Customer Ratings & Reviews

Honestly from being a hardcore gamer and student, the 2026 Zephyrus G16 was so worth it in my opinion. The build quality is so premium nothing about it feels cheap. The speakers is definitely the best i’ve seen on any laptop from all sorts of other brands even apple and their macbook too. The screen is so high end tier, 2K OLED with 240hz and it’s genuinely so beautiful. The CPU and GPU are pretty strong and runs pretty much you throw at it. The only problem is that it’s only 16gb and soldered so you can’t upgrade it unless you buy a different model which is like 800+ more. To be fair 16gb is more than enough for me honestly. The battery life is AMAZING , upgrading from an Acer Nitro 15 with a battery life of 30 mins from watching a youtube video (lowest brightness, full eco mode, 60hz) it felt so unreal i never knew battery life could be so great on a gaming laptop. The zephyrs easily pulls 10+ hours maybe even 15, eitherway i only lose about 10% in 3 classes at my college with relatively high brightness. The cooling is alright, if your cpu gets hot just change the CPU boost aggressive mode to efficient. I recommend getting a laptop cooler tbh Though another thing that bothers me is sometime the screen flicker for like a very very small less than second (i think it’s due to the built in oled protection or dgpu and guy switching ) but it isn’t that bad. Is it worth getting the 2026 model over 2025? I’d say yes if there’s a sale, I managed to buy this for 2.8k i’m an international student so I can’t really make a desktop setup and my old laptop was preforming poorly on battery life and even the fans for it started going bad and making a lot of noise. The 2026 model has a better battery life, cooling , stronger hinge and they fixed the creaking sound issue that was on the 2025 model when it heated up. Another difference is that the design on the laptop top has a glass panel over it so it doesn’t show the light crosses when it’s off and overall looks more cleaner and minimalistic imo. Overall its pretty good and worth it once you’re fine with the ram being soldered.

Nice bright screen. Battery life isn’t bad but could be better. Gets a little warm. Great build quality. Quick processor. Runs well

This is a very premium laptop that was already pretty great in 2025, and now the 2026 version is mostly the same but with a tighter hinge, brighter screen, better CPU, more GPU power, and much longer battery life. The fans do get loud while you’re gaming, but you have quite a bit of control in Armoury Crate to bring them down to a lower level at the cost of higher temps, or bring the power levels down a bit to compensate. I’ve always liked that these laptops give you a pretty good amount of control over your temps/performance/fans, and third-party tools like G-Helper make it easier to adjust on the fly. I review just about every Zephyrus laptop every year, and this one is definitely their best yet. It really feels like the complete package now. Other than the price and high fan noise in Turbo mode (which is kinda expected anyway at this point), I have no major complaints.

ASUS continues to make the best computers in the market and every time I think they can't impress me...they do it again. Now they are not best in everything but they defiantly out beat the competition for best gaming/performance, premium and digital work/creators. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026 model) fits all three of those categories. I have been using it daily for gaming with friends, creating and making 3D prints, and also for my volunteer efforts including making digital graphics, typing, editing websites and even Zoom meetings! Not once has the G16 let me down. Unboxing was premium the laptop comes in what looks like a standard laptop box but once you unbox it you will find the laptop in premium packaging including an Apple-like box. The laptop is well packaged for shipment. Other than the laptop, it included some basic manuals/verbiage and a large 250 Watt power supply which is required to run a laptop of this performance. I haven't had that much power since my Precision mobile workstation days.... this got me excited. Setup was easy and standard for a windows device. Microsoft essentially has not really changed how you setup Window's for ages... while it does look different you will have to do a few steps of connection to Wi-Fi, waiting for updates, and going through almost the bloatware of Microsoft choices. If you haven't done it before or in a decade, I recommend watching a YouTube Video. With how this laptop performs I was through the setup in less than 5 minutes, especially since I already have a Microsoft account which I keep updated and use on a daily basis... Microsoft knows what to do for me (well at least it feels like it). You can review the spec sheet provided by Best Buy or Asus but here is what stood out to me (with comments): Processor: Ultra 9 386H (2.10 GHz) - Can pretty much handle anything you would throw at it for gaming and applications that require power. Ram: 16 GB LPDDR5X - 16 GB is a good but I wish it was 32 GB. I am unsure if I can upgrade the ram with this laptop. It looks like the bottom of the case can be removed but I did not experiment. Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti w/12 GB GDDR7 - Considered high-end and the laptop comes with a big enough power brick (250 watts) to make it run. 12 gb of video ram is awesome. The 5070 Ti is 15% more powerful than the standard 5070 and while there are also higher models like the 5080 and 5090, the 5070 Ti is the perfect worker in my opinion. Storage: 1 TB SSD PCIe 4.0 - Fast and reliable. Screen size and resolution 16 inches 2560x1600 240Hz (3k display) This is the best part of this laptop. The screen is excellent to look at and backed by the 5070 Ti. Brightness: 1100 nits - Super bright screen to help in the sunlight or if you just like having the capability of going extra bright. Backlit RGB Keyboard (read my paragraph to learn more about this) Aluminum Chassis which is advertised as being carved from a single piece of metal. It hasn't shown any scratches or wear doing my use. Cooling is by air but advertised as ROG Intelligent assuming software. Wireless options: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth Connections: HDMI 2.1, Thunderbolt, 2 USB-c 3.2, 2 USB-A 3.2, headphone jack, The laptop has a 1080p video camera and a microphone system that works well. I typically use a headset for audio but everything works as it should for video calls or discord. Battery life is decent for this type of laptop and it's not going to be perfect because of the power demands it requires. As soon as you unplug it from the wall, Asus auto puts you into a silent mode which I am assuming is eco you can change this if you want or in the Armoury software to use more power while on battery mode when gaming. I noticed while on battery mode that the estimated time constantly changes and even if I am just using basic programs. While I usually keep it plugged in to use everything it has, I estimate battery life to be 2 to 3 1/2 hours with a full charge depending on what you are running. Most likely less with a demanding game. The charger is large but its smaller than the 250 watt charges from 10 years ago. The system seems to be well cooled when I am using it at my desk. It can also be very quite when you are not gaming....nearly silent. Even while I am gaming I can't hear it over my headphones but they are also ANC. It's a quiet guy which I like. Have not experience too much of a heat issue. The RGB keyboard is nicely lit and feels good to use. Responsive, feels premium and can be adjusted through ASUS's software the Armoury Crate. I like how the lighting on the keys is consistent meaning no dead spots or light leaks (other than where it should be). I do wish the keys had a different feel when I pushed them down but I will survive. They trackpad is sufficient and has a nice polished click and feel. I always recommend a wireless mouse on a laptop though. Armoury create is ok and I don't like how it takes forever to open. It might be that it just needed updates each time I opened it but it's kind of annoying as I just want to get in, make my changes and get out. The software really is the hub for controlling your features, lighting, performance, gaming functions, boot up sounds, customizable keys (3), the list goes on. I really like that you can adjust the back slash on the exterior body/lid of the laptop and my favorite mode is the loading one. I am also not a fan of flashing or color changing keyboards... its either red or white and no in-between for me. However, you can do whatever you want from the Armoury Crate software and its all in one spot which makes things easy. Asus really has done a good job here of narrowing everything down to one program. You can also have Asus load up different profiles depending on which game or application you are using while this is not something new its nice that its once again located in one program. ASUS also lets you control the laptop through the program and your smartphone, instructions are in the program on how to pair. Gaming! This is where this laptop shines and I have loved gaming on the G16. Download Steam and Battle.net and you can pretty much run any game you throw at it. I actually stopped using my gaming console and have mostly just ran with the G16 as I am able to jump on with my friends at my desk or anywhere in my home and on the go with the laptop. World of Warcraft is essentially easy to run in this day but I just jumped from my other regular spec. PC to the G16 and saw a huge difference...especially since I can run everything on high in terms of graphics. I am now moving on to other titles like COD and the new Halo Campaign Evolved and loving this laptop even more. Everything runs smooth as butter and looks really good like Cortana. I also paired this with a performance monitor and it does great with the extended monitor and no performance issues here. 3D printing: I haven't fully dived into 3D printing with the ASUS yet as I have a dedicated desktop for my 3D printer but happy to report it has run Creality Print and Orcaslicer with ease. My biggest issue with my other computers is trying to get Creality Print to start and run quickly. The G16 performs well here and is designed to run graphic heavy and power hungry programs. I have been able to throw everything at this laptop without it hesitating. It's well built, premium, has gaming lighting but still feels premium and not embarrassing to take to work, and just a joy to use. I have been able to run multiple applications, use discord to share my screen and talk with friends all while gaming and this laptop just runs. Even with 16 GB of ram, I have been fine... while I still do wish it had 32 GB. I honestly don't have any cons to mention. I thought I was going to hate the light up slash on the back and would be embarrassed if I brought this to my work (professional setting) but it's tastefully done and lit. Great laptop and excellent performance for all your needs.

