Shown off at this year’s Computex, the new ASUS Zenbook S 16’s most obvious selling points are its specs. On the inside, the premium PC is powered by the latest AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processors. Meanwhile, the exterior is adorned with a 16-inch 3K screen with a 120Hz refresh rate.
Looking past that though, the most interesting detail here is the design. While the chassis is made of metal, the outer lid of ASUS’ latest luxury machine is said to be made of a new “exclusive material” called ceraluminum.
According to ASUS, this special material is more tactile and warm to the touch than aluminium but just as strong and durable. During my brief hands-on with the device at Computex 2024, I found it offered a subtle but distinctly different feel factor to traditional aluminium. It's not so much "nicer" as it is a different kind of nice.
As per reporting by The Register (who managed to get additional details on the process by which the magic metal is made from an ASUS spokesperson), it sounds a lot like anodizing. Basically, an aluminium sheet gets submerged in hot water and chemically bonded with a special ceramic solution.
The real-world process is probably more complicated than it sounds when put like that but the final result is a tough-but-thin form factor that feels premium in a way that helps the Zenbook S 16 stand out among the crowd of premium PCs in the mix nowadays.
With a weight of just 1.5kg, ASUS' latest is a featherweight by the standards of high-end 16-inch notebooks that play in the premium price segment. In addition to the distinct material design, the new Zenbook S 16 also features a 3D vapour changing cooling system, a 78Wh battery, up to 32GB of RAM, up to 2TB of SSD storage, a larger trackpad, a six-speaker sound system with Dolby Atmos, an FHD AiSense IR camera and a healthy array of ports.
ASUS has said that the unit will be available in two colours (Scandinavian White and Zumaia Gray) but hasn’t yet confirmed any specific Australian pricing or availability for the device so stay tuned.
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