The laptop market is dominated by black and grey machines that are often uninspiring and only meant to get you through your daily work. The few innovations we come across mostly address performance demands. It is extremely rare to see a laptop redefine how such a device should look and feel. Asus, on the other hand, has accomplished this with a recent offering in its Republic of Gamers catalogue. It’s known as the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Alan Walker Edition.
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Alan Walker Special Edition has all of the features that make the standard G14 such a great little portable. Given the performance on offer, it’s small. It’s extremely well-made. It’s well-designed. It’s just so well put together. To be sure, it doesn’t check every box. For example, it lacks a webcam, which is a rather glaring omission in this increasingly work-from-home era. However, the slim-bezel design keeps the size in check and ensures good portability, which is especially important given the amount of portability available.
The port selection is also adequate, with two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, and HDMI. Creators of content will be disappointed by the lack of an SD or microSD slot. The keyboard is also noteworthy, not only for its unusual color scheme, but also for the stability of its bed and the quality of the key action. But it’s the back of the display that really stands out. To begin, there’s the Anime Matrix, which has 1,215 programmable mini-LEDs. Being able to create your own animated shows on the back of the display is ultimately pointless. It’s also very slick and a lot of fun.
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Alan Walker Special Edition delivers mixed results. The eight-core AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS CPU’s grunt simply cannot be argued with. Storage performance from the 1TB Samsung M.2 NVMe drive is also good, clocking in at around 3GB/s read speeds. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU is the less convincing aspect. It’s not a bad graphics processor.
However, it’s difficult to ignore the fact that this chassis is also available with the superior RTX 3060, a GPU that would be a better match for the 14-inch 120HZ QHD display. At 1080p, the 3050 Ti performs admirably in modern games. And, to be fair, 1080p interpolated on the 14-inch QHD display isn’t half bad. However, even at 1080p at high detail settings, the 3050 Ti can struggle in some games.
In terms of the display, it’s mostly a class act. The 120Hz refresh rate is sufficient for all but the most demanding gamers, as is the QHD 2,560 by 1,440 native resolution. The IPS panel’s colors, contrast, and response are also satisfactory. However, we would prefer it to be a little brighter. It can’t compete with standard indoor office ambient lighting, let alone anything outside. Still, it’s a nice display with a lot of detail and great font rendering; in a gaming context, it just needs a more powerful GPU.