Some Quick Thoughts on the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Gaming Laptop

If you’re a gamer, chances are that you have heard about the new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop. Asus is finally bringing this laptop into the local market although details about the pricing have not been shared yet.

The ROG Zephyrus G14 is a gaming notebook by the Asus ROG division and with it, the company is targeting content creators with the main selling point being the form factor. The laptop is not that huge like all other gaming laptops we have seen from Asus before. It’s actually the most portable gaming laptop from the company that comes with the AMD Ryzen processor and Nvidia RTX GPUs.

First, I am glad that Asus is actually thinking of bringing this laptop in the Kenyan market considering they have not been aggressive with launching their products in the country, so this is definitely a good move. For example, I really expected them to bring their gaming devices – ASUS ROG Phone 1 that was launched in 2018 and its successor ROG Phone II. The ROG Phone II, for example, features a gaming-focused overclocked Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus CPU that provides a 15% improved performance over the SDM 855. The device is not just about the internals the outward experience gives a gaming vibe straight out of the box. 

Well, that aside, with the ROG Zephyrus, we have spent a week with it. Probably not enough to write a full complete review but in this article we will just be sharing what we love about it – our top favourite features. 

ROG Zephyrus G14 specs

The ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop is powered by the AMD Ryzen processors. There are actually two variants of the notebook – one comes with the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660 Ti and the other comes with the latest Nvidia Geforce RTX 2060 Max-Q. Both variants however come with the AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS and with Ryzen 9 4900HS and of course the pricing will be different. What we have been using the last few days is the AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage.

You also have two display options to choose from, one is a 60Hz IPS panel of 14 inches with a Non-glare coating and 2560 x 1440 resolution while the other screen offers a 120Hz display at 1080p resolution. 

You can check a summary of the specifications below:

Design

One of my key takeaways is that the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is very aesthetic to look at. Asus did a good job here in terms of branding and design. The laptop is clean and attractive. It might look high-tech but it does not really scream that its a gaming laptop. Our moonlight-white color model really looked good. 

The laptop measures 0.7 by 12.8 by 8.7 inches and weighs 3.52 which should be around 1.6kgs. This weight is great for a gaming laptop. As we mentioned earlier, Asus put a 14-inch, IPS-level display running at a 120 Hz refresh rate at FHD resolution in the Zephyrus G14 so you get some good colors and it’s also very fast. Unfortunately, there’s no webcam, a downside for a pretty good laptop. 

The touchpad and keyboard are both great, so it is the trackpad which is very easy to press. The keyboard keys are clicky and less noisy. 

On the left side, there is the power jack, HDMI port, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port and headphone jack.

On the right side is another USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, as well as a pair of USB 3.1 Gen Gen 1 Type-A ports and a Kensington lock slot. 

I also need to mention that the power button on this laptop also doubles up as a fingerprint reader. This is actually the first gaming laptop to integrate a fingerprint sensor and the first to utilize an SSO power button (single sign-on).

Gaming and Graphics

The Ryzen 7 4900HS is paired with an RTX 2060 Max-Q augmented by ROG Boost up to 1298MHz at 65W. This combination should be able to play most games well at high settings and also enables improved lighting, shadows, reflections and other in-game effects

The discrete GPU is based on the latest NVIDIA Turing architecture, which melds dedicated cores for real-time ray tracing. T

The above combination also offers a diverse array of compute resources for accelerating demanding workloads like content creation, 3D modeling, and deep learning.

The ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop also features some carefully customized cooling features which, according to Asus,  ensures these processors perform at their best, and you can optimize for gaming or creative pursuits with a choice between high refresh and high-resolution displays, both with Pantone® Validated colors and Adaptive Sync variable refresh rate technology.

Performance and battery life

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop is among the first notebooks we have seen to deploy a Zen 2 processor. The Ryzen 9 4900HS chip used here is stunning with an amazing 8-core, 16-thread specification.

The battery life is also great. If you’re using this laptop for your normal workday, which I did most of the time, the battery should be able to last you at least 9 hours. This is impressive for a gaming laptop. Of course this is different when you play games, it won’t last you long as games are more draining for any laptop.

What we liked

• Great display and graphics
• Battery life
• Touchpad and keyboard which are very comfortable to use
• The Superior AMD Ryzen 9 processor which is fast
• 4-inch design is good for a gaming laptop
• The audio is really good

What we did not like

• No webcam
• CPU gets hot

Bottom line, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a good 14-inch gaming laptop. We will update this post with the pricing and availability details as soon as we get them. 

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