The Riff Report Creator Tech Review
When your average working day involves thousands of RAW photographs, 4K multicam timelines, Lightroom catalogues the size of small countries and enough Adobe applications open simultaneously to make your taskbar beg for mercy, an ordinary laptop simply isn’t going to cut it.
Enter the ASUS ProArt P16.
ASUS has designed the ProArt range specifically around photographers, filmmakers, video editors, designers and other creative professionals, and the P16 sits very much towards the serious end of that spectrum.
This isn’t a colourful RGB-covered gaming monster pretending to be a workstation.
It’s understated, beautifully built, absolutely stacked with hardware and available with NVIDIA graphics all the way up to the frankly ridiculous GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU.
But with UK configurations stretching from roughly £2,500 to more than £4,000, this is serious money.
So is the ASUS ProArt P16 actually worth buying for photographers and videographers?
Let’s fire up Lightroom, throw a massive timeline at DaVinci Resolve and find out. 🤘
💻 ASUS ProArt P16: The Quick Verdict
The ASUS ProArt P16 is one of the strongest Windows laptops currently available for professional photography and video production.
Its combination of a superb OLED display, powerful AMD Ryzen AI processors, NVIDIA RTX graphics, high memory capacities, fast SSD storage and genuinely useful creator-focused connectivity makes it feel less like a normal laptop and more like a portable editing workstation.
The current ProArt P16 family reaches as high as an RTX 5090 Laptop GPU with 24GB GDDR7, while selected configurations offer a 4K 3840 × 2400 OLED touchscreen running at 120Hz, 100% DCI-P3 coverage and HDR peak brightness rated as high as 1,600 nits.
That’s monster territory.
For most photographers, though, the RTX 5090 model is complete overkill.
For photographers who also produce video, we’d be looking much more closely at the RTX 5070 or RTX 5070 Ti versions, preferably combined with 64GB RAM and at least 2TB of storage.
That’s where the ProArt P16 begins to make a huge amount of sense.
⭐ The Riff Report Rating
CategoryRatingPhotography⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/54K Video Editing⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/58K / Heavy Effects⭐⭐⭐⭐½ 4.5/5Display⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5Build Quality⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5Connectivity⭐⭐⭐⭐½ 4.5/5Portability⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5Battery Life⭐⭐⭐½ 3.5/5Value⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5Overall⭐⭐⭐⭐½ 4.5/5
The Riff Report Verdict: CREATOR APPROVED 🤘📸🎬
🖤 Design – Professional Rather Than Look-At-Me
The first thing you notice about the ProArt P16 is how little it looks like a laptop containing this much horsepower.
There’s no glowing dragon.
No RGB light show.
No enormous vents making it look like Darth Vader’s toaster.
Instead, ASUS has gone with a minimalist Nano Black design that feels far more appropriate when you’re sitting backstage editing photographs, handing a machine to a client or working inside a production studio.
Independent testing has praised the P16’s premium construction, and the machine weighs around 1.85kg in commonly tested configurations — impressive considering the performance hardware stuffed inside.
It’s certainly not MacBook Air territory, but neither is it a massive desktop-replacement gaming machine.
For photographers carrying camera bodies, lenses, batteries and enough accessories to open a small branch of Jessops, every gram matters.
The P16 strikes a surprisingly good balance.
📸 The Display – This Is Where Things Get Properly Tasty
The display is arguably the biggest reason photographers should pay attention to the ProArt P16.
Depending on configuration, the current range offers either 3K or 4K OLED panels, with selected flagship versions reaching 3840 × 2400 at 120Hz.
ASUS quotes 100% DCI-P3 colour coverage, Pantone validation, a massive 1,000,000:1 OLED contrast ratio and, on higher-end panels, up to 1,600 nits HDR peak brightness.
Independent measurement of an earlier 4K OLED version returned approximately 100% sRGB, 97.2% Adobe RGB and 99.6% DCI-P3 coverage, which is exactly the territory we want to see from a laptop aimed at serious photographic and video work.
For photographers?
Bloody lovely.
Black levels are fantastic because this is OLED, colours have tremendous punch and the resolution gives you enormous detail when examining focus, sharpening, masking and skin retouching.
Editing concert photography should look especially spectacular.
Those deep black stages, coloured lights, smoke, spotlights and bright highlights are exactly the sort of imagery that makes OLED technology flex its muscles.
For Lightroom and Photoshop work, this display is one of the P16’s biggest weapons.
🎬 For Videographers – OLED Makes Even More Sense
Video editors arguably benefit even more.
Having 100% DCI-P3 coverage alongside OLED-level blacks makes the P16 extremely attractive for colour grading.
