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The company recently unveiled the Zephyrus S GX531GW gaming laptop in the Indian market at a starting price of Rs 2,39,990 and here is our review of the device.
Asus ROG Zephyrus S GX531GW design and display
Compared to conventional gaming laptops, the Zephyrus S GX531GW comes in a slimmer profile and with narrow bezels. It has a metallic design with immaculate corners and edges and the design can be said to be more along the minimalistic lines if you compare it with a traditional gaming laptop. The build of the laptop is very sturdy as it has a metal design.
To tackle the heating issues that surface while gaming, the laptop has been provided with an airflow-optimised chassis that has got a thin ramp on the back that keeps the back of the laptop slightly elevated to help suck in the surrounding air.
The dimensions of the laptop are 360 x 268 x 15.35~16.15mm and it weighs 2.1 kg. The laptop is 15.35~16.15mm thin and has got a Silky scissor-door hinge design with a slightly protruded part in the middle of the lid for quickly opening the laptop.
The overall design of the laptop looks a little boxy which can be loved or loathed based on the consumer.
The laptop ships with a GeForce RTX 2070 (MAX-Q) GPU and the latest 8th generation Intel Core i7 8750H processor. The CPU is composed of 6 cores and 12 threads and has a boost clock speed of 4.1GHz.The laptop has got a DDR4 2666MHz SDRAM [8GB on board + 1 x SO-DIMM ( Max up to 24GB)] and a M.2 NVMe PCIE 3.0 512GB storage. It runs Microsoft Windows 10 OS.
The laptop has got ROG series’ Active Aerodynamic System (AAS) for sustaining high GPU clocks and effective heat dissipation in case of graphic-intensive games.
To manage the heat, the laptop chassis has got dual 12V fans, five heat pipes and four heat sinks plus an area with cooling holes that has been placed above the keyboard.
For dust protection, the laptop also got an anti-dust system. An HD(720P) camera comes embedded in the top middle of the lid just above the screen.
On the left side of the chassis, the I/O options include a DC input, a USB3.1 Gen1 Type-C port, two USB 2.0 ports and one 3.5mm audio jack. On the right, we have one USB3.1 Gen2 Type-C port and a USB3.1 Gen2 Type-A port. On the back, there is one HDMI 2.0 port and a Kensington lock.
The upper half of the chassis is taken up with an area of venting holes for heat dissipation while the lower half has the keyboard that’s not exactly in the centre, so gamers used to playing on a standard gaming laptop design would find it difficult initially to adjust to this laptop.
The heat dissipation module is separated from the input position of the keyboard independently. As mentioned earlier, the CPU, GPU and power supply related units are all cooled via copper heatsinks and five heat pipes which lead to four exterior heatsinks. Each set of exterior heatsinks have 250 0.1mm-thick heat dissipating fins and a total of 110,000 square mm2 area for heat dissipation.
The fans draw the outside air from the AAS intake below and vents in the chassis above.
The laptop comes with a Chiclet-style keyboard with a key travel of 1.2mm. It is an RGB 4-Zone Backlit keyboard that can be customised through the Aura software. The keys are silent and the trackpad that lies to the right of the keyboard can turn into a numeric keyboard with one keystroke of a dedicated key given just above the trackpad.
The laptop has a 15.6-inch full HD (1920×1080) display that comes with a 144Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time. In addition, GX531GW also has Pantone colour certification for 100% sRGB colour performance. Compared to previous Zephyrus models, this one has been provided with thinner bezels and it makes the screen look wide when gaming in the dark. The display has been strongly integrated with the chassis and both the parts have been joined securely at the hinge all across the length, something which could have been a weakness literally if the display would have been too thin or not joined across the full length of the chassis.
Asus Zephyrus GX531GW performance
The various gaming modes of the laptop are Windows, Silent, Balanced, Turbo and Manual. If you wish to extract the maximum CPU performance out of the device, the Turbo mode is the one you should choose. The gaming modes and other settings of the laptop can be accessed through the ROG button just above the trackpad, which leads you to the Armoury Crate of the Asus Zephyrus GX531GW.
The gaming performance of the laptop was quite fluid almost every time and it does handle AAA gaming titles like Need For Speed: Payback and Battlefield 1 very well. There were a few instances of stutter while the gaming environment changed into a cutscene but apart from that, this Zephyrus model shines across the board.
The charging port of the laptop is present at the middle of the left edge of the device. While this is not a major issue, it could have been given at the rear edge of the body where some other ports are present. A charging port at the rear edge facilitates setting up the device to create a dedicated gaming space in the house, something which gamers are usually very proud of.
The display, though cannot be bent backwards a lot and we would have liked if it would have been given a little more flexibility to stretch at a wider angle.
The Zephyrus S comes with a ‘USB Type-C Power Delivery’ option for recharging it with a mobile power bank or Type C power adapter in case you don’t have the standard AC adapter.
The cooling fan of the device does its job while complaining about it noisily. The fan noise is such that it affects the audio output of the device too by dampening the loudness of the speakers. If you want to game without using a headset, then the fan noise will bother you.
The fan speed can be controlled automatically and manually both. Use Fn+F5 to toggle the fan speed between Turbo mode, Balanced mode and Silent mode or go to the Armoury Crate.
There are four backlighting sectors of Aura RGB and you can switch between different backlight effects through Aura by going to Armoury Crate.
The laptop comes equipped with two 2W stereo speakers that are powered by Asus Sonic Studio, Nahimic(SW) and Smart AMP (HW) technologies. The audio of the laptop fills the room well on near maximum volume, distorts slightly at near maximum volume and as such, nicely complements your gaming session. There are some additional settings to improve streaming and audio recording that you can use like Sonic Studio III.
On Cinebench R15 (CPU performance), the laptop gave a CPU score of 1245 and a Single Core score of 178. On 3DMark (GPU performance), the laptop got a Fire Strike score of 16260 while on PCMark 10 Extended ( Overall system test), the laptop got an Overall score of 6822 and Gaming score of 13311.
Asus S Zephyrus GX531GW battery
The laptop charges pretty fast and took about an hour to charge from zero to full. The battery drainage is also fast and when playing on Turbo mode, the laptop couldn’t give a battery backup of more than an hour. When not playing any game on the device and using it for browsing, watching videos etc., the battery lasted for about two-and-a-half hours. But since a gaming laptop needs to be kept constantly on charge while playing on it to be able to give its best possible performance, the speedy drainage of the battery will not irk gamers much.
Verdict
The Asus S Zephyrus GX531GW is an unconventional-looking, slim and sturdy gaming laptop the likes of which are few in the market. While the fan noise is one issue, the gaming laptop comes with technologies like AAS, Sonic Studio, Sonic Radar III etc. and offers a smooth gaming experience. The battery life of the laptop is also optimum (about two-and-a-half hours) if you are using the laptop for the purpose of browsing, watching videos etc. For users who would like a more conventional Asus device, they could check out the G series laptops by the company.
