ASUS ROG Zephyrus S Ultra Slim Gaming Laptop, 15.6” 144Hz IPS Type FHD, GeForce RTX 2070, Intel Core i7-9750H, 16GB DDR4, 512GB PCIe Nvme SSD, Aura Sync RGB, Windows 10, GX531GW-AB76

I have had my Zephyrus S for a few days now and really like the performance. I chose this laptop over the MSI GS65 Stealth due to the specs bejng better slightly better and the cooling system having better reviews. This laptop does not disappoint performance wise and cooling. I play the provided Call of Duty at max setting for a few hours at a time and the cpu and GPU temp average about 65 degrees. The battery is not as great as the stealth, but that does not bother me because I mainly have the laptop plugged in . So far my only complaint, which is why I am only giving 4/5 stars, is that the screen bleed which started after a couple days of having it, is the worst I have ever expierenced. I will be contacting support this see how this can be fixed because it is quite distracting. Also, note that this laptop does not come with a Ethernet port or a Thunderbolt port, the wireless card does work great though. Some boxes came with a USB to Ethernet cords, but mine did not so I had to go out and buy one for about $20. The picture I included shows the screen bleed I had last night.

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Youll get used to the keyboard placement. You really will. Plus, it actually feels nice to type on. But, youll quickly start to notice all the little things add up. Screen bleeding has hit a handful of early units (including mine). The screen itself cant be tipped back far enough with the hinge design. Youll place the laptop on a kitchen counter and it is okay, but just a 5/10 degrees off from being able to open the hinge and bend the screen back nicely. Asus and Windows have a horrible time updating together (this includes Nvidia drivers too). Ventilation is the best around... but the bottom panel is flimsy, even with the newly minted S version. I like the forward thinking design. Its for gamers. But, youll start to see how the battery life, build quality, placement of keyboard/trackpad, no Ethernet jack, screen tilt... all add up. The GS65 Stealth is almost the same laptop with fewer compromises (albeit, runs hot). Had to return the Zerphyrus S.

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Have had my eye on this PC for a long time and picked it up yesterday and ran some tests. I previously had a MSI GT80 Titan with two 970m SLI, this PC performs about 10 percent better than my old PC, but pretty much 1/5 the size. Laptop, although much lighter than my old PC, is actually surprisingly heavier than it looks (which is a plus for me, I like a PC with a little heft). My main concern was cooling, and I can say this PC has it in SPADES. I ran a RE6 Benchmark Test (its what I had on me at the time) on High Settings as well as two 60 fps youtube channels and the temperature never spiked past 82 C, it usually kept to a general 75-78 C temperature range. You can quickly bring up Armoury Crate Software with the Asus Logo Button (located on the upper right hand corner of the keyboard, above the trackpad) and set Fan profiles based on the game, or let it automatically set its own fan speed depending on bearing load. Im still performing some tests so things can be subject to change, but so far, this PC has turned out to be the real deal. A bit of caution for anyone looking to buy though, remember this PC does NOT came with a Thunderbolt Plug, I knew this going in and it didnt effect me but it may matter to you. Also remember, naturally, if you plan to use this for heavy use this version of the Zephyrus S (1070 Max Q Version) ONLY has SSD, there is no extended hard drive so you will need an external one. Also keep in mind, much like the Razer Blade 15, this laptop has NO Ethernet Port. If youre going to buy this and youre a serious no holds barred gamer, then you can pretty much consider buying a USB Type C Hub (the ones with the Ethernet Port) pretty much part of the deal as well. Pros: + Arguably the Strongest Contender for the best thermals and cooling of any current super thin gaming laptop on the market. You can clearly tell the main thing that keeps this puppy cooled is nothing but good old fashioned mechanical ingenuity. + Extremely Light and Powerful for its size, using Armoury Crate Software you can overclock the GPU and reach pretty much full GTX 1070 level performance. + Very reasonably Priced for what you get. + Slim and Sleek Design. The Zephyrus S is designed elegantly, but at the same time its not ostentatious. You could most likely bring this into a business meeting or a library and you wouldnt draw unneeded attention. Cons: - No Ethernet Port or Thunderbolt Connection - The side by side trackpad and keyboard is considered unconventional by some (I consider this a pro though, I LOVE the setup, its so fancy) - SSD ONLY (for the 1070 Max Q Version) be prepared to pick up an External HD or be ready to carefully manage the games you download - RGB lighting is kind of soft on the keyboard. You can increase the lighting intensity, but by most modern day standards its still going to have more of a soft glow then an in your face level of intensity. - Fans are SURPRISINGLY LOUD when they are at their maximum setting, especially for something so small. Again, I also like this because I respect a machine with a little kick and can flex its cooling muscles when it needs to. But this could be considered a con for some. Remember that you can always manually adjust fan settings using a button or set an automated profile in Armoury Crate depending on what game you play. Admittedly, I gave this 5 stars because just about all the cons, at least to ME, werent really cons save for the Ethernet Port and Thunderbolt connection, but I already had a USB Type C hub when I bought this so I was good to go. But I wanted to list those warnings out there for people who are considering this laptop. Before buying, KNOW what you are getting before purchasing this, READ THE FINE SPEC PRINTS, if you can keep that in mind, this PC is a real beauty.

