Customer Ratings & Reviews

As a previous owner of a Macbook Pro M1, this laptop makes switching no problems at at all. The performance this laptop offers is immense even when running on battery alone. The Oled screen makes enjoying watching videos amazing with accurate black and vibrant colors, with barely any glare from light showing. When it comes to gaming the colors look amazing and the 4070 gpu performs well. Fan noise on this laptop can get bit loud but only when pushing heavy immense software, when on battery or plug in it is silent. The weight of the laptop weighs less than macbook pro making it easier to carry around to college including with the battery brick. Even the laptop is under heavy load, keyboard remains cold to the touch only above the keyboard it builds up heat but there is no need to touch there. Speakers is another amazing part of this laptop. This G16 comes with front facing speakers that contain good amount of bass for songs and can get decently loud that rivals the macbook pro, making watching shows pleasing. Trackpad is large and glossy which makes transitioning easy and it is satisfying to use. Of course battery life is not as long compared to macbook but for a windows laptop is last pretty long throughout normal application usage with battery safety on. Only issue that can be for others users is that the ram is soldered making it hard to choose between this model or another with less ram with price difference. I can assure you if you run a lot of applications at once and gaming, this laptop runs perfectly smooth I have no regrets. Another thing is the second slot for storage is limited to PCIe Gen 4x2 speed if you plan adding more storage. If you are a macbook user thinking about transitioning to windows laptop, this one is perfect. Pros - Oled 240Hz Screen - 32Gb Ram - 4070 GPU - Satisfying keyboard - Great quality speakers Cons - Soldered Ram - Second ssd slot limited speed

I recently got this laptop as an open-box item. I have to say that the performance is great, although it has frozen on me twice, and I had to turn it off. I’m not sure if this has something to do with an update, but other than that, the battery life is excellent. Mine also has coil whine, which can only be heard while charging. Could be annoying for some people, but definitely something to be aware of if you’re planning on buying this laptop.

Screen is bright speakers are loud did a upgrade from the rog m16 to this

I have owned many leptops, and personally prefer Windows over Apple, last leptops I still own came from Samsung, they are beautiful optically, and with great specs if you pick top options, but with higher cost compare to other. Asus cought my eye because it's a gorgeous machine with good cpu and gpu options, good tracpad and fairly light for a such a powerful machine, I just bought new LG gram which is incredibly lightweight and thin, but just kept freezing on AI and Davinci resolve, even though has a dedicated 3050 gpu, so ended up returning it, and when i did a research on different set ups of g16, amd is just so much more powerful on lower power and runs cooler than Intel, I pulled a triger, I wished Amd came with 4090 option due to the vapor chamber, but 4070 I figured was plenty good enough. One common complain on these was a fan noise, that was fixed with bios update, and amd runs cooler so it's super quiet from my experience having this leptop over a week, all i can say it is fast, screen is beautiful, best speakers in windows letop you can find, and runs all my gear with breeze, it is worth every penny, white/silver color is also beautiful with the led strip on the cover, best leptop i ever owned. PS download GHelper that controls the leptops system to even further enhance your experience.

Oh my, I used to have an Intel G16 2024 version, but this AMD refresh version does make a difference. The one point surprise me most is how cool and efficient this laptop is, unlike Intel version, it's fan often kick in for even light task such as Internet browsing. The battery seems to get a bit better but not very significant given how efficient the new horible naming AMD chip is. I could have given this review 5 start but my model have interet and Ethernet adapter failure, I have no chance to restore my wifi drivers so I ended up returning it. Not to even mention the pricing compared to how often Intel version get on sale.

this laptop is so cool and no problem with the frame rate. everything is smooth. its hot when playing but that’s normal for a gaming laptop.

I mainly bought it thinking about gaming, and after months of playing and learning some other skills I would say this laptop it’s great, I was concern about temperature when playing extended hours but it still have a good performance after all even if you do it with optimum conditions or video quality, It’s also a good choice for editing videos or creating content though. So yeah for me it’s definitely a fully stars product.

This is the most powerful laptop I’ve ever used and it’s made me super productive. I love Copilot with AI and everything that comes with this laptop. The AMD ryzen CPU is amazing.

Build Quality and screen is amazing and the laptop feels very snapy and is battery efficient. But i had some issues while launching and playing games the laptop freezes or hangs completely. Otherwise it would have been a 5 star

I purchased this laptop for a very specific work project and it failed me almost immediately. My purchase was on October 22nd and 1st use was early November. My project is overseas (Trinidad) and within 20 minutes of use whilst playing a regular Youtube video, the left side speaker sounds as if its completely blown out: sounds like a crunchy static mess at the slightest bit of bass being played. I would consider myself a power-user with good computer knowledge, I've cleaned and reinstalled all drivers, factory reset , updated bios and applied all updates and fixes and I still have a blown out sounding left-side speaker. Now I'm stuck overseas with a laptop that I purchased in large part because of its impressive sound capability. I'm in Trinidad and unable to return until April 2025 as my work is imperative. I looked online to see quite a few other similar issues. I'm absolutely disappointed, especially considering the High Price of this unit and my current work situation. If Best Buy would honor a replacement I would be happy to amend this review, but as i mentioned, I need to use it even in its handicapped state until April 2025.

