When you think OLED screens, thin and light, and some of the best gaming laptops, you think expensive. And to be honest, you wouldn't be wrong. But that doesn't mean you can't find great deals on super portable power with fabulous displays, and these two Asus laptops prove it.
They are the Asus Zephyrus G14, and the Asus Zephyrus G16, two laptops we've reviewed (at higher specs, which I'll get to later) and two laptops that we rate very highly. Portable power has come a long way, and both these machines simply feel a cut above the rest.
Sleek, civilised, and still featuring plenty of gaming horsepower, they both make for fantastic deals at the prices below. The real question is, if you're laptop shopping right now and want something that's got the goods but doesn't scream gamer from every angle, which one should you pick?
Quick links
- Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 | RTX 4060 | $1,300 @ Best Buy
- Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 | RTX 4070 | $1,650 @ Best Buy
Gaming laptop deals
14-inch laptops are, for many, the sweet spot when it comes to portable power. Easy to shove in a bag, use on a flight, or bring to a meeting without raising some eyebrows as to who brought a gaming laptop to a business discussion.
This Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 makes for a very small, very thin, and very light gaming laptop with a chassis that stuns. With an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS CPU featuring eight cores and 16 threads, its not exactly lacking in processor grunt. And while 32 GB of RAM would be preferrable, 16 GB of speedy LPDDR5X 6400 RAM is still a decent amount for most uses.
While we reviewed the RTX 4070 version and found it plenty powerful, the RTX 4060 is admittedly a lesser GPU. Still, thanks to the delights of DLSS 3, it'll deliver great gaming performance—wrapped up in a chassis that looks too small to contain any gaming components at all. This is the 65 W TGP version with 25 W dynamic boost, meaning it can push itself to a 90 W TGP by shifting some power from the CPU to the GPU in graphics-heavy scenarios.
Plenty good enough for a spot of modern gaming, that, with DLSS 3 giving it a helping hand. And I haven't even got to the crown jewel—an OLED display that really does look the bee's knees. For $1,300 at Best Buy right now, the little Asus might be a lot of cash for an RTX 4060 machine, but given the superb chassis, fantastic screen and very capable spec, it's a superb deal on a miniature laptop that delivers in all the right ways.
Ah, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16. I'll let you into a little secret here: I was really hoping that Asus would forget that they sent me one of these beauties, and never ask for it back. Alas, I shipped my review model back to Asus with a heavy heart, as it was pretty much everything I've ever wanted in a gaming laptop.
With a caveat. My review model was fitted with a simply ludicrous RTX 4090, and it was far too much GPU for this exceptionally sleek and svelte lappy's cooling system to deal with. This model, however, uses the RTX 4070 instead—a 105 W TGP version. While that's not the most powerful flavor of Nvidia's mid-range laptop GPU, it should be more than enough for some great gaming performance, without too much throttling and fan noise ruining the party.
The best thing about the G16 is that it's civilised. Polite, almost. Everything about the chassis is delightful, and slipping it in my backpack to take to the office reminded me how far behind most gaming laptops are by comparison. It simply feels ahead of the curve, and like a laptop that's from a different generation to all the others.
And again, I need to wax lyrical about the screen. Here, it's a 2560 x 1600 OLED unit that looks so good for gaming and day-to-day usage that it's sort of ruined other laptop displays for me. The Core Ultra 9 185H is a decently quick CPU, and while this model has 16 GB of DDR5 like the G14 above, it's plenty fast at least.
It was with a heavy heart that I gave my review unit a score of 79, as if it had a more sensible GPU it would have been knocking on the door of 90. Here, while the RAM is lesser and the GPU less powerful, it's a much more well-balanced machine. And for $1,650 at Best Buy, I think it's an absolute steal.
So there we have it, two stunning gaming laptops for very reasonable money. While the 14-inch G14 is a fabulous thing, I'd personally plump for the G16 simply because I prefer a larger screen. But you do you—and whichever you pick, you'll be getting a laptop that looks and feels like a million dollars, and a machine you can be truly proud of.
