Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 review: hot specs and hot air
The Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 from last year was a sharp laptop that stumbled a bit in terms of performance thanks largely to its Intel CPU. While the lightweight form factor was a plus, we were ultimately disappointed with the overall performance offered by this laptop, especially given its high price point.
Asus clearly isn’t attempting to reinvent the wheel this year, offering another Intel-based laptop that retains much of what worked with its predecessor while smoothing out some of the rough edges. Many of these additions are welcome but mostly iterative, offering faster 12th Gen Intel CPUs and up to an RTX 3080 Ti graphics card. However, I’m more interested to see if the M16 earned its higher price tag this time around.
It’s also worth mentioning that if you’re in the market for a gaming laptop, the 2022 version of the Asus Zephyrus G15 added a webcam to its already impressive list of specs, addressing one of the biggest issues we had with the prior model and removing one of the big advantages the M16 had over the G15. However, the Intel processor in the M16 has the potential to give it an edge in creative applications.
This year’s model of the M16 is all about Alder Lake. The model I tested was equipped with a Core i9-12900H paired with an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti backed up by 2TB of storage and 16GB of DDR5 RAM. This is considered the middle of the road configuration, priced at $2,149.99. However, Asus also offers a higher tier option for $3,199.99 that has the same CPU and storage but upgrades the GPU to a 3080 Ti and comes with 32GB of RAM. The budget entry of the M16 is priced at $1,649.99 and uses a Core i7-12700H, an RTX 3060, 512GB of storage, and 16GB of RAM instead.
With more configuration options and a budget
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