Call it love at first sight. Every year I come across a handful of products that spark instant joy, a feeling of elation so strong that I forget the many ways the tech industry is actively making our world worse. As we finish CES 2024 in Las Vegas, I can't stop thinking about the new ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14the latest edition of one of our favorite gaming laptops.
As we covered in our first practice, the Zephyrus G14 features the tech specs you'd expect: new Ryzen 8000 processors and the return of NVIDIA's RTX 4070. But in reality, it was the all-aluminum body and minimalist aesthetic that I fell in love with. When I first touched it, it felt like I was holding high-quality scientific equipment. The case is almost too nice for a gaming laptop.
Add to that the cleanest layout ever seen on an ASUS machine and you have an evolutionary design leap for the company. (It's especially jarring to see it next to the new ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED, which looks practically ancient in comparison.) We've been calling Razer Blade laptops the gaming equivalent of Apple's MacBook Pro for years — but now the The torch may have been passed to ASUS. The Zephyrus G14 more closely resembles the boxier, refreshed aesthetic of Apple's Pro machines. (If you're looking for an even bigger screen, there's also a new G16 with the same design and it can pack more powerful hardware, like NVIDIA's RTX 4090.)
The G14 is more than just a showpiece of design, it's also a much better gaming laptop than before. Its new keyboard, with 12% larger keys, provides hours of battery life. Halo Infinite matches are much more comfortable because there is more room for my fingers to spread. Almost everything shines on its new 3K 120Hz OLED display, which brings out colors perfectly. And I was even able to hear a decent amount of positional audio coming from its revamped speakers (20% larger than before) when I was too lazy to pick up a pair of headphones.
While I can't disclose any benchmarks of our RTX 4070-equipped preview unit, I can say that Halo Infinite, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and the new ultra-stylish Metroidvania Cookie cutter Everything played like a dream at the G14's native resolution with maximum graphics quality. Cookie cutter, with its fluid and expressive art style, was practically designed to be displayed on OLED screens. And in Cyberpunkthe G14's HDR capability made Night City's neon lights almost impossibly bright.
The Zephyrus G14 also excelled at game streaming, something I like to test to highlight a laptop's networking capabilities. I was able to jump in Forza Horizon 5 in about 30 seconds while sitting 20 feet and one floor away from my router. And once I hit the road, I was able to zoom in on a few runs without any noticeable video artifacts, tearing, or slowdown. Anyone passing by might think I was playing the game locally.
Beyond gaming, the G14 has continued to surprise and delight me. Its larger keyboard is ideal for typing, with more depth and responsiveness than before. Its touchpad is one of the smoothest I've used on a Windows laptop. And I can't help but love that it has all the ports I want: HDMI, mini-SD, and USB-C and Type A on both sides of the case. I was less enamored with ASUS' new power connector: it's a bit stiff and a slight tap could easily send the G14 flying. It would have been nice to see a purely USB-C charging solution, but the company told our senior reporter Sam Rutherford that the cost and effectiveness of using that port for high-power charging still aren't enough for large-scale deployment.
I look forward to spending more time with the ROG Zephyrus G14 during our test. But until then, we will still have CES 2024.
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Follow all the news from the show here.
This article was originally published on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-preview-180025962.html?src=rss
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