Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: Hands-on

A gaming laptop with ultrabook sensibilities – Asus‘ new ROG Zephyrus G14 brings this intriguing cross-pollination to the table. Launching at CES 2020, the Taiwanese company has created the “world’s most powerful 14in gaming notebook”; a claim that we’re inclined to agree with.

Asus has married an impressively compact form with specs that you simply don’t get considering the dimensions at play, and the team behind the G14 still found time to add some design flair and innovative thinking to augment the use cases a machine such as this might find itself in.

Price & Availability

While official pricing isn’t yet confirmed, speculation places the starting cost of the G14 at around $1299, while availability in select markets, including the UK, is slated for late March this year.

Design & Build

The G14 is a small but solidly-built machine, as gaming laptops go. Considering the power on offer, it’s easily one of the most portable entries there is; made possible by a mix of impressive thermal design on the inside and a strong magnesium-aluminium alloy deck on the outside.

The body measures in at 17.9mm thin, with the sides choc-full on the I/O front; including two USB-C and two USB-A ports, alongside a 3.5rmm headphone jack and a full-sized HDMI port.

Having been able to peek under the hood, Asus demonstrated an excellent thermal design that involves a duo of its n-Blade fans and custom heatsink fins to eject dust out of dedicated exhaust ports on the G14’s back. While this should help reduce the risk of dust build-up and thus heat build-up over long-term usage, the inherent benefits of the company’s ErgoLift hinge design shouldn’t be overlooked either.

As seen on Asus’ original Zephyrus laptop, opening the lid raises the deck of the machine up and off whatever surface it’s on at an angle. While a more comfortable typing position is an additional benefit, the primary purpose of this is to improve airflow onto the G14’s internals from underneath.

Beyond the cooling setup, you’re presented with a backlit keyboard boasting 1.7mm of travel, a quad-speaker setup (two tweeters and two woofers) with Dolby Atmos’ blessing, a Windows Hello-compliant fingerprint sensor-laden power button and a choice of three different displays.

While the ROG-branding suggests that the G14 is a portable gaming rig first and foremost, the overall styling and hardware options highlight that this is a machine made for more than simply dominating in League.

Those who do look at the G14 as their next gaming laptop should probably swing for the 120Hz Full HD IPS LCD, while those who instead aim to spend more time wielding this machine’s power to edit video or work on imagery will likely prefer the crisper 60Hz WQHD panel that’s up for grabs (there’s also a Full HD 60Hz option, but that’s best left alone).

Look past the spec sheet of conventional parts and it’s not hard to see what makes the G14 so instantly recognisable and memorable. Dubbed the AniMe Matrix, top-tier versions of the G14 possess a CNC milled lid, covered in some 1215 mini LEDs.

These can be set to show text, visualisers and even animated GIFs and would no-doubt serve as an eye-catching way to rep your favourite esports team (or silently trash-talk your opponents).

Performance & Battery

The various screen setups and the matrix of LEDs already talked about are just two choices to make when configuring your G14. Behind the scenes, there’s also room for a pretty significant set of performance tweaks, starting with the processor.

You can choose from a number of entries within AMD’s 4000 series Ryzen chips, topping out at the 7nm AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS. Asus has managed to nab a specially-tuned 35W variant that retains the same clock, 8 cores and 16 threads as the standard 45W version but benefits from smarter throttling and greater thermal efficiency.

The options list also allows for up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM, up to a 1TB of M.2 NVMe SSD storage and then there’s the graphics card to consider. Despite its size, the G14 can accommodate up to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 2060, offering enough clout for high-performance gaming and video streaming simultaneously, if that’s your bag.

The included 180W charger unlocks the power of the discrete GPU, although the G14 is USB-PD compatible up to 65W, meaning you can still get work done and charge this machine up, even if you only take your phone charger with you.

Early verdict

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 shows that small can certainly mean mighty, with a balance of portability and power unlike anything else currently on the market, especially if the suggested pricing rings true.

The AniMe Matrix is sure to turn heads, as is the performance made possible by AMD’s latest Ryzen chips and some serious graphical oomph, courtesy of Nvidia. The lengths that Asus has gone to, to ensure the G14 stays thermally viable also deserve a serious round of applause.

Note: We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site, at no extra cost to you. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Learn more.