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Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025): Two-minute review
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) is a thin and lightweight gaming laptop with a small design but a large spec, allowing it to perform as well as its bigger rivals.
To look at, it seems more like an everyday machine than a gaming powerhouse. The only giveaway is the diagonal LED strip across the lid, which does little to add interest.
It has an impressively compact form, though, making it a contender for the best gaming laptop that’s practical to carry around. It lacks the bulk usually associated with such devices, being exceptionally thin and light by gaming laptop standards.
The lid is especially lightweight, and it opens easily yet remains stable once in place. Also, the bezel around the display is about as thin as it could possibly be, which helps to maximize screen space.
For such a compact device, the Zephyrus G14 (2025) has a generous selection of ports, even putting much larger gaming laptops to shame. There are two USB-C and two USB-A connections, as well as an HDMI port, a headset jack, and a microSD card reader.
More importantly, though, the performance of the Zephyrus G14 (2025) is also impressive. The 5070 Ti in my review unit provided very high frame rates, even with maximum graphics settings.
The 120Hz OLED display contributed to the smoothness, and also rendered scenes with plenty of vibrancy, brightness, and contrast. What’s more, the 3K resolution offered a super sharp image, which was great for gaming as well as other tasks.
However, you’ll have to contend with a fair amount of fan noise and blistering heat in the pursuit of this high-end performance. Temperatures around the keyboard are kept to reasonable levels, but the rear and underside of the unit can get uncomfortably hot, even at the slightest provocation.
The keyboard of the Zephyrus G14 (2025) is another highlight. The switches are deep and tactile, offering enough resistance to provide feedback without being onerous to use. The large size of the key caps and their comfortable spacing also makes them good for typing.
The touchpad is similarly excellent, thanks to its large area and smooth surface, although you probably won’t be using this while gaming. What’ll deter you even more is the fact that it can get in the way when using the WASD keys. Thankfully, there’s a shortcut to easily disable its functionality.
Battery life is poor, though. It only managed a little over two and a half hours in our movie playback test, which is short even by gaming laptop standards. The Razer Blade 14 (2025) and the Acer Nitro V 15 can both outlast it by a considerable margin.
At over $2,000, the Zephyrus G14 (2025) doesn’t come cheap. It’s close to more premium models, such as the Razer Blade 14, which is about the best compact gaming laptop we’ve tested. For some – or perhaps many – it may be worth spending that bit more for the Blade, but the Zephyrus G14 (2025) remains a fine pick if you’re after a compact and capable gaming machine.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) review: Price & Availability
- Starts from $2,099.99 / £2,699.99 / AU$3,899
- Available now
- Premium end of the market
The Zephyrus G14 (2025) starts from $2,099.99 / £2,699.99 / AU$3,899 and is available now. Various models are available with varying Ryzen 9 CPUs and RTX GPUs, from the 5060 to the 5080. RAM and storage capacities alternate between 16GB and 32GB, and 1TB and 2TB, respectively.
It’s cheaper than the Razer Blade 14 (2025), even though both base models get an RTX 5060. However, the price gap isn’t huge, and the Blade 14 is one of the best gaming laptops around right now, impressing us with its incredible performance, design, and display.
