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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I penned my first article for Tom’s Guide entitled ‘I’ve been building PCs for 20 years — now I’d just buy a gaming laptop instead’. Though it may not have quite set the interwebs fully on fire, it certainly got certain folks hot enough to burn their eyebrows off.
That was two-and-a-half years ago. A lifetime, I know. My current opinion on the ‘desktop vs laptop’ debate? They both massively have their merits depending on your budget/gaming habits/how much space you have in your home to commit to your hobby.
In terms of my favorite PC product/device/piece of tech in 2025 for the purposes of this article…
(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I penned my first article for Tom’s Guide entitled ‘I’ve been building PCs for 20 years — now I’d just buy a gaming laptop instead’. Though it may not have quite set the interwebs fully on fire, it certainly got certain folks hot enough to burn their eyebrows off.
That was two-and-a-half years ago. A lifetime, I know. My current opinion on the ‘desktop vs laptop’ debate? They both massively have their merits depending on your budget/gaming habits/how much space you have in your home to commit to your hobby.
In terms of my favorite PC product/device/piece of tech in 2025 for the purposes of this article, I find myself very much in one camp. And it’s not one fans of the best gaming PCs will be overly smitten with. Enter the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025). What. A. Laptop. Actually, screw that. What. A. Piece of Technology. Full stop.
I paid an eye-watering sum for what we currently consider to be the best gaming laptop money can buy right now. Well, I say ‘paid’. What I actually mean is ‘bought on interest-free finance’… providing you pay said wallet-obliterating amount off within 12 months. Pray for my battered bank balance come May 2026.
Forget my perilous financial situation in spring of next year, though. All I know is that Current Me has derived more joy out of the latest Zephyrus G14 than pretty much any gaming device of the past five years.
Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely adore the fact I built the coolest gaming PC ever. Still, there’s no getting around the fact my RTX 5090-powered rig weighs roughly that of a svelte sumo wrestler. If I want to lug this mid-tower monster into my living room to enjoy playing my favorite Steam titles on one of the best TVs for gaming, I risk shattering my 40-year-old knees.
Pretty and performant
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By contrast, the latest Zephyrus G14 is the perfect companion to my inner couch potato gamer. Weighing in at just 3.5 pounds, this gorgeous gaming laptop is perfect for… well, plunking directly on your lap for hours at a time.
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The amount of great gaming memories I’ve amassed thanks to the G14 this year are borderline head-spinning. A spectacular third playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 at the Zephyrus’ native 2.8K pixel count (2880 x 1800) with full path-tracing at frame rates that usually dovetail around 90 FPS. Hot. Damn. Thank you very much, Nvidia DLSS.
Team Green’s DLSS frame-gen tech has proven to be — and apologies for the cliché — an actual game-changer. Though my G14 sports a mighty respectable mobile RTX 5080, if it wasn’t for Nvidia’s latest form of AI-bolstered super sampling, there’s no way I could play Doom: The Dark Ages or Indiana Jones and the Great Circle with path-tracing at comfortably PS5 Pro-beating frame rates if I was relying purely on my Zephyrus’ hardware grunt.
It’s also a fabulous looking laptop. That brazed metallic aesthetic is straight from a certain cyborg Arnie action franchise. Appropriate, seeing as I’m currently running and gunning my way through old school 16-bit throwback Terminator 2D: No Fate on Asus’ top-tier laptop.
Though it’s undeniably a head-turner, its carb-free 12.2 x 8.7 x 0.6 inch form factor inevitably leads to a couple of big old downsides.
Howdy does it get loud and toasty.
A gaming goliath
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Boot up Alan Wake 2 on this puppy, and unless you’re wearing some of the best gaming headsets, your eardrums may well implode. And as for temperatures under heavy load, the area under the 2025’s Zephyrus’ sumptuous OLED screen gets so hot, you could comfortably cook an omelette on it.
Still, such downsides/sacrifices that come with high-end gaming laptops are hardly unique to the Zephyrus G14 2014. I can easily look past heat/fan noise issues when I sit my beloved 14-inch gaming device on a laptop tray with the excellent Sony Inzone H5 wrapped around my cranium.
Such is the quality of that pin-sharp 2.8K OLED screen, some of the best experiences I’ve actually had with the G14 don’t involve gaming at all. Thanks to its effortlessly inky black levels and surprisingly robust speakers, Asus’ stunning laptop also proves to be an astounding Netflix machine... or if you’re not a fan of the Big N, insert Disney Plus, Amazon Prime TV, Apple TV Plus at your pleasure.
Even though I own one of the best OLED TVs around — a 77-inch LG G3 — there always comes a lazy Sunday where I’d rather not drag my carcass out of bed. Under those circumstances, the Zephyrus G14 (2025) and its immaculately calibrated OLED display is the perfect tonic for my ‘doesn’t want to get out of bed’ soul.
Stream machine
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Whether watching the best Netflix shows amped up to eye-arousing degrees thanks to the peerless black levels OLED brings to the table, or savoring every last second of Vince ‘Mr Breaking Bad’ Gilligan’s latest show ‘Pluribus’, the G14 is an incredible device to watch both silver and small screen content on.
And yes, I’m sure silver screen obsessive Quentin Tarantino will now file me in the same category as Paul “weak sauce” Dano. Myself and The Riddler can live with the scorn once you have the pleasure of watching the superbly creepy actor in Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman’ on the G14’s sensational screen.
Circling back to gaming, it’s really the previously mentioned Nvidia DLSS 4 that makes the Asus ROG G14 (2025) such a compelling device for fans of the best Steam games. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was a mess when it first launched on PC, but thanks to diligent patches, it’s now a web-spinning wonder. With Nvidia frame-gen enabled, it’s easy to lock to around the Zephyrus G14’s max refresh rate of 120Hz with minimal graphical sacrifices.
"The biggest compliment I can pay the latest G14? I’ve had zero crashes since the day it arrived"
The biggest compliment I can pay the greatest gaming laptop Asus has ever made? I’ve had precisely zero crashes since the day it arrived on my doorstep. Not a single Blue Screen of Death. Zero weird technical glitches. And not a single case of overheating that has stopped this elite laptop from functioning as its best.
Considering my RTX 5090-powered desktop gives me technical headaches at least once a month, there’s so much to be said for the latest Zephyrus G14’s near unflappable consistency.
With all of those gushing words out of the way, it’s no wonder the Asus Zephyrus G14 is my favorite PC product of the year. Brilliant to game, binge watch and type on (thanks to its superbly tactile keyboard), this laptop has made this dyed in the wool desktop acolyte do a complete 180°.
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Dave is a computing editor at Tom’s Guide and covers everything from cutting edge laptops to ultrawide monitors. When he’s not worrying about dead pixels, Dave enjoys regularly rebuilding his PC for absolutely no reason at all. In a previous life, he worked as a video game journalist for 15 years, with bylines across GamesRadar+, PC Gamer and TechRadar. Despite owning a graphics card that costs roughly the same as your average used car, he still enjoys gaming on the go and is regularly glued to his Switch. Away from tech, most of Dave’s time is taken up by walking his husky, buying new TVs at an embarrassing rate and obsessing over his beloved Arsenal.
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