when NVIDIA released their max-q line of low-power gaming gpus notebook
manufacturers fighting to make their devices as thin and powerful as possible
made headlines with some let's call them unconventional designs
i'm sorry you put the trackpad where oh
i don't know if that's any better now they were cool to play with but the
usability sacrifices made them very
hard to recommend so ASUS
backtracked on some of their more edgy design choices in this the second
generation zephyrus
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the zephyrus gm 501 is a sexy machine
and opening it up at the local coffee shop is bound to draw attention the guy
watching summit 1g on twitch will notice the keyboard area lifting up creating a
gap for the internals to breathe and then everyone else will probably turn
their heads when you boot it up
really guys that's the idea you rip off from acer
and you guys will hear just a moment the uh
start engine noise that comes with this notebook it's pretty cool anyway
the vent flap itself is a little flimsy feeling when it's
lifted but the feel of the entire machine including the keyboard is
nothing short of premium noticeably better than last gen
and the flap closes when you pack up making it a total non-concern if you
want to throw the zephyrus into your bag and then get to class
if the first thing you do when you get home is fire up netflix or a game stream
the speakers are potent enough that you won't need to grab a pair of headphones
but if you want to be the one doing the streaming you are definitely going to
need some accessories in spite of the fairly complete io including Thunderbolt
3. first and foremost you're going to want a type c to DisplayPort adapter for
your external display then you're going gonna want a gigabit
Ethernet adapter and finally you are definitely going to want a
different webcam because the one that's included is well i think the best way to
put it is not very exceptional
even if you are considerably better looking than me
it's definitely got enough power though not only will its full fat gtx 1070 push
a high enough frame rate in modern aaa titles but its six core CPU means that
finally we've got a portable device that
covers you for both your game and your streaming coding the experience
is shockingly similar to what you'd get from a very decent desktop machine
but the same is not true of acoustics and
thermals with a full blown synthetic load there
is some overheating at first despite the
spoiler but the good news is that the frequency on the CPU doesn't drop too
much to get the temps reasonable again so in productivity tasks the new
zephyrus is faster than every 7th gen
laptop we tested and the only laptop it loses to in cinebench is the g702 zc
that one with eight ryzen cores with an actual desktop chip in it so needless to
say this one is about 44 thinner than that
one so this is great news for video editors or other on-the-go content
creators as for gaming well you've actually got a
couple of tuning options in shadow of war in silent mode we got 77 frames per
second which is respectable but it clearly wasn't designed to be used like
that so we toggled overboost cranking up
the fans now this is not a quiet experience
but if you play games with sound especially if you wear headphones it's
definitely worth it 104 FPS
dang like that is an insane improvement so with the fans on bust the zephyrus
beats out even its much thicker 7th gen siblings and that is in spite of a touch
of thermal throttling on the CPU
probably the coolest thing happening in laptops right now alongside incredible
performance is high refresh rate displays and this 1080p ips one is
fantastic now the colors aren't quite what i would
describe as pro grade but
they are heaps better than any high refresh rate laptop display from a year
or two ago and at 144 hertz with g-sync you will finally
be getting the most out of your op mobile graphics card
so there are no huge surprises so far
a gaming laptop that games
but it's actually more than just a one trick pony the RGB lighting on the keyboard
might not be for everyone but this typing experience
probably will be most gaming laptops have low actuation
force keys that are awesome for quick split second actions but fall flat once
you try and type but with a long 1.7 millimeter travel
the zephyrus offers a surprisingly tactile feel like i could easily sit and
write scripts or long letters to people who are mad about my recent you know
insert controversial topic here video on it
below the keyboard is a trackpad
it's a little on the small side but thanks to its somewhat sensible
positioning thank you ASUS it's perfectly suitable for casual on-the-go
use that is if you want to carry around
the 1.8 pound power adapter with you
on the go
on the subject of which we were actually expecting much better battery life than
other gaming laptops ASUS has given you
the option to turn off g-sync and then
with a restart enable NVIDIA optimus
which lets the laptop use the Intel integrated graphics for tasks like web
browsing and microsoft word but in practice we were still only
getting around two and a half hours in our work battery test
and opening it up reveals why the 55 watt hour battery doesn't stand a
chance against a six core CPU now i
think the solution is ditching the two and a half inch drive bay for more
battery capacity here but the upgraders out there might like
it better this way maybe let us know in the comments
so is the zephyrus for you then
well at 2200 us dollars for the gtx 1070
model with some better battery it would be a
lot easier to recommend but that doesn't mean we're recommending against it
either because the zephyrus has one of the best mobile gaming experiences
available on the market it's got an awesome keyboard great screen and heaps
of sex appeal so if you can afford the not entirely
ludicrous premium the zephyrus gm 501
asks for the fewest compromises we've seen out of a gaming thin and light so
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community forum which you should totally join the guy watching the summit 1g stream on
twitch will probably notice the keyboard area lifting up
as you'll