Customers commend the ROG Zephyrus 16" for its impressive performance, particularly its powerful GPU and ample RAM, allowing for smooth gaming and content creation. However, some users express concerns regarding the laptop's cooling system, battery life, and display issues such as blooming and uneven brightness. The build quality and speakers also receive positive feedback, while the keyboard and fan noise are mentioned as potential drawbacks.
This summary was generated by AI based on customer reviews.
The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.
Page 1 Showing 1-20 of 51 reviews
Pros mentioned:
Build quality, Gpu, Ram
Cons mentioned:
Fans, Keyboard
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
This is the one to get
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Posted . Owned for 2 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
After having hinge failures on my MSI, I was looking for a better laptop experience. I'm not in this to benchmark, but this laptop delivered on every metric. The mini LED is fantastic, the build quality is on another level, the GPU is great, and the design of the laptop doesn't scream for attention.
Both memory slots are also user replaceable. I upgraded both sodimm slots and added another SSD in under 10 minutes. The process was really simple.
Only downside is it does attract fingerprints on the keyboard deck. The fan of the GPU can also get loud, but that's what's to be expected with a 4080. If you don't like it, it's simple to manually change fan speed and thermal thresholds so that the laptop fan doesn't need to spool those up so fast.
If you want a well built Windows machine that is capable of running all the new titles, get this. If you want to have a cheap experience with the laptop and break the hinge just by closing the lid, then get an MSI.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Performance
Cons mentioned:
Battery life, Display
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Great, if you don’t get a manufacturer defect :)
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Posted . Owned for 2 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
The M16 is probably one of the best laptops I had.
It can run games at the highest settings and high frame rates (e.g., RE4R Demo was 150+ fps during gameplay and reached ~240 fps during cutscenes…. it also ran Hogwarts Legacy with little to no stuttering but I don’t know the fps)— the i9 13th gen CPU and the RTX 4080 Laptop GPU work wonderfully together. Furthermore, it was really fast and the display was nice, even for a defect.
HOWEVER, I had to return it because of the screen issues (ghosting or halo effect? It was weird, and made the laptop feel… old). I didn’t think the quality of it met up to its price, even with the open box discount (if you go for open box, either go in store or understand that your item will be a hit or miss). I would also say that the battery life kind of sucked—it would drain pretty fast when I was only using YouTube, which was a drag since it’s only Chrome. Also, I wish there was a fingerprint scanner like the ~2020 G14s but that’s okay.
Regardless of these issues, the M16 is still an amazing laptop and I enjoyed using it while it lasted :)
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Build quality, Speakers
Cons mentioned:
Fans
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
The complete package
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Posted . Owned for 2 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This is my 2nd ROG laptop and this seems like the perfect replacement to my 2019 ROG Strix Scar 3. I am a graduate student and I wanted a laptop which is portable and can game well.
This laptop is fantastic and like I said in the title it is as complete as a laptop gets!
Pros
1. Gorgeous Screen
2. Amazing Speakers
3. Powerful RTX 4080 that can run any current or upcoming game.
4. Premium build quality
5. Amazing battery life for a powerful gaming notebook.
( I get around 8 hrs on eco mode and my workload is mostly running VSCode, MobaXterm, Google Chrome and Foxit)
Cons
1. Fans might get loud in turbo mode and I suggest downloading G-Helper to tune the fans better. If you don't want to use G-helper continue running performance mode.
2. There is no prnt scrn button and there is no way to lock the fn row. This is not necessarily a con as there are many work arounds for this. For screenshots I use an app called Lightshot and I have set the F6 key for using it and you can lock the Fn row with the help of G-Helper.
Overall I am very satisfied with my purchase and recommend it whole heartedly!
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Gpu, Ram
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Powerful and not that noisy
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This year M16 has a better design and reliability. The features were bumped up starting with the i9 13900h that behaves so well when unplugged. The single core performance on this is top performance. It remains intact when unplugged.In my experience multicore goes down around 27% when unplugged. Asus included 1x stick of 16 GB making it easy to upgrade to 32GB instead of replacing both sticks, thank you. The 4080 on this is crazy good for content creation and gaming on a slim chassis! I can’t find a similar competitor, there was a Razer 15 before but that change to a bulky Razer Blade 16. The tri-fan design somehow works well since noice levels are good execpt when pushing the laptop on gaming and using Turbo. But then again, there is manual mode.