If you’re looking for the best budget gaming laptop, the Acer Nitro V 15 is a fine choice. You’ll have to settle for an RTX 5050, but it can still game with aplomb. In fact, when I reviewed the Nitro, I was impressed with its 1080p performance. Like the Zephyrus G14 (2025), it can get quite hot in certain areas, but not to the same degree.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) review: Specs
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Base Config |
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review Config |
|
Price |
$2,099.99 / £2,699.99 / AU$3,899 |
$2,499.99 / £2,699.99 / AU$4,999 |
|
CPU |
AMD Ryzen 9 270 (8 cores, 4.0GHz) |
AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (12 cores, 2.0GHz) |
|
GPU |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, 8GB |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, 12GB |
|
RAM |
16GB LPDDR5X |
32GB LPDDR5X |
|
Storage |
1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD |
1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD |
|
Display |
14-inch (2880 x 1800) OLED, 16:10, 120Hz, G-Sync / Adaptive-Sync |
14-inch (2880 x 1800) OLED, 16:10, 120Hz, G-Sync / Adaptive-Sync |
|
Ports and Connectivity |
2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 2x USB-C (1x 3.2 Gen 2, 1x USB 4), 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL, 1x microSD, 1x 3.5mm combo audio, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 |
2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 2x USB-C (1x 3.2 Gen 2, 1x USB 4), 1x HDMI 2.1 FRL, 1x microSD, 1x 3.5mm combo audio, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 |
|
Battery |
73Wh |
73Wh |
|
Dimensions |
12.24 x 8.66 x 0.63 ~ 0.64in (311 x 220 x 15.9 ~ 16.3mm) |
12.24 x 8.66 x 0.63 ~ 0.72in (311 x 220 x 15.9 ~ 18.3mm) |
|
Weight |
3.31lbs / 1.50kg |
3.46lbs / 1.57kg |
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) review: Design
- Non-gaming looks
- Remarkably small and light
- Surprising number of ports
One of the most impressive aspects of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) is that it looks like a normal laptop, lacking the bulk and brash aesthetic of those designed for gaming. This is also helped by the light silver colorway of my review unit, which I found to be an uplifting antidote to the dour shades of many of its rivals (although such a finish is available).
What marks the Zephyrus G14 (2025) out as a gaming device is the diagonal LED strip across the lid and the small shiny embossed logo in the corner. Both are relatively subtle, although the strip is quite incongruous.
Not only is the screen size small for a gaming laptop, but so are all of its dimensions. The lid is especially thin, even beating some of the best MacBooks in terms of how sleek it is. The bezel around the display itself is also about as thin as I’ve ever seen in this class of laptop.
However, the chassis is thicker than you’ll find on many other laptops, and there are a few juts and sharp angles, as well as the thick rubber bars underneath, that sully the smooth planes somewhat. But all things considered, the Zephyrus G14 (2025) remains impressively elegant for its class.
Build quality is also quite good. All the materials feel premium and solid, and there’s only a small amount of wobble to the lid. Crucially, it remains stable once set in position.
Despite its small size, the Zephyrus G14 (2025) has a generous keyboard layout. There are some useful shortcut keys, including those for disabling the touchpad and toggling performance modes, and even four customizable M buttons. However, some peripheral keys are truncated in size, with the arrow keys being the worst casualty in this regard from a gamer’s perspective.
The LED backlighting on the keyboard is a nice touch, although it can be hard to make out at times, especially when certain colors and RGB patterns are displayed. This appears to be caused by the narrow openings of the key markings and a lack of overall brightness.
The touchpad on the Zephyrus G14 (2025) stretches right from the back edge of the space bar to the very end of the chassis, offering a larger surface area than you’ll find on other laptops this size.
Another surprise is just how many ports there are on the Zephyrus G14 (2025), putting many gaming laptops much larger to shame. It features two USB-C ports, which both support Power Delivery and DisplayPort standards each, although only one supports G-Sync/ Adaptive Sync displays. There are also two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, a headset jack, and even a microSD reader.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) review: Performance
- Great gaming at max resolution
- Fantastic OLED display
- Gets very hot in places
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) benchmarks
Geekbench 6
(Single Core): 2,939 (Multi Core): 15,680
Cinebench R23
(Single Core): 2,017 (Multi Core): 20,803
Cinebench R24
(Single Core): 117 (Multi Core): 1,192
Crossmark Overall: 1,974
3DMark
Fire Strike: 32,113 Steel Nomad: 3,488 Solar Bay: 71,022 Speed Way: 4,031 Port Royal: 10,119
BlackMagicDisk
Read: 4125MB/s Write: 4015MB/s
25GB Copy Test: 1,729MB/s
Civilization VII
(1080p, Medium): 193fps
(Max Resolution, High): 123fps
(Balanced Upscaling, Max Resolution, High): 94fps
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
(1080p, Medium): 168fps
(Max Resolution, Highest): 118fps
(Balanced Upscaling, Max Resolution, Highest): 158fps
Total War: Warhammer III: Mirrors of Madness
(1080p, Medium): 119fps
(Max Resolution, Ultra): 47fps
Cyberpunk 2077
(1080p, Medium): 371fps
(Max Resolution, Ultra): 143fps
(Balanced Upscaling, Max Resolution, Ultra): 133fps
F1 2024
(1080p, Medium): 256fps
(Max Resolution, Max Quality, No RT): 127fps
(Balanced Upscaling, Max Resolution, Max Quality with RT): 93fps
I found the performance of the Zephyrus G14 (2025) to be excellent. My review unit was equipped with an RTX 5070 Ti, and it handled the AAA titles I threw at it very well. When I played Cyberpunk 2077, I got between 200-230 frames per second on average. This was with the Ray Tracing: Ultra preset selected (which the game chose by default for the laptop) and DLSS Auto scaling and Frame Generation enabled.