I’ve owned many laptops and gaming desktops over the year, and this year’s ASUS ROG G16 absolutely hits it out of the park. The specs are incredible, the design (which is always subjective) is on point, and it’s relatively thin and light given what’s on the inside. Honestly, there’s little to complain about - outside the price. The biggest knock for all gaming devices nowadays, is the price. But if you are in the market and have the budget, you really can’t beat this laptop. WHAT’S IN THE BOX Inside you’ll find the laptop itself - neatly wrapped in plastic - as well as the 240W power adapter. The laptop is remarkably thin (relatively speaking) but the charging brick is a beast (not quite Xbox 360 huge, but pretty bulky). That’s it. DESIGN AND BUILD QUALITY First, a few comments on the design and build quality. With this laptop, Asus has moved away from aggressive gaming designs, opting instead to use an aluminum chassis that fits into the office as easily as it does a gaming setup. It’s only 0.70 inches thick and 4.3 pounds. The laptop has virtually no flex. When you rest your hands on it and/or are typing, there’s no bend whatsoever. It just feels outright sturdy. The matte finish does a pretty decent job at hiding fingerprints and oily palms, but they will still show up (but they’re easy to wipe off). The back of the lid has what Asus calls, “slash lighting.” It’s a diagonal LED slash that you can customize (or turn off) with subtle lighting effects. As it’s on the back of the lid, you really can’t see it when using the laptop, so it’s really for the benefit of those around you. The keyboard has plenty of space with large keys and a generous - and very responsive - touchpad. I found the typing experience to be quite enjoyable and the touchpad was an absolute pleasure given how responsive it was. Part of me wishes Asus would have included a full number keypad, but that would mess up the symmetry of the keyboard and take up space for one of my favorite features - the sound. I normally play games with headsets, but when I tried out the speakers on this laptop (I was playing the new Halo Campaign Evolved), I was floored by the 6 speaker setup. Obviously it by no means touches true surround sound, but for a laptop, man did it get close, offering rich bass and clear dialogue. The OLED display is an absolute work of art - it’s the centerpiece of the laptop. It has the inky blacks you expect of OLED screens, 500 nits peak HDR brightness, and a 0.2 ms pixel response time. Games, photos, and text alike are all razor sharp with zero motion blur or smearing. UPGRADEABILITY I do want to mention upgradeability. The RAM is nonupgradeable, so whatever you get when you buy the device, that’s what you’re stuck with. Obviously I would recommend going for the 32 GB of DDR5 RAM if you can swing it. There are two full size M.2 PCIe Gen 4x4 SSD slots. One is reserved for the drive that comes with the device, but it’s nice to know you can easily expand your storage (something that wasn’t possible on older ROG devices). The WiFi 7 card is on a standard M.2 slot and is user replaceable, but I can’t imagine a scenario where anyone would want to do that anytime soon. PERFORMANCE This baby is rocking an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H with NVIDIA RTX 5070Ti laptop GPU. It has a generous amount (12GB of VRAM). And back to the monitor, it has 240Hz G-Sync panel to deliver fluid animation and eliminate screen tearing. The VRAM is helpful in getting rid of bottlenecks in some AAA games on higher graphical settings. I was able to play Cyberpunk 2077, Halo Campaign Evolved, and Wolfenstein at native 1600p with ultra settings and DLSS frame regeneration and consistently hitting over 75+ FPS. Frankly, it’s a beast in the gaming department. The high refresh rate on the OLED panel is just a treat and eliminates virtually all input lag. This laptop gets hot under stress - as you’d expect - but does a decent job of dissipating heat. It utilizes a vapor chamber colling plate and three fans to keep it cool. The area above the number row does get hot (near the hinge) and the fans do get pretty loud in turbo mode, I never felt any discomfort on the palm rest or using the WASD letters for movement. As a day-to-day work laptop - the Intel Ultra 9 handles everything you could throw at it. My work mostly consists of drafting documents, reviewing emails, looking at images, but I was also able to edit videos without any issues. And when putting the laptop in Silent mode (i.e. when not gaming) the system became virtually silent and cool to the touch. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS Asus comes with Armoury Crate software which is the program you can use to control the GPU operating modes, fan curves, and Slash lighting patterns. But it’s a resource hog with numerous background services. I’d recommend G-Helper, a lightweight open source alternative that controls all the things you’d want (power limits, screen refresh, lighting, etc.) without the extra background bloat. Asus does include OLED care utilities to help prevent screen burn in - which is a nice touch - which is pixel shift, screen saver dimming and taskbar transparency tools. These settings are found within the Armoury Crate app. In terms of battery life, it’s a Windows gaming laptop, so one cannot expect it to last as long as others. When switching to Eco Mode on battery (which turns off the GPU completely) and turning down the screen refresh rate, I think you can expect 7-9 hours of basic computing needs including media consumption. For fun, I played Halo on battery and after 20 minutes, I lost 25% of the battery. So don’t expect to be gaming on battery too long. Finally, the full 240W brick is pretty much necessary for gaming, know that you the laptop supports 100W USB-C power delivery which allows you to leave the charging brick behind when you just need the laptop for general use. CONCLUSION Gaming has become expensive recently. This laptop is no exception, but if you’re in the market, it really delivers in all aspects, from its sleek design, power, and features. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to game or even edit videos on a laptop.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus is a premium laptop that solidly checks the boxes for Gaming, Content Creation and General-Purpose use. Build quality and performance are superb. I ran several benchmarks and used a FLIR Thermal camera to capture heat maps for idle and under load. I looked at audio quality, build quality, keyboard feel, cooling fans and more. Specs are only quoted when needed. Please see that in the product description and Asus’ website for deep details. I’ll be comparing it to 3 other laptops, and how well it performed on several benchmarks. Setup: After unboxing, I plugged it up and charged it, I proceeded to setup Windows 11. All was good until the updates started. It hung on me twice, requiring a hard power down and starting over. The third time was a charm. The cooling fans ran at low speed during setup, and they were so quiet I could barely hear them even in a quiet room with my head down over the top of the keyboard only a couple inches above it. You sure can hear them under a full load, but they are quieter than my Acer and Gigabyte gaming laptops. Display: The screen is a Pantone validated and VESA Certified Display HDR True Black 1000. It’s a Samsung SDC4226 OLED panel that delivers up to 240 hz refresh and a 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. The panel delivers the vivid and accurate colors you would expect from its pedigree, and my datacolor Spyder X Pro colorimeter agrees. 100% sRGB, 100% DCI-P3 and 98% Adobe RGB. The product description says the resolution is 3K but it’s really 2.5K. 3K is 2880 X 1800 and 2.5K is 2560 X 1600. Sound: The six-speaker sound system in it delivered the best sound quality I’ve ever heard come out of a laptop, and I have owned at least 20 since the late 1990s. No, it’s not going to rival a desktop setup with a 2.1 or better setup, but for a laptop, I’m impressed. It comes with Dolby Atmos and you can tweak it to suit you, but you will need a third-party app to make EQ changes. Performance: Performance wise, it doesn’t disappoint. I ran the benchmarks at out-of-the-box default settings and then tweaked the system for minimum background CPU usage and to make sure it stayed locked to the RTX-5070ti. That got me about a 3% to 5% boost at the most and varied slightly from benchmark app to app. The biggest thing that stands out is it only has 16GB of RAM vs 32GB. However, the RTX-5070ti has 12GB of VRAM and that should offset the lack of 32GB of RAM a bit in certain cases, and the Fast SSD should help speed up the swap file, too. If not for the RAM shortage, I’m sure this machine would have been shipped with 32GB of RAM, and you can get a version with 32GB. Because of the design of the Zephyrus, the RAM is soldered on the board and not upgradable. Same for the Acer Swift, but the Predator and the Gigabyte A16 Gaming are RAM upgradable. You can upgrade the SSD to a high capacity one or add another. Maybe. Asus’ site says there’s one slot in the FAQ section, but in the specs they say there’s 2 M.2 PCIe slots. Benchmarks: See Photos for Benchmarks and to see how it compares to 3 other similar laptops. Acer Predator Helios, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Core i9 14900HX and RTX-4060 with 8GB, FHD LCD 165 hz (2024) Gigabyte A16 Gaming, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Core i7 13620H and RTX-5060 with 8GB, FHD LCD 145 hzscreen (2025) Asus Zenbook 16 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Core X7 358H and Intel Arc B390 GPU, 3k OLED 120hz. (2026) Regardless of the close specs between the Zephyrus and the Predator, games performed better on the Zephyrus. I also ran them on Predator with it connected to an Alienware QD-OLED monitor at 240hz. Not a night and day difference, but noticeably smoother on the Zephyrus with higher frame rates. For content creators, it ought to scream. However, when I loaded up Adobe CC and went to run Puget to benchmark it, LRC wouldn’t run and Premiere Pro crashed. Ps version 27.9.0 ran and gave me a score of 8451. Battery: How long the battery lasts depends on what you’re doing, and what the computer’s settings are. Asus just says up to all day. Pretty vague. I set the battery to a maximum 80% charge to prolong the life of the battery, long term. But you can override that setting temporarily when needed. Build Quality: First rate! CNC machined aluminum alloy chassis, and you can feel it when you use it. No flex in the keyboard, no creaking when you open the lid and not flexing there either. The keyboard has a nice feel, and it’s a bit lighter feeling than the Acer Predator and Gigabyte A16 Gaming. Those keyboards require slightly more pressure to push the key before it gives and goes down. I prefer that, but you might like a lighter touch. Things to consider: It has a custom plug for power on the back left side for the highest wattage and peak gaming loads. Plus you can charge it via USB-C up to 100 watts. While it lacks an RJ45 ethernet port, it has an SD card reader slot that runs at peak USB‑2 speed, a corner most companies still cut. I also like the 4 macro keys they added. While the lighted “slash” on the lid might look cool to someone sitting in front of you, I think the cost of it would have been better spent on making the keyboard full RGB per key, or at least 4 or 6 zones. At least you can use it to display battery level and charging status. I also never figured out how to disable the annoying start up sound effect. Not in Armoury Crate or in the BIOS. Conclusion: It really comes down to your wants, needs, and budget. The Asus Zephyrus is built to higher standards than the other gaming laptops I compared it to. Even if some of the benchmarks aren’t far apart, its size, weight, build quality, display, and sound system are substantially better. If you can afford it, yes, I think so. Even with only 16 GB of RAM, Asus didn’t create the RAM‑ageddon problem. Highly recommended.

