ASUS Zephyrus G14 review: Still a solid 14-inch gaming laptop, but no longer a great deal

engadget.com:

It's been two years since I reviewed the first ASUS Zephyrus G14, but my fondness for it hasn't waned. It's colored my view of every gaming laptop since: Why can't they all pack in great performance in a compact 3.5-pound case for under $1,500? Now, with its latest edition, ASUS is fixing the G14's major flaw: It's finally adding a webcam. Together with AMD's latest Ryzen 6000 chips and Radeon GPUs, the 2022 G14 sounds like a dream machine on paper. But, thanks to significantly higher configuration prices, it's no longer a value-oriented machine. And that’s a shame.

Aside from the pricing change, though, the new Zephyrus G14 builds on everything we loved about the original. The sturdy magnesium alloy case returns, and select models feature more of ASUS's "AniMe Matrix" LEDs, which can display images and text on the back of the screen. You can choose between 14-inch 144Hz 1080p and 120Hz 1440p screens, which offer 400 and 500 nits of brightness, respectively. That's a huge leap from last year's 300-nit screen, and it makes the displays much better suited for Dolby Vision HDR (another helpful addition).

And then there's the webcam. That's not something we'd usually highlight, but it's notable for the Zephyrus G14. The 2020 model was one of the first modern gaming notebooks that didn't feature any sort of camera, a move that helped ASUS achieve some impressively thin screen bezels. Given that many gamers already have better external cameras for streaming, it didn't seem like a huge deal at the time. But of course, now that many of us need to be ready to hop on a Zoom at the drop of a hat, that calculus has shifted a bit. The G14's IR camera also supports Windows Hello, so it can securely log you in without much fuss.

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