First, lets start with some cons. So this machine has a few software issues. After reinstalling windows and OEM Drivers becuase of an nvme drive upgrade and ram upgrade, I noticed that armory crate wouldn't show options for auto refresh rate, panel saver, or overdrive. Armory crate would also fail to switch gpu power mode to anything besides standard. After troubleshooting all day, with driver reinstalls and gpu drivers, I came to the conclusion that it wasnt a driver issue, but it was an issue with armory crate. I really hope asus can fix these issues becuase there are so many forums on this issue, even from years past. The solution I reccomend for this is to just install a third party app known as G-helper. G-helper is a pretty intuitive alternative to Armory crate with all the same features, but with way less bugs and glitches, although it freezes up at times. The app gets updated frequently with new features and the only thing it really lacks is more in-depth animematrix controls, which I find kinda tacky to begin with. Next up, we get to thermals. With the Rtx 4080 equipped version that I have, it gets HOT, like really hot, even with power limits. On AC in performance mode with 90 watt limit gpu and 65 watt limit cpu, The gpu regularly hits 85 degrees celcius and the cpu regularly thermal throttles. I hear that undervolting can help get those temperatures down even further, although your experience in that may vary by unit. On idle though, on battery in the silent profile, I was regularly hitting 47-55 degrees celcius, with 0 rpm fans. Now lets move onto upgrades. This laptop is upgradeable with some caveats. As you may or may not have heard, this laptop has only 1 upgradeable ram slot, with up to 48 gb of ram total. This machine is very picky with what ram you can upgrade it with, so for the best compatibility, I would reccomend a 4800 mhz cl40 ddr4 sodimm, especially the model from micron, although any brand would work as long as it meets those specs. The m.2 slot is pcie 4.0 x4 compatible for a max sequential speed of 7,000 mb per second, if you could get a drive that fast. The internal drive this comes with is essentially an OEM version of the Samsung 980 pro, so it is a pretty good quality drive. Now lets move onto some of the positives of this product. The display is the best I have seen on a laptop, the keyboard has good travel, and the trackpad is large and slick to use. Its battery life is great with my unit typically reaching around 7-8 hours of battery life, which combined with its silent fans for casual use almost makes me forget that this is a gaming laptop. The only thing that reminds me that this is a gaming laptop is that the fans really kick in once I start playing even moderately demanding games. Now lets consider the value lf this product in its price segment. Considering some of its only 14 inch performance notebook competition is the razer blade 14 (which costs more with lower end specs 2700$ for a 4070), this machine strikes a pretty good value proposition, if you can justify the price tag of over 2000$ for a laptop. Even compared to its other SKUS, like the g14 4090 which performs 8% better on average in games while costing 800$ more, or the g14 4070 which performs 50% worse overall for 650$ less, the g14 strikes the a good balance of price to performance, as long as you dont care about the marginal performance uplift of the 4090 (with limited thermals and power delivery, gimped pretty hard) and the mini led display (which eats at battery life). Overall, this laptop is what I said in the title, a portable powerhouse.

The plan he was referring to was this one. It's a protection plan, not a replacement plan. It's worth it to some customers more than others, if you look at it as just spending an extra $300~ then obviously you wouldn't think it was worth it. But when you look at all the benefits you get with the plan it justifies the price a lot better

Excellent service and Item The salesman is a super intelligent and professional