I have had my Zephyrus S for a few days now and really like the performance. I chose this laptop over the MSI GS65 Stealth due to the specs bejng better slightly better and the cooling system having better reviews. This laptop does not disappoint performance wise and cooling. I play the provided Call of Duty at max setting for a few hours at a time and the cpu and GPU temp average about 65 degrees. The battery is not as great as the stealth, but that does not bother me because I mainly have the laptop plugged in . So far my only complaint, which is why I am only giving 4/5 stars, is that the screen bleed which started after a couple days of having it, is the worst I have ever expierenced. I will be contacting support this see how this can be fixed because it is quite distracting. Also, note that this laptop does not come with a Ethernet port or a Thunderbolt port, the wireless card does work great though. Some boxes came with a USB to Ethernet cords, but mine did not so I had to go out and buy one for about $20. The picture I included shows the screen bleed I had last night.
Have had my eye on this PC for a long time and picked it up yesterday and ran some tests. I previously had a MSI GT80 Titan with two 970m SLI, this PC performs about 10 percent better than my old PC, but pretty much 1/5 the size. Laptop, although much lighter than my old PC, is actually surprisingly heavier than it looks (which is a plus for me, I like a PC with a little heft).
My main concern was cooling, and I can say this PC has it in SPADES. I ran a RE6 Benchmark Test (it's what I had on me at the time) on High Settings as well as two 60 fps youtube channels and the temperature never spiked past 82 C, it usually kept to a general 75-78 C temperature range. You can quickly bring up Armoury Crate Software with the Asus Logo Button (located on the upper right hand corner of the keyboard, above the trackpad) and set Fan profiles based on the game, or let it automatically set it's own fan speed depending on bearing load.
I'm still performing some tests so things can be subject to change, but so far, this PC has turned out to be the real deal. A bit of caution for anyone looking to buy though, remember this PC does NOT came with a Thunderbolt Plug, I knew this going in and it didn't effect me but it may matter to you. Also remember, naturally, if you plan to use this for heavy use this version of the Zephyrus S (1070 Max Q Version) ONLY has SSD, there is no extended hard drive so you will need an external one. Also keep in mind, much like the Razer Blade 15, this laptop has NO Ethernet Port. If you're going to buy this and you're a serious no holds barred gamer, then you can pretty much consider buying a USB Type C Hub (the ones with the Ethernet Port) pretty much part of the deal as well.
Pros:
+ Arguably the Strongest Contender for the best thermals and cooling of any current super thin gaming laptop on the market. You can clearly tell the main thing that keeps this puppy cooled is nothing but good old fashioned mechanical ingenuity.
+ Extremely Light and Powerful for it's size, using Armoury Crate Software you can overclock the GPU and reach pretty much full GTX 1070 level performance.
+ Very reasonably Priced for what you get.
+ Slim and Sleek Design. The Zephyrus S is designed elegantly, but at the same time it's not ostentatious. You could most likely bring this into a business meeting or a library and you wouldn't draw unneeded attention.
Cons:
- No Ethernet Port or Thunderbolt Connection
- The side by side trackpad and keyboard is considered unconventional by some (I consider this a pro though, I LOVE the setup, it's so fancy)
- SSD ONLY (for the 1070 Max Q Version) be prepared to pick up an External HD or be ready to carefully manage the games you download
- RGB lighting is kind of soft on the keyboard. You can increase the lighting intensity, but by most modern day standards it's still going to have more of a soft glow then an in your face level of intensity.
- Fans are SURPRISINGLY LOUD when they are at their maximum setting, especially for something so small. Again, I also like this because I respect a machine with a little kick and can flex it's cooling muscles when it needs to. But this could be considered a con for some. Remember that you can always manually adjust fan settings using a button or set an automated profile in Armoury Crate depending on what game you play.
Admittedly, I gave this 5 stars because just about all the cons, at least to ME, weren't really cons save for the Ethernet Port and Thunderbolt connection, but I already had a USB Type C hub when I bought this so I was good to go. But I wanted to list those warnings out there for people who are considering this laptop.
