Customer Ratings & Reviews

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 bought an open box G16 with the ryzen AI 9 and 4070. Wow what an amazing laptop. Chassis is only comparable to top tier macbook pro. Screen is amazing. The OLED is for real. It's different than an IPS or VA panel and so much better in so many respects, but does take some care for longevity. I had some driver issues out of box and i also have the annoying bug that wifi will disconnect when sleeping... But over all this is the best laptop I've ever owned!

The machine is great, performance is superb. The OLED is beautiful. Wifi is very sub-par on this machine it loses connection all the time, and take 20-30 seconds to reconnect constantly. It seems highly susceptible to network congestion. Swapping out the Wifi for a Qualcomm one vastly improved the overall experience.

This model of the G16 is basically a mid year refresh of the existing 2024 G16. The big change here is that these come with the the new AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series CPUs which also include a NPU (Neural Processing Unit). Design: The first thing I noticed after unboxing was how slim it was. Especially the display. The entire laptop is aluminum and feels very premium. The color is labeled as metallic white and I think thats a good description of it. Under bight light it looks more silver but under darker conditions it looks more white. They included a customizable LED light strip on the back of the display to add a little more uniqueness. It has a very sleek design that is both stylish and professional looking. It doesn't look like your typical gaming laptop and thats a good thing. Specs: This thing comes pretty loaded! 16" 2.5k 240Hz OLED display AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 32gb of DDR5 RAM AMD Radeon 890M GPU Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU 2tb SSD storage Display: This laptop comes with a 16 inch 2.5k 16:10 OLED display. The display is sharp and clear, with great contrast and vibrant colors. Asus calls it a Nebula Display but all you need to know is that it looks amazing! It also gets bright enough to the point I don't need max brightness. Going OLED this year was a great choice by ASUS. Everything looks so much better than laptops with LCD panels. You can change the screen refresh rate to either 60Hz or 240Hz. Keyboard/Touch Pad: As much as I like the the keyboard on this years model, I feel like the keyboard on last years was overall better. It just felt more satisfying on the 2023 model. The keyboard is RBG backlit and has 3 levels of brightness. It gets really bright on highest setting. You can customize the colors to your hearts desire but its all one zone. One issue I did find is that if you change it to pure white it has a hint of green in it. Hoping they fix that. There is also a Copilot dedicated key to trigger the Windows built in AI. The touchpad on this thing is massive and I love it! It goes from the space key all the way to the edge of the laptop. Basically as big as they could make it. The touch sensitivity and clicks feel perfect. Webcam: It has a HD webcam that supports Windows Hello so you can unlock using facial recognition which in my opinion is better and quicker than fingerprint readers. Sound: The speakers in this thing actually sound really good for a laptop and they get pretty loud. Possibly the best laptop speakers I've heard so far. I guess Asus says it has 6 speakers. Some of them are front facing as well which helps. Performance: This specific model comes with the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. With 12 cores so with hyper-threading the count comes out to be 24 threads! It also comes maxed out with 32GB of DDR5 RAM. It has a CPU, 2 GPUs, and a NPU for AI. Listen, with these maxed out specs this laptop smokes pretty much everything. I noticed no lag at all. Since its AMD based it includes a Mediatek wifi card. It does support the latest wifi standard 7 which is nice to see. I ran some speed tests. It ramped up to max speed a lot quicker than their previous wifi 6e cards did so performance wise its fine. Although I keep having this weird issue where sometimes after the laptop wakes up from sleep it can no longer see any wifi networks and I have to reboot for it to work again. Really annoying. Hopefully this is fixed with a driver update down the road. I wish it had a intel wifi card... When it came to fan noise I expected it to be bad but was pleasantly impressed. For day to day non-gaming use it was extremely quite. I have no noise or heat issues at all. If you keep it in silent I don't even hear the fans kick on. If you switch to performance mode they do kick on but they are so quite I dont notice them unless I hold it up to my ears. Same when I game with the integrated AMD GPU, very quiet. But once you do something that utilizes the Nvidia GPU then things change a bit. It gets louder as all fans ramp up another level but its still nothing compared to other gaming laptops I've used. It does get pretty hot though. Especially above the keyboard. Gaming: I've been using the iGPU (AMD 890M) for my older games, which I still play quite a bit. By doing so helps with battery, noise, and heat. Then using the dGPU (Nvidia RTX4070) for my more modern titles. While it's not a desktop-level powerhouse, it's perfect for laptop gaming. I've been able to play everything from classic favorites to modern titles without a hitch. It's a fantastic balance of performance and portability. Yes the 4080 and 4090 versions are going to give better gaming performance but then you have to move to the intel model. I've been able to play every game I've thrown at it thus far. I love that it has a 2tb ssd. I hate having to uninstall games to free up space for new games or for game updates to install. The 2tb of space is double what most gaming laptops typically come with so that's a big help. Battery: Obviously battery life depends on a lot of factors but I'm seeing about 6 - 8 hours with normal use, not gaming. While gaming with the 4070 I'm getting about 1 hour and 15 min. Thats with screen brightness at 75% and in performance power mode. You get better performance with it plugged in anyway. The charger uses a square proprietary connector and goes from 0 to 100% in about 1 1/2 hours. Summary: With these specs and amazing OLED display this is hands down the best laptop I've ever used!

Wifi card has stability issue. It disconnects every 10 minutes.