14-inch MacBook Professional M5 vs Asus Zenbook A16 : In contrast

The Asus Zenbook A16 is a skinny and light-weight Home windows pocket book aiming to take the portability crown from Apple. Here is the way it compares in opposition to a similarly-priced MacBook Professional.

For our spec-sheet brawl, we will put the $1,999 Asus Zenbook A16 in opposition to the 14-inch MacBook Professional with M5. As a lot as we might evaluate the similarly-sized 16-inch MacBook Professional, the opposite upgrades to the base-spec model pushes it to $2,699, which is a bit too excessive.

To make it a bit of bit nearer in worth, we are going to set the 14-inch MacBook Professional as having an enhanced reminiscence allowance of 24GB or 32GB.

This must be a a lot fairer combat.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Specs

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Design, weight, measurement

Let’s get the scale subject out of the way in which first. We’re evaluating a 14-inch MacBook Professional in opposition to a 16-inch Asus Zenbook A16.

The 16-inch MacBook Professional is out of the query for a equally priced mannequin battle. There shall be some fast variations with regards to form and measurement.

Clearly, the bigger Zenbook takes up extra desk house with a 13.92-inch by 9.54-inch footprint, versus the 12.31 by 8.71-inch MacBook Professional.

Nonetheless, there are two bits of data right here that also land within the Zenbook’s courtroom. At 0.54 inches thick, it is a bit thinner than the 0.61-inch-thick 14-inch MacBook Professional, in addition to the 0.66-inch-thick 16-inch model.

The large distinction in measurement does not have an effect on the burden concerns a lot. At 2.65 kilos, the Asus Zenbook A16 is a light-weight in comparison with the three.4-pound 14-inch MacBook Professional.

Although Asus most likely was choosy in regards to the parts it makes use of to chop weight down, one motive for this huge disparity is the selection in materials utilized by Asus to assemble the pocket book. Whereas Apple makes use of aluminum for its casing, Asus makes use of Ceraluminum.

Ceraluminum is a mix of a ceramic and aluminum into a cloth that Asus claims is as light-weight and sturdy as aluminum. Nonetheless, the oxidized layer from an electrolytic bathtub helps make it extra scratch-resistant.

Regardless of the therapy, it’s also a recyclable materials, which means it could possibly be damaged down and reused. Identical to the MacBook Professional’s enclosure.

Aside from the casing, there’s little else to report in regards to the styling of the Zenbook versus the MacBook Professional. You do not have the notch on the show of the Zenbook, however aside from that, they’re two steel slabs with fairly skinny shows.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Show

Talking of screens, once more, the scale is a comparability subject right here. Asus has a 16-inch show whereas the MacBook has a 14.2-inch model.

On the extra comparable entrance, Asus does lead right here in utilizing OLED for its display screen expertise. Apple has but to deliver OLED to the MacBook Professional, with the Liquid Retina XDR display screen utilizing miniLED.

This could give the Zenbook a pure edge in issues like distinction and coloration illustration. At 1,000,000:1, the distinction ratio is robust, and its HDR True Black certification is sweet information for coloration.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Zenbook from the rear

Nonetheless, this is similar distinction ratio because the MacBook Professional’s show. The colour illustration can be comparable, with Apple supporting Vast Coloration (P3) and Asus masking 100% of the DCI-P3 coloration gamut.

For brightness, the Zenbook truly loses out, since it could handle as much as 1,100 nits of peak brightness for HDR content material. Apple, in the meantime, manages 1,000 nits for SDR content material, 1,000 nits for sustained full-screen HDR, however a substantial 1,600 nits for peak HDR brightness.

Each fashions are equal by way of refresh charges, with Asus boasting 120Hz for the show. The MacBook Professional’s adaptive ProMotion system matches this degree.

For decision, the MacBook Professional has a superior spec, regardless of its measurement. At 3,024 by 1,964, that is a pixel density of 254 pixels per inch.

The bigger Asus panel is 2,880 by 1,800, which works out to be a pixel density of simply 212 pixels per inch.

The Zenbook does profit from not having the notch, which is a key a part of Apple’s show, if solely to suit the digital camera in. There are additionally contact capabilities, which some variations of the Zenbook have, and the MacBook by no means will.

In the event you’re keen to pay one other $150, you possibly can get the Nano-texture possibility for the MacBook Professional. Useful for individuals who hate glare.

Dimension apart, it is protected to say that, regardless of having the superior OLED expertise, the Zenbook’s show simply is not nearly as good as what Apple affords in its personal pocket book.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Efficiency

Whereas there are M5 Professional and M5 Max editions of the MacBook Professional out there, this price-limited comparability offers with the bottom M5 chip.