I’ve been using the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 for about a week now and I’m really happy with the performance. It was delivered quickly and arrived nicely protected in a well-constructed box to protect it. Everything was packaged securely and the laptop arrived in perfect condition. Setting it up was easy, although the full Windows setup and update process took around 30 minutes with my wifi connection. It went through several stages of updates, restarted, and then continued through the final Windows setup screens. Nothing went wrong, and I just let it do it’s thing until it was ready. The keyboard was one of the first things I noticed, the keys are incredibly smooth and almost feel like they have a glass-like surface. I don’t remember using another laptop where the keys themselves felt quite this smooth to the touch. The keyboard initially feels a little tighter or more condensed than I’m used to, possibly because of the speaker areas on each side, but I’ve been getting used to it. There isn’t a number pad, which is fine with me, and there are four separate M-keys above the function row for quick controls and for opening the Armoury Crate program. The RGB keyboard lighting is extremely bright and works really well. At first I thought it might already be turned all the way up, but then I increased it and discovered it could get even brighter, and I’ll never complain about that! It’s single-zone RGB rather than per-key lighting, but it’s still one of the better laptop keyboard backlights I’ve seen. The trackpad is huge, which I really like because I have large hands. The 16-inch OLED display gets extremely bright, much brighter at maximum brightness than I would use unless I were in a really bright room. The 2560 x 1600 resolution gives me plenty of room to work when I’m editing video. The colors also look great while gaming, and the 240Hz refresh rate helps fast movement look smoother and more fluid. This model has the Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU with 12GB of dedicated video memory. It also has an NPU for compatible AI features, which is useful for me. I create a lot of AI artwork and I work with AI video, using several different AI models to create different kinds of video projects for social media. Basically, I do a lot of video editing, and I usually have several applications and browser windows open while I’m working with 4 or more tools at one time. I installed Steam for gaming and have spent some time trying a few of my favorite games on it. When gaming I mainly want good color, smooth gameplay, a stable frame rate and responsive controls without lag, stuttering, dropped frames, screen tearing or choppy motion. Every game I tried ran smoothly and looked really good. I didn’t measure the exact frame rates, but I didn’t notice any of those obvious performance problems that normally stand out and I’ve been really happy with gaming on this laptop. Because of my video editing, AI work, multitasking and gaming, my biggest concern with this laptop is the 16GB of system memory. The computer has a powerful processor and graphics card, but 16GB seems low for an expensive, high-performance laptop that may be used for video editing, AI creation, heavy multitasking and newer games. The memory is soldered to the motherboard and cannot be upgraded later, which makes that decision more important. Gaming has worked great so far, but I also wonder how well 16GB will hold up as newer and more demanding games are released, especially if I have other programs running in the background. Even though I haven’t experienced a gaming problem yet, the amount of memory is still something I’d be really thinking about when buying this laptop. I haven’t experienced enough problems to say that the 16GB is definitely holding the laptop back, and I don’t want to judge it based only on the number. I still need more time to see how it performs when I’m working with large projects and using several programs at once. Still, I think 32GB would make more sense as the starting point for a laptop at this price. I would rather ASUS charge a little more and include enough memory to match the rest of the hardware. The laptop has a 1TB SSD, which should totally be enough to get started, and there is a second M.2 slot available if I need to add more storage later. It also has USB-A, USB-C, Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, a headphone jack and a full-size SD card reader. There isn’t a built-in Ethernet port, so a wired connection will require an adapter or dock. As for the overall design, I love it. The Eclipse Gray aluminum chassis looks modern and feels solid without being overly flashy, and it has that cool light strip running on the back of the lid. It has enough style to look like a gaming laptop, but it could still be used in an office or professional setting without looking out of place. It also feels durable while remaining surprisingly lightweight for a 16-inch gaming laptop. One design detail that’s small, but stands out, is the small lip along the front edge of the lid. You can feel exactly where to place your finger, making the laptop much easier to open. It seems like such a little thing, but it makes a difference every time I use it. The lid opens easily, the hinge feels solid, and the entire laptop feels well-constructed without being too heavy to carry around. Overall, I really love the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16. The keyboard, extremely bright lighting, huge trackpad, OLED display, lightweight build and meaningful design details make it enjoyable to use daily. The gaming performance has also been great for me so far. My real concern is the 16GB of non-upgradeable memory, and I almost want to give it 4 stars because of that, but it’s not a surprise, it’s as advertised, so I don’t think I should, especially when everything else has made a very good impression on me and I’m really happy with it overall.

