This laptop's display is ridiculous. Its
performance is awesome and its battery life was surprising, but there were some things
that made us want to throw it off the tallest building we could find. Is the 2024 ROG Strix
G16 worth fighting those annoyances for. Well we're going to find out right here, right now
on Robeytech. Well we're back with another Robeytech ultimate
laptop review. And this time it's the ROG Strix G16
laptop from Asus that's getting the full workover and I I've got to
tell you there are some things that we love about it. Some things that annoy the crap out
of us and some things that could either come off as gimmicky or could save your bacon. By
the end of this review you should have all of the information that you need to know if you're
considering the G16 as your next laptop. In case you couldn't tell by the ROG design the G16 is
a premium gaming laptop designed for the gamer on the go, because we all know that gamers need an
RGB Halo wherever they go. It's practically science at this point. For clarity ASUS has used the G16
name before. So just be aware that we're talking about the 2024 model here which has a starting
price of $1799. Like most laptops it comes in multiple configurations, but this model that we're
reviewing here has a retail price of $2299.99. Now as far as dimension go the G16 measures
in at 13.94 in or 354 mm wide, 10.93 in or 278 mm deep and .98 in or 24.9 mm tall
and it weighs 5.51 lb or 2.5 kg, in other words the G16 is pretty typical in size and
weight for a 16-in laptop and when I say typical I mean it's about as Hefty as an Alienware M16 at
5.75 lb or 2.61 kg or the MSI Vector 16 at 5.95 lb or 2.7 kg. Laptops you could absolutely check out
at your local Best Buy if you wanted to make the comparison for yourself. We we want you to think
you know is this heavy you could head over to a Micro Center, a Best Buy, a Fry's if those are
even around, pick it up and kind of decide is it too heavy or not for you. Now I know what you're
probably thinking. What's inside? Patience guys we're getting there. At its heart the ROG Strix
G16 looks to only have one option for CPU and that's the Intel Core i9 14900 HX processor, which
has 8p or performance cores and 16e or efficiency cores for a total of 24 cores. Now the 14900 HX
has a maximum boost frequency of 5.8 GHz with a maximum TDP of 65 watts in the G16. For comparison
on the desktop side that's the same 65 Watts that would be in the core i7 14700 non K. Now I've got to
say this is really cool for ASUS to actually have provided this information here since Intel lets
laptop manufacturers decide what CPU power they're actually going to going to pump through their
mobile CPUs. For context the minimum recommended TDP from Intel on this chip is 45 Watts. So ASUS
is pushing it to perform, which is absolutely cool and something that they love to do with their
particular laptops. That's ASUS specifically not necessarily everybody. Now for the GPU unlike what
they did for the CPU ASUS paired the 14th gen core i9 with a few different options from Nvidia's 40
series GPU family. You've got an RTX 4060 mobile, an RTX 4070 mobile, and an RTX 4080 mobile. The
model that we're testing out right now is the 4070 version and we've basically just for a little
bit of context we've seen the 4070 mobile versions perform very similar to the desktop 30 series in
terms of performance. So just to give you like a uh what is it called? A finger in the wind is that
what? Yeah finger in the wind. Now the mobile 4070 we just mentioned for this particular model is
driving the G16 16-in QHD plus 1600p display. This thing has a refresh rate of 240 HZ and a
color gamut that covers 100% of the DCI - P3 color spectrum. This is an IPS level panel with a Max
display brightness of 500 nits. A 3 millisecond response time. Oh and it's a g-sync display as well.
I got to pause here for a second, because specs are one thing, but seeing this in person and gaming on
it is a different animal. This screen is beautiful, especially for an IPS display. While it's no OLED
it still has bright, crisp colors that that make gaming absolutely incredible. And that's not just
me hyping it up. That's Damien who used this laptop for a very long time raving about it like he just
ate a 5 lb bag of sugar. That's not a pretty sight like this laptop displays is. I mean he just had
sugar everywhere. They almost called the Taiwanese cops. It was it was pretty ridiculous. Now
ASUS calls this their ROG Nebula display. Not to be confused with the blue robot Ninja Assassin
from Guardians of the Galaxy, which which is a great movie by the way. Though if you are
worried about blue light assassins attacking your eyeballs this actual ASUS Nebula display
reduces blue light before it leaves the screen. Now this isn't just ASUS saying ah we absolutely do
this. This actually has been vetted by TUV Rheinland, which is an independent safety and product testing
group, which says yes. This is actually certified to reduce those blue light assassins. All that to say
that the display is absolutely gorgeous. I just I wish we had a better way to show this on camera.
