When the Asus ROG Zephyrus M was launched earlier this year, there was widespread demand for a cheaper variant. Asus has complied with the wishes of its audience with the release of their ROG Zephyrus G. The Zephyrus G comes with a Ryzen 7 processor instead of the intel i7 in the Zephyrus M. The GPU is the same in both machines i.e. a NVIDIA Geforce 1660 Ti. In terms of Memory the Zephyrus G comes with a single 512 GB PCle NVMe card with an empty slot for another one should you choose to upgrade it. In terms of display quality, the Zephyrus G has a full HD display and it gives bright and vibrant colours and deep blacks. The matte finish of the screen prevents any reflection of light from room lightings which makes your viewing and gaming experience even better.
As for the performance, it can very easily run multiple softwares across multiple virtual desktops without a hint of lag. It can also run games like Doom, Battlefield V and Crysis 3 without even the slightest lag and at very good frame rates even on high in-game graphics settings. If we look at the build, Asus has not changed the look of the Zephyrus M on the Zephyrus G. It has a similar metallic top cover with a classy brushed finish. For a 15.6-inch gaming laptop, it’s moderately slim (0.8 inches) and surprisingly lightweight (2.1 kilogrammes). A dimly lit red ROG logo adorns the top cover to give the laptop some extra character. Opening or closing the display reveals almost no sign of flex in the lid, which is impressive, given the slimness of the panel. On the inside, the 15.6-inch anti-glare display is surrounded by thin bezels on three sides.
The tall bottom bezel houses just the dual-array microphones. Tapping hard on the keys causes no movement in the keyboard island, which is once again a sign of impressive build. On the whole, the Zephyrus G GA502 is well-made laptop. It manages to look subtle without ending up looking uninteresting. The connectivity of this laptop is another great thing about it. On the left side, it sports a proprietary round-pin power port, a LAN port, a full-size HDMI 2.0b port, a USB-A 3.2 port, a USB-C 3.2 (Gen 2) port with DisplayPort 1.4, and a 3.5mm audio jack for headsets. On the right, it features two USB-A 3.2 ports and nothing else. Unfortunately, there’s neither a fingerprint scanner nor a webcam on offer.
Like the unit on the Zephyrus M GU502, the keyboard on the Zephyrus G GA502 is adequately comfortable for typing long emails and documents. The same goes for gaming. The keys have sufficient resistance but could’ve used a bit more travel. A dedicated row of keys above the keyboard lets you control volume, mute the microphone, and bring up Asus’ proprietary Armoury Crate app.
The Zephyrus G GA502 sports a four-cell 76Wh lithium-ion internal battery which can give upto a maximum of 3 hours with an average workload. This, however, drops to about an hour and a half when run at maximum work load, so it is advisable to keep it connected to the power while gaming in order to prevent it from switching off mid game.
Overall, the Zephyrus G is a superb gaming laptop and definitely a good substitute for its more expensive cousin, particularly if you don’t mind the dip in average frame rates from 90-70 fps.
