If I might solely have one laptop computer for work and gaming, I’d get this one

I’ve cherished the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 because it launched in 2020. I purchased one for my spouse after reading about how awesome it was on a bit of website known as The Verge dot com.

Since then, the G14 has gotten some facelifts, chip bumps, an occasional special edition, a full redesign, and a 16-inch sibling — and it’s remained nice. Now, in 2026, Asus has new flagship fashions making the swap from AMD chips to Intel Panther Lake CPUs. And it now has one thing I’ve a tender spot for on any laptop computer: a full-size SD card slot.

The Zephyrus G14 already had me again in 2020, when it didn’t also have a webcam, however now it looks like a laptop computer particularly for me: a thin-and-light OLED-equipped gaming laptop computer that may play something you throw at it, deal with photograph and video modifying with ease, and final all day performing primary duties.

However in its pursuit of extra energy, and because of RAMageddon, the G14’s value has risen an ungodly quantity. The brand new Intel-based fashions begin at $3,450, and our assessment config is $3,600. The worth proposition that first outlined the Zephyrus line is unfortunately lengthy gone.

The Zephyrus G14 used to begin within the low $1,000 vary, with higher-end configs climbing to $2,500 or so. I paid beneath $1,400 for my open-box G14 with Ryzen 9 5900HS, RTX 3060, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD again in 2021. How the occasions have modified.

Zephyrus laptops have been getting regular value will increase for years, even earlier than the continuing world reminiscence scarcity spurred by AI data centers that’s driving up the price of RAM and SSDs. However my assessment unit with the brand new Intel CPU is $1,000 greater than a virtually similar last-gen configuration with an AMD processor. Asus is preserving final 12 months’s AMD fashions round to keep up cheaper choices, however we don’t know if these costs might at some point rise like so many others. The brand new Intel-based G14 comes with a 16-core Intel Core Extremely 9 386H chip, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop computer GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. Our $3,599.99 assessment configuration doubles the RAM to 32GB.

The brand new G14 ought to be a bit of extra highly effective than the last-gen with a 5080, as a result of it reaches a peak TGP of 130W as an alternative of 120W, however that doesn’t change the truth that you now get much less RAM and storage for related costs to a last-gen G14 or bigger G16 with a higher-end GPU.

Apart from these very excessive costs, there’s no main flaw within the G14. The webcam is grainy in low gentle, and the SSD is round 12 p.c slower than the last-gen, however these are minor points. The G14 seems to be and feels principally the identical as the redesigned model that launched in 2024, and it’s an analogous measurement and weight to the 14-inch MacBook Professional. The 2026 G14 additionally has some small beauty refinements, like extra LED segments within the animated slash lighting on the lid and round gap vents within the backside cowl as an alternative of rectangular slots.

Like earlier generations, the G14’s keyboard and mechanical trackpad are among the many finest round. The keys have good deep journey and are solely surpassed in really feel by the extra tactile ones from the likes of Lenovo’s ThinkPads. The massive trackpad doesn’t click on in all 4 corners (like even a $600 MacBook Neo does now), however it’s solid-feeling, with a satisfyingly agency and tactile kachunk. Most individuals will sport with a mouse anyway.

The 2880 x 1800 / 120Hz OLED show is as crisp as ever, and it seems to be incredible. It’s brighter than the 2025 mannequin in SDR (500 nits as an alternative of 400) and far brighter at HDR peak brightness (as much as 1,100 nits as an alternative of 500). The port choice remains to be expansive, and it’s been barely upgraded with Thunderbolt 4 as an alternative of USB4 and the aforementioned full-size SD card slot. Even the audio system are spectacular for a laptop computer of this measurement. Asus manages to cram six of them into this small chassis, and audio sounds wealthy and full with even a tiny little bit of a left-to-right stereo soundstage. It’s the one Home windows laptop computer I’ve used that I rank intently to the MacBook Professional for sound high quality.

The creature comforts are essential, however in the event you spend $3,600 on a laptop computer it higher carry out effectively. I’m happy to say the G14 does. It feels quick throughout gentle and heavy duties alike. Modifying by way of a couple of hundred 50-megapixel RAW pictures in Adobe Lightroom Traditional felt speedy, even on battery energy with the followers barely operating and never a lot warmth being generated. Culling and ranking photos in Lightroom was an analogous expertise to a MacBook Professional, with one hundred pc previews loading promptly. The heavier processing is the place issues typically get a bit of slower, particularly as soon as I began making a number of edits and pasting them from one photograph to a bunch of others. However it managed to hold in there and hold me flowing by way of my edit, even after I used it lengthy sufficient to dip into Vitality Saver mode.

