Asus ProArt P16 vs MacBook Pro: The Creator Laptop That Rewards Power Users, Not Passengers

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There’s a certain kind of creator laptop that wants to be a MacBook Pro so badly it just repaints the chassis and calls it a day. The Asus ProArt P16 is not that machine.

Asus has built something more opinionated: a 16-inch, AMD-powered, RTX-equipped, OLED-topped workstation that is unapologetically tuned for people who tweak power profiles, remap inputs, and obsess over workflow latency. Out of the box, it’s good. In the hands of someone willing to tune it, it’s genuinely compelling.

This is less about copying Apple and more about challenging the assumption that creative pros only want frictionless, non-configurable experiences. The ProArt P16 leans into the opposite thesis: creativity at the high end is messy, iterative, and benefits from knobs.

Source: Original reporting and review details from ZDNET’s coverage of the Asus ProArt P16 (https://www.zdnet.com/article/my-favorite-ultraportable-laptop-has-macbook-pro-written-all-over-it-but-isnt-made-by-apple/), combined with independent technical analysis.

The Silicon Story: AMD Ryzen AI Meets RTX

At the heart of the ProArt P16 is an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, a 12-core/24-thread processor paired with an NPU rated at 50 TOPS and discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics.

For a technical audience, several things stand out:

  • Hybrid creative and AI workloads:

    • CPU cores for compilation, rendering, and multitasking.
    • RTX 4060 for GPU-accelerated timelines in Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, Blender, Unreal, and CUDA/RTX-based tooling.
    • NPU for on-device AI inference—image upscaling, denoising, transcription, code copilots, and local LLM helpers without shipping everything to the cloud.

  • Real-world performance positioning:

    • In ZDNET’s benchmarks, the ProArt P16 consistently lands between Apple’s M3 and M4 MacBook Pro tiers, more aligned with M3 on multi-core workloads.
    • That’s significant: this is x86 paired with Nvidia, competing credibly with Apple Silicon while retaining access to the sprawling Windows creative and dev ecosystem.

For developers and technical creatives, this mix is pragmatic: it speaks the languages production pipelines actually use—Adobe, Autodesk, CUDA, Vulkan, DirectX, FFmpeg, Unreal—rather than forcing compromises for thermals or battery alone.

The OLED Canvas: Gorgeous, With Intentional Trade-offs

The display is one of the P16’s defining choices:

  • 16-inch 3840 x 2400 AMOLED
  • 500 nits brightness
  • Touchscreen with pen support
  • Glossy finish, creator-focused color fidelity

The upsides are obvious: HDR-friendly contrast, deep blacks for grading, and high resolution for dense timelines and code panes. But Asus makes one controversial call:

  • 60Hz refresh rate.

This will trigger reflexive disappointment from gamers and high-FPS enthusiasts, but context matters.

By capping at 60Hz, Asus is effectively declaring the ProArt P16 a "creator-first" device, not a stealth gaming rig. That decision:

  • Keeps cost in check versus pairing 4K OLED with 120Hz+
  • Reduces power draw for a panel that already demands a lot
  • Aligns with workflows where color accuracy, consistency, and resolution matter more than 165Hz bragging rights

You can still game—and the RTX 4060 plus DLSS 3 and ray tracing support will handle it—but the panel spec is a quiet editorial: this machine is built for people who ship work, not just frames.

DialPad: A Hardware UX Bet on Workflow Nerds

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The most daring piece of this laptop is also the easiest to miss at first glance: the Asus DialPad, embedded into an oversized haptic trackpad.

The DialPad is a small, raised, gesture-activated wheel that can be mapped to:

  • Brush size, opacity, zoom, and layer navigation in Photoshop or Illustrator
  • Timeline scrub, cut, jog, and markers in Premiere, Resolve, or CapCut
  • Audio levels, scene switching, or macro triggers for streamers
  • Scrolling, tab switching, or fine-grained zoom in dev and productivity tools

For power users, this is gold—physical, low-friction access to micro-operations that normally live behind keyboard combos and tiny UI affordances.

But Asus makes two moves that reveal both the ambition and the rough edges of the idea:

  1. It ships disabled by default.
  2. Activating it requires a specific, undocumented-feeling gesture unless you already know where to look.

That friction is telling. The ProArt P16 assumes a user who will dig into settings, documentation, and MyAsus utilities. For many creative pros and engineers, that’s fine—even welcome. For buyers expecting "open lid, achieve flow" simplicity, it’s a speed bump.

Still, once configured, the DialPad meaningfully differentiates the P16 from MacBooks and most Windows competitors. Where others add touch bars and then abandon them, Asus doubles down on a hardware+software control surface that feels made for actual work.

The Software Layer: Powerful, But You Need To Care

The ProArt P16 is fast—but not fully formed—out of the box. That’s not a bug; it’s the compact between Asus and its target audience.

