Review of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop: proper ultraportable gaming

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Gaming laptops have long been used not only for games: they are great for any work purpose,

where the main requirement is highperformance. For example, video editing, photo processing, CAD and so on. In turn, laptop manufacturers offer an increasing variety of models both in terms of specifications and form factor. Until recently, a laptop with a full-fledged powerful gaming hardware in a compact and lightweight case with a 14-inch screen seemed somewhat unlikely. In January of this year, ASUS showed that it was quite real and introduced the ROG Zephyrus G14 model at CES 2020. The laptop has a lot of interesting features, starting with the new AMD mobile processors, which work with NVIDIA discrete graphics, and ending with an unusual design. In addition, the company offers a large number of different configurations that are clearly aimed at a different audience: both, directly, gamers, and creators of all kinds of visual content. ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 has interested me since the moment of presentation, and so far it is perhaps the most anticipated gaming laptop this year. Finally he came to the editor gg and there was an opportunity to evaluate it personally.

What is it?
What is interesting ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14?
What is in the box?
What with the look and design?
How convenient is it to use the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14?
How good is the screen?
What about performance and autonomy?
In the dry residue

What is it?

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 - gaming laptop with14-inch IPS-display, mobile 7-nm processors of the AMD Renoir line, up to 32 GB of RAM, nVidia GeForce discrete graphics cards, up to RTX 2060 Max-Q, fast SSD-drives and compact lightweight body.

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What is interesting ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14?

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The laptop is equipped with exceptionally newMobile 7-nanometer AMD processors, starting with the AMD Ryzen 5 4600H and ending with the top-end eight-core AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS with a frequency of 3.0-4.6 GHz and integrated Radeon Vega 8. It is installed in our version of ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401IV. Of course, the integrated graphics for games is not enough and models from NVIDIA GeForce from GTX 1650 and up to RTX 2060 in Max-Q design (in our configuration) are used as a discrete video accelerator. RAM in some configurations can be installed up to 32 GB DDR4 with a frequency of 3200 MHz, a configuration with 16 GB came to us. Reasonable screen options are clearly divided by potential audiences: FullHD with a refresh rate of 60 or 120 Hz is available for gamers, 2560x1440 for work purposes, but only 60 Hz. All options include Pantone certification. For communications, in addition to wireless Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, there are USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, USB Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 with Power Delivery support, as well as a Display Port with G-Sync, 2xUSB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 and combined 3.5 mm. The laptop is powered by a battery of 76 Wh. All this stuff is packed in an unusually compact and lightweight, like for a game model, case made of aluminum and magnesium alloy of gray or white color with optional AniMe Matrix LED backlight.

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What is included?

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In addition to various configurations, ASUS ROG ZephyrusG14 may also vary. In our case, the laptop is packaged in a large black box with the logo of the ROG game line, inside of which two more smaller boxes were hidden. In the smaller box, there was a branded case with a zipper, and in black and white, the rest of the kit: the laptop itself, power cable, power supply and documentation.

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The complete ROG Sleeve case is of very good quality, with additional soft inserts and a pair of pockets for every little thing.

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A power supply unit is supplied with the laptoppower of 180 watts, it weighs 300 g and is very compact, as for a gaming model. Plus, thanks to the support of USB Power Delivery 3.0, you can buy a compact 65 W PSU and use it, for example, at work when you do not need the ultimate gaming performance.

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What with the look and design?

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Externally, the laptop is gamingROG Zephyrus lineup, but innovations are also enough. The general first impression is very pleasant: the laptop looks very stylish and strict, which is not quite usual for gaming models. No bright design elements or vyrviglaznoy RGB-backlight. The working surface of the laptop is made of magnesium alloy, due to which it was possible to slightly reduce the weight of the laptop. It has an interesting coating that tactilely resembles Soft-Touch, but practically does not collect prints. Top cover made of brushed aluminum. As in other models of the Zephyrus line, it is divided into two parts along the diagonal. But this time there is no grinding on the lid, and the upper part is covered with perforation, which consists of 6536 miniature holes. The lower part of the lid is matte, on it there is only a small logo and the inscription Republic of Gamers.