This features a 10-core CPU with 4 Tremendous Cores and 6 Effectivity Cores. Then there’s the 10-core GPU, which has Neural Accelerators in every core to hurry up machine studying duties and hardware-accelerated ray-tracing.

It is also accompanied by the 16-core Neural Engine, which can be used for ML workflows as properly. Then there’s the Media Engine, which incorporates hardware-accelerated encoding and decoding of H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW video.

Although the starter 14-inch MacBook Professional has 16GB of reminiscence, that is the issue that brings the mannequin nearer to the Zenbook’s MSRP. Going to 24GB of unified reminiscence brings the worth as much as $1,899, $100 under the Zenbook, whereas 32GB is $2,099, $100 extra.

The Zenbook A16 makes use of a Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elie Excessive, which has 18 cores and 18 threads. It has a single-core increase frequency of 5GHz and a multi-core most of 4.4GHz.

Relating to reminiscence, the Zenbook has essentially the most at 48GB of LPDDR5X, with no improve choices. Reminiscence bandwidth of 228GB/s can be increased than the 153GB/s of the M5.

GPU-wise, the Snapdragon makes use of Adreno, whereas the Neural Engine counterpart is the Hexagon NPU. This NPU can deal with as much as 80 trillion operations per second.

Apple hasn’t stated how briskly the Neural Engine is, with or with out the GPU Neural Accelerator help. In testing, the M5 has been discovered to go as excessive as 133 TOPS at its peak.

For inter-chip comparisons, we flip to Geekbench, which has benchmarks for each units.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Geekbench Single-Core scores

On the single-core check, the MacBook Professional’s M5 scores 4,225, which is extraordinarily excessive. By comparability, the typical for the Zenbook A16 is round 3,700.

The story modifications after we transfer to the multi-core efficiency. The MacBook Professional will get to 17,455 within the benchmark, whereas the Zenbook hovers round 22,000.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Geekbench Multi-Core scores

The Zenbook takes a wholesome lead right here, however keep in mind that that is going to help with multi-core workloads than common duties, that are principally single-core centered.

For the GPU testing, we have now to take a look at OpenCL checks.

The M5 within the MacBook Professional is listed at 48,160 on Geekbench. By comparability, the outcomes for the Qualcomm chip are round 42,500 on common.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Geekbench OpenCL scores

The benchmarks present that Apple continues to be far within the lead chip-wise right here. If not in reminiscence capability nor reminiscence bandwidth.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Ports and connectivity

Home windows notebooks are likely to have a wider array of connections at its disposal. Nonetheless, this is not normally the case for the thinner and lighter fashions battling skinny edges and weight.

The Zenbook is an efficient instance of this impact, with it having only a few ports general.

The brief listing consists of two USB 4.0 Gen 3 ports, that are Kind-C connections. These can be utilized with an exterior show and for energy supply, and have 40Gbps of bandwidth.

It is joined by a single USB 3.2 Gen 2 Kind-A connection for these equipment utilizing the older USB port sort, at 10Gbps. There’s additionally an HDMI 2.1 port, a headphone jack, and an SD 4.0 card reader.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: The ports of the Zenbook

On the Apple facet, there is a trio of Thunderbolt 4 ports, which work as much as 40Gbps, and in addition function at USB 4 and as DisplayPort too. There’s an HDMI port as properly, a headphone jack, and an SDXC card reader.

Whilst you may use these Thunderbolt 4 ports for energy supply from an adjunct or to recharge, you may also use the MagSafe connection. This frees up the Thunderbolt port you’d’ve used for charging.

On the wi-fi facet, the Zenbook has Wi-Fi 7 help in addition to Bluetooth 5.4. The MacBook has Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

This does imply the Zenbook is in a greater place wireless-wise, however solely simply. Until you’ve gotten equipment and networking infrastructure to help them, there’s little significant distinction right here.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Audio and digital camera

For audio, each notebooks have six audio system. Apple goes additional in saying it consists of force-cancelling woofers.

These audio system are accompanied by a headphone jack, with Apple’s together with help for high-impedance headphones. Dolby Atmos help is accessible on each, however Apple’s consists of Spatial Audio help for earphones just like the AirPods Professional.

Every additionally has an array of microphones. Apple not less than goes additional in describing its model as being three microphones with directional beamforming and a excessive signal-to-noise ratio.

On the digital camera facet, Apple features a 12MP Middle Stage digital camera with Desk View in its notch. It is able to 1080p HD video recording, and in addition advantages from utilizing a complicated picture sign processor with computational video.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: The MacBook Professional’s notch homes a greater digital camera, if not Face ID.

