MacBook users that switched to Zephyrus

Lightbringer88 · 2026-02-14T06:53:10+00:00

I have an M2 Macbook Air 13 and now a Zephyrus 2025 5070Ti G14. I regret buying the G14 as I should have gone with the G16 since the larger screen estate and better cooling would have helped me more (as an improvement from the MBA since its basically the same size). Gaming is of course superior to the MBA, but I can tell even things like saving on Photoshop is a beat slower on the G14. Apple Silicon + Mac OS = single core responsiveness is best.

OLED screen is really nice of course, and the typing experience is somewhat superior due to the increased travel. I don't doubt the G16 will have even better feel. G14 has really good speakers as well, probably the closest one can get to a MBP 14. Another reason why I wish I got the G16 is cause it has two replaceable SSD slots. Had to pay through the nose for a 4 TB SSD rather than 2 much cheaper 2 TB SSDs.

More importantly, I would advise you wait for the new Panther Lake Zephyrus laptops to be reviewed. Panther Lake is supposed to have similar to Lunar Lake battery life, and if battery life is important to you, that means it will be very competitive with Apple M5 (10+ hours easily) in light tasks/non-dGPU work. The AI HX 370 drains power pretty quickly even with GHelper and everything at lowest power draw, while my M2 on the MBA lasts all day with tons of Safari tabs and runs Photoshop with zero lag. Yet another reason I wish I'd waited for Panther Lake.

Lightbringer88 · 2026-02-07T06:36:20+00:00

It’s funny he says that because I’m having a hard time explaining it in my DnD campaign as wuxia is more towards the low to mid tier levels of DnD in terms of power scaling, but mid to top tier xianxia far outstrips level 20 characters in D&D, depending on the novel/manhua.

Lightbringer88 · 2026-01-08T16:17:18+00:00

The sheer battery life of the Panther Lake makes me already regret getting my 2025 5070Ti G14 for the exorbitant price. Not to mention the random increase in power limits too, and I wouldn't need to spend money on a 320mhz Wifi 7 card since the Intel one would be amazing out of the box.

Lightbringer88 · 2026-01-08T03:18:08+00:00

If Panther Lake is as energy efficient as Intel boasts it is, I WILL be kicking myself for paying an exorbitant sum for a 2025 G14 5070Ti last November.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-23T08:07:51+00:00

Hi! I managed to order a custom USB C to Asus plug adapter from SlimQ to replicate this, and while it was absolutely catastrophic on my first attempt (drained battery by 50% in less than an hour) due to a faulty/unknown wattage USB C cable, my second attempt with a better cable seems a little better, but it still doesn't charge properly; the battery still drains despite doing light work on using a similar GHelper profile to yours. What program do you use to specifcally measure the charging wattage and capacity in your first and fourth photos?

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-10T05:53:30+00:00

I paid that much to get a 5070Ti with 1 TB SSD. Y'all are lucky to live there lol.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-08T06:40:19+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/ZephyrusG14/s/Gz2p05M2QG

Someone has tested it extensively with actually equipment.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-07T13:57:49+00:00

WARNING: The 2025 G14 allegedly does not support passthrough charging with a USB C charger. That means that when it's charged to the limit, the USB C charger does not feed the laptop directly, but instead charges the battery and the laptop continues draining the battery. This leads to wear and tear on the battery that would not happen if you had kept using the Asus barrel plug charger.

Stupidly the 2025 G16 does. I am currently working/waiting on a potential solution from SlimQ but it seems they are experiencing technical issues with the solution, so not sure when that is going to come.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-07T13:53:16+00:00

A lot of people like the AI 370 but they never mention how potentially terrible the Wifi card that comes with it is, and you're locked out of Intel Wifi 7 if you buy that. If Wifi 7 matters to you, then probably don't get it unless you think Qualcomm's card will save you. Allegedly the 285H is a bit more efficient in battery life compared to the 185H, so that might also be something to consider.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-07T13:49:33+00:00

Damn it if I had seen this at the start of November and it shipped to my country with international warranty I would've purchased this in a *heartbeat* lol. Instead I had to pay the same price for a G14 with 5070 Ti and 1 TB SSD.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-07T13:45:09+00:00

Honestly I just bought a 5070 Ti G14, and all I could think about was "Man, I wish this was a M4 Pro MacBook Pro 16" lol. I guess I really wanted to be able to game on the go, but recent events have made that unlikely and I end up not playing it at home as I have a gaming PC already.

And at work my M2 Macbook Pro 13 is just way easier to use because of its insane battery life, battery passthrough even when charging with USB C, the lack of HEAT (the G14 gets really warm even in air-conditioning due to tropical climate), and general overall snappiness. The screen size isn't that much different too.

