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.

- Great design for such powerful performance - Keyboard feels great and tactile; however, it is true that the backlight is simply sucks. - Color accuracy is about 8/10, 120hz is great for casual gaming and productivity, ghosting due to low refresh rate is there but rarely happens. It also has freesync built in with the display. - When heavy gaming, fan is loud (turbo) and the chassis is more than just warm, but it is the same case as any gaming laptop. If you want quiet and cool gaming, just built a pc, really. Fan is always on, but to put perspective, my home and office ac system is louder; therefore, I can barely hear the laptop’s. - Battery is great. Not sure about 10 hrs like you tubers’ reviews but definitely better than most gaming laptop (>5 hrs of productivity) - Ryzen 9 4000 series is lightning fast for regular users. Even though rtx 2060 MAX-q does not sound that good for gamers, it get the jobs done ( >100 FPS on madden, fifa, nba; 60->75 on forza, sekiro -all in highest setting) - Overall, better built than most ROG laptops (Owned a GU502gv last year) in the past that infamously knowns for low quality built quality.

Right out of the gate, I just want to say that Asus and AMD really killed it with this laptop. It’s difficult to pack this much power and performance in a 14” chassis, but Asus delivered. Unboxing and Design Unboxing this laptop is truly an experience. As you lift the lid of the box, the cardboard base that the laptop sits on props up in a way that presents the laptop to you. Others have described this display as being like a Hallmark card and I think that’s super accurate. This first thing that hit me when I saw the G14 in person is that it’s disguised as a normal daily-use laptop. I personally really appreciate this. Whether you purchase the Eclipse Gray or Moonlight White version, it’s never going to scream “gamer.” The laptop has no intense neon color accents and is thin enough (0.7”) to support this disguise. The magnesium-aluminum alloy deck and aluminum lid are well constructed and machined precisely. The dot matrix design on the lid is beautiful with 6.536 holes that are CNC milled. These metal choices do well at resisting fingerprints and smudges. They also keep the weight down to a mere 3.64 pounds. Port selection on this laptop is plenty adequate. To the left, you will find your 180W power input, HDMI 2.0b, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C with DisplayPort 1.4 and power input delivery, and a 3.5mm audio jack. To the right, you will find a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C (does not support power input), two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type As, and a Kingston lock. Bootup The power button on the G14 doubles as a fingerprint scanner. When you push this button to power up the laptop, the scanner captures your fingerprint and presents it to Windows once ready. This feature is intuitive and efficient, just like a smartphone. Bootup itself is extremely fast - probably the fastest bootup I’ve seen on a Windows laptop. Screen The lid of the G14 doubles as a lift with Asus’ ErgoLift hinges. This does two things - it lifts the keyboard making for a more ergonomic typing position and it also lifts the deck to provide space for air intake into the fans. The screen on my model is 1920x1080 with a 120 Hz refresh rate. While you can step down to a 1080p 60 Hz or up to a 1440p 60 Hz monitor, I think the 1080p 120 Hz version is best if you’re going to be using this laptop for gaming. 1080p resolution is plenty on a 14” device and that 120 Hz refresh rate is going to be mighty helpful while gaming. The screen to body ratio is 85% with thin bezels along the sides and top, with a pretty thick chin below. It has a matte finish to limit glare and is Pantone validated to ensure color quality. Keyboard and Trackpad The chiclet keyboard and trackpad work very well, in my opinion. The keys are quiet when pressed and key travel is fine. You’ll find hotkeys for volume, microphone mute, and Asus’ ROG Armoury Crate software. All keys are backlit with an adjustable white light. There is no numpad, but I wouldn’t expect it on a 14” laptop. The trackpad on this guy is standard in size and responsive. Speakers The G14 shines in speaker