Luckily we use really high-end cameras. So maybe it's coming through. Maybe not. Now moving back
to the review itself the G16 comes with 1 TB of mvme SSD storage. There is an additional PCI Gen
4 expansion slot in case you want to add another nvme drive. Honestly it's a worthwhile investment
if you plan to use a laptop like this long term. And plus I mean honestly 4 TB and 2 TB nvme
drives are so cheap. Now hold that thought. Now as for system memory our model of the G16 came with
32 gigs of ddr5 RAM running at 5600 mega transfer. Now this is something to pay attention to, because
we've seen other models of the G16 on the market that only have 16 GB. Fortunately, both the RAM and
the nvme slots are user accessible and upgradable, which is great news if you ended up with a 16 GB
version or you needed more storage space. The big question is how difficult is it? On a difficulty
scale where the MSI Titan is literally just a handful of screws and you're inside to the Lenova
yoga book, which I swear requires at least a dozen doctorate level engineering degrees and a set of
tools that haven't been invented yet. I'd say the g16 is closer to the Titan side on the scales. You
will need a plastic pick. You can use a guitar pick, but the i-fix it ones are actually really nice. A
small Phillips head screwdriver and a little bit of patience to get inside the G16, but once you're
in access to those components is actually a breeze and very, very easy to upgrade. Now moving on to
external connectivity the ASUS ROG Strix G16 has a good amount of it, including a whole list that
we're going to pop up right here on the screen, but I'm going to give you a couple highlights. It
has two USB type A ports, one type- C port, HDMI, Thunderbolt 4, which also includes display port
out, a full-sized ethernet port, which we love to see. Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth and more. Now a quick note
here the USB type-c port also supports display port with g-sync and power delivery. Since we're
talking about interfaces let's go and talk about the keyboard on the G16. The G16 has a full
full size keyboard with per key RGB lighting controlled via ASUS's RO sync software or you can
use Windows Dynamic lighting settings. You can also use ASUS Armory crate software to modify keys in
case you need to create hot keys or macros, etc., for your most used applications or games. Overall
the keyboard has a nice feel to it, but we wouldn't necessarily say it's better or worse than any
other laptop keyboards we've actually used recently. The keys are responsive and some of the
extra function keys that ASUS added are actually super nice, but I've got to say the placement of
some keys to get that full-size title just kind of made me angry and Damien too. Now put this kettle
on the back burner for now, because I'm going to pour some tea on it a little bit later. We'll just
let it simmer for a bit while we continue this review. Now let's just move South to the touchpad.
This thing has a hidden secret and by hidden I mean we accidentally turned it on and couldn't
figure out how to shut the stupid thing off. It's not stupid, but it was annoying at the time. Now for
all of you guys who wish that a gaming laptop like this would have like a 10 keypad so you would
have an excuse to make this your work laptop. If you hold your finger down in the upper right hand
corner of the touchpad, bam! You got a 10 key keypad. Now little did we know at first that when you
activate the hidden 10 keypad the G16 disables the trackpad to do it. I I know it's common sense, but
no trackpad means no cursor control for clicking on things. And can I just say that we had a moment
of panic, because we had to grab a USB mouse pad so we could look up what the heck we just did and
how to make it stop. So does this really work as a 10 key replacement? Hardly. Will it work in a pinch?
Yes, but you're going to hate yourself if you think this will work as your daily driver. Here's looking
at you you magical little accountants you. Looks like your gamer laptop/work laptop princess is
actually in another Castle. Okay wrapping up the specs here the G16 has a 90w hour battery, which
isn't the biggest battery we've seen in a laptop, but it's close to the ceiling for a laptop
battery that you can actually fly with. As for the power brick the G16 has a 280 W power
brick that is slightly smaller than two banana spooning. To be clear that means it's a little over
3 in wide, it's an inch thick, and about 7 in long and it weighs about a pound and a half. So it's
a little bit hefty. Comparatively it's a little thicker height-wise, but slimmer on the sides than
the power brick for like the Lenovo Legion slim 7i, but definitely not the monstrosity of the
Alienware M18. That thing is just, it's a it's a defense mechanism. Okay now that we've talked about
all of the insides let's look at how the 2024 ASUS ROG Strix G16 handled our gaming benchmarks. Quick
note here when we do our laptop reviews we always test at each laptop's native display resolution
with the highest in-game settings available, but we adjust to maximize frame rates in competitive
titles, because that's what you actually absolutely want to know. Like how fast can I get this to go in
Fortnite, Call of Duty, Etc? In the case of the G16 we're testing at 1600p or QHD plus. It's like 1440p,
but it has some bonus real estate. So a little bit harder to push for that GPU. Now starting with
Cyberpunk 2077 running it ray tracing ultra with DLSS set to Auto and Frame generation on the G16
got an average frame rate of 75.26 frames per second. That is some beautiful Cyberpunk mind you.
