ASUS - ROG Zephyrus G14 14" Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 9 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q - 1TB SSD - Moonlight White

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a premium slim super powerful gaming laptop that ASUS has built with no compromise on build quality or performance. This laptop features AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS Series with 8 Cores/16 Threads. HS series processor is targeted towards gamers and content creators with high performance and great battery life. There are 2 other models with low- and high-end specifications compared to this model. Higher end model which is slightly expensive ($1999) has anime matrix LED & QHD 60Hz display and lower/base end model ($1050) has Ryzen 7 4800 HS, 8GB RAM, 512 GB SSD. I suggest to get this model if you are looking for better performance and to me the higher end model with QHD is an overkill for 14inch laptop. What is in the box: Asus ROG ZEPHYRUS G14 laptop, 180W Power adapter, Manual/warranty sheets. Measurement & Weight: It measures 12.8 x 8.7 x 0.7 inches (32.5 x 22.1 x 1.8cm) and weighs 3.5 pounds (1.6kg). Display: 14 inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS-level panel, 120Hz. Color: Comes in 2 different colors. Moonlight white & Eclipse Gray. I received the Moonlight white color and its made of magnesium alloy which looks very cool and durable. Design: Lid on this laptop is unique, with a diagonal cut separating two portions and a series of small holes. There is also an emblem at the left of the lid for “Republic of Gamers, Est 2006”. This 14 inch display has a thin bezel with white backlighting on the keyboard. It lacks RGB backlighting unlike other gaming laptops. Also, the keyboard and trackpad is of silver color and not white as exterior. Not sure why ASUS went with 2 colors for this laptop but it looks good. Asus also used the same ErgoLift hinge that was in Zenbooks where the bottom of the laptop lift up at a slight angle when opened fully. This is a great design to open the laptop in one hand and very useful for typing both ergonomically and for air flow/heat expulsion. Couple of grills on the top, bottom and both sides of laptop for great ventilation to reduce heat due to gaming. Windows 10 was preinstalled and upon initial boot and with few questions like country and keyboard selection it asked to login to my Microsoft account and once done, it started downloading firmware and updating windows. Performance: This is great laptop with mind-blowing performance on a small 14 inch form factor for gamers. With 8 cores and 16 threads this AMD Ryzen 4900 HS CPU is designed for gamers in mind and for users with multitasking/content creators. During my daily usage for the past week, no issues working with multiple tabs on the chrome browser and also on the Microsoft IE browser. It automatically switches to modes when it’s not connected to power source and working on battery for efficient battery life. I have attached my benchmark pictures from Cinebench and as you can see it clearly boasts in performance compared to other laptops in test. Performs the best in multicore test compared to single core test but its performance on a portable 14 inch is never seen before on any gaming laptops. Great work by AMD and ASUS for achieving this great performance. Also, this laptop comes with 1TB of SSD storage that is plenty for content creators or for gamers. Armoury Crate software is easy to load with the dedicated hotkey on the top of the keyboard and its very convenient to change the performance mode of the windows from silent, performance, turbo and manual. Software provides a great dashboard of the system performance from CPU Stats, GPU Stats, Fan Speed, Memory and Storage details at a quick glance and tweak if required. Also, it has various settings and profiles(see attached pic). Charger/Ports: On the left side of the laptop you have the power port, HDMI 2.0 port, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port and headphone jack. On the right side you have a Kensington lock slot, 2 - USB 3.1 Gen Type-A ports, USB Gen2 3.2 Type C Port. You can also use USB C to charge the laptop battery using a 65W power adapter (not included) for greater flexibility and to charge any compatible smartphones or portable devices. I used my Dell XPS 13 inch laptop USB C power adaptor and charges well and will come handy during travel where you don’t need to carry the power brick 180w charger. If you need fast charging then recommend using the 180 W charger that comes with the laptop to save time. Also, it lacks Thunderbolt 3 ports and it may be due to Intel proprietary issues. Battery: It is advertised that battery will last up to 10.7 hours video playback and up to 9.5hours web browsing. In my testing, it was pretty close to 10 hours of video playback under minimal brightness and it lasted close to 9+ hours on standard web browsing without the need to charge or connect to power source. Very impressive and didn’t expect a phenomenal battery life on a gaming laptop. Also, another great feature is to charge from portable battery packs when you are on the road where you don’t carry the huge adapter. Keyboard and Trackpad: G14 has a great full functionality chicklet keyboard with some dedicated hotkeys for volume buttons, microphone mute and ROG Armoury Crate software button. Also, another cool feature this laptop features is the fingerprint login on the power button. This is one of the best feature that all laptop in the coming days should implement for the ease of use. Once fingerprint is configured for various users, just with the power button it recognizes the fingerprint and logs in to that windows user profile. Great security, peace of mind and ease of use N-Key switches. Touchpad (4.1 x 2.4 inch) is surprisingly good and has good right/left click. One negative is the backlighting on the keyboard. Not very bright. It may be due to silver color blending with white lighting but it does lack the RGB lighting as other gaming laptops on the market. Also, a mute button for speaker would have been a great add-on. Speaker & Mic: Compared to other laptops I own, this one has the best audio due to the virtual 5.1.2 channel surround sound. It has 2 front facing 2.5 W speakers on both sides below the keyboard. Due to Dolby Atmos technology, sound quality is greatly optimized and sounds great when watching movies on Netflix or prime videos or playing games. Great job by Asus on the placement design of the speaker/tweeters firing directly at the user. It has got array microphones and works great for calls. Camera: No camera on this device. Not sure why Asus decided not to have a camera on a gaming laptop. If you are looking for a laptop with front facing camera for gaming or for video calls (zoom/skype) then you are out of luck and have to use external camera. Pros: Great Battery life (approx. 9.8 - 10 hours); Excellent Performance for gaming in slim sleek portable design; Great 120Hz display; Dolby Atmos audio; Fingerprint sensor power button; dedicated hotkeys for volume buttons, microphone mute. Cons: Missing Camera/Webcam & Ethernet port; not effective Keyboard backlight. Verdict: This is a great slim portable gaming laptop on the market with excellent performance, high quality built, audio, display, screen size and battery life. If you are in the market for a gaming laptop that delivers better performance then you will not be disappointed at the price point it offers except that it misses the webcam feature. Highly recommend for its performance, price and compact size over other brands in the market.