quality. With two Smart Amp woofers bouncing sound down off of your table and two tweeters directing sound at you, I think you’d be hard pressed to find another laptop of this size that can put out the audio quality that this machine does. Of course it isn’t party speaker level, but you get nice bass and crisp mids/ highs. I’m seriously impressed! The laptop also has a 3.5mm jack as I mentioned before, which is nice. You don’t have to reach for any dongles to convert your 3.5mm plug into USB C. Of course the laptop also has bluetooth for wireless headphone use. Software, Hardware, and Performance The G14 comes with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed. Armoury Crate is also already on the laptop and can be accessed via the hotkey mentioned previously. This software adjusts CPU, GPU, and fan speed settings to match the tasks you’re throwing at it. You can switch between Silent, Performance, Turbo, and Manual modes. Turbo can only be activated when plugged into power. Every time I game, I plug the computer in and switch it to Turbo for the best performance possible. Hardware specs for my G14 are as follows: CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS with 8 cores and 16 threads Alternate model has AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS GPU: NVIDEA GeForce RTX 2060 Max Q 65W with 6GB VRAM Alternate model has NVIDEA GeForce RTX 1660Ti 60W with 6GB VRAM 16GB DDR4-3200 dual channel RAM Up to 32GB 1TB NVME M.2 SSD Alternate is 512GB Intel WiFi 6 Bluetooth 5.0 4-cell Lithium Ion battery that can be charged via 180W power brick or USB C Asus claims up to 9.5 hours of web browsing and 10.7 hours of video playback With these specs, the G14 cut through everything I threw at it with ease and pumped out buttery-smooth graphics at high settings, minimum. Games that I have personally played on the G14 so far have been Call of Duty: Warzone, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, PUBG, XCOM 2, Factorio, and GTFO. Instead of me listing out FPS for games, I’d highly recommend watching Jarrod’s Tech on YouTube. He put the G14 through its paces and has benchmarks for the 20 games he threw at it. Link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiv1USXl9PE. Considering the G14 was built for gaming, it also handles daily tasks like a champ. No issues with boatloads of tabs open, Word processing, or editing photo/ video content. Is There Anything Not to Like? It’s honestly quite hard to nitpick a laptop that looks this clean and performs so well in a 14” form factor. With that being said, I do have a couple of insignificant gripes. Power port placement is a bit odd. Because it sits right in the middle on the left side of the deck, if your cable is draped toward you, it will block your HDMI, USB C, and 3.5mm ports. Though it can be a nuisance moving cables over one another, I think from an engineering perspective, it probably makes sense. This laptop has a lot of cooling components internally. The engineers likely didn’t have many options when placing the power port given the demand for cooling in order to protect hardware components from overheating. Speaking of temperature, this laptop gets HOT. Even with 7 heat pipes, two efficient fans, and a raised deck due to it’s ErgoLift hinges, my laptop was consistently running at 81-84°C (177.8-183.2°F) while gaming. The cooling system drives hot air away from the WASD keys so it’s comfortable to game for long periods of time, but do NOT touch near the power button for long periods of time. You could absolutely burn yourself. I would highly recommend getting a cooling mat for this laptop. While this laptop does have built-in microphones, it does not come with a built-in camera. Something to consider if you also want to use this device for streaming or video conferencing. Asus did develop a portable and attachable camera called the ROG GC21 specifically for this laptop, but it does come with an added cost. Final Thoughts Overall, I think the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a monster device in a small, portable form factor. At just 14” and 3.64 pounds, you can game pretty much anywhere given this laptop’s specs. Despite a couple engineering qualms, I think this device is well worth the investment if you are a serious gamer and/or need power on the go.