ASUS - ROG Zephyrus G16 16" OLED 3K Gaming Laptop- Intel Core Ultra 9 386H 2026- 16GB Summary: Feature packed gaming goodness. Use: This is a primary gaming laptop. We use it for games like Destiny 2, Hogwarts Legacy, and even World of Warcraft. This unit comes equipped with sufficient storage to install several AAA PC games. The CPU and the RAM allow this machine to handle any workload thrown against it: homework, business productivity, setting up container labs, and more casual stuff like gaming and streaming. If you do a lot of container stuff consider the 32GB RAM version. The GPU (5070 RTX) is great for a mobile form factor and delivers a premium experience when coupled with the... OLED SCREEN. The screen offers pitch blacks that make every scene feel so much more immersive. Though I've always understood the technology, I haven't had the pleasure of owning and working on an OLED screen until now. Why and how? Well, it is just the richness and contrast that the display is able to produce thanks to the LED control. I did put the unit through a couple of benchmark tests to try and see where it stands against various competition. I don't have any other comparable PCs to measure it against other than my ASUS ROG G7 desktop (Intel Core Ultra 5 225F/ RTX 5060) and the G16 easily bested my desktop. I've included the benchmark for the laptop. As for build, the unit is pretty standard for an ASUS ROG product. It looks nice and it feels nice. Given the feature packed form factor, it should be no surprise that it also feels dense. The beautiful light rounding of the corners and the lines and lighting of the unit make it all worth it. The unit performs great at maximum settings for a few of my favorite games (such as Destiny 2) and the colors... well, I've mentioned the deep blacks, but I haven't said how vibrant the screen is with its 240 Hz refresh rate, 0.2 ms response times, sharp 2.5K resolution, and HDR colors. Though we have the unit on a dedicated ventilated laptop stand, we did test the unit for a few hours with one. The unit's "ROG intelligent cooling" is okay and a bit quieter than we expected while playing games on max for moderate amounts of time (few hours?). Even so, we did notice that the keyboard can get warm after such an extended gaming session. This can tax the wrists after a while. This isn't so much an issue if playing longer sessions with it "docked" as the unit is provided additional cooling through the stand and our wrists don't make contact with the keyboard. I don't understand the need for a microSD storage card slot. I would have preferred an additional USB-C port, if anything. But it's there. The remaining connectivity options are pretty standard. We have a 3D printed concrete house so WiFi can be a problem. We have a WiFi7 mesh set up, but many older devices can experience occasional performance issues (in the form of dropped or hand-off connections). The WiFi 7 on this unit pairs well with our router and actually seems to keep reliable connectivity no matter where we move in the house. The unit's sound is decent for laptop speakers, but they really aren't anything to write home about. The ASUS ROG Software Utilities such as the Aura Sync and Armory Crate make easy to configure, customize, and maintained. Though they seem to work fine for what they do, they themselves require frequent updating (which sometimes requires a restart?) - and that can be a bit annoying if you just want to make a quick change. We use this not just for gaming, but also work and to do that we have a 4K Samsung Odyssey G8 32" Curved display attached via USB-C > DisplayPort cable (i.e. ALT MODE). Keyboard and mouse are connected via USB HUB for simplicity, and networking is wireless since it performs well enough not to have to use the USB HUB NIC. Given that we are using an external 4K display, I should add that we continue to play somed games on MAX while others require some tuning to get the right FPS (WoW ULTRA fine, for example, while Destiny 2 or DOOM, may need to adjust a setting or two depending on expectations). Price-wise it is on the higher-end, but we feel worth it given its feature packed form factor. This laptop is a fine addition to our households ASUS and PC gaming lineup. Pros: * Screen. The OLED HDR screen is amazing. Colors pop and the blacks are rich. * Svelte. Great design, looks and feels premium. * Cooling. The cooling seems well tuned and doesn't have problems with several games we've played on MAX for moderate gaming sessions (haven't tried super long sessions, yet). * Utilities. The software to manage the laptop and keep it updated works fine and is consistent across their portfolio. * Connectivity and storage. Typical and adequate particularly if you're using a docking station/ hub. * GPU. The graphics processor for this unit, the nvidia Geforce RTX 5070 is pretty great for gaming on the go. It drives the integrated display on MAX and even drikves 4K displays with relative ease. * Aura Lighting. ASUS ROG Aura Sync features allow for some customization and the unit's back LED strip kick things up a notch. Cons: * RAM. 16 GB is pretty much the minimum amount of RAM any PC should have nevermind a gaming PC. If you caan swing it, get the 32 GB unit as the Zephyrus line were not designed to be upgradable. * Pricey. No doubt, given some of the minor issues, this unit is a bit on the pricey side. One of the easiest ways to squeeze out longevity from a PC is to upgrade storage and memory. Well, you can't do that with this unit so that applies a bit of pressure on the price as you are stuck with this configuration. * Power Brick. Necessary to power the GPU, I just don't like proprietary bricks and certainly not ones that can't be easily stowed. Why not just USB-C PD? :D

