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A few months ago, we tested the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin 8RF which turned out to be a good option for anyone looking for a high-end portable laptop. At the time, we had mentioned that Asus Zephyrus M was potentially its biggest competitor. Now that the latter is actually available in India, we have it for a test.
The Zephyrus M, or GM501GS, borrows some of the design principles of the Zephyrus GX501 flagship, making it a very interesting choice in the high-end segment. Asus currently markets two variants in India, of which we have the highest version in direct competition with MSI's offering. Let's see how it compares to Stealth Thin, and if Asus managed to get the right price.
Asus ROG Zephyrus M Design
The first thing that strikes you when you take this notebook out of its box is the monolithic design. The Zephyrus M looks like a big block of metal and has the weight to go with it. At 2.45kg, it feels a bit heavy, but not at the point where it's uncomfortable. Fortunately, it measures only 17.5 mm thick, which makes it easily inserted into the compartments of most backpacks. The charger is quite compact, so overall, it should not take up too much space in your bag.
The metal body makes this laptop incredibly sturdy and there is a brushed metal backlit ROG Logo finish. The outer edge of the base also has a chamfered copper-colored edge, which gives a high-end look to the laptop.
The lower vent of the Zephyrus M help increase airflow
However , the coolest feature only comes up once you open the lid. The back of the notebook opens to form a giant vent. This also gives a slight inclination to the frame, which gives a better angle of typing. The vent is used to increase the air intake, so the fans do not have to work overtime trying to cool the components. It's a simple but brilliant idea to solve the biggest problem with thin gaming laptops, which is fan noise. Asus also threw two red LEDs at each end, adding to the cool factor, but these can be turned off if needed.
The double-hinged design keeps the lid stable in virtually any position. We could have used thinner borders around the screen, but it's not a dealbreaker in any way. The webcam is in the right place on the top, and below the screen we have another chrome ROG logo. The 15.6-inch Full HD display has a matte finish and good brightness. Colors and viewing angles are also good, thanks to the IPS panel. It also supports a refresh rate of 144 Hz, a 3 ms response time (gray to gray) and Nvidia's G-SYNC. The latter is a feature that is missing in the MSI offering.
The Zephyrus M features a full-size chiclet style keyboard, complete with a number pad. We found that the spacing between the keys was good and that the direction keys were grouped separately from the rest. The main trip is comfortable and they are not noisy at all, which is good when you use this laptop in a quiet place like a desk, or when you play at night. There are dedicated buttons above the keyboard for adjusting the volume, inhibiting the microphone and launching the Asus ROG Gaming Center program.
The trackpad is not particularly large but wide. The tracking is incredibly smooth and accurate, and it's one of the best we've encountered on a Windows laptop. Unfortunately, you do not get individual left and right mouse buttons, which is disappointing for a gaming laptop.
You get a good selection of ports, including an HDMI, three USB 3.0, a USB 2.0, a 3-port Thunderbolt Type C, and a 3.5mm microphone headset and combo jack. The power inlet is placed on the right, just beyond the exhaust vent, which is not the best place as the power cord diet tends to be directly exposed to the warm air. The activity of the player is placed on the edge, above the keys, and is visible even when the lid is closed. In the box, you get a 230W power adapter and that's about it all.
Asus ROG Zephyrus M specifications and features
As we said earlier, Asus sent us the high end variant. It comes with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card with 8GB of GDDR5 video RAM. However, surprisingly, Asus did not use Max-Q optimizations from Nvidia. This means that you do not have to compromise on clock speeds. The CPU used here is an Intel Core i7-8750H hexa-core and with it you get a single stick of 16GB of DDR4 RAM (2,666 MHz), which can be expanded up to 32GB.
For storage, you get a 512GB M.2 PCIe SSD, with a Seagate FireCuda 1TB (5400rpm) mechanical hard drive, which has its own flash memory cache for better performance compared to a standard mechanical drive. Like most thin laptops, there is no quick release door on the bottom to swap components.
The keyboard on the ROG Zephyrus M features a four-zone illumination system
Among the other specifications, include 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi with 2×2 MIMO antennas, Bluetooth 5, two 3.5 W speakers and a 55WHr 4-cell battery. The Zephyrus M comes with Windows 10 Home and some third-party applications, including a trial version of the McAfee LiveSafe security app, as well as many Asus-specific programs. There is ROG GameVisual to change the color profile of the display; Sonic Radar 3, which allows you to use a visual overlay to represent enemy fire in compatible games; Sonic Studio 3, which allows you to set and set the audio preferences for individual applications; and Aura to customize the keyboard illumination. The keyboard keys do not have RGB lighting per key, but there are four customizable areas.
The ROG Gaming Center software allows you to monitor the system but the design is unnecessarily complicated
All Asus Applications above can be launched via the ROG Gaming Center software. The program has a complicated, useless design, making it difficult to find what you're looking for early. It shows you the temperatures and speeds of CPU and GPU, as well as the use of hard drive and RAM. You can set shortcuts to launch up to three applications with custom lighting, fan profiles, display color profiles, and more. You can also monitor the system status via the ROG Gaming Center app, for Android and iOS. However, the design is a little awkward, and the text and graphics are not always aligned properly.