HDR footage also looks spectacular on the higher-specification panels.
That doesn’t mean we’d ditch a properly calibrated reference monitor for major commercial grading work.
But for YouTube production, documentaries, music videos, wedding videography, festival content, promotional material and location editing?
This screen is excellent.
The 16:10 aspect ratio is another little win.
You get slightly more vertical workspace than a traditional 16:9 display, giving applications such as Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve more breathing room.
Timeline editors love breathing room.
🪞 One Display Problem – Reflections
OLED touchscreen laptops normally come with one unavoidable enemy.
Reflections.
Earlier ProArt P16 reviews specifically criticised the glossy panel for being reflective, particularly when working around bright lighting or outdoors.
ASUS has improved matters on newer high-end versions with anti-reflection treatment, but outdoor editing is still never going to feel quite as comfortable as sitting in a controlled editing environment.
If you’re editing photographs beside a festival stage while the August sun is attempting to cook you alive, reflections could become annoying.
Inside a media tent?
Absolutely fine.
⚡ Performance – Welcome To The Portable Studio
This is where the P16 stops being pretty and starts swinging enormous computational elbows.
Current configurations combine high-end AMD Ryzen AI processors with NVIDIA RTX graphics extending through the RTX 5060, 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080 and 5090 Laptop GPUs. The flagship RTX 5090 configuration carries a whopping 24GB of GDDR7 VRAM.
That means we’re dealing with hardware capable of taking on Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, After Effects, Blender and AI-enhanced creative applications without behaving like it’s about to spontaneously combust.
A tested RTX 5070 configuration scored 8,841 in PugetBench Photoshop, 10,488 in Premiere Pro and 7,355 in DaVinci Resolve, while reviewers found the RTX 5070 generation around 10–15% ahead of the previous RTX 4070 P16 in graphics-heavy workloads.
Another independent review found Photoshop handling dozens of layers comfortably and Premiere Pro remaining smooth with extremely large projects.
Translation?
This thing shifts.
📷 Lightroom Classic – Exactly The Sort Of Machine It Wants
Lightroom performance depends heavily upon CPU speed, memory, storage and GPU acceleration.
The ProArt P16 has all four covered.
Imports are fast.
Preview generation should be rapid.
Moving between high-resolution RAW files feels responsive.
AI-powered masking, subject detection and denoise operations benefit from the NVIDIA GPU.
Panoramas and HDR merges have plenty of CPU muscle available.
A previous ProArt P16 test using 24MP RAW files produced a five-exposure HDR preview in around four seconds and completed the merge in roughly eleven seconds.
Obviously performance varies depending upon file size, catalogue size and configuration, but we’re firmly into professional workstation territory here.
For somebody returning from a festival with 3,000–6,000 photographs, that performance matters enormously.
Saving two seconds here and five seconds there soon becomes hours across an entire editing weekend.
🖼 Photoshop – Bring The Layers
Photoshop is another fantastic fit.
Massive PSD files?
No drama.
Frequency separation?
Fine.
Dozens of adjustment layers?
Go nuts.
Generative tools?
The RTX hardware helps there too.
The touchscreen also introduces another option because the display supports stylus input.
That won’t suddenly replace a dedicated Wacom tablet for every professional retoucher, but being able to paint masks, make selections or perform quick edits directly on the screen is genuinely useful.
🎞 Premiere Pro – This Is Where NVIDIA Starts Earning Its Keep
If you’re editing video, we’d strongly recommend choosing an NVIDIA-equipped ProArt P16 rather than judging configurations purely by CPU specification.
Current RTX 50-series models support hardware-accelerated workflows including 10-bit 4:2:2 video, modern encoding/decoding and AV1 capabilities. ASUS specifically pitches the platform at multi-track 4K and 8K production.
This can make an enormous difference with modern mirrorless footage.
Throw in colour correction, Lumetri effects, graphics, transitions and adjustment layers and the GPU quickly becomes your best mate.
For straightforward 4K YouTube production, an RTX 5060 is already capable.
For demanding professional production, we’d jump to the RTX 5070 or higher.
🎨 DaVinci Resolve – Get As Much GPU As You Can Afford
Resolve changes the buying calculation slightly.
DaVinci Resolve absolutely loves GPU horsepower.
Noise reduction, Magic Mask, Fusion, optical flow, effects and high-resolution timelines can swallow VRAM like festival punters attacking the burger van after eight pints.
This is where the RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 models become much easier to justify.
The current GPU options scale from 8GB VRAM on RTX 5060/5070, through 12GB on RTX 5070 Ti, 16GB on RTX 5080, all the way to 24GB on RTX 5090.
