ Solid build quality
+ 1.85kg for a 16-inch laptop is good
+ Bright, vibrant, sharp OLED touchscreen display
+ Reasonably colour accurate
+ Typing experience is good
+ Touchpad works well
+ Powerful performance
+ Decent gaming performance
+ Good selection of ports
+ Amazing audio quality
+ Display has pen support
- 5 to 6 hours battery life
- 60Hz refresh rate
- Reflective display

Availability

The ASUS ProArt P16 laptop is available from ASUS Singapore online store.