This laptop is magic, so why aren't there more like it?

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Most gaming laptops I test have something in common: They’re unwieldy. Not all of them are built this way, but there's a good reason for it.

Gaming laptops are enormous. Unless you’re sporting one of the latest Windows-based handheld gaming devices, like the Asus ROG Ally X, gamers are limited to laptops that don’t feel particularly portable.

The cumbrous quality of gaming laptops is often largely due to their display size. While 14-inch gaming laptops are on the market as an alternative to that especially enormous species, the 18-inch gaming laptop, both sizes have additional factors that make them unwieldy, like weight and thickness.

Laptop Mag has recently reviewed several recent gaming laptops in each weight bracket, including:

• The 14-inch Razer Blade 14 (4.1 pounds, 0.7-inch thickness)

• The 16-inch Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (5.4 pounds, 0.9-1.1 inches thick)

• The 18-inch Acer Predator Helios 18 (7.2 pounds, 1.1 inches thick)

While it may seem like the weight increase would depend on display size, the 16-inch Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 shattered my expectations for how thin and lightweight a gaming laptop could be.

The G16 weighs four pounds and is only 0.6 inches thick, making it lighter and thinner than the 14-inch Razer Blade 14, which is actually in a smaller size bracket.

The G16's exceptional thinness isn’t just present on paper. When I pulled it out of the box, I was stunned by how slim it felt in my palm. At first, I couldn’t even believe it was a gaming laptop, as it reminded me more of a productivity laptop than anything.

Sure, the G16 is not quite light and thin enough to rival productivity laptops like the recently reviewed Dell XPS 13 9345 (2.6 pounds, 0.6 inches thick), which is more than a pound lighter. Still, it’s impressive that a gaming laptop could match it in thinness.

Gaming laptops like these are phenomenal to behold, and it’s easy to wonder why there aren’t more of them.

Size is power… for the most part

We often hear the term “bigger is better,” but that’s not always true. Portability might be important if you want to take a gaming laptop on the go, and that’s an absolutely valid reason to buy a gaming laptop, especially if you’re frequently traveling.

It's the foundation for why I called the Asus ROG Ally my favorite gaming “laptop” last year. There’s so much power in holding a thin and light device and playing your favorite games in the palm of your hand.

However, in the case of a gaming laptop, portability comes with some serious sacrifices.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 is a perfect example. While it is built with an RTX 4070 graphics card, its performance is underwhelming compared to its competitors.

Comparing the Zephyrus G16 to other gaming laptops with the same GPU reveals that it consistently performed worse than all of its competitors to a significant degree. The Zephyrus G16’s performance on Shadow of the Tomb Raider (94 fps), Grand Theft Auto V (89 fps), Cyberpunk 2077 (30 fps), and Red Dead Redemption 2 (60 fps) is not poor by any metric, but it looks pretty dire compared to gaming laptops.

When compared to three other RTX 4070 laptops, with the same games listed respectively, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (109 fps, 98 fps, 37 fps, 71 fps), Lenovo Legion 7i (162 fps, 96 fps, 35 fps, 68 fps), and Razer Blade 14 (121 fps, 103 fps, 42 fps, 73 fps) performed substantially better than the Zephyrus G16.

Most people who want to invest in a gaming laptop will not be OK with reducing gaming performance. To most companies, those sacrifices are not worth making for the sake of portability, which is why products of this kind are less common.

It also expects more money from the consumer for less power. You’ll need to dish out top dollar for a more portable gaming laptop when other laptops easily overpower it at a lower price.

For example, the $1,694 features a far stronger Intel Core i9-14900HX processor and 32GB of RAM. The Zephyrus G16 is $1,999, with the weaker Intel Core Ultra 9 185H and only 16GB of RAM.

The presence of an OLED display slightly boosts that $300 difference, but that alone isn’t fueling such a drastic price gap, especially when the Zephyrus G16 has weaker specs. It’s simply the cost of such an incredible feat of thinness and lightness.

Bottom line

More laptops like the Zephyrus G16 don’t exist because they require feats of engineering magic, and engineering magic doesn’t come cheaply.

More space allows for larger batteries, higher performance, improved thermals, and more. Many modern gaming laptops, like the six-pound MSI Vector 16 HX A14VHG, feature their own thermal shelves. These shelves help the laptop stay cool and often come with additional ports, which is something the Zephyrus G16 lacks.

Most gaming laptop buyers aren’t willing to sacrifice everything that makes this hardware worthwhile, whether it’s the excellent performance, thermals, battery life, or port selection, just for a thinner build.

If you are the type of gamer who is OK with making that sacrifice, laptops like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 are perfect for you. They are worth recommending for a niche audience, but you should always understand what you’re giving up.