I would recommend this to a friend
Cons mentioned:
Battery life, Cooling, Display
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
Strong promise, really bad result
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I purchased this laptop with a few featues in mind:
- mini led display with 1100 nits and HDR
- Nivida Advanced Optimus
- rtx 4080
All under the $3000 price point.
Unfortunately, I have a few issues with all three of these:
- The display shows significant haloing around anything white on a grey/black background. How can anyone use this display professionally for colour grading when the light leaks? This feature is annoying because I cannot get a clean image and it is useless for work. I've taken a photo and edited the gamma to show the halo effect.
- Although having Nivida Optimus, my battery on power saving, low brightness and eco mode on, I could only get 2 hours battery life. I had anxiety in my meetings that it would die on me disallowing me to take notes. I don't know if it's a bios thing, but in it's current state it is not a hybrid laptop. It is far from it. Also in regard to power management, putting this laptop to sleep and in your bag is a bad idea. Within 8 hours in sleep mode, all your battery is drained, and it will run hot if stored in your bag. I took a screenshot of the battery logs to show how fast the charge fell in a meeting.
-Although the RTX 4080 is a massive highlight allowing me to play games with ultra settings, the heat at the top of this laptop is dangerously high - like really really dangerously high. I feel like you would burn the silicon after a year.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Brand response from ASUS Answers
Posted .
Dear NicoL,
It's unfortunate to hear that you are having several issue including overheating ,leaking light and battery draining, Please allow us to make your experience with ASUS a better one.All our products do go through an intensive quality control testing process to ensure that customers get units that are in proper working condition, what you've experienced was not intentional. Can you please reach out to us with your case number so we can investigate this issue? We would love to have your issues resolved in a timely manner. For more information, email us at [email protected] and provide the link to this review for reference. We’ll do our best to provide a quick resolution to your case. Your feedback is important as it helps with improvements to ASUS Support channels. Please refer to this case number (N2303038328-0002 ) for us to better assist you. Thank you for choosing ASUS.
Best Regards, Schottky ASUS Customer Loyalty US Support
Pros mentioned:
Build quality, Performance
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Happy Customer
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I had a long review but the BB app lost it so I'm not typing that again. Bottom line I am very happy with this laptop, from its performance to its gorgeous micro led display. Highly recommend.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Had the 4070 version of this since August 2023…
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Posted . Owned for 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I got this version becausw someone broke into my car and stole the 4070 version of it. I have since replaced it with this 4080 version. I have to say the mini-led is a MASSIVE upgrade over the base model. Also this 4080 is insane fast and honestly a bit overkill. Lol i love this machine and LOVES my 4070 version too. So i had to get another m16. It’s the best desktop on wheels money can get right now IMO.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Gpu, Ram, Speakers
Cons mentioned:
Cooling, Keyboard
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Laptop!
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Posted . Owned for 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Fantastic laptop!
To clarify, since the Best Buy lists incorrect info, the model number (GU604VZ-CS94) matches exactly what Asus website says for the hardware.
For details for upcoming buyers:
- It came with a 4080 GPU
- 2x RAM slots total; 1 slot had a preinstalled Samsung 16GB 4800Mhz DDR5 SODIMM.
- Mini LED with 2560x1600 Resolution (Verified Mini LED by doing a black screen. The Armory crate lets you enable or disable this. But only if your windows monitor setting had HDR disabled. If enabled in windows display settings, you can't control it via Armory crate.).
- Intel WIFI Card (AX211NGW)
- Windows 10 Home (Not Pro)
- No AniMe Matrix
- USB-C Power Delivery
Laptop easily hits over 1000 Mbps when on WIFI 6E. It's possible it can go higher, but I've hit the limit of my purchased internet provider plan. My test came out to 1144.47 Mbps download.
(I assume that both the RAM and WIFI card models might change based on manufacturer batch, but that is what my laptop had).
