With the release of AMD's impressive Ryzen 4000 mobile processors, there had to be a new and groundbreaking laptop that utilized them. And the Zephyrus G14, part of ASUS's ROG series, fits the bill exactly. Going neck-and-neck with the acclaimed Macbook Pro and Razer Blade, this laptop is incredible.
First Look/Overview
Although it is a "gaming laptop", this laptop could definitely be brought to work. Coming in either "moonlight white" or "eclipse grey" (read: space grey), this laptop is quite beautiful. The bezels on either side of the screen are quite small, although not quite as thin as a Macbook's. The bottom bezel, as usual for laptops, is more chunky. Similar to the Macbook Pro, the speakers are mounted on either side of the backlit keyboard. The trackpad is fairly average, and is of a decent size, although being a gaming laptop the user is expected to use a mouse more. The screen is a 14" one, a great balance between portability and utility, and comes in 1080p 120hz. Although laptops such as the Razer Blade or Macbook Pro come with a 2K or even 4K display, we feel that 1080p is all you need on a small 14" screen.
When you flip the laptop over, it starts to look a little more gamer. There are 6,536 holes in the back of the laptop to allow for some cooling as well as give it some personality. The most gamer-looking feature of this laptop, however, are the vents, which are quite angular and aggressive. Luckily for office workers, these will mostly be covered when the laptop is open. This is because of ASUS' "ergolift" technology, which is a hinge that brings the display of the laptop back and down, supposedly increasing ergonomic benefits.
On the sides of the laptop, there is a great selection of ports: 2 USB-C, 2 USB-A, and HDMI 2.0. This eliminates the need to bring around an annoying dongle to use the laptop with a mouse. I would definitely say that this selection of ports is superior to the Macbook Pro's. One of the USB-C ports also has power delivery. You can charge it with 65 watts or more, although while gaming it is recommended to use the included 180-watt power brick.
Power
Fueled by your selection of AMD's fourth-gen mobile processors and NVIDIA's mobile discrete graphics cards, the G14 is a beast. The best selection is one that comes with the Ryzen 9 4900HS and an RTX 2060 Max-Q graphics card. For mobile gaming as well as general quality of life, the G14 also comes with Wifi 6. Wifi 6 is the next, mostly unavailable, generation of Wifi, which allows twice the bandwidth as the current Wifi 5.
Customization
Since this is a very popular laptop, a number of companies have taken it upon themselves to sell modified versions of the G14. ASUS also offers many configurations of it. One example of a modifier company is HIDevolution. They offer customized G14's that have a wide variety of RAM amounts and storages. Keep in mind, however, when buying from a company like HIDevolution, you only get the Amazon warranty, not the ASUS warranty.