In Forza Horizon 5 at extreme settings with DLSS set to Auto and Frame generation on the G16
gave us an average of 113 frames per second. So great for racing. We're good there. Though I
don't know it'd be kind of weird to throw this on like a racing setup, but I know there's people
out there. I've seen it I've seen it at LANs. Now in Modern Warfare 3 at extreme settings with DLSS
set the balance and with frame generation on the G16 averaged 127 frames per second. So there's
your single player campaign. Don't worry we're not talking about frame generation when you're
playing multiplayer. In Shadow the Tomb Raider the G16 ran at an average of 156 frames per second
with DLSS set to balance and Graphics preset set to the highest. In Tiny Tina's Wonderland with
Graphics set to badass and FSR 2.0 set to balance we saw averages of 112.35 frames per second.
That's some awesome single player experiences. Let's talk about competitive titles. Let's start
with Apex Legends visual set to low basically maximizing competitive. We got an average frame
rate of 221. Back to Modern Warfare 3 we drop down to low settings keeping everything basically
set for competitive we basically run an average of 259 frames per second. Finally, Fortnite again
low settings competitive running to getting it as fast as possible 271 frames per second. Now again
your competitive settings may may change. You got to play around with them to kind of find your your
mix of what that is, but these are very impressive for a this particular laptop. Overall the G16 did
very well in our gaming test thanks to that 14900 HX and that RTX 4070 mobile plus a 1600p display
versus 4K, or something ridiculous. Honestly, it's just a great hardware package altogether. Now we
also ran battery tests on the G16, which is the same that we run on all of our laptop reviews. On
average we got over 6 hours of battery life, which is pretty amazing for what's inside of this
laptop. For clarity the benchmark that we use for battery testing is actually UL Procyon office
productivity battery life test. This application tests battery life by mimicking what you
would do in a productivity case. You know how we're talking about taking this to work. Well you
could, because it was opening office applications, importing, and exporting files, exporting videos
of PowerPoint presentations, backing up folders, and more. So we we weren't just watching Netflix
like we weren't just watching Godzilla Minus One for 6 hours. Really honestly it runs it through a
lot of productivity like you would in an office and then when the battery not dies that's when
we get our number. With that in mind I've got to be honest. We didn't expect 6 hours of gaming
performance on battery. It's highly unlikely that you'd get the same results if you were going to
just game on this, but that being said luckily we had Damien out in the, out in the, out in the world
of Taipei traveling all over the world and uh he basically actually was able to play an hour and a
half worth of Destiny 2 campaign missions in the Taipei airport on his way back from CompuTex. And
that was an hour and a half of pushing the game at max settings. Even still when he was all done
he still had 50% of battery life. So it's it's a single, it's it's a data point, I mean we could
probably run that. It's not an average, but again very impressive to see something like that with
still playing an hour and a half and having 50% of some Destiny 2. Honestly, that's not bad at all
when compared to what we've seen for battery life out of like currently available handhelds. It kind
of makes the G16 look like a viable option for some portable gaming. Now since we talked about
gaming performance we do have to look at thermal performance as well. Now before we get into numbers
let's get to know a little bit more about how the 2024 version of the G16 keeps itself cool, because
this series of laptops has had a bit of a glow up. The newly designed chassis supports a fullwidth
heat sink with a network of seven heat pipes and three fans. Air intake happens on the bottom of
the system and exhaust out of the laptop side and rear. The G16 is also using that beautiful thermal
grizzly conductonaut extreme liquid metal thermal compound for the CPU. Something that ASUS is very
proud of. Now on the 4080 models they're using it on the GPU also. All right with all that in mind,
remember this is the 4070. So no liquid metal. Let's uh let's look at the performance. At idle the
ASUS ROG Strix G16 kept its 14900 HX processor at a resting average of 37° C with the RTX 470 resting
at 30° C. Not bad for idle temps. Now under full CPU load the G16 ran an average temperature
of 92° C on the CPU and 50° on the GPU. And finally in our gaming benchmarks the ASUS ROG Strix G16 held
the core i9 14900 HX at an average of 74°. While the 4070 average 65. With that in mind, how was the G16
acoustically? Well when we looked at the numbers we recorded the G16 underload and it hit around
64.8 DB. In other words the fans are going to be noticeable when they ramp up, but they're not going
to be annoying. For comparison the decibel lands the G16 somewhere between a normal conversation or
chill background music. Honestly, the G16 does a really good job of staying quiet and even quieter
in silent mode. More on the modes here in a second. Now we've given you a lot of information and some
data, but now let's talk about our experience with the R0G Strix G16. Now the first thing you need
to know about the G16 is that the moment you boot this thing up you're like immediately met with
the sounds of like swords slicing through the air of the ROG logo as it appears. You can actually
toggle the setting off in the BIOS if you want to leave the boot chimes to like somebody like
apple. I I actually think it's pretty cool, but I don't know if you're one of those late night
people in bed and you're like, thwing and you wake up your wife. Then she could shing you right
in half. Once we had this thing up and running it was really a dream to use. I'm not kidding. The
display it it is gorgeous. Again it's not an OLED display, but the colors are nice and crisp and
when you combine that with the 240 HZ refresh rate, it really kept like games like Destiny 2, Hell
Divers 2, which is on here Etc. It really kept it super smooth. And and I have to say this is just
something about ASUS laptops in general. The sound is nuts. Sometimes with laptop speakers the audio
quality can be lacking, but the G16 really delivers an immersive soundscape thanks to Dolby Atmos. I
I've got to say laptop speakers have really come a long way. What impressed us is that the fans were
also super quiet. And when I say quiet I mean that while we were writing the script for this video we
had to kind of step back and think whether or not we actually heard the fans kick in during a gaming.
