The ROG Zephyrus line of laptops has been around for a handful of years now, and has always been touted as their slim and light gaming machines that pack a punch!
Positioning itself as direct competitors to the likes of the Razer Blade or MSI Stealth series of gaming laptops, Asus has always been known to push the boundaries of innovation with their products, whether it be in cooling, design, or software-hardware optimization.
In our opinion, slim and light gaming laptops have always been the preferred choice for professionals or digital content creators looking for something that can handle their game library AND bring to work without all the judgment from the eyes of prying office NPCs.
Read on to find out more!
Table of Contents
Design and Construction
The biggest design change to the 2024 ASUS Zephyrus G16 (and G14) would have to be the new aluminum unibody chassis. CNC’d out of aluminum alloy 6063, there’s no doubt anyone who touches the G16 won’t draw comparisons with machines from a fruity competitor.
Although, metal unibody gaming laptops aren’t technically new, the Razer Blades have been doing that ever since.
But the fact that ASUS has finally done it, is just another win for consumers who can afford these ultra portable gaming terminals.
Gone are the dots that either lit up or shined on the lids of previous Zephyrus models. This time the lid features what ASUS calls “Slash Lighting” which can be customized with different lighting effects or turned off in the Armoury Crate.
Apart from that and the embossed “Republic Of Gamers” branding on the bottom left, the 2024 Zephyrus G-series’ lids are pretty clean overall.
When closed, the rear is also very clean since the ventilation is very stealthily engineered, with some Zephyrus branding and indicator lights above it. It’s honestly just so visually appealing, we were total fans right out the gate!
At the bottom is where most of the ventilation can be seen with long rubber feet that matches whatever color the laptop is in.
When opening the laptop, there is quite the amount of screen wobble present, but apart from the wobble, the hinge’s tension does feel nice when opening and closing.
Perhaps tightening the tension could solve the issue, but might do away with being able to open the laptop with one hand. We’re sure ASUS is aware, so hopefully they fix this in the next iterations. (I mean, this laptop isn’t necessarily a cheap one.)
I/O and Connectivity
For I/O, starting on the left side, we get their new rectangular proprietary DC in charging port, an HDMI 2.1 port, a USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 Display Port (that gets PD support,) a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A port, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack.
Found on the right side is a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port (that also gets Power Delivery support,) another USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type A port, and (heck yeah) a full-sized UHS-II SD card reader.
In our opinion it’s a good selection of ports, but maybe lacking an ethernet port for completeness. Then again, it probably wouldn’t have fit on such thin sides at a little more than half an inch!
Nonetheless, users will need to have a dongle for a wired network connection.
For connectivity, the Zephyrus G16 gets Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, and there hasn’t been any wireless connectivity issues within our testing.
Display and Multimedia
Opening up the laptop and we can feast our eyes upon the gorgeous 16-inch 2.5K ROG Nebula OLED display.
Which is available for all officially supported configurations of the 2024 Zephyrus G16 models in the Philippines.
And without saying a whole lot, it is stunning!
Glossy, high-refresh rate OLED panels have been around for a hot minute, and now they’re here in a gaming laptop’s display, with a refresh rate that goes up to 240Hz and can even dynamically switch between 120 or 240Hz for better battery efficiency.
But don’t get us wrong, the miniLED panels from last year’s Zephyrus models had ‘arguably’ just as good contrast levels and black uniformity, so could this just be the big difference between glossy and anti-glare?
–Well, there isn’t a real way of telling for now.
So you might just have to take our word for it but, this display delivers stunning Pantone-certified color accurate image quality, with vibrant colors, crisp details, and deep blacks.
It’s a 16-inch screen so we do have the more modern 16:10 aspect ratio on board, with 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space.
Additionally, the display gets HDR support with Dolby Vision which enhances the multimedia experience for HDR content. We even have G-Sync and a virtual mux switch built into the Armoury Crate for switching between Hybrid, integrated, or dedicated graphics modes.
We had it configured to discreet graphics throughout our review, since we didn’t really want to worry about the bottleneck with Hybrid Graphics mode.
We’ve played games, edited a bunch of videos, and have watched so much video content; This OLED display is just brilliant. (It’s honestly hard going back to IPS from this.)
But what’s the point of an amazing display without just as good audio?
–Well following in the vein of last year’s models, ASUS has done it again!
The ROG G16 2024 gets a superb audio system! It features a total of 6 audio drivers made up of side woofers and tweeters. Gone are the days of having an expensive gaming laptop, only to be left in the dust by the speakers of a MacBook Air or Pro.
Those very same users used to tell themselves they had headphones and a nice DAC to plug into anyways.
–Well not anymore! Well of course, we still get a Hi-Res DAC in the form of the 3.5mm audio jack.
The speakers on the 2024 Zephyrus G16 sound great with lots of depth and clarity, and they get pretty loud.
Pro tip: Getting the most out of the speakers by launching the Dolby Access app pre-installed in the G16 or G14. Just hop on into the in-app settings and we can choose between pre-tuned EQs or make customize one of our own.
