ASUS ROG Zephyrus Laptop and Backpack

My primary use for this is as a work laptop that can play games. Unlike the older gaming laptops with red and black look at me design this is unassuming and I love the finish and build quality of this laptop.The high refresh rate display is very good and will be more than satisfactory most types of users.The keyboard has a decent travel with good feedback and you can type in this for very long. The keys are not curved but has a soft feeling on your fingertips. RGB lighting is a nice feature to have but while using the static effect, armoury crate (software which manages the RGB lighting) switches the colour back to red once the keyboard goes to sleep and the keyboard gets very hot while gaming especially the first four rows.The trackpad is good but its small and I would recommend using a USB mouse. The palm rest area has a non-glossy matte finish and will pick up fingerprints very fastThe speakers are in the underside they sound ok but lack details.If you are gaming the fans will go into turbo mode and it will sound like a jet engine firing up, so use a decent noise cancelling headphone also, it gets hot super-fast, so if you want to game for long then buy a laptop cooling pad.Battery is good for 3 - 4 hours with some video, music and lot of work, if you want to work for long hours then keep the charger handy and boy the charger is huge. The charging point is placed at a very odd place and the cable can get hot by the hot air pushed out from the laptop.Overall, I am happy and satisfied with this laptop as its fits my needs perfectly.The only problem I faced was that when the product arrived it was missing its charger and the whole laptop was covered in fingerprints and it didn’t have any plastic covering. The packaging was abysmal, and I had it replaced. The replacement took 6 days to complete and new one had proper plastic covering and everything a new laptop should have. But the packaging was still the same, no padding or protection whatsoever.

