Asus ProArt StudioBook 16 H7600ZW Review: The definitive MacBook Pro alternative for content creators

[S.Yu]

I am a happy possessor of a ProArt (H5600QE - it was difficult to find). I just wanted to add:

• there is a fingerprint reader under the power button
• the trackpad works also as a small pen tablet (I use an ASUS pen SA201H) - I found it useful

...Fun, putting a digitizer in the trackpad, I don't think I've ever heard of such a configuration before...and I doubt its accuracy, I don't know what it's really good for trying to write or draw on a surface less than 1/4th the screen size, mapped to the screen.

[not_anton]

How can a device with malfunctioning touchpad compete with Macbook for a workstation title?
It is literally useless unless you bring a mouse. And then it still burns your eyes with 60Hz flicker.

Ah this "premium" Windows experience...

[Palomino_core]

Hey Notebook Check, were you able to measure the GPU wattage under load? I'm curious if this is a reduced wattage chip, a full power one, or somewhere in between. Thanks.

[Oleksa]

@NikoB:

I don't understand. If you dislike laptops so much, why are you on this site to begin with? Shouldn't you be commenting on a site that reviews desktop parts instead?

And I am grateful to NikoB, saving me a lot of time, I first look to see if he has a review. Then I review the article point by point.
I completely agree with his claims about laptops, I want to see the evolution of laptops, not degradation (driven by marketing).
Today, a laptop for $1,500 must have 4k IPS 144 Hz, 32 GB of RAM (minimum), SSD nvme 1 TB (with several RAM chips).
The cooling system should be quiet, without creaks and sand.
All USB ports are 40gbe, for power there is a duplicate round corner connector (this is not a problem for me, but in the second one, which works on the bed, the USB has already broken twice).
No inflation or crisis is an excuse for high prices for garbage.
Instead (or paired) of HDMI should be DP. The keyboard should be a full-fledged special "arrow" (on a thinkbook g3 in 2 years, I never got used to the truncated ones).
Unfortunately, now there is not even a good laptop (the last ones were legions a couple of years ago). Aggressive criticism of modern laptops objectively taking into account the aggressive marketing of content for the price of gold.

Це тільки в СССР (совку) всі мовчать і не сміють піднімати голову.

[Vaidyanathan]

Hey Notebook Check, were you able to measure the GPU wattage under load? I'm curious if this is a reduced wattage chip, a full power one, or somewhere in between. Thanks.

Yeah it maxes out at 115 W. You can see that in the stress test section.

[Vaidyanathan]

I do wish Notebookcheck would post properly-oriented matrix photos, with no rotation aside from corrective. As it is, it's not clear whether the blues run up and down or left and right, or whether it's the reds or greens on top*. It's worse for RG/BG phones, where a 45-degree rotation can improperly portray such a panel as true RGB.

*The blues do in fact go up and down, in this panel, and the reds are on top.

Thanks for the feedback, Ednumero. Do you have any orientation suggestion to avoid ambiguity?

[Ednumero]

Do you have any orientation suggestion to avoid ambiguity?

I'll give the most thorough answer I can.

Most important to me would be to keep out any orientations that aren't 0/90/180/270 degrees (or very close). With this panel, it doesn't matter as much, because it's reasonably clear that the blues must run either up/down or left/right. But it matters a lot in phones with diagonal RG/BG matrices.

Examples:
- This photo is good, because it clearly shows the diagonality of the matrix: iPhone 14 Plus Review
- This is ambiguous, because it's unclear whether the true alignment is diagonal (=> RG/BG, PenTile) or horizontal/vertical (=> RGGB, full-RGB). Xiaomi 12T Pro 5G Review
- This one makes the phone's display look like true RGB. If the matrix photo is actually tilted 45 degrees versus reality (reality being that it's also PenTile), then it doesn't highlight the issue, and risks presenting the display as something it's not (true RGB). Asus ROG Phone 6D

Second most important, in my eyes, would be to make sure horizontal is horizontal and vertical is vertical.