The application ROG Gaming Center could use a few patches
Asus also gives you the opportunity to switch between G-SYNC and Optimus, which is reflected. Both are Nvidia technologies but, because of their operation, they can not be enabled together. G-SYNC synchronizes the refresh rate of your screen with the rate of framerate that the GPU expels, thus avoiding the stall and tearing of the screen. However, for this to work, the display requires a direct connection with the discrete GPU.
For Nvidia's Optimus technology, the display is connected to the CPU's built-in GPU, allowing the discrete card to be powered off, improving battery life. With the Zephyrus M, there are two physical connections to the respective GPUs and a reboot of the system is required to switch between modes.
Asus ROG Zephyrus M Performance and Autonomy
We used the Zephyrus M in G-SYNC and Optimus modes as intermittently, and as expected, it runs much cooler and quieter in Optimus mode. Since discrete GPUs are inactive most of the time, fans do not need to work too hard, but in G-SYNC mode, you can hear them turn smoothly even when you're not using them. heavy applications. Turn on a game in one or the other mode, and the fans start to look like mini-turbines. Despite the fact that there is a big vent at the bottom, they have to work very hard to keep things cool, which makes them very noisy.
The LEDs are visible even when the lid is closed
The overall performance is very good. We had no problem with juggling between multiple open applications, and even resource hogs like Chrome worked well with more than 15 open tabs at a time. It also does not take long to boot into Windows, and tasks like video encoding and 3D rendering are fast thanks to the multi-threaded six-core processor. The memory bandwidth could have been better, if Asus had used two 8GB sticks instead of a single 16GB.
The Zephyrus M offers very good gaming performance and thanks to the GeForce GPU GTX 1070 standard on average compared to the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin. In addition to synthetic testing, the notebook also offers very good performance in the actual game. We disabled G-SYNC during benchmarking to avoid bottlenecks, but during the actual game this was possible. In Rise of the Tomb Raider, we have maintained an average of about 63.43fps in the game benchmark with all the maximum settings.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an awesome game but the Zephyrus M has managed to get close to 40fps with Ultra Preset and with anti-aliasing set to 2x MSAA. We had similar results with Metro: Last Light, in which we have 63fps on average with graphics set on Very High and tessellation on Normal
The ROG Zephyrus M averaged around 73fps in Doom
Doom was a walk for the laptop, and with the Ultra Preset, we averaged 73fps during actual gameplay. In GTA V, we have an average of 63fps with all graphic quality cursors pushed to the maximum. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, who is a little old but still very taxed, gave us an average framerate of 51fps. We also realized the official benchmark of Final Fantasy XV, which gave us a score of 5,841, clbadified as "quite high"
The ROG Zephyrus M on average G-SYNC seemed to do its job well enough, and we did not experience any stuttering or tearing of the screen even when the frame rate sometimes fell below 60 fps. The display works by default at 144Hz and there does not seem to be any way to change it (not what you want). As a result, the games feel fluid and catchy. The audio of the stereo speakers is good too, and the volume becomes loud.
When using G-SYNC, which keeps the discrete GPU running, the battery life is often below average. Even with regular use of the browser and watching a little video, we struggled to get more than two and a half hours of running time. In Optimus mode, things improve slightly, and we have generally managed to use the laptop for 40 to 50 minutes more with similar use, but this is still quite short. When you use Battery Eater Pro, which is the program we use to test the battery life of laptops, the Zephyrus M lasted surprisingly for 1 hour and 38 minutes in G-SYNC mode, and 1 hour and 47 minutes in Optimus mode. Verdict
Asus has managed to concoct a very competitive offer that verifies just about every good box. The icing on the cake is the price, which is Rs. 1.99.990 in India according to Asus. For Rs. 10,000 more than the GS63 Stealth Thin 8RF from MSI, you get a G-SYNC display, 1 TB of extra storage and a standard GeForce GTX 1070 instead of the Max-Q option. This laptop does not run too hot, which is great, but there is still no escape from the annoying noise of the fan. The only major drawback here is the short battery life.
Asus also sells a lower version of the Zephyrus M at a price of about Rs. 1,59,990, which has the same basic features and a two-year warranty as the high-end model, but the SSD capability is 256 GB and you get a GeForce GTX 1060 GPU instead of the GTX 1070.
Zephyrus M offers good value over the competition. It has an intelligent cooling solution that is backed by solid specifications and very good gaming performance.
Price (MRP): Rs. 1,99,990
More
- Nifty Cooling System
- Nvidia G-SYNC, 144Hz Display
- Powerful Features
- Thin, High-end Design
Against
- Noisy Extraction Fans
- ] Low Battery
Reviews (out of 5)
- design: 4.5
- Views: 4
- Performance: 4
- Software: 4
- Value For Money: 4
- Total: 4 [19659059] <! –
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