I ordered this laptop with high expectations, and rightly so with a $1500 price tag after taxes. The hardware is quite good however the support I have received with my unit has been some of the worst I have ever experienced. Yes - I do understand that we are in the midst of a global pandemic and that these businesses supply chains have been massively disrupted, however this should have no bearing on the way I was treated after receiving a lemon. The Good: Great Exterior finish Great Weight Great Chassis - very rigid and structurally sound Great styling for such a powerful laptop Great Specs - 2060 and the new Ryzen 9 4900hs? Sign me up. Good Keyboard - Backlighting is subpar, and has not been fixed with my production unit. Good trackpad - Not the best out there however it is very accurate and an average size. Good Speakers - not studio quality however very acceptable Comes with very minimal bloatware The Bad: Fingerprint sensor is flaky at best - I have to be very precise in the way I use this fingerprint sensor in order to get it to register my finger print at all. My unit has a defective screen - I constantly get large portions of the screen turning into large white boxes and flickering on / off, additionally the screen has been flickering totally black then turning back repeatedly. Colors are also very off on my unit. Shipping - through likely no fault of BestBuy or ASUS I received my unit with a VERY large hole in the box and no protective packaging inside. The Ugly: Support - Due to my units defective screen I attempted to get my unit exchanged through both ASUS and BestBuy however neither support team has been able to figure this out for me. I've been through 5 Asus Support reps, 5!!! a couple of whom outright stopped talking to me mid support chat, one of whom once connected to the support chat did not respond at all. I have waited for a combine 3 hours on hold (only 2 calls) for BestBuy phone support only to never get through to an agent. The online BestBuy chat agent I spoke to was nice however clearly did not have accurate support information on this device as he told me to exchange it in store, and when I asked him to check if my store has this device realized exchanges could only be done online for this device however failed to mention how to do so (I've only found return information no info on how to exchange the defective unit for a new one). Come on guys, you are both multi-billion dollar companies this level of consumer support is unacceptable. I have been unable to arrange a solution with either of your teams over the span of a week to get this unit replaced with a new one - again I realize we are in the midst of a global pandemic - it should not be this hard to arrange an online replacement of this device. Please Improve your support services to make an exchange process easier and less painful for the consumer. To those who may recommend x y or z to fix the screen issue - I work professionally as a computer support technician, trust me, I've tried it. This is a hardware malfunction and not something that can be simply fixed by updating some drivers, windows, or the BIOS to the most recent versions. Tl;DR: Great buy for the money, Excellent hardware, Great Value. Terrible Customer Support.

This notebook is a slim and lightweight gaming notebook that pretty much runs any game above 60+ FPS with a 120Hz screen and a battery that lasts ~ 7 to 10 hours. Of course when you're gaming the battery will last only about ~2 to 3 hours. I really enjoy the way the screen folds up and lifts the laptop up a little bit for better circulation. I've already noticed that this laptop does not run hot compared to previous gaming laptops I have owned. The fans are powerful, the AMD Ryzen Series 9 is super fast and the RTX 2060 is capable of handling windows tasks and gaming at lightning speeds. I really enjoy the slim, sleek, and almost silent gaming laptop which doesn't scream RGB lighting and obnoxious designs. It weighs about 4 lbs, has a slim and small charging cable, and I can run almost any game out there on high or ultra settings (Hunt: Showdown, Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 5, GTA 5, Fortnite, Mortal Kombat 11, CoD MW, COD WZ). This little notebook is a beast, it's lightning fast, and is very quiet when you're not gaming which is nice.

