Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
The 2024 Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 are technically here — if you consider “here” to mean listings are live but sold out. We’ve had a chance to go hands-on with the two laptops and dig into their specs. But listings reveal two key details about the laptops — for better and worse.
Starting with the worse: The specs sheet on the 2024 G14 and G16 reveals that the memory is soldered to the board. Previous Zephyrus designs featured slot-in memory modules, allowing users to upgrade their RAM down the line. That’s not the case with these redesigned models, presumably to allow Asus to cut down on the thickness.
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The memory inside is fast — you can purchase up to 32GB of LPDDR5X-6400 on the Zephyrus G14 and up to 32GB of LPDDR5X-7467 on the Zephyrus G16 — but you won’t be able to upgrade it later on. Some configurations are limited to 16GB. On the Zephyrus G14, the RTX 4060 configuration comes with 16GB, while the RTX 4050 configurations are limited to 16GB, as well. All other configurations come with 32GB.
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Soldered memory isn’t ideal, as even the Razer Blade 14 is able to offer slotted memory on most configurations. Thankfully, for storage, the 2024 Zephyrus models retain a PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot, which you can upgrade with additional storage.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
That’s the bad news, but there’s some good news here, too. Pricing isn’t changing. Despite a new 3K OLED display and an all-aluminum body, Asus is keeping the pricing of 2024 models identical to 2023 models. The 2023 Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 4060 launched for $1,600 —
for $1,050 — and the 2024 model with an RTX 4060
, as well. The 2024 model even bumps the storage from 512GB to 1TB.
Similarly, the 2023 Zephyrus G16 with an RTX 4080 launched at $2,700, and the 2024 model comes in at the same price — once again, with an OLED screen and aluminum body in tow.
The fact that Asus kept pricing the same is great, but more importantly, it makes these two laptops highly competitive with Razer. The Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 4070 is $2,000, while the 2024 Razer Blade 14 with an identical configuration is $2,700. The 16-inch comparison is similar. The 2024 Razer Blade 16 is $800 more than the Zephyrus G16 with an RTX 4080, though Razer packs in a faster Intel HX-series processor.
We’ll have to wait until we’ve had a chance to test the laptops to see if they hold up compared to the Razer competition. Early impressions are good, however. YouTuber ETA Prime posted a review on release day, calling the laptop “insanely good.” Hopefully, we’ll have the laptops in shortly to give them a thorough look.
