This year Asus has released new laptops with the creator in mind.  So many people are creators, vloggers and artists these days (or at least think they are) with so many different outlets and mediums to share their creations with their followers.  Of course to get the best out of themselves they need the tools to do so and Asus think they are on the right track here with their new dedicated creator laptops.

They sent us one of their more affordable creator laptops — but still a high performance laptop, it’s all relative — the Asus Vivobook 16X (M7600Q) to check out and put through its paces.  In the end we were amazed at the quality of the laptop, all for a starting price of $2,499.

ProsCons
Amazing16inch OLED displayBoring design
Discreet Nvidia GPUTiny, average speakers
StorageCrowded keyboard
Great battery lifeLack of modern ports

Design

The outside of the laptop is, well, boring.  It’s a grey slate that somehow is a fingerprint magnet — don’t ask me how but your finger and handprints will be visible after carrying this around.  The grey slate is broken up with a small plaque on the right-hand side with “Asus Vivobook” and #BeExplorers and #ReadySetGo on it.  Cringeworthy for sure but it does not affect the laptop operation, so I really don’t care about that too much.

The laptop is not small and is not light — it is 36.05 x 25.90 x 1.89cm and weighs a tick under 2kg at 1.95kg.  Stick it in your backpack and you should have no problems carting it around with you — I know I didn’t.  

Hardware

Open up the laptop and you will be greeted with the multi-shaded and coloured keyboard.  For some reason, the “Escape” key is red and the “Enter” key has stripes.  I don’t mind the red escape key but am unsure why it needs to be red — it’s …. Different.  The stripes on the “Enter” key definitely have a use and that’s to allow you to easily see and find the “Enter” key which is no mean feat as it is sandwiched and hidden in amongst all the other keys — hey, you include a numpad on a laptop, this is going to happen.  

The power button on the keyboard doubles as a fingerprint sensor which was extremely accurate for use in cases where Windows Hello couldn’t find me — usually if I had my glasses on already.

The backlit keyboard on the laptop was quite good with the keys having decent travel and a soft feel to them.  Aside from the sheer number of typos, typing was comfortable and pleasant — the more I used the keyboard the more accurate I got with it but I’m still not entirely sure why there is a numpad on it — maybe it’s a creator/artist thing?  More creators and artists do not need to be typing and working at the speed and level that I am on their laptops, using them mostly for creating various works of art instead.

One thing for sure though, I hated that numpad — it kept leading to typos and miss hits with the enter and the backspace keys especially.  It also caused the actual typing portion of the keyboard to be off centre compared to the display — but ZOMG, that display.

Although the laptop starts at only $2,499 the display that is included is mind-blowingly amazing.  The 16-inch 4K UHD OLED display (3840 x 2400) is said to be 100% DCI-P3, 133% sRGB colour gamut, and also certified from Pantone Color according to Asus and it appears they are close to spot on.   On testing the display was found to be 100% sRGB, 99% DCI-P3, 99% AdobeRGB, and 97% NTSC colour gamut — pretty much as close to perfect as you could get.  For those interested in creative, visual material and art this display is perfect for them.  Keep in mind though, the display is a bit reflective so if working outside you will need to position yourself to prevent the sun producing too much glare on the screen.

Above that gorgeous display is the infra-red Windows Hello camera along with a 720P webcam with physical sliding privacy cover.  The bezels around the display are nowhere near as small as those on the Dell XPS17 but with a display this good we can forgive them for that.  

Asus DialPad

The touchpad is big but not huge — by huge I mean XPS17 size.  I’m not sure why I actually need it that big considering it’s not difficult to find the touchpad.  Asus has included a new feature on the touchpad — Asus DialPad.  Turn the DialPad on by swiping from the top right corner of the touchpad.  This brings a dial up on the touchpad which can then be used similar to the Microsoft Surface Dial.

By default, the DialPad controls the display brightness and system volume by swiping around it.  You can customise this further in Asus’ ProArt Creator Hub app but you will get the most out of the dial using it within Adobe’s suite of applications such as After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Lightroom Classic.  Within each of these you can also customise what features you want the DialPad to be able to control — most likely you’ll choose ones you use a lot that also require fine tuning regularly.

Aside from the perfect display, this is where the laptop excels for creators and artists.  The ability for them to be able to control features within these oft-used apps easily and precisely is a huge boon to them and their workflow.  For the average schmuck such as me, it has limited use.

