This week a number of notebook makers have been showcasing their latest wares. Among them was Taiwanese company Asus, which specifically held a live streamed event for its Republic of Gaming (ROG) division announcing two new notebooks for its Zephyrus lineup – the S17 and M16 – both of which feature the new Intel Core 11th Gen H-series processors.
Both devices are set to land in South Africa, with Asus confirming that they are expected to drop in August. That, however, is all the information the company can share at the moment, with local recommended pricing yet to be divulged.
While we wait for more details in the pricing front to be shared, let’s take a look at what the new Zephyrus hardware is packing.
Starting with the S17, which is a 17″ gaming notebook as the name hints at. This device features the aforementioned 11th Gen H-series CPUs, with up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 GPU added to the mix. As you can see from the video pasted below, the S17 also features a hinged designed for the keyboard, allowing it five degrees of travel to serve as a cooling mechanism while processor-intensive gameplay is happening.
“Combined with liquid-metal thermal compound on the CPU, these enhancements let users enjoy powerful computing in a machine that’s slim, quiet, and cool to the touch,” adds Asus regarding the cooling technology present in the S17.
There are also two options available for the 17″ display on the S17, although it remains to be seen if both flavours will be available to spec locally. For now though, there is a WQHD option with Advanced Optimus and G-SYNC for higher frame rates and a 4K option with higher resolution and Adaptive-Sync. The latter will likely be the more expensive of the two.
Shifting to the M16, which as you may have guessed features a 16″ display. The interesting part here is that Asus has placed the display in a smaller 15″ chassis, resulting in a “near bezel-less” viewing experience, if that is your sort of thing.
The display also boats a WQHD resolution with up to a 165Hz refresh rate, 3ms response time and Adaptive-Sync.
Like the S17, up to an 11th Gen Intel Core i9-11900H processor will be made available depending on region, as well as up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU. There’s no tilting keyboard present here, but Asus says its, “ROG Intelligent Cooling keeps the M16 cool under the user’s fingers while ensuring high CPU and GPU performance.”
Both the Zephyrus S17 and M16 are expected in South Africa in August, with local retailer Evetech noted by Asus as being one of the first to receive it. We’ve checked the retailer’s site, and at the time of writing, no listing related to the new ROG notebooks is present. As such, you’ll need to check in periodically if you’re interested in this latest offering from Asus.
