ASUS delivered the primary ROG Zephyrus G14 nearly years in the past as an bold gaming pocket book with a compact 14-inch shape thing. The computer provided a completely unique layout and warranted first rate overall performance way to AMD’s Ryzen 4000-collection CPUs paired with Nvidia pictures. Fast ahead to 2022, and the agency has apparently made the pocket book even higher. In fact, the ultra-modern Zephyrus G14 is so proper that it may take the crown for the exceptional gaming computer to shop for in 2022 and having spent a while with the device, I am tempted to select out one up for myself too.
But there are some matters that want to be addressed, specially with regards to the pricing. Read directly to recognize if the ROG Zephyrus G14 have to be your subsequent gaming computer.
Design and construct
ASUS hasn’t toyed with the shape thing of the brand new G14, however there are numerous vital layout updates which cope with the troubles and worries that reviewers and clients had with the preceding-gen fashions. For starters, the computer ships with a extra constant coloration scheme and whilst the preceding version had a tinge of silver across the keyboard deck, the more recent G14 is available in an all-white colourway.
Other adjustments consist of a integrated 720p webcam with assist for Windows Hello face recognition, RGB backlighting for the keyboard, repositioned pinnacle firing stereo audio system, a miles large trackpad and a taller sixteen:10 ratio show. The computer’s lid gives extra perforations too, so you’ll have extra customisable LEDs in case you choose the AniMe Matrix variant. My overview unit did now no longer consist of the AniMe matrix LEDs however regardless of that, the precision-reduce holes appearance truly neat and it facilitates the computer’s layout stand out that a good deal extra.
The tool weighs approximately 1.65kgs (is going as much as 1.72kgs relying at the variant) and gives a graceful girth that measures simply below 20mm. All stated and executed, the G14 looks like a completely subtle product and the unit is without difficulty a few of the exceptional-searching gaming laptops at the market. The computer gives a robust construct too, and the lid’s hinge mechanism gives good enough friction as well. There is a touch little bit of flex at the keyboard in addition to the lid, however neither of these turned into of a large subject. The agency’s ergo-elevate hinge layout maintains to make its manner to this computer wherein the lowest chassis is raised for progressed airflow and a higher typing perspective for the keyboard. Notably, the lid can pan as much as 180-degrees, thereby giving customers extra flexibility to modify the viewing perspective to their liking.
As for the I/O, the place of the ports and air vents stays the equal. You get the barrel-fashion charging port at the left along an HDMI 2.0b port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port (DisplayPort and electricity shipping assist), and a headphone/mic mixture jack. On the alternative facet, the computer ships with USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, any other USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port with DisplayPort and a microSD card slot. Apart from the 2 pinnacle-firing stereo audio system, there also are backside-firing ones, which give a tremendously proper audio revel in. More on that later.
The backside cowl may be taken off via way of means of doing away with ten screws to expose the interior. Just like remaining year’s version, you could replace/improve the M.2 SSD, Wi-Fi module, and one-1/2 of of the dual-channel reminiscence. To wit, in case you choose the 16GB RAM variant, 8GB could be soldered onto the board, whilst the alternative 1/2 of is a removable (SODIMM) module.
Display
The Zephyrus G14’s show is, in a word, first rate and the panel is a worth improve over the preceding generations. The display measures at 14-inches and gives a 2560×1600-pixel decision and a sixteen:10 thing ratio. As such, the panel is lots sharp and gives you extra place to mess around with. If anything, I desire the agency wouldn’t have opted for plastic bezels across the show, as they cast off from the unit’s in any other case top rate construct. On the upside, the bezels are pretty thin, that is top notch.
The panel itself is tremendously proper too, and the unit gives a 120Hz refresh rate, 100% insurance of DCI-P3 gamut, 98% insurance of AdobeRGB coloration space, and 500 nits of brightness. Rest assured, the display is pretty balanced for gaming and content material advent way to its coloration accuracy. At the equal time, it’s miles ideal for ingesting content material like films or TV shows. The viewing angles are superb with rarely any coloration shift, and for the reason that show has a matte finish, I turned into very thrilled with the way it controlled to keep away from reflections too. Suffice it to say, ASUS has hit the ball out of the ballpark with the G14’s show and the computer gives the exceptional display I’ve examined on any gaming pocket book in 2022.
Keyboard and trackpad
The keyboard at the G14 gives right spacing among the keys and proper key journey and feedback. It rarely takes an afternoon or to get gifted with typing at the unit. ASUS maintains to provide 4 media keys which might be mapped for quantity up, quantity down, microphone mute/unmute and the Armoury Crate software program via way of means of default however may be remapped. The keyboard additionally comes with single-quarter RGB backlighting that is vibrant sufficient to spotlight the important thing legends and is derived in accessible whilst the use of the computer all through nighttime. The keyboard nonetheless lacks a Print-display key, and there’s no Fn (Function) lock alternative either, however the ones are minor nitpicks.
