ASUS - ROG Zephyrus 14" WQXGA 120Hz Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 9 - 16GB DDR5 Memory - AMD Radeon RX 6800S - 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD - Moonlight White

I had purchased this laptop to use for my the 4 years of my undergraduate schooling. I wanted a laptop that had enough power to game and a laptop that was portable and had good battery life. Normally this would require me to get a overpriced thin and light with a discrete gpu (that would thermal throttle after 5 minutes lol). It was important to me that I got a 14 inch laptop for portability reasons. By some miracle I found this laptop at this price because FOR THIS PRICE IT IS AMAZING. That being said it has some drawbacks. First being the laptop can get pretty hot especially when gaming. The cpu can reach temperatures up to 96 C and a lot of the heat is routed towards the display (the heat makes me a little uncomfortable but i’m pretty sure will not cause any long term problems). The keyboard can get pretty warm but for the most part is good to touch (the keyboard when not hot is amazing). When not gaming the laptop also can get pretty hot but it’s a lot more manageable. The laptop has a metal plate on the bottom that gets quite warm and that coupled with the rising keyboard for the enhanced thermals this laptop is not the most comfortable for lap use but it is still serviceable. Currently I use this laptop docked to a monitor with a variety of peripherals attached. This laptops port selection for its size is great even though it is missing a ethernet port. This laptop comes with the ROG gaming software. Going in I thought the software would be horrible and I would try to use it as little as possible but so far it’s been pretty good. The app includes useful information and has a lot of nice features. My favorite of which is the silent power profile. This profile while not as powerful as turbo is completely SILENT which makes it amazing for class. It’s also possible to use the mux switch to turn off the discrete gpu and decrease the refresh rate of the display when on battery power (increases battery life to around 9 hours with light use and normal brightness) . These 3 settings together make the laptop silent and many times more effective than before making it perfect for a classroom environment. The laptop also looks very good when compared to other gaming laptops with a somewhat understated design while still retaining some gamer like appearances (many people won’t know it’s for gaming). When more performance is required one can plug it in to the wall and switch it to the turbo profile which enables this laptop to perform better than 90% of laptops it’s size. To play any demanding games power from the wall is a requirement as gaming on battery life is horrible but that’s standard among gaming laptops. These power profiles, size and portability, battery life (when using specific settings), display, ports, and plugged in performance make this laptop arguably the best laptop to buy at its current price point (around $1,199 at time of purchase) and my personal choice for any college student looking to play some games.

Don’t let the small size of this powerhouse fool you, this little laptop is an absolute beast. I highly recommend this machine for anyone that needs a powerful laptop that is also very portable. Pros - Amazing battery for something so small. If you switch to Eco mode you can easily achieve 8+ hours of battery life with light tasks like video playback and schoolwork. This is perfect for college students and travelers that don’t always have access to a wall plug. - Great performance for something so small. Forget any worries about not being able to game to your hearts desires, this thing can do it. - Excellent looking screen. Although the screen is pretty small at 14”, it still looks great. The colors really pop, can easily do some video/color editing. - Great build quality. The laptop itself feels really solid, the keyboard feels great to use, and for the first time ever I actually had no problem using a touchpad instead of a mouse. Cons - Fans get loud when using the laptop to its max capabilities. Although the laptop stays quiet on light work, if you are using this to game or do any other heavy work, you’ll definitely hear it. - Gets noticeably hot. Although it’s to be expected and normal, you might be surprised at how hot this laptop can get. Overall, I highly recommend this laptop to almost everyone, with the exception of people that want a larger screen obviously. I personally believe this is one of the best laptops for college students that also want serious power, like engineering majors or gamers.

