today is February 6th 2024 and today Asus just launched the brand new zephrus G14 and their upcoming g16 is going to be launched too has pricing here I've watched a couple reviews on uh YouTube read a few reviews online Asus has launched this device here as a full refresh I had a Hands-On with it at CES so I'm not just speaking blindly here I spent probably too long with it to be honest at CES the G14 and the g16 kind of messing about with it talking with Asus in that too and I had pretty good expectations for this device you know I anticipated it would be reasonably priced and the specs would be good to be honest however upon looking at the launch of the G14 we have some major issues here in terms of pricing being absolutely outrageous in Canada and the United States absolutely outrageous and some major Hardware flaws and oversight I didn't see any of this talked about in any of the reviews that I've watched so far or handson or whatever they are that are on right now that are being published um and I don't know why I probably going to sewer any relationship I'll ever have with Asus in terms of you know doing collaborative reviews and that in the future by doing this video but hey I started my YouTube channel specifically because I was sick and tired of the average status quo that I was seeing where people were just basically bowing down to these companies and not giving any useful insight to the consumer and the consumer is just basically being force-fed talking points by the company that's being dis guised as some type of review and if you watch my reviews yeah they're not flashy they're not overly interesting I don't really know why a lot of you guys watch them but I think people watch because I just give honest tear downs and breakdowns and opinions on these devices and I tell you guys whether it's worth it or not I tell you guys you know my opinions on them and I give you guys the real handson and I also talk about you know how they may relate to other devices and you know is it worth your money uh frankly to start my video here the G14 and the g16 are not worth your money okay so let's look here I'm going to bring up some American prices and Canadian I'm Canadian so in my brain I work with Canadian but I can definitely do some translation to American so here's a look at the G14 I got my little notification from Asus that uh it was launched and then I came into the website and literally burst out laughing um and then basically told my Discord and you know readit and that oh my God look at these prices so there's a couple issues here first before we get into the pricing absurdity let's look at the hardware naming and where I have one of my beefs one of my several beefs with this laptop watching some of the reviews and some of the media press kits that I've seen today 8945 HS is not a new processor okay it is not a new processor this is last year's processor as we've all dunked on AMD for the really stupid naming conventions which I support they have really dumb naming conventions this is quite literally you take the sticker off the last year's one and you put it on the this year's one and you just make the absolute minor tweak such a minor tweak just enough so that you can call it new but it's not this is in all ways realistically when it comes to anything that matters the 7945 HS uh 7940 HS um so this is a rebranding of last year's processor period it's just what it is then we'll move down to the GPU the GPU is again last year's processor last year's GPU of course it's the 4060 so last year this ran much higher wattage uh than the 90 watt nerfing that we've see this year now this is not something that I find to be too much of an issue yes it will run slower than for example let's grab you know the uh Lenovo option here with the same GPU here uh the 4060 on this will technically run faster over here because it's a higher wattage or last year's G14 2023 will run faster however I've found in my testing and I've made videos about this that the 4060 and the 4070 when you scale down the wattages from you know 100 115 whatever down to 90 you don't get that much of a performance drop it does drop in performance absolutely but it's not it's not Monument um it's a thinner chassis so there's going to be major heat issues even with that it's going to be hot you know the 2024 G14 20123 G14 ran hot and I did a comparison against the legion here and it ran hot a lot of that was that CPU so that's going to run hot and probably throttle I can guarantee it right now I'll tell you right now uh that's going to run hot uh this decrease in wattage will help with overall temperatures um and the 4060 won't run hot it doesn't run hot anyways so we should be okay there but that'll run hot that's fine uh this is nonsense we'll skip over that because that's the selling feature there major issue and why I immediately became angry and decided to make this video here is 8 time 2 GB of RAM so 16 GB of RAM it's nice fast Ram soldered 16 G of soldered memory in 2024 I have already been running into games that use up enough system memory even with things you know cut right down in my system I shut everything down and I've been really creeping on 16 gbt you know this is not necessarily sold as a creater laptop even though it is technically a Creator laptop more than a gaming laptop um so you know 16 GB for gaming purposes is almost fine now but that's not going to be true very very soon you are buying a laptop that is already going to have major issues with memory I have no problem with soldered memory I