KEY SPECS AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU (12C / 24T) 32GB 7500Mhz DDR5 RAM 2TB NVMe SSD NVidia RTX 4070 GPU with 8GB RAM AMD Radeon 890M with 16 CU’s OLED 2560 x 1600 Panel with HDR and 100% Color Reproduction NVidia G-Sync and Dolby Vision Compatible PORTS 1x SD Card Reader 2 x USB3.2 Gen 2 Type A 1 x USB3.2 Gen 2 Type C with DP 1.4 and Power Delivery (NVidia GPU) Full-Size HDMI 2.1 Port 1 x USB4 USB-C with DP 1.4 and Power Delivery (AMD Radeon Graphics) 3.5mm Headphone / Mic Port INTRODUCTION Occasionally, a manufacturer will release a product in the same lineage as its ancestors but is so different that it can be considered revolutionary. The new ROG Zephyrus falls into this category. I have a ROG Zephyrus from only a couple of years ago and this ROG feels nothing like its predecessor. It is truly a new and revolutionary design. If you couldn’t see the logo or branding, you would never know the 2 were siblings. DISPLAY The G16 sports Asus’ new Nebula display. Quite simply, it is stunning. It has a native resolution of 2560 x 1600 and supports 100% of the DCI color spectrum. Something that is extremely important for content creators and photographers. The Nebula display is rated for 500 nits in HDR and supports Dolby Vision. It is Pantone certified and add to that amazing accuracy a 240Hz refresh rate and a .2ms response time and you have a display that looks and performs AMAZING regardless of your task. GAMING PERFORMANCE I’ve played several games on the G16 as of late. My two favorites for some time now are Call of Duty MW 3 and Forza Horizon 5. For those who have not experienced the ray-tracing goodness of the new Nvidia 4000’s cards, you really need to. Combine ray-tracing with this new OLED display and visuals are stunning. Especially, when you enable the Auto HDR feature. The oversaturated world and graphics just pop! My second go-to game is often MW3. Regardless of what people think of the game, it offers a good opportunity to test a panel’s ability to reproduce details in the darkest of scenes. Being an OLED, the G16 had zero issues. That is one of the best parts of an OLED display. They offer perfect black levels. Levels unparalleled by any other display technology. Having the power of a 4070 to play on changed the game for me. Even after playing the full campaign less than a year ago, the visual enhancements offered by the 4070 made the game feel new. The OLED panel produced shadow details I’ve never experienced before and with ray tracing combined with the performance of the 4070 produced details and intricacies I’ve never experienced before in the game. It made MW3 far more enjoyable. But how much power is really on tap for gamers? I used a USB-C to DP adapter to make sure I was getting accurate readings. There are 2 USB-C ports on the G16. One is linked to the 890M integrated graphics and the other directly to the RTX 4070 discreet GPU. I ran each test using my new LG Ultra Gear 49” 120Hz OLED gaming monitor. These are the results I obtained using both the integrated and discreet graphics using both FSR for AMD and DLSS for NVidia: Graphics Results AMD @ 2560 x 1600 AMD 4k 4070 @ 2560 x 1600 4070 @ 4k Forza 60 60 95 92 COD 48 17 108 59 F1 2023 58* 112* *F1 2023 was not tested at 4k as neither graphics chip could render playable speeds at 4k. Even at 2560 x 1600 I had to turn off all ray-tracing effects and lower the preset to High in order to make F1 playable on the RTX 4070. I was surprised at how well the integrated graphics performed. Forza was smooth despite locked at 60Hz and MW3 would have been passible should I have lowered resolution to 1920 x 1080. Forza numbers were obtained using the Ultra preset for both graphics’ chips. MW3 numbers were obtained using Max settings for the RTX 4070, but only balanced for the integrated 890M, as the extra graphical details paid a heavy price in the game. I have zero complaints about either graphics processor. Even the 890M plays well and is a decent option to the much more power-hungry 4070. The first laptop I’ve used that you can enjoy a game with integrated graphics instead of it ruining the entire experience. CPU The new Ryzen 9 is built on AMD’s new Zen 5 architecture. It is a low-power high performing processor containing what “the other” brand would call 4P cores and 8E cores. Just how well does the new 4nm Zen 5 hold up against the competition? For testing, I turned to Handbrake (my go-to for testing CPU’s). I took a 30 minute video recorded in 1080p and compressed it to 480p/30 using Handbrake’s HQ480p setting. Encoding times utilizing only the CPU for x.264 are: Zephyrus G16: 5:10 @ 174fps average Desktop i5-13400: 6:38 @ 141fps average ROG Zephyrus i7-14700KF: 3:32 @ 255fps average The little low-power AMD keeps pace and even pulls ahead of comparable desktop competitors. While I knew it would be no match for the woefully more powerful i7 in my desktop Zephyrus, it is an impressive feat for such a low power chip. Especially one that was able to maintain 100% CPU utilization throughout the test without thermal throttling. It did spike to 98C during testing but was able to maintain no more than 97C after. COOLING After reviewing several gaming laptops over the years, the one thing that winds up either killing the mood or shutting down the gaming experience all together is heat / noise. There are a lot of heat producing components shoved into a tiny space. I swear I’ve heard F-15's spinning up for takeoff that are quieter than gaming laptops. Often so loud, even noise cancelling headphones can’t keep out the whine. The new G16 is one of the quietest gaming laptops I’ve used to date. Yes, it still has fans (3 of them), but Asus has switched to liquid metal for heat transfer and has built the chassis into the cooling system. Yes, the G16’s CNC machined aluminum construction becomes part of the cooling solution. This is especially noticeable after a good, long gaming session taxing the RTX 4070. Those fps benchmarks from above? That 4070 was working VERY hard during all of my COD gaming at 4k. I went to pick up the laptop and almost dropped it. I was not expecting it to be that hot. The whole body was hot. That’s a unique solution to help thermals. I’m sure if I put the G16 on a good laptop cooler with fans blowing against the aluminum underside would help with thermals even more. Either way, the computer never lost its cool or thermal throttled during testing, but it was close, REAL CLOSE (some testing saw thermals hit 97C on the GPU). AUDIO Normally, I wouldn’t comment on audio in a laptop. They all stink. However, this is the best sounding laptop I’ve used to date. Markedly better than any other laptop from any other vendor I’ve tried. Audio reproduction is impressive for such a small package. Not only is there a sense of some bass (Asus claims a frequency response to 100Hz) the inclusion of Dolby Atmos tech gives a convincing, semi-realistic sense of surround sound. NEGATIVES Asus claims it doesn’t exist, but there is panel wobble. I don’t think it’s as bad as others around the interwebs have made it out to be. There is some wobble, but I haven’t found distracting, at least not yet. That may change. The MediaTek Wi-Fi chip. I’m not sure why Asus would choose to partner with MediaTek. This new Wi-Fi 7 chip is supposed to be great, but it isn’t. I’ve experienced spotty connections and even the chip reporting drivers not being installed after having been working perfectly for 3 hours. For this being a Wi-Fi 7 chip, I haven’t noticed any improvements in speed or performance, even using it in an MLO configuration, that I get from a Wi-Fi 6 chipset from MediaTek’s primary competitor. If there is one thing that makes this laptop feel cheap or half-baked, it’s the Wi-Fi card. Upgradability. I’m going to say that 2024 may very well mark the year of the end of upgradeable laptops. This G16 is one of the first. The only upgradeable parts are the SSD and Wi-Fi card (thankfully). The writing is on the wall. Shortly, users will no longer be able to swap or increase RAM. So much for saving a few bucks and upgrading RAM later at a far cheaper price than you can usually buy it for from the manufacturer. It’s going to be an all or nothing game. FINAL THOUGHT I’ve heaped tons of praise on Asus’ new shining star. It is well deserved. This is a revolutionary change for Asus, and they should be commended for their efforts. It’s got computing power to spare, excellent graphics power, long battery life, and runs much quieter than any other gaming laptop I’ve used to date. EVERYTHING (except the Wi-Fi) feels premium. From its all-aluminum construction, to its stunningly beautiful display, to its tasteful lighting. This is a great piece of gear and if you need a gaming laptop or the power of a gaming laptop, without the size and weight penalties you would normally get with a machine like this, The Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 should be on your very short list of options. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Lots of text, should answer most questions on product and next generation CPU/NPU. Shortened language to keep as short as possible. TLDR: 9.5/10 laptop with very little compromise. AMD RYZEN AI HX 370 CPU: - Hard to monitor exact temps, too new. Was getting less than 80C in all tasks including gaming. Usually less than 70C. Neat thing in Asus Armory where you can place Aura lighting on keyboard to Green/Yellow/Red depending on customized values of temps. Mine Green (less than 80C), Yellow (80 – 90C), Red (More 90C). Almost never saw red except for brief periods during loading. Never felt heat on trackpad or keyboard where hands sit. But top of laptop very hot as it vents through the back. - Performance is same plugged in vs battery. Beats Surface and M3 in single/multicore. However, loses to Intel 13900HX. But has significantly better battery life and retains performance when on battery over getting cut in half. I get about 2.5 hours max on my Acer Predator Helios 16 (13900HX, 32 GB DDR5 RAM, 4080). - 890M performance is better than Intel Iris Xe. Also, about 10% better than 880M based on other benchmarks I’ve looked at. - 50 TOP NPU: AI is still too early bird. Hard to test potential. Built in features outside of Co-Pilot is mostly gimmicky. Will have to see how this develops over time. As good potential in increasing power/performance in future. But not there yet. Not a reason to buy currently, should focus more on performance/efficiency. - CONCLUSION: Not the full win I wanted. As battery life not as good as competition. But performance on/off battery is great. A significant step in the right direction. As if this is the worst it is (as it is brand new, not fully released yet, and new architecture) firmware should improve in time. However, you never buy something with promises of what it will be only what it currently is. Cinebench R23 (Single/Multi) AMD AI 370: - Balanced Power: 1,901 / 17,964 (balanced in windows power + Armoury Crate Windows) - Balanced Battery: 1,911 / 19,397 (Balanced + Silent) - Performance Power: 1,949 / 21,532 (Best Performance + Turbo) - Performance Battery: 2,002 / 21,016 (Best Performance + Performance – Turbo N/A) - MacBook Plugged/Battery: 1,881 / 9,223 Acer Helios Predator: - Balanced Powered: 1,999 / 24,892 - Balanced Battery: 1,743 / 9,623 - Turbo Powered: 1,918 / 29,929 - Turbo Battery: 1,646 / 10,219 Cinebench 2024: - Surface 7 Snapdragon X Elite: - Balanced Powered: 102 / 845 - Balanced Battery: 104 / 755 - Max Performance Powered: 123 / 915 - Max Performance Battery: 122 / 926 4070 MOBILE GPU: - Mentioned Acer Predator Helios 16 (I9-13900HX, 4080, 32 GB RAM, 2023) because it is a normal size gaming laptop in similar price range that I own. 4080 at 2.5K is much better netting around 20 – 70 frames more with average of 37, which is significant. So, if looking for best gaming machine, should not go with a thin and light like this. As this doesn’t come with a 4080 option. However, from a holistic perspective this will beat most gaming laptops. - Nice thing about 4070, more frames per watt meaning better battery life, and less power usage when plugged in. - Disgusted with Nvidia as 8GB VRAM is not enough. Minimum should be 12 GB. Run into issues often with modern games at 2560x1600 (2.5K) (resolution of the display) leading to lower settings when shouldn’t with a premium GPU. Recommend dropping resolution to 1920x1200 in game settings as better for VRAM, lower temps, and about 10 – 30 frames more with almost no impact to visual fidelity (on a screen of this size). Also, that resolution is sweet spot for 4070. 2.5K is asking a bit much. - Ultra Settings at 2560x1600 resolution average is around 60 fps. Ideally, want to use High, 60 – 120 fps (average 80 fps). In Triple A games mostly 50 – 60 fps. Where with multiplayer usually getting 100 or more. My opinion 60 should be minimum for good time, ideally 80 – 100 fps or more. As nice buffer making it feel smoother with frame rate fluctuations. As OLED screen has such low latency you feel when you dip below 50 fps compared to other screens. - Max watts I saw was 112. Without boost 4070 is 105 watts so seems fully powered. - To note.10 – 20 FPS increase when I was plugged into an external monitor vs built in display. As getting 10 – 20 more watts to the GPU allowing for more fps. This wasn’t always the case, mostly with very demanding games such as Triple A Single Player Titles. - Average temps during gaming were 75 – 87 C. Recommend cooling pad as vents in bottom helps noticeably. But that was without and just tilting it allowing good natural airflow. When using cooling pad average 70 - 75 C and was getting more watts which sometimes translated to increased fps. BUILD QUALITY: - Stellar. 0.59” aluminum chassis has no flex, very smooth, looks/feels incredible. One of the best, if not the best built laptop I’ve tried. No screen wobble with typing. Only weighs 4.08 lbs. Is well balanced. Incredible at this size and power. Excellent cooling despite being so thin. Satisfying click when closing lid. Lip to open lid with single finger. Torx screws to open. RAM soldered. Additional full size M.2 SSD slot for a total of 2. SCREEN: - 2.5K (2560x1600, WQXGA), 16:10 Aspect Ratio, DCI-P3 100%, Pantone Validated, Supports Dolby Vision HDR. 500 – 600 nits brightness. Gets my mouth salivating just thinking about it. - Color accuracy, punch, blacks, whites, everything is excellent across the board here. Second best display in my house. Losing to Apple iPad Pro M4. - Dolby Vision works. All media, especially, well shot media looks incredible and a delightful treat. Especially, with the lights off. No black crushing. - Max brightness is great. Lower than 50% brightness you get flickering. But not above that. 16-inch screen feels just right. - Gaming is incredible. 0.2 millisecond response time. I didn’t know how much better gaming on an OLED was, but the difference compared to even top of the line IPS is staggering - Screen goes to about 140 degrees full tilt. Hinge stays in place where you put it. - Does not have variable refresh rate (outside of G-Sync). Only 60 or 240 in windows setting. But Gsync works by giving 960 frames to panel so brightness is consistent with lower frames. Super smooth and buttery. Love Gsync. BATTERY LIFE: - Disappointed, perhaps my expectations were too high. I wanted a thin-light gaming laptop that lasted all day. However, with normal use (YouTube videos, web surfing, writing documents, emails, etc.) I got about 4 – 5.5 hours. That was with low power mode, no dedicated GPU, 60 GHz, Bluetooth off, no fans, 30% screen brightness (but caused flickering making me wonder if higher brightness would be better to prevent flickering which may use less power). - Recharge time is quick with included charger, 90% in 1 hour. Full charge in 1.5 hours. Can use USB-C charger on both USB-C’s. However, get warning not providing full power. - I like the proprietary charger. Reversible. Plugs in nicely. Small and compact. Charging brick is small. 200 Watts. - Hoping to see improvement as time goes on. As so new. Snapdragon and M3 destroy this with no regard to settings getting 8 – 12 hours. - Lost 6% in 24 hours on standby (closing lid and leaving unplugged). I lose like 1 – 2% with M3/Snapdragon. TRACK PAD: - Huge. Made of glass. Very responsive, accurate, feels great, smooth, nice to use. However, with it being so big when gaming/typing I hit it a lot which can cause my cursor and screen to go crazy. Can turn off touchpad with shortcut keyboard key for gaming. Turning down sensitivity helped resolve cursor jumping. - Click force varies dramatically on position. No matter what moderate to severe. Slightly disappointed here. - Would’ve been perfect if haptic touchpad. KEYBOARD: - Good travel for a laptop. Making not as good for typing, but great for gaming. Not as crisp/tactile as I would like, slightly mushy but still feel a tactile bump. Still feels good/great to type on. Getting normal WPM at 130 – 160. Didn’t have to acclimate. Quiet to type/game on. Most standard keys are full size. No wobble. - Single zone RGB lighting. Colors accurate. However, not equal lighting (shine through) on some keys. Three levels of brightness. Gets very bright. - Power key not near delete key leading to no accidental hit. Like this. - Four macros on top. Love. No dedicated play/pause. Sadness. Can remap with specific options. Cannot remap other keys. - Can turn on/off FN lock. Love this. FN key shortcuts in general are great choices. WEBCAM: - Supports Windows Hello. Love. Works well. - Picture quality is average. Nothing to write home about. AI features do not appear to be working at this time. Which could help dramatically. - No shutter for privacy. - Microphone quality is great. Above average for laptop. CONS: - Would like more tactile keyboard. But still very good. - Trackpad maybe too big? As hard not to hit with palm. Causing cursor to jump and mistakes to be made. - Battery is not all day. 4 – 5.5 hours. - Expensive. - 4070 is a disappointing graphics card generation comparatively. Nvidia’s fault. Best for 1080p over 2.5K. - Mediatek WiFi card sometimes stops working so I have to restart PC. Also, doesn’t perform consistently. Sometimes slow to connect. They should drop them and go with a better one. - Soldered RAM. - Webcam picture quality is average. No built-in shutter to close. - Wish normal windows setting had variable refresh rate (1 - 240 Hz)

