ASUS ROG STRIX GL502

[ElectricAdv 49]

• Overall:

1. 

 

• Price:

1. $2200 AUD

 

• Specs:

1. 15.6in UHD 4K IPS display, Intel i7-6700HQ CPU, 8GB DDR4 RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M GPU, 256GB Samsung M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 2.2kg, 23.8mm height.* Price at time of review15.6in laptop that’ll play all your favourite games and won’t break your back.

2. Gaming laptops used to suck. They had weak graphics cards, weighed a ton and 'boasted' a battery life of about 20 minutes. Now there's dozens to choose from that play all your favourite games pretty damn well. Asus' latest gaming-focussed laptop is an excellent example of what a modern gaming laptop can be. The ROG Strix GL502 is relatively light and packs all the fancy bits a laptop should have.

3. Inside the plastic but durable chassis is your choice of i7 6700HQ or i5 6300HQ quad-core CPUs, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M GPU, 8GB of DDR4 RAM soldered on, an M.2 PCIe NVMe socket for a wicked fast SSD, as well as the usual 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and webcam. There's a nice selection of ports, too: three USB 3.0, gigabit Ethernet, SD card reader, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI and even USB-C.

4. Display wise, you are spoilt for choice, with three options to fill the 15.6in of screen area. There's two 1080p panels, differentiated by colour accuracy specs, and a 4K UHD panel. Tested here is the i7-6700HQ variant, with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB Samsung M.2 PCIe SSD and the 4K UHD panel.

5. The design of the ROG Strix GL502 is consistent with all the other Republic of Gamers products ASUS has released. If anything, the Strix GL502 is little more subdued than other ROG gear. There's just a few splashes of neon orange here and there to differentiate this gaming beast from your work laptop. It also only weighs 2.2kg and is 23.5mm thick - amazingly compact for a machine with a high-end CPU and GPU. You could easily transport this from home to work or school every day, unlike the gaming laptops of just a few years ago.

6. Rather refreshing for a modern laptop is the ability to upgrade bits of the machine yourself. Unscrewing the bottom panel reveals a user replaceable memory slot for some extra DDR4 RAM and a spare 2.5in SATA port, for an easy storage boost. You can also replace the M.2 PCIe SSD for a larger or faster model to compliment the 2.5in drive.

7. Performance on the ASUS ROG Strix GL502 is similar to other GTX 970M laptops, scoring 6513 in the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark. Playing the latest FPS games like Doom 4 and Overwatch on high quality at 1080p were smooth affairs, with no show-stopping lag. Less graphically intensive favourites, such as Cities Skylines and Civilization V, are perfect. Sure, it'd be nice to have a GTX1080 stashed in there for some 4K 60fps goodness, but remember, this is a 2.2kg laptop! The fans inside the laptop do spin up while gaming, but not enough to distract you if you’re wearing headphones or have external speakers cranked up.

8. The 4K display included on the demo unit ASUS sent is fantastic. A matte IPS panel with no glass or plastic in front of it that has excellent viewing angles and 98% Adobe RGB coverage is a pleasure to look at. Even when gaming at 1080p, the 4K display still looks crisp. It may not be a 144hz, 2ms response time panel like your desktop, but considering the GPU inside, I'll take the increased colour quality over fast response any day.

9. To mark this as a gaming laptop, ASUS has taken the liberty of highlighting the WASD keys frequently used by first person shooters. Apparently this makes it easier for FPS gamers to know where to place their fingers. All the keys are backlit by red LEDs, adding to the gamer aesthetic. The keyboard itself is great, with 1.6mm key travel rather than most chiclet style keyboards common on laptops. Even the trackpad - useless for gaming, - is one of the better trackpads for a Windows laptop, with a smooth yet tactile surface, basic multi-touch gestures and satisfactory finger accuracy.

10. Unfortunately, the Strix GL502 is riddled with bloatware out of the box: anti-virus programs, ASUS utilities that hog RAM, and demos of apps you’ll never use. The included ROG Gaming Centre is pretty useless as well; most of what it does can be configured via Nvidia drivers. Desktop use felt a bit sluggish with all this stuff installed, so you might want to head on over to the Microsoft website and make yourself a Windows 10 USB drive to do a clean install.

11. ASUS's ROG Strix GL502 has a few competitors also packing a 6th generation Intel CPU and Nvidia GTX 970M GPU in a 15.6in chassis. Gigabyte's P35W v5, the MSI GE62 and Acer's G9-591 are all very similar in spec and price with no clear obvious buy. The ASUS competes well on features, with its excellent quality screen, usable trackpad and trim chassis; it's hard not to recommend a gaming laptop that won't break your wallet or your back.

Edited February 14, 2017 by FaLLenGirL

[CrystalMD 25]

Incearca sa rescrii postul, caci e dat peste cap, si incearca sa nu mai folosesti asa multe imagini, dar incearca sa o faci cat mai compacta, caci dupa cum vezi ... te-ai cam extins pe tot forumu :)

Cat priveste notebooku, ma asteptam la un gtx 1080 Dar oricum e bun si cu 1060.

[Volkan 5]

 

Acum 2 ore, CrystalMD a spus:

Incearca sa rescrii postul, caci e dat peste cap, si incearca sa nu mai folosesti asa multe imagini, dar incearca sa o faci cat mai compacta, caci dupa cum vezi ... te-ai cam extins pe tot forumu :)

Cat priveste notebooku, ma asteptam la un gtx 1080 Dar oricum e bun si cu 1060.

Copy paste dude... macar obositi-va cu o redimensionare la poze si un font propriu, culori proprii .. e mai binem.. nu reiese atat de clar ca e pentru+1

Edited February 13, 2017 by Volkan