UPDATE 2: The Laptop returned after 3 weeks. I would describe the RMA process as okayish, but ASUS really can improve on that. I’ve never received an answer about what was causing the issue, but they replaced the entire mainboard, and everything is working great again.
UPDATE: After 8 month as a daily driver and heavy use, I recently had to send it to ASUS Service for RMA. The CPU was running very hot on idle. After a rough start with really back and forth communication, the service team finally agreed to open a RMA case. 7 days after sending in the laptop, I received the information, that the whole motherboard needs to be exchange. Fingers crossed the device is returning in good condition after the repair. I initially thought it has something to do with the liquid metal application.
A few weeks ago, I released my thoughts on the 2022 ASUS ROG Flow x13. This little beast, combined with the XG mobile was driving my daily work for office, video editing and 3D modeling and rendering. From time to time some light gaming.
As I described in my article, it was checking all my boxes, when it comes to a creative companion when I’m on the go. Especially size and weight, are the most important points for me.
Now, after 12 month of ownership and daily use, I decided to jump on the hype train for the ASUS Zephyrus G14. As with the Flow X13, I decided to write my initial experience about this machine, especially with creative work in mind.
First, let me introduce the technical specifications of my purchased unit.
- ASUS Zephyrus G14 (2023 model)
- white color (I’ll talk about this topic in a bit)
- 32GB DDR5 Memory
- 1TB NVME
- Ryzen 9 7940HS
- NVIDIA RTX4090 mobile
- 14″ mini LED display (165hz G-SYNC)
- dimensions
- 240W charger
Why I’ve picked the 4090 version, especially, when every Reviewer is pointing to the performance “issue” in regards of the TGP of 125 watts. My main usage of my laptops is always work. Especially for 3D related workload, the video memory size and bandwidth is relevant. So that’s why I’ve opted for the top tier model.
I don’t want to write an article, that is only reusing already existing technical information about this laptop. My main goal is, to clarify some of the pros and cons, mentioned by reviewers, from the perspective of someone who is using this device on daily basis and who has bought the device from the own earned money.
Confusing differences in global configuration possabilties
Especially in the European region, it seems to exist a difference in possible configurations available at resellers, compared to international configurations, available in the us for example.
I was looking from the beginning for the high-end model, RTX4090 and MiniLED. Because the system is mainly used for work, I would look for the eclipse grey version. It seems like, this version is only available with the IPS AniMatrix (which is completely useless in my opinion). So I was stuck with the polar white version, which is fine, but I would prefer a more stealthy look when it comes to a more production focused system.
Cut down version of the mobile RTX 4090 / TGP
Initially I was a little bit confused about the many “negative” comments about the limited TGP of the mobile RTX 4090 in the G14. I thought, this could impact performance a lot in most scenarios, as mentioned in so many reviews. And true, if you’re only looking into synthetic benchmarks and gaming, it is true, that the 4070 mobile could be just a little bit under the 4090 or will not justifying the huge price increase. But only a few reviews are outlining an important aspect for users, that are not only looking for the latest high-end model of hardware.
Most of my applications are hungry for VRAM, like Blender for example. And with that, memory bandwidth is an important factor for a seamless work pipeline. Working with large textures, handling a very complex preview, real time rendering (CUDA cores).
And what can I say. I’m driving a desktop 4090 in my stationary PC at home and I’m very happy, being able to continue most of my current projects on the go, without being forced to shrink any function or sacrificing to much performance. I don’t think, looking at the raw numbers, that the 4070 could deliver this amount of productive performance.
But if you’re only looking for a great gaming laptop, the 4070 should be the right version for you! This is were I agree with all the other reviewers of this device.
Noise and temperature
To make it clear upfront. The Zephyrus G14 is per definition not mend to run quite and cool all the time. If you’re packing that much performance into a small chassis, it will be tight to the physical rules.
With that in mind, yes you can reduce all sort of performance within the system, to let it run nearly quite. But is this really the focus for users, that are looking for the most powerful 14 inch laptop? I don’t think so.
For me it was obvious, that this work horse will run hot and loud at times.