Like all Home windows laptops, the G14 performs finest when plugged in, however its Panther Lake chip has solely a small dropoff in multicore and GPU efficiency when on battery energy. This has been a giant win for Intel’s new chips, permitting laptops just like the G14 to really feel nearly as speedy whereas away from a wall outlet. Panther Lake’s different massive benefit is its energy effectivity, and general battery life on the G14 is nice, particularly for a gaming laptop computer. In our battery rundown take a look at, the brand new Zephyrus lasted over 17 hours in comparison with the last-gen AMD mannequin’s 8.5 hours. That’s after all circuitously indicative of real-world use, however it reveals how rather more environment friendly Intel’s Panther Lake chip will be in combined looking and video playback.

In precise use I might get by way of a whole workday on the G14, managing a bit of over 10 hours of combined utilization (dozens of Chrome tabs open throughout two or three desktops, a number of Slack, and some hours of music streaming). And that was all whereas the display was at 80 p.c brightness, so it might probably run longer in the event you dim it a bit or run Vitality Saver all day. For those who lean on the discrete graphics you possibly can tank the 73Wh battery a lot sooner. I bought about 5 to 6 complete hours on battery after spending over an hour of it doing my heavy edits in Lightroom. That’s nonetheless not unhealthy.

However I wager you understand what I’m going to say subsequent. Nearly as good because the G14 is for artistic work, a less expensive 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro nonetheless outperforms it or comes shut in CPU-dependent duties, with higher battery life. And a baseline 14-inch M5 Max mannequin for a similar $3,600 will destroy it.

What makes the Zephyrus particular in comparison with a MacBook is that it additionally performs any sport you need. In Battlefield 6, I bought 65 to 70fps at native decision within the Excessive preset with none want for DLSS. Helldivers 2, which doesn’t help DLSS in any respect, yielded a fair increased 80 to 90fps in related settings. And Marathon was comfortably within the 70fps vary at Excessive settings with DLSS set to High quality. The underside of the G14 will get pretty scorching whereas taking part in all these video games, however fortunately the keyboard deck stays tolerable — only a slight warming of the left palm relaxation whereas I work the WASD keys.

This was all whereas utilizing the Efficiency profile in Asus’ Armoury Crate, which is the default mode when the G14 is plugged into wall energy. Switching to Turbo mode, which overclocks the GPU by 50MHz and will increase the G14’s TGP by as much as 20W with dynamic enhance, can enhance efficiency by as a lot as 10fps — although the followers get simply loud sufficient to warrant headphones.

The Zephyrus G14’s sport efficiency is after all simply bested by a lot greater gaming laptops. Asus’ personal Strix Scar 16, which costs $3,300, has a bigger 240Hz Mini LED display, and crushes the G14 with increased body charges on the identical excessive settings. However you lose all of the portability and battery longevity with a behemoth of a laptop computer like that. The G14 is all about getting a little bit of every thing in a single compact and versatile bundle.

For those who favor to not put all of your eggs in a single basket, for the worth of our assessment unit you can simply purchase an entry-level M5 14-inch MacBook Professional and a second machine in your gaming wants (a PlayStation 5 Professional, Steam Deck, or perhaps a complete different finances gaming laptop computer) and nonetheless have cash left over. However in the event you do need one machine for every thing, the brand new Intel G14 is superb. It’s nearly every thing I’ve wished in a single laptop computer. It’s only a disgrace that it prices a lot, particularly when you think about its direct predecessor with a 12-core AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the identical GPU, RAM, and storage prices almost $1,000 much less. I like the brand new G14’s marathon battery life and SD card slot, however I don’t $1,000 love them.

That is more likely to be the established order for the foreseeable future: Glorious Home windows laptops will come out at costs starting from excessive to astronomical. As nice as this new Zephyrus G14 is, it’s arduous to justify its $1,000 premium over the last-gen AMD model for higher battery life, a brighter display, an SD card slot, and a Thunderbolt 4 port. Even final 12 months’s entry-level mannequin, with an RTX 5060, which you can still get for under $2,000 on sale is nice to at the present time.

You’ve at all times needed to pay extra to get extra, however Home windows laptops lately are getting increasingly more costly, simply when most individuals have much less and fewer spending energy. The G14 was at all times an distinctive on a regular basis gaming laptop computer, however it used to additionally supply good efficiency for the cash. Now it’s one other costly luxurious.

Photogaphy by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge