When you want a laptop with more power than an ultraportable, but not the bulk of a high-powered gaming machine or mobile workstation, the $1,399.99 Asus Vivobook Pro 16 (K6602) offers extra power for video editing and more intense workloads, like 3D rendering or mathematical modeling. By putting a discrete GPU into a 16-inch desktop replacement, Asus has delivered a prosumer machine for all sorts of users. However, this prosumer desktop replacement can't provide the sort of battery life or performance expected to earn a more positive recommendation, so we instead point you to models like the Dell XPS 15 for that set of needs.
Configuration Options: IPS or OLED?
The 2023 Vivobook Pro 16 comes in many configurations, but two stand out, which respectively include a 1,920-by-1,200-pixel IPS display option (like our K6602 review unit) and a more expensive 3.2K (3,200-by-2,000-pixel) OLED version that sells for $1,699. Neither option includes touch controls.
(Credit: Molly Flores)Both are sold with the 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900H processor, 16GB of memory, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU, and 512GB SSD of solid-state storage. In addition to these options, Asus lists some other configurations with Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors and up to 1TB of storage.
Design: Flash and Function
The Vivobook Pro 16's design looks pretty much identical to the previous year's Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED, measuring 0.79 by 14 by 9.9 inches, and the same 4.2-pound all-metal chassis dressed up with an anodized finish. Our model came in a shade called Quiet Blue, but it's also sold in a finish named Cool Silver. The chassis is sturdy enough, but the lid flexes a bit when you grab it by one corner or the other.
(Credit: Molly Flores)An IPS panel with 1200p resolution, the Vivobook's screen pumps out a bit more than full HD resolution at a 16:10 aspect ratio and at a 120Hz refresh rate. While that's a relatively high-refresh-rate panel, it's not capable of variable refresh rates. The laptop's 1080p webcam comes complete with a built-in privacy shutter and an IR camera for Windows Hello logins. Additionally, the camera records in sharper 1080p resolution than the 720p cameras on many laptops, and the color looks accurate. However, for an FHD camera, the images look a bit flat.
(Credit: Molly Flores)Asus also added several stylized touches, like a raised logo plate on the lid, as well as graphic flourishes on the keyboard, like a red Escape key and eye-catching stripes on the Enter key. Unlike the 2022 model, the keyboard doesn't have a two-toned color scheme but uses standard black keycaps. It's not all superficial, as you'll find a compact numeric pad on the right of the keyboard. The typing action is decent for a chiclet keyboard, with 1.4 millimeters of travel and a substantial rebound after each keystroke. With half-width keys, the numeric pad isn't as comfortable to use as the rest of the keyboard, but the cramped numbers stand in contrast to the generous 5-inch-wide touchpad. With so much room to slide and tap, you'll never feel confined by the touchpad's surface size.
Ports: Connectivity Without Compromise
One upside is that the Vivobook Pro doesn't skimp on connectivity. On the right, you'll find one USB-A port, one USB-C connection, one Thunderbolt 4 port, an HDMI-out connection, and a Gigabit Ethernet jack—all in addition to a power connector. Another USB-A port, an SD card slot, and a 3.5mm audio headset jack sit on the left side.
(Credit: Molly Flores) (Credit: Molly Flores)The system has both Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless connectivity. For such a thin desktop replacement, this Vivobook truly has every connection and input covered.
Testing the Asus Vivobook Pro 16: Capable But Not Competitive
While it's outfitted with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU otherwise used for gaming, the Vivobook Pro is intended for video editing and other workloads, much like the similarly equipped HP Envy 16 (2023) and the Editors' Choice-award-holding 2023 Dell XPS 15. In fact, Asus doesn't even include the gaming drivers you would normally expect with a mobile GPU, instead opting for Nvidia Studio, which is aimed at creators and other professionals, or students who need the additional computing muscle of a GPU without the expense of a full-blown workstation.
That makes it an ideal option for college students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) fields, where the GPU can be leveraged for anything from heavy stats analysis to machine learning and rendering complex 3D models. As a result, we also tested it like a workstation laptop, putting it through its paces against systems like the HP ZBook Studio G9 along with media creation laptops like the MSI Stealth 14 Studio.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests
We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive. (See more about how we test laptops.)
Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).
Normally, we also run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor and an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters. However, due to some compatibility issues between our test and some Windows 11 implementations, the older version of Photoshop needed to run the benchmark didn't work on the Vivobook Pro 16.
The Vivobook's Core i9 processor didn't give us much worry about how it would do in general productivity, and the test results bear it out. In PCMark, we consider 4,000 points a baseline for everyday office productivity, but the Vivobook Pro doubled that score, proving that it will handle everything from office tasks to complex media creation with ease—at least compared with the average laptop.
Individually speaking, the laptop's scores in Geekbench and Cinebench indicate plenty of power for both multitasking and pure processing muscle, and its HandBrake time proves it will handle video workloads. However, the Vivobook placed last in two of three of these aforementioned benchmarks, by semi-narrow margins but beyond the margin of error. Sure, the Vivobook will get you through these tasks with relative ease, it won't be quite as fast as even the HP Envy 16, which also has higher-performing storage inside, much less the class-leading XPS 15 and ZBook Studio.