Disclaimer: This is my first review so I might have missed somethings but I will try to cover as much as I can.This is my first laptop, bought it to use for my collage but you might have heard of this certain pandemic going on. So I have a lot of free time; to test this laptop and here are my findings:Pros:1)The Build Quality: Literally the best looking; if you'r looking for a somewhat understated look; and best feeling laptop, the brushed aluminium lid and the soft-touch deck with no sharp edges, a design which does not scream "Gamer Here" is a plus in my book. But as it's with everyone else its all about preference so it comes to you, the consumer, if you like it or not.2)The Display: If your spending this kind of dough you should be expecting a great display and this one does not disappoint. 144 hz refresh rate makes any other laptop look and feel slow and once your in, you cant go back. With a IPS level panel giving great viewing angles and 100% sRGB coverage, you'r content consumption or even creation should be great but for some serious color work i would recommend calibrating it. I got a somewhat defective panel with slight back light bleeding but after some days it got better so if you'rs does not get better there is a 10 days return policy where you can get your laptop replaced.3)Performance: Its overall great. It runs warm but as with all thin and light laptops, it is what it is. The CPU heats up a lot and i would recommend undervolting it. Please do your research before proceeding doing this pro gamer move. I got a stable under volt of 84.9 mv on the core and cache bumping up the cinebench score from 2557 to 3100 while running cooler and drawing lesser power, dropping from 81W to 60W. For the GPU you can leave it the way it is. Its no use overclocking as it will just hit power limit. The SSD is super fast and me coming from a 7 year old HP Pavilion G6 (3rd pic) its a breath of fresh air. Gaming is also great. Second pic shows fps in a CS:GO death match and getting around 150~200 fps but i am only running it in single channel but if you add another stick of ram, you can expect a fps boost of around 20~30% in some titles.4)Keyboard: Its a good keyboard in my opinion with well spaced keys and good travel distance making longer typing sessions a breeze. And the per-key RGB is the icing on the cake, but to make your own profiles you will have to download an additional software called AURA Creator. Its kinda difficult to learn but once you get the hang of it you will be able to create a lot of profiles to suite your needs.5)Touch Pad: Good stuff. The pad is made out glass so buttery smooth with integrated buttons and Intel Precision drivers. You will enjoy this track pad.6)Audio: That DAC is something else, I personally own a Fiio DAC and even though in not a audiophile I will have to admit that it actually roars. By default the voice clarity option is selected and i would recommend turning it off as it makes the highs sharper and the bass muddy but after a bit of eq you will be able to create a sound profile you will enjoy. The sound stage is commemorable and the reproduction is accurate. I use a KZ KSN and and with that i never even have to increase the volume over 20. The bass is tight and the mids clear, highs can be bit harsh but you can eq that in the software.7)RJ45: It comes with a Ethernet port which is crucial for online multiplayer games where ping is very important.Meh:1)The Speakers: They are average sounding, get loud enough and has little bass but don't expect much.2)I/O: Would have liked to see a SD card slot but has been opted out. Not much of a problem but just thought you should know.3)Webcam: This laptop does not have a webcam. Just use your phone.4)Battery Life: I have not used it on battery much but from what i can say it will last you about 4~5 hours with low brightness, WiFi, Bluetooth and keyboard back-light turned off, so on the go warriors may look somewhere else.Cons:Honestly there is nothing bad I can find about this laptop. Its just as advertised and fulfills my need pretty well, from gaming to video editing and coding. One con might be the soldered 16 GB 2666 ram and WiFi module, somewhat limiting future upgrade path but I'm not complaining.Just some extras:Fans: They are totally silent when in silent mode while in performance mode it gets kinda noisy but not irritating. Turbo mode is as the name suggest turbo mode where you will hear the fans ramp up and get loud but i don't mind it. I usually use headphones while gaming anyway and so should you.Expansion: There is no 2.5 inch hard-drive bay but there is a extra m.2 m key slot which supports NVMe and SATA interface storage solutions. Note: It only supports 2280 size and the screw is already in the screw hole on the motherboard.Wireless: It comes with Intel Gigabit 802.11ac WiFi (or WiFi 6, the latest protocol) with support for 2.4 and 5 GHZ band for fast and speedy wireless connectivity. It also has Bluetooth 5 for low-latency wireless audio.Afterward:Its a great laptop if you got that kind of money lying around but its money well spent. Sure, you could build a better PC with that kind of money but when considering the sheer power enclosed in this thin and light laptop body, i think its worth it in the end. I bought this when it was around 118000 but I have seen it go as low as 114000 so be sure to grab this when the price is right.(If you have any questions comment below and i will try to answer it if i can)Edit:I bought a WD Blue SSD (WDS100T2B0B) and while installing it I came across a certain hiccup where the SSD didn't work in the open slot in the motherboard. At first i was really confused and scared that i got a dud product. I tried everything I could think of like checking in device manager(it did not even get detected), restarting, checking and double checking if I had properly inserted the SSD or not and nothing worked. Then i remembered that I had seen some kind of SATA settings in the BIOS but even that didn't work. Then with nothing else working for me i just randomly switched the drives around; ie i removed the original drive (512 GB) and replaced that with the WD one and put the original one in the second port and lo-and-behold it started working. I don't know why or how but it's working. No problem since and the SSD is fulfilling my needs perfectly.

I got the laptop in the last week of September. The brushed finish on the top with the thin chassis makes it really beautiful. The display is great 144Hz 3ms response time. However when its running of battery, the refresh rate will become 60Hz. There is backlight bleeding on the top right corner but it's barely noticeable. The battery life is decent. There is no webcam, but I won't use it even if I had one. The keyboard backlight is great and gets quite bright, but if you want to make custom presets you have to install aura creator. I didn't check the CPU and GPU temperatures, but the keyboard deck doesn't get too hot while gaming. Not that the ROG logo has a dimmer glow than that in the picture if it's not charging.

Please go through my entire comment before making a decision to buy this laptop.Ordered on: 26 May 2020Received on: 1 June 2020The keyboard stopped working on: 13th June.I was away from my laptop, didn't got a chance to file a complaint until 6 JulyPS1: WiFi and speaker stopped since the repair of the Keyboard.PS2: Monitor not working since the repair of WiFi and Speaker, i.e 18th August.Today is the 19th of August and it's been 67 days since I'm struggling with this laptop. (44 days if we see the date since I filed a complaint).So all in all I have just used this laptop for 13 days. Is that how long a laptop survives? If you think the answer to this is yes. Go ahead and happy struggling.