The review unit we received ran Windows 11 (after an update when we turned it on) on an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor with a dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU.  Along with these impressive specs it housed 32GB of DDR4 RAM with a 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD.  Other options include an Intel Core i5-11300H or an Intel Core i7-11370H processor, less RAM, less storage (down to 512GB)

The ports included were a bit sparse and not very future-proof considering there was a distinct lack of Thunderbolt support.  The ports were 1 x USB-C 3.2 Gen1, 1 x USB-A 3.2 Gen1, 2 x USB-A 2.0, a full sized HDMI port, an audio jack and a microSD card reader.  I would have much preferred they dropped one of those USB-A 2.0 ports and included a USB-C port with Thunderbolt support.  So many monitors, hubs etc use Thunderbolt now that it would have been nice to include at least one port with support for it.

Connectivity is not lacking though with full Wi-Fi 6 support along with Bluetooth 5.0.  All of this is powered by a 96WHrs battery and a 120W AC adapter through a circular proprietary port.  

Battery Life

The battery life is exceptionally good considering the specs on this laptop.  I was easily able to get over 10 hours of standard work typing on it and a good 7- 8 hours when pushing it with some video and photo editing.  For a performance laptop, and although this is one of their more affordable laptops don’t be fooled by the price — this baby is specced to fly but somehow the battery does not take the hit you would expect.

Cooling 

A performance laptop needs some serious cooling if it is not going to overheat- after all it is designed to push the boundaries, in this case the boundaries of creation.  The Vivobook 16X has cooling in spades and because of this I did not notice a single time when the laptop got too hot to use (on my lap).

Asus has included their IceCool Plus thermal technology along with a dual fan cooling system with two large heat pipes to provide cooling throughout the system.  This results in decent heat dissipation allowing for maximum performance at all times.

Performance

This is not a dedicated gaming laptop but you would expect a laptop with specs such as this would still be half decent for games — and you’d be right.  I played quite a few games on it — for research purposes only of course — and managed to get some decent fps results on some more intensive games such as PUBG PC and Battlefield 5.  

The games ran smoothly without any hitches, glitches or lag.  If you are a creator that also likes to game a bit on the side do not be concerned that this laptop won’t be able to handle the games you throw at it.

Let’s add in the speakers here.  I expected much better considering this is a creator’s laptop.  If you are a creator I would make sure you have your headphones with you when using this if you want to truly listen to how something you’ve created sounds.  The speakers are not especially loud and lack depth to them.  A bit disappointing but I suppose corners have to be cut somewhere to make a certain price bracket.

Software

ProArt Creator Hub is where it’s at for Asus on this laptop. The ProArt Creator Hub allows the user to perform a colour calibration, check the memory and CPU load and change how the laptop is performing by emphasising certain areas. Within this hub you also change the Asus DialPad settings — and customise the Microsoft Wheel device settings. You can add functionality to the DialPad for various apps along with create your own using various keyboard shortcuts etc.

Asus has also included their MyAsus app which allows you to customise the display and a few other things to how you want them — this display though regularly tests out as perfect or damn near perfect so you probably shouldn’t be playing around with that too much.

Should you buy it?

The Asus Vivobook 16X is created with artists, vloggers and creators in mind and for their uses this laptop is damn near perfect. It has a technically near-perfect big display which is vibrant and just amazing. The keyboard is good to type on although if blogging or doing a lot of typing there much better options for accurate, fast typing.

The Asus DialPad adds that bit of creative customisation so that the creator can use the laptop and its features exactly how they want to use it. When using it, the battery life will give even the heaviest user a long time between charges while the performance is high end — as you’d expect given the high-end internals.

With a starting price of $2,499 it is certainly a lot more affordable than many laptops with these sorts of specs and as such I can recommend it to the creator who wants to use their laptop for creating. You can find out more over at the Asus Vivobook 16X webpage. Get it from all decent electronics stores now in white or black.

SPECS:

Screen16.0-inch, WQUXGA (3840 x 2400) 16:10 aspect ratio, OLED, 0.2ms response time, 550nits Peak Brightness, 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, 1,000,000:1, HDR Support, 1.07B display colours, PANTONE Validated, Glossy display, 70% less harmful blue light, Screen-to-body ratio: 86 ％
ProcessorAMD Ryzen 9 5900HX Processor 3.3GHz (16M Cache, up to 4.6GHz, 8 cores)
Wireless ConnectionWi-Fi 6(802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.0 (Dual-band) 2×2
Graphics cardAMD Radeon Graphics, NVIDIA RTX 3050Ti Laptop GPU 4GB GDDR5, Maximum 1035MHz
MemoryDual Channel 32GB DDR4 (2x 16GB RAM Sticks) on board, Memory Max Up to:32GB
Storage1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD
Ports1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A,
2x USB 2.0 Type-A,
1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C,
1x HDMI 1.4,
1x 3.5mm Headphone/Microphone Jack
1x MicroSD Card Reader Slot
Battery96Wh, 6-cell Li-Ion battery
OSWindows 11
Weight1.95 kg (4.30 lbs)