The days when gaming laptops meant big bulky design is gone because Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 breaks all those barriers.
Asus has really looked into the matter of compact gaming with this new machine. With the increment in more and more game streamers, Asus has manufactured a device which lets you play hardcore games smoothly and at the same time also possess the versatility to edit those videos.
Fast processor, great portability and budget friendly price are some of the features which make the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 the favorite laptop of everyone.
These key features also make it perfect for the Nepali gamers as they don’t need to squander a lot of money for buying a powerful gaming machine.
Design and Display
When you’re emptying your wallet then in addition to performance the design also matters. Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is one of the slimmest, distinctive and stylish devices in the market today.
The reason for this is the dot matrix (or AniMe Matrix) display on the lid which can be fully customized.
Asus also promises to update the AniMe Matrix with the notification settings so that you could check emails, messages and other stuff without opening the hood.
The ErgoLif design is also unique which raises the back end of the laptop at a certain angle for a better typing position.
To make the screen cover the whole area, Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 has sacrificed the webcam which doesn’t feel like a huge loss because most hardcore gamers don’t use the webcam.
The magnesium alloy body increases the strength of the device and maintains the weight as well.
Asus has launched this model in two different color options- Moonlight White and Eclipse Gray. I personally prefer the former because it looks bright and classy.
Usually gaming laptops come at the size of 15.6 inch like Asus TUF A15 and Alienware M15 R3 and some with even huge displays of 17.3 inch like Razer Blade Pro 17.
Even so, Asus has decided to make a much smaller screen of 14 inch for this new model. But trust me, The Asus Rog Zephyrus G14 is a beast inside a small 14 inch chassis.
The main motto behind making the screen smaller was to provide portable gaming experience.
You will get two display options and the full HD panel has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, refresh rate of up to 120Hz along with 330 nt brightness.
However, there’s also WQHD resolution(2560 x 1440 pixels) which serves only 300 nits of brightness and a refresh rate of about 60Hz.
The display and refresh rate may look low but it is delightful. When you wander around in GTA 5 or race in NFS, the display will make you feel as if you’re, inside the game, experiencing everything in the real world.
Performance and Memory
Nobody could have ever expected that someone could pack such an incredible performance in a 14-inch laptop.
The powerful AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS processor, having 8 cores and 16 threads, is what makes this laptop a gaming beast while at the same time compact and portable.
There is another variant available with Ryzen 7 4800HS processor. The multitasking 35W Ryzen 9 4900HS CPU clocks up to 4.1 GHz with a minimum clock speed of 3.0 GHz.
The main feature of this processor is that it doesn’t produce more heat which leads to higher functioning of the device.
The NVIDIA’s RTX 2060 Max-Q graphics card has a clock speed of up to 1285MHz at 65W in Turbo Mode with ROG Boost and is able to provide real-time ray tracing and AI.
When this is combined with the processor, it can handle almost any high end games like GTA 5 or NFS Heat.
Apart from that, it comes with 1TB of high-speed NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD storage and 32GB of DDR4 SDRAM.
This new upgraded RAM has faster 30% read speed, 29% write speed and 22% copy speed than its predecessor.
You may complain that there are more powerful gaming machines out there but let me tell you no other brand has ever packed such a powerful CPU, graphics card, RAM and SSD’s inside a 14-inch chassis which weighs only around 1.6kg.
Had they added more powerful CPU and GPU, it would have created more heat and dissipating heat in such a small device is quite not possible.
Audio
A pair of speakers are mounted on the top whereas the other pair on the bottom of the deck.
These speakers are really impressive and they’ve increased 2.85x volume, 1.71x bass and 2.82x dynamic range than the previous models.
Asus also gives you the option to either change in between 6 modes or customize it according to your will for better gameplay and music.
Because of their design, the speakers are able to provide depth and direction of 360 degrees along with virtual 5.1.2-channel surround sound.
Furthermore, just to know how good or bad the speaker is, I watched “Lord Of The Rings” without using headphones.
The virtual 5.1.2-channel surround sound did its job and when I heard the voice of “Gollum” it sent chills down my spine.
Keyboard and Trackpad
The robust keyboard has a unique design of its own and the spacebar key looks really cool.
While typing quickly, the keyboard will respond faster to your keystrokes which is all because of the overstroke technology.
