Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 review - The gaming laptop now with G-Sync OLED and Intel Meteor Lake

[Redaktion]

Asus' new ROG Zephyrus G16 features a completely new and considerably slimmer design, with a target market in mind that goes beyond just gamers. The resulting product is a high-quality 16-inch laptop with an impressive OLED panel and excellent speakers that can easily compete with Apple's MacBook Pro or the Razer Blade 16.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Zephyrus-G16-2024-review-The-gaming-laptop-now-with-G-Sync-OLED-and-Intel-Meteor-Lake.800175.0.html

[JUAN_pcbox]

A 16" laptop without a numeric keyboard seems embarrassing to me, as well as a horrible vision and waste since many other laptops of only 15" do have it.
To make matters worse, it has an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H that performs less than a Zen 4 7040 Phoenix and I don't want to talk about the really stupid price.

[jnrfalcon]

They advertised the SD card slot to be U2. So there must be something wrong with it, either via driver or the unit...

Also, it was funny when they emphasized that the new rectangle charger port is "reversible", while barrel ports are omni-directional... Wish there's a slim hope that they will enable 240w charging via the TB4 port with BIOS update some time down the line.

[Sivious]

A 16" laptop without a numeric keyboard seems embarrassing to me, as well as a horrible vision and waste since many other laptops of only 15" do have it.
To make matters worse, it has an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H that performs less than a Zen 4 7040 Phoenix and I don't want to talk about the really stupid price.

Plenty of people (like me) prefer keyboards without the number keys... numerical keys make the regular part go off center and just look worse IMO. Different strokes for different folks, companies know both preferences exist so both options exist.

[Ednumero]

The 240Hz and VRR on an OLED are appreciated. Is this not a touchscreen, though? It seems a waste to laminate the panel one of those fragile edge-to-edge glass layers without at least touch functionality to make up for it.

[NikoB]

Another "gaming" laptop that can't run modern games at 2.5K with a minimum of 60fps (and there's no talk of ultra-studio quality, it doesn't even run at High graphics settings). With a cropped, uncomfortable keyboard for both games and work.

With poor screen quality, because... the author couldn't even calibrate it! =) Viva OLED ))

With increased noise. With processor performance lower than last year's 7940HS from AMD.

They didn't even write the price so as not to confuse buyers. )))

For whom is this Asus craft released? Who is the target audience? I'm at a loss...

[Paul P]

I would have picked it up if it was zen 4 cpu. My workflow doesn't need e-cores. Waiting for zen 5 strix point or strix halo now.

[efwfew]

My workflow doesn't need e-cores.

They are not there for your workflow, they are there for OS and background apps like messengers.

[Ruben2000]

Is the Asus G16 with the Core Ultra 9 185H with Nvidia 4060 preferable over this Ultra 7 155H / 4700?
In Europe the Ultra Core 9/4060 is around 200 Eur cheaper (10%).

[Ziv]

Is there any info or a decent review (like this one, which is excellent) on the versions with the 4080/4090?

I'd quite like to get one of these laptops, but not if they're annoyingly noisy. Are the vapor chamber equipped ones actually better in this regard or is that just conjecture?

Would the faster GPU impact the runtimes outside of gaming?

Too bad they didn't manage decent cooling for the lower end models.

[Gastredner]

The spiral of absurd ultra-thin builds goes into the next round. It is so tiring how unimaginative and incompetent some product managers are, but apparently there are always enough "fools" who fall for the cheap ultra-thin scam.

This test exposes the disadvantages of the ultra-thin design:

1. extremely slim fans that emit a higher pitched annoying fan noise than normally thin (1cm) fans do.

2. the need to install a third tiny fan, which is particularly annoying. In principle, I highly appreciate a third fan, but then please use thicker fans for all three with a lower frequency noise.

3. the absurd decision to remove the third fan from the 4080/90 ensuring that this version also gets annoyingly loud. With a chicker chassis and 3x 1cm fans, the cooling would be sufficient.

4. a combined performance of less than 100 watts in the stress test (65+30) is awful. A thicker cooling system would achieve 30-40 watts more at the same noise level or remain much quieter at 95 watts. Win-win

5. passive cooling with the fans off under low load is also much worse with an ultra-flat design. The heat sinks are tiny and thermally saturated much faster than on thicker notebooks. The fans have to ramp up much more frequently and because of their extremly flat design, they have to spin faster than on thicker fans to desaturate the heat sinks.


People need to realize that this ultra-flat design is just a marketing scam to cut material costs and sell inferior products (in terms of cooling). The sweet spot of portability and cooling performance (2.5-2.7 cm) is exceeded here in the most absurd way.

Advantages of the ultra-thin design? Not at all. A thicker build doesn't take up any more space on the desk and fits into any standard notebook bag. I would partly accept the weight as an argument if it wasn't so absurdly exaggerated here. For mobile purposes, 2 to 2.3 kg are sufficient in the G16's performance class, for those who don't carry their notebook around for hours every day (presumably the vast majority?), 2.5 to 3 kg plus power supply unit are fine!

[RobertJasiek]

The advantage of ultra-thin perceived by some (not me) is lifestyle / status symbol.

[UltraSamurai]

Kind of surprised to see the increased battery life not mentioned as Pro. Isn't that the whole of a laptop so thin?

[Billy O'Neal]

This just seems like a straight downgrade vs last year's G14. The incredible thing about that machine is that it isn't super thin, and thus despite being small it can fit a 4090 inside if you need the performance, or actually be inaudible if you don't need the GPU on. That's not to say it looks *bad*; just no longer seems special and fades into the sea of Razer/Dell XPS/HP Spectre premium thin and lights and their whiny fans. I really don't understand why Asus dropped such great product differentiation on the floor.

Core Ultra doesn't seem to bring the kind of battery life improvements one would have expected based on the "low power island" thing with a minimum idle power of 8W. I guess Apple keeps that crown another year.

[RobertJasiek]

I really don't understand why Asus dropped such great product differentiation on the floor.

The managers of these manufacturers have only one vision: anything thicker and heavier than a hologram is a failure.