Asus is refreshing its Republic of Gamers (ROG) lineup with a whole bunch of new models, including two relatively compact 15.6 inch models: the Zephyrus (GX501GI) and the Zephyrus M (GM501).
They’re both thin and light (by gaming laptop standards, anyway), and they’re also pretty powerful. Both feature NVIDIA GeForce 10-series graphics, 6-core Intel Coffee Lake-H processors, and 144 Hz G-Sync displays.
But they’re also both really expensive: the Zephyrus M is up for pre-order for $2199Â and the Zephyrus is selling for $2899.
You do get more power with the higher-priced model: it packs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics, 16GB of DDR4-2666 RAM, and 512GB of PCIe SSDÂ storage. And the laptop is slimmer and lighter, at about 0.7 inches thick and 4.85 pounds.
I do wonder how long the included 50Wh battery will last though.
By comparison, the $2199 Zephyrus M is 0.8 inches thick, 5.4 pounds, and features a 55 Wh battery. It comes with NVIDIA GeForce 1070 graphics, 16GB of DDR4-2666 memory, and 256GB of PCIe SSD storage plus a 1TB hard drive.
Both laptops have Intel Core i7-8750H hexa-core processors, 15.6 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel displays with 144 Hz refresh rates, 3ms response times, and support for NVIDIA G-Sync.
Asus says the Zephyrus has an “IPS-level display” with ant-glare coating, while the Zephrus M has a matte display.
Both models feature Thunderbolt 3/USB Type-C ports as well as multiple USB 3.1 Type-A ports, HDMI, and 3.5mm audio jacks.
Oh, there’s one other feature which really sets the Zephyrus apart from the Zephyrus M: While the latter model has a pretty standard keyboard layout (plus RGB backlighting), the Zephyrus GX501GI has a gaming layout with keys pushed to the front of the chassis and a touchpad on the right side.
You can use the touchpad as a numeric keypad with backlighting that glows to illuminate the numbers when you need to see them. Otherwise you can just use the touchpad for touch input.
Asus Zephyrus M (GM501)
Asus Zephyrus (GX501GI)