I have been using ASUS products for years and I have always had good luck with them. My daughter has an older ROG laptop that she never gives a moment to rest, and it has been very reliable, but she couldn't use it to play some newer games... it was time for a replacement. After using this new ROG laptop for a week, I am not sure I want to give it to her... it is the best laptop I have ever used. The light weight, quiet fans, awesome screen, large storage space, and performance are a perfect combo. The AMD Ryzen 9 processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU is a powerful combination and can easily play most games on higher quality settings with ray tracing (RTX) enabled, although a few tweaks might need to be made to get the frame rate wear you want it. My daughter loves all the Five Nights at Freddy's games, and we recently got a Meta Quest 3 to play the VR versions, but only my liquid cooled tower could play them reliably until now... the ROG G16 maintained over 70fps for hours of playing Five Nights at Freddy's Help Wanted 1 & 2 on the Quest 3. Some other games I have tried (using Turbo performance mode): Metro Exodus Enhanced (~100fps - RTX ON, high quality), Mech Warrior 5 (~70fps - RTX ON, high quality... w/RTX ON the frame rate sometimes drop to ~45fps; RTX off fps ~200fps on ultra), Fortnite (80fps, RTX ON, high quality preset... playable on epic, but fps are low at ~30-45fps), FNAF Security Breach (~70fps, RTX Medium, ultra quality, 1080p), Quake II RTX Demo (70fps, RTX, max quality), Doom Eternal (I know it is old...max quality, ~200fps). Pros 1. Future proof specs and plenty of RAM. 2. Sharp, bright high-resolution screen with excellent color production, contrast (HDR), and deep blacks. 3. Minimal cooling fan noise. There are a few performance modes, each one stepping up the cooling fan speed, but even on Turbo (best gaming performance) fan noise is significantly reduced from my old gaming PC (games are still playable without headphones) and in silent mode there is no noise at all (not for gaming though). 4. Well-built and light weight (especially for a gaming setup this powerful). I also like the design; it has some nice features (like the led slash on the top cover and RGB lighting for the keyboard), but no crazy vents or large labels. The "Platinum White" is almost silver in some lights but is a nice complement to my Meta Quest headset. 5. Large multi-finger touchpad allows you to scroll and pinch to zoom. 6. Great hard drive space with minimal preloaded software; giving you a usable storage space around 1.77GB (I have 10 games from my Steam library and Fortnight installed (so far) with around 70% still available). 7. ASUS Armoury Crate software makes it easy to change performance modes, switch between the integrated GPU and the RTX 4070, change RGB keyboard and slash lighting effects, and monitor system parameters (fan speed, frequency, RAM utilization, temperatures). It has a logging feature that can be helpful in monitoring temperatures and resource utilization during game play. 8. Full sized SD card slot makes it easy to load videos or pictures for my GoPro for editing/sharing (I realize a lot of devices use micro-cards now, but it is easy to use an adapter to go smaller). Things to Consider 1. The speakers are good not great... on par with most quality laptops. They are clear and loud enough to overcome any fan noise, with no distortion at max volume, but they are a bit flat. The Dolby Atmos settings are extremely limited but do help to fill in the sound a bit. Get a good pair of headphones. 2. Bring the charger (warning it is big) - even with some smart battery saving features this laptop will not make it through a full day of casual use. I got just at 6hrs making a few short video calls, web browsing, and watching videos with the iGPU on to save power (no gaming). With the main GPU enabled, battery life dropped to less than 2hrs. 3. Certain parts of this laptop get pretty warm. Consider buying a cooling pad or make sure you have enough space to allow the cooling system to work. The space between the base of the screen and top of the keyboard gets very warm (~120°F) and do not place anything that can be damaged by heat near the back vents (~130°F).