You already know the hype. I’ll try not to hype it up. I have every gaming system. Name it and I either have it or had it. The only thing lacking was an updated gaming laptop. I was in search of a desktop originally to handle VR games done through my Oculus Quest. I travel so I didn’t have a desire to build a two foot tower gaming rig. I have a Nitro 5 with a GTX 1050. I’ve also owned the giant legendary 17.3 inch asus rog laptops that were the best at thermals and low fan noise. I’ve returned MacBook Pro for heat and fan noise. I’ve returned a similar MSI 14 inch gaming laptop that sported a 1060. It was plastic and the fan noise was terrible. Point is, I’m a stickler for Fan noise, I hate it. So lacking a modern laptop, I figured I’d bite the bullet and try this out. If not, I have 30 days to return being an Elite Member. right out the box, this screamed quality. Solid metal, not cheap plastic and metal. But then I worry, fan noise. No way can this be good. I install Forza 4. Ran it on the highest settings. It’s gorgeous! The heat? Yes the keyboard is hot but I’m on an Xbox controller. Fan noise? You can hear air flow but it’s not a cool whine nor does the chassis vibrate from the fan, unlike a MacBook or that MSI. It’s noticeable but I’ve heard much worse. PS4 Pro fan is either on par with the loudest of this laptop or even louder. So based on those simple items, not being loud fan noise and being so tiny but powerful, this is a keeper. If you don’t like the small fan noise it makes, the. Under volt it or manage the power. It’s not as bad as people say it is, and you are looking at a mobile cpu that rivals the fastest desktops in a tiny package that you can travel and play the best of games and VR. No returning this one, but it’s only been 2 hours. I’ll update if I see something bad. I’m gonna test the crap out of this one

