Could you pls try retesting the screen brightness with the AMD driver provided by ASUS(V27.20.1020.2002) at rog.asus.com -> support&downloads ?

With that ASUS graphics driver the screen can go even brighter at max and much dimmer at minimum (similar to those ThinkPad and Macbook, should be just ~5cd/m^2, instead of 15cd/m^2).

Beautiful laptop checking in the shop, chassis, screen response, specs...but that aircraft sounding fan ....will likely be the head turner and not for good reasons. :'(

I was getting close to pulling the trigger on this when I realized the geniuses at ASUS didn't bother putting Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys on it. Who designs a keyboard and leaves those out completely, especially Home and End?? It's bad enough when they put them as functions on the arrow keys, but to not even bother including them at all is just ridiculous. I just don't understand all these manufacturers' refusal to make a decent keyboard. It's the main interface the user has with the computer, and so if it sucks, it doesn't matter how good the specs are. A fast computer that's annoying to use is not a good computer, regardless of how well it performs. Why can't other OEMs take a page from Lenovo, which is widely regarded by the vast majority of people that have used one to have the best keyboards? It would be such an easy way to significantly improve the usability and therefore desirability of their computers.

Do you plan to ever update this review with your own findings ?
("We retest the Asus Zephyrus G14 battery life and now it s over two times longer than before")

I do not know what keeps you from doing it and admit your oversight - other reviewers found out what kept them from getting good battery endurance.

Since I never had that issue with my unit I asume that Asus just updated the software/setting that was causing that issue...

Quote from: taitai on June 06, 2020, 22:26:39
This article's 30W idle consumption has two reasons.
1. This article must be measuring the AC power consumption of the power brick. Efficiency of this power brick is relatively low to make it small.

2. radeon software prevent dgpu to sleep. killing the task from task manager reduces around 7~8W.

Actual power usage for browsing+watching youtube was 7~10W according to windwos 10 battery report and HWIinfo.

There's likely something off in the testing here, but software power consumption numbers are notoriously unreliable and inaccurate, so what you are saying isn't necessarily any more correct.

As for the AC brick being "relatively inefficient" to make it small? That is nonsense. First off, there are minimum efficiency requirements for such bricks if they are going to be sold in the EU, so it can't be very low. Secondly, low efficiency means more heat output from the brick, which means it needs to be bigger to dissipate said heat. The only way to shrink power bricks is to make them more efficient, not less, and the best is to use a gallium nitride based architecture, which means they can get very small and very efficient.

This article's 30W idle consumption has two reasons.
1. This article must be measuring the AC power consumption of the power brick. Efficiency of this power brick is relatively low to make it small.

2. radeon software prevent dgpu to sleep. killing the task from task manager reduces around 7~8W.

Actual power usage for browsing+watching youtube was 7~10W according to windwos 10 battery report and HWIinfo.

Thanks to the below useful links, I am able to run my GA401II-HE003T (Ryzen7/GTX1050Ti) silent and cool (in daily use, browsing etc):

www.reddit.com/r/ZephyrusG14/comments/gpx549/summary_about_controlling_fansboosttdp_all_is/
You can set fan control to Fanless (no noise, mostly) or Low-speed (approx. half as of how "Silent" profile runs).

www.autohotkey.com/
To get over the annoying PgUp/Down Home/End affair (with Alt+)

As well as getting rid of Armoury Crate and using Power saver mode (on very conservative settings) helps with battery runtimes.

Might be useful to check for yourselves.

Let me say that without Notebookcheck's battery test I would not have known that there is a problem with this laptop's discrete GPU turning on whenever the display is refreshing at 120Hz. No, notebookcheck did not themselves research and diagnose the issue like anandtech's reviewer did (thank you Joschn for the link). But they did test the laptop according to their real-world test, and dutifully published the results even when other reviewers disagree.

To turn down the 120Hz screen to 60Hz is a *workaround* and to me is *unacceptable*.

To do this for the PURPOSE OF BENCHMARKING is absolutely misleading, and I am ashamed that anandtech simply copied Asus' internal practice of nerfing their hardware to get better numbers, but I do respect them for at least explaining this in text.

The next laptop I buy will have a 120Hz screen at a minimum, and I fully expect to be able to use it, with no shenanigans like brightness-dependent refresh rate like on the Pixel 4, and without it being automatically disabled when on battery, none of that "gotta make the benchmarks look better" crap.

If a laptop's GPU switching is broken, it's broken. It can probably be fixed in software, but until that time I don't expect the battery life numbers to be any different.

Will you guys ever update battery life tests?

I purchased this laptop and it is very disappointing. At idle it makes too much noise and it is a high pitch annoying noise. Armoury Crate software from Asus has a Manual mode that allows you to reduce the fans speeds which is great. However, this mode is available only when you are connected to AC, which is dumb. I want the laptop to be quiet when I watch a movie on my couch or I read something, not when I am at my desk. I played GTA V for 30 minutes with ultra settings on 1080p. The performance is great but the laptop gets too hot, especially the top part of the keyboard. I verified the temperatures in Hwinfo64 and the CPU got to 103C degrees. Heat and especially the fan noise during idle made me decide to return it. The metallic case is also very easy to scratch. I scratched the palm rest area with my watch while I was very attentive. This is a nice looking device, but the phrase "too good, to be true" applies here.

... and when I say "heat", I mean "fan noise" in this case. One obviously tends to lead to the other...

Ah yes, heat. AMD's old enemy. That's why I switched to Intel about 15 years ago and never looked back.

Well, until now. The performance promised by these new Ryzen CPUs made me think that I could get the same performance as out of a similar Intel CPU but at less noise and power consumption. But looking at this review (as well as others elsewhere), it seems like they gain that performance advantage not through more efficient architecture, the 7nm process or something but by outputting more heat.