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Under those very small holes on the lid inSome configurations of Zephyrus G14 hide 1215 LEDs, which are the very same AniMe Matrix backlight. Using it, you can display any image or GIF animation, text messages, battery level and so on on the laptop cover. The configuration with AniMe Matrix is a little thicker and heavier, although the difference is not significant. In any case, options are available with and without AniMe Matrix. Choice is always good. We visited the review option without AniMe Matrix, so there was no way to play with this thing.

Some design features of the laptopmigrated from the ultraportable ZenBook line. In particular, this applies to the use of the ErgoLift mechanism, which lifts the rear of the housing in the working position.

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The presence of powerful components inside suggeststhe need for good ventilation. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 has a plentiful amount of ventilation holes, including on the sides. All connectors are located on the side faces. On the left are the power port, HDMI 2.0b, USB Type-C with support for DisplayPort 1.4 (and G-Sync) and Power Delivery 3.0, and a combined 3.5 mm audio jack:

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On the right are similar ventilation openings,two full-size USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, one USB Type-C and Kensington lock slot. It would not be superfluous, perhaps, a card reader (given the performance, which is enough to process photos and videos) and a network connector. Although no one canceled the docking stations and adapters. Due to the abundance of ventilation, all the connectors are slightly shifted forward, which may not be very convenient when connecting the same aforementioned docking stations:

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At the back there are ventilation holes, an engraving with the inscription Republic of Gamers in the middle and hinges with rubber inserts:

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Interestingly, when you open the laptop it seems thatair blow holes are directed to the screen. In fact, as it turned out, this is not so, the air is blown out at some interesting angle and the screen does not blow hot air:

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The front end has no interestingfeatures, even a cutout for opening a laptop. Although there is no particular problem in this: the slightly wedge-shaped shape of the edge of the top cover copes well with this function.

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The top and sides of the frame are very thin, the bottom“Chin” is significantly wider. Only microphones are located above the screen, there are no webcams in the laptop. We have already seen a similar solution in ASUS gaming models. The company argues this move by the fact that a high-quality camera cannot be built in with such a limited space, and streamers mainly use external solutions. Apparently, in some configurations, an external camera will be included:

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The only plastic part of the laptop isbottom cover. It has four large rubber feet for stability, a large number of cooling holes and two speakers (two more tweeters are located on the work surface).

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In appearance, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is verygood. It looks more interesting than usual ultrabooks or office models. But not as aggressive as typical game models. Everything is cool in materials and assembly. The laptop feels expensive, the covers do not bend and nothing staggers. The design feels solid. Given the stuffing of the laptop, the dimensions and weight of 324x222x17.9 mm and 1.6 kg, respectively - this is very cool. This is close to ultraportable models. Carrying an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 with you daily to work is no problem at all.

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How convenient is it to use the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14?

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The hinges used in the laptop allow you to openthe laptop with one hand, while the screen is fixed quite firmly. Exactly as much as necessary so that the display unit does not stagger. The maximum opening angle is 140-145 °, which is quite enough, given the specifics of the model. At the same time, thanks to the ErgoLift design, which migrated from ultraportable models, the working surface also turns out to be a bit at an angle, and the holes on the bottom cover have sufficient access for air intake by the laptop cooling system.

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Keyboard ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 has its advantagesand controversial decisions. The layout is very close to larger models, for example, ASUS ROG Zephyrus S. Both Shift are long, Enter is one-story, the space is increased in height, the arrow block is separated and slightly extended to the user, the arrows themselves are small. Above the top row of function buttons are 4 additional ones: volume control, mute the microphone and launch the proprietary ROG Armory Crate application. The power button is located above the keyboard and now it has a built-in fingerprint scanner. By the way, it works quickly and accurately, there were no complaints. The main difference from the aforementioned Zephyrus S is the lack of an extreme right column in which the Home, End, PgUp, PgDown buttons were placed. In ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 they are not, in general, even through a combination with Fn. When working with text, this causes obvious difficulties.

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On the other hand, if only to play, thenno questions will arise. The keyboard has some useful features. Firstly, any number of simultaneous clicks is correctly processed. And secondly, the progress before operation is less than that of conventional laptop keyboards, as a result of which activation is faster. The keys are very pleasant to use. According to personal feelings, they have a little more full speed than in standard laptop keyboards. The buttons are pressed gently, but informatively. The keyboard backlight is white with three brightness levels. It is not the most uniform, but in the dark it completely performs its function.

