Asus ROG Zephyrus G GA502

The new Zephyrus G GA502DU from Asus is a more inexpensive variant of its Zephyrus compact gaming laptops. This gadget resembles the Zephyrus M GU502GU in appearance, however it uses an AMD processor and foregoes some of the better features in order to achieve a lower price point.

Although this laptop has the processing and graphics capability to play most contemporary games at tolerable settings, it creates a lot of heat and the fans can get quite loud.

The ROG Zephyrus G GA502 comes with an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H processor and 16GB of RAM, which can be expanded to 32GB. An Nvidia GeForce 1660 Ti graphics card with Max-Q design completes the package.

The laptop comes with a single Intel 512GB PCIe NVMe solid-state drive and space for one extra PCIe NVMe card if you want to expand storage.

Gaming

The Zephyrus M GU502 is equipped with a full-size Turing version of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card, whilst the Zephyrus G GA502 is equipped with a Max-Q version.

Nvidia's Max-Q Design refers to a smaller design with downclocked CPUs that produces less heat and noise when gaming. The Max-Q Design variation was chosen for the Zephyrus G GA502 to keep prices down, according to  Asus.

Display, audio, and input/output (IO)

The Zephyrus G GA502's 15.6-inch display isn't the same as the Zephyrus M GU502's, which is understandable. Instead of a 144Hz 3ms Pantone-validated LCD panel, the Zephyrus G GA502 has a 120Hz IPS LCD, which is brilliant but not as colourful.

While primary colours appear mainly neutral when browsing, watching movies, or playing games, they can occasionally appear washed out. The display's matte appearance ensures that overhead lighting aren't a distraction. Overall, it's an excellent display for day-to-day use.

Touchpad and Keyboard

The keyboard on the Zephyrus M GU502 is comfortable for typing long emails and documents. The same may be said about video games. The keys have enough resistance, but they could use a little more travel.

The Zephyrus G GA502's touchpad is a reasonably sized precision unit. It implies you won't require a third-party driver or tool to execute multi-finger taps and swipes.

Battery

The Zephyrus G GA502 has a four-cell 76Wh lithium-ion internal battery that performed admirably in our tests. The review unit lasted 3 hours and 1 minute on our normal battery benchmark test. When compared to the more power-hungry Zephyrus M GU502, that's a thirty-nine-minute difference.

Construct and Design

The Zephyrus G GA502 is a carbon copy of its more expensive Intel counterpart, which is a good thing because the Zephyrus M GU502 is already a well-made and well-designed product.

A comparable metallic top cover with a nice brushed finish can be seen on the Zephyrus G GA502. It's reasonably thin (0.8 inches) and surprisingly light for a 15.6-inch gaming laptop (2.1 kilogrammes).

A softly lighted red ROG logo graces the top lid, adding uniqueness to the laptop.

Pros

• Outstanding performance
• Keyboard that is easy to use
• Surprisingly good sound quality

Cons

• The display could use more colour
• There is no built-in webcam