I owned last year's ROG Zephyrus G16, so this year's version is an easy compare for me to make, and it's a massive step up. My biggest complaint with last year's model was that it ran noisy and seemed to struggle keep the CPU and GPU in check under load. This 2026 model has the the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H with an RTX 5070 Ti and actually keeps things composed, thanks to a better vapor chamber, redesigned exhaust vent that also looks better on the bottom. The difference in noise to the unit I had last year is immediately noticeable, and it runs quieter too. Design and Build Quality The chassis gives this laptop a premium feel. I really like the Eclipse Gray color and refined aesthetics this year also just look better than last year's design, which I owned and can say gave off a much less mature presence on a desk. I’d say they should have called it gunmetal and you’d be closer to the real color of it. Memory Configuration Feels Behind the Times this configuration has RTX 5070 Ti with 12GB VRAM and with just 16GB of system RAM. At this GPU tier, I would have expected 32GB to be the standard, so seeing 16GB here feels like a step out of sync with where the rest of the market is heading, even if it's serviceable for most workloads.The RAMPOCOLYPSE is real and terrible. Keyboard: Great Feel, Awkward Typeface The action on this keyboard is excellent and satisfying in a way that makes typing and gaming both feel good. The letdown is the keycap typeface, which carries over the same overly angular, aggressive "gamer" font I disliked on last year's model too. A rounder, more refined typeface closer to what ASUS uses on its ProArt or ZenBook lines would suit this laptop's premium build far better. It's a strange design decision, because toning down the gamer aesthetic here would likely make this laptop appeal to a much wider audience and sell even better in my opinion. Display Quality The 16-inch Nebula monitor is stunning and comes calibrated out of the box. Even without hitting full 4K resolution, this display holds up favorably against my Razer Blade 18, delivering better contrast and accurate colors that make the slight resolution gap a non-issue in daily use, especially at this size. Port Selection Misses the Mark For a laptop at this tier, it's genuinely surprising that both USB-C port don’t Thunderbolt, let alone Thunderbolt 5. That's a real omission for a machine positioned as a premium creator-and-gamer hybrid, especially when external displays, fast storage, and docking setups increasingly depend on Thunderbolt bandwidth. There’s definitely enough PCIe lanes on this processor to have two thunderbolt busses, and in fact, this I/O has it built in, so why didn’t they just make both ports TB4? Everyday Feel Beyond the specs, the laptop simply feels solid and premium, with tight build tolerances and a chassis that doesn't flex or creak under normal use. Did I mention I love the color? It’s gunmetal. Great! TLDR: Having lived with last year's model, this year's Zephyrus G16 fixes the biggest complaint I had with genuinely better cooling and a quieter, more refined design, and the OLED display alone makes it worth serious consideration. The keyboard typeface and lack of Thunderbolt ports are real missteps that feel avoidable, and the 16GB memory ceiling at this GPU tier is a curious limitation. Even with those quirks, it's a laptop that's easy to like overall. It’s gorgeous and capable. I recommend it.

I’m an avid PC gamer and game almost exclusively on laptops so I am excited to have a chance to review the latest ASUS ROG laptop with the RTX5070 card. Let’s first talk size and screen. The 16” is a great balance for portability. I have a 15” and 17” laptop and previously, the 15” saw a lot more use, simply because it was easier to pack into a backpack or even carry throughout the house. The 16” feels more like the 15” in terms of weight and overall portability. It’s quite probably my new preferred laptop standard. The screen itself at 3k resolution with both automatic or manual OLED is beautiful, and really provides contrast in a way that an LED screen cannot. Less of a big deal with a laptop, but the viewing angle is very wide, if you ever find yourself multitasking with multiple computers and one sitting off to the side, as I often do. Windows Hello deserves a huge shoutout. One of my major frustrations with my previous ASUS ROG is while it had a webcam, it didn’t have support for Windows Hello, for automatic facial login, which felt crazy. It was one of the first improvements I noticed this year and genuinely THANK YOU ASUS for hearing my and others feedback on previous models. With an RTX 5070, gameplay is smooth even at the highest settings for the games I tested with. The computer does generate quite a bit of heat, though the entirely perforated base does a reasonably good job venting the heat straight out the back. I use it on my lap with a standard laptop pad (plus pullout mouse tray) and haven’t had any significant discomfort. It’s warm but not beyond what I would expect. The only minor problem I’ve run into is when switching between the integrated graphics and the gpu, there are a couple seconds where everything freezes during the switch. This typically occurs after exiting a graphic intensive game that caused the switch to the performance-focused gpu, so when it’s switching back, so far I haven’t been in the middle of anything but a game exit. Hopefully it’s something that can be patched later. Overall though, it’s fast, a great portable size, and has a beautiful display. It probably deserves a 4.5/5 for the graphics switch blip but I’m overall very happy with this computer.