It is really hard to believe so much gaming power is in this small Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 laptop. If you were to compare this laptop to other 14” laptops on dimensions alone, it isn’t the smallest or lightest. Still it is amazing how small and light this laptop is considering the specs of the hardware. The 8-core Ryzen 9 4900HS processor, 120Hz FHD display, GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6 graphics, 16GB of DDR4 system memory and a 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD is a powerful combination. Considering the small 14” display size, for gaming I prefer the 120Hz refresh rate of this FHD display instead of the 60Hz refresh rate of the QHD display in the more expensive model that includes the AniMe matrix panel. The laptop is quiet and stays cool during casual use like browsing the web, checking email or working in office apps. When you are playing games, the fans make quite a bit of noise. You won’t notice if you wear a headset while gaming. The display hinge design lifts the back of the laptop off the desk to allow better airflow under the laptop. Air is drawn in through 5 vents in the bottom of the laptop and exhausts through vents on the left and right sides and along the hinge. The angle also feels better while typing. The power button has a fingerprint scanner and it takes about 12 seconds from off to logged into windows (after setting up fingerprint sign-in). The fingerprint scanner isn’t as good as a flagship smart phone, but it recognizes my fingerprint more consistently than my Dell 2n1. A couple of gripes to get out of the way. No webcam. I hardly ever use webcams in laptops or tablets, but I’d rather have a crappy camera I could use if needed vs NO webcam at all. Quite a few people working from home given recent events and a webcam would offer flexibility. Another gripe is the keyboard backlight. When the backlight is on, there isn’t enough contrast between the color of the keyboard and the illuminated characters. It can be easier to see the characters with the backlight off. Hard to show with a photo. This is probably less of an issue with the darker gray models because those keys are dark, and the backlight should be easier to see with more contrast. The backlight has three brightness settings, but the light is uneven, some keys are better lit than others. There is also a lot of glare visible under the keys. I like the response of the keyboard but I’m not a fan of the font used on the keys. There are 4 dedicated special keys above the keyboard. Volume down, volume up, toggle microphone and Armoury Crate application launcher. The secondary actions of the function keys F1-F12 are speaker on/off, previous track, play/pause, next track, toggle fan mode, screen capture, decrease display brightness, increase display brightness, toggle display mode, enable/disable touchpad, Sleep mode and Airplane mode. Function + up arrow increases brightness for the backlit keyboard and Function + down arrow decreases brightness. Small but nice touch pad. You can move the cursor around the 1920x1080 desktop without the need to reorient your fingers often. The speakers sound good, better than average. The two 2.5W speakers each have down facing openings on the bottom of the laptop and upward facing openings on either side of the keyboard. The sound is very clear, better than two of our laptops but not as good as another one we have. When I’m listening to music, I tend to use Bluetooth speakers or headphones and when I’m gaming, I use a headset. The left side has a heat exhaust close to the hinge so the power (DC) port is dead center on the left side. Next is the HDMI port, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port and Headphone/Headset/Microphone jack. The USB Type-C port on the left side can be used to connect external monitors up to 3840x2160. It can also be used as a backup power input when the battery is above 5% but won’t provide enough power for gaming. The right side has a security slot closest to the hinge, then another heat exhaust. There are two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports (Type-A) and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port. The Moonlight White cover looks nice and stands out but nothing about the laptop screams gaming laptop. My main daily productivity laptop is a 15.6” 2n1 and I can’t get over how nice and light this Asus gaming PC is, yet it is so much faster and capable. It is tempting to use the Asus as my daily, but it will remain our dedicated gaming laptop.

First of all, I can say that this is the best purchase I have made this year, even the new iPhones coming out wont top my happiness with this laptop purchase. I love playing video games, I have a desktop with a Ryzen 9 3900X, and RTX 2080, but I want something portable to game on while away from home. This laptop with a 14 inch screen is just the perfect size for portable gaming and performance. It took me a month of looking around, comparing gaming laptops, but I always come back to this G14, so I ended up buying it. The out of the box experience is wonderful, I love how clean looking it is. It has a good weight to it which makes it feel very premium, but not too heavy to sacrifice portability. So, in terms of appearance, hands down I like this even better than my Macbook Pro. For gaming performance, I will not bother you with numbers and benchmarks, but rather a real life experience. I used the nVidia Experience software to scan my games, then let the software optimize the games for the system, and that's it. I used the same set up from my desktop, and comparing the experience between the two systems, I could not tell the difference. I am able to play AAA titles with virtually almost the same user experience on both machines. Other than the screen size, my games feel the same on both machines. Without looking at the FPS numbers, the visual experience in games are very smooth and snappy. For productivity, I deal with a lot of file encryption as part of my work. Sometimes I need to decrypt gigabytes of text files that usually takes several minutes to finish. On a Macbook Pro, when I start to decrypt a 2GB file, I can stand up, make some coffee, and still not done when I get back, But with the G14, file decryption is already done by the time I get back. Overall, I really love this laptop. If there is only one gripe, I wish there was an extra M.2 slot available to add more storage to accommodate big games like COD. But everything else is perfect. Highly recommended.