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As a college student, I was looking for a laptop that can be the best of both worlds, something that was light, portable, had decent battery life while having the power to play AAA title games or whatever I threw at it. I decided to wait and use my unit for 2 weeks so I can give a more comprehensive review, though I will say that my review will be written from a college students perspective and not so much from a professional computer reviewers perspective. PROS: DESIGN: This laptop is one of the most uniquely designed gaming laptop being sold on the market. Build quality is very nice, sturdy, metal-ly, and minimal flex. The unique keyboard/mousepad layout and its fancy Active Aerodynamic System allows the laptop to stay cool when gaming. Its thin bezels around the display makes the laptop look much more modern and does help contribute to its slim form factor. This laptop is just ever so slightly bigger than the Macbook Pro 15 with Touch bar, very impressive. ASUS did a great job designing the outer shell of the laptop to be subtle and clean, allowing you to take it to the office or coffee shop and not attract attention to itself, though I would be lying if I did not say that the laptop did catch some intrigued glances in my classes. PERFORMANCE: This laptop makes procrastination very easy to achieve as it can run close to any game currently out and popular smoothly. With the fans running on balanced mode, graphics all maxed out, CPU/GPU stock, (See attached photos), I was able to get around 140-230 fps on CS:GO with GPU and CPU temps around 64C and 75C respectively. For Far Cry 3 (I know, I know, its an outdated game but I really enjoy playing it), I was getting around 60-80 fps with GPU hovering at 62C and CPU at around 75C. I was able to redeem Black Ops 4, play it on max, and was alos getting performance slightly better than Far Cry 3. This laptop should be able to play any games on the market and sustain minimum 60fps most of the time. DISPLAY: Color accuracy is great. Colors look vibrant from every video I watched. Ive used my laptop out in direct sunlight and never really had an issue with visibility, thanks to its decent max brightness as well as its matte-finish, eliminating major glares. Its fast 144hz refresh rate and 3ms response time makes gaming and even just swinging the mouse cursor back and forth really fast enjoyable. BATTERY LIFE: Some may list this as a con but some people tend to forget that gaming laptops are very power hungry. I did read somewhere that the battery size of the GX531 was around like 50Wh, a bit on the smaller side. The Nvidia Optimus technology monitored the laptops battery usage quite nicely and I was able to squeeze out a good 4.5 hours on 33% brightness cramming for my finals before the laptop needed to be charged. That for me is more than enough to make me happy but of course, more would make me happier. CONS: (Before continuing reading, most of the cons I list pertain to what I experienced on my unit. I may have gotten unlucky I guess.) DISPLAY: Some reviewers on Amazon post that their unit has backlight bleed and I am sad to say that my unit suffers the same fate. From the attached picture(I dont know why my phone was having a hard time focusing), there are noticeable backlight bleeds on the top-left and bottom-right corner. The picture makes it difficult to tell but in actuality, the top-left corner is the worst out of the bunch. The bleeds are not that noticeable but every now and then when the screen becomes black, from like a video or a game-loading screen, it becomes painfully obvious. SPEAKERS: Sound quality is great but once I start to raise the volume past 50%, the sound becomes progressively distorted, especially on high notes. Not good :( KEYBOARD: This one is interesting. You know how keycaps are elevated above the keyboard frame? For my unit, the keyboard frame around the i keycap is elevated to the point where the keycaps and the keyboard frame are flush with each other (see attached picture for better idea). I often found myself trying to press the i,j,k, (any keycaps essentially in that area), only to push down on the keyboard frame instead. I could push the frame back down with my fingernail, but within a day, the frame slowly rises up to match the height of the keycaps. FINAL VERDICT: I wanted to give MY specific unit 3.5/5 stars. Even though 2 of the 3 cons I listed above are negated by the external peripherals (headphones, USB keyboard and mouse) I connect and use when I game, when time comes to use the laptop without those peripherals and I notice the cons, it makes me think "I shouldnt be experiencing these issues, especially for the price I paid". After noticing these cons, everyday I think to myself whether I should just return the item as defective, get a replacement, and hope for the best or I should just live with these issues. I will probably return it for a replacement. The reason I rounded up and gave my unit an overall 4/5 stars is because of this. The laptop, in my opinion, just looks so cool and the performance the laptop outputs is very impressive. It is pretty much everything I wanted in a laptop. So for those that find my unprofessionally written review, take the time to read it all, and are deciding on whether or not to buy the device, I would personally recommend it.