That distinction matters far more than marketing numbers suggest.
If you’re mainly producing ordinary 4K projects, 8GB is perfectly workable.
If your world contains heavy Fusion compositions, AI effects, 8K footage or serious noise reduction, we’d strongly consider 12GB or 16GB minimum.
🎥 4K Editing – Absolutely
For regular 4K production the ProArt P16 is almost hilariously capable.
A typical Riff Report workflow involving multicamera gig footage, H.264/H.265 files, colour correction, audio processing, titles, photos and graphics wouldn’t worry a sensible RTX 5070 configuration.
And that’s arguably the smartest place to put your money.
You don’t need an RTX 5090 to edit a three-camera interview.
That would be like buying a Ferrari because Tesco is three streets away.
Fun?
Definitely.
Necessary?
Not quite.
🎬 8K Editing – Now The Big GPUs Make Sense
8K is where specification choices start becoming more important.
Yes, the ProArt P16 can absolutely work with 8K material.
The RTX 50-series generation has been designed with high-resolution creator workflows in mind, and ASUS specifically highlights multiple hardware encode/decode capabilities on higher-end configurations.
But we’d want serious RAM and VRAM.
For professional 8K work we’d be looking at:
64GB system RAM, RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 graphics and at least 2TB of internal SSD storage.
At that point, the P16 starts becoming a genuine mobile workstation rather than simply a fast creator laptop.
🧠 32GB Or 64GB RAM?
This one’s easy.
For photography alone?
32GB is excellent.
Lightroom, Photoshop and Photo Mechanic will all be perfectly happy for the overwhelming majority of photographers.
For photography alongside Premiere or Resolve?
We’d seriously consider 64GB.
For After Effects, Fusion, enormous panoramas, large Photoshop composites, multiple creative applications running simultaneously or serious 8K workflows?
Get 64GB.
And decide before buying.
The RAM on reviewed ProArt P16 configurations is onboard rather than something you can simply upgrade later.
That makes 64GB particularly attractive if you’re buying the machine with the intention of keeping it for four or five years.
💾 Storage – Creatives Will Fill It Alarmingly Quickly
Video editors know the pain.
You buy a 2TB drive.
You feel unstoppable.
Six months later you’ve got 74GB free and no idea what happened.
The ProArt P16 can be configured with substantial SSD storage, with current ASUS specifications reaching as high as 4TB PCIe 4.0 SSD capacity.
There are also two M.2 storage slots in reviewed models, giving the P16 a meaningful upgrade path for storage.
For photographers we’d consider 1TB the minimum and 2TB preferable.
For videographers?
Start at 2TB.
You’ll still end up owning several external SSDs because apparently that’s the law.
💳 The SD Card Reader – THANK YOU, ASUS
Photographers!
Gather around.
Someone remembered that cameras still exist.
The ProArt P16 includes a proper SD Express 7.0 card reader, rated by ASUS at up to 985MB/s.
That means one less dongle hanging from the side of the laptop when you’re trying to ingest photographs in a media room.
And we bloody love that.
There is one catch.
Many professional cameras now use CFexpress Type A or Type B, and there is no built-in CFexpress reader.
Sony, Canon, Nikon and dedicated cinema-camera users may therefore still need an external reader depending upon the camera.
Even so, including a full-sized high-speed SD reader immediately makes the ProArt P16 more photographer-friendly than an awful lot of expensive laptops.
🔌 Ports – Dongle Life Is Kept Under Control
Connectivity is another major strength.
You get USB4, USB-C, two USB-A connections, HDMI 2.1, audio and that SD Express card reader, alongside Wi-Fi 7 on current models.
That means you can connect:
camera card reader,
external SSD,
second monitor,
audio interface,
graphics tablet,
camera,
and various other bits of creative nonsense without immediately needing a £150 docking station.
There is no built-in Ethernet port, though, so photographers transmitting huge galleries from venues over wired networks may still need a USB-C Ethernet adapter.
🎛 ASUS DialPad – Gimmick Or Actually Useful?
Hidden inside the enormous touchpad is ASUS’s virtual DialPad.
Think of it as a programmable rotary controller.
In Photoshop you can assign it to things such as brush size.
In Premiere it can control timeline functions.
Other creative tools can be mapped through ASUS Creator Hub.
Some reviewers love it.
Others aren’t convinced it’s something they’ll use every day.
We’re somewhere in the middle.
It’s not a reason to buy the laptop.
But once you’ve customised it around your own editing workflow, it could become one of those features you unexpectedly miss when switching computers.
And that’s usually the sign of a decent idea.
🔥 Cooling – All That Power Has To Go Somewhere
You cannot stuff desktop-class creative performance into a thin chassis and expect the laws of physics to politely leave the room.
The P16 uses a sophisticated cooling system with multiple fans and heat-management technology.
Under demanding workloads, expect to hear it.
Independent testing recorded roughly 45dBA in Performance mode, around 40dBA in Standard mode and below 35dBA using Whisper mode.
The good news is that Standard mode retains a surprising amount of the machine’s performance while keeping fan noise considerably more civilised.
For photo editing, Standard is probably where we’d live most of the time.
For exports and renders?
Performance mode.
Let the little bugger breathe.
🔋 Battery Life – The Price Of Performance
Here’s the area where the ProArt P16 isn’t quite such a superstar.
Battery life varies enormously depending on configuration, screen resolution, power mode and workload.
Independent testing has produced results ranging from around four hours on some 4K RTX 5070 configurations to a little over six hours in lighter video-loop testing.
That’s acceptable for a machine this powerful.
But it’s not an all-day battery champion.
And once you begin exporting video or running sustained GPU workloads, expect battery life to disappear significantly faster.
For writing, emails, selects and lightweight Lightroom work on location?
Fine.
For editing a four-camera 4K concert for six hours?
Find a plug.
🔌 USB-C Charging Helps
Thankfully, the ProArt P16 supports USB-C Power Delivery charging up to 100W on tested configurations.
That’s useful while travelling.
A smaller USB-C charger can keep you going during light work without carrying the full ASUS power brick everywhere.
Just remember that 100W USB-C won’t unlock the same sustained CPU/GPU performance available from the full charger.
For hardcore editing, plug the proper brick in.
🔊 Speakers – Surprisingly Excellent
Laptop speakers normally exist somewhere between “perfectly acceptable” and “angry bee trapped inside a biscuit tin”.
The P16 is considerably better.
It uses a six-speaker system, and independent testing has described the audio as among the better experiences available from a Windows laptop.
We still wouldn’t mix the next Iron Maiden record through laptop speakers.
But for quickly checking interview audio, rough edits or watching content in a hotel room, they’re genuinely useful.
📹 Webcam & Meetings
There’s an FHD/2MP webcam with infrared support for Windows Hello on tested configurations.
It’s adequate.
Nothing more.
If you’re producing proper video content, you’re obviously going to connect a real camera.
You’re a photographer.
There’s probably one within six feet of you anyway.
🤖 AI – Useful, But Don’t Buy It For The Buzzwords
ASUS understandably makes a big noise about AI.
Current Ryzen AI processors include dedicated NPUs rated around 50 TOPS, while NVIDIA GPUs accelerate an increasingly large collection of AI-powered creative tools.
The NPU itself isn’t the reason we’d buy the P16.
The NVIDIA GPU is far more interesting today for creators.
AI denoising, upscaling, masking, generative tools, transcription, enhancement and video effects are increasingly becoming normal parts of Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere, Resolve and Topaz workflows.
And that’s where an RTX-equipped machine starts paying back the investment.
🎒 Working On Location
For event photographers, gig shooters and videographers, portability isn’t just about weight.
It’s about whether the laptop works when you’re nowhere near your lovely editing desk.
And this is where the P16 makes a strong case for itself.
At around 1.85kg in commonly reviewed configurations, you can realistically carry it inside a camera backpack alongside equipment.
You get the SD reader.
You get a proper keyboard.
You’ve got a huge 16-inch display.
You’ve got enough CPU and GPU power to edit without creating proxies for every single project.
That’s a seriously useful combination for festivals.
Shoot band.
Return to media tent.
Insert card.
Ingest.
Cull.
Edit.
Export.
Upload.
Back out for the next band.
That’s exactly the sort of workflow the ProArt P16 was born for.
🎸 Gig & Festival Photographers – This Could Be A Monster
For our particular world here at The Riff Report, the P16 makes enormous sense.
Concert photographers routinely deal with:
high ISO RAW files,
aggressive noise reduction,
rapid deadlines,
thousands of images,
mixed lighting,
heavy masking,
FTP or cloud delivery,
and editors screaming “HOW LONG UNTIL THE GALLERY IS LIVE?”
A Ryzen AI 9 processor paired with RTX graphics and 32–64GB RAM can absolutely chew through that workload.
And that OLED screen should make concert photography look utterly gorgeous.
Black backgrounds.
Red stage lights.
Blue wash.
Pyro.
LED walls.
Sweat.
Smoke.
Flying hair.
Flying beer.
Beautiful.
🎬 Music Videographers – Even Better
If you’re producing interviews, live sessions, multicamera gigs, promotional videos or festival highlights, the P16 arguably becomes even more appealing.