Before buying, KNOW what you are getting before purchasing this, READ THE FINE SPEC PRINTS, if you can keep that in mind, this PC is a real beauty.
As a college student, I was looking for a laptop that can be the best of both worlds, something that was light, portable, had decent battery life while having the power to play AAA title games or whatever I threw at it. I decided to wait and use my unit for 2 weeks so I can give a more comprehensive review, though I will say that my review will be written from a college student's perspective and not so much from a professional computer reviewer's perspective.
PROS:
DESIGN: This laptop is one of the most uniquely designed gaming laptop being sold on the market. Build quality is very nice, sturdy, metal-ly, and minimal flex. The unique keyboard/mousepad layout and its fancy Active Aerodynamic System allows the laptop to stay cool when gaming. Its thin bezels around the display makes the laptop look much more modern and does help contribute to its slim form factor. This laptop is just ever so slightly bigger than the Macbook Pro 15 with Touch bar, very impressive. ASUS did a great job designing the outer shell of the laptop to be subtle and clean, allowing you to take it to the office or coffee shop and not attract attention to itself, though I would be lying if I did not say that the laptop did catch some intrigued glances in my classes.
PERFORMANCE: This laptop makes procrastination very easy to achieve as it can run close to any game currently out and popular smoothly. With the fans running on balanced mode, graphics all maxed out, CPU/GPU stock, (See attached photos), I was able to get around 140-230 fps on CS:GO with GPU and CPU temps around 64C and 75C respectively. For Far Cry 3 (I know, I know, it's an outdated game but I really enjoy playing it), I was getting around 60-80 fps with GPU hovering at 62C and CPU at around 75C. I was able to redeem Black Ops 4, play it on max, and was alos getting performance slightly better than Far Cry 3. This laptop should be able to play any games on the market and sustain minimum 60fps most of the time.
DISPLAY: Color accuracy is great. Colors look vibrant from every video I watched. I've used my laptop out in direct sunlight and never really had an issue with visibility, thanks to its decent max brightness as well as its matte-finish, eliminating major glares. Its fast 144hz refresh rate and 3ms response time makes gaming and even just swinging the mouse cursor back and forth really fast enjoyable.
BATTERY LIFE: Some may list this as a con but some people tend to forget that gaming laptops are very power hungry. I did read somewhere that the battery size of the GX531 was around like 50Wh, a bit on the smaller side. The Nvidia Optimus technology monitored the laptop's battery usage quite nicely and I was able to squeeze out a good 4.5 hours on 33% brightness cramming for my finals before the laptop needed to be charged. That for me is more than enough to make me happy but of course, more would make me happier.
CONS:
(Before continuing reading, most of the cons I list pertain to what I experienced on my unit. I may have gotten unlucky I guess.)
DISPLAY: Some reviewers on Amazon post that their unit has backlight bleed and I am sad to say that my unit suffers the same fate. From the attached picture(I don't know why my phone was having a hard time focusing), there are noticeable backlight bleeds on the top-left and bottom-right corner. The picture makes it difficult to tell but in actuality, the top-left corner is the worst out of the bunch. The bleeds are not that noticeable but every now and then when the screen becomes black, from like a video or a game-loading screen, it becomes painfully obvious.
SPEAKERS: Sound quality is great but once I start to raise the volume past 50%, the sound becomes progressively distorted, especially on high notes. Not good :(
KEYBOARD: This one is interesting. You know how keycaps are elevated above the 'keyboard frame'? For my unit, the 'keyboard frame' around the 'i' keycap is elevated to the point where the keycaps and the 'keyboard frame' are flush with each other (see attached picture for better idea). I often found myself trying to press the 'i','j','k', (any keycaps essentially in that area), only to push down on the 'keyboard frame' instead. I could push the frame back down with my fingernail, but within a day, the frame slowly rises up to match the height of the keycaps.
