Asus’ ProArt P16 laptop is laser-focused on what creators need

The Asus ProArt P16 is not a gaming laptop. It is for serious media professionals who need tons of power and a great screen in a semi-portable package. But glancing down the spec sheet, you could be forgiven for thinking, “Man, I bet that thing runs DOOM like nobody’s business.”

It all starts with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, a 12-core laptop chip that’s proven its worth for the better part of a year. Here Asus makes AMD hitch its wagon to Nvidia power for graphics, an RTX 5070 laptop GPU on the two configurations Asus has announced. You can get either 32GB or 64GB of DDR5 RAM and 2TB of PCIe 4.0 storage as well. That hardware won’t beat the best gaming laptops on the market…but it won’t get embarrassed by them, either.

Now add in a 4K, OLED, 16:10, 16-inch display, with up to 500 nits of brightness and 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage. If you don’t know what some of those mean, just listen really hard, and you can hear pro video editors gasping. Sure, that touchscreen is “just” 60Hz, but it’s pretty freakin’ phenomenal for anyone who needs to do media work on the go.

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Speaking of which: Double USB-C ports, ONE ON EACH SIDE OH YES THANK YOU, and one of which gets USB 4.0 certification for up to 40Gbps throughput. Full-sized HDMI 2.1. Full-sized SD card reader, rated for SD Express 7.0. That’s a lot of connection options for a pro, especially considering that the sleek black aluminum laptop is just .68 inches thick (17.27mm) at its bulkiest. Sadly, Asus couldn’t quite squeeze in Ethernet — you’ll need a USB-C adapter, or just lean on the Wi-Fi 7 chip for big downloads and uploads.

Other highlights include an integrated scroll wheel on the touchpad (a staple of the ProArt series), 200 watts of power delivery with the dedicated charger (yes, you can use USB-C as well), and a 90 watt-hour battery (and you’ll need it). And the thing that really makes it pop for me is that sleek, all-black body, though it’s not exactly featherweight at 4.08 pounds (1.85kg). Unlike, say, a MacBook Pro or a Razer Blade, the understated corner logo really appeals with its black-on-black look. This is a laptop that wants to do work, even if it catches admiring glances at the same time.

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Here’s the part you’re probably bracing for: the price. Asus’ promo materials say that the base model (32GB of RAM) will cost $2500 when it hits the US in June, the upgraded model (64GB of RAM, identical in all other respects) will be $2900 in July. You can get a lot of laptop for nearly three grand, though to be fair, this is only $100 more than the 2024 ProArt P16 model with almost the same specs and an RTX 4070.