Graphics and Workstation Tests
For all laptops, we run synthetic gaming and graphics benchmarks. The first includes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5 comes next, which we use to gauge OpenGL performance. These GFXBench tests are rendered offscreen to accommodate different native display resolutions; more frames per second (fps) means higher performance.
Because the Vivobook isn't a gaming laptop—remember, it doesn't even ship with gaming drivers installed—we skipped our usual gaming tests, opting instead to put the system through additional stress testing in our workstation benchmarks. More on that in the next section.
In comparison with a proper gaming laptop that could run on a total graphics power (TGP) ranging from 100 to 140 watts, the TGP for the Vivobook Pro 16 sits at just 65W. While that's not a drastic difference from other media creation machines, it puts a lid on the potential performance of the Vivobook Pro's 4060 card for gaming.
What you end up with is a laptop that isn't primarily built for gaming performance but rather is intended for other visually demanding tasks, like video editing or 3D rendering. As a result, the Vivobook serves as a capable replacement for a work- or- school-focused desktop, with capabilities that come close to a full-fledged workstation (which would require independent software vendor certification of the hardware for reliability). It easily beats less-powerful systems without dedicated GPUs as a machine for media editing, but other competitors actually produce faster results.
However, even in pure 3D graphics performance, the Vivobook fell short. In the 3DMark benchmark, its scores demonstrated competence but were consistently in the bottom of the range. While you'll get enough power here to engage in casual gaming during off hours, again, this is not a gaming laptop.
An example of this contrast can be seen in GFXBench, where the Vivobook yielded a score of 372 frames per second (fps) in the less demanding Car Chase subtest. That's far from disappointing, but it lagged well behind also-RTX 4060-equipped competitors like the HP Envy 16 and the MSI Stealth 14 Studio.
Workstation Tests
We run two additional programs to simulate workstation applications. The first, Blender, is an open-source 3D suite for modeling, animation, simulation, and compositing. We record the time it takes for its built-in Cycles path tracer to render two photo-realistic scenes of BMW cars, one using the system's CPU and one the GPU (lower times are better).
Our most important workstation test, SPECviewperf 2020, renders, rotates, and zooms in and out of solid and wireframe models using viewsets from popular independent software vendor (ISV) apps. We run the 1080p resolution tests based on PTC's Creo CAD platform; Autodesk's Maya modeling and simulation software for film, TV, and games; and the SolidWorks 3D rendering package by Dassault Systemes. The more frames per second, the better.
Because the Vivobook is directly positioned for both media creation and STEM workflows, we also tried it out in our workstation tests, and it performed fairly well. In Blender, it produced decent (though not leading) render times. Then, in SPECviewperf 2020, it actually outperformed the HP ZBook Studio G9 in both the Maya and Solidworks simulation tests. If you are a college student that needs a machine to handle projects in CAD, Solidworks, or other 3D design programs, the Vivobook will definitely get the job done. The GPU can also power non-visual tasks, like machine learning, statistical analysis, and mathematical modeling.
Battery and Display Tests
We test laptop battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
Additionally, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
For all of the Vivobook's positive qualities, it has sorely lacking battery life. In our video run down test, which does not put a significant load on either the processing or graphics hardware, it ran down the battery in just 2 hours 38 minutes. By comparison, other desktop replacements, like the Dell XPS 15 and HP Envy 16, stretched the battery life to 14 and 15 hours, respectively. If you need the power that the Asus Vivobook Pro 16 (K6602) has, plan on bringing your charger everywhere you go. Even a simple session of video editing will run down this battery quickly.
People working with video and photos will also appreciate the laptop's display, which is Pantone validated for color coverage right out of the box. It's not the best panel we've seen, though with the naked eye you'll find little to complain about. Our test numbers show it was neither the brightest nor the widest in color of the bunch, delivering 100% SRGB color, but only 76% DCI-P3 color. But that puts it right in line with competitors like the HP Envy 16, and it will be more than adequate for all but the most discerning film editors and graphic designers.
(Credit: Molly Flores)Verdict: Just Good Enough for Its Niche, But Far From the Best
In the ever-evolving landscape of laptops designed for specialized tasks, the Asus Vivobook Pro 16 (K6602) emerges as a decent contender for media creators and STEM students. By fusing a discrete GPU (with specific drivers) and potent processing into a slim shell, it fills a gap between powerful work machines and thin-and-light models. While it has enough power for both media creation and even near-workstation performance for machine learning and other tasks, it's far from the best in this niche, and the super short battery life limits it to stationary use. The Asus Vivobook Pro 16 (K6602) has just capable performance, and that's not enough in a prosumer category where excellence is expected. However, its ultimate Achilles' heel, lacking battery life, makes this Vivobook hard to recommend over most other desktop replacement laptops. Instead, you'll get better value from competitors like the HP Envy 16 (2023) and especially the Editors' Choice-award-holding Dell XPS 15.