It seems the first few reviews of this panel did show the correct orientation with respect to X vs Y. However because so many reviews on this site have not shown correct rotations, I wasn't confident until I saw a unit in person. While it's a small detail, I was interested in whether any subtle gaps in solid blue 1px lines would be more prevalent horizontally or vertically. (The blues do run vertically, slight gaps can be seen in 1px blue lines on a black background, but they're a non-issue in practice.)

Thirdly, least important of all but perhaps the easiest to correct, would be 0 vs 180 degree rotations. I'm aware that microscopes like to rotate things 180 degrees, evident by moving the observation target and seeing that the captured image scrolls in the opposite direction. If that's easy to anticipate and correct, then I will leave that to the Notebookcheck team to decide if it's worth watching out for.

Extra:
- This matrix photo is super confusing: ASUS ROG Phone Review Assuming it's the same matrix as the following: Nokia X30 Review then it looks closer to true-RGB at first glance. However checking it with a square selection tool, it appears to have three steps along one axis and only two along another.
- This review doesn't show a matrix! Huawei Mate 50 Pro Review

In general, better analysis on this type of stuff will help consumers become more aware of the issues. Regardless of how a review orients the matrix photo, I don't often see a lot of language to communicate the problems it may have. Advertised display stats are forwarded to the reader without much caution, other than a matrix photo whose rotation may or may not correctly represent the panel. A helpful starter, for example, would be to list "2400(RG/BG) x 1080" rather than "2400x1080" in the applicable locations.

This, in turn, might help steer manufacturers towards producing more options to fill the gaps, which might even make their way to the standard. We saw this with laptop RG/BW panels going away, and the once-ubiquitous low-quality TN laptop panels becoming much less common. I'm hopeful that mobile device PenTile (alongside harsh PWM in all device categories, which this site already does often report on well) can be next.

Finally, if I may tack on an unrelated issue, I did observe that this panel renders almost-black colors far too bright. Black is perfectly black, but very dim colors are represented wildly inconsistently across panel area and brightness settings. Perhaps it's worth replacing the full-black test image in the OLED "backlight"-bleeding tests with one that's almost black instead. I found that a full-screen image of RGB(1, 1, 1) is sufficient to demonstrate the issue, though I suspect up to RGB(8, 8, 8) could help weed out any software "fixes" in place.

[NikoB]

...

I do not need to rotate the photos to immediately understand that the color resolution does not correspond to the black and white. In this case, according to the laptop under discussion, it does not correspond to 100%. Those, manufacturer and author (although he explained his position) deceives the reader with the real color resolution of the laptop screen, which was emphasized by me.

Already only for this, in most cases, on smartphones (especially) and on AMOLED laptops, IPS is obviously in color permission. Not to mention many other shortcomings. AMOLED should cost 1.5 times cheaper than IPS with the same colorspace, and not vice versa.

And the fact that ASUS in cheap laptops began to install AMOLED only proves it - IPS is more expensive and a better screen for eyes.

[Ednumero]

the color resolution does not correspond to the black and white. In this case, according to the laptop under discussion, it does not correspond to 100%.

But it does: one red, one green, and two blue dots per. Each pixel in the grid can be any RGB value it wants.

AMOLED RG/BG panels in phones have one green per, and alternating red/blue. Those are the displays where this is an issue. And photo rotation really does matter there, because a "Diamond" PenTile panel tilted and cropped at 45 degrees looks like it has square RGGB pixels instead of diagonal RG/BG.

It's fair to debate whether the arrangement in this ASUS is good or bad in comparison to the three vertical stripes you tend to see in IPS panels. Especially for text rendering, which has historically been optimized for the latter (=> moreso a software issue, and maybe the situation has improved). But you're not losing subpixels and color resolution like you are on the phone displays.

In addition to dark color rendering, PWM is probably the most significant criticism of this panel for those affected significantly by it (though I must say the aggressive flickering of the keyboard backlight is far worse than anything the display does).

[Ark]

Hi,
will someone of the team quick review the i9-13 / RTX4070 variant of this laptop ?