ASUS has made a lot of gaming laptops till now, but the one we are reviewing today can be one of the best in terms of design. ROG series laptops are specially built for gamers keeping all the parameters in mind. Today we have ASUS ROG STRIX II GL504 gaming laptop for review. As I said, it was built considering the design aspect in mind. So let us take it for a spin and find out if its really a worthy gaming laptop or not.
ASUS ROG Strix II GL504 review
Design: 9/10
We will start with the key point of the laptop which is design. ASUS ROG STRIX II has a very compact build considering its a gaming laptop. The chassis is all made out of plastic – good quality one. This helps keep the weight of the laptop in check. There is some camel print design on the laptop which doesn’t look that impressive as compared to other designs available in ROG laptop. Some might like it, but I didn’t. The hinges are really good such that it stays at once place in any position. One can lift the screen with one hand, so the laptop has good weight on the bottom side too. On the top of the plastic lid, it has brushed metal-like finish with the glowing ROG logo. It looks pretty cool to see the ROG logo shining in the dark with all the breathing RGB led. One of the most attractive thing on the laptop is the RGB LED strip on the front edge. The keyboard is all RGB too, with see-through WASD keys. Overall the build quality and design of the laptop is great and you will have no complaints in terms of design.
Connectivity: 9/10
Most of the ports are on the left side of the laptop, giving you enough room to keep the mouse without any tangled wire issues. On the left, you have the power jack, RJ45-LAN port, mini-display port, HDMI, 2 USB 3.1, USB 3.1 type-C, and the 3.5mm audio jack. On the right-hand side is the USB 3.1, SD card reader, & Kensington lock.
Display: 9/10
When you first lift the lid, you will notice that the display has little bezels on left-right & top. On the bottom, it has a thick strip where you can again find the shiny ROG logo. To adjust the height of the bottom, they had to keep the thick bezel. The display on ASUS ROG Strix II has a 144 Hz refresh rate with 3 ms response time. It is very fast in terms of response time as you don’t want any lag in terms of gaming. Its a great full HD display on the ROG Strix II which is best suited for hardcore gamers where every frame matters.
Performance
The model of ASUS ROG Strix II that I received came with Intel i7-8750H latest processor. It had 16GB of RAM clocked at 2666 MHz. As for the storage, it had 256GB of SSD and 1 TB of SSHD. The SSD is enough to have the operating system and some games for quick loading, rest can easily go in the SSHD. The specs for processor, memory, & storage are well suited for any heavy editing or multitasking work. Coming to the key parameter which is the GPU, ROG Strix II comes with 6 GB of NVIDIA GTX 1060 GDDR5. You can play almost all the games on high settings to get decent FPS. Dual fans inside the laptop keeps the laptop all cooled down while gaming, though they may make some noise while running. The wents are on the back end, front-top and on the right side. I had no issues as I was all plugged in while playing games. So I guess fan noise doesn’t matter much while gaming, does it?
As for the in-game testing, we tested the laptop with Rise of Tomb Raider. Here are the scores that we got with the in-game benchmarking tool.
Also for heavy graphics intensive games like Witcher III we got around 60-70 FPS on an average. I disconnected the power source from the laptop and ran it on battery power to find out that FPS dropped and after a point, I could feel the lag. So keep in mind that, to get optimum performance you will have to always keep the laptop plugged in. Overall in terms of gaming, I had no complaints and the gameplay experience was great.
Sound
ASUS ROG Strix II have 2 speakers of 1W each. The speakers are not that impressive in terms of audio quality. The sharpness in the sound especially for the high notes was missing. Different audio types in a game were not played to perfection. This is one segment where the ROG Strix II could have improved.
Battery
As for normal surfing and working, the battery will last for around 3.5 hrs. This is kind of below average battery life for a normal battery. Something over 4 hrs could have been a great thing for this kind of laptop. Gaming over battery creates an issue with the gameplay as it lags and frame drops appear. So I won’t suggest playing many heavy games on battery power.
Overall the ASUS ROG Strix II laptop is good in terms of design, display, performance and somewhat in cooling too. But it still can improve in battery and sound. As for the price goes, the laptop is priced at 1.42 lakhs on Amazon. You have all the parameters laid out in front of you, so you can decide which one to weigh more and accordingly conclude. If you leave the sound & battery thing, then you can go for this stylish powerful laptop.