I’ve been ready to move on from my iPad Pro 2021 (12.9-inch) for a while now. Ever since I got my first taste of reviewing OLED laptops last year, the mini-LED panel of Apple’s aging tablet no longer passes my ultra-obsessive eye test. And hoo-boy does the screen of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) shame my Apple slab’s display.
While I recently said I wouldn’t swap the Zephyrus G14 for my Steam Deck OLED, I’d exchange it for my iPad Pro in a heartbeat. Yes, the new iPad Pro 2024 packs an amazing tandem OLED display of its own. But the screen on this Asus gaming laptop is just unreal. Incredibly bright and vivid, its picture quality looks effortlessly authentic thanks to the perfect black levels OLED as a technology brings to the table.
Obviously the $1,999/£2,229 configuration of the G14 I’ve been testing is squarely aimed at gamers. After all, who’s forking out that much for a machine with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU and an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS CPU then electing not to play the best PC games on this puppy?
The screen on this Asus gaming laptop is just unreal”
And to be clear, I think it’s an absolutely brilliant laptop for gaming. Yet it’s also a superb system for streaming movies and shows on.
Ever since Asus loaned me a review unit a couple of weeks back, my iPad Pro hasn’t got a look. Night after night the latest G14 has ruled my living room. Oh sure, I’ve had my LG G3 OLED TV on in the background while simultaneously plunging down YouTube holes every now and then — mainly to witness my beloved Arsenal almost certainly lose the English Premier League title in heart-breaking fashion. Overall, though, my eyes have been glued to the Zephyrus pretty much non-stop as soon as I clock off work every evening.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 vs iPad Pro OLED: What you’ll pay
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 starts at $1,599 for a 14-inch 3K OLED display, AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS CPU, RTX 4060 GPU, 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and a 1TB SSD. There’s also a $1,999 configuration at Best Buy that packs 32GB of RAM and RTX 4070 graphics, but it’s not in stock at this time.
Meanwhile, the 13-inch iPad Pro 2024 with M4 chip starts at $1,299 for just the tablet itself and 256GB of storage. Adding the Magic Keyboard is $349, which brings the total to $1,628. Want 1TB of storage? Upgrading to 1TB brings the total to $2,248.
Jungle fever
I’ve got certain go-to movies when I’m testing out laptop screens, and chief among them is 2016’s excellent live-action reboot of The Jungle Book on Disney Plus. Jon Favreau’s take on Rudyard Kipling’s legendary tale is full of warmth and wit. It also looks gorgeous thanks to some of the most impeccable CGI work I can recall seeing in a film.
There are a couple of scenes that give the Zephrus’ wonderfully crisp panel a thorough OLED workout. The interplay of light and shadow when Mowgli meets Christopher Walken’s magnificent and menacing King Louis really shows off the incredible contrast the G14 can produce.
The final face-off between the man-cub and Idris Elba’s pitch perfect Shere Khan also looks amazing on this OLED panel — the searing reds of the burning jungle battle appear super punchy on this awesome laptop.
Moving onto something a little more modern, Baby Reindeer also gets the sweetest of tunes out of the ROG Zephyrus G14’s 2.8K (2800 x 1800) screen. My colleague Rory Mellon hailed the oddball thriller that was briefly No. 1 on Netflix and 100% on Rotten Tomatoes as his “favorite show” of the year, and it’s easily mine too.
Reindeer in the headlights
The semi-autobiographical story of a Scottish standup comic being stalked by an unhinged individual that starts with an ill-advised cup of tea on the house has many nighttime scenes set in moodily lit clubs and pubs, making this riveting show a natural fit to get the best out of an OLED display.
Baby Reindeer, like the Jungle Book, also sounds surprisingly good on the new Zephyrus G14. That’s because it sports more robust speakers than I’m accustomed to seeing on a gaming laptop. I ultimately give my iPad Pro the edge on the audio front — bass levels are deeper and Apple’s tablet is easily louder than Asus’ portable PC. Still, this remains one of the better sounding laptops I’ve come across. Though for full transparency, I have tended to pair the G14 with my awesome little Creative Pebble V3 desktop speakers for most of my time with it.
The show I’ve watched most on the Zephyrus G14? That would be Sons of Anarchy. Kurt Sutter’s bloody biker drama wrapped in 2014, and this is the first time I’ve given it a proper rewatch. Barring a slightly misjudged third season that’s primarily set in Belfast, it’s brutal yet utterly compelling television.
Again, this is another show with a lot of scenes set at night but also one often involving a lot of brutal action in baking California sunshine. It’s another piece of programming that makes the G14’s OLED panel shine.
The shot above is also from what I consider to be Sons’ pivotal scene from its seven year run, and it’s one that squeezes the most powerful depiction of on-screen grief I’ve ever watched from Charlie Hunnam’s lead character, Jax Teller. Said moment had me in floods of tears for a full five minutes the other evening.
I’ve had so many great viewing experiences with the ROG Zephyrus G14, it’s made me do a serious double take on the new iPad Pro 2024. As much as I’ve been pining for an OLED iPad for the past 18 months, there’s no question you get greater functionality from the best laptops.
Instead of forking out for the 13-inch model and its impressive Ultra Retina XDR display, I may take the plunge on a mid-range OLED laptop. Seeing as I obviously have to send the G14 back, I’m currently on the hunt for a portable PC that won’t inflict too much damage on my wallet. Right now, the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Laptop is on sale for $799 at Best Buy. It normally retails for $1,049, so this $250 saving is tempting me big time.
I’ve had the absolute best time with the latest Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. The more I’ve tested it, the higher my opinion of it has become. It’s the finest gaming laptop I’ve ever gone hands-on with, and if I could find $2,299 down the back of my sofa cushions, I’d buy one in a heartbeat.
Sadly that 77-inch LG OLED I mentioned earlier took a massive bite of my savings last fall, so any tech purchase that is substantially over 1000 big ones is off the table for the time being… unless I somehow stumble upon a winning lotto ticket lying in the street.
If I could find $2,299 down the back of my sofa cushions, I’d buy the G14 in a heartbeat”
If you have the cash to spare, though, I’d thoroughly recommend the ROG Zephyrus G14.
It’s a magnificent 14-inch laptop regardless if you want to watch the best Netflix movies in the sort of eye-arousing style only OLED can provide or play the best Steam games at impressively speedy frame rates.
