Notebookcheck has published its review of the Asus ProArt P16, and the headline finding is about shape, not silicon: the 16-inch creator laptop is slimmer and more than 300 grams lighter than the current MacBook Pro 16, a design Apple hasn't touched in years.
The review praises the ProArt P16's 4K tandem OLED touchscreen as outstanding, and says the laptop backs that up with an excellent sound system, a keyboard the reviewer rates above the current MacBook Pro's, and a generous port selection that includes a fast SD Express card reader. Notebookcheck frames all of that as reason enough for the ProArt P16 to hold its own against Apple, even before performance enters the conversation.
Performance is where things get less flattering for Asus, at least on paper. The ProArt P16 runs on Nvidia's RTX Spark N1X chip, which Notebookcheck's own testing has already shown trailing Apple's M5 Pro in benchmarks. If rumors about Apple's next move hold up, that gap won't close anytime soon.
A new MacBook is reportedly a week away
Apple is said to be preparing to launch a new MacBook Ultra as early as next week, according to Notebookcheck, which expects it to ship with an OLED touchscreen of its own. The outlet says the laptop is also rumored to get a complete redesign, one it expects to be thinner than the current MacBook Pro, and points to Apple's tandem OLED experience from the iPad Pro as the likely source of the panel technology.
On the chip front, rumors point to the familiar M5 Pro and M5 Max powering the MacBook Ultra, both of which Notebookcheck describes as clearly ahead of the RTX Spark N1X on performance and efficiency. None of this is confirmed by Apple, and Notebookcheck is working from rumors it has not yet verified against an official announcement.
There's a catch buried in the speculation, though. If Apple does make the MacBook Ultra thinner, Notebookcheck says it's an open question whether performance will hold up to the current MacBook Pro or whether Apple will have to trade some of it away for the slimmer body. The outlet notes that the smaller MacBook Pro 14 already runs behind its 16-inch sibling on CPU performance, so a size-driven compromise wouldn't be unprecedented.
None of that changes what's already on sale. The ProArt P16 exists now, with a screen and chassis Notebookcheck rates as genuinely competitive with Apple's current lineup, even if its processor isn't. Whether that calculation survives Apple's next move depends on specs nobody outside Cupertino has confirmed yet, and on a launch date that is still, for now, a rumor rather than an event on the calendar.
CDFiled by The Computing Desk
Laptops, desktops, processors, graphics cards and the operating systems that run on them.
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