If you are looking for a lite weight gaming laptop that can also handle any work/video/everyday processing needs this is worth a look. The design is sleek at .56 height x 9.69 width x 14 inches deep weighing in at just over 4 lbs. This is almost .5 lbs lighter than my current 16-inch gaming laptop. The OLED screen with 2560 x 1600 and 240Hz response is fantastic and has little to no reflection. A very thin bezel with connections on the side contributes to the laptops thinness. The keyboard is “interesting” I really like the feel of the soft touch keys but the keyboard itself is about 25% smaller than my other 16-inch gaming laptop. This is due to the very large touchpad as well as having the speakers on each side of the keyboard. The large touchpad (centered on laptop) while very tactile did make it a little difficult to use the keyboard, for me. Also, I had trouble seeing the white keys functions when backlit – may just be my old eyes but preferred the lighting off. AMD Ryzan AI 9 HX 370 with 12 cores, 24 threads @ 2GHz processor and Radeon 890M onboard graphics. 2TB SSD looks to be Micron 2230 mtfdkba2t0qfm-1bd1aabgb PCIe 4x4. Crystal Disk score was acceptable at 5055 MB/s read and 3953 MB/s write speeds. 32GB LPDDR5X at 7500 MHz is fast. But it looks like it is soldered in. #@GB should be more than sufficient any processing needs but if there is an issue with memory – you can’t replace it Power in on left side 1 HDMI 2.1 connection on left side 1 USB-C 4 Gen connection – 40Gbps with power delivery on left side. 1 USB-A 3.2 Gen connection – 10Gbps on left side. 1 Headphone/Mic jack on left side USB-C 3.2 Gen Display Port/Power delivery on right side. USB-A 3.2 Gen 10Gbps on right side. SD card slot on right side. Why not micro-sd so card does not stick out? Wireless is 802.11be (wi-fi 7). I have wi-fi 7 mesh and connected using 802.11be with no issues. No issues running Minercraft (grandsons love it I don’t play), Assetto Corsa and Automobilista 2 (which I do play). There was no stuttering, etc. In PCMark10 GPU testing this units NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40708 (with GB GDDR6?) I was surprised at the somewhat low 18 fps. This was a tad better than my current gaming laptop with Radeon RX 6800S but very far behind my Asus Gaming desktop 197+ fps with Nvidia Geforce RTX4070 Super (which is to be expected). However, its Cinebench score of 11261 was very high as current gaming laptop scored 4600. The area between the top ff the keyboard keys and the top edge got very warm during my GPU tests but was much less during my gaming. I personally don’t use ray tracing but GPU is certified. It does support HDR. I always test running 2021 Adobe Photoshop and Premier (video) Elements editing - which was very fast as is moving files, doing word processing, excel, etc. as well as multi-tasking. Has NPU so has built in Copilot button. Comes with Asus specific software Armory Crate, Aura, etc. to allow for tuning and setting up colors, etc. to your liking. Speakers – Not sure of wattage but 2 x 2W is standard for laptops. Having them firing up on either side of the keyboard does give good separation, if not an immersive experience. Power cord over 6 feet with reasonably sized inline block. I have a USB-C 100W charger and was able to charge using that as well. So, you can leave the brick behind… No Thunderbolt port as it seems Thunderbolt is licensed by Intel. No ethernet connection. 1-year warranty. While not user upgradeable/fixable it is sleek and has enough connections/power for pretty much any use. The keyboard, while small, feels great using. I am not sold on how the white will wear/look over time, but it stands out now from the black/grey crowd. I am also concerned about the machine getting so hot during my tests – but in playing my games it was considerably cooler. Also, mine arrived with a little nick in the top edge of the keyboard (hardly noticeable but wanted to mention). Overall, a nice package I rate at 4.5 and I would recommend giving it a look.

