The new release from Asus is the monster gaming machine bearing the high-end Republic of Gamers brand. It is a pack of everything gamers has been dreaming of. It can deliver at Full HD (1080) without a hitch.
The Asus ROG GL552VW machine is created for various jobs: it can handle office and daily entertainment tasks conveniently. The powerful device will simply blow your mind away.
Asus ROG GL552VW is a mid-range gaming laptop that sits between cheap gaming machines and high-end laptops. It, however, gets you the perfect results thanks to its solid design.
The performance is excellent in recent games, and no graphics sacrifices are needed. The 15.6” device combines the sexy design with solid performance and a stealth-fighter-themed chassis together with a vibrant display as well as a snappy keyboard. This is a perfect package if you are a hardcore gamer.
Asus ROG GL552VW Design
The slick aluminum lid is said to have been inspired by an F-22 fighter plane. The Asus ROG GL552VW, however, does not feature a sleek design as compared to some of its competition.
Measuring 15.1 by 10.1 by 1.3 inches, the device appears chunky. Some of the rival devices like the Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition and Dell Inspiron 15 7000 appear smaller. In terms of weight, the 5.6-pound ROG machine sits between the 5.9-pound Dell and the 5.1-pound Acer.
The Asus gaming hardware is always designed with keenness. There is always a good balance between the smartness and the gaming aspect. The lid is dark; mottled plastic brushed with metal at the center panel, the home to the ROG logo.
The whole of the Asus ROG GL552VW’s interior metal is black while the ROG logo and keyboard backlighting, touchpad, and the letters are all surrounded by red.
There is a lined pattern that decorates the area above the keyboard – it was inspired by Mayan designs. Worth noting, there are a number of times that the ROG hardware has been inspired by a South American tribe.
The Asus ROG GL552VW system looks, feels, and is utterly a young style. It is a real deal and an alternative to the top-end gaming machines in the industry. It is smaller, affordable, and still rocks the ROG-series style.
The brushed metal-style panel of the lid plastic is a common feature for gaming laptops in Asus. There is a high-tech pattern painted on the inside around the keyboard. The keyboard backlight is red too.
When handling the Asus ROG GL552VW machine, it feels a little bit more sturdy and expensive. It is solid hardware and always stands out from the rest.
There is a sense of cheapness around the flex-prone lid. For a home-bound laptop, the inside matters a lot. For this laptop, the build is very solid. The exterior design is just modern. It comes with a USB-C port and other connectivity ports.
There are sufficient ports such as the 2 USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port and there is an HDMI socket. From the side, there is an optical DVD writer drive to allows retail games on the CD to play nicely. You can read from SD-cards too on the underside of the front.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard is designed to perfection, especially for gamers. While the Asus ROG GL552VW keyboard lacks the ultra-deep action, it feels solid for a breathtaking experience when typing or gaming. There is a soft edge when clicking the keys but not remotely spongy.
The keys are less clear and less distracting thanks to the red backlight. There is an extra band of highlights in red for the W, A, S, and D keys. The keyboard is standard and very easy to learn.
To the right, the Numpad has been squeezed a little to accommodate the 10-key Numpad. The keys have been shrunk by almost half since space is premium.
On the flip side, the trackpad is a little bit problematic. The size is good but has a questionable button layout and feedback. Before hitting the actual button, there is a soft part of the pad.
It can register as you click on the pad. The 4.1 by 2.75-inch touchpad has a good level of responsiveness. The pad can register clicks, swipes, and multitouch gestures like two-finger scrolling.
The Screen
From the display size to the resolution levels of the Asus ROG GL552VW screen, Asus took a good deal of their time to deliver the best gaming displays in the industry. It is a 15.6-inch, 1920 by 1080 screen. It comes with top accuracy and spot-on colors as well as improved brightness.
Watching movies and gaming on this monster device is just a breathtaking experience. Made with a non-touch matte coating, the screen does not have problems staring back at your own reflection. The display is clear and offers true Full HD resolutions.
As for the brightness, the Asus ROG GL552VW display comes at 272 nits. We reviewed the machine to fall short of the Acer’s V15 Nitro brightness at 289 nits and offer better results than the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 at 222 nits. The color range spanned 116.2% of the sRGB spectrum making it the best in the crop. Acer V15 Nitro scored 115% and only 70% for the Dell Inspiron 15 7000.
Simply put, the screen is worth its price. The screen uses the TN model. This is old technology compared to the modern IPS technology for monitors. It mainly comes with poor viewing angles, even for the modern TN screens. Looking at the monitor from either right or left is not an issue. This is a different case when viewed from lower or higher than square-on.
It tends to appear washed out or dark like it has a shadow cast on the screen from the inside. For those who have used wide viewing angles like tablets, may find it a disturbing feature.
There is an issue with the color too, thanks to the TN panel. Only 57% of the sRGB color gamut, 40% of DCI P3, and 39.4% of Adobe RGB are covered.
The monitor is not one of the best in the industry. However, the Delta-E error is at 0.23 due to quality calibration. The ROG machine has a Delta-E error rate of 0.7, which is more accurate than the 1.0 for V15 Nitro and sits below the Inspiron 15 7000’s 0.4
Audio
Asus ROG GL552VW comes with SonicMaster tech that offers rich and Hi-Fi audio. This is the perfect gaming combo. Both music and games are shallow.
During our review, we played some music and switching from the various sound settings; the experience was awesome. You can try the AudioWizard app to enjoy better bass.
Performance
Buying a mid-range gaming laptop comes with a pack of goodies. The Asus ROG GL552VW deal offers high-performance results. You can be sure to enjoy gaming while handling other tasks in the background without lag.
The components of this PC make it an alrounder device that can juggle multiple jobs. In a general understanding, the system feels fast and great in handling daily jobs. There are a number of aspects that make up this brilliant device.
The storage space is sufficient enough to save all your gaming files. It comes with a 256GB SSD and an extra 1 TB hard drive. The combination is simply sufficient for all storage needs. Loading and launching OS and other applications is fast on the SSD memory.
Your games do not have to take long to execute. The traditional HDD offers you enough space to keep your music and video files, since launching them on a premium SSD memory would not be reasonable.
Powered by Intel Core i7-6700HQ CPU, the Asus ROG GL552VW system delivers without failure. It is a gaming device that runs on a quad-core processor that can clock up to 2.6GHz. This is resource-intensive thus the poor battery life.
In our review on the PC Mark 8 Home as well as the Geekbench 3 benchmarks, the machine scored a cool 3102 and 3164 respectively. The machine can, therefore, deliver all jobs adequately, without asking for any upgrades.
The dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphics card is the monster behind the powerful GPU. It is true to say that a gaming machine’s performance is directly proportional to its GPU capacity.
The current standard is way beyond what you can ever ask for its price. It is actually the best graphics deal for gaming in the market at the moment.
Playing modern games at 1080p settings, you can max everything and achieve an average of 28.2fps. On low settings of 720p, you can achieve an average of 62fps. This is a setting best for sound but poor for visual.