This screen is gorgeous! OLED is the default for most premium or high-end ultra portables, but this one just pops so much more. Coming from an ultra-portable, that valued design over function, I’m happy to have squared edges instead of round edges again. The brightness I think is a key factor here and it makes any content look fantastic. Playing Forza and Hogwarts Legacy, was truly stunning and while larger TV’s are great, if you are “portable” gaming your definitely going to have a great experience. I thought I would miss not having a touch screen, but honestly I don’t want to touch this screen because it’s so pretty! Keyboard The keyboard is excellent. My last ASUS G14 had a different material for the keys and my nails scratched the keys like crazy (they are kept trimmed). But on the G16 GU606, they glide effortlessly over the semi-slick keys. Key travel and touch are great and satisfying. Can easily type in a quite place and not disrupt anyone. The spacebar has the most sound, but just saying that is only to compare to the others keys; not to say its is actually loud. RGB lighting is nice touch for the cool factor. The trackpad is also quite nice and responsive. I was worried the size of the trackpad would be too large, but the width is just short enough to where my palms to the thumbs just glances over the trackpad and has not triggered any cursor jumps, so the palm rejection is pretty good. Build Quality is solid, definitely does not feel cheap or low quality and the 4.5lbs are displaced evenly and so one-hand pic up is not a concern. The upward firing speakers offer excellent sound and get quite loud. Opening the lid is effortless with just two fingers and the laptop stays seated/unmoved when opening. I do wish the lid went further back than it does; I would say it is around 125-135 degrees, 150 or even 180 would have been welcomed. The Slash Lighting feature on the lid is a nice touch, but apparently the LED’s are only white. Searching the ASUS site shows other variants have colored or RGB LED’s, but this one does not. In the Armory Crate software, you can customize the blink pattern, but nowhere did it give me the option to change colors like it does for the keyboard. Thinking of the ports, there is good amount of them. Thankfully a USB-C Thunderbolt 4 on either side with 100w output capabilities. I haven’t tinkered to see if there is a way to use a USB-C 100w charger to input in those ports. That would be useful for travel so I don’t have to carry the 240watt included power brick…its a beast! Fan noise is loud in Performance mode. Turbo mode, it’s stupid. It is definitely keeping things cool though. After 1.5 hours of gaming the CPU was at 65C and the GPU was at 53C. The speakers are louder than the fans though, so you can definitely drowned them out, but if you plan on doing a gaming or editing session with the RTX 5070TI running in a quiet environment…you may get a lot of stares. My battery life is still sorting itself out. My first two weeks have had more Software updates than I think I have ever had on a just released laptop so my times of use have not gone as quickly to move over from my last laptop. Since it has the dedicated GPU, there is a reality that there would be more updates, but honestly the NVIDIA drivers and updates were the least amount. Windows and ASUS specific updates were crazy. For daily use I have it set to use the iGPU in the Armory Crate when on Battery as well as Windows Battery Saving mode. That definitely helped as when it is in Performance mode on Battery, the rated hours until depleted was 1hr15min @93% sitting idle. Energy Savings mode in Windows Settings turned on doesn't seem to consistently give expected battery life unplugged as I'm guessing it is shutting down that part of the background processes. I haven't been able to time how long it should last, but at least when having it in that mode having several tabs open in the browser didn't have any issues. I definitely plan to get between six and seven hours per charge on the battery saving mode I now have it on and with the size of this screen, I think that is quite good. If you are doing any gaming or content creation…keep the power brick handy. One aspect I do love about the Nvidia Drivers Profile is you can setup the machine for either a Gaming-centric platform or Studio (content creation) platform. You cannot have both driver profiles installed at the same time. Specs The 3 Series Ultra 9 is definitely a powerful chipset. I downloaded Geekbench which is now at version 7. I had it on my other machines too, but needed the v.7 for better comparison. I included the snapshots in my pics. Comparing to my most recent machines in use it does score the best in Multi-Core processing by a very narrow margin and is 3rd out of 4 on Single-Core. The 5070TI though trounces anything else I have in the stables. The closest is an Intel Arc B390. I also tested the iGPU of the Ultra 9 processor and that matched the a Intel Arc 140v in a Galaxy Book5 Pro that I have been primarily using as a do-it-all. That renders short videos and long videos pretty good, minus the heat from being so thin. So even on battery mode with the ROG G16, I know I can still get some editing done using just the iGPU if necessary and it not glitch too much while editing. The weakest link in the G16 is memory amount. Like with most things if you can afford the upgrades, memory is one area it’s worth it. Just doing one task at a time 16GB RAM is sufficient, but doing some heavy research and running heavy apps, and you will definitely want to invoke some RAM saving features in your browser. Overall I am pleased as punch with the computing chops of this machine. Outside of wishing for more memory…I hope RAM-aggedon brings back RAM Slots and soldered goes the way of the Dodo, it has a ton of processing power and the power to cost ratio isn’t as bad as I would have thought. 1TB of storage is definitely good for starting out, but I will definitely be making use of the second M.2 slot and thankfully it does have that. For me this build has the right kind of minimal-flare to show-off, but not look gaudy.

The G16 is a premium device and has a beautiful design and feels great to touch, it may sound weird but you would have to experience it yourself to understand. Upon receiving the G16 it was a great experience a nice small box with the device and charger. The laptop has a bit of weight to it but it is thin and has full sized ports which is greatly appreciated I am speaking specifically about that HDMI port and card reader. Most laptops strive to be so thin and cut back on I/O but not the G16 and I am happy about not having to buy an adapter or dongle. I have the 16GB 5070Ti model and it is a solid device that does show fingerprints, I have the gray model not the white one. There are multiple variations so choose whatever you are able to afford. Unfortunately, price is probably the biggest factor but do know that your money is well spent all things considered. If I had to choose the biggest reason to pick this device it would be for the display it is a 240Hz OLED display with 1,100 nits of brightness. There aren’t many devices on the market with anything close to or that exceeds that. The display is a 2.5k display resolution so while it isn’t 4K it is still better than FHD.I played Beast of Reincarnation and it was an awesome experience; the display really shines and pops. The keyboard and trackpad are stellar if you have used an ASUS laptop then you know what to expect here. Sound is good speakers are visible on the sides of the keyboard, while the speakers aren’t top notch they don’t sound like tin cans either personally I use my ROG Pelta headphones anyway for a more immersive gaming experience. While there is a lot to like there are tradeoffs. My main complaint is that you are unable to upgrade the ram on this device essentially placing a handicap on the device as it ages. Given the component shortage worldwide it isn’t surprising. Pros & Cons Pros: - Upgradeable Storage (empty SSD slot) - Beautiful display with HDR (1,100 nits of brightness) - Full sized I/O ports - Lightweight (4lbs) - Speakers are good - Display can be opened with a finger (no wobble) Cons: - RAM cannot be upgraded Overall, I love my new ROG G16 it is fast and is a great premium device. Is it perfect no, but I blame that on the current state of shortages in pc components.

