ASUS - ROG Zephyrus 15.6" QHD Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 9 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 - 1TB SSD

This laptop is a great example of a balance between a portable laptop on the go and a great powerful beast for gaming/ heavy workloads. The thing it isn't perfect with possible major flaws. Like your first love in school with your girlfriend/boyfriend, you may find great things but uncover the bad after being deeply together after a while. Ill list the Pros and Cons since there is a lot to cover. Pros: 1. The design is good with a great metal feel on the lid and a trackpad that is similar to the Microsoft Surface. The device is very portable and the charger is really compact with not a lot of weight. I usually carry my laptop to worksites once a week and it is barely noticeable. 2. Great battery life. Able to get around 6 hours on ASUS silent mode with mix office work and Teams conferencing. 3. Great gaming performance all around. Time Spy hits average 9723 while Firestrike hits 22359 benchmark score. These scores in comparison is about 12% slower than an RTX 2080 desktop with an i9. For gaming with an external monitor I was able to get 90 FPS average on Ultra 1080P with GTA 5, COD Warzone at max setting 1080P no raytracing was averaging about 80 FPS, FF15 with hairworks off on ultra 1080P was getting about 88 FPS average. That is great results for a 4 lbs. laptop as most laptops can't even come close to these results. 4. The built in 2k screen is fast and colors are almost as accurate as my external 4k monitor. Still needs to be calibrated for actual color work related tasks but for most gamers this should be a fine great panel. 5. Low power draw is something that people really don't mention since I guess people just don't pay for electricity? This laptop has an average power draw of about 130 Watts when gaming which makes it very attractive for people who don't want to spend a lot on utilities for people who want to be more environmentally conscious. Could also be a good option for hash mining if you live in an area that has low electric costs but I can't confirm since I don't mine. Cons: 1. When using it as a workstation connected to 2 monitors with the lid closed, the device will go to Sleep when pushing the CPU/GPU which indicates an overheat. The temps seem to be fine when I monitor (hits around 87 C on CPU and 82 on GPU) but it seems that there is something that is baking inside that forces it to sleep. I was able to remedy this issue by using a cooling pad and adjusting the laptop fan curve to be a lot higher that what it supposed to be. This is a disappointing one since with the Dell and HP I used to own, I would just have to use a cooling pad in the workstation area and it would work with no issues. 2. Speakers are alright. It has good sound but sometimes on bass, it will have a very light pop noise. Kind of annoying for an expensive laptop of this caliber. 3. I know this doesn't have a webcam but it is annoying to lug a webcam around to when using it for Teams conferencing. Yes I know most laptop webcams suck but it's better than no webcam and ASUS could have change the game by adding a good webcam similar to my work loaned Microsoft Surface. The kicker is that ASUS feature their "amazing noise canceling" mic which is decent but not a replacement for a dedicated mic. What's the point of adding a mic to the laptop if there's no webcam..... 4. Minor issue of one 8 RAM module being soldered to the mainboard which means max upgrade is 24 GB of RAM (16 GB dual channel + 8 GB single channel). For an enthusiast gaming laptop, this is slightly disappointing and will dissuade some customers who need 32 GB of dual channel RAM for heavy workloads. Overall this is a good portable laptop with great performance in which to be honest will fit with the majority of people use case. There is a much darker picture I have to paint though. Questionable QC is my concern since I actually exchanged the laptop with the same model. The previous laptop had random blue screen issues when on battery power and had a really bad blown out right speaker that would pop and scratch during certain noises. Since this laptop is a new design for ASUS, I would recommend to test every feature of this laptop since there is a chance of possible defects. Since I tested what I could on this second laptop and seems to be fine, I will be keeping this for many years to come.