The trackpad has been upgraded too, which is going on to reveal that the Zephyrus variety isn’t simply made for gaming however also can be used for different disturbing duties. To wit, the unit gives a ginormous floor place and feels velvety clean and beautifully responsive, way to its top rate glass finish. I may want to without difficulty flow thru net pages and make specific choices whilst modifying snap shots in Photoshop. The big length did boost a subject approximately palm rejection, specially whilst gaming, however I in no way confronted any unintended mouse clicks or movements.
Hardware, software program and overall performance
Apart from the layout, the most important alternate is the up to date hardware. The new G14 is powered via way of means of the Zen 3+ microarchitecture-primarily based totally AMD Ryzen 6000-collection CPUs, especially the Ryzen nine 6900HS that is an octa-center processor with sixteen threads. With a base frequency of 3.3Ghz, it is able to rapid enhance to four.9GHz and helps capabilities like USB four (forty Gbps), PCI-e Gen four, DDR5 reminiscence, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, and extra. It additionally capabilities an included GPU dubbed the Radeon 680M, that is primarily based totally at the RDNA2 structure providing 12 CUs (compute gadgets) clocked at 2.4GHz.
Instead of Nvidia, ASUS has paired the Ryzen CPU with AMD’s very own discrete GPU options- the Radeon RX 6800S and the RX 6700S. On paper, the RX 6800S is a extra suitable candidate for this device because the tool ships with a 1440p decision show. However, the RX 6700S isn’t a awful GPU via way of means of any stretch of the imagination. As for the relaxation of the center specs, the computer comes prepared with as much as 32GB DDR5-4800 (upgradable to 40GB) reminiscence and a 1TB PCIe four.zero NVMe M.2 SSD. The unit that I turned into despatched via way of means of AMD India is denoted via way of means of GA402RJ which capabilities the Ryzen nine 6900HS CPU, Radeon RX 6700S GPU, 16GB of DDR5 reminiscence and a 1TB M.2 SSD.
Unsurprisingly, ASUS’ sound hardware alternatives pave the manner for incredible overall performance. The Ryzen nine 6900HS is a completely succesful processor this is additionally pretty optimised with a TDP of 35W. The Radeon RX 6700S in this computer can accelerate to 100W and is derived with 8GB of GDDR6 reminiscence, 28 compute gadgets and a clock pace of 1890MHz. As a day by day driver, the computer had extra than sufficient electricity for my daily workloads. The computer can without difficulty tackle innovative duties like image and video modifying like a champ.
Moving directly to the gaming overall performance, the unit isn’t the maximum effective gaming computer out there, however thinking about the category, the brand new Zephyrus G14 is as proper because it gets. The simplest different 14-inch gaming pocket book to be had in India is the Alienware x14, which isn’t simplest extra expensive, however it isn’t as effortlessly to be had from e-Commerce portals / offline stores either.
Regardless, titles like Rise of the Tomb Raider and Horizon Zero Dawn averaged at 75ps and 58fps respectively, at the best settings at 1600p decision. Moving the decision right all the way down to 1200p provided a leap in body prices of approximately 20-25%. Considering the small 14-inch length, I simply didn’t thoughts gambling on the decrease decision. Essentially the overall performance of the RX 6700S is extra or much less similar to the Nvidia RTX 3060 cellular except for ray tracing chops. AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution isn’t supported via way of means of all video games as of yet, and the shortage of DLSS way that won’t be capable of absolutely recognize the ray tracing overall performance.
| GAMES | MEDIUM | HIGH | VERY HIGH/
ULTIMATE |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 76fps | 62fps | 58fps |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider | 95.22fps | 87.66fps | 75.93fps |
| Apex Legends | 90fps | 72fps | 65fps |
| Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition | 35.6fps | 27.09fps | 16.96fps |
The above results have been tested at 2560x1600p resolution with the performance mode set to Turbo and MUX switch set to discrete GPU.
Like maximum gaming laptops from ASUS, the G14 comes with the agency’s Armoury Crate software program for first-class tuning the computer in line with your desires. You can transfer among overall performance modes, manipulate the lighting fixtures effects, and bunch of extra settings to tinker round with. It additionally helps you to allow or disable the MUX transfer which, for the uninitiated, disables the included GPU to get the exceptional overall performance out of the discrete GPU.
