ASUS ROG G14 Zephyrus Gaming Laptop (GA403UV.R94060) Review

ASUS ROG G14 Zephyrus Gaming Laptop (GA403UV.R94060) Review

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Takeaway: Great for gaming/casual/work use, has a vivid, clear and bright 3K OLED display.

You’ll receive the laptop, 3 ft power cord, 180 Watt power adapter with built-in 6 ft cord, and quick start guides. The laptop measures 12.25”W x 8.5”L, and is ¾” thick at the back and tapers just 1/8” to the front. Despite its small size, the laptop is solid and weighs 3.25 lbs while the charger adds another pound.

The exterior chassis is entirely made of a durable aluminum alloy with a matte silver finish that feels sleek and high-end. It has smooth rounded corners, and the surface doesn’t appear to pickup fingerprints or scratches easily. The led-LIT ‘slash’ on the lid has a mirror-finish which gives it a unique design flourish that looks super cool when lit. While the color of the slash can’t be set to anything other than white, you can adjust its brightness and choose from several animations and functional triggers, for example to alert you when there’s a toast notification. The bottom is nearly entirely ventilated while the two grills towards the front are passive woofers for audio.

For I/O, on the left side there’s a proprietary charging port, a full-size HDMI 2.1 out, USB-C 4 port that supports DP and power delivery charging at 100W, although it is not a Thunderbolt port, USB-A 3.2 Gen2 port and combo mic/headphone jack. The charging port is reversible, so it doesn’t matter which side of the connector faces up. On the right side is a USB-C 3.2 Gen2 supporting DisplayPort out, an additional USB-A 3.2 Gen2 port, and a microSD card slot. No ports are present along the back as this is where much of the heat exhausts from, although there are three status lights along the back which are only visible when the lid is closed.

The laptop opens to a max angle of about 135°, and the ten-keyless chiclet keyboard has white keys with single zone RGB-backlighting. The directional arrow keys in the bottom right are half-sized, and there are four hot keys at the top-left for volume, mic mute, and Armoury crate with customizable secondary macros and the power button if located above the keyboard on the top-right. To its sides are top-facing speakers and below you’ll find a generously sized mouse trackpad that goes all the way up to front edge. The keys are responsive but require a firm press for actuation. A majority of the trackpad can be clicked though not the very top of the pad; right-clicking is executed on the right-half along the bottom of the trackpad or with a two finger click.

My build runs on the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS CPU with integrated Radeon 780M Graphics, 16 GB LPDDR5x 6400Mhz RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. Since the RAM is soldered to the motherboard, it is not upgradable, however the pre-installed 1 TB SSD can potentially be swapped out for one with a larger capacity, if you remove the nine 6-point screws on the bottom; though you can always just use a microSD card for additional storage space. While this machine’s capabilities are in the high-end range, there are builds slightly more powerful in this line with more RAM and better graphics card. Even so, these specs still provide a very clean gaming experience when set to high quality graphics on AC power. Just note that the fans can be a bit noisy, and the sides towards the back definitely get pretty hot.

One interesting thing about the processor is that it has dedicated Neural Processing Units (NPUs) for handling AI tasks. This helps the machine respond to AI requests faster with today’s growing demand and more frequent app integration with AI technology. While it is not really positioned for content creators, you can get away with running video editing software as well with few issues.

The standout feature for this rig is its 14” OLED panel with max resolution of 2880 x 1800, that’s 3k with a 16:10 aspect ratio, and max refresh rate of 120 Hz. It produces 10-bit color, covering 100% of the DCI-P3 colorspace with a max HDR brightness of 500 nits. There are other color gamut choices in Armoury Crate, for example, sRGB for more accurate color reproduction at the expense of saturation and contrast. Either way, the image quality of the screen is stunning with dark inky blacks and vibrantly lush colors. I did, however, find that reflections can be a minor issue when viewing the screen with bright lights behind me.

The screen has thin bezels at the sides with a slightly thicker one along the top to accommodate a 3-mic array and integrated 1080P webcam with IR facial detection for logging in with Windows Hello which works pretty well most of the time, eliminating the need to enter a password or PIN. The microphones also can utilize AI noise-cancelling via the Realtek Audio Console to emulate various mic pickup patterns.

In terms of connectivity, it uses a tri-band WiFi 6E card (2.4GHz and 2x5GHz) for reliable and fast streaming, gaming, and downloads and also supports Bluetooth 5.3 allowing for lag-free pairing with audio devices like speakers, earbuds, and headphones for perfectly synced video playback.

On battery power, I was able to run games on medium quality graphics, though it sometimes struggled with lag and the battery only lasts around 1.5 to 2 hrs. When plugged in, however, the laptop performs flawlessly for many games at high or ultra video settings and I was able to play fast-paced open world RPGs like Warframe with smooth, lag-free, and tear-free performance. Framerates were consistently above 100 fps without any smearing, ghosting, or dropped frames.
With non-gaming use, I was able to get nearly 5 hours from a fully charged battery at medium to high brightness. This makes it a great lightweight option for daily work on-the-go. The battery charges quickly and 30 minutes plugged in is all that’s needed for a 50% top up. I also was quite impressed with the speaker quality as they produce clear, vibrant, and powerful sound that have a surprising amount of bass response, as low as 100Hz, thanks to their twin tweeters and woofers. Setting the laptop to silent mode lets the speakers shine because you don’t hear the fans at all when listening to music or watching video.

Overall, the Zephyrus G14 is a really cool looking gaming laptop and is great for gaming as well as casual or work use. It has a vivid, clear, and bright 3K OLED display and produces amazing sound to match for a satisfying experience no matter what you’re using it for. I hope you enjoyed this review. You can ask me any questions in the comments. I’ll put a link to the product in the description below. Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel and join me next time.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned
Buy it at Amazon: ASUS ROG G14 Zephyrus Gaming Laptop (GA403UV.R94060) [Affiliate Link]
UK Buyers ASUS: https://tidd.ly/47VNifi [ASUS Affiliate Product Link]