This was also with the Zephyrus G14 (2025) running in Turbo mode. As you might expect, this causes the fans to produce a fair amount of noise, but it was nothing the best PC gaming headsets couldn’t drown out.
Dropping down to Performance mode didn’t seem to make much difference to frame rates, and only marginally decreased fan noise. Despite the raucous, though, the fans weren’t able to disperse heat as effectively as I would’ve liked.
During my sessions with the Zephyrus G14 (2025), it became very hot in places. The keyboard and front section of the chassis only remained tepid (thankfully, since this is where you’ll be making the most contact), but the area above the keyboard became too hot to handle.
The same was true of the underside of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025). Despite the aforementioned ground clearance created by the rubber bars, there’s still not enough for optimal cooling it seems; this is certainly a laptop I’d recommend using with one of the best laptop cooling pads if you can.
The OLED display is pleasingly sharp and vibrant, which makes it great for all kinds of tasks, not just gaming. That aforementioned ultra-thin bezel means the 14-inch display projects a bigger image than you might expect, too.
The keys are tactile, thanks to their surprising resistance and deep travel relative to those of other laptops, even ones designed for gaming. This makes them well suited to the task, while still being light and snappy enough for comfortable typing.
The touchpad is great as well. Its impressive size, along with its very smooth surface, makes navigation easier. However, this will likely be irrelevant for most gamers, since it’s still no match for the best gaming mouse.
What’s more, it gets in the way when you’re using the keyboard, even if you stick to the WASD position. This means you’ll likely want to disable it when gaming, but you’ll be more reluctant to do so while typing, given its usefulness for productivity purposes.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) review: Battery Life
- Poor battery life
- Quick to charge
The battery life of the Zephyrus G14 (2025) is quite poor. When we ran a movie on a continuous loop, its battery lasted just over two and a half hours. This is way down on its key rivals, such as the Blade 14 and the Nitro V 15, both of which manage over twice that duration.
Thankfully, the Zephyrus G14 (2025) is quick to charge, taking about 90 minutes to fully replenish via the included power adapter.
Should I buy the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025)?
|
Attributes |
Notes |
Rating |
|---|---|---|
|
Value |
The Zephyrus G14 (2025) is at the higher end of the market, and there are slightly better rivals for not much more. |
3 / 5 |
|
Design |
The Zephyrus G14 (2025) is surprisingly compact and elegant for a gaming laptop. It also seems built to a high standard. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Performance |
The RTX 5070 Ti in my review unit handled AAA titles brilliantly, and the display rendered them in their full glory. There’s a worrying amount of heat in places, though. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Battery Life |
Poor even by gaming laptop standards; there are plenty of rivals that can outlast it. At least it’s quick to charge. |
2.5 / 5 |
|
Total |
The form factor, performance, and display are all excellent, but the heat, noise, and steep price mean you’ll have to assess your priorities before determining whether it’s the right gaming laptop for you. |
4 / 5 |
Buy the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) if…
Don’t buy it if…
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) review: Also Consider
How I tested the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025)
- Tested for a week
- Used for gaming and other tasks
- Plentiful gaming laptop experience
I tested the Zephyrus G14 (2025) for a week, using it for gaming, working, and general browsing. I also connected various peripherals to it.
I played AAA titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 with various graphics settings, and conducted our series benchmark tests designed to test multiple facets of gaming laptops. I also ran our battery test, playing a movie continuously until the battery depleted.
I’ve been PC gaming for over a decade, and have used numerous machines in that time, both desktop and laptop. I’ve also have plenty of experience reviewing gaming laptops, as well as those made for productivity and everyday use.
- First reviewed: September 2025
- Read more about how we test
The post Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025) review: a small but mighty gaming laptop with plenty of heat first appeared on TechToday.
This post originally appeared on TechToday.