Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) hands-on review: the real gaming MacBook Pro?

The new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 are here, and while they are the gaming laptops of CES 2024 (in my opinion), I think they have bigger game to hunt — namely, the MacBook Pro.

Saying a laptop is “the Windows MacBook Pro” has become empty rhetoric in some ways because the game plan should not be to run Apple’s plays and hope for the best. Doing that is the equivalent of me calling myself a racing driver because I do a lot of sim racing. It’s just not the same!

You need to do things your own way, and Asus has done so with huge upgrades to the design, performance, and (most importantly) the display, which puts the company well within the battlefield of Apple’s prosumer systems.

Video review

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 (2024): Specs

Let’s talk about the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 real quick…

A quick side note before barrelling into the conclusion — this isn’t the only Zephyrus that’s getting the redesign treatment. The G14’s bigger brother is getting a facelift too with a near-identical design, but just a little bigger to factor in that 16-inch OLED panel.

On top of that, the extra space inside means Asus has been able to stick a strong vapor chamber inside to run GPUs up to the maxed-out RTX 4090.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 (2024): Availability

Pricing has not been revealed at the time of writing this, but Asus has confirmed that the ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 will be available to buy “from Q1 2024.” Looking at past trends, my prediction points towards a March launch window.

Once we know the costs (I’m guessing something similar to current gen, with a starting cost of $2,499), we’ll update this section!

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024): Design and display

In two words: much better. Don’t get me wrong, the previous generation ROG Zephyrus G14 was quite the looker too. But it did still have that gaming laptop DNA — especially with that Anime Matrix display around the back that may make it a little weird to whip out during work meetings.

However, Asus has gone down a super sleek, utilitarian route by sporting an all-aluminum CNC-milled chassis that gives it an almost MacBook Pro-esque presence atop any desk (more on that interesting comparison later). It also reduces the weight nicely, reduces the thickness, and feels uber premium to the touch.

As for the trademark lighting, it’s been replaced with a far more minimal Slash Lighting array — a diagonal slash that gives the laptop its ROG DNA while keeping the whole look nice and refined.

Then, you open it up and reveal the drop-dead gorgeous ROG Nebula display — a 14-inch OLED display that overcomes some of the common challenges with this display technology by offering a 120Hz refresh rate, 0.2ms response time, and G-SYNC for eliminating screen tearing.

In my limited time with the machine, my eyes fell in love with this screen. Forza Horizon 5 gameplay presented a flash flood of color that flew by with buttery smooth motion and shone off the screen with an impressive HDR depth. Trust me, you’ll love it.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024): Keyboard and touchpad

Looking further south of the display and you’ll spot an edge-to-edge keyboard, which packs larger keycaps than the past generation and sports all of Asus’ lineage in creating great typers — decent key depth with a great tactility for intentful impacts. 

The touchpad also benefits from being made bigger too, with a surface that remains just as slick for navigation and a click that feels just as snappy as you love from this company. Whether you’re gaming or working, this system stays right there with you.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024): Performance

Opening the hood of the G14 shows some impressive cooling — 2nd Generation Arc Flow fans along with a third auxiliary fan to keep that air moving and out of the system, and liquid metal on the CPU as well.

This enables the new ROG to be specced with up to an AMD Ryzen R9 - 8945HS CPU and RTX 4070 GPU. Now, I know some of you are asking where the RTX 4090 is? It’s still being sold in the older, thicker form factor that came with the vapor chamber to support it. But given the thinness of this new chassis, the custom technology just isn’t possible without the whole thing melting.

However, I don’t think many gamers will miss this. I know people go for the top-spec to be able to process graphics at their absolute best on-system. But given just what DLSS 3 is capable of in terms of boosting frame rates while keeping ghosting to an absolute minimum, AAA games will continue to absolutely fly on here (and look rather nice in OLED too).

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024): Outlook

And that’s the new ROG Zephyrus G14. Some will miss the chance to get this specced out to an RTX 4090 GPU, but in its place (and with a little help from DLSS), you’ve got a seriously good gaming laptop that poses as an impressively sleek all-rounder.

I’d argue that gaming laptops are not its only competition. Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing to bet that this will most probably adorn our best gaming laptops list yet again, but with the OLED display, aluminum construction and attention to detail that make this a solid prosumer system too, I think Asus has the MacBook Pro firmly in its sights.

I mean, you can see it in its work-ready aesthetic, the hyper-efficient cooling that could go some way to reducing fan noise, and the move to an OLED display for great color accuracy when working in the likes of Premiere Pro.

Whether Asus achieves this will be down to when we get some proper hands-on time with the system for a review. But color me confident that Apple is probably starting to sweat at the presence of these redesigned Zephyri (or Zephyruses — I don’t judge).