Hands-On, Laptop

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Alan Walker SE Is a Fun, Unique Gaming Laptop

Most special edition laptops come and go without leaving much of an impression, but this doesn’t really apply to the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Alan Walker Special Edition – yes, it’s quite a mouthful. Not only does the G14 AW SE have a fun, unique packaging, the laptop itself is quite good too – after all, the G14 is a very accomplished product.

If you’re a fan of Alan Walker, or you just want a sleek-looking gaming laptop with a unique appeal, consider the G14 AW SE – it will be arriving in Malaysia very soon as well.

First, let’s talk about the most distinctive aspect of the Zephyrus G14 AW SE: the packaging. Now, unlike other gaming laptops, the acrylic packaging of this special edition laptop actually doubles as a DJ deck.

Dubbed ROG Remix, the DJ deck features “conductive pads on the surface that allow users to trigger 18 of Walker’s own sound effects.” The moment it is connected to the G14 through a USB-C to USB-C cable, the ROG Remix software is automatically launched. Oh, the DJ deck even has LED lighting – very neat touch.

Now, I am by no means an aspiring DJ, but the ROG Remix is quite fun to play with. Triggering the 18 available sound effects will play different animations on the laptop’s screen, I can control the playback speed of Alan Walker’s Sorry – you can add your own track to the ROG Remix software too – and I can even isolate the low frequencies.

Further enhancing this “DJ experience” is the G14 AW SE’s amazing quad speaker setup. It sounds crisp and clear with a decent amount of bass, and it can get pretty darn loud. The G14 had always offered very good audio quality, and it’s apt that Asus’ collaboration with Alan Walker is with this particular laptop.

Getting back to the ROG Remix, I really have to give credit to Asus here. The fact that it managed to turn the packaging of the G14 AW SE into a DJ deck is quite ingenious. Of course, this isn’t the only interesting feature of this special edition laptop – the machine itself has some cool design elements too.

The lid of the Zephyrus G14 AW SE, for one, features a reflective belt made of actual fabric with Alan Walker’s and ROG’s brandings. While this version of the G14 still features the AniMe Matrix LED array on the lid, it’s a different “Spectre Blue” lighting instead, which is exclusive to this machine.

Open up the lid, and you’ll be greeted by a custom Alan Walker wallpaper, along with some pretty nice accents on the mod keys. This gives the keyboard a good contrast with the alpha keys, and Alan Walker’s logo are also on the A and W keys.

And…these are all the unique design elements of the Zephyrus G14 AW SE. They are mostly aesthetic changes – well, aside from the neat packaging/DJ deck – and beyond these differences, it’s just like the regular G14.

Only one variant of the G14 AW SE is available. It features a Pantone Validated 14-inch QHD IPS display with a 120Hz refresh rate, an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS processor paired with 16GB of RAM, 1TB of PCIe SSD storage, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU. All in all, a reasonably capable gaming laptop.

I haven’t put the Zephyrus G14 AW SE through its paces yet, but I reckon it will be able to run AAA titles quite well with its RTX 3050 Ti GPU. Granted, it’s not an awfully powerful graphics card, but with some tweaks to the graphics settings, it should be able to return smooth, high frame rate in most graphically demanding games.

Further enhancing the gaming experience of the G14 AW SE is its fast (and sharp) 14-inch 1440p IPS display with a 120Hz refresh rate. Thanks to this high refresh rate, it will provide good motion clarity, even in fast-paced games. This being a Pantone Validated screen, it offers good colour accuracy too; it covers 100% of the DCI-P3 colour space.

The keyboard and trackpad of this laptop are also worth a mention. The keyboard is very comfortable to type on – thanks to its soft bottom out and good amount of key travel – and the smooth glass trackpad can track my fingers accurately too.

Thanks to the refined keyboard and trackpad, I reckon the G14 AW SE can even double as a good productivity laptop, though I’ll have to assess its battery life first. But if the previous model is any indication, I’m confident the 76Wh battery can last quite long on a single charge.

So that’s the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Alan Walker Special Edition. I was told that this unique gaming laptop will be available here in Malaysia sometime in September next month, though its local pricing has not been revealed yet. To give us an idea of how much it could cost here, this laptop retails at $1,799 (about RM8,315) in the US.

Without a doubt the G14 AW SE is a costly gaming laptop, but you are paying for a special edition product. We’ll find out soon enough how much this sleek-looking laptop will cost in Malaysia.

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