- Asus has priced its ROG Zephyrus G16 series in the UK
- The asking prices represent a painful increase from the last generation of laptops
- The entry-level model is 28% more expensive – even though the GPU is a notch higher – and gamers are generally unimpressed
Asus unveiled its new ROG Zephyrus G16 back at CES 2026 (amongst a host of other notebooks), and now we’ve got word of pricing in one region – and it’s not pretty.
Notebookcheck.net noticed (via VideoCardz) that prices have appeared for these gaming laptops in the Asus UK store ahead of the availability of the hardware. Some big increases have been applied that have taken players by surprise, even given the prevailing climate for components.
The new entry-level Zephyrus G16 model with an Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU (plus 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD and an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H CPU) costs £3,199 in the UK, which is around 17% more than the equivalent model from the last generation of G16 notebooks.
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The twist, though, is that there’s no RTX 5060 model this time around (there was in the last generation), so the entry-level G16 for 2026 is actually 28% more expensive than it was in 2025 (although it’s obviously more powerful with the 5070 GPU).
Want the G16 for 2026 with an RTX 5080? Then you’re looking at an outlay of £4,099, and for this year’s flagship G16 with RTX 5090, the laptop tops out at £4,899 (with those models you get 64GB of RAM and a 2TB drive with the same CPU).
As Notebookcheck.net points out, the current last-gen entry-level G16 is now £400 off in the UK, and compared to that, the new entry-level model has a starting price of over 50% more than its predecessor (albeit with the more powerful GPU, as mentioned). It is of course a very steep climb.
As one gamer on Reddit put it: “I don’t know what I expected, but I sure didn’t expect it… 3 bags for a 5070. That’s insane.”
Analysis: what does this mean for prices elsewhere?
Gamers in the UK are not impressed with the new prices, although everyone knew that laptop increases were – and probably still are – in the pipeline due to the PC component crisis. (RAM and storage, but also other parts, like GPUs, and we’re hearing about more expensive CPUs lately, so yeah, the bad news keeps on coming).
And in other regions, these increases also worry gamers, given that they represent such a large increase compared to the 2025 models from Asus. But in the case of the US, we have to bear in mind that while the new UK entry-level price tag – £3,199 – converts to around $4,200, there’s little point in considering a direct currency conversion.
This is because the prices in the USA are quite a bit cheaper (minus the costs of imports, VAT and other factors). Those of us in the UK usually find that technology costs the same in pounds as it does in dollars (if not more). Just look at the recently launched MacBook Neo, for example, which costs $599 in the US and £599 in the UK.
The Neo is also a fitting illustration of how it’s still possible to keep laptop prices affordable (although Apple has arguably used its vast resources to good effect in terms of inventory and being able to take advantage of more favorable prices with components).
All in all, the price hikes for the ROG Zephyrus G16 feel unreasonably steep, but that said, the US pricing situation may look better when it’s announced (which should be very soon). Better will be a relative term, mind you, and there is no guarantee of this either.
Of course, the UK situation is an ominous sign for the US and other countries besides, as are the prices of Asus models in Canada, such as the 2026 ROG Zephyrus Duo (the dual-screen laptop), which starts at $5,499 CAD (and £3,999 in the UK). That’s the entry price right there, just to make it clear.
Reaction on Reddit has been one of disbelief, filled with resignation at ever-increasing hardware prices. There’s even a distinct theme of people saying they’d rather buy a MacBook given the new Asus ROG prices, despite Apple’s notebook clearly not being a gaming laptop.
What this tale of pricing also highlights is that it’s worth looking at last year’s model – at a discount, as seen in the UK at the moment – rather than paying the big bucks for the modern laptop, and that’s true now more than ever.
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