This 14-inch gaming laptop is legit

I first saw the Asus Zephyus G14 (2024) at a CES prebriefing, and I was immediately struck by its stand-out design. What I didn’t expect was just how good of a gaming laptop it would be.

This product is thin, compact, and sleek. The default colors on the RGB keyboard are more subtle than the bold colors you’ll often see on gaming laptops. But with all of that, it really doesn’t compromise on performance. Plus, it comes with a 120Hz OLED display.

Naturally, it’s not perfect. The memory is soldered, meaning you won’t be able to upgrade it down the line, and given the form factor and the aluminum material, it does get hot at times, also affecting performance.

But if you’re looking for a stylish and compact gaming laptop that you can also bring into an office, the Asus Zephyrus G14 (2024) is it. Honestly, you don’t even have to be a gamer. It’s a great all-around laptop for people that want both power and portability.

Asus provided XDA with the ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) for review. It did not have any input on the contents of this article.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024)

Portable power

The completely redesigned Zephyrus G14 is simple but packs a punch. This gaming laptop has a G-SYNC capable OLED display and your games come through so clearly, even if it’s filled with fast movement. This has up to an AMD Ryzen 9 processor and Nvidia RTX GPUs crammed into its thin and lightweight build.

Pros

• Stylish aluminum design
• Excellent 120Hz OLED screen
• Great performance for a 14-inch laptop
• Option to charge with USB Type-C

Cons

• Memory isn’t upgradeable
• Power management issues

Asus Zephyrus G14 (2024) pricing and availability

Announced at CES 2024, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) is available now, starting at $1,599.99. For that price, you actually get some pretty beefy specs, including an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS, a 90W Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, a 3K 120Hz OLED display, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD. It’s the same model that Asus sent me for review.

If you want to go all-in for $2,199.99, you get boosted to 32GB RAM and an RTX 4070.

Design

Aluminum looks good on it

Asus says that this device is targeted “beyond gamers”, and it shows. It’s aimed at video editors, creators, programmers, and more. The company even said that it’s targeting casual users that just want power in a slim, portable, and stylish package.

I love this style of gaming laptop. It’s subtle and sleek, made from CNC-machined aluminum and coming in a color called Platinum White. At 3.3 pounds and 16.3mm thick, it’s hard to even believe that this is a gaming laptop at all, but it is.

It feels a bit like a MacBook Pro, if you’re into that sort of thing, and it’s got the power to back it up (we’ll talk about that later). It’s flat on all sides with rounded corners.

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One thing that stands out is a Slash Lighting strip on the lid, which will light up either when you’re using the Zephyrus G14, or when it’s on a charger. You can customize the animations, and you can turn it off. I chose to do the latter. Frankly, it feels like a strange addition to a product that has a more subtle and sophisticated design.

There are plenty of ports to go around on the 2024 model of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. On the left side, you’ll find a redesigned proprietary charging port, which is meant to be more compact. There’s also HDMI 2.1, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, Thunderbolt 4, and an audio jack. On the right side, you’ll find a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, and a microSD card reader.

Any USB 3.2 Gen 2 port should get you 10Gbps data transfer speeds, which is nice, but what’s really great is that both of the USB Type-C ports support 100W power delivery charging. The good news is that in a pinch, you can grab any standard laptop charger and use it. The bad news is that it doesn’t charge nearly as fast as the regular charging port.

Display and webcam

120Hz OLED for smooth and pretty gaming

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) has a 14-inch 120Hz 2880×1800 display, which is pretty great. OLED hits that sweet spot of color vibrancy, making your games look beautiful while you’re playing them. The 120Hz refresh rate just adds to that.

You might have noticed that 2880×1800 is a common resolution for 14-inch OLED laptops, such as Lenovo’s Yoga 9i. As usual, suppliers are going to offer what they have, and the screen will be tuned by the OEM. Personally, I think it’s the perfect screen resolution, as it doesn’t have the pixellation of 1080p nor the battery drain of 4K.

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It scored high marks in my display tests, supporting 100% sRGB, 94% NTSC, 96% Adobe RGB, and 100% P3. It’s not uncommon for an OLED panel to do that well.

