 It's always the same damn trade-off. Do you want performance or portability in a laptop? Well, Asus thinks they have solved both of these problems by creating a laptop that is only 1.5 millimeters thicker than a MacBook Pro, but houses a freaking GTX 1080 graphics card. But even if you can cram all of that hardware into a form factor like this, can a machine this thin possibly get the most out of those components? Not quite, but it gets close enough to watch the video and see how well they did. Cyberpower PC's lineup of gaming desktops feature Intel 7th generation Core i7 processors. Check them out at the link below. The ROG Zephyrus looks and feels special and is possibly the most 2017 laptop that we've ever seen. Almost all the boxes are checked. It's thin, it's light, especially for a gaming laptop, and there is plenty of brushed aluminum and RGB lighting. There is a tiny bit of flex around the keyboard and screen, but for something this thin, the chassis is impressively rigid, so full marks here. I also feel like this might be some of the best industrial design to come out of Asus so far. It strikes a wonderful middle ground between premium, gamery, and professional, and honestly, I don't think you'd feel weird pulling it out of a backpack, a briefcase, or even a trendy messenger bag. Looking a little closelier, when you open the Zephyrus, you can see why it's named for the Greek god of the West Wind and bringer of light spring. This 6mm gap at the back is the one somewhat flimsy feeling thing on this device, but it serves a couple of purposes. Inclining the laptop slightly for a more comfortable typing experience and helping it move warm... wait, did I say warm? Sorry. I mean hot. Hot air away from the components. Crammed into this puppy is an Nvidia GTX 1080, an Intel Core i7 7700HQ, a 500GB NVMe SSD to boot, and up to 24 gigs of DDR4 RAM, although North American models will ship with 16 gigs. I.O. wise, the Zephyrus strikes a great balance again. Thin enough to be very portable, but thick enough that you can fit three full-sized USB type A's, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, and a headphone jack. Asus even chucks a USB to Ethernet adapter in the box so you don't have to game over Wi-Fi. But, and I feel like we need to get this out of the way pretty early in the review, the Zephyrus doesn't defy the laws of physics, and when we hit it with a full synthetic load, the thermal solution got overwhelmed, and we did experience some thermal throttling. A lot of thermal throttling. With that said, in a more realistic load, like actual games at room temperature, both our CPU and GPU put up a much stronger showing. Now, as some of you have probably figured out by now, at 1500MHz, the Max-Q GTX 1080 in here is probably not going to keep pace with a full-size desktop one, or even a full TDP mobile one, the kind you'd find in bulkier gaming laptops. But it's still enough to crush games at the native 1080p resolution and 120Hz refresh rate of the IPS G-Sync display. It trails its 1080 brethren by anywhere from 7 to as much as 20%, but it should be noted that compared to the bigger, heavier Alienware 15, it's 10 to 15% faster. So, its 1080 hasn't been downclocked to the point where you might as well have saved a few bucks and gone with a 1070. Acoustics were another strong point. It's very impressive how Asus was able to keep a laptop this thin, so quiet. It's easily one of the quietest gaming laptops that we've tested, with it not even being in the same ballpark as the G701VI when under load. But, also not particularly loud are the speakers, which, along with the webcam, get a solid fine out of 10 rating. The keyboard, though, is both quiet and comfortable. It features full RGB lighting with two zones, and the throw on the keys is short, but they provide enough feedback that I never questioned whether I actually pressed the key. At a desk, with the thankfully included wrist rest, it feels amazing, but on your lap, the position of the keyboard means that some folks will have a bit more difficulty balancing it at first. But it's actually surprisingly easy to get used to. And at any rate, you won't have to worry about using it on your lap for very long. The Zephyrus doesn't use Optimus technology to switch to onboard graphics at idle, so the battery life is abominable, even while performing mundane tasks. And the numpad-trackpad combo doesn't get great marks either. I could get used to the position, but the shape just kinda sucks. I understand why they did it. Under the normal keyboard area is where you'll find all that juicy hardware, with swappable SODIMM and storage slots, which is nice. But I don't have to like it. Thankfully, though, ASUS includes a decent gaming mouse in the box, so I would recommend just using that. All in all, if nothing else, the ASUS Zephyrus feels like something new. Sure, it doesn't offer the best performance available, but if that's what you're going for, get a desktop. Because in as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as we could find, the value of this little beast is actually pretty compelling if you're willing to sacrifice a little bit of performance in exchange for sex appeal. FreshBooks is the solution for you. It allows you to be more productive, more organized, and get paid faster. You can create and send professional-looking invoices in just about 30 seconds. You can set up online payments with just a couple clicks and get paid up to four days faster. You can take deposits, and you can even see when your client has seen your invoice. So put an end to being disorganized and try out FreshBooks today with an unrestricted 30-day free trial at freshbooks.com slash tech tips. Enter Linus Tech Tips in the How Did You Hear About Us section. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also linked down there is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one, and our community forum, which you should totally join.