Dell XPS 13 vs Asus ROG Zephyrus S17

The battery life is very short (4ish hours) and it takes a long time to charge (about 1 1/2 hours). The brick on the cord gets very hot as it charges as does the bottom of the laptop. Otherwise it runs cool. I really like that there is no separate place to plug in the charger

The advanced optimus works very well you can hear the windows sound for the GPU physically connecting and disconnecting when not in use and really helps with battery. Battery is what's been the biggest surprise here. it just runs and runs! I easily get 5 hours when watching just a video stream and the laptop has built in options to limit charge capacity to maximize life (i set mine to 60% but can do 80 also) at 60% I still get nearly 3 hours of web browsing use (helped by browsing software as well) but asus built in software does a great job with lots of options to reduce frame rate to the monitor and optimize clock and fan settings, and when plugged in or when a game launches the GPU kicks on and the fans wind up (is loud with the raised keyboard) and the laptop performs like a true gaming machine. If you want a desktop replacement17" gaming laptop you'll be pleased with this selection DISCLAIMER: Asus offered a 90 warranty extension for taking the time to review the product

Laptop seems to be working "ok" as of now besides the WiFi issues everyone has been having and apps like Netflix and Hulu not properly working. Another thing that is concerning is the packaging. I'm pretty sure I was sent a used product considering it came in a cheap cardboard box and not in it's original XPS box/packaging. Also the laptop itself was not even wrapped in any kind of plastic or padding or anything and I am at a military base in Iraq

I'll preface this by stating that I'm a linux user - first thing I did when I got this was install two NVME SDDs and install linux onto them, leaving the original NVME drive intact and unused for warranty purposes. That said, I'll start with the good: * Solid gaming performance - performs as I'd expect a laptop grade GPU to perform (not great, not terrible either - most of my experience was via an external GPU enclosure with a desktop GPU attached, which performs great) * Three (3!) NVME slots, allowing up to 6 TB of fast storage (which I'm currently using) * Never seems to get very hot nor make much noise - good thermal support ..