Just to give you a short example. If you’re setting the system to silent mode and you’re only reading through a simple website, you will not be able to hear the system at all. But if you’re starting any demanding operation or application, the fans will kick in and introduce noise. With the nature of modern cpu and gpu, boost behavior is only limited by some values like temperature and power consumption. This leads to the maximum performance possible (of course, this can be optimized by cpu boos limiting, undervolting and other optimizations). But again, is this really the focus of someone who is using the laptop for productive tasks? If you want to use a laptop for high school or studying and you’re most of the time sitting in quite rooms with many other people and don’t want to fiddle around with the mentioned optimization steps, you should probably look for another system. If you’re working in an office or at home in the living room, I think it is worth, changing noise level with performance. The same thing goes for gaming. You would like to get all the benefits of the beautiful QHD+ 165hz MiniLED HDR screen, you have to sacrifice some points against noise and temperature.
And just to make it clear, the G14 is one of the most powerful laptops I’ve ever used and it is not close to the noise levels of some of my older gaming laptops like the Lenovo Legion 5 with a much less powerful hardware.
One thing we’ve to agree to most of the reviews. The keyboard area, especially in the middle, is getting really hot under heavy load.
Overall build quality
Price vs. expectation is a key thing here. If you’re like us and you’re willing to pay 3.500 EUR for a laptop, you’re expecting not only the latest technical internals, also build quality should be something you’re looking for. Especially if you were before in the Apple ecosystem for workhorses.
To make a clear point right upfront, do not compare a gaming focused device to a premium product with a lot of love for design and build quality coming from Cupertino!
Is it bad, not definitely not! The chassis and in peticular at the bottom feels “cheap”. It flexes a lot and it makes sounds when lifting the laptop for example one handed, if you’re walking with the lid open to the next meeting desk. But if the complete chassis would be made out of aluminium, the heat transfer would be worst in my opinion. So for me it is fine, that the top of the keyboard is made out of plastic. One positive, you don’t have to take care of fingerprints the whole time! In my case, I was forced to buy the white version (looking at you Asus and a not really clear vision of different international versions of your products!), after a long period of usage, I’m not able to see any coloring of my hands on the surface of the laptop!
The display // Who is this OLED?…
It is a great display, with stunning color accuracy. And, like for most productive laptops (I know, Apple is using glossy screens for years) it is matte. Of course, this can be different from user to user. But I think, most people are not willing to sacrifice the possibility, to use the laptop in direct lighting conditions. My last system had a glossy screen and I wasn’t able to work comfortably outside and when light sources in the background overshooting the content visibel on the screen.
Next to that, the display offers the option from multi zone dimming (most usable for media consumption like movies or YouTube videos, and single zone dimming. The second option is great for content creation, office work for example. So it is preventing any difference in visual representation of each pixel in each zone. (Be careful with the windows HDR settings, this could prevent switching from multi to single zone).
We’re not only working on this laptop, so being able to have a great display for color representation, my main plus for this screen is the native G-SYNC function. I know, there are a lot of Freesync laptops on the market, but maybe it is only me, for me the both implementations seam to work differently. With the RTX 4090 mobile being able to drive most games on 1600p on high refresh rates (especially when introducing frame generation), the smooth visualization of game play is so pleasing to look at.
Beside this, in our opinion, a fluid display with high refresh is also beneficial to productive workloads. Only in power saving scenarios, the 60hz mode has a valid point.
Conclusion / Final thoughts
Where should I start. If you’ve the right expectations of an consumer grade device like this (I think it is difficult, to compare it to brands like Apple for example), you can have a great time, with the powerful G14 (especially with the 4090 configuration). And of course, I don’t have the 4070 nor 4080 version on hand, but for my use case, it is the perfect fit and I don’t regret buying it.
If you’re looking for a small notebook, with the “most” powerful mobile GPU available right now, I’m not seeing any alternative on the market right now. Do I regret picking up the G14 2024 with the OLED screen? No, at least from the look in videos and pictures, I don’t like the step to the all aluminum chassis. At least, this step led to a mostly non upgrade able, hard to repair situation on any MacBook since years. And for me personal, I don’t like the color mismatch from body to keyboard. With the Mini Led screen, I don’t need to be as much worried about burn in effect on the display. Color accuracy is great for digital creative work. Only complains, the temperature, if you’re using this device on the couch, it can get really hot on your legs. And second, the battery life, but this is in my opinion mainly due to bios and performance modes and windows power profiles inconsistencies!