While testing the RGB lights I found out that lighting on the moonlight design keyboard feels dim but it works really well in the eclipse gray chassis as lighting is more visible in dark colors.
The keys are spaced well which decreases the chances of pressing a wrong key while fast typing. Also, you can find volume control buttons along with a key which directly opens ROG software when pressed.
If typing passwords to login to the PC is more problematic for you than I must tell you that this machine is embedded with a fingerprint sensor in the power button.
Speaking of fingerprints, Asus also claims that magnesium-aluminium alloy decks are resistant to your fingerprints which makes them look fresh everyday.
The trackpad also responds faster and feels smooth to touch. It has a good size and the keys are not loud enough to annoy someone. Except that, here’s nothing much to talk about it.
Battery
The most important thing in a portable gaming laptop, after the weight, is the battery. The users cannot take full benefit of the mobility of the device until it has a powerful battery which can survive for hours without needing to be charged.
In case of Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, the battery can withstand for 10.7 hours in video playback and up to 9.5 hours while browsing due to energy-efficient AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS.
This was also possible because we ran it on silent mode and turned off the wifi and GPU.
When we played games in performance mode, the battery lasted for slightly more than 3 hours which means you can play games while on a small flight or a train journey.
Furthermore, when travelling you may not find power sockets so in that case you can charge it from power packs through Type-C port(65W).
Asus has also included a 180W power adapter that can charge this machine in about one and half hours.
Connectivity
There are plenty of connectivity options for this device and you get 2x USB-A 3.2 port, 1x USB-C 3.2 port, 1x USB-C 3.2 with DisplayPort 1.4 and Power Delivery, a 3.5mm headphone jack, an HDMI 2.0b port, the power port and a Kensington lock.
As far as wireless connectivity goes, you get Wifi 6(Gig+) and Bluetooth 5. The Intel’s wifi 6 can increase the network speed so that you can enjoy your favorite game or do your job without the network lagging even in a public wifi.
Self cleaning cooling system
The dust may hamper the performance of the computer by building up inside the chassis.
To get rid of this the self cleaning cooling system was introduced. In this technology, the debris is directed out of the device through anti-dust channels.
For cooling the machine, it uses four heat sinks, that have 209 fins for dissipating heat properly in every direction, along with two fans.
There are also five heat pipes that sucks heat away from the CPU and GPU along with their circuitry.
The pipes can cool the VRAM, CPU and GPU during any type of workload- light or heavy.
The two fans have 81 n-blades each which maximizes the airflow by up to 17% and these blades have irregular length in between 50mm-51.2mm in order to reduce noise to 45dB.
The scenario profile itself switches in between different modes to increase performance and cool the system efficiently.
Having said that, scenario profiles can be customized to perform according to your preference, or you can use a keyboard shortcut to switch in between modes manually.
There are three modes- Turbo, Performance and Silent. In turbo mode, the fans run faster and with that the noise level also increases.
The performance mode is for gaming and it manages fan speed and clocks for lower noise levels.
Silent mode is the quietest one which is switched when browsing or entertainment.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 price in Nepal and Availability
We suspect Asus Rog Zephyrus G14 price in Nepal to be almost Rs. 240,000 (Literal translation from dollars to rupees).
This price is for the model with Ryzen 9 4900HS and GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q processor and graphics card with QHD 60Hz AniMe Matrix Display.
Unfortunately, models with higher specs are yet to get a release date as it takes some time for these types of brands to hit the Nepalese market.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Variants and Prices
| Variants | Price |
| Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with FHD 60Hz, Ryzen 7 4800HS, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, GeForce GTX 1650 | Nepalese Rs. 125,000 (USD 1,050) |
| Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with FHD 120Hz, Ryzen 7 4800HS, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q | Nepalese Rs. 155,000 (USD 1,300) |
| Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with FHD 120Hz, Ryzen 9 4900HS, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q | Nepalese RS. 170,000 (USD 1,450) |
| Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 with QHD 60Hz AniMe Matrix Display, Ryzen 9 4900HS, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q | Nepalese Rs. 240,000 (USD 2,000) |
Pros:
- Excellent CPU and GPU performance
- Power button has fingerprint sensor
- Compact and easily Portable
Cons:
- No webcam
- Fans are quite loud in Turbo mode
- Lacks Thunderbolt 3 connection