I'm sure there will be plenty of in depth breakdowns of this laptop and its variants in the coming days. I wanted to address reasons why I chose this laptop over any of the others in the 30 series laptop launch, more expensive models and the previous gen. In my personal experience it's hard to get this kind of performance for the price in any package. The AMD chipset was a hard requirement for me. AMD has been blowing up the CPU market and to go for a rtx 30 series GPU with an Intel series CPU would have just been leaving performance on the table for lost money. Passmark with no changes to the laptop (performance, turbo mode, etc) are attached. Can you squeeze more performance out of this? Absolutely, but a standard benchmark is more useful as this is the barebones you should expect when comparing to others. The CPU and GPU were amazing, and those are the ones to pay attention to. I wasn't looking for anything spectacular from the RAM or the HDD and since they are both replaceable, if you REALLY NEED TO UPGRADE, then you can. The 165hz WQHD screen is great. I am not a content creator so I have no need of a Pantone validated screen for color correction or the like but the screen is very pleasant to look at. I came from a Macbook Air-esque thin laptop with 350-nit brightness and a glass touchscreen. This screen is matte and not as bright by a long shot, but with a drastically reduced glare, that extra brightness isn't missed. I have a portable monitor that connects via usb-c and while it doesn't work on my desktop (that is also an AMD processor) I was worried without thunderbolt, it would not work. Rest assured this cheap USB-C portable monitor purchased from Amazon worked no problem. The keyboard took some getting used to as I tap the capslock key too often finding the home key. I think this is in part because I wear a wristwatch and I dont want to scratch the laptop and put my hand in different positions than I would on my previous laptop where the keyboard isnt as 'deep'. I am really pleasantly surprised at the size of the laptop. The 5900HS and 3070 are a powerhouse team and to fit that in a "slim" gaming laptop is hard to believe but they did it. I played a few minutes of Star Wars: Squadrons and the thermals did not go over 70*C on the GPU. If you are interested in mining, I was able to reach 51MH with 1300+ memory clock at 102W (80W TDP plus the 20W boost when the CPU doesn't need it). This is compared to a desktop 3070 at 120W for 56MHs. Thats pretty incredible, although it will run 73+C and if you dont provide alternative cooling (or prop the bottom up for better airflow) it *could* eventually cause premature wear and tear. Am I worried about that? No. I am a student exclusively online and the lack of a webcam would be a tick off the review if it was as impossible to get a webcam as it was desktop GPUs right now. But it's not. If you really need a webcam, one can be had for as little as $30 dollars. Again the price to performance ratio here is insane. You don't gain that much going to a 3080 version of this but that easily pushes the price over 2200 with tax. The visuals are about as muted as you could get for a gaming laptop. I can bring this to work and the grey laptop blends in with the other workstations if I set the keyboard RGB to white. Honestly the asthetic of the other 30 series laptops is a bit over the top and I appreciate how subtle this one remains. If you're on the fence, the only other comparable laptop would be the MSI Thin for the specs and price, but again no AMD cpu and it wont release for another several weeks. TLDR: Great buy, what there is to complain about is just trivial stuff at this value.

Great gaming laptop, good RAM with spacious SSD HD. The Asus software allows to set the battery max capacity beyond which it won't charge. No fear of overcharging! Great design on the lid, with a glimmer effect and, still, does not make it garish. RTX performance is great in games without lags unless run at extreme levels. QHD display is superb with crisp colors, only that the red colors looked a bit brighter, but it could be adjusted, i guess. Lightweight, so can be carried easily anywhere when moving around.