Wow.. shockingly powerful CPU for such a small laptop!! GAME CHANGER for gaming laptops on the go!! Not only a fantastic gaming laptop, but also has a really powerful brand new AMD mobile cpu, and compared to an intel based gaming laptop I have, it runs a lot faster. It won’t necessarily help you on most games, but it WILL help you on things like unzipping / unraring files, and anything CPU bound. Not only is it really powerful for a laptop, especially for anything intel based around this price, but the battery life while not gaming is absolutely stellar!! As long as I am not gaming, I am getting about 9 hours or so, just doing things like surfing the web and watching videos. Oh.. and a great SCREEN!! It is only 1920x1080 resolution, and comes with an NVIDIA GTX 2060 Max-Q. At that resolution, for the 3 games I installed and a few days playing, it sliced thru them like butter!! Sekiro Shadows Die Twice looked amazing, and yeah, it wasn’t running at 4k, but it ran super smooth, and because you don’t need that much resolution for a 14” screen. Most gamers will not realize higher resolution, but you know what they will “feel”? Frame rates that can not only be sustained, but because in this laptop, it has AMD Freesync technology, that eliminates screen tearing if you frame rate goes over 120 frames per second. One of the other games I tried also looked even more amazing, DOOM Eternal! It runs GREAT! For anyone wondering, I am comparing this laptop to a Alienware laptop that has a RTX 2070 Max-Q, also running on a 1920x1080 panel, and while DOOM seemed to run slightly faster, it was negligible at best. The RTX 2070 max-q was probably too large to fit in this laptop’s form factor, and because of it’s smaller ultraportable size, would have made it get much hotter while gaming. The 2060 Max-Q was a good trade off, and kept the price on this laptop lower. Ok.. So here is the deal.. I also hooked this laptop up to a 65” Sony HDR TV and surround amp via the HDR port on the right side of the laptop. Was able to get HDR and Dolby Atmos enabled in Windows. Just make sure you select your secondary display as the audio source in the bottom right corner where the sound icon is in windows. So not only was I able to get this all working on my TV, but also managed to change the resolution while gaming to 2560x1440 and still maintain about the same frames per second in both DOOM Eternal, and Sekiro Shadows Die Twice. Both games pushed thru Dolby Atmos surround sound to my amp as well. The screen itself isn’t too bad. Mine had very good black levels, not amazing OLED level blacks, but really dark, and what was most surprising… pretty good viewing angles for this kind of laptop screen panel. I have had a few other laptops, and move off center from the screen and it washes out pretty quickly. This one you had to really move off angle quite a bit before it started washing out. Build quality is a step up from previous Asus ROG laptops I have seen, and I just cannot believe that this thing is so small. I absolutely love what Asus has done on this laptop. You open it up, and as you open the screen hinge on the bottom to lift up the back of the laptop off the surface it sits on. This is great, as for the first time, I don’t necessarily have to worry about carrying a laptop cooler with fans under it. Even under full load while gaming, the little lift helped keep it relatively cool for such a small form factor. If you are going for really long sessions, you might want to invest in a cooler, but I don’t think it is necessary as long as it has some air flow while the laptop is open. I was a little worried about the keyboard, but all in all, it works well for gaming, and most productivity tasks. I do find myself missing the numeric keypad, but the keys feel very good on touch. I am not however a big fan of the backlit keyboard. Because the keyboard is silver, it is really difficult to see any lights come through evenly, and even when they do come through they aren’t very visible except when you are in the dark. If you happen to have a route that supports WIFI 6, you will not be disappointed with wireless connections speeds. I am getting better speeds and range with the wifi on this laptop than an older laptop I have. I have an Asus gaming router, ROG Rapture GT-AX11000, that happens to have this newer wireless tech, and I am literally getting the same download and upload speeds than a desktop pc that I have ethernet wired in. And, from further distances away too. The only thing that is also a tiny ding on this laptop, is the port placements on the side. Appreciate 2 USB-A ports for sure, can potentially get in the way for certain desk configurations. Well, that’s it for now. I am going to finish up some documents for work on this very laptop, and then PLAY SOME GAMES! Also.. I wrote this review on said laptop. =)

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.

Only problems I could see with this thing from my experience is when I updated windows something weird happened with the drivers and my Wi-Fi Driver stopped working and it would not even let me choose the Internet just airplane mode. After resetting the computer and fiddling around with the settings I decided to update my bios and It fixed everything. There’s a lot of frustration when setting up the computer but after you mess around with it a little bit and know the ins and outs of your machine things will get much better. One big thing about the computer is the fans are not super loud but noticeable. If it’s in the winter and you have this thing running in your small room this thing will keep your room warm, but in these hot summer days, you may want to crank up the air conditioning because this thing will heat up your room for sure even in just performance mode. I did find out later that the turbo mode does not work unless it is plugged in with the charger. Reason I give it five stars though is because the laptop in itself does everything that I expected it to do. It does really good on multitasking, I can run four instances on my blue stacks using macros on all 4 and run a fancy game at the same time without any crashes or slow downs. I was originally going to go with a digital storm laptop and drop a whooping $2000 plus tax but I am super grateful my brother in law suggested this one. Saved money and ended up with a way faster laptop. Also the copy and paste to and from external hard drives is super fast. Really can’t complain.