I don’t truly cope with resource-hungry software program, so I ran some benchmark to stress-take a look at the hardware. You can get various on the benchmark figures under which had been finished via way of means of allowing the Turbo overall performance mode from in the Armoury Crate app.
| BENCHMARK | MS HYBRID MODE | DISCRETE GPU MODE |
| 3DMark Firestrike | 17720 | 18672 |
| 3DMark Timespy | 7580 | 7784 |
| PCMark 10 | 7407 | 7661 |
| Cinebench R23 (single core/multi core) | 1537/11835 | 1411/111932 |
| Unigine Heaven | 49.5fps/1246 | 51.4fps/1296 |
As for thermal overall performance, the keyboard deck feels pretty proper even if the device is being stressed. However the exhaust vents spew out warm air from the edges and below the show, that is some thing that desires interest because it finally ends up warming up the whole thing across the computer, specially the facet vents. Despite the device achieving excessive temperatures of as excessive as 98-degrees, I didn’t word any thermal throttling. This proves that ASUS has executed an excellent task with the inner cooling device that consists of a vapour chamber and a gaggle of copper warmness pipes. It turned into additionally eye-catching to look that the idle temperatures at the CPU and GPU remained round 42-45-degrees.
The computer helps PCIe Gen four SSDs, and whilst it’s miles indexed to include one, the height study and write speeds had been at the decrease facet. From what I may want to gather, the 1TB SSD at the Zephyrus G14 is rated at 3,500Mbps sequential study speeds and 3,000Mbps sequential write speeds. While those are surprising numbers via way of means of themselves, it is right to recognize that you could improve to a better overall performance SSD going as a good deal as 7,000Mbps study and 5,000Mbps write speeds.
I additionally desired to comment on how proper the audio system sound. The pocket book comes with pinnacle firing and backside firing audio system that integrate to supply clean audio with a pleasing little thump of bass. While I didn’t have a MacBook to hand to compare, I did discover it near the quad-audio system on my iPad Pro M1.
Battery
AMD chips have turn out to be really green with regards to battery existence and this is the case with the Zephyrus G14. The 76Whr battery is a healthful length for a 14-inch computer and you could count on approximately 8 to 10 hours of battery existence in case you take place to be the use of it for mild duties.
In my testing, I controlled to squeeze approximately seven and a 1/2 of hours wherein I used the computer for my ordinary paintings that protected juggling among a couple of Chrome tabs, looking a few movies on YouTube and modifying some photographs on Photoshop. You can pull down the brightness and overall performance mode to Silent from the ASUS Armoury Crate software program to get even extra juice, making it one of the maximum battery green gaming computer in its category.
If you ever plan to recreation with out plugging the charger, count on the battery to remaining approximately one to 2 hours max. Speaking of which, the charging brick is rated at 240W and whilst it isn’t the maximum compact one round, the computer additionally helps USB PD charging just like the preceding-gen fashions. This way that you could rate the battery the use of a 3rd celebration well matched USB-C primarily based totally charger. Of course, that could imply sluggish charging and restrained overall performance.
Verdict
The 2022 ROG Zephyrus G14 has all of the bells and whistles for a compact gaming pocket book. I definitely love the layout updates which now make the computer extra aligned to the aesthetics of its large sibling, the Zephyrus G15. It now no longer simplest seems proper, however is well-constructed too and have to remaining you for a protracted time. It is likewise really well worth appreciating how ASUS has made an attempt to enhance and connect the shortcomings of the preceding era fashions like including a webcam, updating the audio system, enlarging the touchpad or even including a microSD card reader.
The transfer from Nvidia to AMD pictures turned into now no longer truly necessary, however average overall performance is truly proper. You do lose out a piece on ray tracing overall performance, as Nvidia nonetheless has an edge, however I agree with AMD can enhance that with destiny software program updates.
It has a first-rate show this is fast, vibrant and renders punchy searching colorings for a top notch revel in whether or not it’s miles gaming or looking first rate content material. At the equal time, the battery existence is simply pretty proper for an ordinary computer.
ASUS is promoting the brand new Zephyrus G14 at a beginning charge of Rs 1,46,990, and for the charge, the computer comes prepared with the Ryzen 7 6800HS and the Radeon RX 6700S. Unsurprisingly, the computer is a expensive affair and you’ll ought to shell out even extra greenbacks in case you need to choose the Radeon RX 6800S variant. That stated, I could endorse in opposition to similar to the upgraded GPU will simplest provide a 5-10% enhance in gaming overall performance, even as mentioning the charge via way of means of pretty a few margin. Regardless, the Zephyrus G14 makes for a bargain and is a stable alternative for game enthusiasts searching out a compact, effective and handsome device.
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