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The Laptop is everything I expected. Great machine and I am ecstatic over my purchase. However, as another reviewer posted, getting the promotional COD Black Ops has been a nightmare. It has been 3 weeks 1 day to date since I started my quest to obtain my code for the game. While the ASUS reps have been nice enough, they have been unable to help me in a timely manner. I have now escalated this issue up to a corporate level and my complete frustrations over having to restate the whole history of what Ive gone through to each rep and their supervisors (even though I have a reference number and everything is supposedly documented) have me not wanting to deal with ASUS in the future. The profuse apologizing to me after everything I state to them starts to sound condescending after the 4th rep doing so. Another annoying issue is the day after I submitted my order for the laptop, Amazon dropped the price $100.00 Apparently Amazon no longer refunds the difference even on products supplied out of their own facilities. They didnt even process my payment (on my Amazon credit card) until the day it dropped in price. The only way I would have been eligible for the refund would be to ship the product back for a full return and purchase the product again. When you spend so much time budgeting and waiting to buy an item, once you receive it in good condition, you dont want to go shipping it back. Amazon should have honored the price difference. A mere $100.00, but now they will lose more than that in future sales. I am currently looking up the items on my wish list through other avenues of purchase for Christmas. Bottom line on the Laptop though, Great computer! Too bad Im dealing with so much poor customer service.

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A loud and angry beast indeed, that eats up graphic intensive games and spits them out asking for more! So I am coming from a 17" G series Asus RoG, which was a great machine for the genre of gaming I was most interested in. However, my interest started getting peaked in the 15.3" smaller/thinner laptops from Asus, but I was really concerned with the heating issues that they seemed to experience in the early stages of development as they sought to go smaller/thinner. Asus hit the mark with the Zephyrus S! Gaming is a whole new experience with the GTX 1070 matched up to the amazing screen. The smaller bezel really does give the appearance of a much larger screen and my initial concerns of losing game experience due to screen size is not an issue at all. Not seeing the light bleed that I have seen other reviewers experience so I think that really could be accounted to a bad run on QC. Did I say loud and angry? Well this thing is a beast and a beast needs to breathe. It does run loud on turbo settings and above because you are pushing the laptop to play a graphic intensive game. However, I had no problem web surfing or watching videos while in balanced, silent, or even windows mode with no temp issues. You ask for something to push hard in a small package, you need to expect it need to breathe heavy, period. Cant hear it with headphones on and most people will have them on for gaming anyway. This is an Ultra Slim laptop, not a cordless one. Just because it is very portable and easy to move around with does not mean that you still do not need power. The many reviewers that complain about battery life seem to forget this when using this laptop as if they can use this machine without it being plugged in and expect massive battery life. People need to stop acting as if there isnt outlets all over this world when they absolutely need to game on the run, and just plug it in. Seriously, you cant complain about battery life when trying to run this type of graphic card/cooling system/screen/SDD/etc/etc while not being plugged in. A few weeks in now and this Asus is making me just as happy with the purchase of my old Asus RoG brick that I replaced with this purchase. Cant wait to wear this one out and see what Asus offers in the future.