This is a great overall laptop, good for coding, writing documents, and even gaming. The only downside is that there is no webcam, this wouldn't regularly be a problem, but the covid-19 pandemic made social distancing classes a bit harsh with this computer. I recomend just buying a cheap webcam, or using your phone as one. The fingerprint sensor might not work as well for the first few weeks, but after that period of time it should work flawlessly. Great product overal!!

I'll spare y'alls the nitty gritty of benchmark scores, those are a dime a dozen and can be found anywhere. You hopefully aren't reading these reviews for tech specs. So, let's skip straight to what it is like actually using the laptop. Well, from the start, it is a pleasure. It came very well packed and I absolutely love the box it came in (yeah, I know, it has nothing to do with the performance of the laptop, but I like attention to details on the small things like well organized packaging and a hinge system that keeps the laptop incredibly secure in transit but painfully easy to remove, small thing, but it shows the level of attention to detail Asus has). Set up took only minutes, plug it in, turn it on, and it does the rest. Honestly, I wouldn't expect any less from a modern Windows 10 computer, but I'll still give it props for getting that right. Now that it is set up, on to installing games. The wifi on this thing is a beast (I topped out at 100mbps download, which is the limit of my internet plan). While waiting for my Steam library to download was the perfect time to kill some time watching Youtube... and I have to say, I was completely shocked by how great the speakers sound on this thing. It sounds almost as good as my desk speakers. Now onto playing the games. The keyboard is really comfortable to use while gaming (the trackpad is horrible for gaming, but that is true of all trackpads, for general use, the trackpad is actually pretty good, but seriously, get a mouse for gaming). This thing kept up with pretty much anything I threw at it, even on high settings. On a related note, even while gaming on high settings, I can get over three hours off of the battery. If you want something that will let you game on the go, this is definitely for you.

This laptop is a powerhouse. You can throw anything at it and it will come out with flying colors. ASUS and AMD have done a great job. I have used it for multiple PC games as well as for my day-to-day work and in each use case it has just blown away my expectations. It's really great to see so much power packed in a 14" laptop and at this price point. Here are more details: There are multiple configuration available and I opted for $1,449 one which comes with AMD Ryzen 9-4900HS processor, 16GB memory and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q GPU with 6GB of VRAM,1TB SSD for storage and a 1080p 120Hz display. As you can see from these specs, it is a powerhouse. It has two USB 3.0 ports and 1 USB Type-C port on the right AND 1 HDMI, 1 USB-C port (it offers charging and DisplayPort for o/p to a monitor), combination audio jack as well as the power connector on the left. I didn't like the placement of the power connector as it blocks the HDMI port. It would have been ideal if it was at the end instead of middle. But this is a minor point. Also, there is no WebCam which is another minor pain point. It has got a great design. It is slim and light weight (~3.5 pounds). It comes in two colors: "Moonlight White" and "Eclipse Grey". I have got the "Moonlight White" which is a sleek looking white finish paired with metallic silver deck. The UNIQUE part about the design is that the back edge has a drop hinge lid that raises the back end of the laptop when opened. This puts the keyboard at a more comfortable angle. I think it might also help with the cooling as it should help the air flow. The keyboard is decent but the backlight is not that good. It's display is great. I have had a smooth and judder-free gaming experience with all the games (Doom, Civ6, GTA) that I have played on it. The AMD FreeSync technology combined with Nvidia GPU makes this possible. It has a pair of 2.5-W speakers and another pair of 0.7-W tweeters which offers pretty great sound for a small laptop. The sound is powered by Dolby's Atmos technology and the included app lets you choose from several preset audio mode (Dynamic, Game, Movie, Music and Voice). It also has great battery life. I was able to play Civ6 on it for almost 9 hours. It also didn't get as warm as my other laptops. The fan is quite but does a good job of keeping things cool. Overall, it's a great laptop at this price point (in my opinion probably the best portable gaming laptop so far at this size, weight and price point). If you are looking for a powerful laptop (gaming or non-gaming) but don't want to spend insane amount of money, you can't go wrong with this one.

If you dont have one. Get one. 14" screen is perfect. Doom is killer on this laptop. Not really anything worth complaining about. Certainly well worth it.