Gone are the days when gaming laptops had to deal with a bit of a paunch – the darn things can look just as sleek as a regular ultraportable. Case in point: the new ASUS ROG Zephyrus M, which manages to combine a slim profile with some serious gaming teeth.
Touted by ASUS as the slimmest gaming laptop to run Intel’s 8th-gen processor, the device measures just 0.78 inches thick, making it not that much thicker than most ultraportables in the market. More importantly, though, this comes with desktop-level gaming power, so you can play most any games at relatively high settings without encountering issues.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M runs on a six-core 3.9GHz Intel Core i7-8750H, the latest generation of Intel’s CPU, so this should shrug off any CPU-intensive application without breaking a sweat. It pairs that with up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM, as well as a discrete NVidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU, ensuring games and other graphic-intensive applications are handled capably. There’s also an integrated GPU, by the way, with the ability to easily switch to the integrated graphics when running productivity software to help prolong the laptop’s battery life. For storage, it pairs a 256GB SSD for the OS and critical apps with a 1TB hard drive for the rest of your files.
It has a 15.6-inch IPS display that boasts a 144Hz refresh rate, a 3ms response time, and Nvidia’s frame synchronization tech to ensure smooth graphics during gameplay without any tearing. Wide-view technology allows the monitor to display colors accurately even at angles of up to 178 degrees, so you can grab a Coke from your mini-fridge on the right and still notice an enemy moving just a few houses away in Pochinki, while the 72 percent NTSC color gamut should provide great color reproduction and contrast. Like any proper gaming rig, it comes with integrated multi-color lighting that can be synchronized with other ASUS ROG peripherals.
In order to keep the system from overheating, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M is equipped with an active aerodynamic system that includes a bottom chassis that flexes when the lid is opened to increase airflow, two high-performance dual-outlet fans that blow air through thermal fins, and a heat-pipe architecture that passively draws heat from the CPU, GPU, and power components. According to ASUS, this results in 20 percent more space for air circulation, 32 percent better airflow, and 20 percent less internal temperatures compared to traditional laptop designs.
As you can imagine, a slim gaming laptop will have to make a compromise somewhere. In this case, it’s the battery, as the onboard unit can only power the laptop for a maximum of six hours without the discrete GPU running, so you can only imagine how quickly the darn thing will drain once you’re playing with the GPU in full hard labor. Other features include a chiclet keyboard with N-key rollover, HD webcam, mic array, five USB 3.1 ports, and the usual wireless connectivity options.
Slated to come out mid-April, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M is now available for pre-order.
- Ultra Slim 0.78 Inches gaming laptop with a full powered NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5