It’s kind of like getting a smartphone with Dolby Atmos support users can toggle on and off, it’s pretty sweet!
Last but not the least, at the top bezel of the display also resides a 1080p IR webcam.
It looks pretty nice for webcam output, and the on-board microphones pick up our voices just fine. It even features an infrared sensor for Windows Hello support that works flawlessly.
Keyboard and Trackpad
Here’s something we liked a little less, the keyboard of the Zephyrus G16.
While it offers a comfortable typing experience with responsive keys that offer great tactility with just the right amount of depth when actuating.
They’ve even jumbo-sized the glass trackpad and it features full support of Windows trackpad gestures. The size is perfect for content creators or professional video editors who prefer using a track pad over a mouse.
Palm rejection for the most part has also been okay with our use. And keyboard deck flex has practically been non-existent.
–Our gripe is with the keyboard lighting. It’s been a couple Zephyrus generations and they have ‘yet’ to fix this.
Cutting to the chase, all the secondary symbols on the numeric and function rows lack or need more illumination. We aren’t sure what it is they need to do to make sure the keys evenly light up.
But if a potential buyer checked this out for around 200,000 pesos, we feel like this would be a let down. A small one, but a letdown nonetheless.
Other than that, the keyboard overall has been great, it’s the usual ASUS ROG layout, awesome if you’re already used to it, featuring mappable macro keys at the very top.
Performance and Benchmarks
Our Zephyrus G16 (GU605MZ) review unit sports an Intel Core Ultra 9 (185H) CPU and an RTX 4080 (12GB) GPU (obviously both mobile versions,) paired with 32GB LPDDR5X memory and a 2TB SSD (PCIE 4 NVMe), the Zephyrus G16 delivered exceptional performance across productivity and gaming tasks.
There are only two configurations officially supported in the Philippines, the less expensive config gets an Intel Core Ultra 7 (155H) CPU paired with an RTX 4070 (8GB) GPU.
Unfortunately, both RAM sticks are soldered to the motherboard which means whatever RAM configuration you get out of the box is what you’re stuck with.
This is one other sacrifice that had to be made to cater to the nice new aluminum unibody chassis.
It may not be the biggest deal on our shores with both configs already configured with 32GB of memory, but those with the 16GB configuration may say otherwise.
For SSDs, apart from being able to upgrade the one already included, we get an extra PCIE 4 M.2 slot for storage expansion.
We’ve edited more than a couple of 4K Yugatech videos to completion on this review unit, whether it be on Da Vinci Resolve or Premiere Pro, and it truly handled all those projects like no other; with export times never longer than 15 minutes.
Which is just as we expected from an expensive thing and light gaming terminal from this year; Creature-comforts like a full-sized SD card came in very handy for quick footage dumps and revisions too.
And when it came to gaming performance, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 just balances it all out amazingly.
We clocked-in a lot of Valorant and Tekken 8 online matches in their max graphics settings with no lags or hiccups. Averaging around 200 to 300+ frames on Valorant and a stable 59 fps for Tekken.
For something more demanding like Starfield, we get an average of 80 fps on ultra graphics settings.
Throughout our testing, most of the time we were using the laptop in Performance mode via the Armoury Crate. Keep in mind that the performance modes found in the AC overwrite Windows’ own Power Option > Power Plans.
So, note that the benchmark scores below were ran in Silent, Performance, and Turbo through the Armoury Crate.
| Device: | ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 (GU605MZ-QR110X) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU: | Intel Core Ultra 9 Processor 185H | ||
| GPU: | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 GPU (12GB GDDR6) | ||
| RAM | 32GB LPDDR5X | ||
| Performance Mode: | Performance | Silent | TURBO |
| Cinebench R24 GPU | 13,873 pts | 10,965 pts | 14,822 pts |
| Cinebench R24 CPU (Single-Core) | 987 pts | 735 pts | 1,007 pts |
| Cinebench R24 CPU (Multi-Core) | 103 pts | 72 pts | 104 pts |
| PCMark 10 | 7,675 | 6,825 | 7,535 |
| Geekbench 6 (Single-Core) | 2,260 | 1,964 | 2,258 |
| Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core) | 13,489 | 12,878 | 13,714 |
| Geekbench 6 (OpenCL) | 141,037 | 135,795 | 143,194 |
| Geekbench 6 (Vulkan) | 134,556 | 142,235 | 145,169 |
| 3DMark (Time Spy) | 13,525 | 11,121 | 14,911 |
| 3DMark (Fire Strike) | 25,187 | 24,067 | 28,908 |
| 3DMark (Night Raid) | 53,611 | 42,172 | 57,431 |
| Blender 4.1.0 (CPU) | 215.36 | 200.07 | 237.90 |
| Blender CPU (Monster) | 36.24 | 30.81 | 35.37 |
| Blender CPU (Junkshop) | 32.71 | 35.74 | 32.48 |
| Blender CPU (Classroom) | 32.23 | 30.60 | 36.25 |
| Blender 4.1.0 (GPU) | 4,545.52 | 4,216 | 5,132.50 |
| Blender GPU (Monster) | 31.52 | 31.35 | 36.61 |
| Blender GPU (Junkshop) | 32.57 | 33.07 | 32.81 |
| Blender GPU (Classroom) | 31.62 | 35.12 | 31.04 |
| CrystalDisk Seq. Read | 5,050.27 MB/s | ||
| CrystalDisk Seq. Write | 4,458.40 MB/s |
Battery
While the Zephyrus G16 delivers impressive performance, its battery life may not meet the needs of users used to 8-16 hours off a single charge, especially if they plan to be gaming on the go. The beauty here is that it IS possible to game on the go.
