Last year, ASUS announced the ROG Zephyrus, claimed at the time to be the world’s thinnest gaming laptop. I’m not sure if it still holds the title, but I recently spent a few weeks with a review unit and it has to be up there. This is one sleek mobile gaming rig. Just don’t expect to be doing much gaming away from a power outlet…
The Republic of Gamers Zephyrus was one of the first gaming laptops to adopt Nvidia’s Max-Q Design technology, aimed at cramming increased GPU performance in smaller packages. Forbes contributor Marco Chiappetta covered the announcement and the laptop’s specs, so I won’t get too deep into the technical details.
However, picture this. A 15.6-inch laptop with a 7th generation Intel Core i7 CPU at 2.8GHz, 16GB of DDR 4 RAM and an Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 video card with 8 GB of DDR5 RAM, that weighs just 5 pounds and is 0.7-inches at its thickest point.
That is pretty impressive.
Unique Design
I have a Surface 3 for my Windows needs, but I’m primarily a Mac guy. I’m more comfortable with macOS and I appreciate Apple’s design chops. But ASUS has really delivered a stunning laptop in the ROG Zephyrus. This thing isn’t just slim for a gaming laptop, it’s pretty slim for a laptop, period. Made of black aluminum with copper colored accents, it features plenty of straight, sculpted edges.
It uses an unusual keyboard-forward design, with customizable RGB LED backlighting and a trackpad that turns into an LED backlit numeric keypad at the push of a button. Very cool, but a little uncomfortable to use without a wrist rest.
When you open the lid to reveal the beautiful Full HD IPS display, a panel in the bottom automatically deploys, raising the back of the laptop slightly to create a gap that’s used to increase airflow. Naturally, that cooling vent lights up as well.
Gaming Powerhouse
I’m not a huge PC gamer, but I do enjoy my Starcraft II. Playing that with the ROG Zephyrus was probably an insult to the laptop’s capabilities, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was able to max every setting and still get frame rates that often hit in the 130s.
In a nutshell, this thing is tricked out with everything a gamer could want. It’s VR-ready (and then some), skipping the usual GeForce GTX 1060 with 6GB combo for a GeForce GTX 1080 with 8GB of video RAM. The display has great viewing angles, there were no issues with reflections and it has a fast 120Hz refresh rate with G-Sync support. A pair of speakers each pump out 2W of audio in case you aren’t into headphones. Storage is all solid state, so game load times are hugely reduced as well.
Keyboard backlighting can be customized and the keys themselves support 30-key rollover.
You’re covered with connectivity as well, with 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Ethernet and a full array of ports for accessories.
Portable, But Bring the Charger…
The key selling point of the ROG Zephyrus is its sleek form factor –and that implies portability. At 5 pounds, this is definitely that rare beast: a gaming laptop that you can carry around without needing a wheeled bag. But… That thin case doesn’t have a lot of room for a battery, and there are some very demanding components drawing power. The combination doesn’t end well if you were thinking this would let you spend three or four hours gaming at a coffee shop.
When gaming away from an electrical outlet, I was lucky to get an hour and a half and that was at power-saving settings that lowered performance. So you’ll need to bring the power adapter along. Unfortunately, it lives up the “power brick” name. That keyboard-forward design also comes into play with portability. It’s really difficult to type if you have this laptop actually on your lap –these’s nowhere for your wrists to rest and you naturally push the whole thing out far enough toward your knees that it could easily topple off.
So maybe think of it as being slim and light enough to easily move from room to room, as opposed to being a mobile gaming rig.
Overall, I was pretty smitten with this laptop. At $2699, it’s not cheap. The design is eye-catching but not entirely practical. But it’s one of the most exciting Windows laptops I’ve used in a long time and it was a sad day when I had to ship it back. If you’re looking for powerful Windows gaming laptop that doesn’t look like a boat anchor, the ROG Zephyrus deserves to be on the short list.
