If I may 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 studying about how superior it was on a little bit website referred to as The Verge dot com.

Since then, the G14 has gotten some facelifts, chip bumps, an occasional particular version, a full redesign, and a 16-inch sibling — and it’s remained nice. Now, in 2026, Asus has new flagship fashions making the change from AMD chips to Intel Panther Lake CPUs. And it now has one thing I’ve a gentle 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 actually have a webcam, however now it appears 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 picture and video enhancing with ease, and final all day performing fundamental duties.

But in its pursuit of extra energy, and due to RAMageddon, the G14’s worth has risen an ungodly quantity. The new Intel-based fashions begin at $3,450, and our overview 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 below $1,400 for my open-box G14 with Ryzen 9 5900HS, RTX 3060, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD again in 2021. How the instances have modified.

Zephyrus laptops have been getting regular worth will increase for years, even earlier than the continued international reminiscence scarcity spurred by AI information facilities that’s driving up the price of RAM and SSDs. But my overview unit with the brand new Intel CPU is $1,000 greater than a virtually similar last-gen configuration with an AMD processor. Asus is maintaining final 12 months’s AMD fashions round to keep up cheaper choices, however we don’t know if these costs may sooner or later rise like so many others. The new Intel-based G14 comes with a 16-core Intel Core Ultra 9 386H chip, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. Our $3,599.99 overview configuration doubles the RAM to 32GB.

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

Aside from these very excessive costs, there’s no main flaw within the G14. The webcam is grainy in low mild, and the SSD is round 12 % slower than the last-gen, however these are minor points. The G14 seems and feels largely the identical because the redesigned mannequin that launched in 2024, and it’s an analogous dimension and weight to the 14-inch MacBook Pro. 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 a substitute of rectangular slots.

Like earlier generations, the G14’s keyboard and mechanical trackpad are among the many greatest 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), nevertheless it’s solid-feeling, with a satisfyingly agency and tactile kachunk. Most individuals will recreation with a mouse anyway.

The 2880 x 1800 / 120Hz OLED show is as crisp as ever, and it seems incredible. It’s brighter than the 2025 mannequin in SDR (500 nits as a substitute of 400) and far brighter at HDR peak brightness (as much as 1,100 nits as a substitute of 500). The port choice continues to be expansive, and it’s been barely upgraded with Thunderbolt 4 as a substitute of USB4 and the aforementioned full-size SD card slot. Even the audio system are spectacular for a laptop computer of this dimension. 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 Windows laptop computer I’ve used that I rank intently to the MacBook Pro for sound high quality.

The creature comforts are essential, however should you spend $3,600 on a laptop computer it higher carry out properly. I’m happy to say the G14 does. It feels quick throughout mild and heavy duties alike. Editing by means of a number of hundred 50-megapixel RAW photographs in Adobe Lightroom Classic felt speedy, even on battery energy with the followers barely working and never a lot warmth being generated. Culling and ranking pictures in Lightroom was an analogous expertise to a MacBook Pro, with 100% previews loading promptly. The heavier processing is the place issues generally get a little bit slower, particularly as soon as I began making a lot of edits and pasting them from one picture to a bunch of others. But it managed to hold in there and preserve me flowing by means of my edit, even after I used it lengthy sufficient to dip into Energy Saver mode.

Like all Windows laptops, the G14 performs greatest 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 an enormous 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 indirectly indicative of real-world use, nevertheless it exhibits how rather more environment friendly Intel’s Panther Lake chip could be in combined looking and video playback.

In precise use I may get by means of a complete workday on the G14, managing a little bit over 10 hours of combined utilization (dozens of Chrome tabs open throughout two or three desktops, a lot of Slack, and some hours of music streaming). And that was all whereas the display was at 80 % brightness, so it will possibly run longer should you dim it a bit or run Energy Saver all day. If you lean on the discrete graphics you may tank the 73Wh battery a lot quicker. I received 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.

But I guess you recognize what I’m going to say subsequent. 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 recreation you need. In Battlefield 6, I received 65 to 70fps at native decision within the High preset with none want for DLSS. Helldivers 2, which doesn’t assist DLSS in any respect, yielded a fair larger 80 to 90fps in comparable settings. And Marathon was comfortably within the 70fps vary at High settings with DLSS set to Quality. The backside of the G14 will get pretty sizzling 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 Performance 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 increase, can enhance efficiency by as a lot as 10fps — although the followers get simply loud sufficient to warrant headphones.

The Zephyrus G14’s recreation efficiency is after all simply bested by a lot larger gaming laptops. Asus’ personal Strix Scar 16, which costs $3,300, has a bigger 240Hz Mini LED display, and crushes the G14 with larger body charges on the identical excessive settings. But 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 the whole lot in a single compact and versatile package deal.

If you like to not put all of your eggs in a single basket, for the value of our overview unit you can simply purchase an entry-level M5 14-inch MacBook Pro and a second gadget in your gaming wants (a PlayStation 5 Pro, Steam Deck, or perhaps a entire different funds gaming laptop computer) and nonetheless have cash left over. But should you do need one gadget for the whole lot, the brand new Intel G14 is superb. It’s nearly the whole lot I’ve needed 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 really like the brand new G14’s marathon battery life and SD card slot, however I don’t $1,000 love them.

This is prone to be the established order for the foreseeable future: Excellent Windows laptops will come out at costs starting from excessive to astronomical. As nice as this new Zephyrus G14 is, it’s onerous 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, that you may still get for under $2,000 on sale is nice to today.

You’ve at all times needed to pay extra to get extra, however Windows laptops lately are getting increasingly 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, nevertheless it used to additionally provide good efficiency for the cash. Now it’s one other costly luxurious.

Photogaphy by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge