I would like to run Zorin 16 on an old laptop. I tried 15.3 Lite which performs slightly better than Core on that machine but is not as user-friendly as Core (Nextcloud integration, pretty pane and Zorin Connect, etc.).
15.3 Core was not too bad, actually. Just a little less snappy than Lite. Usable but a little sluggish when it had to perform greater tasks. So I was wondering if v16 Core will be an improvement or if it is "even more" ressource-hungry.
The only way to be sure is to try it out and find out.
In my opinion, Z16 is a faster on my machine than 15.3 was.
That being said... I use Zorin OS lite. Since Z16 Beta is Core, I installed XFCE on it.
I only log into Gnome for testing other user issues.
On Zorin OS Lite; I use Nemo File manager instead of Thunar which easily allows Cloud integration across many services, including Google Drive or whatever:
Zorin Connect is a port of GSConnect which is a port of KDE Connect. So, I install KDEConnect on Zorin Lite and... It's pretty much Identical to Zorin Connect. So if you prefer a lighter desktop, there are options.
I dunno what you mean by "pretty pane".
Oops... I mean pretty panel haha sorry...
Thanks for mentioning these alternatives! I might even stay Lite then 
Ah I see... xfce4-panel is highly configurable... You can set any background image or opacity that you want, position any applet in any place that you want...