Quote from: Valantar on April 11, 2020, 15:17:02

Quote from: Joschn on April 09, 2020, 19:35:42
You *really* should do un update regarding battery life.
Seems like you ran into the same issue Anandtech has:

Completely agree with this. Getting results that differ so dramatically from every other review and then not investigating this further is a very poor journalistic practice.

As much as I appreciate the thoroughness and information value of Notebookcheck's reviews, I have to agree on this one. Although on one side I get it –⁠ they most likely have to make good on the bribes they seem to be receiving from Intel, so they gimp products with AMD chips in their reviews in one way or another. This is by far not the first time (and most certainly not the last time) this happened. :( 

Quote from: Caribou on April 07, 2020, 21:59:40
I can't share that sentiment. gaming laptops are a waste of money. not my money though.

You are of course welcome to that opinion, and while I don't disagree that gaming laptops are poor value compared to desktops, your phrasing and insistence on this point in exclusion just points to you speaking from a very privileged point of view and/or having a very narrow view of how people game on PCs.

Not everyone has the room for a desk where they live, let alone one big enough to house a desktop PC with room to spare or one exclusively for using said desktop. Not everyone prefers sitting in a desk chair when gaming - some people prefer sitting in their sofa or a lounge chair for comfort. Not everyone wants to juggle two PCs with the (IMO minor, but nonetheless) hassle that entails. And lastly, not everyone can afford to have both a gaming desktop and a laptop for use on the go. Sure, there are absolutely budgets where desktop+laptop will give you better value than just a do-it-all laptop, but €1500 isn't it when the laptop performs like this. You'll struggle significantly hitting this performance level in a PC below €1000, and you won't find a laptop for €500 or less that's even remotely as good for on-the-go usage as the G14 is according to reviews. And while this laptop does seem to be a rather unique proposition, remember that for people less concerned with portability, there are laptops around €1000 with near identical performance.

Quote from: Caribou on April 07, 2020, 21:59:40all I know is that following products are a waste of resources. It's not like these idiots didn't know by now AMD can deliver. I guess intel pays better.

Laptop development cycles aren't that short. They are generally in the realm of 1 1/2-2 years, meaning that laptop OEMs had no way of knowing the 4000-series APUs would be this good back then. Remember, Zen 2 launched around 8 months ago, and while OEMs obviously have access to early silicon, they definitely didn't have ES Ryzen 4000 APUs 1 1/2 years ago. And while previous generation APUs weren't bad, they weren't even close to this good.

Also, AMD has said there are 100+ designs with 4000-series APUs coming in 2020. This also underscores that these chips are too "fresh" for many designs to be ready (the ones that are ready are pretty much all made with a lot of engineering assistance from AMD, which it would be impossible to give to every model). In other words: as OEMs have time to finalize their designs for these chips, more choice will arrive. On the other hand, Intel's option is (near) identical to previous chips, so in that case OEMs are already deeply familiar with the architecture, motherboard design requirements, etc., and could re-use or tweak existing designs to bring updated models to market quickly. This isn't due to Intel paying them, but due to the realities of engineering a modern PC.

Quote from: Caribou on April 07, 2020, 21:59:40>The vast majority of gaming laptop buyers have that as their only PC. Do you imagine people just buy gaming laptops to game on the go, while using a desktop at home?
the only demographic I see this catering towards, are students. but they dont have that amount of cash.
I can't imagine there are that many people working on oil rigs that it would pay off catering towards those. Also they don't seem to me as the gaming type.

First off, it would be really nice if you actually used the quote functionality of the forum, as that would make your posts much easier to read.

Beyond that, as above, your perspective narrow to the point of being outright wrong. First off, while a €1500 laptop is indeed a lot for most students, that doesn't mean that many can't afford a laptop like this or won't save up for one. As for other demographics: this should appeal to anyone who fits any of what I described above, which could be anyone from infrequent gamers to people living in small apartments to anyone else with any reason that to them makes a laptop more practical than a desktop, and who can afford one (which is far easier today than even five years ago thanks to monumental increases in mobile GPU performance).

Quote from: Caribou on April 07, 2020, 21:59:40but yes, 4800hs and 2060 is a good combo. I just don't understand how these idiots can release such processors with 8 gigs of ram.

There we can agree, though for some of these laptops (thin-and-lights) 8GB is frankly sufficient for simple home and office use still, and likely will be for years to come - but there ought to be 16GB options available for those who want more. Of course for any gaming with integrated graphics 8GB is too little. The same goes for dGPU gaming - while 8GB is technically sufficient today, it's definitely on the low end of what's acceptable and will become a bottleneck well before the laptop is otherwise obsolete. At least all the gaming laptops seem to be upgradable, and adding a SODIMM isn't the most difficult undertaking (though most of these seem to use DDR4-3200 and likely need JEDEC DDR4-3200 DIMMs to run at full speed with any added RAM - and there isn't any of that currently on the market). IMO base SKUs with 8GB are fine, but anything even remotely premium (say, once you reach the 512GB SSD range) should also include 16GB of RAM for longevity's sake.

Quote from: Joschn on April 09, 2020, 19:35:42
You *really* should do un update regarding battery life.
Seems like you ran into the same issue Anandtech has:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15708/amds-mobile-revival-redefining-the-notebook-business-with-the-ryzen-9-4900hs-a-review/4

Completely agree with this. Getting results that differ so dramatically from every other review and then not investigating this further is a very poor journalistic practice.

You *really* should do un update regarding battery life.
Seems like you ran into the same issue Anandtech has:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15708/amds-mobile-revival-redefining-the-notebook-business-with-the-ryzen-9-4900hs-a-review/4