Name it love at first sight. Yearly, I come throughout a handful of merchandise that elicit on the spot pleasure, a way of elation that is so robust I overlook concerning the some ways the tech trade is actively making our world worse. As we wrap up CES 2024 in Las Vegas, I can not cease interested by the brand new ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, the most recent version of certainly one of our favourite gaming laptops.
As we coated in our preliminary hands-on, the Zephyrus G14 options the spec bumps you’d count on: new Ryzen 8000 CPUs and the return of NVIDIA’s RTX 4070. However actually, it is the all aluminum case and minimalist aesthetic that I’ve fallen for. After I touched it for the primary time, it felt like I used to be holding a chunk of high-grade scientific gear. The case feels virtually too good for a gaming laptop computer.
Couple that with the cleanest structure ever on an ASUS machine, and you’ve got an evolutionary design leap for the corporate. (It is significantly stunning seeing it subsequent to the brand new ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED, which seems to be virtually historic compared.) We have referred to as Razer’s Blade laptops the gaming equal of Apple’s MacBook Professional for years — however now the torch could have been handed to ASUS. The Zephyrus G14 extra intently resembles the boxier refreshed aesthetic from Apple’s Professional machines. (For those who’re on the lookout for a fair larger display screen, there’s additionally a brand new G16 with the identical design and it may maintain extra highly effective {hardware}, like NVIDIA’s RTX 4090.)
The G14 is greater than only a design showpiece, it is also a much better gaming laptop computer than earlier than. Its new keyboard, which sports activities 12 % bigger key caps, makes hours-long Halo Infinite matches really feel way more comfy since there’s extra room for my fingers to unfold out. Nearly every little thing shines on its new 3K 120Hz OLED display screen, which makes colours pop completely. And I used to be even in a position to hear a good quantity of positional audio from its revamped audio system (20 % bigger than earlier than) once I was too lazy to seize a pair of headphones.
Whereas I can not expose any benchmarks from our RTX 4070-equipped preview unit, I can say that Halo Infinite, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and the brand new uber-stylish Metroidvania Cookie Cutter all performed like a dream on the G14’s native decision with maxed out graphics high quality. Cookie Cutter, with its fluid and expressive artwork type, was virtually made to be proven off on OLED screens. And in Cyberpunk, the G14’s HDR functionality made the neon lights in Night time Metropolis virtually searingly shiny.
The Zephyrus G14 additionally excelled at sport streaming, one thing I like to check to emphasize a laptop computer’s networking capabilities. I used to be in a position to hop into Forza Horizon 5 in round 30 seconds whereas I used to be sitting 20 toes and a flooring away from my router. And as soon as I hit the highway, I used to be in a position to zoom by means of just a few races with none noticeable video artifacts, tearing or slowdown. Anybody strolling by may suppose I used to be enjoying the sport regionally.
Past gaming, the G14 simply stored shocking and delighting me. Its bigger keyboard feels nice for typing, with extra depth and responsiveness than earlier than. Its touchpad is likely one of the smoothest I’ve used on a Home windows laptop computer. And I can not assist however love that it has all of the ports I need: HDMI, mini-SD and each USB-C and Kind A on each side of the case. I used to be much less enamored with ASUS’ new energy connector — it’s kind of stiff, and a slight tug might simply ship the G14 flying. It will have been good to see a pure USB-C charging resolution, however the firm advised our senior reporter Sam Rutherford that the fee and effectivity of utilizing that port for high-powered charging nonetheless is not adequate for large deployment.
I am trying ahead to spending extra time with the ROG Zephyrus G14 throughout our evaluate. However till then, we’ll at all times have CES 2024.
We’re reporting stay from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Sustain with all the most recent information from the present right here.
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