ASUS G501 Gaming Laptop - Is 4K necessary?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,323 words · ~6 min read
0:00
we cover all kinds of laptops and notebooks around here everything from
0:04
ASUS's Monster g750 Series gaming beasts
0:09
to our upcoming MacBook 2015 video but today's gaming laptop the g501 is not
0:15
about extremes but rather balance trying
0:18
to find the perfect Middle Ground has
0:21
ASUS done it well I guess we'll find out
0:32
Kingston casy 310 series business grade ssds feature firmware based power loss
0:37
protection massive capacities and performance to spare in fact we're using
0:41
them for our new production server click right here to learn more about them so
0:47
if I'm going to make a statement like um
0:51
this is a you know balanced laptop I
0:54
guess I'd better back it up objectively right under the hood our machine is
0:58
kitted out with the cor I 7 4720hq
1:01
that's typical of mobile gaming rigs these days 16 gigs of RAM so plenty but
1:06
not Overkill a 15.6in display size
1:09
squarely between the 14-in blade 14 and
1:13
a 17-in monster like the gs70 from MSI a
1:16
GTX 960m with 4 gigs of vram that lives
1:19
squarely between entry-level discret graphics and the legitimately high-end
1:23
970 and 980m and I guess I probably sound like a broken record by now which
1:28
like a broken record by now which like a broken record by now which like a broken
1:32
record by now which but I digress the g501 does have some things that really
1:38
set it apart from the crowd first and foremost the config I have in front of
1:42
me is equipped with a 512 gig PCIe 4X
1:46
based SSD that I've nicknamed the
1:49
wrecker next up is the I/O on the front
1:53
we've got these kind of Neato indicator LEDs on the back is just ventilation on
1:57
the right we find nothing of note 3 and 12 mm combo Jack an SD card reader and
2:02
two USB 3.0 ports then on the left we find nothing of note again well hold on
2:06
a second line is why did you say the io was exceptional ah there's a mislabeled
2:11
port here that's a USB 3.0 port and HDMI
2:14
ports a standard power in and a Thunderbolt 20 gbit per second Port
2:20
disguised as a mini DisplayPort Port
2:23
it's a feature with very little relevance to many users but one that
2:28
could be a key selling point for Creative Pros who use Thunderbolt in
2:32
their daily lives and finally we've got the display I mentioned the size but I
2:37
specifically didn't mention anything else at the beginning of the video now
2:41
it wasn't long ago that every gaming laptop had some kind of poop tastic
2:45
1080p TN panel in it not today and while
2:48
maximum brightness is not as high as I'd personally like to see the IPS display
2:53
in the g501 manages the higher contrast
2:56
and great viewing angles that I've come to expect with a 3840 by 2160 Ultra HD
3:02
native resolution to boot so let's take
3:05
the rest of the physical tour then shall we build quality is again what I would
3:09
describe as high to midrange although a
3:13
couple of years ago it would be somewhere between very good and
3:16
exemplary which goes to show how far we've come with a brushed aluminum top
3:20
cover sporting a shiny ASUS and slightly less shiny but definitely more red Rog
3:25
logo a similar brushed aluminum base
3:28
that can be removed to reveal the single upgradable dim slot to complement the
3:32
four or8 gigs of soldered RAM and a
3:35
solid blasted anodized aluminum unibody style keyboard and touchpad surface that
3:41
would have combined with a bezel made of anything other than plastic pushed the
3:45
device into outstanding craftsmanship territory if it didn't have quite so
3:51
much give to it when I press down or rest my wrists on it the track pad is
3:56
again average it's unfortunately not glass which is what makes it sort of not
4:02
premium but the good news is it does feature a pretty satisfying plastic
4:06
surface and on the keyboard travel distance is good although that is
4:11
something that's admittedly easier on a laptop like this rather than on a Super
4:15
Hyper slim one like the you know 2015 MacBook but I did find the backlight
4:21
brightness a little low and the tactile bump could be less mushy the really good
4:25
news though is that there were no cardinal sins committed in the layout
4:28
and while I person person Al prefer home end page up and page down to be bound to
4:33
function in the arrow keys versus their slightly inconvenient or altogether
4:37
absent location in the top right the inclusion of a number pad and proper up
4:42
and down arrow keys at all is great if you're a productivity minded person who
4:46
also wants to game a bit but this is
4:50
where we get into the first unbalanced
4:53
aspect of the g501 configuration the
4:56
gtx960m GPU is just plane not suitable
5:01
for gaming at 4K like at all it's very
5:05
unusual for me to say in this case I think uh downgrading the spec would have
5:09
been just plain better but a 1080p IPS
5:12
panel with great contrast and a bit more brightness would have actually been
5:17
preferable for me in this case now you can simply run it at 1080p in games as I
5:23
did in these comparative benchmarks versus the Razer Blade 14 2015 which
5:27
gives us an idea of how the 960m compar to the 970m but if you're going to do
5:31
all your gaming at 1080p in the first place then the question is why not just
5:35
use an HD display anyway which I guess
5:39
leads pretty well onto the whole who is the g501 made for conversation as a
5:44
gaming device it delivers a good experience better than the vast majority
5:48
of last generation gaming laptops even ones with much thicker profiles but
5:54
actually it's its general purpose mobile
5:57
computer utility that's more likely to sell it to folks who are shopping for a
6:02
new laptop since its battery life for productivity was great compared to most
6:06
gaming machines and it can actually game
6:09
a bit so the bottom line is this I compared it to the Razer Blade 14 2015
6:15
for a couple of reasons number one is that I happen to use that as my daily
6:19
driver so the comparison is convenient and number two is that at its old price
6:24
of $2,000 the g501 was actually somewhat
6:28
price competitive with the blade 14 making it a pretty tough sell from a
6:32
performance and construction perspective but at the new price not to mention the
6:37
included Mouse and headset the conclusion actually changes a lot and
6:42
now for someone looking for a good-looking laptop that delivers great
6:46
usability for productivity and a good if
6:49
not exemplary gaming experience the g501
6:53
becomes a quiet cool running compelling value as long as you don't mind spending
6:57
20 minutes removing the unnecessary float wear seriously ASUS I just bought
7:02
your laptop I don't need like an ASUS
7:05
gift box like deals app are you for
7:11
real look at this
7:14
thing it takes forever to
7:17
load all right so that's pretty much it guys like the video if you liked it
7:22
dislike it if you thought it suck leave a comment preferably at the link to our
7:25
Forum in the video description if you want to discuss it also linked in the
7:28
video description you can buy a cool t-shirt like this one give us a monthly contribution or change your Amazon
7:33
bookmark to one with our affiliate code that kind of thing helps us out a lot as
7:36
always don't forget to subscribe and follow and all that good stuff