Asus ROG Zephyrus G14: Ryzen 4000 makes this thin, light laptop a winner

Its performance and battery life defy your expectations.

- GORDON MAH UNG

We’ve tested the new ROG Zephyrus G14, which debuts with AMD’s stellar Ryzen 9 4900HS CPU, and we can safely say: Just give Asus your money. This laptop packs a stupid amount of performance into a stupidly small and stupidly light frame.

To give you an idea of just how impressive this 3.5-pound, Ryzen 4000-based laptop is, you’re talking about a weight class that typically gives you lower-power CPUs and GPUs. Yet the G14 can hang in CPU performance with laptops that weigh 10 pounds.

Obviously the star of the show is the Ryzen 9 4900HS CPU, which we review in detail separately (go.pcworld.com/49hs). But the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 as a whole package is nearly as impressive, so keep reading to find out more.

Although our unit does not feature the Anime Matrix LED, it’s worth highlighting. Part of the lid essentially features embedded LEDs that let you scroll or flash messages on the laptop lid.

SPECS AND FEATURES

The ROG Zephyrus G14 model we reviewed ($1,450 from Bestbuy.com; go.pcworld. com/gg14) has the following configuration:

CPU: 8-core AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS

GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q

RAM: 16GB DDR4/3200 in dual-channel mode

SSD: 1TB Intel 660P NVMe SSD

Networking: Intel AX600 WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0

Display: 14-inch “IPSlike” Full HD (1920x1080) @120Hz, which we measured at 280 nits’ maximum brightness