have no problem with soldered memory if there's enough of it right 32 gabes this is fine I have no problem with this 32 gabes going to last you for years right this laptop is going to wear out before that memory there becomes a problem for gamers right it's going to be there 16 gabes is a problem so what you need to do now is you need to jump over here into the 32 gigabyte model right do not buy anties please I beg you I beg you right I love soldered memory if it's fast and there's a lot of it otherwise you need unsoldered memory like the razor blade up here you know the Razer Blade is not soldered memory which is fine because then you can buy 16 GB and upgrade it yourself great Razer went on 2023 and decided to add soldered decided to unsolder their memory and add sodum kits which I was a big fan of because you can upgrade the memory um and the 2023 model of the G14 also had unsoldered memory 16 GB on board you could easily add another 16 just just pop in a single stick you're at 32 GB or you could go you know don't go with the quad Channel basic setup and add even more no problems there but I mean even the 32 gigabytes right like here's the Lenovo Legion uh OLED for this basically the biggest competitor to the G14 32 gabt I had no complaints about that nice and fast 32 GB it's enough but the problem is 16 GB it's unacceptable it is unacceptable now why is it outrageous to me not just the fact that it makes me mad 16 gbes makes me mad in general when it's solder but it's like it depends on the laptop $2500 Canadian dollar for a last year's CPU a last year's GPU that's downclocked so it's actually slower inadequate amount of ram 16 GB solder that you cannot upgrade so you're screwed and it's $2,500 what are you paying for here you're paying for the OLED screen this is a wonderful OLED screen I'm not going to pretend I went to CES 2024 and I spent honestly too much time with Asus I spent half an hour probably messing with the g15 with the G14 and the g16 so I have hands-on experience now I didn't take it apart but I played with it quite a bit it's a nice laptop has a really nice screen right uh 1800p love that it's great 16 by 160 X10 love that DCI 100% love that 120 HZ love that gsync fantastic panto Val fantastic Advance Optimus fantastic great screen 16 GB of RAM downclock last year's GPU rebred last year's GPU $2,500 Canadian and then we look over here at the I guess the American price it would be uh so we go here the same model so we're going to go 16 gigabytes here and you know look at the price difference there $1,600 it's it's bad it's pricey it's pricey even for Americans it's pricey it's not that bad it's not $2500 bad but still bad um you if you actually directly Translate Canadian currency to American that they are not the same this like should be 2100 this this if you actually translate that out should be like two grand Canadian uh let's go to 32 gigabytes here though $2,000 $2,000 for 32 GB of RAM rebranded CPU and that rebranded downclock GPU it's very expensive let's just do a comparison here uh to the Lenovo Legion which is a very similar laptop so this this one's customizable I just put one in here you you can get this with a 7945 HS which is is this processor right it is this processor with a seven instead of an eight that's all they did they take eight off and you put the seven on the same processor uh so there you go that's this is just the ryzen 7 it's the same thing I've actually found in my test if you watch my video of the G14 versus the Lenova Legion this one here outperformed the G14 model with the ryzen 9 79 45 HS it outperformed it because this has better cooling it's a thicker chassis with vastly Superior cooling so this here is even thinner this year right it's an even thinner laptop it's going to run even hotter so this is going to outperform this is the same CPU basically ryzen 7 slightly downclocked it's going to easily outperform this here right so this is the better processor period uh mainly because it's the same processor but it's in a better chassis you can get the 7945 HS if you really want I wouldn't but whatever um if you really care but again it'll also run cooler 32 GB Ram same thing right runs exactly the same speeds blah blah blah blah same thing soldered I had no problem with that one SSD the G14 comes with one SSD but it only has one SSD slot right so you're stuck with what you get you can upgrade this storage you can put in a 4 terab SSD the Lenovo Legion has dual nvme so you can put in two ssds in there that is important because you have one for your operating system and you have one for your games right very important I think personally I think that's very important uh screen is the same uh 1800p OLED screen 500 nits DCP 100% blah blah blah blah uh 400 nits here the only difference here and 120 HZ the only difference here this one doesn't have g-sync whereas this one does which is I think probably I guess some people care um I actually have many people on my Discord who have this uh laptop here I also have talked to people on the Lenovo Legion Discord and Reddit and other places and in my video comments and nobody's noticing tearing on this screen here uh at all so you know I had the laptop I did notice it but I don't know it could just be like n equals one so I asked them none of them had tearing issues so that may not be a problem but this does have advanced optimis so what you're paying for here is last year's CPU last year's GPU that's been downclocked a nice screen not enough RAM and uh normal type connection I suppose little