FINAL VERDICT: I wanted to give MY specific unit 3.5/5 stars. Even though 2 of the 3 cons I listed above are negated by the external peripherals (headphones, USB keyboard and mouse) I connect and use when I game, when time comes to use the laptop without those peripherals and I notice the cons, it makes me think "I shouldn't be experiencing these issues, especially for the price I paid". After noticing these cons, everyday I think to myself whether I should just return the item as defective, get a replacement, and hope for the best or I should just live with these issues. I will probably return it for a replacement. The reason I rounded up and gave my unit an overall 4/5 stars is because of this. The laptop, in my opinion, just looks so cool and the performance the laptop outputs is very impressive. It is pretty much everything I wanted in a laptop. So for those that find my unprofessionally written review, take the time to read it all, and are deciding on whether or not to buy the device, I would personally recommend it.
RTX 2070 Max Q 15" inch version
The design of this laptop is outstanding, a beautiful piece to look at indeed.
Display:
The first thing i have checked is the display, sadly it does have light bleed but it is very minimal and not noticable at all. Only when you look for it.
Performance & Temps:
I was easily getting above 144 fps on Fortnite, with the balanced gaming mode with temps reaching at 80C max.
From 80 to 120 fps in dota ( high settings ) which reached max temp of 83 to 85 C.
Overall this laptop can tackle any game if you will accept the turbo mode fan noise.
This laptop have never throttled and the temps were always below 90C, the fan noise is quieter than what I have expected, and if you will wear a gaming headset with closed ear you wont hear it at all.
However sometimes you will get some fps fluctuations which can be fixed/minimised with GPU driver updates and using Vulkan support in Dota 2, if you prefer to avoid all that go for the 17 inch version which has G-Sync support.
Sound:
The sound quality is ok id give it 7/10 its not bad seeing how thin the laptop is.
Keyboard:
This keyboard is much better than any keyboard i have tried, so comfortable to type on and no spelling mistakes unlike desktop keyboards. And you wont feel any heat which is the best thing about this laptop design.
Ports:
Sad that there is no thunderbolt 3 port, RJ45, however the laptop wifi card is so good that you don't need a RJ45 port, the connection is tested and theres no packet loss or stutter at all.
Battery life:
It can be extended easily with power saving mode up to 3 to 4 hours on browsing and normal use. However you will need to carry a charging brick with you everywhere or a 65W power adapter to charge it with USB C.
Overall id give this laptop 8.5 out of 10.
However If you have the money i recommend buying the 17 inch version just for that G sync panel, other than that this laptop is great and i have no regrets at all.
I will post photos later and include further details incase i notice anything.
Edit: temps mentioned above are for CPU, GPU temps were mostly below 65 C which is amazing.
A loud and angry beast indeed, that eats up graphic intensive games and spits them out asking for more!
So I am coming from a 17" G series Asus RoG, which was a great machine for the genre of gaming I was most interested in. However, my interest started getting peaked in the 15.3" smaller/thinner laptops from Asus, but I was really concerned with the heating issues that they seemed to experience in the early stages of development as they sought to go smaller/thinner.
Asus hit the mark with the Zephyrus S! Gaming is a whole new experience with the GTX 1070 matched up to the amazing screen. The smaller bezel really does give the appearance of a much larger screen and my initial concerns of losing game experience due to screen size is not an issue at all. Not seeing the light bleed that I have seen other reviewers experience so I think that really could be accounted to a bad run on QC.
Did I say loud and angry? Well this thing is a beast and a beast needs to breathe. It does run loud on turbo settings and above because you are pushing the laptop to play a graphic intensive game. However, I had no problem web surfing or watching videos while in balanced, silent, or even windows mode with no temp issues. You ask for something to push hard in a small package, you need to expect it need to breathe heavy, period. Can't hear it with headphones on and most people will have them on for gaming anyway.
This is an Ultra Slim laptop, not a cordless one. Just because it is very portable and easy to move around with does not mean that you still do not need power. The many reviewers that complain about battery life seem to forget this when using this laptop as if they can use this machine without it being plugged in and expect massive battery life. People need to stop acting as if there isn't outlets all over this world when they absolutely need to game on the run, and just plug it in. Seriously, you can't complain about battery life when trying to run this type of graphic card/cooling system/screen/SDD/etc/etc while not being plugged in.
