Notebooks shipping with elaborate cooling solutions is exactly the path that manufacturers should take so that customers actually obtain the performance that they’ve paid a premium for. ASUS’ Zenbook 16 takes the correct approach to properly cool the extremely powerful Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme , and it’s a lesson that Apple could strongly adhere to when introducing its newer MacBook Pro series. Remember, the company’s base M5 MacBook Pro handles all the heat with just a single fan, which is insufficient to tame the SoC.
An inside look was provided by Notebookcheck, showing that ASUS knew exactly how the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme would perform, necessitating the need for a dual-heatpipe and dual-fan solution. Only Apple’s M5 Pro and M5 Max models ship with two fans, but they are joined by just a single, flat heatpipe that does a terrible job at cooling because a smaller chassis like the 14-inch MacBook Pro suffers from throttling , leaving a ton of performance on the table.
Another perk of daily driving the Zenbook A16 is that it also features a removable PCIe NVMe Gen 4 SSD, meaning that when solid-state drive prices finally stabilize, you can upgrade that drive to a 4TB or even an 8TB one if your budget allows. However, while ASUS should be commended for the decision it took to properly cool the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, there’s still room for improvement.
If you look at the images, there’s plenty of space to accommodate a bigger battery or at least move it down to make room for the motherboard. Additionally, there’s space where the two fans are, which ASUS could have used to extend the heatpipe length or add another unit to improve cooling. It’s possible the company didn’t make these decisions to maintain the Zenbook A16’s weight, but it's worth noting the manufacturer wasted a ton of space.
It’s understandable when you face constraints with a 14-inch notebook, but ASUS wasn’t dealing with this form factor. Still, it’s a lot better than Apple’s implementation, and we certainly hope that the Cupertino firm gets the message of making its MacBook Pro lineup more capable just with this upgrade.
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