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These are only my first impressions. As for the performance of this machine graphically it does all I expected it to, which is wonderful. Ive been playing Rainbow Six Siege on Ultra Settings and it doesnt skip a beat in the frames department. Also while its fans may be loud, the system seems to have ample cooling. Its chassis is beautiful, and I like the design decision to move the mouse pad to the right and double it as the num keys. However there are already some considerable issues on day 1. Starting off, out of the box I cannot upgrade my display drivers, they download through the Geforce Experience application, but on an attempt to install it states, "The operating system is incompatible"!!!? I havent changed the stock operating system which is windows 10. The next problem is with the set up of the microphone/headphone jack (Not Jacks). So when I plug in normal headphones into the jack it causes the stock microphone to stop working, which if youre a gamer trying to play online where communication is key, its quite the pain in the ass. Im waiting for my headset to get here to see if it will at least work properly. This may seem to some like Im making a bigger deal about this then I should, but keep in mind that we paid $1,800 for this machine, and at that price I expect EVERYTHING to work! Downloading and installing display drivers should be a breeze, and I cannot fathom how the microphone issues made it all the way through production without being dealt with. I will be returning this machine if I cannot resolve its issues. I will be back to post photos and video of my issues, and the resolutions if I find them. -------------------------------------- Update 1: My initial issue with the microphone was with Windows 10, I had not noticed when you plug in a device into the jack it asks you which it is. By default it was going to headset, while it was a simple headphone. Changing that setting resolved the issue with the stock microphone not working. However I have uncovered a new issue with the microphone that I see as forgivable. If you have the fans running at full power the output of the stock microphone sounds like there is a lawnmower next to you, reducing the fan speed fixes the issue. As for my problem with the display drivers I am currently updating windows to see if it was the issue. Will report back soon, I have bumped my initial rating up by a star. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Update 2 I have discovered that you do not need the nvidia geforce experience with this machine to update your drivers, if you check for updates with the windows 10 software it finds and installs the drivers for you. I am not sure if windows simply needed the other updates to resolve this issue out of the box but it is fixed. So, when you get this machine immediately update windows when you get started. I shall return in a few weeks to write a complete review and give a final verdict. Perhaps I shouldve waited before writing the review in the first place, but maybe this will help another user who runs into the same issues as me out of the box. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Final review, in the end this hardware is a complete disappointment. The system is designed with a fundamental flaw, its complete reliance on windows 10 to keep it running properly. You cannot download the display drivers for the chipset on your own, and when trying to manually download drivers for its features after the windows 10 update wiped out my ability to use the touch pad, they wouldnt install. You cannot install other, more stable operating systems on this machine all of its drivers require windows 10. This machine is not worth its price, I do not suggest it to anyone. Its aesthetics and power are great, but that isnt enough to justify its purchase.