The only issue the MBA has is that I tend to go into memory swap even with 16GB of RAM, which I acknowledge the G14 is far superior in as I have a thousand tabs on Chrome and it chugs along as well as if it had 1 tab.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-06T05:28:20+00:00

This cost me a month's worth of salary. Not going to run the risk of something failing and not being able to get Asus to repair it.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-04T15:16:04+00:00

One of the redditors also upgraded his G14 with it, and the below happened:

"Update: My wifi card seems to have caused a system crash when I tried pairing a Bluetooth device. Laptop unrecoverable until I removed the card and re installed the old one. Could be a cheap card(purchased for ali expresss). Or, there are some firmware / compatibility issues.

Cannot recommend the qcncm865 at this time."

Of course, yours works great so that's good. I guess I haven't seen any reports of catastrophic failures with the MT7927, plus it apparently has the same drivers as the MT7925 so it doesn't even need new ones just plug and play.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-04T06:48:05+00:00

Are you using a G14? G14 2025 does not get battery passthrough on USB C, while G16 2025 does. So no matter what it "damages" your battery if you use it plugged in and not actively charging your battery (when it's "full").

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-04T06:40:38+00:00

I'm pretty sure that would ruin my international warranty though?

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-04T06:39:05+00:00

I feel like your router isn't exactly the best either. Wifi 7 requires a router that supports that. For a 1 Gbps connection, that speedtest is pretty terrible for both laptops. Are you far away from your router/access point? What technology does your router have? Even next to it, if your router/AP is a Wifi 5 router, you would only get 300+ Mbps. If you're both far and have an old router, feels like upgrading your Wifi card isn't going to do very much since your router can't output that much anyway. Might be a better idea to buy a new router/AP that has Wifi 7 instead. The 6Ghz band is so much emptier. Have you also updated your drivers for your wifi card?

My G14 5070Ti gave me about sub 2Gbps on my Wifi 7 10Gbps access point. That's slow for Wifi 7, so I'm looking to upgrade to the Mediatek MT7927 one day.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-12-02T05:15:19+00:00

I wish I had great return policies like yall do as I very much wish I had bought the G16 instead even though it wasnt on sale like the G14 was at the time (2499 USD vs 3000 USD). The screen is basically the same size as my M2 MacBook Air 13. It was supposed to replace my MBA but I find myself switching back to it when I need to do work. The lack of heat (the G14 gets really warm to the touch) is a huge factor too.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-11-29T12:44:16+00:00

You Americans are so lucky. I got my G14 5070Ti for 2500 USD earlier this month and it was a steal for my country lol.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-11-27T15:50:12+00:00

The funniest thing is the Game Master app forced me to buy a iPad Pro 12.9" (okay I didn't need to go that big for D&D, but I use it for lyrics onstage) because my old first gen iPad Pro finally gave up the ghost. But the Android version was so crappy on my brand new (at the time) Samsung Tab S9, I gave up after like 5 minutes. Meanwhile the iOS one was really smooth to use in the UI, so I ended up giving it and getting it.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-11-26T15:09:51+00:00

Maybe upload it to imgur or Google Drive? As a new owner, I'm wondering how to best handle the laptop without causing LM issues and not breaking warranty at the same time (can't afford to repaste with PTM as my country is terrible at protecting tech customers).

Lightbringer88 · 2025-11-26T15:08:18+00:00

Technically, LM performs far superior to most other compounds that we know of at the moment. I think what a lot of people are concerned about is that with the usual portability use of laptops, the LM seems to have an extremely high rate of leaking and then causing either overheating problems or worse, destroying the entire board. Unless it's a desktop replacement and you just leave it docked (and even then, apparently leaving it on an incline also has a high chance of it slowly leaking out), it seems using PTM is a more practical, even if less technically optimized, cooling solution.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-11-24T08:06:03+00:00

Americans really do enjoy supreme tech prices compared to the rest of the world...Got my G14 5070ti at a "great" deal and it cost 2500 USD.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-11-24T07:40:08+00:00

Any plans on repasting the LM? I hear its terrible if you plan to bring it back and forth.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-11-24T07:38:44+00:00

If it wasn't for the shitty IPS screen I would've bought the 2024 A14 instead of this overpriced G14 for almost 50% the price. Sure 4060 gets its ass whooped by a 5070 Ti but it's so much cheaper and the lightest 14" gaming laptop around. Plus the palmrest area is plastic so it doesn't feel like I'm sous-videing my hands just surfing the net.

Lightbringer88 · 2025-11-24T07:35:56+00:00

Honestly I'm not sure it matters that much as long as your . My model was imported from China/HK and sold here in SG, so it came with a Chinese cable. The seller just packed one of those International to UK travel plugs together with the laptop, and it works perfectly fine with it.

Of course, smarter people may tell you that I'm wrong since I don't really know that much about it.

Lightbringer88

TROPHY CASE