CES 2026 is here, and the most anticipated piece of tech is and always will be the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, at least for me. I fell in love with the G14 back in 2020 when it originally launched. It was everything I wanted out of an ultraportable gaming with excellent battery life. The Zephyrus G14 is the only laptop I’ve ever given a perfect score, and it is the first and only gaming laptop I’ve ever purchased. Needless to say, the hype is real.
However, to temper some expectations, the Zephyrus G14 got slightly worse throughout the years, coming in with shorter battery life and more flaws, but this year could be something really special. I got some hands-on time with the Asus Zephyrus G14, so let’s jump into why I’m both excited and worried.
The big move to Intel
AMD led the revolution for long-lasting gaming laptops right around when the Asus Zephyrus G14 made its mark. As someone who loves to game and work in the same space, it made for a perfect combination for my needs. It also makes for an excellent college laptop. But after years of toting around AMD hardware, the Zephyrus G14 is making the switch to Intel. I’m a little worried.
What made the original so great was AMD, which pushed its battery life and performance to awesome heights. I’m not worried about Intel’s performance, but rather the battery life. I’ll be content if the battery life ends up being at least 8 hours. It’s exciting and worrisome, but we won’t know the effect until we can get our hands on it.
Switching chips isn’t the only exciting development for the Asus Zephyrus G14. Asus is doubling down on its OLED performance, literally. It claims that laptops like the Asus Zephyrus G14 with an OLED display will double the brightness from the previous generations. The Zephyrus G14 in particular supports a 14-inch, 3K, 120Hz display with up to 1000 nits of brightness in HDR and 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut.
HDR can be hit or miss, so that incredible brightness may not be worth it, but Asus claims that the SDR brightness is doubled as well. The 2024 Zephyrus G14 had close to 400 nits of brightness, so getting even 600 nits would be incredibly impressive and a welcome upgrade.
One of the coolest things behind the scenes is that each display is individually color calibrated to ensure the Delta E is less than 1, making the visuals more color accurate. Its 0.2ms response time also keeps you locked in during your favorite competitive game.
In my hands-on testing, the display dripped with color, and the brightness survived the glare of the overhead lights in the room. Despite toting around powerful RTX 5080 hardware, the Zephyrus G14 manages to maintain a thin and light figure, coming in at 0.63 inches thick and 3.31 pounds.
There’s a slight shift in the chassis, with this year’s model upgrading from 7 to 35 zones of lighting in the slash on the lid. You can customize the lighting pattern however you want. Personally, I don’t really care about this feature, but it’s a nice upgrade for those that enjoy it. You might not notice, but Asus also updated the underside, which now includes an improved ventilation design (there are more holes).
I will say, one of my few critiques of the original Zephyrus G14 was its touchpad, and while it’s gotten better over the years, Asus significantly improved it this time. My finger glided across its smooth surface with ease, and each click provided some solid feedback. The flimsy touchpad of yore is no more.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t test the audio, but the Zephyrus G14 does come with a total of 6 speakers. While I’m not too picky about laptop audio, it’d be awesome if they were as bangin’ as the display. We know it’ll have Dolby Atmos at least, which is a pretty solid audio software solution.
My dream model of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is outfitted with an RTX 5060 GPU. It wasn’t explicitly stated that we’re getting one, but if its predecessors are of any indication, we will. I’m looking forward to seeing the king of mid-range gaming laptops take back its crown.
If you are looking to outfit this machine to the max, it will come with up to an RTX 5080, as I said, but also 64GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD. I’m definitely not looking forward to seeing that price tag. The G14 also has a bigger sibling, if you have the money to set on fire. That would get you up to an RTX 5090. Fortunately, I only have eyes for the more portable (and cheaper) sibling.
Stay tuned for more CES 2026 coverage as it comes through.