NVIDIA acceleration inside Premiere and Resolve can drastically improve heavier workflows.
And if your production increasingly includes AI noise reduction, motion graphics, stabilisation, tracking or high-resolution footage, stepping up through the GPU range becomes genuinely worthwhile.
For a professional music-content operation we’d probably take an RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5080 machine before going completely bananas with the 5090.
💰 Which ASUS ProArt P16 Should You Buy?
This is the important bit.
📸 Photographer
RTX 5060 + 32GB RAM + 1TB/2TB SSD
This is already an extremely capable Lightroom and Photoshop machine.
Don’t spend another grand on graphics power you’ll barely use.
📸🎬 Photographer + Videographer
RTX 5070 + 32GB or preferably 64GB RAM + 2TB SSD
This is probably the sweet spot.
Fantastic photography performance plus enough GPU horsepower for proper 4K video production.
🎥 Professional Video Editor
RTX 5070 Ti / RTX 5080 + 64GB RAM + 2–4TB SSD
Now we’re talking.
The additional VRAM becomes genuinely useful for Resolve, Fusion, effects-heavy Premiere projects and high-resolution productions.
🎬 8K / VFX / 3D / AI Professional
RTX 5090 + 64GB RAM + 4TB SSD
Absolute monster.
Also absolute monster money.
Buy this because your work pays for it, not because the number 5090 makes your inner nerd start vibrating.
🍎 What About A MacBook Pro?
Ah yes.
The inevitable fight.
The MacBook Pro remains the obvious alternative for creative professionals, especially those already living inside Apple’s ecosystem.
But the ProArt P16 has some seriously attractive advantages.
You get NVIDIA CUDA acceleration.
You get broader Windows software flexibility.
You get a touchscreen.
You get the ASUS DialPad.
You get proper USB-A connections.
You get powerful RTX GPU options.
And you get an SD card reader.
The MacBook can counter with fantastic efficiency, great displays, superb build quality and generally excellent battery behaviour.
There’s no universal winner.
It comes down to workflow.
For Adobe, DaVinci Resolve, 3D and AI-heavy creators who specifically want NVIDIA graphics?
The P16 becomes incredibly compelling.
✅ Pros & ❌ Cons
🤘 The Good Stuff💀 The Not-So-Good StuffOutstanding OLED screenExpensiveExcellent colour gamutBattery isn’t class-leadingExtremely powerful CPUsHigh-performance modes get noisyRTX 50-series GPU optionsGlossy/touch panels can reflectUp to RTX 5090RAM isn’t something we’d plan to upgrade laterSuperb Lightroom performanceNo built-in EthernetFantastic Premiere/Resolve potentialCFexpress users still need a readerSD Express 7.0 readerHigh-end models are overkill for photographersUSB4 + HDMI 2.1Full charger adds travel weightLarge touchscreen16 inches isn’t ultra-portableStylus supportUp to 64GB RAMLarge SSD configurationsExcellent build qualityUnderstated professional designSurprisingly good speakers
🏆 The Riff Report Verdict
The ASUS ProArt P16 is a belter of a creative laptop.
It’s powerful enough to replace a desktop workstation for a huge number of photographers and videographers while remaining portable enough to genuinely take on location.
The OLED screen is superb.
The CPU performance is excellent.
The RTX graphics transform video, AI and GPU-heavy creative workflows.
The SD card reader proves somebody at ASUS has actually met a photographer.
And the huge amount of configuration flexibility means you can choose something sensible rather than automatically spending four grand.
There are compromises.
Battery life is merely respectable rather than spectacular.
High-performance modes generate noticeable fan noise.
CFexpress users still need an external reader.
And once you start looking at RTX 5080 and 5090 configurations, we’re talking serious professional-workstation money.
But none of that changes the core conclusion.
📸 For photographers: 9/10
A fantastic portable Lightroom and Photoshop workstation with one of the nicest displays you could ask for.
🎬 For videographers: 9.5/10
Even more impressive. NVIDIA acceleration, massive GPU options and strong connectivity make the P16 a superb mobile editing platform.
🎸 For gig and festival creators: Bloody brilliant.
Throw it into the camera backpack, shoot all day, disappear into the media tent, edit the carnage and get the gallery online before the headliner has finished loading out.
That’s exactly what a creator laptop should allow you to do.
⭐ THE RIFF REPORT SCORE: 9/10
Powerful. Professional. Beautifully specced.
The ASUS ProArt P16 is one of the best Windows laptops currently available for photographers and videographers who need serious editing power away from the studio.
🤘📸🎬💻