bit thinner too you're going to have you are going to have heat issues here uh because this CPU is going to run very hot in this thin chassis here it's a very these are very thin I saw one in person I handled it it's very thin if the G14 of last year runs too hot this is going to definitely run too hot and the vapor chamber you're not buying into the vapor chamber with these lower-end models you don't get into the vapor chamber until you get way up in these models here so these are going to run too hot so you're going to have a hot chassis here that's going to run way too hot in these laptops here with an old CPU from last year still a good CPU but it's last year's downclocked GPU from last year and not enough RAM now why do I think it's too expensive this right here this is Canadian doll $1600 84 uh 1684 here before any type of savings if you're a student you get another 10% off I believe it is uh so you can drop off another 100 bucks off of that or so 100 well 160 technically there's always other coupons from Lenovo too so you can get this thing down to like ,400 Canadian dollars that's about ,00 American dollars maybe 1150 American same CPU you can spec this up to the 7945 HS if you want I think it's like 40 bucks or something like that 50 bucks uh you can spec that up but I wouldn't I would just leave it as that because the performance is identical this is going to cool adequately and run better than this here this this ryzen 9 is going to run inferior to this ryzen 7 because the same CPU as last year this one right here um and it ran inferior this laptop in my head head comparison the G14 versus the legion 5 sl slim 5 the legion slim 5 performed better CPU performed better because it ran cooler uh so this will run this will outperform this I can guarantee you right now if someone like Jared's Tech or maybe me miraculously get my hands on both these laptops at the same time they will find or I will find that this will outperform this in CPU tasks guaranteed Ram is the same so no issue there double the storage here uh you know whatever you buy into doesn't matter storage doesn't cost much you get a second SSD here get yourself a bulk you know 4 terabyte or something for not much money you know that extra 512 is not going to make any difference screen is identical other than this has g-sync I some people might care I don't didn't notice any tearing um and you know everyone I've talked to hasn't notice a tearing but otherwise it's exactly the same but there is g-sync on that so that's something to care about GPU is basically the same but technically this one is faster it's higher wattage so it is faster not going to be staggering but it is faster batter is the same y yada y it's a fraction of the cost a fraction of the cost for that there even if you get to here and we drop down to the uh 4060 oh you can't even get 32 gabes oh well there you go you're screwed so you get the 4060 for you know $1600 American versus this here Canadian so this is way more expensive because this is American dollars this is basically like I said 1100 or 1150 American maybe 1,200 at most before coupons uh and you get 32 GB of RAM so you get twice as much RAM as this year so it's a it's a just a better laptop right it's not thick this is not a thick laptop it will be thicker than this for sure this is a pretty thin laptop but you're basically getting better cooling so if you're using this for gaming tasks which this is a gaming laptop this obliterates it actually comes out and it will obliterate this in performance and it's way cheaper this here is a crater laptop masquerading as a gaming laptop right uh it's got this cool chat that looks like the razor blade and they put a nice you know Creator style screen in and then they decided that they could double the price I mean even Asus even Asus sells you know their creator style Ola laptops for cheaper than this um you know like if a GPU launches in the US and it comes to Canada it's like I don't know two bucks more here five bucks more it's the same price outrageous price price gouging from Asus in Canada here outrageous price GA price gouging three grand look at that right remember I'm not sponsored by anybody I have never been sent a gaming laptop for review in my life by any company ever every single gaming laptop I reviewed all the G4S I've done you know the x16 x13 I've done lots of different Legion laptops I've done some HP stuff done some MSI stuff I've never been sent a gaming laptop no one sponsors me I don't have any sponsors I don't have any affiliations with the companies so I'm looking at this from objectively right if you were buying these laptops why in your right mind would you buy this not sorry that's not even the right one because it doesn't have 32 GB of RAM the 32 GB isn't even offered yet right and and in the US same thing you can't you get you get 16 gbes or whatever so let's say you buy even the 3070 and you're like okay I'll get the 3070 that's like $2500 Canadian dollars versus this once you drop that down it's like 1,00 so we're looking at about you know 1,200 we we'll even round it up $1,200 two grand so you're paying 800 bucks for g-sync and the difference between 4 60 and 4070 that's like nothing so then we have the g16 over here the g16 let's get into the g16 uh the g16 is slightly better value so three $2,300 Canadian uh not bad um it's it's okay I guess uh but then we come down here you know that's a good processor 155h good processor going to run very similar to the 185h so I don't really actually recommend upgrading uh