good all rounder laptop but is not perfect. Price It's good, $1800 is perfectly reasonable, it's just not the best considering the Asus Strix is like slightly faster in everyway (since both the CPU and GPU both get higher wattage) and is the same price. However, the fact the GPU is still comparable to previous gen 2070 supers which cost much more, the price is justifiable. Quality Seems kind of hit or miss. My unit has some issues like the fact the B and N key are slightly slanted. Pretty much unnoticeable when using the laptop flat, but when the thing is on a stand, the RGB backlight that shines though makes it very obvious. I also notice a problem where the plastic that lines the interior of the display seems to be like delaminating. I'm not sure if that's just my unit or if it's a design flaw, having the plastic that act like a heat shield for the display seems like a mistake since that thing will expand and contract a lot more. A lot of people also seems to have problem with the speaker popping at high volumes, but that is one issue I don't have. The speakers sound brilliant on this thing, it might not be as good as a Dell XPS 15 but for a gaming laptop, it is way above average. Although, I'm not sure how I feel about that considering this is a gaming laptop and like all other high preforming laptops, it gets loud underload and most people will use headphones anyways, would much rather have a webcam instead of the high end speakers. At least the microphone is very good and the AI is good at filtering out fan noise. The 1440P display is also very good with good color accuracy. Chassis I think is magnesium alloy which is more than stiff enough. RGB backlight is not the brightest but is perfectly serviceable. Performance As expected, this thing is fast. The Ryzen 9 and 3070 (80W) is great for both gaming and productive workloads like video editing and CAD. Adobe Premier and SolidWorks both runs smoothly, and I can get 120 FPS in destiny 2 with 1440p and high settings using the laptop display. War Thunder maxes out at the screens refresh rate, and can maintain 60fps even in silent mode which is impressive. When I game I manually turn on max fans and use a stand, and the CPU rarely get much above 80C and the GPU rarely get above 65C even when playing for hours. Throttling is not an issue, but again I use stand and max fan, turbo and flat on table the CPU will hit over 80 but it will usually stay below 90. However, since this laptop has Nvidia optimus, the performance is not as good as it could be, with CPU bound games getting bottlenecked quite a bit. The good thing is hooking up an external display to the dGPU will solve the issue. Although it is annoying that Asus decided to make the HDMI port hook to the iGPU, so you're forced to use DisplayPort to bypass optimus. Everyday Use If you're competent with using computers you should be fine. The software definitely is not what I would call a finalize product as I still get weird issues like screen flashing when using programs like zoom and obs, which is annoying. The device also seems to hate going to sleep which is weird, every time I manually tell it to go to sleep the thing will go dark for like two seconds then just return to the login screen. I have all the latest updates installed, and even in manual mode the GPU seems to be switching which is not supposed to happen. That said I'm sure the issues will be fixed eventually, all new devices will have this issue, and considering this is the first year high end AMD and Nvidia are combined, there seems to be more bugs to fix. The battery can last 8 hours in light use, though I only tested that once so I'm not sure how reliable that figure is, but since this thing has usb c charging, you can just hook a phone charger on when times get desperate. Track pad is huge and works well, but everyone who get's a laptop like this should have a mouse 99% of the time anyways so not the most important feature. Smaller issues There is no webcam, so you'll have to use an external one or just use your phone and obs ninja or something, which should give better video quality anyways over a built in one. While the lid looks really good with the reflective dots, the lid is a finger print magnet which is kind of annoying. You can't see the dots reflect when under direct light so you have to view it from an angle, and when you do the light will also reflect finger prints. TL;DR if you know how to use computers and need a laptop for work or school that can play games on the side, this is not a bad device, if you only play games there are other laptops that has better gaming performance for the same price or slightly more, and if you only need a work computer, there are better options. This is a good jack of all trades middle ground.