To be clear they're they're not noiseless fans, but the sound they made just wasn't distracting and
it didn't like essentially overpower the speakers. That being said you can also run the G16 in four
different power modes and thermal modes that can be modified within ASUS Armoury-Crate software. You
got manual, silent, performance, and turbo. Silent mode will keep the G16 silent by lowering the CPU
power and keeping the discrete GPU in reserve for more graphic intensive tasks while it's also
intelligently balancing battery life, fan acoustics, and performance. Turbo mode increases the
power to both the GPU and the CPU basically for your high performance gaming. This mode is
only available when the G16 is plugged into an outlet, which which makes sense. And performance
mode it's like you're striking the balance of power with acoustics giving users just enough
juice without pushing your system too far or making it too loud. And manual mode, which is like
it says, it basically allows you the user to define targets for performance, power, and acoustic. For us
both the performance and silent modes were like our morning cup of coffee. Consistent go-to's.
Just be aware that on battery power the G16 definitely locks down GPU performance in silent
mode. We did notice noticeable lower frame rates, but it's not unplayable. I'm just talking about
60 frames per second in Destiny 2 versus the 140 plus we saw when we were connected to power.
Again not unplayable, but again noticeable if you're trying to get like the most power out
of the battery while gaming. Now since we're talking about it there are some pros and cons
to using Armoury-Crate. On one hand Armoury-Crate is ASUS's One-Stop shop for system updates, tweaks,
RGB control, and systemwide management, but on the other hand it's Armoury-Crate. And if you've used
it you kind of know what I mean and it can chew up some system resources. We know it's doing a lot
to manage the G16, but the question is at what cost. There's a lot, a lot inside of Armoury-Crate and
the question is I really wish they could create like a light version that just did the minimum
stuff. So that way you weren't seeing so much kind of chewed up, but it's really it's kind
of up to you. Did it bother us? Did we see hits performance? When we really think about it it
wasn't something that like took away from the laptop, but it it's absolutely worth mentioning,
cuz I know a lot of people have the feels when it comes to what Armoury-Crate necessarily means.
Now let's move on to the keyboard, which which is nice. It took us a little bit of time to get
used to, but listen there are trade-offs in laptops in general when you have a full-size
keyboard. Sometimes things get shifted around to kind of make everything fit and that's exactly
what happened to this right here. The right shift key. Now to get a full full size keypad which is
right here ASUS shorten the right shift key and put it right up against that arrow. For writers who
are used to a quick tap of a button suddenly find themselves typing on the line above it's
annoying. And to be clear this isn't the only laptop that does it. There's there's two ways
that people have done this. There's two two trains of thought. There's either smaller arrow keys or
bigger shift key. We're kind of fans of the bigger shift key, smaller arrow keys, but again it's up
to the laptop manufacturers. Now if you depend on your laptop to do any heavy writing, productivity,
emailing, something like that this is something you're going to need to be aware of. If you really
have to ask yourself if the trade-off is worth it to you. The awkwardness does get solved over the
time as you get used to it, but it's definitely took its toll when we were learning the layout.
And here's a deal if you switch a lot between desktop full-size computers and then to laptops
you're going to find it, you're going to have to find yourself retraining yourself quite a bit.
