The ASUS ROG Zephyrus is one of the thinnest and fastest laptops you can buy now. It's not cheap at S$4,898, but it boasts an interesting design, with plenty of effort dedicated to keeping the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 in there running cool. NVIDIA's Max-Q technology has helped ASUS make a laptop that is just 17.9mm thick and 2.2kg in weight, quite an impressive feat.
The screen is a 120Hz panel with NVIDIA's G-Sync variable refresh rate technology, so you should have a very smooth and fluid gaming experience, especially given its modest 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution. Some of you might be disappointed at the lack of a 4K screen at this price, but a higher refresh rate is arguably more important for gaming.
The keyboard sits right at the edge of the laptop, and there's no palm rest to make way for the large mesh ventilation area at the top. The track pad has also been moved to the right, so that may take some getting used to.
The keyboard features RGB backlighting, including specific modes for FPS and MOBA games, which selectively illuminate the WASD and QWER keys respectively. However, there's no support for per-key adjustments, so the range of customization options is slightly limited in this respect.
The track pad doubles as a number pad as well, so you're actually getting most of the functionality of a full-sized keyboard. In addition, there's a dedicated toggle button above that lets you quickly switch between both functions.
Lifting the notebook lid automatically causes the bottom panel to pop out, a key part of the Max-Q optimized design that allows for more robust cooling and better air flow.
There are a total of four USB 3.0 Type-A ports, two of which sit alongside a full-sized HDMI 2.0 port on the left. There's also a combination headphone and microphone jack here.
The edges of the notebook feature a subtle copper trim, and you can see here how thin it really is despite housing an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080. One of the two upward-firing speakers is also visible here.
The exhaust vents at the rear are quite tastefully done and thankfully shy away from more evocations of muscle cars and the like.
A peek inside shows the heat pipes and two fans that work to keep all the components running cool. The 50Wh battery occupies most of the lower half of the laptop. That said, it's still a little small for a laptop of this size and caliber, so battery life isn't great.
Finally, ASUS collaborated with Casio to make a limited edition G-Shock watch, the ROG Masters 2017 Edition. Only 500 pieces will be given away worldwide, and for a limited time period only. For more details on redemption and the accidental damage protection plan that ASUS is bundling, you can refer to our article here.
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