I was able to install an additional compatible BestBuy purchased 1x CORSAIR 32GB 4800 MHz DDR5 C40 SODIMM (SKU 6519626) into this laptop without issue (Other then RAM size, both RAM sticks had the same number information which boosted my confidence in compatibility). Based on research, since I'm using two different RAM sizes, I can assume only up to the first 16GB of RAM is dual channel. If I were to upgrade both RAM sticks, I could safely assume I'd be able to use the full 32GB capacity in dual channel.
Pros:
- Glass trackpad is super smooth and large. I've tried the Best Buy floor models on previous year models, this thing is an upgrade!
- Mini LED, this thing is vivid! Black screen actually makes it look like the screen if fully off.
- They added removable rubber holes for the back screws on the anti-slip rubber pads. Made this thing so much easier to open. Didn't have to rip off the rubber pad and ruin adhesive for doing internal upgrades.
Cons:
- Asus really should introduce a print screen button, this laptop is completely missing that key. They could have easily added it via a function key (FN) key shortcut.
- Speakers: Bass is lacking, it's not quite there. If you ignore the bass aspect the speaker is loud and clear.
- With no AniMe Matrix on the top, I feel like eventually dust will get into the holes on the top.
- Wish there was a 4080 model with the AniMe Matrix in the USA with this option. Didn't want the cost of a 4090 for my specific workload, but that optional feature would of been nice upgrade I would of paid a little extra for.
- Asus should add a finger print scanner for login, I'm not a fan of the webcam Windows Hello feature.
- Back fan exhaust hits the bottom of the display. You can feel the hot air traveling up the screen in certain positions. Don't think this will affect longevity, but it is still notable.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Speakers
Cons mentioned:
Battery life, Fans
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Powerful. Loud. Amazing display
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Posted . Owned for 2 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
The standout feature is for sure the display. The highest brightness I've been able to measure has been around 1100 nits but I know other reviewers have measured as high as over 1200 nits. This display is really solid for HDR gaming and watching Netflix in HDR w/ Atmos for headphones. Black levels can be good but as it's an IPS display the native contrast is poor and it spreads light a lot more than a VA panel. Small bright objects on a black background have very obvious blooming. I don't think any amount of dimming zones can really eliminate the blooming that is made more obvious by "IPS Glow" but in most content it looks amazing. Response times are very fast with no obvious overshoot or blurring even at lower FPS/refresh rates.
At the 120+25W TDP it doesn't make much sense to go for a 4090, a 4080 will perform about the same. I've found that I have a ton of headroom to overclock the lower parts of the voltage/frequency curve. At 700mV I can run the GPU at 1740MHz, a full 270MHz higher than stock. However at the max 975mV I can't do better than the 2445MHz that you can set in Armory Crate. I'm frequently power limited so I rarely see the GPU sustain more than ~850mV.
The keyboard is adequate, the webcam is decent and works well with Windows Hello facial recognition. The trackpad initially had some issues but seems to be better now, not sure if it's due to some bloatware I removed or drivers that got updated.
The built in speakers have a shockingly wide soundstage, likely due to some processing from Dolby Atmos. There's upfiring and downfiring speakers and a suprising amount of bass and volume.
I have a few complaints though. Asus decided to enable undervolt protection for the CPU even though last year's M16 had an easy to use voltage offset setting in the BIOS. I can only get 5 to 6 hours of battery life maximum when using the iGPU, max power efficiency in Windows Power & Sleep settings, 25W CPU TDP, and minimum screen brightness. If undervolting were allowed I could probably extend that a fair amount. The fans are also very loud if you want max performance. Even when I use my 700mV undervolt/overclock it's still quite loud. You definitely want to do your gaming with a set of closed back headphones or IEMs.
Removing the bottom cover is somewhat tedious. There's two rubber inserts covering screws under the large rubber foot. There's also several tiny rubber caps with adhesive covering additional screws, some of these were very hard to remove and I didn't bother putting them back on. Some of the screws are different lengths so keep track of where they came from. Once I got the bottom panel off though it was very easy for me to install two 2TB SN850X SSDs and another 16GB SODIMM. You may want to have another thermal pad handy if you're filling the second M.2 slot.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Build quality, Speakers
Cons mentioned:
Cooling, Display
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Great laptop, but overpriced, screen disappoints
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
The biggest reasons one would buy this laptop are for the Mini-LED screen and the RTX 4080 in a reasonably thin and light chassis. The result is not up to expectations, especially for this price.