because again these are thin laptops you're not you're going to get a heat issue so to be honest actually go with the 155h to be honest uh 4060 4060 at least it's 100 Watts so it's slightly higher wattage that's probably the Sweet Spot no need to go over that to be honest it is dynamic boost so it's 85 Watts it'll pull from the CPU which is not great but whatever it is what it is they'll pull from that okay we'll come down here still a nice OLED screen you know Optimus uh gsync here yeah g-sync there that's good 8 gigabytes of RAM times 2 16 GB of RAM 16 GB of RAM 16 GB of Ram so these are all dead $2,300 dead $2,500 dead $22,900 dead cuz these are soldered why the hell would you buy a $3,000 laptop with 16 gab of soldered RAM and a 4070 for an OLED screen get out of here why would you do that don't throw your money away okay let's jump over here all right let's get into the good stuff here so now we're into you know we're getting some good Ram here right got our Ram here 16 GB time 2 32 GB nice we got enough RAM here f finally on this g16 okay oh we got that 4080 oh my God look at that starvation to that 4080 there 115 Watts this thing's going to run like crap it's honestly going to run like the 4070 if you watch Jared's Tech video he has a really nice video where he looks at the scaling of wattage on a 4080 laptop GPU and as you decrease the wattage the 4080 becomes anemic and chokes itself to death and his performance absolutely tanks so they slapped in a 4080 here that looks real nice on paper and it's going to run garbage you're basically paying for vram you're going from 8 to 12 gabes of vram is really what you're paying for here and you're paying $11,100 for that that's disgusting you get more RAM though which is nice look at the Americans over here uh so the Americans 32 gbes of ram that's good I'm happy with that 4080 starved useless 480 at 115 Watts waste of time $2,700 pathetic and the CP this CPU is the same as last year it's an unchanged CPU they just changed the letter they took the seven and turned it into an eight that's what they did there this GPU is the same as last year in fact it's actually slower they downclocked it and you're getting an OLED screen and you're paying so much money for that because it says Asus and it says G14 on it like come on guys the price is crazy here that's crazy even two grand is insane right to get into that because this is DOA you don't want this is DOA don't buy 16 gabes this point it looks enticing 1, 1600 throwing your money down the drain so you're buying it at $2,000 American dollar here offensive to me I mean it's rough right like why you why buy something that's going to have the same CP the same CPUs as last year right um you're you're basically buying in and you're paying for the name and the the hype of having an olad on a G14 that will perform worse than last year this G14 will perform worse than last year because this is going to run just as hot as last year but you're going to have adequate cooling here so it's going to be even hotter you're going to get more throttling this is going to run worse than last year but it's not a big deal very similar but whatever you're not able to get the same amount of ram because last year you had 16 gigabytes on the board on board and then you had the ability to add a sodm so you can take it up to 32 for a very little amount of money can't do that anymore you're buying a screen you're you're compromising your performance paying a boatload of money for an OLED screen we come in here and x16 way better laptop way better laptop does have that spicy CPU um you know I I am a fan of the 13th gen I am a fan of the core CPUs I like them quite a bit this is a mini LED so you get a mini LED screen on this thing fantastic screen I've used it it's beautiful uh very powerful CPU 4060 and it's cheaper that's for Canadians that's like yeah that's fraction of the cost if you look at that there I mean 32 gigabytes we don't have it we don't have access to it so it's at least $800 cheaper here you're going to get better performance out of this here only thing that you're sacrificing is a tiny little bit of thickness not much still thin laptop and g-sync is g-sync worth $800 American dollar I don't know ask yourself that and then decide if you're going to buy this here uh Americans have bad pricing but it's not completely offensive it's just kind of offensive Canadians is absurd this is offensive pricing Asus should be ashamed of themselves for what they've done here in the Canadian Market this is literally offensive to me the fact that I would be paying more than $1,000 more for an inferior laptop to this year you really think that people in can Canadians are going to spend a, bucks more for something that has inferior cooling Less storage capabilities half the amount of ram to the point of being embarrassing and they're going to pay, more no I think Canadians are more intelligent than that I think Americans are more intelligent than that too so Asus uh do better with your pricing um it's absurd I know you have something cool here that you're proud of but uh first of all it shouldn't even be offered in 16 gbes that's an embarrassment to your company this is a gaming laptop premium very expensive hyper expensive laptop this shouldn't I shouldn't even be seeing this button here this shouldn't exist unless it has a soodam slot which it doesn't so that's an embarrassment right there the price is an embarrassment in the United States the price is outrageously in a slap in the face in Canada do better acis