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Touchpad in ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is not the biggestsizes, but it compensates for this with good sensitivity and excellent comfortable coating. For working with documents, a browser and other everyday tasks, it is absolutely enough. Of course, multitouch and gestures are supported.

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How good is the screen?

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 uses IPS screens with14-inch matte finish and Pantone certification. There are three options: 1920 × 1080 at 60 Hz, 1920 × 1080 at 120 Hz (the best option for gaming) and 2560 × 1440 60 Hz. The last option got to our test. The screen gives an excellent picture, with rich color reproduction, maximum viewing angles and a very good margin of brightness.

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ROG Game Visual app lets you choose onefrom existing presets of the picture and manually adjust the color temperature. There is also a built-in ability to calibrate the display (with a calibrator):

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In Default mode, the maximum brightness is295.289 cd / m2, the brightness of the black field is 0.343 cd / m2 and the contrast is 861: 1, which approximately corresponds to the declared indicators. The color rendering of the screen is very good, deviations from the reference values are minimal, and the color gamut almost coincides with sRGB:

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What about performance and autonomy?

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Filling is one of the most interesting features.ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14. The laptop is equipped with the latest fresh AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS processor. This is a mobile processor of the line codenamed AMD Renoir, it is equipped with eight cores based on the Zen 2 architecture, which is made using the 7-nm process technology. The processor supports SMT technology (16 threads of calculation). The basic clock frequency is 3.0 GHz, and the maximum is 4.3 GHz. Layer 3 cache - 8 MB, TDP - 35 W. There is also a version of AMD Ryzen 9 4900H with slightly higher frequencies, but also higher than TDP (the official site indicates 35-54 watts). Integrated Graphics - AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 with 512 stream processors and a frequency of up to 1750 MHz. It is used when the laptop is running on battery power. In our configuration, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 in Max-Q design with 6 GB of GDDDR6 memory is installed as discrete graphics in our configuration. The base frequency of the chip is 975 MHz and boost to 1185 MHz, overclocking up to 1285 MHz, 65 W is supported. Judging by the offers in stores, at the moment the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is the only 14-inch laptop with such a powerful graphics card. There are simpler configurations: the younger configuration uses the GTX 1650. The RAM in the laptop is 16 GB DDR4 3200, it works in dual channel mode. From a structural point of view, 8 GB is soldered to the board, and another 8 are installed in the only available slot. Thus, the maximum in a particular laptop configuration is 24 GB. But in nature, there are options that support up to 32 GB (on the board, respectively, 16 GB). The laptop is equipped with Wi-Fi 802.11ax and Bluetooth 5.0 modules.

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The laptop demonstrates high performance,in both processor and graphics tests. At the level of larger gaming laptops. And from the point of view of multi-threaded performance, AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS outperforms a number of top Intel solutions. So the laptop is suitable for both games and heavy applications, including video and photo processing:

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The main fear was caused by the behavior ofpowerful “iron” in such a compact case. Plus, it is worth considering that the maximum temperature of the AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS processor is indicated 105 °. The cooling system includes five heat pipes and two fans with n-Blade design. The stress test AIDA64 showed that at the beginning the processor heats up to about 100 °, then the CO keeps its temperature at 90 °. At the same time, the processor absolutely did not throttle throughout the test:

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Noise at maximum speeds is noticeable. But if you compare with a bunch of game models that we have visited, including more, the noise of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 SB remains at a quite adequate level and is not too annoying. The case during long gaming sessions is significantly heated, mainly in the upper part of the working surface. But the keyboard does not turn into a finger grill and there is no discomfort.