Tried 3 other laptops before settling with this one here, nothing but good things to say about this one. First, the screen is beautful and the build quality is amazing. The speakers also sound really good and get very loud. I haven't done any gaming on the laptop yet since I have a PC, so I can't say anything about the heat while gaming, but for normal use, the laptop is cool to touch. You can feel where the hot spots are, but it's nowhere near hot to touch like an i9 chip. Battery life, before I typed this, I've been listening to music and browsing the web while messaging on Discord as well, and the ETA is 6h with the screen maxed out. I haven't fully tested it out to 0%, but the ETA alone is way better than my previous laptops which only was 2h or less in this field. Aside from that, this one actually has some skins available that you can use to protect the outsides. I accidentally dropped my phone on the top and ended up with a tiny dent on the back, so I do recommend that. It's the first thing I ordered. The only thing that will take some getting used to a bit is the keyboard layout, specifically the right CTRL button. It's not there and it's the copilot button. It could just be an ASUS keyboard layout though, which is new to me, but that's my only complaint.

Gaming laptops have had a specific style for many years, being big, loud, and brash. Usually loaded with bright colors, RGB, and simply screaming “Look at me, I’m a GAMER!”. When I first saw this new Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 it was exactly the opposite in nearly every way, and to me, that is a good thing. Other than the RGB backlight in the keyboard and the fact that it has Republic of Gamers inscribed in the casing, you might never guess this was a gaming laptop. It is a gaming laptop for someone who wishes to be more discreet, or simply someone who feels like the more conventional take is perhaps juvenile. In my opinion, it is gorgeous, with machined aluminum casing, the 240hz OLED HDR screen, hidden hinge, and full ventilation underneath the chassis. It expels a great deal of heat from those vents making using it in the lap very uncomfortable, but that is how you know it is working right, by getting that heat out and staying at an appropriate temperature. As a result, when gaming the CPU and GPU never exceed 74C in my experience so far which is very reasonable. Battery life is abysmal if you attempt to game on it without being plugged in 30 min to an hour at best, and closer to 5-6 hours when doing other less demanding tasks. In general, you’re going to want to keep that charger close by. The OLED screen is beautiful, with flawless colors and perfect blacks. The keyboard and touchpad are high quality, with just the right amount of travel and sensitivity to feel somewhere between a desktop keyboard and a typical laptop one. There is no touch screen or fingerprint scanner, but the touch pad is extremely responsive, and it supports facial recognition via Windows Hello. Sound quality from the built-in speakers is surprisingly excellent, giving my high-end computer speakers a run for their money. The sound is crisp and clean, and with Dolby Atmos support as well. There are plenty of ports, two USB-C, two USB-A 3.2, an HDMI 2.1, and an SD card reader. One of the USB-C ports is dedicated to the 4070 chipset along with the HDMI, and the other runs off the Radeon chipset built into the NPU. As a result, I can run multiple external monitors and depending on which ports I use I can engage the discreet and dedicated graphics simultaneously. The Ryzen AI NPU is very quick, and the Copilot features add a few new usability functions to the table. I have a Wi-Fi 7 mesh network, and this is my first device that supports it fully and the difference in Wi-Fi speeds is extremely noticeable. I spend most of my time PC gaming on strategy or city builders, and the performance is excellent for those types of games. My current favorite, Cities: Skylines II runs flawlessly at max settings without a lost frame in sight and is super smooth. Others like Age of Empires Remastered or StarCraft II also run amazingly. I have even tried much more intense games like Starfield and had good results with it. I had to dial it back a little to get it smooth, but it still looked great. Both on the internal screen and by plugging into my 4K monitor the games I play are almost identical either way. The 2TB SSD goes a long way for storing lots of software and has exceptional loading times as well. Gaming is the primary purpose for it and it excels in what I have tried. Asus Laptops have come a long way since the last time I owned one years ago. This machine is incredibly impressive in every way. I love that it looks discreet and handsome while also being a powerful and capable gaming rig. It is lightweight and easy to transport, but I can’t go far without the charger handy. Everything altogether make it the total package and I can’t recommend it enough.

I’ve been using ASUS ROG gaming gear for a long time. This is the 5th ROG laptop I’ve had in the past few years. Every year, it seems like they make some slight changes, and increase the gaming performance, but this year they have leapt ahead. *Performance* Performance is what you would expect from a ROG laptop specced out the way this is. 32GB of LPDDR5X memory, an NVIDIA RTX 4070, 2TB PCIe 4 SSD, and brought together with AMDs new Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the gorgeous 16” 2560 x 1600 OLED panel running at 240Hz. You will find numerous posts, videos, and reviews that will show you FPS at various resolutions. Suffice to say that this machine will be able to handle just about any AAA titles at great video fidelity without sacrificing performance. I played my usual line up, Diablo IV, WoW, COD, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, and Baulder’s Gate 3. They all ran very well without noticeable frame drops or having to sacrifice visual quality. One thing that is usually an irritant is fan noise. I have always wanted a gaming laptop that I could use while lying in bed, but normally that is not possible. With other laptops, as soon as you load up a game the fans start spinning up and are very loud. Even running less intensive games like Balatro, Vampire Survivors, Dave the Diver, etc. The fan noise is usually a big problem since my wife is generally watching TV next to me, so it becomes an issue. Not with this laptop. I can easily run most of those games with the AMD integrated video card without even having to turn to the RTX 4070. This allows the system to run cooler and keeps the fans relatively quiet. Now, if I decide to run some AAA titles the fans do spin up, but even then, they aren’t nearly as loud as some other gaming laptops I have used. If my wife is watching a semi-loud movie, I can still play some of those AAA games without fan noise being an issue. Since we are on the topic of cooling, another thing to note is since AMD’s new Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip is supposed to be far more power efficient it generally runs cooler. I can easily use this laptop for long periods of time while it sits on my lap without feeling like it’s cooking my thighs. The same power efficiency has also been nice since I don’t get the normal battery life anxiety I would get from other gaming laptops. I can comfortably work for hours with the laptop laying on my lap and not worry about needing to plug it in. It’s not at MacBook levels or anything, but it’s far longer battery life than I would have expected from such a powerful gaming laptop. So, you have all this power, an amazing processor with great thermals and power efficiency, and 2TB of storage to hold all your games and work. That might be enough to seal the deal, and have you click that buy button, but we haven’t even arrived at my favorite part. The amazing screen! The OLED panel is so crispy. Yes, it is amazing to run games on here since you get G-Sync, a 240Hz refresh rate, 0.2ms response time, and a beautiful 2.5k resolution, but just watching movies and videos is also a treat. The display also has 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, a delta E color accuracy of less than 1, and VESA HDR True Black 500 certification. Put all this amazing display technology together and the Nebula display makes blacks super inky, and colors scream off the screen. It is a joy to do just about anything on the screen. I am going to need to upgrade my external monitor to try to keep up. Another thing that I loved, that was truly unexpected, was the audio. I have no idea what changed this year, the ASUS site shows this monster has 6 speakers with dual woofers. Whatever changes they made, this laptop is the best sounding laptop I have ever used. By far better than any other Windows rig I have used, and even slightly ahead of my M3 Pro MacBook Pro. Again, any media, music, movies, games, videos just sound great. **Design** Overall design is also great. Even though this is a 16” laptop, it feels far lighter, and slimmer than other similar devices I have used. It feels lighter than the 4.08lb that is listed. I love that it’s so slim, only 0.59” inches thick. The aluminum alloy chassis feels very premium. The keys have always been great on ROG devices and this one follows that tradition. The trackpad is enormous, and smooth. One minor negative thing I noticed about the trackpad is that the topmost part near the spacebar doesn’t click. If you are like me and you normally just run tap to click this isn’t an issue. It’s just something you should be aware of. I’ve made this comparison already, but the feel and build of this ROG G16 is on par with my MacBook, and that is saying something. This is a beautiful piece of tech. ***Wrap-up*** This is quite possibly the best laptop of the year. I love everything about this, even considering that you can’t upgrade the 32GB of RAM. I know that ASUS has received flack for continuing to use the MediaTek Wi-Fi cards, but I have had a good experience with them, especially the Wi-Fi 7 card here. If you really hate it, you can swap the Wi-Fi card for something else. It would also be nice if this was already rated as a Copilot+ device. AMD’s new AI chip is capable of 50 TOPs so should qualify to get that Copilot+ designation. I think I read that it might come later in an update, if so, I am looking forward to trying that out as well. If you made it this far that you already know; the screen is a piece of art, as is the entire hardware. The audio is amazing, the performance is stellar, battery life is great, and cooling is efficient. If you had someone create their ideal portable gaming laptop this would be it. My favorite piece of technology by far. A very enthusiastic recommendation for anyone looking for a premium, lightweight, gaming laptop.

