It is a rarity to see an RTX 3080 gaming laptop available for only $1,699.99, but during the holiday season, anything is possible. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 was regarded as one of the best portable machines in nearly every aspect, but the top-tier version was never this affordable as it is on Amazon right now. This price is was RTX 3070 laptops cost, but you are going one step beyond that.
As for what is inside the Zephyrus G15, there is an 8-core, 16-thread AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS CPU, along with an 80W RTX 3080 with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM that can boost up to 100W with NVIDIA’s Dynamic Boost technology. While you might think that 80W is a rather low power limit for the GPU, it was done intentionally to keep the weight and thickness down. The Zephyrus G15 is also well-built, thanks to its magnesium alloy chassis, and also quite light, but it does mean that the GPU will not be able to run at full power.
You also get 16GB of DDR4 RAM, of which 8GB RAM is soldered to the motherboard, which was again done to keep the thickness level down, but you still have one SODIMM slot. There is a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD with an available slot to expand your existing storage. The display is a 15.6-inch IPS LCD with a 2560 x 1440p resolution, which is where the laptop RTX 3080 GPU will really be able to stretch its legs.
Aside from that, you can charge this gaming laptop with a Type-C connection, but use the barrel plug when playing games since the latter will be running the Zephyrus G15 at its maximum capabilities. A wide number of ports, such as multiple USB-A ports, a microSD card slot, HDMI 2.0b, and USB-C ports are present, so you have peace of mind when connecting various peripherals.
The battery is a generously-sized 90Wh, which can give you several hours away from the wall, according to several tests conducted by reviewers. Overall, this is a solid piece of portable gaming hardware, and if you want something that will last you a long time, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 will do nicely.
