Asus ROG Zephyrus S17

Kooky Keyboard

- CHRISTIAN GUYTON

THE NEW ZEPHYRUS S17 is a beast of a gaming laptop with an interesting USP; a keyboard that tilts up toward the user. At first glance, it’s a minor alteration to make typing more comfortable. But while this isn’t an inaccurate assessment—the gentle angling of the keys and space to rest your wrists beneath the keyboard make for a pleasant experience—there’s more to it than that.

That keyboard lifts away from the chassis to uncover additional vents, allowing the S17 to draw in cool air from the top and bottom of its casing, before expelling it through the rear and sides. A liquid metal cooling compound inside the laptop, combined with two impressively quiet fans, results in a laptop with stellar thermal performance, even with the most demanding games. We wonder about the potential for a build-up of dust and dirt below the keyboard mount, though, which could hinder long-term performance.

The S17 has no trouble handling games, thanks to an RTX 3080 GPU combined with an octa-core i9-11900H processor and a hefty 32GB of high-speed memory. It powers through games of any resolution, making the most of its gorgeous QHD display.