When we review a gaming laptop, we really put it through its paces—and only the strong survive. Our Jacob knows his gaming laptops better than just about anyone, and he gave this particular Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 a score of 90 in his review.
I can’t think of a better recommendation than that.
This little lappy sits as the best 14-inch gaming laptop in our best gaming laptop guide, and you can pick one up right now for $1,700 at Best Buy. That might seem like a lot for a small machine, but what you’re getting here is a set of components that are set to stun, wrapped up in a chassis that feels miles ahead of the competition.
Let’s talk about the shining star of this machine: its 14-inch OLED 120 Hz display. It’s got fantastic color and contrast, and the fact it’s a slightly larger 16:10 aspect ratio means—even at such a compact size—you don’t feel too constrained for screen real estate. It’s a real looker in person, and games bring out its best qualities, although it’d be great for a movie on a flight, too.
Speaking of games, you’ve got the hardware here to deliver excellent performance. While the RTX 4070 here has a 90 W TGP limit as opposed to the full-fat 140 W you’ll find in some (usually larger) laptops, it’ll still outperform an RTX 4060 by a considerable margin—which means you’ll be pumping plenty of pixels to that fabulous display.
CPU-wise, the Zephyrus G14 makes use of the eight-core, 16-thread AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS. It can get a little toasty when pushed to its limits, but it’s got plenty of grunt for both gaming and a bit of productivity tasking on the go. That 32 GB of LPDDR5X-6400 RAM is a generous amount, too.
Which is just as well really, as it’s soldered to the board. No RAM upgradeability here, I’m afraid, but given the specs here you really don’t need to mess with the memory—it’s plenty fast, and there’s a good chunk of it.
Downsides? Well, only 1 TB of storage is perhaps a little meagre, although that’s pretty standard. We’d like to see more 2 TB drives included with gaming laptops, but 1 TB is fine as long as you don’t go bananas with a load of gigantic installs. Unlike the RAM, however, it’s upgradeable, so you could always find a good deal on a 2 TB SSD to give yourself some breathing room.
Finally, I have to talk about the chassis. The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 looks and feels like a truly premium object, thanks to a milled aluminium frame that wouldn’t look out of place in any professional environment. Pair that with the 14-inch form factor, and you’ve got a brilliant-looking gaming laptop that doesn’t scream gamer. It looks and feels like a serious bit of kit.
And given the hardware inside, it delivers, too. It’s simply the best 14-inch laptop we’ve reviewed to date, and at this price, a genuine bargain for what you end up receiving.
