Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 Review

After the success of the ROG Zephyrus G14, Asus launched an affordable alternative, the "Asus ROG Zephyrus G15" is a powerful gaming laptop with a lot of potential.

It was one of the very few laptops to come with AMD 4000 CPU series so the performance is what you are interested in!

Does ROG Zephyrus G15 deserve to be your next gaming laptop? or are there better options? Read on to know.

Why Trust Us:

All of our reviews are based on real-time testing and market research. We only recommend products that are worth buying for the prices.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 Review

Hours Tested = 20 hours | Market Researched = 5 hours

We are reviewing the most powerful variant of this laptop, it comes with a 15.6 inches FHD 240Hz Display, AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS Processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GPU.

16GB DDR4 RAM and 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD.

other configurations;

144Hz Display | GTX 1660 Ti

Internal Review

DESIGN AND BUILD QUALITY:

The laptop has a really clean and sleek design that looks beautiful, the build quality is sturdy and lightweight for a gaming laptop.

The wavy black finish looks and feels awesome, it does repel fingerprints but not as good as other builds.

The metallic lid has a signature Asus logo on the left which nicely fits in the design of this laptop.

The hinges are silent and well placed and the rounded corners give a polished look to this laptop.

There is no webcam available, which we know won't bother most of the gamers but it is worth mentioning.

When it comes to portability in a gaming laptop, G15 checks all those boxes, it weighs only 4.5 lbs (2.1 kg) which makes it ideal for traveling too.

KEYBOARD:

The keyboard of this laptop is very well built, its keys are square and elevated making it easier for typing and gaming.

The placement of the clear white backlighting under the black keyboard keys is perfect, the keys are clearly visible at night.

There is no keyboard flex and keyboard heating.

There are dedicated volume and mic/speaker mute buttons which is great. The ROG button on the top opens up the armory software which really comes in handy when gaming.

TOUCHPAD:

G15 features a regular-sized precision touchpad that is responsive and the two integrated left-right buttons provide clicky feedback.

When swiping your fingers across the touchpad, you will feel a bit of resistance, but as most gamers use gaming mouse this should not be a problem.

PORTS:

The port selection is quite interesting on this gaming laptop, on the left, there is our charging port, an ethernet port, an HDMI along with the USB 3 Type-A port, USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen 2) port, and at last a combined Microphone/Headphone jack.

On the right side, we have got 2 more USB 3 Type-A ports for connecting secondary mouse keyboard, etc.

We really miss Thunderbolt connectivity on this laptop.

External Review

DISPLAY:

Zephyrus G15 comes with a 15.6 inches FHD 244Hz Refresh Rate Display with 3ms response time, the thinner bezels provide a wide viewing angle which is ideal for gaming and media consumption.

A 144Hz Variant is also available.

The color quality is pretty good, thanks to the 100%sRGB and integrated adaptive sync technology.

The screen is quite bright, brightness maxed out at 327 nits which is really great for working in a brightly lit environment.

4k@60fps videos ran smoothly without any lag which is good for Netflix and Youtube.

RAM AND SSD:

Zephyrus G15 features 16GB of DDR4 RAM (2 x 8) running in dual channel and 1TB of PCIe NVMe SSD.

The frequency of RAM is 3200mhz which is actually a plus point for a Ryzen based system like this.

One 8GB stick is soldered and one on board, you can add another stick of up to 24GB, but we would recommend you to apply HyperX Fury 16GB RAM as it is also recommended by the company.

For the SSD, there is another M.2 slot that supports up to 1TB SSD. Upgrading is a piece of cake, just remove a handful of screws from the back panel to access the RAM and SSD.

Asus has been quite flexible in the upgrade options of their laptops.

CPU AND GPU:

G15 comes with an 8 core AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS paired with Nvidia RTX 2060 6GB discrete GPU.

For the performance, you can trust this laptop with your eyes closed, the Ryzen 7 processor will breeze through all of your productivity apps, software, and heavy games easily.

You won't find your laptop lagging under heavy loads.

Now with that out of the way, let's talk about the main thing you are gonna buy this laptop for "Performance".

PERFORMANCE:

Razer offers several modes or power profiles for their laptop, each of them modifies the system's performance.

You can switch these modes in the ROG Armoury software, it can be opened in the settings or just by pressing the eye button on the top left.

* Turbo = Turbo mode can only be enabled when the laptop is on charging, It provides high-performance power with overclocked GPU

* Manual = It is the same as Turbo, what's cool is that it modifies the fan curves for the GPU and CPU for cooling, it also overclocks the GPU.

* Silent = This mode lowers down fan noise and reduces the power of your CPU and GPU.

* Performance = This mode keeps a balanced profile with stock GPU and CPU performance.

Turbo and Manual mode are meant for faster performance and heavy gaming loads, you can switch them on when doing intense gaming.

Use the silent mode when doing general word processing, web surfing, and media consumption.

The performance mode is ideal for multitasking, programming, photo/video editing, and running other work programs. In short, just switch this mode on when you want to boost your productivity.

Now let's jump into Gaming tests.

GAMING:

Gaming on Zephyrus G15 is a fascinating experience, we switched the turbo mode on for better performance and threw many AAA titles on this laptop.

Fortunately, G15 managed to hit a sixer on all of them. It also comes with a free one-month Xbox Game Pass.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 ran on ultra optimized settings at a smooth fps of 65 even after several hours.

Battlefield V:

Battlefield V ran on 1080p settings giving 100+fps easily, while on maxed-out settings the fps dropped to around 60.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 ran smoothly on maxed-out settings giving 80+ FPS.

Witcher 3

To our surprise, G15 managed to run Witcher 3 on ultra settings smoothly at about 62 fps, fantastic performance!

Other games like GTA V, Fortnite, Valorant, CS: GO, Watch Dogs 2, and Apex Legends were tested with maxed-out settings.

All of them ran smoothly at 80 frames per second easily, thanks to the powerful Ryzen 4800Hs and RTX 2060 Graphics.

We would recommend you to play games on Turbo profile only as in the performance mode the temperature cranks up a bit more than normal.

THERMALS AND FAN NOISE:

With general gaming, the CPU and GPU reach a temperature of 76-80 degrees which is good but not great, while in some games the temperature reached up to 92 degrees.

In the turbo mode, the temperature does lower down a bit to 75-78, but the fan noise increases as they are set in full swing mode.

The cooling system is decent it features three heat pipes and two fans, the air flows out from the side and back.

There is minimal fan noise in the silent mode.

BATTERY:

Last but not the least, the battery life of this laptop is plenty enough for day to day usage and intense gaming.

The laptop comes with a 180Watt adaptor for fast charging, it can also be charged via USB Type-C.

When doing general tasks like web browsing, word processing in silent mode, the battery will last about 7 hours and 25 mins.

While running productivity apps or doing photo/video editing, it will last about 4 hours and 14 mins.

On continuous heavy gaming, the laptop will last about 1 hour and 40 mins which is quite impressive.

BOTTOM LINE:

So, is this gaming laptop an option for you in 2021? After examining it for about a whole day we would say, YES!

It has got a decent build quality, the keyboard is tactile, the touchpad does feel responsive, the overall performance is above average, you can throw any game at Zephyrus G15 with your eyes closed and it will run it smoothly.

If you are looking for an affordable alternative for this laptop, we would recommend you to go with Acer Predator helios 300.

It is a few hundred dollars cheaper and virtually aimed at similar audience.