With the growing technology on mobile graphics chips, gaming laptops have become an increasingly popular product between the most hardcore of gamers. It wasn’t so long ago that desktop builds were the only viable option for playing PC games, but fortunately that’s no longer the truth.
In this review of the ASUS ROG GL752VW-DH71, we find ourselves with one of such examples. With its big screen and great price-conscious internals, this is a machine worth talking about. Don’t miss our full blown review below to see if this laptop is meant for you.
Pros: powerful performance, great construction, big screen for gaming.
Cons: aggressive gaming aesthetics can turn some people off.
Screen and design
Asus isn’t shy about showing you this machine is made specifically for gaming. That’s pretty evident once we notice the black colors mixed with red accents and the ROG logo on the back of the screen. That red extends to the light illuminating the backlit keyboard which, coupled with a metallic body, gives the computer the feeling of a premium product.
One of the first things you’ll notice is how big this laptop is. That’s because of its 17 inch screen, which is perfect for users who want the advantages of a mobile computer but still want a big, immersive display.
The resolution sits at the sweet spot of 1080p (going any higher would hurt performance in games) and offers two of the best features: IPS technology for viewing angles and a matte finish to avoid glaring. It hardly gets better than this, really.
Power and multitasking
Asus decided to include an Intel Core i7-6700HQ Skylake with four cores clocked at 2.6GHz (Turbo up to 3.5GHz) and we wouldn’t have it any other way, really, since this is basically one of the most powerful mobile chips right now.
You’ll be able to do basically everything with this laptop. Office work? Web browsing? It’ll be a joke. Complex and demanding applications? Image and video editing? Sure, go wild. One of the benefits of having gaming hardware is that you can also harvest that power for everything else.
Multitasking is also top-notch. We’re looking at 16 GB of DDR4 RAM with a 2133 MHz speed. Memory on mobile systems doesn’t really get higher than this, so you know you’re getting the best of the best.
What games can I play?
What would a gaming laptop be without a graphics card? Certainly not a gaming laptop... That’s why we found an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M with 2GB VRAM GDDR5 in the review of the ASUS ROG GL752VW-DH71.
This is an upper mid-range GPU that strikes the perfect balance between performance and affordability. You’ll be able to play most 2016 games on medium settings and older classics with even better results.
The new Doom, for example, is playable above 30 fps with high settings and full resolution, according to NotebookCheck benchmarks; while more demanding titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will play better at medium settings. On the other hand, you’ll easily get 60 fps from games like FIFA 16 and The Sims 4 on max settings.
How long is the battery life?
Considering the 4-Cell 3200 mAh 48 Whrs battery that’s included coupled with the high-consuming internals, we can expect the GL752 to last around 4 or 5 hours of use. That number depends on use, of course, so gaming will probably reduce it to around 3 hours. Not a lot time for some, but considering this is a laptop best used when plugged in and sitting on a desktop, that’s hardly a bad thing.
Storage and connectivity
Aside from the three more conventional USB ports available (two of them 2.0, the other one 3.0), we’ll also find one USB 3.1 type-c, the latest standard for connectivity. This is a new version of the USB we know and love, and it has many advantages, but all you really need to know is that this laptop has every future-proof feature available.
The usual audio/microphone jack is also present, as well as the life-saver HDMI port for external displays. There’s also an Ethernet port for wired internet connection, in case your router is giving you a hard day. You can also take advantage of memory cards and physical media thanks to both the 3-in-1 card reader and the optical drive available, respectively.
On the storage side, we have 1TB of space available to store all kinds of games. The nice part is that we’re looking at a 7200 RPM hard drive, which means faster-than-usual for mechanical drives. Sure, you’re not getting SSD levels of speed, but a 1TB SSD would cost way too much, and when playing games, storage space is what matters.
In any case, if you're determined to get SSD speeds we would recommend upping your bet to an GL752VW-DH74, this is a basically the "better version" of this model with 4 GB of vRAM on the dedicated graphics and a dual drive with 1 TB of standard HDD storage as well as a 128 GB SSD module. You can check our review of the DH74 model here.
In any case, if you're determined to get SSD speeds we would recommend upping your bet to an GL752VW-DH74, this is a basically the "better version" of this model with 4 GB of vRAM on the dedicated graphics and a dual drive with 1 TB of standard HDD storage as well as a 128 GB SSD module. You can check our review of the DH74 model here.
What’s the verdict?
It’s very hard to find a similar laptop to the one we saw in the review of the ASUS ROG GL752VW-DH71 with such a nice price. This rig has all the right components: a big screen with great quality, powerful CPU, great GPU, memory and storage coupled with a metallic body that seals the premium feel of the system.
Asus is on a great run with its most recent models, and you can tell with this one. If you’re looking for a big, capable and affordable gaming laptop, you probably shouldn’t look somewhere else. You can look up this model for pricing and availability here.