PROS:
+Screen is incredibly vibrant and bright for video content but see the cons
+Very solidly built despite being lighter and thinner than most gaming laptops
+Stays cool and quiet under most circumstances. Only gets loud when gaming or performing extensive tasks
+Keyboard has great tactile feedback
+The trackpad is one of the smoothest, most responsive I've ever used.
+Speakers are loud and clear for a Windows laptop
+Can play games at high FPS on QHD
CONS:
-This screen is underwhelming overall. In Mini-LED Multi-Zone mode, the colors are washed out, dark mode websites are blotchy, and bright objects show blooming. 90% of the time, Single Zone mode looks way better, but you might as well get the standard IPS screen at that point.
-The fans are constantly running, which keeps things cool, but you can feel a slight vibration throughout the chassis.
-145w RTX 4080 won't give the full performance of 175w variants
-No higher powered HX processor like comparably priced gaming laptops
-No vapor chamber cooling
Yes. this laptop is very good, but there are too many compromises at this price point. The 4070 model runs anywhere from $700-1100 cheaper, and is a much better value. Mini-LED, or at least the BOE panels, need to be further refined. If these get large discounts over the holidays, they may be worth it, but for now, one can get much better performance elsewhere.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Gpu, Performance, Ram
Cons mentioned:
Display
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Great machine
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Upgraded with 990pro 2T and 64gb kingston fury 5600mhz. Timespy 15207 for cpu and 17489 for gpu. Dont think you can get better performance for a sub 5lb laptop.
Miniled is bright but blooming is significant on dark backgrounds. Don't notice it during gaming. I turn off hdr during normal use.
Only loud on turbo mode, most likely due to poor configuration. I use manual mode for gaming and it runs quieter than blade 16 2023, with better performance than turbo mode.
5 hours battery life on silent mode and optimized gpu mode.
Overall highly recommend. IMO the best gaming laptop this gen thus far. Can max out on all the games including the poorly optimized hogwarts legacy, which stutters on the blade 16 but not the m16.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Gpu, Performance, Ram
Cons mentioned:
Battery life
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
One of the best gaming laptops in the market
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
If you compare this laptop to the last year model, the improvement is tremendous. It comes with premium 240 Hz mini led display, the best display ASUS can offer in a laptop and you get larger fill size heatsink. You also get 2nd ssd slot and two RAM slots which means you can upgrade to 64G RAM and 4TB storage if you want. Thanks to the better power efficiency of the RTX4080, you will get around 85% performance compare to other max 175W 4080 laptops which is pretty nice. It’s great for designing, gaming and AI. The only problem I think is the battery life, the battery won’t last long if you play games without the charger. You better get a 100W type-c charger if you need to bring it out frequently.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Performance, Speakers
Cons mentioned:
Cooling
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Great Laptop
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Protable ++. Great Display - gets very bright ++ Good Peformance+. Gets very hot --. Great speakers ++. Buggy software to control brightness.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Gpu, Ram
Cons mentioned:
Display
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Perfect size for portable gaming
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Posted . Owned for 2 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
As an older gamer, I was looking for something that would be able to handle most games for the next few years at the least and be lightweight enough to carry around.
This PC has a great display and comes with 16GB of RAM (not 32GB as noted in some places on BB site) as well as a RTX 4080 GPU. The 4080 is the perfect mid-point between the 4070 and the 4090 for gaming IMHO for performance and price reasons I went with this route.
As some have noted, there is some slight blooming/glow in certain modes, but Asus has made it fairly easy to change modes (to eliminate the effect) and do normal PC (Excel/Word/browsing/etc.) and then go to either gaming or watching movies in 2k resolution with just a few clicks.
