In 2017, Asus wowed us with an ultra-thin gaming laptop that got thicker when you opened the lid, opening a giant hidden trapdoor to keep its uncharacteristically large GPU cool. But the original Zephyrus also committed the cardinal sin of joining the keyboard-in-the-front club — and the new $2,599 Asus ZenBook Pro 16X OLED, announced today, might finally right that wrong.

Instead of lifting the entire laptop like the Zephyrus or, say, lifting a big strip of touchscreen like the ZenBook Pro Duo, the new 16-inch laptop lifts its entire keyboard tray when you lift the lid.


The lift is mechanically connected to the hinge.
Image: Asus; GIF by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Asus says this fancy hinge gives the laptop’s Core i9 CPU and RTX 3060 GPU a combined 140W of thermal headroom — even though its chassis is just 16.9mm (0.67 inches) thick.

And that’s just the start of what sounds like one of the most premium ultrathin laptops we’ve ever laid eyes on. I’ll spend a little time going into detail, but here’s a TL;DR chart:

The ZenBook Pro 16X OLED’s standout features are that fancy hinge, 4K 16:10 OLED screen, and jog dial, but there’s a lot more in here.
Image: Asus

Yeah, an Nvidia RTX 3060 isn’t the most…



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