I have owned the laptop for just around 4 days now and these are my early impressions…spoiler: they’re pretty great. Overall build quality is excellent and it comes in a space grey color. It is constructed from a mix of aluminum and plastic. The top lid itself is a nice aluminum, while the rest of the body is plastic. While the materials aren’t premium, it does allow the machine to be more economically friendly as well as lighter, which is a plus in my book. It is prone to smudges and light wear, so keep that in mind. I think it will be fairly durable, but it won’t look new for long (you can actually see the smudges in my photos-I didn't clean the laptop to help show this - it does clean easily though). The hinge is the best in the business. It is Asus’s ergolift hinge. There is rubber feat on the bottom of the display which lifts the bottom of the laptop at an angle. This has two benefits: first it allows for proper heat flow into the intake vents on the bottom of the laptop. And lastly it allows the keyboard to be positioned at a more comfortable typing angle. The hinge allows the lid to be a one hand open and rotates 180 degrees, allowing the screen to lay flat on the desk. It’s also very firm, so when opening or closing, there is perfect resistance. It is really, really nice. The Display is a 15.6” LED matte display with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 and it has a refresh rate of 165Hz! This display is excellent and it easily has one of the best panels I’ve tested. Colors are very accurate (see calibration results below) and contrast is nice as well. Viewing off-axis is good, but not great. There is some minor color washout as you move past 120 degrees off-axis, but it is minor and still looks nice. sRGB – 100% NTSC – 86% AdobeRGB -89% P3 -95% The keyboard is as close to perfect as I can think of…not only is it angled thanks to the ergolift hinge, but it’s properly spaced out, the layout is perfect, it is backlit and has excellent travel. My only personal nitpick is the feel of the keycaps themselves. It has a rubberized feel to it. I prefer a nice plastic keycap myself. Again, personal preferences. One thing to note: there is a LOT of heat that comes through the keyboard itself and it can be a slight discomfort over time. It was something I most definitely noticed, even during normal use. Below I have included thermal readings to illuminate this. The touchpad is a slight negative as well…It is VERY large, which is a good thing, sort of. The palm rejection in Windows isn’t anywhere near as good as the Mac side of things and my cursor constantly drifts. I always disable touch to tap feature in windows, so nothing gets activated, but it could be a problem for some, if that feature is left on. The trackpad is constructed from glass and is a windows precision trackpad and it feels wonderful. Palm rejection aside, it is an excellent trackpad. It’s as close to a macbook trackpad I have seen, even down to the click mechanism (by this, I mean the auditory sound produced, not the actual force touch side of things). The speakers are nice. They’re not MacBook Pro 16 levels of greatness (nothing is) but they’re better than about 90% of the laptops out there. The mids are great, the highs are good, but tend to falter and the lows are boomy and leave a lot to be desired. They don’t get overly loud either at around 81db’s. The placement is perfect as they are adjacent the keyboard and we have stereo separation too, which every device should strive for. Okay, let’s discuss the internals. This particular model came with: o AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS 3.3ghz 8-core Processor o Nvidia RTX 3070 Max-Q 8gb Graphics Card o 16gb’s DDR4 RAM (8gb’s soldered on motherboard & 8gb Stick -upgradeable to 32gb stick) o 1tb m.2 Solid-State Drive CPU performance is excellent - geekbench results below. Normal tasks won’t move the meter in terms of stressing this machine. Editing 4k video stressed it slightly but it still handled it without any issues. This is easily capable of editing video up to 4k as well as photo editing. Geekbench 5 numbers: 1461 single core & 7363 multi-core performance GPU performance is exceptionally good. I have only used the built-in screen for testing so far. And I have tested a few games at 1440p resolution at high settings. I plan on testing more games as well as running 4k tests as well, but I’ll save that for the video review. Below are my numbers so far: o Wolfenstein: New Colossus = 99fps o Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order = 53fps o Ori & the Will of Whisps = 79fps There is several fan presets you can cycle through with a simple touch of a button (fan icon on keyboard). I usually utilize the “silent” mode when doing basic computing and switch to “performance” mode when gaming or editing. The fans in silent mode are exactly that: silent (38.0db’s). During gaming or editing, they were on full blast and were 46.9db’s loud. A tremendous amount of heat is given off during gaming. Below is my temperature readings after just 30 minutes of gaming: WASD – 101 F Top middle keyboard – 118 F Top right Keyboard – 78 F Bottom Left Keyboard – 89 F Spacebar – 109 F Bottom Right Keyboard – 97 F Left Wrist Area – 86.3 F Trackpad – 81 F Right Wrist Area – 87 F