Asus describes its imaging machine as an FHD digital camera with IR operate. That final level is used with Home windows Good day, offering biometric safety.

That responsibility is dealt with by Contact ID on the MacBook Professional.

The digital camera within the Zenbook is a bit of bit clever, with Asus describing it as “AI Powered.” This features a privateness characteristic the place it mechanically dims the display screen if you happen to look away.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Storage and battery

Asus features a 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD within the Zenbook. It sits in an M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0×4 enlargement slot, which means it could possibly be upgraded sooner or later to a bigger capability.

Whereas there’s just one preliminary storage possibility for the Zenbook A16, Apple does not less than give decisions if you’d like greater than the beginning 1TB. You could possibly pay $400 for 2TB, or one other $600 on prime of that for 4TB if wanted.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: A top-down Zenbook view

Nonetheless, whereas Asus does enable for upgrades to occur, Apple does not allow you to change the storage in individual in any respect. If you’d like extra capability, you’d have to interchange the MacBook Professional or accept an exterior drive.

On the facility facet, Apple has a 72.4-watt-hour lithium polymer battery. The Zenbook has a 70-watt-hour three-cell model, which is barely smaller than Apple’s model.

As to how this interprets to precise utilization, Asus claims the Zenbook can final for as much as 21 hours of film watching, and as much as 12 hours of common on-line browsing.

Apple, in the meantime, claims the MacBook can deal with as much as 24 hours of video streaming and as much as 16 hours of wi-fi internet entry from a single cost.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: Which to purchase

When new merchandise are launched, there are inevitable comparisons with rivals in the identical market. Nonetheless, not all comparisons deal with issues pretty.

As a part of the same old AppleInsider news-gathering duties, we stumbled upon a comparability carried out by Home windows Central. On the face of it, the comparability with the Asus Zenbook A16 (UX3607OA) in opposition to the MacBook Air was cheap as a result of it was a light-weight pocket book battle, because it handed Asus the win.

We noticed one comparability that in contrast the Asus Zenbook to the MacBook Air, on the idea of weight, ignoring the gorgeous huge worth disparity.

Making an attempt to make use of worth as a justification for one being higher is an issue if you can’t immediately say how a lot a factor prices. Particularly if you happen to instantly have a look at pricing at retailers, simply because the product has launched.

The Zenbook A16 is listed within the assessment as being $1,599 at Greatest Purchase. Nonetheless, on the time of publication, Greatest Purchase lists the identical mannequin at $1,699.

A much bigger subject is Asus itself, as its personal web site says the MSRP for the mannequin is $1,999. A full $400 greater than the quoted worth within the comparability.

We may safely say that that is an unfair comparability, since it is a dialogue of a discounted-at-launch Home windows pocket book in opposition to a less expensive counterpart.

This was notionally a battle of the easily-carried notebooks, and declared the MacBook Air to now not be the perfect light-weight mannequin.

The Zenbook A16 definitely is lighter than the 15-inch MacBook Air, has a bigger and higher display screen, and extra battery life. We won’t argue with that, however we are able to definitely say there’s room for dispute with regards to price.

Particularly if you make preliminary launch pricing by way of a retailer the yardstick as a substitute of the MSRP.

Heck, there’s even an issue with the entire “cheaper” declare if you happen to’re viewing the unique report within the UK. On the location’s personal worth comparability itemizing, it places the Zenbook A16 at 2,099 kilos primarily based on pricing from Asus.

M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16: You actually ought to get the MacBook Professional in case your price range is about $2,000

The 15-inch MacBook Air is listed at between 988 kilos and 1,099 kilos. Virtually half the worth of the “cheaper” Zenbook.

Utilizing weight because the preliminary motive for the comparability is a ridiculous thought, and we do not know why that standards can be the one you’d use to jot down a number of kilowords.

Not show decision, not velocity, nor another sensible issue. Weight.

The Zenbook wins barely with multi-core processing versus the core M5 however loses versus Professional. After which additionally the Zenbook wins on weight and bodily measurement.

The MacBook Professional wins on a greater high quality display screen, a vastly superior trackpad, battery life, single-core processing, and extra. Plus. we would quite have Thunderbolt 5 than 40gbit USB-C 4.0.

The place to purchase the M5 14-inch MacBook Professional vs Asus Zenbook A16

The Asus Zenbook A16 with 48GB of reminiscence and 1TB of storage is discounted and closely out there for $1,699 at Greatest Purchase.

Apple’s M5 MacBook Professional line, in the meantime, is on sale from $1,549 in our Value Information, with the M5/24GB/1TB configuration discounted to $1,799 on Amazon due to a $100 low cost at press time.

Up to date April 10, 2026: Up to date multi-score end result with right information. We remorse the error.