Skip to main content

Long read: How TikTok's most intriguing geolocator makes a story out of a game

Where in the world is Josemonkey?

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Grab a Black Friday bargain with $500 off the ASUS ROG Zephyrus gaming laptop

Though it’s but a little laptop, it is fierce.

This is not the first bargain from Asus’ Republic of Gamers line of laptops for this years’ Black Friday sales, and with some luck it won’t be the last, either. It’s a notable deal though, as Best Buy currently has the high-spec Zephyrus for over a third off RRP.

You’ll get a lot of bang for your buck at this price – the trifecta of the Ryzen 7 5800 CPU, 16GB of DDR 4 RAM and an RTX 3060 GPU is more than capable of running the most recent AAA releases, and running them well.

Benchmarks state you’ll get over 60 FPS playing Elden Ring on max settings, and well over 100 on Call of Duty: Warzone. Though if you do intend on playing Warzone, be mindful that you only have 512GB of SSD as standard here, and if it continues ballooning at the rate it has the past few years, you’ll not fit much else on there alongside it. At least the FHD display has a 144Hz refresh rate, so you’ll be seeing those frames in action.

In a somewhat rarer find for gaming laptops too, there is a little room for upgrades – one of the two 8GB RAM slots isn’t soldered in, meaning you can (relatively) easily swap it out for a 16GB boost your total up to 24.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus view from above

There’s also a generous amount of connectivity here, with two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports to save you from having to use a USB hub for your peripherals like some newer laptops. And on the audio front, the G14 has four speakers which support Dolby Atmos and output in stereo.

It’s light and thin too, even by 14” standards, at 0.7” deep and only 3.5lbs. Perhaps they shaved off a few precious grams by omitting the usual RGB found on higher-end gaming laptops.

This deal seems to be exclusive to Best Buy, but readers on the UK side of the Atlantic can check out this Acer Nitro from Amazon, which is currently £400 off at £999.99. In terms of specs, it’s pretty similar across the board save for a slightly faster CPU and 1TB of storage over the Zephyrus’ 512GB.

Check out our coverage of Black Friday 2022 for an extensive source of good tech deals, and be sure to follow both Jelly Deals and Deals Foundry on Twitter to keep up with the latest cut-price gaming tech.

Read this next