Asus ROG Zephyrus G14: A versatile notebook for gamers and content creators

From design to components, this notebook should appeal to both PC gamers and content creators

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is a one-of-its-kind gaming notebook that serves even better as an all-round productivity laptop for content creators. It might not be the thinnest or the most lightweight laptop, but ergonomically it easily has the best build among gaming machines in this segment. From design to components, this notebook should appeal to PC gamers and content creators alike.

Speaking of design, the ROG Zephyrus G14 lacks the flashy elements you expect in a gaming notebook, but it does not fail to impress. Its overall design is appealing, thanks to a neatly built magnesium alloy chassis with matte texture that looks premium and has good touch feedback. The design is accentuated by a semi-perforated display lid on the outside with LEDs underneath. Called Anime Matrix display, these LEDs are customisable and work in tandem to create an animation effect for both text and images. Also, it supports different profiles – animation, audio and system.

On the inside, the display lid houses a 14-inch screen with minimal bezels on the top and sides but a thick one at the bottom. It is a QWHD+ (2560 x 1440) resolution IPS-level panel with an anti-glare coating. The screen’s refresh rate maxes out at 60Hz, which seems inadequate, especially from a gaming enthusiast’s perspective — there are some gaming titles on PC that support higher refresh rates. This might affect content creators, too, but not as much as gamers. On the positive side, the display supports the adaptive sync technology, which synchronises display refresh rate with the GPU’s frame rate for a smooth in-gaming experience that is free from tearing effects. For content creators, the display is Pantone-validated for colour accuracy and it is rated to have 100 per cent sRGB colour gamut.

Coming on to the performance, the ROG Zephyrus G14 delights with the untethered power that it gets from its AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS processor. The processor is supported by a discreet Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q GPU for a graphics boost. Storage is covered by a 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD, and the notebook also has 16GB DDR4 (3200MHz) SDRAM, upgradable to 24GB. 

Besides, the ROG Zephyrus G14 effortlessly handles the most graphic-intensive gaming titles like ‘Halo: The Master Chief Collection’ and ‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider’. Like most gaming laptops, thermals are one point of concern here, too, as the notebook’s magnesium alloy chassis warms up exponentially, becoming impossible for you to work with the computer in your lap. However, the rise in temperature does not throttle in-gaming performance and the laptop keeps on going, if you decide to continue with the extremely hot machine. 

A caveat: the performance slows down if you use the laptop on battery and not on AC power.

As for software related to content creation — DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, etc — the ROG Zephyrus delivers consistent performance with no stutter, lag or any other visible distraction. Surprisingly, the heating issue is not so prominent here.

Verdict

Priced Rs 98,990 onwards, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is an all-round versatile notebook that will impress both gamers and content creators. The notebook is a design marvel with untethered performance, a combination that is unique to it. It has thermal issues but that is something common across most gaming machines and, therefore, you might like to ignore it considering the sheer power the laptop packs and the performance it delivers. There is no reason to not like the ROG Zephyrus G14, except it lacks a webcam!