Talk about a gaming great. The new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) is a thing of pure beauty. The only thing that’s easier on the eye that I’ve encountered in my life is a certain husky who tries to yank my shoulder out of its socket every time we go for a walk in the lashing Scottish rain.
The ROG Zephyrus G14 is simply one of the best gaming laptops I’ve ever gone hands-on with. Actually, I’ll go one further: It’s the best gaming laptop I’ve ever used.
The configuration Asus sent me rocks an RTX 4070 GPU, AMD Ryzen R9 – 8945HS processor and 32GB of DRR5 RAM, so naturally it’s comfortable running pretty much any modern video game at slick frame rates. This is a machine that’s both brilliant for gaming and for streaming the best Amazon Prime shows thanks to its immaculate OLED display.
Like everything else on this spinning rock, the Zephyrus G14 isn’t perfect — which I’ll get to — but right now you’d struggle to convince me it doesn’t represent the current pinnacle of laptop gaming.
Read on to find out what I really love (and what I’m mildly bothered by) regarding this astonishing gaming laptop, which boasts strengths that easily outweigh its weaknesses.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) — 3 things I love
Screen queen
I’ve already written at length on why the ROG Zephyrus G14 is my favorite OLED laptop for streaming movies and shows. Whether you want to enjoy the best Disney Plus movies or the best Netflix shows on this majestic laptop’s wonderful 3K (2880 x 1800) Nebula OLED display, you’re going to have a great time. Colors are vivid, and HDR content really pops thanks to peak brightness figures that top the 600 mark. Meanwhile, the infinite black levels of OLED leave you with pictures that feel almost three-dimensional because contrast performance is so outstanding.
In a parallel universe where it was legal for human beings to marry laptop screens, I would stick a ring on this OLED stunner’s imaginary finger in a heartbeat.
A gaming goliath
Here’s a tip I strongly stand by: don’t play the best PC games at your PC or laptop’s native screen resolution, even when dealing with a system as capable as Asus’ RTX 4070-powered beast.
With so many of the best gaming monitors and many triple-A titles supporting some form of frame-smoothing super sampling for very little loss of image clarity, you’re better off boosting your fps over the amount of on-screen pixels your eyes can absorb. While playing 2D games at the Zephyrus G14’s max 3K resolution is entirely achievable, that’s not always the case when it comes to graphically-demanding games, like Cyberpunk 2077 or Resident Evil 4. Thankfully, the G14 has a huge weapon up its ultra alluring sleeve to help tame these titans.
Asus’ awesome OLED effort is one of a number of gaming laptops on the market that support Nvidia G-Sync. Team Green’s display tech synchronizes the refresh rate of your screen with the fps output of your GPU to ensure gaming feels as smooth as possible. G-Sync works particularly well on the Zephyrus G14; with that enabled, I can play CD Projekt RED’s compelling futuristic sandbox and Capcom’s survial horror remake at an upscaled 3K with frame rates that normally hover around the mid-80s in my experience. Here’s how to turn on G-Sync on a gaming laptop to make sure you’re getting the best out of the G14 should you decide to buy one.
Beauty and the beast
I freakin’ love the design of Asus’ latest G14. Its clean and elegant aesthetic is instantly easy to appreciate, and it looks incredibly sleek considering how much power the config I’ve been using packs under the hood. There’s nothing overly showy about this OLED Zephyrus. It radiates pure class with minimal effort — even though I’m certain all the effort was poured into making this baby look drop-dead gorgeous.
I appreciate how skinny the bezel around that dazzling screen is. I love the uniform and grown-up appearance of its keyboard. More than anything, I adore how you get the impression the design team at Asus knew they’d knocked it out of the park the second the first unit rolled off the production line.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) — 2 things I hate
Some (don’t) like it hot
Imagine eating a sandwich stuffed with Carolina Reaper chili peppers… in the height of summer… on the surface of the sun. That’s roughly how hot the area directly underneath the Zephrus G14’s phenomenal OLED displays feels to touch. I’ve never tested a gaming laptop that runs this toasty before.
That’s probably a pretty major factor in why the G14 is one of the quieter high-end portable PCs I’ve used: it prioritizes being easy on your ear when it’s beasting the best Steam games at the cost of poor heat dispensation. Though I don’t have the exact number for this RTX 4070 configuration, the slightly less powerful 4060 model we’ve also put through its paces reaches a peak temperature of 135.5 degrees on the far-rear underside of the laptop during our testing.
Seeing as we consider anything over 95° to be too uncomfortable to rest on your lap, the ROG Zephyrus G14 should not be placed within a country mile of your groin. My advice: play it on a desk or coffee table.
Return to sender
I’ll keep this one short and sweet(ish) to try and avoid coming across like a self-entitled jerk. The main thing I hate about this year’s wonderful ROG Zephyrus G14 is that I’m obviously going to have to return my review unit to Asus within the next week or so. This puppy has basically ruined every other gaming laptop for me, quickly becoming my go-to piece of technology I physically can’t stop using in every free moment I’ve had over the past fortnight.
Right now, I’d gladly give up my Xbox Series X, PS5 and Nintendo Switch OLED to keep it. If I had a spare $2,199/£2,299 squared away, I’d buy the latest G14 in a heartbeat. And yes, I realize this is a cheat answer for a “hate” entry.
