Friday, May 27, 2016

GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL PERFORMANCE: NO HOLDS BARRED ROG

GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL PERFORMANCE: NO HOLDS BARRED ROG

This new gaming notebook from the R.O.G. series gives you topof-the-line specifications at a value-for-money price
Asus has recently updated the ROG ( Republic of Gamers) line of gaming laptops with 6th generation Intel processors. The GL552VW is the cheapest offering from the company in the new range and offers specifications that are not usually available at this price.For the price you get the sixth generation Intel Core i7 processor with 16GB of DDR4 RAM (2133Mhz), an Nvidia GeForce GTX960M GPU with 4GB dedicated memory and a combo 1TB hard drive and 128GB SSD. As far as gaming notebooks go, these specifications are good enough to run any game you can get.For our evaluation, we ran various games on the notebook including the basic Counter Strike: Global Offensive to the graphics heavy Call of Duty: Ghosts and Need for Speed: Rivals. The notebook was able to play all games at full HD resolution in high settings without any issue. Photo editing on Photoshop as well as Lightroom was butter-smooth and the notebook had no issues playing 4k video. As with any gaming laptop, the battery life was average. The 4-cell battery lasted us just about 3 hours with continuous gaming. What impressed us more was that there was no excessive heating issues on the GL552VW -thanks to the large heat dissipation area on the side.Asus has stuck with the typical ROG design language on the GL552VW. You get a matte finish plastic lid with a brushed metal finish center panel. The center panel houses the ROG logo for added style. At 2.6kg, it is slightly on the heavier side, but this can be overlooked considering the specifications. On the right side is the optical drive, a USB 2.0 port and separate jacks for headphone and microphone. Separating these is a useful feature for gamers since voice chat is an important part of some games. The left side has a USB Type-C, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI out and Ethernet port. You get a chiclet style keyboard, separate number pad and highlighted W,S,A and D keys (gaming buttons) -we found the keys were responsive and had good travel. The keyboard is backlit in red which adds to the overall gaming bling. The single piece trackpad which is fairly large in size for comfortable use -this will be for day-to-day use since most gamers prefer to use a dedicated mouse with adjustable DPI settings. The 15.6-inch dis play has a resolu tion of 1920 x 1080 pixels and it im presses with high brightness levels.
It has an anti glare finish which makes it easy to get into the game, even with a lot of ambient lighting. Asus has included a Gaming Center software which lets you switch between various gaming profiles. Switching profiles can change display settings for optimum viewing among others. Asus has stuck to a matte finish on the bezels around the display which is a welcome change from the glossy finish we usually see.One major issue with the notebook is the speaker output. The audio output feels muffled, even at maximum volume and there is little bass. Switching between various preloaded audio profiles did not help improve the audio output. However, audio output using headphones is great. Overall, the Asus GL552VW is easily one of the most powerful gaming laptops available in the sub-`90,000 price bracket. Highly recommended if you want the best possible bang for your buck.
Karan.Bajaj @timesgroup.com
ET18MAY16


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