Screen – 92 F Port Selection is almost perfect. While I don’t like proprietary power plugs, I understand it’s necessary here, so you have to accept that. Otherwise we have an HDMI port, Ethernet port, 2 USB type C ports, 2 USB type A ports and a micro SD card slot. Battery life is very poor. Yes, this is a gaming laptop, but still worse than I expected. For my reviews, I usually do a battery range, so I test the lowest demanding settings to get the longest life possible as well as stressing the laptop completely (editing/gaming) giving me the shortest battery life under high demand. While gaming at max brightness, fans on performance mode and a light backlight to the keyboard I got 83 minutes of battery life. While having the screen at minimum brightness, no backlit keyboard, fans on silent and web-surfing and word-processing, I was able to get 4 hours and 37 minutes. Total recharge time was impressive at 1 hour and 45 minutes. Okay the major negatives on this laptop: o No web-camera. This is bad, especially right now, in the day and age we live in. The web-camera used to be something not many people cared about (including myself), but it has become essential. Not having a web-camera in 2021 is a bad move on Asus’s part. o The lack of a full-size SD card slot is such a misstep. This is a powerful laptop, capable of editing, and to omit it is a bit shameful on Asus’s part. This is a gaming laptop, yes, but it’s an editing monster too. o The display doesn’t have touch integrated. This isn’t a big deal for me, even though I’ve been an advocate for touch displays, and is probably a cost saving on asus’s part. It is something to consider though if you just have to have a touchscreen. o The Fingerprint reader is bad. It is built into the power button and it just doesn’t work for me. I work with my hands a lot and wash my hands regularly, so it could just be me, however none of my other devices have given me this much trouble. It plain doesn’t work for me. Overall this a beast of a laptop. Whether you plan on using it for gaming or video editing, or both, you’re going to very, very happy with this. It is priced appropriately at $1799. With the impeccable quality and high-refresh rate of the screen, the incredible processing power, the amazing RTX 3070 gpu (desktop counterparts are impossible to buy right now), the wonderful keyboard and the state of the art hinge make this a recommended buy. It will be my daily driver for a while. It's great.

This laptop is hands down amazing. I use it mostly for school but play triple A games on it every weekend. The performance for both uses is incredible. I recently played The Witcher 3 on ultra settings at the screen's native resolution with no problems at all. Silky smooth gameplay and the colors on the screen are fantastic. No need to go for a 4K screen as most laptops won't be able to handle a game at 4K. Benchmarks show the 3070 mobile to be about equivalent to the 2060 desktop but that doesn't seem like the case and if it does, the 2060 desktop is a beast. I just traded in my 4K Razer Laptop with a 2070 mobile max-q and this laptop outperforms it for sure. When this laptop is plugged in, it plays almost all games at ultra (not cyberpunk probably but don't buy that game anyway). When it's not plugged in, you'll have to adjust the settings down quite a bit. Still plays great on the go though. The case itself is beautiful, thin, and durable. The paint coat they put on near the keyboard part feels nice I touch it all the time while on the laptop. Only downside is no webcam but they replaced that with a fingerprint reader.

I’ve been using this particularASUS ROG Zephyrus Gaming Laptop for a while now, and I can confidently say that it’s a beast of a machine. As someone who dives into the most demanding next-gen AAA titles, this laptop has exceeded all my expectations. I’ve played games like Modern Warfare 3, Counter-Strike 2, Battlefield 2042, and Cyberpunk 2077, all without a hitch. The AMD Ryzen 9 processor paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 makes everything run buttery smooth, even at the highest settings. The QHD display is stunning, with crisp visuals and vibrant colors that really make every game come alive. Whether I’m navigating the neon-lit streets of Night City in Cyberpunk or immersed in the intense action of Battlefield, the experience is nothing short of immersive. What’s even more impressive is how well this laptop handles heat. Despite long gaming sessions, the cooling system keeps everything running cool and quiet. The build quality feels premium, and the 1TB SSD provides ample storage for all my games and media. Overall, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus has proven to be a reliable and powerful gaming laptop that can handle anything I throw at it. Whether you’re a hardcore gamer or someone who needs a high-performance machine for other demanding tasks, this laptop is definitely worth considering.

Purchased the laptop in March 2021, works very well playing games. Had to adjust the base level sound because the sound was too low. Otherwise and nice powerful laptop with a lot of features. Good sound, 2K screen, nice physical interface, ability to upgrade storage space in the future, very strong battery life. All around a good purchase.