Best Ryzen alternative to XPS 15?

[Aimless]

Due to an unexpected development, I had to buy a new laptop now instead of waiting for the ThinkPad.

So, of course, because tech is a farce, I went with the G14 I'd considered and then dismissed right at the beginning not the highest specced version - Ryzen 5, 1650ti, 120hz 1080p display, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD.

Looks great, feels great (solid, not too heavy, really nice coating that feels soft and warm), the display is lovely (matte, bright, good colors; it's said to be a little slow wrt response time, but I'm not a gamer), and the keyboard is surprisingly good - among the best I've used (although tbf I have a preference for this type of laptop-style keyboards). Speakers are perfectly all right, but I'll have to listen to more music to see how they compare to the ones on my Spectre x360. Obv. no real bass.

I hate that there are no dedicated home/end/PgUp/PgDn keys keys. I also think it's very unfortunate that they chose not to include a camera - probably a total dealbreaker for many people.

Important known issues with this line:

- some units might have a wonky fingerprint reader (mine works great).
- there may be some major issues involving USB-C charging while using a powered USB-C dock
- backlight on the white version is difficult to see
- some early units in particular have had issues with temp & fan noise
- fans never go below 2000 RPM - even while idling with cool temps. This is by design, and there's a third-party app that can keep the fans turned off and then turn them on again when the CPU reaches a predefined temperature (configurable). There's been some talk of Asus planning to change this with a BIOS update but who knows. If you're sensitive to light fan noise, eg. if you work without headphones and without music or in an otherwise quiet environment, and you don't want to use a third party app to turn off the fans, this might be a dealbreaker.

I was sorely tempted to go with a new Tiger Lake XPS 13 with Iris Xe graphics, because I had a good discount on a decently specced one, but decided against it; though it's a beautiful laptop, there appear to be major quality control issues and a lot of frustration from users, and it wouldn't have arrived fast enough anyway.

Gonna work on this G14 for a few days before making a decision on whether or not to cancel the ThinkPad order.

Anyway, I can recommend the Asus Zephyrus G14 to anyone who can live without a built-in webcam and dedicated home/end/PgUp/PgDn keys, and accept some light but constant fan-noise (or using a third-party app to turn off the fans at low temps).