A few weeks in now and this Asus is making me just as happy with the purchase of my old Asus RoG brick that I replaced with this purchase. Can't wait to wear this one out and see what Asus offers in the future.
Feature Product
- Geforce Fortnite bundle - offer valid through may 22, 2019. For a limited time, purchase a ROG device with qualifying GTX graphics and get the GeForce Fortnite Counterattack set!
- 15.6" Full HD 144Hz IPS Type Display | 3ms response time with slim 6.5mm Bezel
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5 *(with Max Q technology) | Base: 1101MHz, Boost: 1265MHz, TDP: 90W
- 8Th-generation Intel Core i7-8750H (up to 3.9GHz) processor
- 0.62" thin, 4.6 lbs | ultraportable military-grade magnesium alloy body gaming laptop with premium cover CNC-milled from Solid aluminum
- 16GB 2666Hz DDR4 | 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD | Windows 10 Home
- Rog active Aerodynamic System (AAs) | Upgraded 12V fans and anti-dust tunnels to preserve cooling performance and system stability
- Customizable 4-zone ASUS Aura RGB Gaming Keyboard
Description
For more than a decade, ASUS ROG PC gaming Laptop has channeled its passion for gaming into building innovative products and working closely with e-Sports teams to ensure they have the right tools to pursue victory.
Long Story short, would I buy again?
- Yes.
Do I regret buying this laptop over others?
- Not at all.
Pretty much well rounded, great material quality, great performance balance between work and play.
For reference, I use Visual Studio 2017, Adobe CC Photoshop/Illustrator, Autodesk Maya 2018.4, and Mudbox 2018.2 to do different types of development, mainly Game Development with my own tools and software. It handles each of the applications I've listed very well, so transitioning from my Desktop to this Laptop with work is a good experience. I only play games occasionally, but the hardware specs suit my development and gaming use very well.
After some setup it's proven to be a wonderful laptop, it's definitely not ready right out of the box, or even charged for that matter, that was the case for mine at least. For my programming, the text by default is scaled 125%, so setting it to 100% for me made it much better, because at the 125% scale, text is noticeably blurry.
In hindsight, the only things I would want different with the hardware is there to be 2 RAM slots, and I'm fine with having a single M.2 SSD, although having two M.2 SSD's would be prefect. Also maybe a higher capacity battery, although I don't know where they'd be able to fit it, would be cool if there was a matching external battery pack for this laptop.
Pros:
- CPU is fantastic, it's a great balance between work and gaming on a laptop.
- GPU, well it's a 1070 under-clocked with some less features than a regular 1070, but it handles gaming quite well.
- Display is beautiful, even though it's only 100% sRGB. I haven't tested the refresh rate yet, so all I can say is it's good so far, haven't noticed any screen tearing in games yet.
- Keyboard is smooth and silent, the keys do require a bit of a heavy typing hand to function. I also like the keyboard layout along with the space between the F4 and F5 keys, since I use the function keys quite a bit with development. The Print Screen button is in an unusual position next to the right Alt key.
- The Touchpad + Numpad I was at first skeptical about, but it's not a bad experience actually.
- RGB Lighting looks pretty nice, gives it that extra quality appearance, haven't played around with the lighting too much, mainly just wanted it so I could see the keyboard if I'm not in a well lit environment.
- Very solid materials, gotta give ASUS props on the materials used for this laptop.
- Webcam is actually comparable to a Logitech C920 Webcam. I have only tested in the Skype video settings preview and not full screen yet, but I've seen much worse image quality on other laptops in the same Skype video settings preview. I have not tested the Microphone yet either, so we'll see how that turns out.
- Wireless Adapter works very well, on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz it's been steady, stable, and strong. I haven't noticed any defects or issues with the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. So even though there's not an RJ-45 Ethernet port, I don't see it having any stability issues with online gaming or even with streaming, although I'd trust using a USB Ethernet Adapter more than Wi-Fi for streaming anyway. I ran a speed test which gave me the maximum up/downstream of my internet service subscription. (attached image)
- 25 GB's of Dropbox storage, not really a benefit for me since I don't use Dropbox, but whatever, free GB's I guess.
