ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16: Storage, Battery, Pricing and Summary
Storage
The 2TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD is blisteringly fast, resulting in superb system responsiveness and very fast loading of games and apps. The extensive 2TB capacity should be plenty for most users but can be expanded with the addition of an extra M.2 drive, for which there is a spare slot inside the easily accessible case.
Sequential read and write speeds of 6984 MB/s and 5113 MB/s respectively are amongst the best results we’ve seen and have only been surpassed by laptops utilising a RAID0 configuration.
CrystalDiskMark
The following are the results recorded in CrystalDiskMark, with figures measured in MB/s
Battery life
The Zephyrus M16 is an ultra-portable workhorse, but it’s filled with high-performance components so it’s best not to expect too much from the 90Wh battery. Using aggressive power-saving settings and limiting the refresh rate can sustain the battery longer for lighter loads, but the results are similar to most high-performance gaming laptops.
Watching 1080p video played back from an external hard drive, we got around 8 hours of battery life. For standard productivity and browsing, we used PCMark 10 running on a loop and averaged around 6 hours on a full charge. Gaming was consistent with other gaming laptops, lasting just over an hour before having to reach for the charger.
If you’ve run the battery down completely it will fast-charge up to 50% in around 30 minutes and take just under one and a half hours to fully charge.
Not great, not bad, just what you’d expect from modern gaming laptops – However, it should be noted that this is still vastly superior to battery life from just a few years back.
Pricing and alternatives
At £2,599, the ROG Zephyrus M16 is firmly in enthusiast territory. I’m impressed that the price has remained the same as the previous M16 we reviewed, as this 2022 model supports the brand new DDR5 and PCIe technologies, and it’s a laptop that should last you for many years to come.
There is an RTX 3080 Ti version of the M16, but at £3,499 it’s a hell of a price jump. Without actually testing one I can’t see for sure what the performance difference would be, but the law of diminishing returns comes into play at these levels, so whether it’s an extra £900 worth of performance is up to you to decide. In my opinion, the 3070 Ti is probably the best price/performance version of the M16.
If you don’t need the portability of the Zephyrus M16, you may like the ROG Strix Scar 15 (2022), which has very similar components but is specifically targeted at competitive gamers and costs £2,299, leaving you £400 to spend on games or peripherals.
Summary
If you’re in the market for an ultra-portable and stylish workhorse that’s just as comfortable editing video or creating content as it is churning out the latest AAA games at maxed-out settings, the Zephyrus M16 could be just what you need. This is a beautifully designed laptop, with a professional-looking exterior that conceals the hardcore innards. A comprehensive selection of ports, fantastic display and competent gaming prowess make the M16 very desirable.
I liked the old Zephyrus M16 but found the low-TGP RTX 3070 to be underwhelming; Thanks to the upgraded CPU, GPU and memory, the 2022 M16 manages to outclass its still relatively new predecessor and all without increasing the price.