The ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 is the latest ASUS of 16:10 laptop display trend. Its screen is a large 16 inches diagonally, but the laptop’s chassis is otherwise built for a 15-inch model, which makes for extremely thin bezels and a thin, portable device. The bright screen’s 2560 x 1600 resolution is also beautiful to look at, but when it comes to performance, this laptop has problems with pricing and with living up to cheaper and similarly priced Ryzen competitors.
Despite having a high-power, 11th gen Intel Core i9 processor and an RTX 3060 laptop GPU in our configuration, this laptop was outperformed by rivals across about half of our game testing library. And that makes it a hard sell given that it’s pretty expensive, too. 
Asus ROG Zephyrus M16: Design
The ROG Zephyrus M16 offers a 94% screen-to-body ratio with thin bezels and a 16-inch display built into a 15-inch chassis. That gives it slightly more screen space than other, similarly-sized laptops, which tend to opt for 15.6-inch screens. But it is also still got plenty of ROG-style gamer design work on it, which can look a little cramped on this smaller chassis.
Most of this laptop’s lid is taken up by a diagonal pattern of dots that conceal a silver wave-like pattern that you can only see when looking at them from certain angles. Its sides have large and noticeable vents and also feature the I/O. There are also LEDs across the back vents to indicate system status. The system’s back vents are also visible from the inside of the laptop, which also has a minor inlet that the keyboard sits inside of, plus top-firing speakers on either side. A bumper on the monitor also lifts the keyboard diagonally up off your desk when you open the lid.
That’s a lot of decoration, and it does run the risk of being gaudy. But this is also a laptop that, by default, flashes its keyboard’s lights every few seconds when asleep. It knows what it’s about, and if you dig that gamer aesthetic, all that extra detailing might appeal to you.
At 13.98 x 9.59 x 0.78 inches large, it’s smaller and much thinner than every similarly specced competitor we tested. The Alienware M15 Ryzen Edition R5, for instance, is 14.02 x 10.73 x 0.9 inches, while the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro is 14.02 x 10.41 x 1.07 inches. The ASUS ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition is a little less long than the Zephyrus M16, measuring 13.94 x 10.2 x 1.07 inches, but it’s bulkier everywhere else.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus is a small laptop that weighs 4.19 pounds. That’s easily lighter than the Alienware’s 5.34 pounds and the Legion’s 5.4 pounds. Plus, the ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition is a hefty 6.61 pounds, which makes the Zephyrus M16 look even more lightweight.
It comes with a wide variety of ports, although most are relegated to the laptop’s left side. To start, the left side has the charging port, an HDMI 2.0 connector, and an RJ-45 ethernet port that looks a little bulky here. It’s also got a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, a 3.5mm headphone/microphone jack, a Thunderbolt 4 charging-capable port, and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C connection that can also handle DisplayPort. By contrast, the laptop’s right side has a single USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A USB port and a microSD card reader.
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Asus ROG Zephyrus M16: Gaming Performance
ROG is equipped with both an Intel Core i9-11900H high power CPU and an RTX 3060 laptop GPU with 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, a 1,426 MHz boost clock, and a 95W TGP. That leaves it in somewhat of a spec middle ground for RTX 3000 series laptops, as it’s got a high-end CPU but a mid-range Ampere GPU.
For instance, in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the Zephyrus M16 only achieved 69 fps in the game’s pre-built benchmark running in FHD at its highest settings. By contrast, the Alienware M15 Ryzen Edition R5 hit 73 fps, and it only gets higher from there. The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (Ryzen 7 5800H/RTX 3070) hit 80 fps because of its higher-end graphics card, and the ASUS ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition (Ryzen 9 5900HX/Radeon RX 6800M) jumped all the way up to 88 fps.
The ROG Zephyrus M16 also ran a little slow in Red Dead Redemption 2’s benchmark running in FHD at medium settings, though it was not our lowest performer. At 58 fps, it just edged out the Alienware M15 Ryzen Edition R5’s 53 fps. Still, the Legion 5 Pro edged it out with 66 fps and the ROG Strix crushed it with 70 fps.
Finally, Far Cry: New Dawn is where the Zephyrus M16 actually came out on top. Here, it ran at 84 fps. Meanwhile, the Legion only hit 71 fps, the Alienware pushed up to 79 fps and the ROG Strix barely trailed behind at 81 fps.
Essentially, performance was inconsistent, but typically the Zephyrus’ Intel processor was beaten by Ryzen competitors, even with similar GPUs. When you played Control on the Zephyrus M16 for a half hour to see how it handles during actual gameplay. Here, I was able to test both FHD gameplay as well as how well the PC holds up at its maximum 2560 x 1600 resolution.
Unfortunately, at high presets, the game ran between 27 – 33 fps at 2560 x 1600 resolution and turning ray tracing onto its high preset reduced that to a slideshow-like 13 – 17 fps. FHD performance was more within my expectations, topping out at 62 fps with ray tracing off and 42 fps with it on. On the plus side, the heat was imperceptible through the laptop’s case, and the fan only occasionally got noisy, usually during moments of heavy action and only for a few seconds at a time. Granted, this laptop uses an RTX 3060 and this is a more punishing game, but to both get 60 fps and get the most out of that high-resolution display, you are going to need to adjust your settings down to low presets without ray tracing on.