Cons:
- Runs a bit hot and loud under medium-high load.
- Kingston SSD, would be nice if they put a 1 TB in since they're going with a cheaper brand SSD, it's decent though, and I'll probably end up replacing it later on since that's not enough space for having multiple games installed and doing work. The actual size of the drive ends up being 476 GB, not very close to the 512 GB it's labeled as, I believe that's due to the drive reserving space for performance and durability purposes.
- Not really that bad, but the light bleed is noticeable if the video output is all black. Although, it's not anything noticeable with normal scenarios.
- Battery Life can range from 5 Hours to an hour or less, depending on what you're running and your power settings.
- Gets Dirty very easily, like most laptops, but this one if you're OCD like myself, you'll spend a lot of time cleaning it up after each use.
- On-Board 8 GB RAM, instead of having two slots so we can upgrade to 32GB of RAM, there's just one slot which you can put a 16 GB stick in to get 24 GB's, unsure if it supports a 32 GB stick in the one slot though, my guess would be no, but I haven't seen or read anything that says any higher than 16 GB's for the one slot.
- Claiming the Call of Duty - Black Ops 4 game made me lose a bit of respect for ASUS on this one, they made it such a painful experience, it was almost not even worth it. To obtain the code for obtaining the serial key to obtain the game, you have to run the MyAsus App and run the Update to get the ASUS Promotion App, which gives you the code to register and obtain the serial key, where you have to post a picture of the packaging and your invoice, that just seemed a bit too over the top for my liking, but whatever, finally got the game after waiting about 10-20 minutes for a response email after submitting the form and pictures.
- Candy Crush, and other bad promo stuff preloaded without a straight-forward way of removing, I'm actually not even sure how I removed mine, I ran the Powershell in Administrator mode with "Get-AppxPackage -Name king.com.*"
(without the double quotation marks) and it turned up with nothing, now I don't see Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush whatever it was in the start menu anymore, doesn't make any sense, but whatever, as long as there isn't candy crush.
- Windows 10 Home, for this price and compared to other laptops with Windows 10 Pro in the same price range and specs as this laptop.
Notes for the Attached Images,
- The game screenshot is Call of Duty - Black Ops 4 with whatever optimal settings GeForce Experience set by default.
- The spreadsheet is the output of getting the Physical Device Limits from Vulkan 1.1.85.0, between the GTX-1070 with Max-Q Design and Intel HD 630 that are part of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S GX531GS. I've got a GTX-1060/1070/1080 that I haven't ran the code on yet, I may update this review later and add another spreadsheet image with those values added in comparison.
- CPU-Z windows stacked next to each other for reference, on the benchmark - I had two instances of Visual Studio, Adobe Photoshop, and Discord+Skype running during the benchmark.
- Task Manager Screenshot is just because I like seeing all those logical processor graphs.
- Speedtest results on 5GHz, on 2.4GHz I got around 130 Mbps Download, and 12 Mbps Upload, Although this is a Speedtest.net result, I tried testmy.net and the test was just taking forever, possibly because the ISP throttling those test servers or the servers themselves, who knows.. (Internet service package tested is rated at 250 Mbps).
**UPDATE DEC 5, 2018**
I found out that the typical Alt+NumPad [Key Code] shortcut doesn't work, from testing different combinations I found that to do this, you use Alt+PgUp+NumPad [Key Code]. So just remember to press the Alt Key then PgUp or PgDn (both work) before typing the key code.
(e.g. Alt+PgUp+NumPad [0169] = © "copyright symbol")
(e.g. Alt+PgUp+NumPad [0153] = ™ "trademark symbol")
Have been very happy with this purchase! The laptop build quality is very good. System setup was a breeze. I’ve been playing Fortnite and BO4 at maximum settings with 100+ FPS.
The fans are loud under low, but I fully expected that based on the size. For comparison I uploaded a picture of with it next to my Mac Book Pro. It’s super thin!
My only complaint is that it took 1 Amazon customer service representative and 5 Asus customer representatives to get my Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 game code.
Other than that, the machine is amazing!