Optimal performance depends on:

  • Running the full round of Windows Updates
  • Updating device drivers
  • Pulling firmware and feature updates via the MyAsus app
  • Choosing and tuning performance profiles (battery vs performance vs balanced)
  • Configuring DialPad behaviors per app
  • Adjusting touchpad sensitivity (especially if you work in cold environments, where some users reported reduced responsiveness)

This is where the machine draws a clear line against Apple’s philosophy. A modern MacBook Pro is designed so that you never have to think about governors, profiles, or firmware orchestration. The ProArt P16 asks you to think—and rewards you when you do.

For many:

  • Video editors who batch-render overnight.
  • 3D artists juggling GPU previews.
  • Developers running local containers, test clusters, and AI toolchains.

...the ability to aggressively shape thermal and power behavior isn’t a chore, it’s a prerequisite.

That said, Asus could do more to smooth the ramp:

  • Enable DialPad with a first-boot tutorial.
  • Bundle a "ProArt Optimized" preset that flips all the sensible toggles without manual spelunking.

Right now, early friction risks hiding the laptop’s best ideas from exactly the users who’d value them.

A Stylus-First Screen That Refuses To Be a Gimmick

Asus includes a pen that, unusually for bundled styli, is actually good:

  • Low latency, solid tracking
  • Plays nicely with the smooth, glossy OLED surface
  • Enough precision for serious sketching, note-taking, layout work, and markup

Crucially, Asus resists turning the P16 into a 2-in-1 contortionist. Instead, the hinge is tuned so the display locks firmly at its maximum angle, letting you draw or annotate in classic laptop mode without the screen collapsing into tablet mode.

That design choice respects real workflows: illustrators, designers, and architects who annotate over references, timelines, and documents while keeping a keyboard in play.

Battery Life: Better Than It Has Any Right To Be

On paper, a 16-inch 4K-class OLED plus RTX 4060 and a hungry CPU should spell wall-hugger. In practice:

  • Light-to-mixed workloads (browsing, docs, coding, calls, light edits): comfortably over 10 hours with sensible settings.
  • Heavy creative loads (4K timelines, complex comps, 3D scenes, AI-accelerated tasks): around 7 hours.

Is this "Apple Silicon" territory? Not quite, especially under sustained load. But for a high-performance Windows creator laptop, these numbers are not just acceptable—they’re strategically important.

They mean this machine is not confined to the desk. You can edit in a client session, code on a flight, or run demos without immediately hunting outlets.

How It Reframes the MacBook Pro Comparison

The headline temptation is: "It’s a MacBook Pro, but Windows and cheaper." That framing undersells what’s happening.

The ProArt P16 and MacBook Pro represent two philosophies of pro computing:

  • Apple’s MacBook Pro:

    • Tight vertical integration.
    • Minimal configuration, maximum reliability.
    • Exceptional perf-per-watt and thermals.
    • Less tolerance for unconventional or modular workflows, especially around GPUs and niche tooling.

  • Asus ProArt P16:

    • Open ecosystem: Nvidia, Windows, vendor-specific utilities.
    • Exposes power knobs and expects you to use them.
    • Hardware affordances like DialPad and stylus designed for niche-but-serious workflows.
    • Some friction, some rough edges, much more freedom.

For many studios, agencies, and engineers, the choice isn’t purely aesthetic; it’s operational:

  • If your stack is built around CUDA, Windows-only plugins, game engines, or experimental AI runtimes, the ProArt P16 aligns with reality.
  • If you want deterministic simplicity, strong battery, and minimal tooling drama, an M3 or M4 MacBook Pro remains the safer all-rounder.

What’s notable is that Asus is no longer just "chasing" Apple. With the ProArt P16, it’s putting forward a coherent alternative belief system for high-end mobile creation.

Why This Laptop Matters for Builders, Not Just Buyers

The ProArt P16 is interesting not because it’s perfect, but because it’s opinionated:

  • It assumes creators and developers are comfortable with complexity—and might even want more of it, if it buys speed and control.
  • It treats hardware controls (DialPad, giant trackpad, stylus-ready hinge) as first-class workflow primitives, not marketing decals.
  • It quietly embraces the AI-local future, pairing RTX with a capable NPU in a form factor creatives actually want to carry.

In an era of increasingly homogenized laptops that prioritize frictionless onboarding over deep configurability, the ProArt P16 feels like a machine designed for people who read release notes, not just spec sheets.

If that’s you—the developer knee-deep in GPU toolchains, the colorist who lives in scopes, the motion designer mapping macros, the photographer batch-processing RAW + diffusion upscales—the P16 isn’t just a MacBook alternative. It’s a reminder that our tools can still be tuned, not just consumed.