ASUS is doing it right when it comes to style on the ROG Zephyrus line. You have a sleek looking laptop with subtle flare that you can make flashy or minimize it. For a Laptop packing a Intel Core Ultra 9 386H Processor and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti it is quite thin! It does push quite a bit of air out the back, ASUS has put a vapor chamber, an advanced heatpipe design, liquid metal thermal compound and a redesigned high-efficiency vent to keep it running fast and fairly quiet. My configuration also came with 16GB LPDDR5X 8533 Memory and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD. The ROG Zephyrus G16 arrived in time for me to check out the Gears of War E-Day Beta, it was able to run the game on high with frames averaging just under 60fps. I was able to play through several Multiplayer matches and a handful of Horde Siege without ever feeling bogged down. I also started playing through the Indiana Jones game, there is a lot to admire in this game, and the 2560 x 1600 OLED Panel really shines here! You can admire the scenery and stealth your way through the map with their 'Nebula' display. One other game I jumped on was my usual DIablo IV season runs, all of the Helltide and Pit Chaos was taken with ease. In Armoury Crate, you can configure the style of the laptop using Aura sync and wallpapers, plus customize the frequency, speed and pattern of the Slash lighting on the lid of the laptop. There is an option to easily switch between turning the different lighting zones on or off, to fit your style. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 is definitely a capable machine that can run some heavy hitting games! If you're looking for a laptop that play games, multitask, and I am sure create content this is one to consider!

The Asus =Rog Zephyrus G16 with the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H and a GeForce RTX 5070ti is a beast of a laptop. While I am fine with the 1TB of SSD storage, I do not see why they could not put 32GB of RAM in this model. All of the other variants with similar specs seem to have 32GB of Ram and they are even on sale for cheaper; they may be 2025 variants. On top of that, while there is another spot to add another SSD, you can not upgrade the RAM because there are no extra slots, and the RAM that is in it is soldered to the motherboard. So what happens if the RAM goes bad? For the cost of this laptop, it should have another RAM slot. Now that I have that out of the way, despite this, I still really like this laptop, and so far I have not run into any bottlenecks with the RAM. The Zephyrus G16 is incredibly lightweight and has a nicely crafted aluminum body with nice design features. While using the G16, the keyboard was very responsive I felt like the keys were a little too slick and flat for my taste, but I think I will get used to them over time. When it comes to the screen, this is where this laptop really stands out. The OLED 3k screen is just beautiful to look at, and it gets plenty bright as well. It may be the best OLED Laptop I have; another one is very close to this one, but regardless, the screen is awesome. Whether you are playing games, watching videos, or editing photos or videos, it is just a joy to use. The high 240HZ refresh rate definitely helps with gaming, and I really enjoy games on this Laptop. Another thing that adds to the gaming experience is the speakers. Man, these speakers are the best-sounding laptop speakers I have heard, and I have tried a bunch of them. They have a nice full sound with plenty of clarity, and they even have pretty good bass. When you combine the sound with the screen and the 4070ti mated with the Core Ultra 9 386H, you have a very nice portable gaming platform that you can hook up a wireless Xbox controller to and have a really great experience with just the laptop, or you can connect it to a TV screen. One more best-in-class experience for me with this G16 is the Trackpad or mousepad. It is very spacious, and the combination of the way it responds and the large area of it makes this the best one I have ever used. I usually can not stand trackpads, but this one is actually very user-friendly. So, while not everything suits me perfectly and I have a strong distaste for the non-upgradeable RAM I am still very pleased to have this Laptop and perhaps with the latest RAM technology and the speed of it I will not see any issues with it. I have always liked Asus products and I think I will get a lot of enjoyment out of this Zephyrus G16. If you are in the market for a Gaming laptop I know the Zephyrus line is a good choice and with the hardware this one has you are sure to enjoy your experience.

Build quality is great, beautiful display and keyboard, speakers are okay. But it gets hot, like 95C hot, and fans will need to be cranked up to maximize cooling. For moderate gaming and work it's great but it's not a dedicated gaming machine.