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RTX 2070 Max Q 15" inch version The design of this laptop is outstanding, a beautiful piece to look at indeed. Display: The first thing i have checked is the display, sadly it does have light bleed but it is very minimal and not noticable at all. Only when you look for it. Performance & Temps: I was easily getting above 144 fps on Fortnite, with the balanced gaming mode with temps reaching at 80C max. From 80 to 120 fps in dota ( high settings ) which reached max temp of 83 to 85 C. Overall this laptop can tackle any game if you will accept the turbo mode fan noise. This laptop have never throttled and the temps were always below 90C, the fan noise is quieter than what I have expected, and if you will wear a gaming headset with closed ear you wont hear it at all. However sometimes you will get some fps fluctuations which can be fixed/minimised with GPU driver updates and using Vulkan support in Dota 2, if you prefer to avoid all that go for the 17 inch version which has G-Sync support. Sound: The sound quality is ok id give it 7/10 its not bad seeing how thin the laptop is. Keyboard: This keyboard is much better than any keyboard i have tried, so comfortable to type on and no spelling mistakes unlike desktop keyboards. And you wont feel any heat which is the best thing about this laptop design. Ports: Sad that there is no thunderbolt 3 port, RJ45, however the laptop wifi card is so good that you dont need a RJ45 port, the connection is tested and theres no packet loss or stutter at all. Battery life: It can be extended easily with power saving mode up to 3 to 4 hours on browsing and normal use. However you will need to carry a charging brick with you everywhere or a 65W power adapter to charge it with USB C. Overall id give this laptop 8.5 out of 10. However If you have the money i recommend buying the 17 inch version just for that G sync panel, other than that this laptop is great and i have no regrets at all. I will post photos later and include further details incase i notice anything. Edit: temps mentioned above are for CPU, GPU temps were mostly below 65 C which is amazing.