The 2024 ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 features a 90Wh lithium-ion battery.
In our testing, cutting videos, online research, and editing documents and spreadsheets throughout the day can realistically give us 5-8 hours off a single full charge. Add some unplugged online matches from your favorite games here and there and it goes down to 2-4 hours.
At the end of the day, it is ‘still’ a gaming beast in a slim and professional looking package. So, users may need to plan ahead on when to recharge during days sprinkled with gaming sessions.
–Luckily, we also have 3 WAYS to charge this laptop!
The first way is with the rectangular DC-in on the left side used with the included 200W charger in the box. And the other two ways are with the USB Type-C Power Delivery ports on either side of the laptop.
ASUS even includes a second more portable 100W Type-C PD charger in the box. Basically telling end-users to leave the 200W brick at home and just bring the lighter 100W one with you to work.
They did this last year as well, and here’s to keeping the trend alive, great stuff ASUS. Of course, with the 100W charger we won’t get access to the TURBO power mode in the Armoury Crate, but it isn’t a big deal unless you’re someone playing the most graphically-intensive AAA titles in the office.
Alternatively, users can also opt for power bank capable of 100W or more to charge the laptop while on the go.
OS, Software
For software the Zephyrus G16 runs on Windows 11 Pro and comes with minimal bloatware, ensuring a streamlined user experience out of the box.
The Armoury Crate app provides centralized control over system settings on top of Windows own settings, like performance modes, discreet or hybrid graphics usage, turning on and off windows key functionality, customizing the slash and keyboard lighting, and even turning off the boot sound effect.
Price
Now for the big elephant in the room. Price.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 is priced at a premium, as most slim and light gaming terminals usually are.
Our review unit sporting the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H paired with a NVIDIA RTX 4080, and configured with 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD gets an official price tag of PHP 249,995.
But starts at PHP 179,995 featuring an Intel Core 7 Ultra paired with an NVIDIA RTX 4070 GPU with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.
Conclusion
The Zephyrus G16 offers exceptional performance and premium features that justify its cost for users seeking top-tier gaming and creative productivity. Justified –because there isn’t another gaming laptop built like it out in the local market at the moment.
For those who don’t know, the Razer Blade 16, (or any Razer Blade for that matter) isn’t even officially supported in the Philippines and would likely be more expensive.
However, budget-conscious buyers may find more affordable options with similar specifications and maybe even better thermals elsewhere.
Either way, the ASUS Zephyrus G16 2024 (GU605MZ) is a superb thin and light gaming laptop, boasting a super sleek design, powerful performance, and immersive multimedia features.
Unfortunately, it still does have some kinks to figure out in future iterations. And while its premium price may deter most buyers, its exceptional capabilities make it a worthy investment for enthusiasts and professionals alike, setting a new standard for Windows thin and light gaming terminals.
What we LIKED:
- Aluminum unibody chassis.
- 16-inch 2.5K OLED display, Pantone Validated.
- Speaker quality.
- Charging options, with two chargers.
- Weight.
What we Liked LESS:
- Display wobble.
- Uneven keyboard illumination.
- Expensive.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 (2024) GU605 [GU605MZ-QR101WS] specs:
16-inch QHD+ ROG Nebula OLED Display, 16:10 (2560 x 1600, WQXGA)
100% DCI-P3, 240Hz refresh rate, 3ms Response Time, G-Sync, Pantone Validated,
MUX Switch + NVIDIA Advanced Optimus, and Support Dolby Vision HDR
OS: Windows 11
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 Processor 185H (24M Cache, up to 5.40 GHz)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 GPU (16GB GDDR6)
Memory: 32GB LPDDR5X
Storage: 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD w/second slot for expansion
3.5mm Combo Audio Jack
HDMI 2.1
2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, DisplayPort, Power Delivery, G-SYNC support
USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort, Power delivery
SD card reader
Backlit Chiclet Keyboard (single-zone RGB)
1080P FHD IR webcam, Windows Hello support
Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax, Tri-band)
Bluetooth 5.3
90Wh battery, 240W AC Adapter + 100W PD Adapter
2.20 kg /4.3 lbs (weight)
355 x 243 x 19.9 mm | 13.94″ x 9.69″ x 0.59″ ~ 0.69″ (dimensions)
Microsoft Office Home and Student
Xbox Game Pass for PC 3 months
