ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) review: The best 14-inch gaming laptop, more refined than ever

This review was made possible with a review unit provided by ASUS.

The company did not see the contents of the review before publishing.

Right now, the newest Zephyrus G14 starts at$1,599.99 at Best Buy.

At first glance, you wouldn’t even be able to tell this is a gaming laptop.

There’s a good chance that a more affordable RTX 4050 configuration will appear at some point, however.

This is a balanced, high-quality 14-inch gaming laptop.

One year later, though, the differences are astounding.

It’s a beautiful unit, and the build quality is the best I’ve seen from ASUS ROG.

Looks and build quality is here, but so is intelligent design.

From the keyboard deck to the port layout, nothing is out of place.

I love the tasteful design of this lid, and even the gimmicky slash lighting.

Speaking of that hinge, it’s actually the one place the Zephyrus G14 stumbles.

I also observed some subtle creaking from the hinge, too.

Matters return to greatness with the ports, however, which are numerous and smartly placed.

The right side gives you your basics, with two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports and a microSD slot.(Image credit: Windows Central | Zachary Boddy)

You get a total of four USB ports, including aUSB pop in-C 4.0port!

ASUS tends to go above and beyond with its OLED displays, however, and this is no different.

Elsewhere, it’s bright (over 400 nits with standard dynamic range content) and expectantly vivid.

The left is more stacked, with the proprietary charging port, HDMI, USB4, 3.5mm audio, and another USB Type-A port all here.(Image credit: Windows Central | Zachary Boddy)

It’s a great-looking display, and it’s a joy to use, from media consumption to gaming.

you might see from the information above that this is an impressive display on paper.

No, not 5%, 2%, or even 1% only the absolute minimum display brightness.

We’ve seen this gorgeous OLED display before, but this one has NVIDIA G-Sync support.

At all other brightness levels, this display looks even and accurate.

Thermally, this laptop is consistent and quiet, with subtle and low fans.

you might see some of the games I played below and the prefs I was using.

Once again, this OLED panel delivers when it comes to color accuracy.

With heavy usage (like gaming), I could easily cut that down to 2-3 hours.

Running aWindows battery reportshowed lifetimes of between 3-8 hours of usage (averaging out to ~4 hours).

Performance while on battery power was always exemplary for me.

Turn the laptop over and you’ll be treated to very large vents for thermal management.

It’s great for gaming and typing, and I also like the layout a lot.

Sadly, there’s absolutely no way to lock the Fn key.

That’s a super basic feature, and it’s baffling that it’s missing here.

This SSD isn’t among the fastest in the world, but it’s still more than quick enough.(Image credit: Windows Central)

The buttons feel great, too; it’s overall a high-quality touchpad with no weaknesses.

Let’s start with software!

They’re also solid.

In Cinebench, the Zephyrus G14 comfortably outperformed two generations of the Razer Blade 14 (even with the same CPU).(Image credit: Windows Central)

Honestly, you’re able to go ahead and assume anything I haven’t mentioned is atleastabove average.

No, I don’t mean “good for a Windows laptop,” these speakers are justawesome.

The Zephyrus G14 is more up-to-date, however, and is overall a more refined and premium laptop.

Windows Central has very limited benchmark scores for the 2023 Zephyrus G14, but it did slightly beat the 2024 model in Cinebench 2024 (and both laptops beat several Intel Core Ultra 7 and Core i9 devices).(Image credit: Windows Central)

That laptop is still a fantastic machine.

In CrossMark, the Zephyrus G14 (2024) tested identically to the impressively fast HP Spectre x360 14 and its Core Ultra 7 155H.(Image credit: Windows Central)

In Geekbench 6, the Zephyrus G14 came out on top versus Intel Core Ultra machines like the Dell XPS 14 and Alienware m16 R2, and came impressively close to the Intel 13th Gen Dell XPS 15 and 17.(Image credit: Windows Central)

Once again, the Zephyrus G14 beat two generations of Razer Blade 14, and was within a stone’s throw of the powerful Razer Blade 16.(Image credit: Windows Central)

The Zephyrus G14 with its RTX 4060 tested between the Razer Blade 14’s and the Dell XPS 17’s RTX 4070s.(Image credit: Windows Central)

When encoding a ~12 minute 4K video, only one laptop was faster than the Zephyrus G14 in our testing.(Image credit: Windows Central)

It may not look like your average gaming laptop, but it certainly performs like one.

I didn’t have to sacrifice anything to get decent battery life, but you can definitely turn down settings for better endurance.

This is an excellent keyboard and touchpad, but there are ways it can improve in the next version.

The LED slash lighting on the rear isn’t particularly useful (even if ASUS tries to make it so), but I like it anyways.

This is by far my favorite 14-inch gaming laptop, and one of my favorite 14-inch Windows laptops, period.

I adore this subtle Zephyrus logo on the hinge, which itself is beautifully designed. I just wish it was a little stiffer.