2026 ASUS Zenbook S16 (UM5606GA) Review — enhanced, refined
2026 ASUS Zenbook S16 (UM5606GA)
The 2026 Zenbook S16 (UM5606GA) is going to be the 16-inch laptop to get.
What's Good?
- Cleaner design language
- ASUS Lumina OLED got even brighter
- Improved battery life
- (Still) good performance across the board
What's Not?
- Bulkier charging brick
About two years ago, we checked out the ASUS Zenbook S16, first of its name, bearing the groundbreaking Strix Point processor. Now, in 2026 we have the ASUS Zenbook S16, second of its name, featuring an AMD Gorgon Point processor under the hood. Honestly, while the refresh isn’t nearly as exciting as the original model, it does bring with it some notable improvements.
Table of Contents
2026 ASUS Zenbook S16 (UM5606GA) — what’s good?
Cleaner design language
Instead of the ASUS monogram on the lid, the 2026 Zenbook S16 simply has “ASUS Zenbook” engraved into the Ceraluminum lid. This design language debuted on the Zenbook A14 last year, offering a cleaner, more minimalist look. Personally, I still prefer the ASUS monogram featured by the last-gen models, but ASUS has decided that this is the way forward. While this Scandinavian White color is carried over from the previous generation, the Zumaia Gray color option has been replaced by Antrim Gray for the 2026 model.
On the inside, it has mostly been kept the same. We still have the impressive CNC-machined ventilation holes above the keyboard area. The ASUS monogram that previously resided on the ventilation area, is now moved to the upper left corner of the absolutely humongous touchpad. We still get the same keyboard with 1.1mm of travel distance, albeit now with a new wear-resistant coating that ASUS dubbed Excimer. Overall, not much has changed, but that’s perfectly fine. Don’t change what isn’t broken, right?
ASUS Lumina OLED got even brighter
Oh but above the keyboard deck, the screen has been swapped out for a much brighter ASUS Lumina OLED panel. It’s still covered by a touch-sensitive glass panel, but now the screen on the 2026 Zenbook S16 goes up to a retina-searing 1,100 nits peak HDR brightness, up from 600 nits. The maximum brightness has also been bumped up to 500 nits, up from 400 nits, making the whole screen just that much brighter. The refresh rate is still kept at 120Hz, while color accuracy is kept at Delta E<1, and you still get the full 100% DCI-P3 gamut coverage. Just a really nice quality of life improvement here.
Improved battery life
This year, the 2026 Zenbook S16 throws in up to two additional hours over its predecessor. Now, this is achieved with a 6% larger battery — 83WHr vs 78WHr — and opting for a slightly less capable processor — two fewer Zen 5c cores and four fewer GPU cores — but I would also argue that battery life would be higher up on the list than raw performance for the target audience of the Zenbook S series. Switching from 120Hz to 60Hz does yield an hour of additional battery life, but unless you will not have access to any power bank or plug point for an extended period of time, I personally would take the risk for that extra visual smoothness.
(Still) good performance across the board
While on paper you do get fewer CPU and GPU cores, the 2026 Zenbook S16 doesn’t quite sacrifice that much performance. In our productivity and CPU-focused benchmarks, you still get very good scores, indicating that the performance hit isn’t quite as large as the gap in specifications might lead you to believe. Some of this might be due to the fact that the memory is now significantly faster, providing more bandwidth to the CPU and GPU to perform at their full potential.
In fact, if we are to go off based on the performance numbers, it does appear that the performance scaling on the GPU end is almost 1:1 with the memory bandwidth increase, as the total GPU core count went down by 25%, but memory bandwidth went up by 14%, resulting in a performance reduction of around 10~11% across multiple gaming benchmarks. It does seem like the RDNA 3.5 GPU has been bandwidth-starved, and it will be interesting to see if we will can get even greater scaling beyond 8533MT/s.
2026 ASUS Zenbook S16 (UM5606GA) — what’s not?
Bulkier charging brick
I praised the charger included with the 2024 Zenbook S16, as it was an incredibly compact 65W GaN unit. However, this year ASUS took a step backwards and included a standard charging brick with the 2026 Zenbook S16. It does provide an extra 3W — 68W vs 65W — but I honestly do not see the point. Considering that the new processor is clearly more efficient, ASUS could have easily just included the older, more compact charger instead of this unsightly thing. Luckily, the laptop does support USB-PD charging, so you can just get one of the great USB-PD chargers we have reviewed here at HelloExpress.
2026 ASUS Zenbook S16 (UM5606GA) Specifications
| Processor | AMD Ryzen AI 9 465, 10C/20T (4 Zen 5 + 6 Zen 5c) @ up to 5.0GHz 24MB L3 cache 28W TDP 4nm TSMC |
| Memory | 32GB LPDDR5X-8533, 128-bit, on-board 136.53GB/s bandwidth |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon 880M, 12CU @ up to 2.9GHz |
| Storage | 1TB Sandisk PC SN5100S (M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD, NVMe 2.0) |
| Display | 16-inch 3K 16:10 (2880 x 1800) 120Hz OLED Samsung SDC422C 1100 nits peak brightness, 100% DCI-P3 gamut, PANTONE Validated 90% screen-to-body ratio Touch & stylus input supported |
| Connectivity | WiFi 7 + Bluetooth 5.4 (MediaTek Filogic 360) 2 x USB4 (40Gbps) with display-out, USB-PD 1 x USB-A (USB 3.2 Gen 2, 10Gbps) 1 x HDMI 2.1 (TMDS) SD 4.0 card reader 1 x 3.5mm combo jack |
| Audio | Built-in six speaker system with Smart Amp Technology harman/kardon (Premium) Built-in array microphone |
| Power | 83WHr 4-cell Li-ion battery 68W USB-C power adapter |
| Dimensions | 353.6 x 243.0 x 12.9 mm |
| Weight | 1.5kg |
| Included Accessories | N/A |
2026 ASUS Zenbook S16 (UM5606GA) — should you get this?
The battery life is even more impressive than before, and we have a new ludicrously bright display as well. Kudos to ASUS Malaysia for keeping the price of the 2026 Zenbook S16 the same as the previous generation at RM7,999, while sprinkling in the upgrades. Not too happy about the charger, but hey, you win some, you lose some, I guess? I think it goes without saying that there really isn’t much reason to upgrade to the 2026 ASUS Zenbook S16 (UM5606GA) if you already own the 2024 model.
Just like the 2024 Zenbook S16, if you’re looking for a premium 16-inch laptop that can easily power through your workdays, this will be the one to go for. Compared to the previous generation, performance is still very capable despite the downgrade on paper, and the new design is definitely cleaner, although whether it’s an improvement is going to be pretty subjective. Unless you can somehow find the 2024 Zenbook S16 for substantially less, the 2026 Zenbook S16 (UM5606GA) is going to be the 16-inch laptop to get.
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