Asus has been proactively launching new laptops and refreshing the existing lineups in the past few months. Among the list of laptops announced by the company, Zephyrus M GU502GU is an interesting one which combines style, power, and portability.
We have been using the Zephyrus M GU502GU for the past couple of weeks and here is our full review of the laptop which could actually be a potential gaming laptop even for serious gamers.
Zephyrus M GU502GU Design:
At first glance, the laptop is very similar to the other Zephyrus models but lighter, compact and minimalistic too which could be due to the low-key lighting and cooling compared to those models. The laptop weighs around 1.9Kg which makes it one of the lighter ones among gaming laptops available in the market. Asus also claims that Zephyrus M GU502GU is 25 percent thinner and 45 percent lighter than typical 15-inch laptops. Zephyrus M GU502’s exterior is made of a die-cast magnesium alloy giving it a solid feel when using.
Zephyrus M GU502GU Display, Keyboard and I/O:
Zephyrus M GU502GU features a 15.6-inch IPS LCD screen with a Full HD resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, and 3ms response time. The glare-free screen with a matte finish is a pleasant display which does not distract the users. The display has been validated by PANTONE and produces good colors which are not too saturated or washed out. Overall, the screen is similar to other laptops in the same segment.
The keyboard of Zephyrus M GU502GU is one of the highlights in the system. The keys feel very tactile and give a good feel to use them during gameplay or even when writing long documents. There are dedicated keys for Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down functions which is a blessing on laptops for navigation in documents. The keys feature RGB lighting which can be controlled by the ARMOURY CRATE app. The lighting pattern on the keyboard can also be switched using the Fn and side arrow keys. This certainly is one of the best keyboards in the segment. The trackpad is also a very precise unit that recognizes swipes and gestures accurately.
When it comes to I/O ports, Zephyrus M GU502GU is equipped with every port that we will ever need. On the left, there’s a proprietary round-pin power port for charging, a LAN port, a full-size HDMI port, a USB-A 3.1 Gen 2 port, and two separate 3.5mm audio jacks for headphones and a microphone. There are two USB-A 3.1 ports and a USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 port, which incorporates DisplayPort 1.4 and features PD charging using a suitable power bank on the right side.
Zephyrus M GU502GU Performance and battery life:
The laptop is powered by Intel Core i7-9750H CPU with 16GB of RAM which is a power house in itself. To add, there is also Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card with 6GB of video memory to take care of the graphics intensive tasks like gaming and video rendering. The day-to-day tasks are a breeze when it comes to Zephyrus M GU502. There are absolutely no hiccups while multi-tasking between various applications. We played few graphics intensive games and to our surprise, every game we threw at it was smooth and with very minimal or no frame drops even at high settings. The temperature doesn’t get too high even when playing for relatively longer periods, thanks to the cooling system in place. The 0.1mm ultra-thin cooling fins are 50% thinner than regular fins. The fans get noisy only at sometimes when heavy games are being played but not constantly. Overall, this laptop will not let you down in playing any games or performing any other task.
There is a 76Wh lithium-ion polymer battery, which Asus claims lasts six hours on a single charge but the actual time is around 3 hours depending on the game or the applications running. Charging from zero to full takes close to 2 hours which is comparable with other laptops in the segment.
Conclusion:
Zephyrus M GU502GU is a great addition to the ROG series of laptops which slots in comfortably above the budget gaming machines and the high end systems from every brand. The sleek profile, performance and the cost makes it a very good choice for anyone who is looking to buy a gaming laptop which also can be used for every other task with no issues or usability constraints.
