You might be asking yourself a single-word question right now: Ceraluminum? The outer lid of the stylish and sleek new Copilot+ AI PC from ASUS, the Zenbook S16, is made from this exclusive new material that "blends the beauty and feel of ceramic with the strength of aluminum." And with a name like that, it also sounds like it was harvested from Pandora, the fictional planet from the Avatar movies. According to ASUS, Ceraluminum is extremely durable but with a more elegant look and feel.

Okay, with that out of the way, you're looking at an impressively specced 16-inch laptop. With a slim 1.1cm profile, it's thinner than the latest MacBook Pro while weighing only 1.5kg - which is impressive for a 16-inch device. ASUS has managed this by custom engineering a 3D vapor chamber cooling system that's just 0.1cm thick, with CNC machine-etched water and dustproof holes near the keyboard to maximize airflow.
The Zenbook S16 Copilot+ AI PC features the latest AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor, with a powerful 50 TOPS of AI performance NPU running at just 28W. Throw in up to 2TB of storage, up to 32GB of LPDDR5 memory, and a 3K 16:10 120 Hz panel, and it's as impressive under the hood as it is stylish.

I/O-wise, you've got two USB-4 ports, USB 3.2, HDMI, audio, and an SD card reader for content creators. We got to check this out at Computex 2024 and were impressed. Although we couldn't test the six-speaker sound system (with woofers) in a noisy environment, ASUS's presentation claimed that the direction system could deliver great sound for such a thin device.


In addition to supporting all Copilot+ AI features in Windows 11 and ASUS's suite of AI custom apps, one cool security feature is that the FHD AiSense IR camera supports Windows Hello, Adaptive Lock and Dimming, and Windows passkeys, so you only need your face to start creating. The ASUS Zenbook S16 starts at $1,400 USD and is now available to pre-order.