Luckily, while this laptop can’t push 2560 x 1600 medium settings at a consistent 60 fps, the low preset does hit between 70 – 80 fps, so you might also be able to get away with a custom configuration that combines medium and low options.
Asus ROG Zephyrus M16: Productivity Performance
The Asus ROG Zephyrus M16’s Intel Core i9-11900H chip gives it exceptional prowess as a productivity machine, although its SSD ran towards the slower end in our tests.
In Geekbench 5, which synthetically benchmarks general PC performance, the Zephyrus M16 scored 1,646 points on single-core tests and 8,495 points on multi-core tests. That’s slightly ahead of all of its competitors. The Alienware M15 Ryzen Edition R5 (Ryzen 7 5800H) topped out at scores of 1,427/7,288, while the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (Ryzen 7 5800H) was only slightly ahead of it with scores of 1,456/7,342. The Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition (Ryzen 9 5900HX) came closest to the Zephyrus M16’s numbers, hitting scores of 1,519/7,746.
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Asus ROG Zephyrus M16: Display
The ASUS ROG is yet another entrant into the 16:10 laptop club and gives it a gaming edge with a 2560 x 1600 @ 165Hz IPS panel. To test viewing content on the Zephyrus M16, the colors were mildly vivid but the blacks were extremely deep. The 16:10 aspect ratio also gave extra vertical space on the screen, which was convenient for scrolling through web pages to either research articles or even write this review.
Furthermore, the 165 Hz screen is meant to see every one of them about 135 -155 fps with on high settings at 2560 x 1600. The color and brightness testing coincided with anecdotal experience. The ROG Zephyrus M16 covered 75.8% of the DCI-P3 spectrum according to our colorimeter. That is a respectable score, even if the laptop’s competitors beat it. The Alienware M15 Ryzen Edition R5 covered 87.3 percent of the DCI-P3 spectrum, while the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro had a more muted lead at 82%. The ASUS ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition had the closest numbers to the Zephyrus M16, with 76.7% DCI-P3 coverage.
As for brightness, the Zephyrus M16’s recorded 479 nits average only faced major competition from one other laptop: the Legion 5 Pro, which hit 472 nits. Meanwhile, the Alienware had an average of 328 nits brightness and the ROG Strix took that number down to 280 nits.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The ROG Zephyrus M16 has a tenkeyless keyboard with 1-zone RGB lighting. Most keys are full-sized, but the arrow keys are half-sized. The keyboard is also raised at an angle when you open the laptop’s lid, to make for a comfortable diagonal typing surface. There are also dedicated media keys for volume and mic input that sit just above the keyboard, plus a programmable key that, by default, opens the Asus Armoury Crate app.
ROG keycaps use a chiclet-style with no detailing aside from on the W, F, and J keys, which leads to flat surfaces that can feel slippery from time to time. Asus did not provide travel distance numbers, but key travel did feel generous, which made physical feedback more noticeable and typing by touch alone easier.
The 5.1 x 3.4-inch precision touchpad is, for the most part, a joy to use. Its massive size and smooth surface make for easy scrolling, but it still has enough friction to make precise movements easy to input. Multi-touch gestures like three-finger app switching and two-finger scrolling work especially well, with none of the resistance or physical discomfort I tend to encounter on most other touchpads.
Webcam
ROG Zephyrus M16 has a 720p webcam into its upper bezel. This is a big deal because Asus had removed webcams from most of its laptops for the past few years with the expectation that gamers would bring their own if they wanted one. The last 18 months, however, have proven having one is necessary.
Unfortunately, while this webcam’s color is accurate if you have enough light, it leaves shots with plenty of artifacts regardless of lighting. It also had a tendency to make me look undead in dim light and like a tangerine in heavy light.
Audio
Asus ROG Zephyrus has two bottom-firing and two top-firing speakers that make for a quiet but high-fidelity listening experience.
The speakers were on the quiet end, though, with a comfortable listening volume at around 70% – 75%. You will easily be able to hear the song across my home office, but not as well outside of the room. This shouldn’t be too much of an issue for most people, but if you are hard of hearing, it might be difficult to make out dialogue scenes in film on this laptop. That said, changing to the “Voice” and “Movie” audio settings in the laptop’s included Dolby Access app can help with this just a little bit.
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Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 Battery Life
The laptop has long-lasting when it comes to gaming laptop battery life. On a non-gaming battery life test, which continually streams video, browses the web, and runs OpenGL tests at 150 nits of brightness, it held on for 6 hours and 22 minutes before turning off. That’s just slightly above the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro’s 6:15 hours of battery life and well over the 3:29 hours of battery life offered by the Alienware M15 Ryzen Edition R5.
The Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition did drastically outlast the Zephyrus M16 with a battery life of 10:14 hours, although battery lives that long are a rarity among gaming laptops.
Asus ROG Zephyrus M16: Configurations
The Zephyrus M16 has four configurations listed on its website, an Intel Core i9-11900H CPU, an RTX 3060 laptop GPU, 16GB of DDR4-3200 memory, and a 1TB SSD which cost a whopping $1,898.76. It also has that gorgeous 16 inches, 16:10, 2560 x 1600 display, which all configurations of this laptop share.
However, the cheapest configuration actually cost $1,449, a Core i7-11800H processor, an RTX 3050 Ti, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD.
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