It really depends on how far you want to go with Asus' ProArt Studiobook 16. The base model is affordable enough and retains some key features, but when you're going all-out creator on this lineup, you can expect the price to climb up to Apple Mac Pro levels rather quickly.
-
Design
-
Display
-
Performance
-
Price
-
Features
Looking back over the last few weeks on Stuff, we certainly seem to be ploughing through Asus’ notebooks. That’s probably because the company insists on lobbing them our way. And that’s fine because we got to spend time with the Asus ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED. Which, if you’ll notice, has a ‘Pro’ designation. That’s got to mean something, right?
It’s probably marketing-related, though. It doesn’t really mean anything. Otherwise, Apple will eventually release the iPhone Pro Max: Maximum Pro Edition one of these days. But it does indicate that the Asus ProArt Studiobook 16 is designed for something… quite specific.
Art student
![](https://stuff.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ProArts-StudioBook-5-1024x768.jpg)
The clue’s in the name, right? The ProArt bit specifically. That, and the additional doodads on the keyboard. We’ll get to that in a moment. On the face of it, this Studiobook 16 is quite a chunk of machinery. And we mean that literally. It feels like a substantial chunk of metal in your hands. Around 2.5kg of it, in fact. It’s tasteful enough, in a Brutalist sort of way. The ProArt is a weight of well-machined bevels, surrounded on most sides by the kind of vents that would make Solid Snake start breathing heavily.
It’s also toting all the bits. The major complaint in recent years about Apple’s creator hardware is the lack of ports. Here, there are at least enough. Along the left side, you’ll find a USB-A, an HDMI, dual Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, and the power jack. The right hosts a full ethernet port, a USB-A, a 3.5mm port, and space for an SD card. That’s enough to get the basics rolling, with a few to spare if you really feel the need to expand via USB-C.
Stars of the show
And it’s like the Touch Bar in that most regular users… won’t ever need to mess with it. Oh, it’ll do a couple of things in Windows 11 when you twirl the satisfying dial, but don’t expect much action unless you’re roaming the Adobe wastelands, looking for a few good designers. It’s this feature, more than anything else, that marks the Asus ProArt Studiobook 16 as a one-note device.
Everyone’s a critic
But once you’ve scaled it up to our review machine’s specs, it’s only out to do one thing. Edit video, or other large and unwieldy files. The base Studiobook 16 runs a mere Ryzen 5 processor with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. As a design machine, that’s not enough. Not even with the RTX 3050 Ti in the back seat.
But our review machine — an AMD R9-5900HX, with 32GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD storage — will chew frames and spit videos rather easily. Asus will also double that RAM spec and quadruple the storage, if you ask nicely (and have loads of cash to throw at it). Our review model also arrived with an RTX 3070 pushing pixels. It’s a little concerning that we can’t find one of these models locally — the best we can source has an RTX 3060. Even so, you’re looking at between R40,000 and R50,000 for one of these. If you’re a creative type, you should probably be paying very close attention. But if you’re not… then you can safely look elsewhere. You can have all the good bits for cheaper, with none of the fluff.