I have not given the battery a full testing as I typically use it plugged in (but don't leave it plugged in, and also have the feature that will only charge to 80% to save battery), so I may one day revisit this review with an update, for now though it seems to last a while on it's own, but it's also new.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Build quality, Performance, Ram
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
This is the one.
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Out of all of Asus's current laptops, this is the one to get for power users.
After throwing in 2x32gb ram sticks, the thing flies with heavy workloads like Unreal Engine cinematics and level development. Games also are a breeze for this beast, and best of all the design is low-key enough that it still appears professional.
Great quality build and excellent on-the-go performance.
I would recommend this to a friend
Cons mentioned:
Display, Keyboard
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Good laptop but many problems which are fixable
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
The laptop is good. Cons are the exhaust fan is facing the screen which make screws screen hot and this kind of make you worried if you play game and expectng to use it for long term. It has many software problems. After many times of reset and format, it got fixed. I did a lot of reset and also turn windows 10, and download windows 11 later with application which are causing problem and restall all friver from asus support in windows 11 , they all got fixed. If you are going downgrade to windows 10 then miniled option call multizone backlight setting will be disabled. 2nd ssd card installion will be little problem for new people. It is hard to remove rubber screw below. At starting when you trying to fix software problem like to try all option like safeboot and lot of restart, hello winows will always ask password and bit locker also which is irrating sonit it better to use locL account and disable bitlocker untill all sftware stuffnis fixed. It would be better to have 13980hx with full keyboard, i mean asus g18 has bigger scren with 13980hx with full keyboard. Payimg extra 200 or 300 dollar only for mettalic body and downgrading cpu and keyboard feels like paid much for less fetures.
I would recommend this to a friend
Cons mentioned:
Battery life
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Fast, great display, fair price
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Fast, lightweight and good looking. Despite teething pains with NVIDIA drivers and HDR mini LED displays, the brightness, contrast and color saturation are worth it for gaming and watching movies. Excellent that you can turn off the local dimming zones feature for creative color accurate work. Battery life so-so.
I would recommend this to a friend
Cons mentioned:
Battery life, Cooling
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
Not the best laptop for the price
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Posted . Owned for 1 year when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This laptop works good if you keep it plugged in, The battery life is very minimal and the 4080 card does not like being in a small laptop. This thing gets very hot. For this price I would recommend not buying. If you want a portable gaming machine look at cheaper less powerful laptops. This thing is overkill and overheats if not on a cooling pad
No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Brand response from ASUS Answers
Posted .
Dear William R,
We sincerely apologize for the battery and overheating issue you've faced with the Gaming Notebook and for the inconvenience caused. This is not the kind of quality to expect from ASUS products and it's not the norm. Please allow us to make your experience with ASUS a better one.
Based on the issues described, we recommend updating the BIOS. Please back up all valuable data before proceeding as this may result in the loss of any current settings, apps, and data. Ensure the unit is plugged in and do not close the lid. The following FAQ below provides the troubleshooting steps.
If you already have the latest BIOS version installed, we recommend contacting our support team at https://www.asus.com/us/support/CallUs to further investigate the problems you're experiencing or to assist with getting the device repaired.
We stand behind our products and we continuously strive to improve our products and processes to achieve customer service excellence. For more information, send us an email at [email protected] and provide the case number "N2309024879-0003" for reference. We’ll do our best to provide a quick resolution to your case. Your feedback is important as it helps with improvements to ASUS Support channels. Thank you for choosing ASUS.
Best Regards, Chantae ASUS Customer Loyalty US Support
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
So far best laptop I have ever owned. It handles every game I throw at it. Never skips a beat in anything. It’s portable with its thin and light frame. It has a beautiful mini led display. The “halo” effect some people state is a blooming effect caused by all the tiny led zones. If that bothers you, theres an option to switch the panel to one zone which will look like a regular IPS panel. Overall, I am very happy with this laptop and would highly recommend it.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Ram
Cons mentioned:
Cooling
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Awesome machine
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Fantastic gaming laptop. Fast and powerful. I supped mine up with additional memory and upgraded the Ram with two 32gb sticks. It runs hot, though, so if you’re a gamer, you’ll need a good laptop fan for it to sit on. Once you get that dialed in, nothing better.