There’s no arguing the fact that the ASUS ROG Zephyrus line keeps producing some of the best gaming laptops in the market, and the new ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 review is just about that. Packed with the latest and most powerful AMD Ryzen and Nvidia RTX 3000 series, it is an incredibly powerful machine that can see you through the most demanding games. And of course, that battery life is nothing to be compared with, as well as that stylish chassis. If you want a high-performing gaming laptop that is within a reasonable price, search no further.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, to most people, was the best laptop from ASUS in 2020. It looked distinctive, had the proper footprint, and also the inclusion of AMD’s Ryzen 4000 mobile series processors ensured wonderful performance. ASUS has adopted a similar philosophy for its larger relative this year. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 review we had comes with a reasonably slim chassis, clean aesthetics, and options for AMD and NVIDIA’s newest and best chipsets. instead of focusing on the gamer audience, the Zephyrus series strives to balance recreation and productivity. the company is doing that by maintaining a minimalistic approach when it involves the physical appearance, however, fire it up, and it ought to provide performance that will place most desktop PCs in the relegation zone.
- Check out the HP Spectre X360 review
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ASUS is bringing two variants of the ROG Zephyrus G15. You get to select between either the AMD Ryzen 7 5800HS or the Ryzen 9 5900HS. As for GPU, you can get the ROG Zephyrus G15 with either Nvidia RTX 3060 or an RTX 3070, both configured with 80W TDP. Aside from that, you essentially get the same set of specs with both laptops.
ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G15 SPECIFICATIONS
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS
Graphics: Nvidia RTX 3070
RAM: 16GB RAM
Screen: 15.6-inch QHD (1440p), 165Hz, 3ms, 300 nits
Storage: 1TB SSD
Weight: 4.19lbs (1.9kg)
Size (W x D x H): 13.97 x 9.59 x 0.78 ins (355 x 243.5 x 19.9 mm)
Battery: 90 WHr with fast charge
ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G15 FEATURES:
Design
I found the ‘Moonlight White’ to be quite enticing, except for people who desire a darker hue, there’s the choice of ‘Eclipse Gray’. These are constant color choices that ASUS offers on the Zephyrus G14. In fact, the 2021 Zephyrus G15 borrows a similar design from its precursor, together with the magnesium alloy construction right all the way down to the perforated dotted pattern on the lid. You can’t have it with the flamboyant LED lights, though. Instead, there’s prismatic film beneath all those 8,279 holes that bounce off light with a rainbow-like result making it a design attribute of the laptop computer.
The construction is solid even though it feels like plastic. ASUS reaffirms that the magnesium-aluminum build will take a couple of knocks and bumps. I really like implementing the ‘Ergo-lift’ hinge design because it ensures that there’s some area at the bottom for the laptop computer to take in the air. The laptop computer conjointly includes 2 massive slits on either facet of the keyboard that house the top firing speakers
The keyboard is not a full-sized deck with a Numpad, sadly, however, given the choice between the top-firing speakers absorbing the edges of the keyboard or compressing in a ten-key on a gaming laptop computer, we’ll take the speakers anytime. The keys are comfy and have sensible travel, whereas the trackpad is additionally very responsive. the likelihood is that, though, you will need to use a conveyable gaming mouse or a controller for really playing games anyway.
In terms of I/O ports, the ROG Zephyrus G15 has lots. There’s the standard barrel plug for the charger, a large HDMI 2.0, RJ45 ethernet, a USB Type-A, 2 USB Type-C ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack. You get another USB Type-A port, a Kensington lock port, and a microSD card reader on the right facet. I’m unsure what the thought was behind incorporating a microSD card reader. In my opinion, a full-size SD card reader would have made sense, particularly for individuals who use a DSLR for product shoots.
Asus upgraded the audio on this year’s ROG Zephyrus G15, with six Dolby Atmos-powered speakers for improved sound quality while playing games. This includes a pair of woofers within the palm rests and top-firing speakers that sound nice for a laptop computer.
Both sides additionally embody air vents to blow out hot air. I ne’er found them to be uncomfortable at any point, particularly when using the laptop computer with a mouse. Overall, I feel this is one of every of the foremost solid-looking laptops for 2021. Despite the fact it doesn’t have any RGB lighting or any crazy gaming design components, it’s a particular aptitude that attracts you towards it.
Display
The ROG Zephyrus G15 is one of the few laptops this year that features a QHD 2560 x 1440-pixel resolution display. Usually, you see laptops with either full-HD or 4K options, but with the kind of hardware that we have on the market today, I think a 2K display is a sweet spot, particularly for gaming. The panel comes with a 165Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time, which is not the fastest when compared to the competition, but I had absolutely no complaints.
It’s an anti-glare panel, therefore it immensely cuts down on reflections, and you get fairly thin bezels on the edges and top. Yet again, there’s no inbuilt digital camera. this can be something that we’ve seen on alternative ASUS laptops; but, the unit I received included an external digital camera. the company has confirmed that all units oversubscribed, a minimum of in the Asian nation can ship with an equivalent digital camera. That’s great considering you don’t have to be compelled to pay more money, however it isn’t a sensible answer for all kinds of users.
Other notable features include 100% coverage of DCI-P3 color gamut, and Pantone validation, essentially making it good enough for photo or video editing. It can render good colors and wide viewing angles, but I wasn’t entirely impressed with the blacks. Also, with a claimed peak brightness of 300-nits, it isn’t the most vibrant panel that I’ve seen on a laptop. Having said that, I think the display is more than good for day-to-day use.
