Asus is going straight in for the creative-professional audience with a fleet of newly announced OLED display Studiobook, Zenbook, and Vivobook laptops.
The ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED is the headliner, a seriously impressive pro machine in terms of both design and components with one key feature: a built-in physical dial, dubbed the “Asus Dial,” that makes navigating content-creation programs easier.
We got our hands on a Studiobook 16 OLED in advance of the debut. In the video below, we tour the Studiobook to show you its design and run down the feature set. You can see the Asus Dial in action, and hear more about the laptop’s powerful specs.
See more about the Studiobook below, as well as an outline of the additional machines Asus has announced in its Zenbook and Vivobook families.
The Studiobook 16 OLED: A Physical Dial and Pro-Grade Parts
Let’s start with the basics here: The Studiobook 16 is, unsurprisingly, a 16-inch laptop with some serious horsepower, but the design is relatively compact. It measures 0.77 by 14.25 by 10.4 inches and weighs 5.29 pounds, not the most portable power laptop out there by a long shot, but considering the type of laptop it is, pretty reasonable.
The heft gets more palatable when you learn what’s inside. The model we have here (which Asus dubs the “H5600”) comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU, 32GB of memory, and a 2TB SSD. There are a couple lesser options (a Ryzen 7 chip, different storage and memory capacities), but this is the configuration we were sent. The H5600 will be available in Q4 starting at $1,999.99.
Our version also features a brilliant 4K OLED display, though this model is also available without OLED, too. The 16-inch display bears a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 3,840-by-2,400-pixel native resolution, resulting in a super sharp and vibrant screen in combination with the OLED technology. The panel is also factory-calibrated for color accuracy to meet Pantone Validated standards, with additional Calman Verified certification, and Asus claims 100% DCI-P3 color coverage. (We’ll test the panel accuracy ourselves when we take on a full review.)
A good portion of the OLED screens we see in laptops are smaller than this panel, but a roomy, brilliant one at this size is a definite head-turner—Asus claims this is the first 16-inch OLED laptop screen. For creative professionals, the (on-paper) color accuracy and deeper blacks are a boon for content creation, color matching, and more. See our list of the best OLED laptops, which also includes an explanation of the many advantages of OLED technology.
One thing to note is that this version of the laptop should not be confused with the very similarly named Studiobook Pro 16, which is a beefed-up model. The Pro 16 comes in two flavors, W5600 and W7600, and while it’s very similar to the Studiobook 16, the components are ramped up to Intel Xeon processor offerings and Nvidia’s A2000 and A5000 workstation-grade GPUs. These are for the most demanding 3D tasks, including CAD work and similar workloads. These units will start at $2,499.99 and launch in Q4.
Dialed In: Improve Your Workflow
Outside of these important fundamentals and powerful components, the Studiobook 16 comes with an eye-catching physical dial. The Asus Dial is embedded slightly into the chassis so that the top is flush with the keyboard deck, and the outer edge is textured for grip. It spins with ease, but also has a satisfying ratcheting feeling for tactile feedback.
On the desktop, pressing down on the dial brings up a digital radial menu, on which you can click into screen brightness or volume, and then tune either by spinning the physical dial.
That’s a convenient addition, but it really comes to life in the Adobe creative suite. When Photoshop is open, pressing the dial brings up a different menu complete with a brush options group (which, in turn, has options for sizes, flow, hardness, opacity, and the like), layer zoom, and undo. In After Effects, the options change to time axis adjustment, layer browsing, moving along the timeline, and so on.
Each application has its own set of options relevant to that software, in theory adding efficiency to your workflow. It’s possible that your muscle memory for keyboard shortcuts is faster (at least at first), but it’s a pretty seamless way to keep one hand on the touchpad and the other on the dial to swap tools quickly. I am, admittedly, not a graphic designer or artist myself, so I won’t definitively say how useful this will be for all creative pros (especially only after a brief period with it), but I did find it both satisfying and genuinely useful. Even just using it as a volume scroller, I’m happy for the inclusion!
The touchpad also features three “mouse” buttons instead of two. This may seem odd or retro to many users, but Asus points out it is particularly useful in CAD software for rotating 3D models, and in other ISV-certified applications.
The Studiobook 16 is also outfitted with plenty of ports, though I wouldn’t say it’s bursting with them. Still, more than the basics are covered, including two USB Type-C ports, two USB 3.1 ports, an HDMI connection, an SD card slot, and even an Ethernet jack.
Stay tuned for a full review of the Studiobook 16, including more hands-on time with the Asus Dial and full benchmark testing.
OLED Overload: New Zenbooks and Vivobooks for Creatives
While we think the Studiobook is the showstopper, as mentioned, it is not the only new OLED-equipped machine for creators. There are multiple new entries in each of the Zenbook and Vivobook laptop lines, so we won’t run down every model. But here are the highlights.
The Zenbook Pro 15 OLED and Zenbook Pro Duo 15 OLED bring the advanced screen technology to proven laptop designs, and have the features to back it up for creative pros. Each will offer fast Ryzen 5000 Series processors and Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics, with plenty of physical connectivity and storage offered, as well. The screens feature the same advantages as the Studiobook 16 (4K, OLED, high color accuracy).
The Zenbook Pro 15 will launch in Q4 starting at $1,469.99. There are also more, similar flavors in the Zenbook line: a Zenbook 14X OLED and a Zenbook 14 Flip OLED will launch this year.
The story is similar on the Vivobook side, with 14-, 15-, and 16-inch OLED laptops joining the fray. The headliners are the Vivobook Pro 14X OLED and 16X OLED, joined by the Pro 14 OLED and Pro 15 OLED.
The 14X and 16X are the powerhouses of the Vivobook family, featuring virtual versions of the Studiobook’s physical dial, which is to say a digital take on the Asus Dial, but located on the touchpad, offering the same core functionality. The high-end OLED screens offer the same advantages as the others, and these are again outfitted with Ryzen 5000 processors and up to GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics and 32GB of memory.
All of the Vivobook laptops will launch in Q4. The least expensive is the Pro 14 OLED, starting at $749.99, up to the marquee 16X OLED, which starts at $1,399.99.