As a drive, SSD format M is used.2. In our case, this is Intel SSD 660p SSDPEKNW010T8 PCIe 3.0 x4, 1 TB NVMe, which uses memory like QLC. There is no way to install any additional drive, so the only way is to change the complete one to a larger one:

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The drive is fast. When reading, the speed reaches 1500 MB / s, and when writing - 1750 MB / s:

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The laptop copes with games without any problems. All tested games worked in native resolution 2560x1440, the settings are high or ultra. Of course, with ray tracing, where it is supported. In Control, the frame rate value ranges from 56-64 FPS. Gears 5 - 65-75 FPS, Gears Tactics - stably slightly above 80 FPS. RDR2 - from 50 to 60 FPS. The biggest variation in Metro: Exodus: the frame rate can jump from 65 to 95 FPS:

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Gaming laptops can't boast long lastingbattery life. But ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 in this regard was very pleasantly surprised. It seems that the new Ryzen turned out to be very energy efficient. The laptop uses a 76 Wh battery. In the PC Mark synthetic test, the laptop withstood just under 10 hours. In the real world of my standard office workload (Wi-Fi, low brightness, a browser with a bunch of tabs, documents, a bit of basic “photoshop” and music in the headphones), the laptop lasted a little less than 7 hours. What is generally unattainable in the usual game models, and not all ultracompacts can withstand so much. From a complete 180 W power supply, the laptop charges a little more than 2 hours. Thanks to the support of Power Delivery 3.0 at 65 W, you can keep a compact PSU in the office, and leave a large one at home.

For sound in a laptop, a system of 4speakers: 2 to 2.5 watts are directed down and another 2 tweeters of 0.7 watts are located on each side of the keyboard. The sound of the laptop produces a very loud and high-quality. There is even a small amount of bass that is not so common on laptops.

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To adjust the sound there is a Dolby Access application with an equalizer and other amenities.

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In addition to ROG Game Visual, a laptop is installedArmory Crate proprietary application for all basic laptop settings. Including operating modes (including those with manual settings), backlight, updates, and so on:

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GameFirst VI - a utility for monitoring network connectivity and setting boot priorities:

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There is also a standard MyASUS application for all ASUS laptops, which allows you to make some settings and download driver updates.

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In the dry residue

A clear line between gaming and portablenotebooks are gradually erasing and the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is a great example. A couple of years ago it was hard to imagine such a productive “iron” in a compact case weighing only 1.6 kg. The result is a completely versatile laptop that can be hired daily without problems, while the power is enough not only for office applications, but also for various more demanding tasks. And in your free time on the same laptop you can play any modern demanding game without any problems. At the same time, ROG Zephyrus G14 boasts a very good battery life, a very decent sound and an unusual stylish design. Unfortunately, compromises were not without compromises, although they cannot be called critical. Such a compact case involves an extremely dense layout and the possibility of an upgrade in this case is very limited. Given the stuffing of the laptop, a card reader (and at the same time Thunderbolt 3 and RJ-45) would not be out of place. Well, the lack of a webcam for someone can be quite critical. At the moment, only one configuration went on sale with AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti, 8 GB of RAM and a 60 Hz FullHD screen. She is standing 40 000 UAH. In July, as many as 12 different options will be available with a price of UAH 31,000.

6 reasons to buy an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14:

High performance;
high-quality IPS screen;
compact size and light weight;
stylish design, excellent materials and build quality;
efficient cooling system
long battery life (considering the class of the laptop) and support for charging via USB Type-C.

3 reasons not to buy the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14:

no card reader, Ethernet and Thunderbolt 3;
limited upgrade capabilities;
You are sure that you need a built-in webcam.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA401II-BM179T

Compact and lightweight gaming laptop with a 14-inchIPS-display, 7-nm mobile processors of the AMD Renoir line, up to 32 GB of RAM, nVidia GeForce discrete graphics cards, up to RTX 2060 Max-Q and fast SSD-drives

Citrus

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Technical specifications ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14

Display
14 inches, 2560x1440, IPS, 60 Hz, matte anti-glare

Dimensions
324x222x17.9 mm

Weight
1.6 kg

operating system
Windows 10 Pro 64bit

CPU
AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS (3.0-4.3 GHz), 8 cores, 16 threads, (Zen 2 Renoir, 7 nm)

Ram
16 GB DDR4-3200

Graphics
nVidia GeForce RTX2060 Max-Q, 6 GB GDDR6, AMD Radeon RX Vega 8

Storage device
SSD 1 TB (M.2)

Communications
Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac / ax, Bluetooth 5.0

Connectors
1xUSB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C (DisplayPort 1.4, USB Power Delivery 3.0), 1x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, 2x USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A, HDMI 2.0b, Kensington Lock, 2x3.5 mm audio

Optical drive
Not

Battery
76 Wh

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