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Long Story short, would I buy again? - Yes. Do I regret buying this laptop over others? - Not at all. Pretty much well rounded, great material quality, great performance balance between work and play. For reference, I use Visual Studio 2017, Adobe CC Photoshop/Illustrator, Autodesk Maya 2018.4, and Mudbox 2018.2 to do different types of development, mainly Game Development with my own tools and software. It handles each of the applications Ive listed very well, so transitioning from my Desktop to this Laptop with work is a good experience. I only play games occasionally, but the hardware specs suit my development and gaming use very well. After some setup its proven to be a wonderful laptop, its definitely not ready right out of the box, or even charged for that matter, that was the case for mine at least. For my programming, the text by default is scaled 125%, so setting it to 100% for me made it much better, because at the 125% scale, text is noticeably blurry. In hindsight, the only things I would want different with the hardware is there to be 2 RAM slots, and Im fine with having a single M.2 SSD, although having two M.2 SSDs would be prefect. Also maybe a higher capacity battery, although I dont know where theyd be able to fit it, would be cool if there was a matching external battery pack for this laptop. Pros: - CPU is fantastic, its a great balance between work and gaming on a laptop. - GPU, well its a 1070 under-clocked with some less features than a regular 1070, but it handles gaming quite well. - Display is beautiful, even though its only 100% sRGB. I havent tested the refresh rate yet, so all I can say is its good so far, havent noticed any screen tearing in games yet. - Keyboard is smooth and silent, the keys do require a bit of a heavy typing hand to function. I also like the keyboard layout along with the space between the F4 and F5 keys, since I use the function keys quite a bit with development. The Print Screen button is in an unusual position next to the right Alt key. - The Touchpad + Numpad I was at first skeptical about, but its not a bad experience actually. - RGB Lighting looks pretty nice, gives it that extra quality appearance, havent played around with the lighting too much, mainly just wanted it so I could see the keyboard if Im not in a well lit environment. - Very solid materials, gotta give ASUS props on the materials used for this laptop. - Webcam is actually comparable to a Logitech C920 Webcam. I have only tested in the Skype video settings preview and not full screen yet, but Ive seen much worse image quality on other laptops in the same Skype video settings preview. I have not tested the Microphone yet either, so well see how that turns out. - Wireless Adapter works very well, on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz its been steady, stable, and strong. I havent noticed any defects or issues with the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. So even though theres not an RJ-45 Ethernet port, I dont see it having any stability issues with online gaming or even with streaming, although Id trust using a USB Ethernet Adapter more than Wi-Fi for streaming anyway. I ran a speed test which gave me the maximum up/downstream of my internet service subscription. (attached image) - 25 GBs of Dropbox storage, not really a benefit for me since I dont use Dropbox, but whatever, free GBs I guess. Cons: - Runs a bit hot and loud under medium-high load. - Kingston SSD, would be nice if they put a 1 TB in since theyre going with a cheaper brand SSD, its decent though, and Ill probably end up replacing it later on since thats not enough space for having multiple games installed and doing work. The actual size of the drive ends up being 476 GB, not very close to the 512 GB its labeled as, I believe thats due to the drive reserving space for performance and durability purposes. - Not really that bad, but the light bleed is noticeable if the video output is all black. Although, its not anything noticeable with normal scenarios. - Battery Life can range from 5 Hours to an hour or less, depending on what youre running and your power settings. - Gets Dirty very easily, like most laptops, but this one if youre OCD like myself, youll spend a lot of time cleaning it up after each use. - On-Board 8 GB RAM, instead of having two slots so we can upgrade to 32GB of RAM, theres just one slot which you can put a 16 GB stick in to get 24 GBs, unsure if it supports a 32 GB stick in the one slot though, my guess would be no, but I havent seen or read anything that says any higher than 16 GBs for the one slot. - Claiming the Call of Duty - Black Ops 4 game made me lose a bit of respect for ASUS on this one, they made it such a painful experience, it was almost not even worth it. To obtain the code for obtaining the serial key to obtain the game, you have to run the MyAsus App and run the Update to get the ASUS Promotion App, which gives you the code to register and obtain the serial key, where you have to post a picture of the packaging and your invoice, that just seemed a bit too over the top for my liking, but whatever, finally got the game after waiting about 10-20 minutes for a response email after submitting the form and pictures. - Candy Crush, and other bad promo stuff preloaded without a straight-forward way of removing, Im actually not even sure how I removed mine, I ran the Powershell in Administrator mode with "Get-AppxPackage -Name king.com.*" (without the double quotation marks) and it turned up with nothing, now I dont see Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush whatever it was in the start menu anymore, doesnt make any sense, but whatever, as long as there isnt candy crush. - Windows 10 Home, for this price and compared to other laptops with Windows 10 Pro in the same price range and specs as this laptop. Notes for the Attached Images, - The game screenshot is Call of Duty - Black Ops 4 with whatever optimal settings GeForce Experience set by default. - The spreadsheet is the output of getting the Physical Device Limits from Vulkan 1.1.85.0, between the GTX-1070 with Max-Q Design and Intel HD 630 that are part of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S GX531GS. Ive got a GTX-1060/1070/1080 that I havent ran the code on yet, I may update this review later and add another spreadsheet image with those values added in comparison. - CPU-Z windows stacked next to each other for reference, on the benchmark - I had two instances of Visual Studio, Adobe Photoshop, and Discord+Skype running during the benchmark. - Task Manager Screenshot is just because I like seeing all those logical processor graphs. - Speedtest results on 5GHz, on 2.4GHz I got around 130 Mbps Download, and 12 Mbps Upload, Although this is a Speedtest.net result, I tried testmy.net and the test was just taking forever, possibly because the ISP throttling those test servers or the servers themselves, who knows.. (Internet service package tested is rated at 250 Mbps). **UPDATE DEC 5, 2018** I found out that the typical Alt+NumPad [Key Code] shortcut doesnt work, from testing different combinations I found that to do this, you use Alt+PgUp+NumPad [Key Code]. So just remember to press the Alt Key then PgUp or PgDn (both work) before typing the key code. (e.g. Alt+PgUp+NumPad [0169] = © "copyright symbol") (e.g. Alt+PgUp+NumPad [0153] = ™ "trademark symbol")

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Have been very happy with this purchase! The laptop build quality is very good. System setup was a breeze. I’ve been playing Fortnite and BO4 at maximum settings with 100+ FPS. The fans are loud under low, but I fully expected that based on the size. For comparison I uploaded a picture of with it next to my Mac Book Pro. It’s super thin! My only complaint is that it took 1 Amazon customer service representative and 5 Asus customer representatives to get my Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 game code. Other than that, the machine is amazing!

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