I found a laptop for creators that rivals the 16-inch MacBook Pro, but it costs half the price

I also appreciate that this laptop is not a 2-in-1. Convertible laptops are often forced to switch to tablet mode if you want to use them with a stylus, as pressing on the display in laptop mode pushes it down unless you’re supporting it with your hand. 

The ProArt P16 was designed with this in mind, as the display locks into place at its furthest angle. Instead of folding back from the pressure of the pen, it stays upright with a generous degree of bend. Just keep in mind that pushing back too hard will result in the front of the device lifting off of the desk. 

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The Asus DialPad is another unique feature that creatives will love to tinker with. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s a small, raised wheel on the trackpad that can be customized to activate different settings, like changing brush sizes in Photoshop or cutting, pausing, or rewinding in CapCut or Premiere. The DialPad’s small physical size makes activating and scrolling through the “wheel” fast and easy, especially for common features.

The other Asus programs that come with the laptop have varying degrees of usefulness, not to mention they were rather slow to fire up. Asus’ “Muse Tree“, for example, took an unexpectedly long time to install and get going. I had a chance to go hands-on with this app previously, and although it’s a very cool idea, I’m still on the fence regarding its usefulness. 

The high-end and satisfying keyboard has absolutely silent keys. Similarly, the trackpad is massive, extending from the keyboard to the edge of the device, and has a velvety matte texture. One downside is that I had some trouble getting it to function at a high capacity in a particularly cold office. If your hands are on the cold side, you might experience some slow responses. 

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This could potentially be adjusted with optimization, which is the other big thing I’d like to mention about this laptop. In my experience, Asus laptops across the board respond particularly well to optimization settings. The ProArt P16 is a perfect example of this; different profiles or settings parameters can drastically affect performance, ranging from battery life to speed and responsiveness.

This also applies to Windows updates, particularly when it comes to demanding workloads. When I first fired up this laptop, for example, its performance was noticeably worse until I went through the series of Windows updates for the OS, updated drivers, and followed up with the list of updates in the MyAsus app. 

The P16’s performance improved after I took the time to update it, and it was then optimized further once I got used to the DialPad and configured the trackpad and power profiles.