ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 Review Philippines verdict: ASUS’ latest gaming laptop is an incredible performer that won’t break your back, though its hefty price tag is liable to break your bank account. Still, if you’re a gamer/content creator who wants a relatively powerful laptop that’s light enough to bring around to conventions and events, this is the laptop for you.
Pros:
- Beautiful 16-inch screen
- Loud speakers
- Skinny and (relatively) lightweight chassis
- Solid performance
Cons
- Very expensive
- Noisy fans
Gaming laptops are great, but choosing one is usually the result of a game of compromise. If you get one that’s insanely powerful you’re usually stuck with a heavyweight behemoth that’ll wreck your back. Go the other direction, and you’re left with a featherweight in both name and capabilities.
That’s what makes the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 great. While it’s not lightweight per se, it’s relatively easy on the shoulders considering what’s in it. It’s so light that I lugged it around Barcelona with me during MWC a month ago, and for someone who makes old man noises nowadays simply by lifting a box of groceries from the car, that’s huge praise.
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ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 Review Philippines: Design
The ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 is a high-end laptop through and through, and you can see that from the way that it’s made. The chassis is fully CNCd, which gives it better rigidity and overall better build quality than competing plastic and metal models.
Our review unit came in silver, though ASUS is also offering the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 in black as well.
One thing that doesn’t sit well with me is the new, slash LED design on the back that replaces the AnimeMatrix design that featured prominently in the brand’s high-end laptop offerings last year. The LED slash design uses 28 customizable mini LEDs, though it looks simpler and less aesthetically pleasing than the AnimeMatrix setup. One can argue that that’s a purely subjective observation, and you’ll be right, so get off my back, will you?
One thing that’s apparent once you pick the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 up is how light it is. It’s not under 1 kilo if that’s what you’re wondering, tipping the scales at 1.95 kg, but for what’s inside and how powerful it is, I’m surprised it didn’t weigh more. I’ve daily heavier laptops that were far less capable before.
Because of how big the chassis is, there are enough ports and connectors available for most devices. There are 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C that can support DisplayPort, as well as 1 Thunderbolt 4 that also supports DisplayPort.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 Review Philippines: Display
One of the main benefits of choosing the Zephyrus G16 2024 over other laptops is its display. Because of its size, ASUS was able to stuff a 16-inch panel in the Zephyrus G16. The “Nebula Display” of ASUS is based on an OLED panel, with the one on the Zephyrus G16 sporting a 2.5K resolution, 240Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 coverage, Pantone Validation and support for Dolby Vision HDR.
It’s one of the prettiest displays we’ve used on a laptop yet. The panel’s color accuracy and Pantone validation make it a perfect choice for pros who need an accurate display for serious content creation work.
Because of the higher refresh rate, the display is also a great panel to game on especially if you’re the sort that likes playing competitive games like Valorant and Counter-Strike 2.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 Review Philippines: Keyboard, trackpad, sound
Because the chassis of the laptop is so large, the keys on the keyboard are a bit more spaced out and are a lot easier to hit than other gaming laptops. The keys are tall, and have around 1.7mm of travel in them, making them satisfying to hit.
As someone who works mostly with a mechanical keyboard, the keys on the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 felt good to type and game on. They’re not at the same level as mechanical keys for sure, but it comes damn close.
The only complaint I have with the keyboard is that the arrow keys are small, almost comically so. Not really a problem if you’re just playing games like Counter-Strike 2 or other traditional FPSes, but it’s barely usable for releases that force you to use the arrow keys, like Helldivers 2.
As for the trackpad, it’s unusually large because of the sheer size of the chassis. It supports multi-touch gestures and works well as far as trackpads go. ASUS also ships a mouse with the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 so you can quickly jump into games without having to buy one yourself.
The speakers on the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 are great. They have excellent volume and definition and can fill a small room with sound without distorting. Easily one of the best that we’ve heard from a gaming machine.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 Review Philippines: Performance, battery life
The ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 has beastly hardware under its slim hood: an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 GPU (laptop), 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 2TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage.
That’s a heck of a lot of horsepower under the hood and puts its sub-2 kg weight into perspective. Intel’s top-of-the-line laptop processor paired with the laptop version of NVIDIA’s highly capable RTX 4080 GPU means that the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 is capable of handling most AAA games without any issue, even in higher graphic settings.
If it wasn’t clear already, let us reiterate – you’re not getting the same kind of performance from the laptop version of the RTX 4080 as you would from the desktop. For one thing, it only taps out at 105W total which is far less than the 320W TDP on the desktop variant. There’s also less RAM available – 12GB on the laptop variant VS 16GB on the desktop.
That being said, its gaming performance is surprisingly good, considering its overall thickness and weight. You’re comfortably getting above 60FPS on games like Helldivers 2 (minus the crashes which isn’t the laptop’s fault) with the settings on high, and since you’re using an NVIDIA GPU, you’ll also be able to boost that further with DLSS.
The ROG Zephyrus G16 2024’s gaming prowess means that it’s also a perfectly capable content-creation machine on its own. I took it along with me during MWC 2024 in Barcelona, and it churned through multiple YouTube and TikTok videos without a hitch. And that’s with all of the footage in 4K, mind you – it never choked, hanged, or had technical issues even with longer YouTube videos in 4K. Render times were also pretty good considering the hardware – a 12-minute YouTube video in full 4K only took around 10 minutes to render.
ASUS throws in two charging bricks with the laptop – a smaller Type-C PD one and a larger one that allows the laptop to take in 240W of juice for maximum performance. We suggest using the bigger power brick when you’re gaming so you’re wringing out every bit of performance from the laptop, but if you’re willing to turn down the graphics for a little less weight and bulk, you can game with the Type-C power brick.
One main complaint I have with this laptop is that the fans are quite loud especially when you’re in Turbo mode, and even with sound on high, I couldn’t drown the drone of the laptop’s internal fans over the sound of Democracy being dispensed in Helldivers 2.
The laptop comes with a 90Whr battery, and while it’s tempting to do so, I don’t recommend you gaming if you’re not plugged in. For one thing, the laptop switches to the built-in graphics in the CPU if you’re not plugged into a wall socket, which makes things painfully slow.
The ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 becomes mostly a productivity-focused machine when it’s away from the socket, and its 90Whr battery can power it for around 4 hours in this mode provided you’re in a battery saver.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 Review Philippines: verdict and wrap-up
The 2024 variant of the ROG Zephyrus G16 is an impressively light and powerful machine that can handle almost any task without major problems. It’s a great gaming laptop and an even better video editing platform thanks to its beautiful display and short rendering times.
Unfortunately, you’re going to be paying big bucks for the ROG Zephyrus G16 2024. ASUS lists the laptop we got to review for Php 249,995, which is painfully expensive.
