Gaming laptops do have a bad reputation for being big and bulky, and for good reasons too. A lot of manufacturers make the mistake of putting in as much horsepower as possible into a laptop and not care about a laptop’s main advantage over a desktop, its portability. With the ROG Zephyrus M, Asus has figured out a way to balance both of those aspects that make a laptop great. And for that reason, it is one of the best laptop with i7 processor and the best laptop out there for gaming.
Why We Like It – ASUS ROG Zephyrus M
For a gaming laptop, the ROG Zephyrus M comes with a very slim and sleek design. But that doesn’t mean that it compromises on the cooling. The fans do get a bit loud, but the cooling system is well designed to move the heat out efficiently so that the processor or the GPU doesn’t throttle.
- 240Hz IPS display
- 16GB 2666MHz memory built-in
- Capable of charging from the type C port
- Quality control of Asus is not up to snuff
Power & Performance
The pair of i7-9750H and RTX 2070 Max Q performs incredibly well here. The 2070 Max Q is just about 15-20% slower than a full-fledged desktop 2070 graphics card. The 16GB of fast RAM is plenty for most games. Because it has an RTX series GPU, you can also experience real-time ray tracing in supported games (e.g., Metro Exodus, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Watch Dogs: Legion, etc.).
Related: Read our ASUS ROG Strix G15 review if you need a powerful laptop
Battery
This Asus Zephyrus laptop is a gaming laptop. So obviously, the battery life isn’t going to be great. With normal use, you can expect just a few hours of battery life. But thankfully, it at least has USB type C PD (Power Delivery), where you can charge it using a type C cable. If you really care about battery life, you shouldn’t look at any gaming laptop at all and rather get the Microsoft Surface Book 3.
Ports & Expandability
The I/O options are pretty impressive too. You get three USB A (two of them are USB 3.1 Gen 1, and one is USB 3.2 Gen 2) ports. And the type C port we mentioned before also works as a mini display port (1.4) for both display input and output. Also, as usual, you do get an ethernet port and an HDMI 2.0B output port.
Related: Check out our ASUS Vivobook L203MA review
Build Quality
Even in the build quality section, this laptop knocks it out of the park. The soft-touch matte black finish is absolutely amazing and doesn’t attract scuff marks or fingerprints at all. The keyboard has almost zero down flex, and everything is very solidly built. And the trackpad is good too for a change. Overall, the build quality is even better than the much costlier MSI P65 Creator gaming laptop.
Value
This laptop might be just a bit too costly for some users. But for the money you spend on it, you get a great laptop with excellent gaming performance to boot. And on top of that, it’s actually compact and portable, unlike most other gaming laptops. Playing games on the 240Hz display is going to be a buttery smooth experience overall. Especially on esports games, which are much easier to run, and you can actually get close to 240 frames per second to appreciate the high refresh rate panel fully.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus M Wrap Up
All in all, we think that the ASUS ROG Zephyrus M is an excellent laptop with a lot of perks. If you’re still not convinced and want a convertible ultrabook instead, you can go for the HP Spectre x360 13t too. But it’s not gonna be good for gaming as it doesn’t even have a Geforce GTX GPU and the Wi Fi module inside is worse than the one found in the Zephyrus M. Also, the keyboard has per-key RGB control that matches the gamer aesthetic very well.