Updated: 10/28/18
I really wanted to give this laptop five stars. It has just about everything you could every want in a light, thin, and powerful package.
If you check the review sites for gaming laptops, this one is in or near the top three (with MSI, Razer, and Dell all vying for top spots) for performance, features, and size.
The advantage to ASUS is price...this is a good $500 less than the top three with configuration and performance that is pretty darn close and with the brightest screen of them all.
It has an innovative, redesigned cooling system that helps set it apart from it's competitors. It's definitely a step up from their ROG systems a year ago and keeps the system cooler and operating at peak performance. However; with better cooling comes a penalty: fan volume.
THIS IS LOUD. Equivalent of a vacuum cleaner loud (between 72-74db) from 3 feet away.
It's loud enough that I can't set it for Turbo (max FPS) when sitting on the couch next to my spouse. If you turn down the performance to Balanced (noise drops down to about 66-69db) or Silent (40db), it limits the framerate (90 and 60FPS respectively) and fan speeds; but heat becomes a problem again. It's loud enough on Turbo that I need to use headphones because white noise from the fans (there are two) drowns out the audio from the connected soundbar.
You'll also hear a lot of gripes about the keyboard. Personally, I love it...especially moving the track pad to the right (I always accidentally hit the trackpad when it bottom middle).
If you are resting your wrists on the laptop itself or the surface below, then you are setting yourself up for an RSI. The Zephyrus forces you to float your wrists and move the laptop forward more than normal...which is ergonomically better for you; but it will take some time to get used to.
The one area where the keyboard is a pain is on airplanes. You don't have much room to begin with and then forcing the keyboard into your stomach makes it darn near impossible to type on. If you travel a lot, then you may want to consider a different laptop.
Battery life. Well...it's a gaming laptop: if you are looking for economical power savings then perhaps something that consumes a bit less power might be more attuned to your needs. I get about 2hrs max when playing games (max performance is limited to 90FPS "balanced" while on battery). I had issues with framerates while on the battery; but that may be my own custom settings.
The screen is gorgeous at 1920x1080 (1080p) native. It'll output up to 3840x1600 (4k/HDR) through the external Nvidia USB-C port Note: the laptop screen uses an integrated Intel UHD driver, not the Nvidia...you get the same functionality; but it's a bit strange and it also means you can't use Nvidia's tools while running directly on the laptop screen.
Audio is also fantastic; great sound for such a small system.
There is a full array of ports for all your needs; but if you want external 4k/HDR, then you'll need to use USB-C.
Great product and well worth the money!
The laptop is a beast no question, can play any game high/ultra and easily push over 60+ fps. The cooling system on turbo is very loud, sounds like pouring rain but its not a bad thing for what you getting. Upgraded the ram to 24gb, literally best thing ive ever owned. Screen is 144hz 3ms games look great little to no reflection on screen. Bring it wherever I want, and have a top tier gaming experience... its worth it for me
At the moment, I mostly use this for Guild Wars 2. It can handle max/ultra settings.
Pros:
-Screen is awesome.
-The position of the keyboard is great (one of the main reasons why I bought this laptop). It takes a minute to get used to though. I kept thinking the track pad was still in the middle so I was sliding my finger across the space bar. However, the keyboard feels like a normal desktop keyboard. With traditional laptops, it felt like a reach to the keyboard. The lighting is also great on the keyboard.
-The trackpad/NUM pad combo is pretty cool. I like the position because the purpose is for gaming and I am going to use a mouse.
-Cooling is great.
-The built in speakers are good for a laptop.
-Plenty of inputs and they seem to be in the perfect position.
-Durable. Feels solid.
-It's thin and light weight. Easy to travel with.
Cons
-Fans can be a little loud when under load but they calm down and you get used to the noise. Headphones block out the noise anyway.
-The front lid can get finger prints but it can be easily cleaned with a cloth. Not a major deal.
-The battery. I get between 2-3 hours. However, this is expected for portability. When you game on a laptop, you will need to plug in power anyway. i would sacrifice the battery for thin, lower weight, and portability.
-Price is a little high but the product is worth it.
Overall, an amazing laptop!
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