{"id":1049909,"date":"2026-01-18T10:45:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T10:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=486592"},"modified":"2026-01-18T10:45:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T10:45:50","slug":"this-is-the-laptop-i-just-bought-on-sale-for-black-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/this-is-the-laptop-i-just-bought-on-sale-for-black-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"This is the laptop I just bought on sale for Black Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The first time I left Vox Media, back in 2020, I decided to treat myself to a gaming laptop \u2014 something compact I could bring on travels but with enough power to play games as demanding as Cyberpunk 2077<\/a><\/em>, which remains a great performance benchmark. I settled on the 2020 Asus Zephyrus G14<\/a>, and honestly, it quickly became my favorite of all time. Now, on my new<\/em> last day at Vox Media (editor\u2019s note<\/strong>: what the hell<\/em>, Ross?), I\u2019m buying yet another gaming laptop, and this time\u2026 yep, I\u2019m going with the 2024 edition of the Zephyrus G14. It\u2019s not because I refuse to explore the competition, it\u2019s just that the competition needs to try harder for my money. <\/p>\n

You can grab it on sale for $1,199.99 (was $1,599.99) from Best Buy<\/a> for Black Friday. I\u2019m not saying this is the right laptop for you<\/em> \u2014\u00a0not necessarily, at least \u2014\u00a0but I\u2019ll tell you why it\u2019s exactly the laptop I\u2019ve been looking for.<\/p>\n

Every person has a spec that matters above all else, and for me it\u2019s size. I like to be on the road as much as I can be, and to be blunt, I want the smallest form factor I can find for traveling. At this point, a 14-inch laptop strikes the sweet spot between \u201cfits in most backpacks comfortably\u201d and \u201cprobably has a decent graphics card.\u201d This version of the Zephyrus G14 should have more than enough performance to handle PC games that are also designed for the PlayStation 5 \/ Xbox Series X generation \u2014\u00a0it touts an AMD Ryzen 9 CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, 16GB of fast DDR5 RAM, and 1 TB storage. If there was a 12-inch laptop with an RTX card, I might be writing about a different machine, but value-wise, the G14 strikes the right balance.<\/p>\n

Screen-wise, the Zephyrus G14 has 2880 x 1800 resolution, which is plenty<\/em> sharp given the actual screen real estate, and more importantly, it\u2019s OLED,\u00a0and anyone who\u2019s upgraded to an OLED Switch, Steam Deck OLED, or to an OLED TV or monitor can tell you, it\u2019s pretty dang good.<\/p>\n

Obviously I can\u2019t definitively vouch for something that\u2019s yet to come in \u2014\u00a0I only just ordered it this morning \u2014 so my enthusiasm is a combination of past experience and trusting other reviewers. To wit: PC Mag<\/a>, PC Gamer<\/a>, and Wired<\/a> all gave it very positive reviews, with the big throughline concern being battery life \u2014\u00a0basically, it\u2019s fine<\/em> when not gaming and quick to drain when doing anything demanding. It can charge via USB-C, but you\u2019ll need to use the proprietary charger for substantial tasks. The Verge<\/a> notes that this year\u2019s G14 suffers from excess heat, which was the case for the 2020 model as well, but I\u2019ll take it.<\/p>\n

All that is to say, no, I won\u2019t be playing Shadow of the Erdtree<\/em> from a laptop during any flights \u2014\u00a0at least not for more than an hour or so. But I can<\/em> use it for YouTube, browsing, and work while I\u2019m in transit, and when I get to where I\u2019m going, I know that I\u2019ll have more than enough power to play whatever I\u2019d like. All these tradeoffs are valid concerns, and for many, they might be a dealbreaker. But for what I need, and for $1,200<\/a>, the G14 looks like the winner.<\/p>\n

\n

Looking for more? Check out all of Polygon\u2019s favorite Black Friday deals<\/a>, including great discounts on board games<\/a>, video games and gaming accessories<\/a>, Dungeons & Dragons<\/a>, Magic: The Gathering<\/a>, and Legos.<\/a> And subscribe to our newsletter below to get great deals delivered to your inbox every week.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first time I left Vox Media, back in 2020, I decided to treat myself to a gaming laptop \u2014 something compact I could bring on travels but with enough power to play games as demanding as Cyberpunk 2077, which remains a great performance benchmark. I settled on the 2020 Asus Zephyrus G14, and honestly, it quickly became my favorite of all time. Now, on my new last day at Vox Media (editor\u2019s note: what the hell, Ross?), I\u2019m buying yet another gaming laptop, and this time\u2026 yep, I\u2019m going with the 2024 edition of the Zephyrus G14. It\u2019s not because I refuse to explore the competition, it\u2019s just that the competition needs to try harder for my money. You can grab it on sale…<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1049910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1049909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polygon"],"yoast_head":"\nThis is the laptop I just bought on sale for Black Friday | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The first time I left Vox Media, back in 2020, I decided to treat myself to a gaming laptop \u2014 something compact I could bring on travels but with enough\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/this-is-the-laptop-i-just-bought-on-sale-for-black-friday\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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