Product Listing

ASUS ROG Zephyrus S review: A stylish statement

By Koh Wanzi - 28 Jan 2019
Launch SRP: S$3198

Introduction

ASUS ROG Zephyrus S

A more refined Zephyrus

The new ASUS ROG Zephyrus S can be thought of as the spiritual successor to the original ROG Zephyrus GX501 that debuted at Computex 2017.

But while that laptop was a study in extravagance and cost a whopping S$4,898, the Zephyrus S is more modest and refined. It has an asking price of S$3,198 – not exactly cheap, but still far more reasonable than its predecessor. Of course, that means you won’t be getting an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q with it, and the Zephyrus S comes equipped with just a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB.

However, I should point out that this is the full-fat mobile version of the card, so there’s no performance trade-off from any Max-Q optimizations and you still get in a notebook that's pretty thin and sleek.

Here’s an overview of its specifications:

  • 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel IPS-type 144Hz panel
  • Intel Core i7-8750H (2.2GHz, 9MB L3 cache)
  • 16GB DDR4-2666 dual-channel memory
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
  • 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD
  • 50Wh battery
  • 360 x 268 x 14.95-15.75mm
  • 2.1kg

Having said that, ASUS actually announced updates to the Zephyrus S at CES 2019. The Zephyrus S GX531 will now support up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q, a huge jump from its Pascal offerings. There's also a 17-inch version coming.

However, the bulk of the notebook and its chassis remains the same, so while I’ll probably have to update the performance numbers when the GeForce RTX 20-series models are out, my current review unit can still provide a good idea of what to expect.

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8.0
  • Design 9
  • Features 8.5
  • Performance 8
  • Value 8
  • Mobility 7
The Good
Attractive design and great build quality
Super slim and light
Innovative cooling solution works pretty well
The Bad
Thick bottom bezels
Poor battery life
Only comes with a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
Extremely noisy fans
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