The BEST 15” Gaming Laptop? Asus Strix GL502VS Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,245 words · ~6 min read
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The ASUS Stris GL502 feels like it's
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part of a dying breed of laptops. It
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isn't thin. It isn't light. It doesn't
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feature fancy materials like carbon fiber or magnesium. And wait, what? No
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RGB. But was the old formula really that
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bad? Or did it just need to be tweaked a little? with its proudly displayed VR
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ready sticker. Is ASUS's latest stricks
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laptop ready for the 2017 consumer?
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Let's find
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out. Cooler Master's 25th anniversary
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edition Cosmos 2 features a unique dual
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curved tempered glass side panel. Check it out now at the link
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below. At just under an inch, the
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GL502VS is not exactly a thin and light, but that does seem to be the standard
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thickness shared by most gaming laptops these days. And at 5.2 lb, it is a
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whopping 1.4 lb less than the Alienware
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15, putting it more comfortably into the
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marginally portable category. The outer finish is a combination of brushed
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aluminum like plastic and real brushed
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aluminum that ends up looking good while
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avoiding feeling cheap. Though it does fall a bit short of feeling premium.
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There is some flex around the keyboard and trackpad and the screen and hinge
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are solid but could be better. So, in
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summary, although the Stricks doesn't have quite the robust build quality of
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the Alienware 15, for the same specs, it
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comes in at a whopping $645 less. So, I'm sure some folks will
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find themselves asking, "Well, did I really need that?"
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Magnesium IO is also strong with three
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USB typeAs and a high-speed USB type-C,
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although Thunderbolt 3 would have been really nice here, along with everything
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that most people will need to keep a dongle off their keychain for at least
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another year. The specs are highlighted
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by a quad-core Core i7 seventy700 HQ, a
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powerful GTX 1070 graphics card, and an
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NVMe boot drive that while small is
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fast. So, we should be getting a pretty
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awesome gaming experience out of this device, assuming it can keep all of that
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cool. One pit stain on this otherwise great
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laptop was that out ofthe-box thermals were awful. It does seem to be an
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isolated issue with our machine though, and it was solved by reseating the
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cooler. So, we aren't sure if it was a problem with ASUS's thermal paste
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application or perhaps a less than
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gentle shipping company, but at least we know that it doesn't overheat by design
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like some devices. With that said, under synthetic loads on
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both CPU and GPU, we did see a little
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bit of thermal throttling, but under realistic loads like gaming, there was
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no adverse effect on performance whatsoever, which is good because there
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is lots of performance in this guy. its
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GTX 1070 was able to smash through the
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60fps threshold in our AAA gaming benchmarks at very high details at the
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screen's native resolution of 1920x
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1080. And what's really nice is that
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when it does go over 60fps, you don't have to worry about
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those frames getting wasted. It runs at up
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to 120 hertz with G-Sync variable
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refresh rate technology. And thanks to ASUS's choice of an IPS panel, it's not
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just a delight to game on, but it's good enough for productivity, too. It's nice
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and bright, and although I wouldn't recommend it for professional color
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sensitive work, it trounces the 120 Hz
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TN display on the Alienware 15, making doing anything from watching YouTube
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videos to writing in Word to video
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conferencing with relatives just plain a
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better experience. And the keyboard is a
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contributing factor. It's one of my favorite things about the Stricks. Its
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scissor switches have a long travel distance and excellent tactile feedback
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for a notebook. And perhaps equally importantly, this feel is consistent
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across the whole deck. The red backlighting and tactile knobbyby on the
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W key are also nice touches. And unlike
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some gaming oriented keyboards, this is one that I wouldn't mind using to write
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up an essay. To top off the usability, ASUS has been kind enough to include a
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numpad, something that can no longer be taken for granted on a 15-inch laptop.
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So, the only minor gripe then is that it's a little bit easy to accidentally
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open up the ROG gaming center when you're aiming for the
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backspace. Now, the enthusiasm gets kicked in the head a little bit because
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the trackpad, I mean, it's usable, but it's not nearly as amazing. It's a click
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pad, but the force required at the top is much higher than at the bottom. The
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way it's recessed into the chassis makes two-finger operation um a little bit
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less comfortable than necessary. And it's high input lag gives it kind of a
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sluggish feel. So, forgetting a mouse on
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the go is a little unfortunate. Though, with that said, not nearly as bad as
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forgetting your charger. In fairness to ASUS, this is about what we expect from
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a high-powered gaming laptop. Though
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noise-wise, the Stricks remains at a
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comfortable volume while gaming and at no point got close to being obnoxious.
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And the speakers, while not the loudest that I've heard on a laptop, are
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surprisingly punchy and remain clear at full volume. So although you wouldn't be
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using them for your next house party, they're more than enough to throw on
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some tunes while you're fixing up supper. So then in summary, the Stricks
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is not a perfect laptop, but it gets
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what it needs to right, and it does so for a great price. The excellent screen
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and outstanding keyboard make using the Stricks a great way to be productive IRL
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or in games. So the bottom line then is
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techtips in the how did you hear about us
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section. So, thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to
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