Overall I think this is a really great laptop, with a sleek design and great performance. There are a few minor annoyances that pop up every now and then, but don't impact the experience enough to drop a star imo. Performance-wise it works great - on multiple recent AAA games I'm able to get consistent 60+ FPS at 1440p, sometimes 80-90+ with DLSS/FG. The RTX 4070 and Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 are a great combo. Frankly I don't have much to say about them - they work, and they work great. I've limited the CPU to 20W in my own "power saving" profile, and it still can do quite a lot of work even limited to that level - I may take it even further to see how much I can get out of the battery. Speaking of battery, I think it's good enough. I haven't had much chance to really get a feel for it yet, but I haven't had any battery anxiety the few times I have unplugged it - though I am usually mindful to keep the dGPU off and I generally avoid gaming on battery. It runs quite quiet even on a "turbo" preset, compared to a 2022 G14 (which I believe has a higher power draw!) it performs significantly better while also being significantly quieter. I might even go so far as to say this machine runs quieter on "turbo" than the G14 did on "silent". As for silent mode on this machine, if you're just doing basic web browsing it barely needs to turn them on, and I personally don't even notice the fans being on, unless I'm in a perfectly quiet environment - think no A/C or similar background noise. The OLED screen looks absolutely gorgeous, HDR videos feel as though you're actually there. 240HZ is a great bonus, although I haven't really hit numbers that high quite yet - I don't often play games I can reach that high of FPS with this hardware. One odd thing I've noticed is there's an odd static-like pattern at very low brightness in greys. It reminds me of the appearance of darker colors on plasma displays. It's only apparent to me when within a foot of the screen and at very low brightness (in a dark area as well - it gets quite dim). The build quality is great - the aluminum chassis means it's quite solid, not a lot of flex. It feels and looks premium. The keyboard is quite nice to type on as well. The touchpad is quite large and very nice to use as well. I've had a few quirks with the machine so far, software bugs that I don't really have an explanation for - although they're most likely to do with the MUX switch going between iGPU and dGPU. Some really odd scaling issues that crop up once in awhile, that are fixed by a quick restart. Overall I'm very happy with this laptop, I only wish Asus had gone the extra mile to use vapor chambers in these lower-end models instead of being exclusive to the 4080/90 G16 models - to keep temps lower, or to possibly eke out a bit more performance.

I've had my fair share of gaming laptops, and the sleekness of these newer generation laptops while still having the performance chops of gaming machines is something I'm really enjoying. This laptop takes that whole situation to the next level. Packaging: I will say that the packaging for such a high end machine was a bit of a letdown, just your usual run-of-the-mill carboard box with another smaller cardboard box inside. I've seen some pretty impressive and elaborate boxes for high end gaming laptops in the past, and while I would agree that I would prefer the money be spent on the laptop and not the packaging, to me there's a certain level of wow factor that is missing when something like this doesn't have an equally sleek presentation. Build: The laptop is all aluminum, it's gorgeous to behold, there's no flex or creak to it as you open it or use it, the use of plastic is limited to the keys and there's a faint almost glow to it (not really) just in how the light hits the aluminum . The trackpad is large, the keyboard is responsive, the hinge is stiff but not too much so. Really the only thing I dont love about it is the strange bar across the lid with the lighting effects, it almost feels like it's not working right even though I know it is. I'll likely turn it off or change how it functions. Performance: Where do I begin, I powered it up, immediately installed 3DMark and ran TimeSpy. While I know there are newer benchmarks and have newer ones available, TimeSpy has become somewhat of a defacto standard in gaming benchmarks for quite some time. Out of the box it gave a respectable score of 10939, but when compared to other machines with the same AMD AI 9 HX 370 and RTX 4070 it was showing near the bottom of the list. I figured I'd massage things a bit to see if it had more performance under the covers. I upgraded the drivers then set ASUS Armoury Crate to Performance for both CPU and GPU (this has to be done in two places, set the GPU to Ultimate on the summary screen, and create a profile to set the operating mode to performance. Out of the box both are on middle settings). In addition I upgraded the BIOS from the Asus site. I was rewarded for my efforts, my score improving almost 10% to 12061 after that, so it is definitely worth it, if you are plugged into the wall most of the time, to turn up those performance features. On top of that I've played a number of more recent games and the laptop chews through them all at an amazing rate, COD Black Ops III, Palworld and some favorites like Apex Legends. It does not disappoint. With this being a wholly new processor, I wonder if we'll see more performance come from it as firmware and games are better optimized. That said this laptop easily gets the highest numbers from this CPU/GPU combo. The one place where it falls short in my opinion is the SSD. They chose a very middle-of-the-road PCIE4x4 SSD, and while I get that it doesn't mean everything, it feels like they could have gone with something better and faster to utilize the capabilities of the laptop more. Overall: It's a great machine, has a wonderful high-quality build and great performance. I would easily recommend this to anyone.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 is a beast. Not only does this laptop pack a powerful performance, but it looks amazing while doing it. The laptop has a look and feel that screams, premium. The case is made of light silver aluminum case, with front LED custom effects on the lid, and a customizable backlit keyboard. The keyboard is extremely comfortable to type on, and the extra-large multi touch pad works great. The screen is a 16” 240hz OLED display that looks absolutely gorgeous. It offers vibrant and rich colors, deep blacks, and gets incredibly bright. The speakers have amazing quality surround sound, with deep bass and solid ambiance. The ROG G16 has an impressive amount of storage and ram. The laptop comes with 2TB of SSD storage, which is a generous amount for holding a decent size library of games. It has a staggering 32GB of DDR5 ram, which is more than enough for most demanding games. There is also a dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX Studio 8GB DDR6 graphics card. Needless to say, this laptop can handle any game currently on the market without skipping a beat. The G16 has the new AMD Ryzen AI 9HX processor. With the new processor, you are now able to use all the new AI features that Windows has to offer, including the new Copilot. As far as the performance of the new processor is concerned, everything runs super-fast. Multitasking has been flawless, switching between apps has been a breeze and I never had an issue of it slowing down or stuttering. When it comes to gaming, this laptop is a true beast! I tested out an assortment of games from my Steam library, all with ultra settings and I was blown away. Playing MW3 with this level of detail was such a great experience, especially playing with a 240hz OLED display. I loaded up Returnal next and that looked and played incredible. Overall, I am extremely happy with the ROG Zephyrus G16, this is now my main go to computer for both gaming and everything else. The 16” OLED display looks gorgeous and gets incredibly bright. With the 32gb or ram and the GeForce RTX 4070, gaming is incredible. The new Ryzen AI 9HX processor is very impressive and works great. This is an amazing laptop, and I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a premium gaming laptop.