ASUS ROG GL552VW Review – A Capable Mid-range Gaming Laptop

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Asus ROG GL552VW is a mid-range gaming machine that tries to strike the right balance between portability, performance, and price. With a full HD display, Nvidia GTX 960M Graphics, SSD and a full set of connectivity ports, the ROG GL552VW sounds like a great deal for 90,000 INR.  Let’s find out if it’s good enough to be your next gaming laptop.

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Asus ROG GL522VW Specifications And Features:

Model Asus ROG GL522VW
Display 15.6-Inch IPS 1080 FHD Display (Matte)
Processor 2.6 Ghz Quad Core Intel Core i7 6700HQ  Processor
Graphics NVIDIA GTX 960M with 4GB GDDR5 VRAM
Internal Storage 1TB HDD With 128 G SSD SSD (M.2 2280) + 1TB HDD
RAM 16GB DDR4 RAM (2133 MHz), 2 x SO-DIMM socket for expansion up to 32 GB SDRAM (8GB RAM option also available)
Primary Camera HD Web Camera
Battery 4Cell, 48 WHrs
OS Windows 10 Home
Dimensions and Weight 385 x 255 x 32.4 mm and 2.591 kg
Others 1 x Microphone-in/Headphone-out jack , 1 x USB 3.1 TYPE C port(s), 2 x USB 3.0 port(s) , 1 x USB 2.0 port(s), 1 x RJ45 LAN Jack for LAN insert , 1 x HDMI, 3 -in-1 card reader ( SD/ SDHC/ SDXC/ MMC)
Price 90,000 INR Approx

Design and Build

The premium ROG series design attributes have trickled down to this mid-range laptop as well. It essentially features a polycarbonate build (which is more thermally efficient) but adds just the right amount of metal on the lid with ROG logo at the center for that ever elusive elegant feel.

Flip the lid open and you will be greeted with a 15.6-inch full HD IPS LCD panel and a backlit keyboard. The WASD cluster is further highlighted, which looks cool. Same is true for the backlit ROG symbol on the front panel. ­­­­

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The area above the keypad and even on the bottom shows a lined pattern inspired by Mayan design. The vents are placed on the left edge, which isn’t ideal since you are bothered by the heat to a greater extent whenever the temperature rises. We liked the rear placement on ROG GL501VW better.

The laptop feels moderately bulky, but not overly so considering it’s a gaming laptop. You can easily move it around the house, but carrying it in your backpack is sort of impractical.

Also Read: Asus ROG G501VW Review – Portable Yet Powerful

Display

The 15.6-inch display has 1080 x 1920 pixels (FHD) spread across its length and breadth. The choice of resolution makes more sense than 4K on a mid-range gaming laptop. The ROG G501VW that we recently reviewed has a sharper 4K display and that certainly looks gorgeous, but hinders with the gaming experience. Making GPU push all those extra pixels to the screen weighs heavily on performance and battery.

In India, Asus is using an IPS LCD panel on ROG GL552VW. As is true for other ROG series laptops, this is a matte-finish panel, which means your colors won’t be as punchy but the glare free nature will facilitate long hours of gaming without eye-strain. A choice we wholeheartedly agree with.

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Keyboard, Trackpad, and Ports

The ROG GL552VW keyboard has been designed for gaming. Key travel is quite decent at 1.8mm, and there is slight actuation delay which helps. For typing, the keyboard isn’t very convenient at first, simply because the keys situated on the far right adjacent to the numeric keypad feel cramped. However, this is something we got used to over a period of time.

The red backlight renders that idiosyncratic ROG feel and helps in dark ambience. We do wish the LED indicator for Caps lock was somewhere on the keyboard, for it is rather easy to miss and unnaturally placed on the front edge.

The trackpad is hardly impressive. The touch response is a bit too delayed for our taste and the click buttons feel stiff. Invest in a half decent mouse and you will be just fine.

As far as ports go, Asus ROG 552VW as a rich set. There are 2 x USB 3.0 ports, HDMI port, Ethernet port, One HDMI port, and also a micro USB 3.0 Type-C port – all on the right edge. On the left, you will find a DVD writer flanked by headphone and microphone port, and another USB 3.0 port. Other connectivity options include SDcard reader, Integrated 802.11 b/g/n or 802.11 ac (WiDi), and Built-in Bluetooth™ V4.0

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Performance and Battery

The performance lies in the capable hands of Skylake Intel i7 6700HQ and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M GPU (4GB VRAM), the best possible combination you can expect in this budget. The hybrid storage with 128GB SSD and 1TB of conventional HDD makes sense too. You can keep OS and games in the SSD portion for performance gain and can use HDD for music, multimedia, and random storage.  The SSD part on ROG522VW doesn’t get quicker PCLe interface, though. Then there is 16GB RAM.

The laptop can easily handle casual and even heavy games, but for most AAA titles you will have to resort to medium settings. We tried games like Battlefield 4, Call of duty warfare, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Rise Of the Tomb Raider and were more or less satisfied with its gaming prowess. You won’t be able to play the latest games at maxed out graphics, but Asus has squeezed in maximum value for the budget.

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To be honest, we don’t expect great battery life on gaming machines, and ROG 522VW won’t be changing that perception. We managed to get around 4 hours of screen on time, but that’s with mild gaming. With aggressive gaming, the battery depletes rapidly and you will find yourself scrambling for a charging port within an hour or so.

It handles heat rather well, but the heat exhaust is inconveniently placed on the right edge.

The audio quality from speakers is average at best, but yes, it can drive decent quality audio through headphones.

Bottom Line

The Asus ROG GL552VW exceeds our expectations. It is certainly not the best out there but justifies its price tag and delivers on the promise of a great mid-range gaming laptop. If you are looking for something more portable, with better day-to-day usage experience, and something that should suffice just for moderate or casual gaming, the ROG GL501VW will be a better option. For hardcore games on a budget, the ROG GL552VW strikes the right balance.

Pros 

  • Good performance
  • Rich set of ports
  • Good display quality
  • Efficient Keyboard for gaming
  • Looks good

Cons

  • Poor speaker quality
  • Average trackpad
Deepak SinghDeepak Singh
Deepak has more than 8 years of experience in covering technology for several eminent publications in India. He currently leads an enthusiastic team of young writers at Smartprix and tries to uphold the highest quality standards.

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