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we cover all kinds of laptops and notebooks around here everything from

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ASUS's Monster g750 Series gaming beasts

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to our upcoming MacBook 2015 video but today's gaming laptop the g501 is not

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about extremes but rather balance trying

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to find the perfect Middle Ground has

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ASUS done it well I guess we'll find out

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Kingston casy 310 series business grade ssds feature firmware based power loss

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protection massive capacities and performance to spare in fact we're using

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them for our new production server click right here to learn more about them so

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if I'm going to make a statement like um

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this is a you know balanced laptop I

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guess I'd better back it up objectively right under the hood our machine is

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kitted out with the cor I 7 4720hq

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that's typical of mobile gaming rigs these days 16 gigs of RAM so plenty but

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not Overkill a 15.6in display size

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squarely between the 14-in blade 14 and

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a 17-in monster like the gs70 from MSI a

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GTX 960m with 4 gigs of vram that lives

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squarely between entry-level discret graphics and the legitimately high-end

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970 and 980m and I guess I probably sound like a broken record by now which

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like a broken record by now which like a broken record by now which like a broken

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record by now which but I digress the g501 does have some things that really

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set it apart from the crowd first and foremost the config I have in front of

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me is equipped with a 512 gig PCIe 4X

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based SSD that I've nicknamed the

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wrecker next up is the I/O on the front

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we've got these kind of Neato indicator LEDs on the back is just ventilation on

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the right we find nothing of note 3 and 12 mm combo Jack an SD card reader and

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two USB 3.0 ports then on the left we find nothing of note again well hold on

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a second line is why did you say the io was exceptional ah there's a mislabeled

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port here that's a USB 3.0 port and HDMI

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ports a standard power in and a Thunderbolt 20 gbit per second Port

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disguised as a mini DisplayPort Port

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it's a feature with very little relevance to many users but one that

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could be a key selling point for Creative Pros who use Thunderbolt in

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their daily lives and finally we've got the display I mentioned the size but I

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specifically didn't mention anything else at the beginning of the video now

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it wasn't long ago that every gaming laptop had some kind of poop tastic

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1080p TN panel in it not today and while

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maximum brightness is not as high as I'd personally like to see the IPS display

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in the g501 manages the higher contrast

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and great viewing angles that I've come to expect with a 3840 by 2160 Ultra HD

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native resolution to boot so let's take

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the rest of the physical tour then shall we build quality is again what I would

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describe as high to midrange although a

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couple of years ago it would be somewhere between very good and

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exemplary which goes to show how far we've come with a brushed aluminum top

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cover sporting a shiny ASUS and slightly less shiny but definitely more red Rog

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logo a similar brushed aluminum base

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that can be removed to reveal the single upgradable dim slot to complement the

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four or8 gigs of soldered RAM and a

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solid blasted anodized aluminum unibody style keyboard and touchpad surface that

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would have combined with a bezel made of anything other than plastic pushed the

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device into outstanding craftsmanship territory if it didn't have quite so

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much give to it when I press down or rest my wrists on it the track pad is

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again average it's unfortunately not glass which is what makes it sort of not

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premium but the good news is it does feature a pretty satisfying plastic

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surface and on the keyboard travel distance is good although that is

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something that's admittedly easier on a laptop like this rather than on a Super

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Hyper slim one like the you know 2015 MacBook but I did find the backlight

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brightness a little low and the tactile bump could be less mushy the really good

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news though is that there were no cardinal sins committed in the layout

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and while I person person Al prefer home end page up and page down to be bound to

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function in the arrow keys versus their slightly inconvenient or altogether

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absent location in the top right the inclusion of a number pad and proper up

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and down arrow keys at all is great if you're a productivity minded person who

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also wants to game a bit but this is

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where we get into the first unbalanced

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aspect of the g501 configuration the

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gtx960m GPU is just plane not suitable

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for gaming at 4K like at all it's very

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unusual for me to say in this case I think uh downgrading the spec would have

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been just plain better but a 1080p IPS

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panel with great contrast and a bit more brightness would have actually been

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preferable for me in this case now you can simply run it at 1080p in games as I

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did in these comparative benchmarks versus the Razer Blade 14 2015 which

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gives us an idea of how the 960m compar to the 970m but if you're going to do

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all your gaming at 1080p in the first place then the question is why not just

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use an HD display anyway which I guess

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leads pretty well onto the whole who is the g501 made for conversation as a

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gaming device it delivers a good experience better than the vast majority

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of last generation gaming laptops even ones with much thicker profiles but

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actually it's its general purpose mobile

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computer utility that's more likely to sell it to folks who are shopping for a

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new laptop since its battery life for productivity was great compared to most

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gaming machines and it can actually game

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a bit so the bottom line is this I compared it to the Razer Blade 14 2015

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for a couple of reasons number one is that I happen to use that as my daily

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driver so the comparison is convenient and number two is that at its old price

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of $2,000 the g501 was actually somewhat

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price competitive with the blade 14 making it a pretty tough sell from a

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performance and construction perspective but at the new price not to mention the

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included Mouse and headset the conclusion actually changes a lot and

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now for someone looking for a good-looking laptop that delivers great

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usability for productivity and a good if

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not exemplary gaming experience the g501

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becomes a quiet cool running compelling value as long as you don't mind spending

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20 minutes removing the unnecessary float wear seriously ASUS I just bought

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your laptop I don't need like an ASUS

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gift box like deals app are you for

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real look at this

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thing it takes forever to

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load all right so that's pretty much it guys like the video if you liked it

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dislike it if you thought it suck leave a comment preferably at the link to our

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Forum in the video description if you want to discuss it also linked in the

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video description you can buy a cool t-shirt like this one give us a monthly contribution or change your Amazon

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bookmark to one with our affiliate code that kind of thing helps us out a lot as

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