The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 laptop range has been one of my personal favourite gaming laptops since they first hit the market. They are hands down some of the best 14-inch gaming laptops you can buy, offering exceptional performance and portability. For 2024, ASUS has taken this winning formula and refined it even further with a stunning redesign.
Gone is the plastic chassis of old, now replaced with a sleek and sturdy aluminum unibody construction that looks premium and feels like it is built for anything you can throw at it. Despite its all-metal construction, the new ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 laptop is remarkably light and thin, even with its powerful internals. It’s hard to believe that a gaming laptop can be so portable and stylish. It is also worth noting that unlike its predecessor, which offered options for more than just an RTX 4070, this time around, you have to look at the Zephyrus G16 for a beefier GPU, with the G14 focusing on portability.
While I loved what ASUS brought to the table last year, this year’s ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) is a true bending of computing power and design that will turn heads. ASUS has made an ultra-portable gaming laptop that checks all the boxes, making it an offering that is hard to pass up. After using the laptop for the past two weeks as my main portable machine, despite a few nit-picks, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) delivers in all the ways you could hope from an ultra-portable gaming laptop.
Design and Build Quality
Unboxing the redesigned 2024 ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop, you will find a laptop that looks stunning, even before you turn it on. The 2024 G14 features a new chassis made from CNC machined aluminum, resulting in a slim and lightweight design that is perfect for gaming on the go. The G14 is an incredibly portable device, weighing only 3.3 pounds and measuring 0.63 inches thick. It is equipped with impressive gaming capabilities, featuring up to an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, making it a powerful machine despite its small size, and that is all before touching on the ROG Nebula OLED panel.
“Despite its all-metal construction, the new ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 laptop is remarkably light and thin, even with its powerful internals.”
As mentioned above, ASUS has mixed things up compared to last year’s offering and added a customizable light bar to the rear of the lid, allowing you to set a unique lighting pattern or animation. The wider and more rigid hinge design opens smoothly to reveal the edge-to-edge keyboard that features RGB lighting and a large trackpad. Both input devices provide an excellent typing and navigation experience. Under heavy loads, a new vapour chamber cooling system does an admirable job of keeping thermals in check despite the compact size. You can tune the performance to prioritize lower noise levels or maximum fps depending on your environment and preferences.
Looking at the sides of the laptop, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 features a range of ports to keep you connected to all your devices for gaming or creative workflows. It features an HDMI 2.1 port, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port that supports DisplayPort, a Type C USB 4 support DisplayPort that also supports power delivery, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and for people that are looking to bring in video or photos from a camera or smartphone, the G14 also features a microSD card reader.
“With a much smaller footprint than traditional 15 or 17-inch gaming rigs, the Zephyrus G14 is designed for gamers who want desktop-like performance in a truly portable form factor.”
With a much smaller footprint than traditional 15 or 17-inch gaming rigs, the Zephyrus G14 is designed for gamers who want desktop-like performance in a truly portable form factor. The shift to a thinner and lighter chassis does come with some compromises, like the removal of the previous generation’s ErgoLift hinge and the omission of higher wattage RTX 4080/4090 GPU options. But for gamers looking for a slick and powerful rig they can easily throw in their backpack, the 2024 Zephyrus G14 sets a new standard for thin and light gaming.
As mentioned above, the thing that will turn the most heads, even beyond the sleek design, is its stunning 14-inch 2880 x 1800 resolution ROG Nebula OLED panel. This OLED technology delivers exceptional image quality with true blacks, vibrant colours, and an effectively infinite contrast ratio. The panel covers 100% of the demanding DCI-P3 colour gamut and is Pantone Validated for superb colour accuracy out of the box – a rarity even for high-end creative laptops.
Brightness reaches 500 nits for excellent legibility even in bright environments, while the OLED panel’s per-pixel dimming allows true blacks without clipping detail in dark scenes. This creates a more immersive experience in games with day-night cycles like Cyberpunk 2077. The panel boasts a zippy 120Hz refresh rate that keeps the action smooth and responsive for fast-paced competitive titles.
While the Nebula OLED isn’t quite as blindingly bright as the Mini LED display on last year’s model, it more than makes up for this with its perfect black levels and vibrant HDR performance that brings out neon-soaked cityscapes in vivid detail. For gaming on the go, it’s tough to beat the visual pop of this OLED panel. Gaming and HDR media are where this screen shines, giving an experience that is truly stunning to look at, with each detail in games like Cyberpunk 2077, DOOM Eternal, or even Call of Duty looking crystal clear and absolutely stunning while in motion.
“The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) delivers in all the ways you could hope from an ultra-portable gaming laptop.”
Thankfully, ASUS has not neglected the speakers on the Zephyrus G14, boasting a six-speaker setup that provides surprisingly powerful audio for such a compact chassis. The speakers feature a smart amplifier that prevents distortion even at maximum volume, letting you crank up the tunes when gaming with friends. Dolby Atmos support lends a more spatial, cinematic soundstage to movies and games when using headphones.
