Asus ROG Zephyrus GX701 Review: Top-notch portable gaming laptop with hefty price tag

With high-performance comes high temperatures and performance on mobile RTX cards are highly dependent on the laptop manufacturers’ ability to optimise cooling and power delivery. It's worth noting that according to Asus, disabling the RGB logo on top of the keyboard could see a 3 percent decrease in temperatures when dealing with demanding games and applications over extended periods.

Asus hasn’t revamped the cooling system on the new Zephyrus RTX gaming laptops, so except temperature above the keyboard to really heat up and the fans to get quite loud. But we’ve noticed that none of the above-mentioned issues really hamper your gaming experience.

Our noise cancelling headset pretty much blocked out any noise caused by the fans and when gaming at full volume on the laptop’s speakers, the noise from the fans was almost unnoticeable. While the portion above the keyboard tends to get quite hot at times, the rest of the laptop remains relatively cool. The excess heat doesn’t really trickle down into the keyboard area and doesn’t cause an inconvenience while gaming.

As the ROG GX701 is the only RTX laptop, we’ve tested so far, and while we may see similar performance numbers on models with these specifications, topping the GX701 in terms of performance would require massive powerhouses like the Alienware Area-51m or the ROG Mothership. The GX701 crushes last generation laptops with much higher FPS numbers.

Display

There’s more good news for gamers as the FPS isn’t the only thing turned-up on the GX701. The new Zephyrus also gets a 17.3-inch IPS panel with a 144 Hz refresh rate,3 ms response time and support for Nvidia G-sync technology. However, the standout feature of this display is its factory calibration from Pantone with 100% sRGB colour gamut.

What this essentially means is that the display on the GX701 is an excellent option for video editors and photographers. The screen not only looks fantastic out of the box but makes the laptop an excellent choice for content creators, where colour accuracy is of the utmost importance.

Design

Asus ROG GX701  gets full marks for design. Despite a 17.3-inch display, the latest hardware and an excellent cooling system, the Zephyrus S GX701 still manages to look absolutely gorgeous with its slim profile (Thickness – 0.62 inches). RGB lighting encompasses the entire laptop from the keyboard to logo on the front.

The GX701 follows the traditional Zephyrus design by shifting the keyboard to the bottom of the laptop and trackpad at the side. This move makes using the device on anything other than a desk nearly impossible. But this really doesn’t make much of a difference as gaming would require the use of a desk or table. Additionally, the Zephyrus also houses a nifty volume roller on the top left, while function keys feature multimedia shortcuts that allow you to control playback, switch between power modes, adjust brightness and more.

What else is in the box?

The lack of a webcam gives the new Zephyrus very slim bezels. Asus does provide a detachable webcam which can easily be clipped on to the laptop. The company’s rationale is that gamers don’t use webcams. Webcams on gaming laptops are almost impossible to stream on, but the webcam that arrives with the GX701 offers FHD video recording at 60 fps.

Apart from the webcam, Asus also includes in ROG Gladius II optical mouse with the Zephyrus. The Gladius II features –

• Customizable Aura RGB lighting with Aura Sync support


• DPI switch to toggle sensitivity


• DPI Target button to provide short instances of precision


• Omron switches with 50-million-click durability


• 12,000 DPI optical sensor


• 1000Hz USB polling rate


• Push-fit switch socket design

One area where the Zephyrus could certainly use some work is in the battery department. We understand that gaming laptops rarely see more than a couple of hours of battery life when unplugged. But the Zephyrus GX701 is a 3.5-lakh rupees gaming laptop, and Asus should have done a little more in terms of battery life.

Once you unplug the GX701, it switches to ‘on battery’ mode. This significantly lowers the performance of the laptop by switching to integrated graphics (This can be turned off, and you can switch back to the RTX 2080 Max-Q). While this won’t make much of a difference when performing standard Windows 10 tasks, it will significantly hamper performance in games. Although the Asus has tried a few things to prolong the battery life, they simply aren’t enough. We saw close to 90 minutes of Apex Legends gameplay without using external power and about four and a half hours of Netflix with the volume turned to full.

Final Verdict

Asus’ emphasis on colour accuracy coupled with an impressive spec sheet and slim profile, make the ROG Zephyrus S GX701 an excellent mobile workstation by day and gaming powerhouse by night. If you are an enthusiast gamer who's looking for a slim alternative to a chunky gaming laptop without any compromise in performance, then the Zephyrus S GX701 is perfect. But its hefty price tag puts it out of reach of average consumers.

Also, check out our first impressions of the less costly ROG Zephyrus S GX531GW.

The Good:

• Brilliant performance for gaming and content creation


• Excellent build quality and beautiful slim profile


• Pantone validated G-sync display panel


• Efficient thermal system


• Detachable webcam good enough for streaming

• Lack of an Ethernet port


• Very expensive


• Less-than-average battery life