- Read our ASUS ZenBook 13 review here
Performance
The ROG Zephyrus G15 is powered by AMD’s latest Ryzen 5000 mobile CPUs, based on the 7nm Zen 3 architecture. The model that we reviewed included the octa-core Ryzen 9 5900HS, a 35W CPU able to go up to 4.5GHz, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 mobile graphics card featuring 6GB of DDR6 memory. ASUS also offers the laptop with the Ryzen 7 5800HS while graphics options can go up to the RTX 3080.
Performance is outstanding with the CPU more than capable of handling almost every single task with ease. As a day-to-day laptop, I didn’t see the laptop struggle for once. I was able to open over 30 Chrome tabs with ease and run Apex Legends at the same time, without any hiccups. As for my daily office work that involves a lot of typing, watching videos on YouTube, and editing some pictures on Photoshop, the performance was more than adequate.
The Ryzen 9 5900HS also put up very respectable CPU performance scores, beating out some higher-end gaming laptops running Core i7 processors that cost more money. It’s a harder comparison to do apples-to-apples, but at least in the US, even the base model comes with the Ryzen 9 5900HS and is very well priced.
In our Total War: Three Kingdoms benchmark, the ROG Zephyrus G15 pushes out 164 fps on low and 65 fps on ultra. In Metro Exodus, it scores an average of 125 fps on low, 61 fps on ultra without ray tracing, and 52 fps on ultra with ray tracing turned on. This is only just a few fps behind the Gigabyte Aero 17 running an RTX 3080.
For thermals, the G15 comes with an intelligent cooling solution that includes new ‘Arc Flow’ fans that include 84-blades each, along with six heat pipes. The laptop also uses liquid metal-based thermal paste, which is said to improve temperatures by up to 10-degrees celsius compared to the regular thermal paste.
Using the Armory Crate software or the quick key combo (Fn + F5), you can switch between performance profiles – Windows, Silent, Performance, Turbo, and Manual. The fans can automatically speed up or down depending on the profile you are using. Under stress, I did see the CPU touching as much as 98-degrees Celsius, but for most operations, including gaming, I noticed that the temperatures were well managed and didn’t go beyond the mid-80s. That’s actually really good for a laptop that can handle AAA-gaming titles at 1440p resolution.
The laptop came with a 1TB SK Hynix M.2 PCIe Gen 3 SSD, and in my testing, I found it offering peak speeds of 3588MBps sequential read and 3066MBps sequential write speeds on CrystalDiskMark 8. The SSD manages to keep things fast and snappy, and with the option of a secondary M.2 slot, ASUS has ensured that you don’t run out of internal storage space for your games.
For audio performance, ASUS has incorporated a six-speaker system that is backed up by Dolby Atmos. Two tweeters are placed on the front while two pairs of force-canceling woofers are underneath. The combination of the speakers offers a pleasant and balanced sound, and there is a nice thump of bass as well. However, it isn’t super loud. The volume is just enough to fill a medium-sized room, but overall, I was pleased with the audio capabilities. Additionally, the laptop offers 5.1 audio when hooked with a compatible wired headset.
Battery and charging
Another area where the ROG Zephyrus G15 shines is battery life. I got over eight hours of usage with the performance mode set to Silent, and brightness pulled down to about 50%. That is pretty impressive, especially for a laptop that has enough raw power to run the most taxing games. In our Youtube video loop test, the laptop achieved up to seven hours and fifty minutes, which is again quite respectable.
The laptop computer includes a 90Whr battery unit, while the charging brick is estimated at 200W, which takes the battery over just an hour to charge fully from zero. The laptop computer also supports USB Power Delivery charging of up to 100W. This is pretty useful when you don’t want to lug around the bundled charging brick in your backpack. The company says that you can utilize the discrete GPU with a USB PD charger but with limited power.
ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G15 Price and availability
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 is available now, starting at $1,499. All models come with the same 15.6-inch QHD (1440p), 165Hz, 3ms display. While in the US, each model features the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS, some mid-range models in the UK come with Ryzen 7 5800H CPUs, as does Australia’s base model.
There are other configuration differences around RAM and SSD size, with the base models featuring 16GB RAM and 512GB SSDs, with the top-end configurations bumping this to 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.
The other major difference is the GPU, with the base models starting with the Nvidia RTX 3060 and the top-end loaded up with an RTX 3080, with the RTX 3070 falling naturally in the middle.
The high-end configurations will set you back $2,499, which is definitely reasonable given the level of hardware they are packing. The configuration we tested was just above the base model, coming in at $1,799, though it isn’t specifically available in the UK or Australia at the moment.
What we think about this laptop
The ROG Zephyrus G15 is not kind of a loud or flamboyant RGB-lit gaming laptop that you can show off, yet you will look at it twice because of its subtle design. It can fit into your office work, and at the same time, it has the raw power to deliver an excellent gaming experience. If I had to nitpick, the lack of a built-in webcam and presumably the display’s peak brightness would be the only faults I could denote out on this laptop. Is this a recommended purchase? Definitely. It is perfect for gamers as well as productive professionals to some length. The robust chipsets on the inside, a svelte and minimalistic design, and superb battery life make the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 one of the best gaming laptops to buy today.
| WHAT WE LIKE | WHAT WE DO NOT LIKE |
| Sleek design | No webcam |
| Outstanding battery life | Brightness could be better |
| Superb performance | |
| Great processing power |
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