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The ASUS Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (K6604) is a large, powerful laptop built around a stunning OLED display.
While the OLED screen is truly magnificent, the integrated speakers are also solid, and the keyboard is great to type on.
Battery life feels on the weaker side, particularly as somebody used to working on an M1 MacBook Pro.
But regardless of the battery challenges, this laptop is a fantastic option for both gamers and content creators.
After a couple of weeks testing this behemoth, it’s clear that this is a remarkable option for creatives. It’s particularly great if they don’t need to stray too far from power.
Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED review: Design
This is a 16-inch laptop. It is not a small device.
What’s surprising, though, is that the size does not immediately translate to weight. At just 1.9 kg, it feels much lighter than you expect it should.
Despite the lack of weight, there’s still a sturdiness to the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED. You can comfortably pick it up from the corner of the base, and it doesn’t bend or flex.
It’s not exactly what you would describe as sleek. The laptop is a little blocky, with a smooth lid and grills on the bottom and both sides for the fans. A small, raised ASUS logo is the only standout element on the lid.
You get a wide range of ports on the sides as well, with two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports on the righthand side, along with an HDMI out port, headphone jack and USB-A port. The left side of the laptop has a second USB-A port, an ethernet jack and an SD card reader.
OLED display
But the true centrepiece of this laptop is the OLED screen. 16 inches on the diagonal with a 16:10 aspect ratio, it boasts a stunning 3.2K resolution (3,200 × 2,000) with a 120Hz refresh rate.
This makes it perfect for both gaming and content creation. It’s fast to respond, and OLED’s Pantone certification means its colour reproduction is impeccable.
You can stream YouTube videos in stunning clarity and detail, or use it to watch Netflix in HDR. The fact that it is also Dolby Vision certified means you get a truly impressive HDR picture when you’re watching a high-quality source.
I also appreciate that this isn’t a touchscreen. That means you don’t end up with grubby fingerprints all over the display, helping it look spectacular.
Keyboard and trackpad
Open up the Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (with a single finger) and you’ll meet the ErgoSense keyboard. The bright orange escape key stands out, as does the lighter grey colouring of the utility keys on the left and right sides.
The number pad is slightly cramped on the right-hand side of the laptop, but still perfectly usable. The fingerprint scanner in the power button is discreet and effective.
The trackpad, meanwhile, is massive, and sits off-centre to the left of the laptop. I found the positioning slightly awkward, to be honest.
Looking more closely at the trackpad, you can see a subtle set of rings in the top left, plus a printed circle on the right-hand side. Swipe in on the printed circle, and it activates the DialPad, a controller for creators that allows easy cycling through commonly used functions in apps like Photoshop.
Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED review: Performance
The unit I was testing was powered by the 13th Gen Intel Core I9 processor at 2.2GHz, with 32 GB RAM and a GeForce RTX 4060 GPU.
Needless to say, performance wasn’t really an issue.
I spent a couple of weeks using the Vivobook Pro for online work, which it tackled effortlessly. Dozens of tabs open in the browser wasn’t enough to slow it down.
Gaming performance was also strong. I spent a bit of time playing through some of my pile of shame on GOG. Quake 4 and Beautiful Desolation highlighted two very different types of games with different demands. The Vivobook handled both brilliantly.
The laptop didn’t even get too hot while sitting on my lap, which I’ll put down to the IceCool Pro thermal technology inside.
From a benchmarks perspective, the Vivobook scored 2082 on the GeekBench 6 Single Core CPU test, and 8260 for the multicore.
The OpenCL GPU test came back with a score of 58567.
To compare, the MacBook Pro 14-inch with an M1 Pro processor scored better on the CPU front, with a 2377 Single-Core score and a 10370 Multi-core score. The MacBook’s OpenCL GPU score was 37271.
That performance should see it competing comfortably with the best laptops in Australia.
Battery life
You just know that all that power is going to drain the battery, particularly if you start doing graphically intensive things.
You’ll be lucky to get an hour’s worth of life out of a full battery while playing games. It’s better when you simply use it for web-based browsing or work, but it still didn’t last me anywhere near a full day’s work, more like 4–5 hours of use.
Obviously, my work may differ to your work, but ultimately the 90WHr battery drains faster the more you demand from your machine.
Fortunately, the bundled 250W brick can pump in the juice quickly. It’ll get you to 50% from half an hour’s charging. Given you probably won’t go too far from power with this laptop, that’s good enough for me.
Display, keyboard and trackpad
As I was setting up the Vivobook Pro to photograph it for the review, my son looked up from the PlayStation and said to me, “Wow, that screen is amazing”.
And that pretty much sums up the performance of the Vivobook Pro 16X’s display. It’s breathtaking. Colour reproduction, brightness, and contrast all look phenomenal.
Above the OLED panel is a tiny webcam, with a slide across cover for instant privacy. While the cover is great, the webcam itself is not. Despite being FullHD, the picture quality was grainy and choppy even in well lit conditions. It’s a minor blip on the usability of the laptop.
The keyboard is comfortable to type on, with 1.4 mm of key travel and an ever so slight indentation. While the number pad on the right-hand side is a little cramped, I didn’t feel any challenges typing on the keyboard itself.
The trackpad was fine to use, but the big callout is the DialPad functionality. When you swipe from the top corner, a menu appears with quick options like zooming and scrubbing through videos.
Of course, the real benefit comes for more serious content creators using apps like Photoshop or Premiere Elements. I didn’t test those platforms myself, though.
Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED review: Verdict
The number one reason you should consider buying the VivoBook Pro 16X OLED is the brilliant OLED display. It is a truly magnificent screen.
But the Vivobook is more than just its display. It’s a powerful laptop in its own right, with plenty of grunt for everything from gaming to intensive photo and video editing.
Nice feature inclusions like the DialPad and an abundance of ports make it a versatile laptop. The battery life could be better, but the truth is that if you intend to use this for graphically intensive tasks, you’re going to want to be near a power point anyway.
Overall, this is an impressive laptop with an even more impressive screen.
Buy the Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED online
ASUS supplied the product for this review.