Now finally the G16 touch pad is silky smooth and responsive, but we did find that we had to turn
the sensitivity down ever so slightly from the out-of the- boox setting. Now this sensitive touch
pad, plus the arrow key situation we just mentioned, when Damien was using this and he was having to do
a lot of work on this thing. He actually ended up accidentally deleting well-crafted dad jokes, which
that's a crime against humanity. You should have seen how proud he was of him and just the light
that drained from his eyes the moment that they were gone. He couldn't even remember them. I mean
they're they're just in The Ether now. Hopefully they'll hit one of you someday when you uh when
your jokes become apparent. As we we wrap this up we we got to give our closing thoughts on the
ASUS ROG Strix G16. Overall this is an exceptionally performant and surprisingly quiet laptop. The
gaming experiences we had on it. They were fantastic. And if that's what you want to get the
the ROG Strix G16 for there is nothing that we would say would block you from doing that. However, as a
remote work laptop, we had some strong opinions and and that's going to be up to you. I mean you got
to determine if the shift key thing in terms of a placement it is going to be something you're
going to be able to get over. And you know maybe if you have a chance to go try out some of those
at a local store uh you should absolutely go do it. With all of that now in mind and we've given
you a lot of information the big question. Would we recommend the G16. Honestly, the answer really
hinges on your needs. From a gamer perspective the G16 is a top-notch mobile gaming platform. The
combination of the 14900 HX, the RTX 4070, with the QHD plus nebula display is just incredible. It's
it's a very, very well thought out package. At this resolution these parts are really working to
create an incredible gaming experience and that's not just conjecture. When we got back from CompuTex
Damien kept using the G16 for gaming until he caught his last flight home. So on the gaming front
the G16 gets a strong recommendation and with this hardware combination this is something that's
actually going to last quite a while. However, from a writers or productivity standpoint let's just
say Damien was more than eager to get back to his Lenovo Legion Slim 7i, which you can actually see
us talk about right here. And both he and I have actually personally purchased that laptop. Now the
sensitive touch pad on the G16 combined with the short and shift key upset him a lot. He told me
about it like three times. It's like get it it's like we get it man. You don't like it. I said it
four times. But joking aside this brings up a valid concern for anyone who plans to do significant
amount of work or writing on this laptop. You can take time to adjust to it, but be prepared that the
keyboard will get in the way of your creative flow from time to time, but that is something that you
could potentially get over. We're not telling you it's bad or good. We're just making you aware of an
issue. So as a worker, writer laptop we've had better experiences. We definitely are one who like the
smaller arrow pads. I mean honestly there's not a lot of people who use full arrow keys when you're
using WASD to game. But that's up to you. And finally if you travel a lot the G16 is neither thin nor
light. It's portable and it weighs slightly less than comparative gaming laptops, but you got to
be honest with yourself. How much are you going to need to cart this thing around in your backpack?
The first hour might be fine, but over time you're going to start looking like the rock, because the
G16 does not get any lighter. Now if you need a laptop for travel our recommendation is is this.
If you do light traveling, like you're going back and forth to the office, maybe you're getting on
a plane throwing it up top, and then taking it off and walking to a gate, you're going to a classroom,
a coffee shop, honestly the G16 is probably fine. However, if you travel a lot for work or you go to
conferences where you need a laptop at the ready and you're lugging it around like on a show floor, Etc.,
your back and shoulders are not going to be happy with you. Now if you're that second person you need
a thinner and lighter laptop, but want to stick with the Asus ROG branding the Zephyrus G16 is worth
checking out. While not exactly an Apples to Apples comparison. It's about a pound and a half lighter.
We did get to spend some time with a Meteor Lake equipped Zephyrus and it was so good it made me
watch Top Gun again, because of just how good the speakers and the screen were. OLED it was awesome.
Interpret this however you will, but the point is it was a great media experience. So wrapping it
all up the ROG Strix G16 is a killer laptop that is well worth considering if that's your primary
use for it. While we had issues with parts of the keyboard layout there is a lot of, a lot to love
about the G16. Are there cheaper gaming laptops on the market? Sure, but ASUS makes a compelling case
for the G16 with a combination of performance CPU, range of GPU, that killer 240 HZ nebula display,
as well as the resolution. Now if you pick this laptop for yourself you're really not going to
be sorry unless you hate shorten shift keys. Well those are our impressions of the ASUS ROG Strix
G16 laptop, but we want to know what you think. Was there something about this laptop that stood out
to you? What do you think of the design? What do you think of the screen and where are you at on
short and shift keys, Etc? Let us know all that down in the comments below. Now while you're down there
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forward to seeing you on the next one. [Music]