Rather than announcing a bunch of all-new gaming laptops at this year’s CES, Asus has decided to “maximize” its current lineup as Nvidia’s latest graphics cards hit the mobile market.
Not only will these portable powerhouses run on a more diverse combination of next-gen core specs, there are also a ton of gaming-focused upgrades on the way: improvements to the panel tech, thermals, and software, with the latter hopefully extending battery life a bit a boost in the face of their more energy-consuming components.
On the compact end of the spectrum, we’ll even see the 2023 Zephyrus G14 packing everything down to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 and AMD Ryzen 9 Zen 4 combo – that’s all we’ve got on the AMD specs, but we’ll know more tomorrow when the red team announces them. The next evolution of the Zephyrus G15 will take over as the new G16, with an Intel Core i9 13900H that can be configured into an RTX 4070. And while the current G15 only supports AMD technology, the new G16 is Intel. However, both essentially use the same chassis.
The new Zephyrus M16, on the other hand, has an impressive-sounding redesign, chassis and all. With the potential for its powerful i9 13900H processor and 120W (145W turbo) RTX 4090 to push its limit more than 20 watts higher than last year’s model. There will always be concerns about thermal throttling, so to compensate for this, it comes with a larger full-width heatsink and Tri-Fan technology. Though we’ll have to see how that translates into real world temperatures when we get our hands on one to test.
Almost the same as the new one Strix and Flow gaming laptops (opens in new tab) Asus just announced that we will also see MUX switches in the lineup. These should help when it comes to battery life, dynamically switching profiles as you move from gaming to standard use.
The Zephyrus series also has the option to configure with the new Nebula panels with 500 nits of brightness, 100% DCI-P3 coverage. The Zephyrus G16’s Nebula option is slightly larger than its predecessor, with an aspect ratio of 16:10.
This year we’re also seeing Nebula HDR displays on more than just the current ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 and Flow X16. The Zephyrus M16, and also the G14, have the option to add these mini-LED panels, which offer 1,024 dimming zones, a peak of 1,100 nits and a refresh rate of 240 Hz at 1440p. The G14’s Nebula HDR display only extends to 600 nits, 165 Hz and 504 dimming zones, though we hope this will be the year someone convinces us that HDR is worth it for PC gaming.
Anyway, the panels look great in person from what little I’ve seen.
As for the 2023 Zephyrus Duo 16 – that laptop with the extra panel between the main screen and keyboard (the screen pad plus) – the 2023 model’s little hacker panel has been upgraded to use etched Gorilla Glass DXC. So it will be fun and hard for those angry hacker taps.
But seriously, what kind of abuse do we expect these machines to endure?
The full Zephyrus lineup will reach us late Q1 2023, or early Q2, with the lower spec RTX 4050/Ryzen 7 7735HS model costing £1,900 right up to the RTX 4080 model Duo 16 , with its Ryzen 9 5950X, for £3,900.
The RTX 4090 model M16 model costs £4,100. We’re still awaiting US pricing, but will update here once it’s out.