Great laptop for play and work! I like the build quality and the screen looks amazing! Doesn't get to hot when playing games like my Razer blade 14.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 is a luxuriously styled laptop. The body feels like it was crafted from milled aluminum. The design is clean lines with minimum bling to clutter the presentation. The keyboard, touchpad, and speaker presentation are visually elegant. The touchpad is one of the smoothest surfaces I think I have ever touched. The OLED screen is crisp, clean, colorful, not harsh on my eyes, and the color fringing, inherent with many OLED gaming screens, is minimal here. Gaming performance is outstanding. Setup: The Zephyrus ships with Windows 11 Home, Asus Armoury Crate, MyAsus, and a handful of pre-staged applications like Netflix, Dropbox, Adobe Offers, and MS Office. All are easily removed from the Windows Installed Apps page in Settings. Otherwise, setup is the standard Windows experience. After an afternoon of Windows updates, game installs, application updates, and driver updates, I was ready to go. Gaming: Gaming on the Zephyrus’ 16” OLED is fantastic. The 5070 Ti and the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H are well tuned to deliver maximum performance with the 240Hz OLED screen. I played a handful of games including Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (BO7), Forza Horizon 6, and MechWarrior Online (MWO). I experienced a steady 85 fps to 110 fps with BO7, 140 fps to 180 fps with Forza Horizon 6 on the High preset, and between 100 fps to 120 fps with MWO. In all instances, the screen provided beautiful renderings of my game world. I did not see any ghosting, unintended motion blur, latency issues, or screen tearing in fast-paced games such as BO7 and Forza. Images were sharp. The screen handled all the action effortlessly. MWO, being a much slower game than either BO7 or Forza, gave me the time I needed to really see how well the screen managed motion. Overall, it managed it very well. Switching to an external 1440p monitor was a different story. The Zephyrus has an HDMI port for connection to an external display. The Zephyrus acquitted itself well despite the inherent performance hit the 5070 Ti took from driving the higher resolution monitor. The FPS hit was not enough to interfere with smooth gameplay in either BO7 or Forza. MWO was a different story. There were multiple times where I experienced screen tearing in MWO. This was mostly with background graphics such as walls and buildings. This may have been the 5070 Ti having issues rendering those assets at 1440p or something else. This is not an issue with my gaming desktop with the same monitor. And screen tearing was not an issue when using the Zephyrus’ built-in OLED screen. Heat and Fan Noise: The Zephyrus’ day-to-day operation is cool to warm depending on content and system load. There were very few times that the fans kicked on to cool the system. The fans also run in near silence at low system loads. Gaming is a different story. First, gaming is hot. Very hot. The majority of the heat is contained to the top of the keyboard bezel just above the F5 to F8 keys. The rest of the chassis will warm but not cook an egg hot like the top middle keyboard bezel. The fans will get leaf-blower loud to dump the heat from the CPU and GPU. The system will hit a max heat output and remain there for the duration of the gaming session. The power supply brick will also get very hot during gaming. I lay the power brick on its side with plenty of air around it so as to aid in cooling. I also use inexpensive furniture coasters I picked up at the hardware store to elevate the back of the laptop off my table. I stack them two high on each rear corner. This increases the airflow from the bottom of the laptop. It also reduces the amount of heat the laptop is dumping into the table surface. And trust me, the table surface will get hot if the laptop is kept flush on the table. Armoury Crate will be a good tool to help maximize system performance while also minimizing energy consumption and heat generation. For example, for daily driving, I set Armoury Crate to Silent fan mode and Eco Power mode to maximize battery life. I do this for those times when I am working on a document, surfing the web, or reading email. I am rewarded with longer battery life and low heat. For gaming, I set the fan to Turbo mode and GPU mode to either Optimized or Ultimate. This generates the very best performance and maximum heat and fan noise. There is a Manual mode that would allow me to build my own fan profile. I have heard some folks comment that they can squeeze extra cooling and performance out of the system using the Manual fan profile. Battery life: Battery life can be excellent and terrible depending on your settings in Armoury Crate. Setting the laptop to Silent Mode on the Home Screen and Eco Mode in the GPU Performance screen netted the best results. Turning screen refresh to 60Hz, decreasing screen brightness, turning off keyboard animations, turning on Dark Mode for all applications, and lowering keyboard backlighting all contribute to maximum battery life. On average, I was able to squeeze 2 to 4 hours from the battery starting at an 80% charge. Why not 100%? Asus has a battery health mode where it will change maximum battery charge from 100% to 80%, which maximizes overall battery life. If I turn this off, then I can expect 4 hours battery life. I was actually surprised how long I could go on a gaming laptop battery. For gaming, just go straight to AC. You can game on battery but it simply is not worth the trouble in my opinion. Sound: The speakers are good for spoken word and OK for everything else. However, if you want the best musical experience, then you will want to invest in a good pair of headphones or earbuds. Network Performance: The Zephyrus supports Wi-Fi 7. My home network supports up to 6E. My home is supported by a 1Gb fiber connection. I was pulling 800 Mbps over the air from my Wi-Fi router. I downloaded and installed games in excess of 150GB, each, from Xbox Game Pass in under an hour. I also did not experience high latency or dropouts while gaming. Overall, the Wi-Fi card in the Zephyrus is a solid performer. Of note is the absence of an RJ-45 jack. A USB dongle or network connection Power Supply: The power brick is smaller and lighter than I have seen with other high-performing gaming laptops. It also gets very hot during gaming. While gaming, I keep the power brick on top of my desk, on its side to maximize my cooling surface area, and I never put anything on it or around it. Final thoughts: Overall, I think the Zephyrus is an amazing, luxury-class gaming laptop. This review barely scratches the surface on performance and capabilities. The Zephyrus was designed to be a high-performing, ultra-portable gaming laptop that is as much at ease in the office as it is with the latest FPS or RTS games. There is a lot to like here. And I look forward to many years of use with this laptop for both my daily work and my nighttime gaming experiences. Thank you for reading my review. I hope you found this helpful.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 is pretty much a top of the line Asus ROG Strix gaming laptop stuffed down into a sleeker chassis with an eye towards given an excellent blend of performance and battery life. The dimensions, port selection, and resulting battery runtime make this pretty competitive against a certain fruity pro laptop. While the Zephyrus is a muted by comparison to its Strix brethren, the light strip across the back of the display. The Eclipse Grey looks okay. It doesn’t really stand out nor does it convey premium look to the Zephyrus but handling the laptop, the build quality is clear - the laptop is solid, no worrying flexing or creaks, and looks well able to handle the normal things life throws at you. To clear the air, the big tradeoff one gets with the Zephyrus line is top performance. Squeezing that Ultra 9 386H and RTX 5070Ti into a thin 4.4lb chassis means despite the amount of air vents here and how loud the fans can get when you crank things to Turbo or beyond in Armory Crate, the device will run into thermal throttling that sets a ceiling on what it can crank out. But, in exchange, you have a CPU that can operate very efficiently and with workloads that don’t need the GPU, you can eke out 12 hour plus runtime with typical engineering work. This means a full charge provides a full day of work with few compromises (usually dropping the screen brightness). A full day of gaming - no, but not even the larger chassis bretheren hit that. So my likes - thunderbolt USB-C port, having full size HDMI, and full-size USB type A ports. I would gladly trade the proprietary power port for another USB-C, preferably thunderbolt or even USB3 Gen 2 would be fine with USB PD and swap the existing second USB-C to thunderbolt. I understand the decision somewhat - the power adapter cranks out 240W and their PD port is only rated for 100W so if you’re gaming on just USB power you will be throttled under the laptop’s capabilities. But USB PD technically peaks at 240W so theoretically that could be supported. I also am slightly disappointed by the lack of ethernet. Sure, you can make it up with a USB-C to ethernet adapter or a dock but it would be great to be able to work on the go with just the laptop itself, no additional accessories required. The screen brightness is another thing I appreciate, in part because I use privacy screens which reduce the effective screen brightness. So the higher standard brightness of the Zephyrus helps make up for what I lose through the screen protector. The 2560 x 1600 screen is pretty decent though the high refresh rate 240Hz makes for an enjoyable experience. On just the ok side, we’ve got the keyboard feel, just too little travel for me and I was underwhelmed by the single zone RGB lighting. Fan noise gets annoying in Turbo mode and gets worse if you go to manual to fully unlock the GPU power limit. To be fair, that’s the tradeoff to game at blistering fps and quality levels and for me at least, the Zephyrus did not disappoint. To see what the Core Ultra 9 386H and RTX 5070 Ti combination can actually do under load, it helps to look at how Asus tunes its software profiles. Flipping through the operating modes in Armoury Crate completely changes the identity of this machine. If you leave the laptop in the default Performance mode, the system works hard to favor your acoustic comfort. It aggressively prioritizes the GPU's power budget while dropping the CPU allocation down significantly. In a heavy open-world game like Cyberpunk 2077 or a cinematic title like Hellblade 2, this translated to a stable, highly playable experience at 1600p with DLSS enabled, while keeping the fan volume down to a reasonable hum. However, kicking the system into Turbo mode removes the safety gloves. The fans immediately spin up to a loud, high-pitched roar, but the performance ceiling rises right along with the noise floor. In fast-paced competitive shooters like Apex Legends, Turbo mode unlocks the high refresh frame rates necessary to fully feed the gorgeous 240Hz screen. Frame rates jump by double digits, and tracking targets feels instantly sharper. I bumped things up to Manual to see what it’s like fully unleashed. Yes, you do get more FPS and more noise but I felt like I was spending more time trying different settings to find something that took advantage in most of the games I had on-hand. I’m sure one can readily line up titles for which you get a clearcut advantage but I’d suggest basing your decision on what’s achievable with Turbo relative to what you play with Manual being in your back pocket. The Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 is easily one of the most well-rounded premium machines I have tested, successfully walking the line between an engineering workstation and a high-end gaming rig. It handles the duality beautifully: it can quietly stretch past 12 hours of battery runtime on a single charge during a standard workday, and then seamlessly pivot to crushing modern games at blistering frame rates when plugged into the wall. I think Asus did a good job with the tradeoffs squeezing a 16” gaming machine into a thin portable chassis and enthusiastically recommend it.

Coming from a 2019 g14 this is night and day on battery life and performance. I was able to push up to 10+ hours using gHelper so far.

Don’t really have any complaints it’s a perfect laptop, thin, portable, powerful etc it’s great!