While bass response understandably lacks punch due to the small speaker size, mids and highs sound clear without harshness. Vocals in music tracks remain crisp and intelligible even at loud volumes. The speakers easily fill a medium-sized room with immersive in-game audio. For more critical listening and competitive gaming, the 3.5mm headphone jack, HDMI, and USB-C ports offer convenient connectivity with your favourite gaming headset.
The ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) (Triple band) 2*2 + Bluetooth 5.3 Wireless Card delivers reliable connectivity for gaming and creative workflows. The laptop features a 73WHrs, 4S1P, 4-cell Li-ion battery and a new 180 Watt power adapter that is compatible with all their new laptops, ensuring uninterrupted power while you do everything you need to get the most from the laptop and maintain your laptop’s optimal performance.
Zephyrus G14 Performance and Battery Life
Now that the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) is all set up and ready, the big question is how powerful this laptop is and whether it offers a notable upgrade from last year’s offering. Let me be blunt: this laptop packs a surprising amount of power into its slim 14-inch chassis. The unit I tested was equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor with Radeon 780M graphics, along with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 with 8GG, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD, which all worked together to deliver smooth frame rates in the latest games as well as solid performance for creative workloads.
Gaming is where the Zephyrus G14 really shines, thanks to its top-tier specs and intelligent cooling design. The latest titles run excellently on this laptop even at its native resolution, with frame rates comfortably hitting well over 60 fps with settings maxed out in many games. Demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are very playable, especially with NVIDIA DLSS enabled to boost frame rates using AI upscaling.
Even if you decide to add some ray tracing into the mix, although you may need to settle for 30FPS if you go this route, more lightweight titles like Apex Legends and Fortnite run blazingly fast, taking full advantage of the 120Hz refresh rate display to deliver solid framerates while looking fantastic as it does so.
The slimmed-down design does require some GPU power limits compared to past Zephyrus G14 models, but performance remains impressive. NVIDIA’s Dynamic Boost technology works to balance power between the CPU and GPU to optimize game performance. Even intensive AAA games run smoothly despite the constraints. This level of gaming prowess is a testament to the capable thermal design, featuring upgraded Arc Flow fans and liquid metal compound on the CPU to prevent throttling. Even pushing things while testing never saw any significant performance hit, with it keeping framerates solid even after longer gameplay sessions.
The Zephyrus G14 excels at handling demanding creative workloads. effortlessly managing tasks such as video and photo editing thanks to its speedy processor and RTX graphics. Its excellent colour accuracy further enhances its performance for content creation, making it an excellent choice for working on print-sensitive files. With this laptop, you can confidently manage your workflow with ease, knowing that your work will look the same on your main display. The high-quality 2880 x 1800 OLED display presents your work with exceptional contrast and vibrant colours.
Should you want to adjust the colours, the ASUS Armoury Crate software offers a range of adjustments and profiles to tweak the laptop to your liking and needs. The OLED panel fully covers both the P3 colour space and the smaller sRGB space, making it suitable for any colour-based work. The display was near perfect in our tests, and although calibration is an option, it is not necessary. This is perfect for people working in print, photography, video or anyone who wants to experience films or games as their creators intended.
Even with all this power, the ROG Zephyrus G14 demonstrates excellent battery efficiency thanks to the upgraded specs focused on efficiency. In real-world usage, you can expect up to 7-8 hours of web browsing and productivity work, and over 2 hours of gaming. Standby battery life is equally impressive, with the laptop lasting over a week in sleep mode. These impressive results are thanks to the Zephyrus’ upgraded efficiency-focused specs.
The latest ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is a highly portable powerhouse with a feathery weight and slim silhouette that hides ample performance within. Gamers and creators alike will appreciate its speedy specs and long battery life compressed into a supremely portable chassis. The 2024 edition refines this winning formula, delivering an exceptional combination of power, endurance and mobility.
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024)’s Value
The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) laptop delivers exceptional value for a premium 14-inch gaming laptop. Pricing starts at a reasonable $1,600 for the RTX 4050 model with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, comparable to last year’s pricing. Stepping up to the RTX 4070 model costs $2,000, again identical to the previous generation.
Considering the significant upgrades ASUS has packed into the sleek new design, including the gorgeous 14-inch 2880 x 1800 OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, keeping pricing flat is impressive. The high-end RTX 4070 model is substantially cheaper than competitors like the Razer Blade 14, which has similar specifications and sells for $2,700 when configured in a similar way.
For the price, you get the latest AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor and up to an NVIDIA RTX 4070 GPU, which provides strong gaming performance in a slim 16.3mm thick body weighing just 1.5kg. The OLED screen’s vibrant colours, 0.2ms response time, and G-Sync support make games look absolutely stunning.
While the soldered RAM may disappoint enthusiasts, for most gamers and creators, the 32GB of fast LPDDR5 memory will be more than sufficient. ASUS still includes a user-upgradeable M.2 SSD slot for storage expansion when needed.
In the premium 14-inch gaming laptop market, the Zephyrus G14 has always stood out for delivering outstanding performance and display quality at a relatively affordable price point. The 2024 model upholds this reputation, bringing impactful upgrades without inflating the cost. For shoppers seeking a highly portable powerhouse for gaming and creative work, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 hits a sweet spot between price, features and performance.
