Rs.95,490) offers a 4K display and 512GB of SSD while the GL552VW, which is priced at Rs.82,490, offers a full HD display. We test the latter to see if the performance is good enough to allow you to consider it an alternative to the Alienware series of laptops made by Dell.
Design: Feels heavy but looks good
The Asus GL552VW is a well built gaming rig with a plastic and metallic exterior. Surprisingly, the metallic part which graces the lid flexes when you apply pressure on it, but the same material on the keyboard base feels a lot more solid. The trademark Republic of Gamers logo in the centre on the lid, which glows when the notebook is on, combines with the red colour accent in the keyboard and around the display to give the notebook a funky look which you won’t find in an ordinary laptop. The side panel includes a plethora of all the relevant ports such as the HDMI, USB 3.0, LAN and a built-in multi-card reader. Asus has added a USB Type-C standard port and an optical drive too.
It weighs 2.5kg, which is usual for gaming laptops. But then again, the general assumption is that these laptops aren’t going to be moved around all that often.
Keyboard: Backlit and spacious
The laptop comes with a full-fledged keyboard, as well as a number pad. The keys look spacious and have red backlighting. However, unlike the Dell Alienware laptops, where you can switch to up to 10 different colour accents, the GL552VW has got only a single red option. Certain keys W, A, S, D which are often used as the default controls in many games have been additionally highlighted.
The keys are well spaced out, and also designed for spill resistance. The palm rest area is wide and provides support for long hours of typing or gaming with the keyboard. The big track pad is responsive and the right as well as left click keys have been clearly separated with a red marker in between.
Display: Big and non-reflective
The 15.6-inch display is one of the key highlights here. It packs in 1920x1080 pixels (full HD) resolution, which is in fact ideal for a gaming laptop. A lot of recent gaming machines pushed for the 4K resolution screens, perhaps to look better on the spec sheet, but most graphics cards struggle at those resolutions. This laptop’s screen does well to make colours look rich, brightness levels are good and the matte finish on the screen gives it an edge over notebooks with glossy screens that reflect in brightly lit rooms or outdoor conditions. Also the wide-viewing angles are good.
Performance
The laptop is powered by Intel’s latest 6th generation Core i7-6700HQ (2.6GHz clock speed) processor with 16 GB RAM and the Nvidia GeForce 960M graphics card with 4GB memory. We were pretty much left in no doubt that it is a powerful machine and meets more than the recommended criteria for most of the top gaming titles such as Call of Duty, Assassins Creed or FIFA 16.
Asus has used hybrid storage, which means there is a 128GB SSD for fast boot-up and opening programs quickly, and the 1TB HDD ensure there is ample space for your HD movies and games.
The notebook runs the latest Windows 10 (64-bit) operating system out of the box with all its cool features such as the tiles mode, Microsoft Edge browser and Cortana personal assistant.
The battery back-up is impressive considering the fact that it gives slightly over 2 hours and thirty minutes on a non-stop session of PES 2016.
Verdict
The Asus GL552VW ticks the check-list of fast performance, a stunning display, ample storage and plethora of connectivity options. And at this price, the GL552VW does not have many rivals. The Asus RoG GL552JX, which is selling at Rs.80,990 comes close in most aspects, but only comes with 8GB RAM and has a slightly inferior Nvidia GeForce 950M graphics.
