Iron Horse

The new Zephyrus loses its overbearing RGB shine but gains a sleek, muted design we can appreciate.

R40 000 / evetech.co.za

Every time we unbox a gaming machine this light, scepticism enters the air. Quite without reason, this time. The new Zephyrus combines the raw power expected from the range, and packs it into a small, robust magnesium alloy frame.

It’s nice to see Asus move away from the RGB-laden design into a more mature, albeit badass looking machine that’ll fit into just about any backpack. We can’t downplay the attention to detail here, with the top lid featuring small perforations in an angled pattern, and minimal bezels around the 14in display. Those little holes aren’t just stylish accents but are actually an LED Matrix used to display images and animations both while using the device and also with the lid closed. While the sheer beauty of this machine is worth admiring, the G14’s magnesium alloy case also feels incredibly sturdy – to the point that we’d see it outlasting a nuclear apocalypse.

Gaming in the name of...

Fitted with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q and an AMD Ryzen 9, throw just about any game at this metal slab and it’ll gracefully beef through the graphics. Pair that with a cooling system and you’re golden. How did they fit the beast of a GPU in this small frame? Black magic.

Symphony of construction