Storage benchmarks for both the machines show that the SSDs in the Asus are considerably faster than the one on the Mac, the most pronounced difference visible in the Random Write tests, where the Asus is over three times as fast.
Much of this comparison is academic, however, considering that professionals in the market for a computer like this already have well-settled workflows either in the Mac or Windows ecosystems, and are unlikely to make a switch easily. The Asus does have the added ability to play a wider range of games, if that’s something you’re interested in.
Should you buy it?
If you are a creative professional and have a Windows workflow, this is the best laptop that you can buy in India right now, bar none. Others may launch with even more impressive specs, but none are likely to match this combination of ridiculously powerful internals and superbly crafted interface elements.
What is even more interesting is that Asus offers elements of this laptop in machines costing considerably less. For under Rs 2 lakh, you can get the non Pro Studiobook with the same superb chassis and screen, a Core i7-12700H and an RTX 3060 GPU. I suspect this machine will offer much of the performance of this laptop, at a much lower price.
Even more interesting for creators on a budget is that for well under Rs 1 lakh you can get the Asus Vivobook Pro, which features a similarly specced OLED screen, a Core i5-12450H and an RTX 3050 GPU. I’d be very curious to see how much performance this offers at this price point.
As I had mentioned at the start, the Asus ProArt Studiobook Pro 16 is a halo product. It is the very best that Asus has to offer, and if you have the budget and use-case for it, you should absolutely buy it. But even more interestingly, it shows off what Asus is capable of, and serves as a great advertisement for their other models that sell for considerably less, that people like you and me might think about buying.
This Asus ProArt Studiobook Pro 16 OLED was sent to the reviewer as a loaner unit for review purposes. The unit will be returned upon completion of the review. Asus has been given no advance information about the content of this review and exercises no copy approval.
Contact the author on Twitter.
.