The G14 is a _very_ good system, really one of the best, for a very specific use case. Full disclosure, I am coming from a 2020 G14 (GA401IV) to a 2022 G14 (GA402RK). (Yea, yea, I know what I'm about, for better or worse.) And to add to that prior to the 2020 Zephyrus, it was a ROG G751JY. Be fore that a flurry of (mostly) 17" gaming laptops from other vendors. I would not consider myself a fanboi, or company shill, but I do know what works for me, and what I expect from my computing. So, with that full disclosure out of the way, let's get into this. ===SYSTEM REVIEWED--- ROG Zephyrus G14 (GA402RK) - AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS - 16GB DDR5 Memory - AMD Radeon RX 6800S - 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD - Moonlight White (With a white deck and keyboard this time!) Reasons for upgrading; - Where possible, I like to stay under warranty, and within 3-4 years of release for my daily driver. My warranty (two years) was up. I went with three years on my new purchase as the build quality and lifespan has been very good on the previous model. - No integrated webcam on the old model. Dumb I know, but who knew remote meetings (cough-covid-cough) would be an everyday thing for both work and non-work interaction. This went from "no big deal, how often will I use that?" to "dear sweet baby carrots, why didn't they just put a barbie cam in this thing?!?". Yes, it's a 720p, but I'm not streaming, and I'm not that pretty, so no loss there. - Wanting to dip my toes back into the AMD GPU space. I think that competition is good, but I have been using NVIDIA cards for so long, it's hard for me to have an opinion abut anything else. I am very interested in the all-AMD ecology, and what it will yield. I don't feel like an early adopter, but it is new to me. - The (microSD, UHS-II) SD card reader. Again, like the webcam, I didn't think I would miss it, but having to seemingly search for that. "stupid USB adapter that was right here a minute ago..." got old. I have devices that use SD cards and the conversion to micro adapter has already been done for the most part, and this has been a very nice quality of life improvement. What did I do when I got it home? - I started it up. There were some odd pauses in the boot process the first few start ups. Its ok, get some water while that is going on and stay hydrated, this is a marathon, not a sprint. - I uninstalled all of the unwanted "OS Vendor Productivity" stuff, and a few unneeded/unwanted programs. There was no bloatware to speak of. - I ran Windows update and let it download and install the latest an greatest of everything (win 11, drives, security, etc.) - I ran the MyASUS updates, rebooted a couple of times, and when all updates were completed, I set he battery health charging to balanced mode. I threw caution to the wind, and went to the latest BIOS version (GA402RK.316 at the time). - I fired up Armory Crate and ran all the available updates there as well. - I went back and hit Windows update, MyASUS updates and the Armory Crate update center one more time for good measure. This whole process was about three hours or so. Then I just left everything alone and used it as my daily driver for a week or so. Everything worked, it was all good. Nothing superbad happened. Here is what I determined in that time; - Oddly, I miss the fingerprint reader. Hello via the camera is nice, but it's hard to break the habit of holding my hand/fingers in the weird position I registered them in. I find myself doing the "hand jive" still. - The top firing speaker position is -so- much better. The sound is great for a laptop (don't forget to enable Dolby Atmos). When your hands aren't covering the speakers the can get more sound out. ;) - It's a bit toasty. There's no nice way to put this, it just runs warm. You can tweak this based on usage, but I just left it on performance and went on with my day. The battery life is good, but I will prolly tweak for that in the future. - The power brick is larger, and seems to get a bit warmer in typical use. I wasn't hauling this around, so no big deal, but it is an observation. - Chefs kiss for the display and keyboard, they are (still) awesome. I was concerned about the drop from 144Hz to 120Hz, I didn't need to be. To new user I would say don't look at the "light bleed" on startup/black screen, but in your normal use case. The brightness in full daylight is fantastic. The multi-color LED keyboard backlight is nice, but I'm just happy to have all the keys lit ;). - The USB-C port situation is a bit of a mess (some hubs only work on the right hand port). Suffice it to say that while you have ports on both sides, they are (still) not created equal. If you are using hubs or plan to run an external USB-C monitor, read up on this. - All of my stuff (bags, hubs, monitors, headphones, mice, USB drives (A & C), ethernet adapters, etc.) worked just fine. Easiest upgrade evar. TL;dr - I'm super happy. It's a great system for my use case, YMMV. If you are looking at all of the break/fix stuff on the web and are worried, keep in mind most of the time people don't chat about how great everything is going.

Im So HAPPY with this new friend to join me on the many Trains/Busses and occasional Ferry's I take for my job... From its 500 Nits brightness which is unheard of, it keeps the screen clear and crisp even with the sun beating on you from above the image remains ever strong. The 3500 Contrast is just as important b/c it works hand in hand with the brightness giving a sort of POP when you see any image or video game, really if you get the chance go to a store that demo's it and it will put monitors 3-times its price to SHAME. 120 hertz so always smooth as a baby's bottom Now I work 12hr shifts but there's a TON of down time and no opportunity to charge, so when one day I experimented with all the power options and was stunned at what control I had, giving me a whopping 12hrs and 47minutes of streaming power & 3hr 1/2 of Diablo 4 at medium settings... Some Honorable Mentions... Upgradable Ram... Key Board is a Delight Touch Pad is Roomy and Satisfying to Click Soooooo Quiet ( Perfect Library/Funeral Laptop ) What's the point of having a laptop with a ton of power if its just going to throttle when it inevitably over heats??? With that said if you google "what's the top 10 best heat management for laptops" you'll find this laptop in the top at #1 over and over again, Really go google it. Summary its hands down the best Bang for your buck for its price range, PLUS its an anomaly when it comes to heat management, which means that its actually capable of being used at 100%, 100% of the time... Boy or Girl, I Will Name My First Born "Zephyrus 14" Atleast it Sound Better Than "WQXGA 120Hz"

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is great for gaming. It has a QHD 120Hz display with a fast response time to deliver a clear image in fast-moving scenes, and it supports VRR to reduce screen tearing. Its AMD CPU and GPU provide a smooth gaming experience in 1080p and 1440p, though you'll have to turn the settings down a bit at 1440p to reach 60fps in some games. Unfortunately, it gets hot and loud under load, and the GPU throttles slightly. Pro CPU and GPU provide a smooth gaming experience at 1080p or 1440p. MUX switch. 120Hz display with a fast response time and VRR support. Wide port selection. Keyboard feels great to type on for extended periods. User-replaceable RAM and storage.

The laptop is great so far a month in, however, i do advise that it does overheat a lot. But it can run almost any AAA game at maximum setting, to deal with overheating I personally just put a fan over it. I do not recommend buying if you don't carry your laptop to places frequently since it overheats too much to game.

Awesome little machine. This is my second one. At top gaming settings it will run hot and the fans get loud, but the typing platform remains a normal temperature. The keyboard is fantastic. The trackpad is glass, smooth, and great to use. The screen is sharp and I don't really miss the OLED or reflective screens from my other machines. I love it. Perfect size for me to take on work trips as a second laptop to play games.

Its a very good laptop, definitely recommend, but my only complaint is the heat. When you are playing graphics intensive games the Zephyrus gets hot enough that the game crashes without an external cooling pad. Other than that, everything else about the laptop is perfect, the keyboard feels good, the trackpad is responsive, and the screen is very clear.