I saw a lot of gaming laptops at CES 2024. Affordable Gigabytes, Cyberpower's with liquid cooling loops, MSI's with Meteor Lake, and the Razer Blade laptop that will blow your socks off. My pick, however, is the redesigned Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 2024.

Over the past few years, the Zephyrus' specs have changed, but otherwise it has remained (mostly) the same. I still rate the older G14 2023 model as one of the best gaming laptops, but I'm glad to see Asus is back to square one for the new G14 2024.

The new model has less plastic and more metal, and I'm told the new speakers on either side of the keyboard can actually deliver decent audio. Admittedly, I was unable to test this last part in the loud Asus booth, but the company claims that this laptop is 252% louder than the previous model and can (within reason) actually deliver a decent bass response.

I can attest to how beautiful the new G14 looks. First, the AniMe Matrix lighting that was on the rear of the G14 for years is gone, replaced by new slash lighting. It feels more mature than the Matrix lighting, though that may be because there are fewer of them.

The biggest improvement in the 2024 G14 is the aluminum chassis, which covers more of the entire device. This results in a more rigid body, with less deflection and a better feel in the hand.

Also, if you look closely, you will notice that the touchpad is almost edge-to-edge, starting just below the space bar, with no bezel at the top.

Only one model is currently available, the GA403UI. However, this model strikes a good balance. This model comes with an RTX 4070 and a Ryzen 9 8945HS, which is pretty much what one would want in a gaming laptop in 2024. There is no need to cram an RTX 4090 into something this size.

One change from the previous year's model is the screen; Asus uses an OLED ROG Nebula Display with a resolution of 2880 x 1800. The aspect ratio is 16:10, which feels much larger than a typical 16:9 screen. Rated at 120Hz with a 0.2ms response time (thanks, OLED), this should be a pretty great gaming experience. That said, you can't always achieve these refresh rates if you plan to run everything at ultra or want to speed up the ray tracing. At least DLSS 3 and frame generation will help with that.

Rounding out the whole package is 32GB of LPDDR5X, 1TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage, and tons of connectivity options; the G14's plethora of ports is one of the reasons I've been a fan of this laptop for a while, and I'm glad to see that Asus is keeping that mentality here as well.

The battery is the same size as the previous model at 76 WHrs, but the overall weight is 1.5Kg, 12% lighter than the 2023 model.

I had a chance to pick up and run this laptop for a bit, but ultimately could not play with it properly. I expect it to perform as well as it looks. Pricing has not yet been determined, but it should be in stores next month. I don't expect this model to be the affordable hero that the G14 once was, but ideally it should at least be much more affordable than the comparable Razer Blade.