Asus’s newest gaming laptop is unfathomably slim. It’s called the ROG Zephyrus (for the Greek god of the west wind), and it’s just as light as air. We first saw it at Nvidia’s press event at Computex in Taipei and got more information from Asus. The top-tier model, the Zephyr GX501VI will cost $2,699 when it launches on June 27, though a cheaper model, the Zephyr GX501VS, will go on pre-order that same day for $2,299.
The Asus laptop is one of the first to use Nvidia’s Max-Q technology, which allows for efficient, quiet, super-slim laptops. Specifically, it measures 0.7-inches at its thickest point.
Perhaps the coolest part is the bottom, which, when the laptop is open, lifts out to reveal an exhaust port. Asus calls it the ROG Active Aerodynamic System and claims it increases system air flow by 20 percent. It reverts back into the PC when closed for easy storage. It's easily one of the most beautiful gaming machines I've ever seen.
The Zephyrus' keyboard is front loaded, and it has a trick we’ve seen on some MSI laptops of late: the touchpad also doubles as a touch-sensitive number pad. It’s a neat trick that saves some space. The keyboard is RGB backlit with the QWER and WASD keys in separate clusters.
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang showed it running the first ever demo of Project Cars 2 on the laptop's Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPU. The Zephyrus is also powered by an Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU, has 512GB of storage and supports up to 24GB of RAM. The cheaper version uses a 1070 GPU and 256GB of storage
This gaming notebook features a 15.6-inch, 1080p, 120Hz display with G-Sync that Asus claims covers 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut. The laptop uses USB Type-C with Thunderbolt 3 for power delivery, data and 4K display output. Additionally, it has fourUSB 3.1 ports for peripherals.
The keyboard is Aura backlit and Asus claims it has 1.4 millimeters of travel. When we went hands-on, it felt fairly average for a laptop.
Photos: Craig Ferguson / Laptop Mag