Brightness maxed out at 405.8 nits, while the black level stayed the same throughout the various stages. This is also common for OLED screens, since black is meant to be true black, no matter the brightness of the display.

Above the screen is a 1080p webcam, which is great for anything from calls to live-streaming. The audio on this thing is pretty great as well, if you ever don’t feel like wearing a headset.

Keyboard and touchpad

The biggest touchpad possible

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) comes with an RGB keyboard that’s flanked by its two speakers. The default keyboard lighting uses more subtle colors, which seems to be common in white gaming laptops, as well as gaming laptops that are aimed at a broader range of customers.

Key travel is 1.7mm, with 1.7mm space between keys. Asus also says that the keys are 12.24% larger than on the previous generation model, which means better accuracy. Indeed, I’m typing this review on my unit, and it’s super comfortable.

The touchpad takes advantage of the available real estate on the palm rest, stretching all the way from the base to the keyboard. Using maximum real estate for a larger touchpad is rare, and it’s something I point out a lot in reviews, so this one is appreciated.

Performance and battery life

AMD Ryzen 8000 + Nvidia RTX graphics

Every config of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor, so you’re really not allowed to make bad choices. The GPU comes in with a 90W TGP, and you have the choice between an RTX 4060 and an RTX 4070. The config that Asus sent me has an RTX 4060, and I was surprisingly happy with it, given the thermal limitations of a thin and light 14-inch laptop.

Obviously, I used it for editing photos, which frankly, most PCs can handle these days. I like to use the AI Denoise feature in Adobe Lightroom Classic, which runs off of the GPU, to see just how well products can handle it. It took around 20 seconds to complete, compared to integrated graphics, which takes minutes. Of course, the RTX 4070 model will be faster.

I did my game testing with Forza Horizon 5, although I played a bunch of games just to see if the Zephyrus G14 would choke up (it didn’t). The default setting it gave me was Extreme graphics, and my frame rate mostly stayed between 65fps and 70fps, with bursts of up to 90fps. It never dropped below that range.

For my particular use case, the performance was perfect. Whether it’s gaming, photo editing, or video editing, the ROG Zephyrus G14 was great. If you’re a hardcore gamer, you’re probably already looking for something with a more powerful CPU and GPU, and frankly, something bigger with better thermals. But this is the sweet spot for users that just need more power.

It’s worth remembering that while these three laptops are mostly on par with each other, the ROG Zephyrus G14 is by far the thinnest and lightest of the bunch.

Battery life was a mixed bag, ranging from four hours to five and a half hours, usually depending on what I did with it. I actually found gaming performance to be pretty good even when not connected to power, but then again, if you’re gaming, you should really connect to power anyway.

One thing that really bugged me was that the screen shuts off when shifting between power modes. If you connect or disconnect the charger, you get about a second of downtime. I had maintenance at my apartment and they had to shut off a circuit breaker while I was working. It disrupted my work flow.

A second or two sounds like nothing, but it’s those little pain points that get in the way.

Should you buy the Asus Zephyrus G14 (2024)?

You should buy the Asus Zephyrus G14 (2024) if:

• You want powerful performance in a thin and light package
• You like pretty screens, particularly that are 14-inches
• You aim to do a variety of things with this product’s performance, such as photo editing, video editing, programming, and of course, gaming

You should NOT buy the Asus Zephyrus G14 (2024) if:

• You’re an enthusiast gamer
• You just use a laptop for lightweight tasks

Here’s the deal. With an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 under the hood, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) feels impossibly light at 3.3 pounds. If you want power and portability in a Windows laptop, this is it. With its subtle design, it makes a lot of sense for people that have a range of different tasks.

It’s a gaming laptop, and it’s good at what it’s supposed to be good at. But if you’re just buying a laptop for gaming, you’ll probably want something more powerful. The same goes for if you’re just using it for productivity, which doesn’t require dedicated graphics at all.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024)

The completely redesigned Zephyrus G14 is simple but packs a punch. This gaming laptop has a G-SYNC capable OLED display and your games come through so clearly, even if it’s filled with fast movement. This has up to an AMD Ryzen 9 processor and Nvidia RTX GPUs crammed into its thin and lightweight build.