The ASUS Stris GL502 feels like it's
part of a dying breed of laptops. It
isn't thin. It isn't light. It doesn't
feature fancy materials like carbon fiber or magnesium. And wait, what? No
RGB. But was the old formula really that
bad? Or did it just need to be tweaked a little? with its proudly displayed VR
ready sticker. Is ASUS's latest stricks
laptop ready for the 2017 consumer?
Let's find
out. Cooler Master's 25th anniversary
edition Cosmos 2 features a unique dual
curved tempered glass side panel. Check it out now at the link
below. At just under an inch, the
GL502VS is not exactly a thin and light, but that does seem to be the standard
thickness shared by most gaming laptops these days. And at 5.2 lb, it is a
whopping 1.4 lb less than the Alienware
15, putting it more comfortably into the
marginally portable category. The outer finish is a combination of brushed
aluminum like plastic and real brushed
aluminum that ends up looking good while
avoiding feeling cheap. Though it does fall a bit short of feeling premium.
There is some flex around the keyboard and trackpad and the screen and hinge
are solid but could be better. So, in
summary, although the Stricks doesn't have quite the robust build quality of
the Alienware 15, for the same specs, it
comes in at a whopping $645 less. So, I'm sure some folks will
find themselves asking, "Well, did I really need that?"
Magnesium IO is also strong with three
USB typeAs and a high-speed USB type-C,
although Thunderbolt 3 would have been really nice here, along with everything
that most people will need to keep a dongle off their keychain for at least
another year. The specs are highlighted
by a quad-core Core i7 seventy700 HQ, a
powerful GTX 1070 graphics card, and an
NVMe boot drive that while small is
fast. So, we should be getting a pretty
awesome gaming experience out of this device, assuming it can keep all of that
cool. One pit stain on this otherwise great
laptop was that out ofthe-box thermals were awful. It does seem to be an
isolated issue with our machine though, and it was solved by reseating the
cooler. So, we aren't sure if it was a problem with ASUS's thermal paste
application or perhaps a less than
gentle shipping company, but at least we know that it doesn't overheat by design
like some devices. With that said, under synthetic loads on
both CPU and GPU, we did see a little
bit of thermal throttling, but under realistic loads like gaming, there was
no adverse effect on performance whatsoever, which is good because there
is lots of performance in this guy. its
GTX 1070 was able to smash through the
60fps threshold in our AAA gaming benchmarks at very high details at the
screen's native resolution of 1920x
1080. And what's really nice is that
when it does go over 60fps, you don't have to worry about
those frames getting wasted. It runs at up
to 120 hertz with G-Sync variable
refresh rate technology. And thanks to ASUS's choice of an IPS panel, it's not
just a delight to game on, but it's good enough for productivity, too. It's nice
and bright, and although I wouldn't recommend it for professional color
sensitive work, it trounces the 120 Hz
TN display on the Alienware 15, making doing anything from watching YouTube
videos to writing in Word to video
conferencing with relatives just plain a
better experience. And the keyboard is a
contributing factor. It's one of my favorite things about the Stricks. Its
scissor switches have a long travel distance and excellent tactile feedback
for a notebook. And perhaps equally importantly, this feel is consistent
across the whole deck. The red backlighting and tactile knobbyby on the
W key are also nice touches. And unlike
some gaming oriented keyboards, this is one that I wouldn't mind using to write
up an essay. To top off the usability, ASUS has been kind enough to include a
numpad, something that can no longer be taken for granted on a 15-inch laptop.
So, the only minor gripe then is that it's a little bit easy to accidentally
open up the ROG gaming center when you're aiming for the
backspace. Now, the enthusiasm gets kicked in the head a little bit because
the trackpad, I mean, it's usable, but it's not nearly as amazing. It's a click
pad, but the force required at the top is much higher than at the bottom. The
way it's recessed into the chassis makes two-finger operation um a little bit
less comfortable than necessary. And it's high input lag gives it kind of a
sluggish feel. So, forgetting a mouse on
the go is a little unfortunate. Though, with that said, not nearly as bad as
forgetting your charger. In fairness to ASUS, this is about what we expect from
a high-powered gaming laptop. Though
noise-wise, the Stricks remains at a
comfortable volume while gaming and at no point got close to being obnoxious.
And the speakers, while not the loudest that I've heard on a laptop, are
surprisingly punchy and remain clear at full volume. So although you wouldn't be
using them for your next house party, they're more than enough to throw on
some tunes while you're fixing up supper. So then in summary, the Stricks
is not a perfect laptop, but it gets
what it needs to right, and it does so for a great price. The excellent screen
and outstanding keyboard make using the Stricks a great way to be productive IRL
or in games. So the bottom line then is
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