This is going to be long, so sit yourself down, and grab something to chew on while you read this.
I purchased this laptop from Flipkart in June this year, and I am using it heavily ( 6-8 hours on most days) since then. I have constantly abused this laptop, took it apart, made some upgrades, and tested it every way I could. I have fairly good knowledge of the market, and I have compared it to almost every product available ( local or foreign) , both before and after purchase.
Who am I?
A hardware enthusiast, casual gamer, and programmer.
What do I use it for?
Movies, programming, video encoding, browsing, gaming, and writing.
Competition/other options:
Lenovo Y700: Better sound, slightly better battery. Not worth the price difference.
Dell 7559: Are you kidding me with that price? Purchase if you want better battery life at all costs. And that cost includes settling for a sub-par display.
MSI GL62 6QF: A worthy contender. Lacks an IPS display and back-lit keyboard. Oh, and no Windows. Cuts corners when compared to the Apache series. Also cheaper, so a good choice if you can’t make your mind about this one. If you don’t have a Windows key lying around ( or you are a pirate) , this one quickly loses its advantage.
As you can see, not many contenders.
Let’s start with the looks, because that’s first thing you and everybody else is going to notice. With the lid closed, it’s a beauty. Metallic back, glowing ROG logo, and red exhausts along with engravings on the back panel make it stand out from your plain old Dell Inspirons and HP Pavilions. Most people will instantly recognize it as a ( relatively) high end device.
Insides are finger print magnets, and hence look ugly if you don’t clean them regularly.
I will firmly state that this is not a professional looking laptop, so if you want to take it to work, make sure no one will be there to judge you for not getting a MacBook Pro.
Overall, I like the appeal of this laptop. Rating: 4.5/5
Build quality: Although it looks quite well put together, it’s not. There is some rattling when tapping on areas below the keyboard, on the touch-pad, and the keyboard itself. These are not noticeable unless you tap really hard on the keyboard or use your knuckles, but these are indications of bad design and/or cost cutting. Hinges are not very reassuring either. The instant access panel on the back is poorly designed and prone to breakage. However, the top lid feels sturdy, which is what you should be focusing on anyway.
Rating 3.75/5 ( +0.25 for the metallic lid) .
Visuals: The matte finish full HD IPS panel is one of the highlights of this laptop. No more viewing ghosts, only color accurate images from every angle. The blacks are absolutely gorgeous, not grey-ish like some of the cheaper panels. I won’t say it’s ’eye popping, ’ but it’s one of the better full HD displays I have seen. One weird thing though, the display feels yellow-ish when viewed from top, and more white-ish when viewed from the bottom. Text readability is great when compared to lower resolution laptops.
Rating: 4.25/5
Audio: Wake up Asus. MSI and Lenovo have been using much better 2.1 and 4.1 sound systems with added effects for so long. Even though the sound is clear and without distortion, it lacks the punch. Any lower than 70% , and it gets even worse. These are more comparable to Nexus 6P speakers than JBLs on my previous L502X. I won’t say that these sound bad, but disappointing. Good enough for gaming and day to day use, but not for movies and base heavy music.
Rating: 3.5 ( +0.25 because this is a gaming notebook before multimedia notebook) .
Battery life: To sum it up, pretty good for a gaming notebook.
Light browsing, editing/taking notes, programming: 4+ hours; may touch 5 hours if you leave it idle in between.
Medium browsing with 5-10 tabs open ( one or more playing audio/video) , watching videos: 3+ hours.
Medium to heavy load with mixed usage ( installing programs, extracting RAR files, encoding videos) : 2-2.5 hours.
Gaming: 1-1.5 hours with fairly graphic intensive games.
Keep in mind that smart battery packs never let you completely drain the battery, so your timings may be less. It’s for the longevity of the battery. These were measured and estimated on full capacity when I purchased the laptop.
Rating: 4.25/5
Touch-pad and Keyboard: These are subject to personal opinion, and I am going to give my opinion here. You might feel differently, so try it out in person if possible.
Touch-pad is quite smooth and tracks well, but the clicks are downright horrible. I prefer physical click buttons, and I despise touch-pads on most laptops today. This one just might be the worst in terms of clicks. Still, not so bad that you will have to use a mouse all the time. Might even feel normal to most people, who haven’t used physical buttons.
The keyboard is pretty impressive. It takes some getting used to, but types really well once you master it. The key travel is much better compared to most of the other notebooks, especially thinner ones. Not suited for people who prefer soft typing. It takes some pressure to actually register a key press. A warning: Red keys are a pain in low light conditions, unless you turn on the back light.
Rating: 3.5 and 4.5 respectively.
Hardware: GTX 960m and 6700 HQ are the standard for mid range devices, so I am going to skip this part. Both parts are quite capable and proven for gaming as well as other resource intensive tasks.
The GPU probably won’t last you more than 1-1.5 years, if you want to play every AAA title at 1080p. You will eventually have to settle for lower settings. A 970m won’t make much of a difference in this regard.
Cooling and noise: If you ignore the hard drive, it’s silent as a whisper ( on light loads) . I replaced the hard drive for a few days, and those days were spent in pure bliss. Unfortunately, the SSD was low capacity, so I had to put the hard drive back along with the SSD.
Even on heavier loads, it doesn’t get much loud, because there is just one fan doing the lifting.
Temperatures ( measured in October, might run hotter in summer) :
CPU idle: 24 degrees.
CPU light load: 35-40 degrees.
CPU heavy load/gaming: 75-85 degrees.
GPU heavy load: 75-82 degrees.
Hard drive: 27-30 degrees idle and 37-38 load.
Heat management is impressive. Only the area directly above the fan is noticeably hot. I recommend getting a good cooling pad.
You can find benchmarks on the web, so I am not going to post them here.
Frame rates for some recently released games ( all at 1920* 1080) :
GTA V: 45-50 FPS on high to very high settings.
Shadow of Mordor: 45-55 FPS on very high settings. 60 FPS ( vsync enabled) on nVidia recommended settings.
Rise of The Tomb Raider: 35-40 FPS on medium settings ( pure hair off) .
Witcher 3: 30-35 FPS on medium settings.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst: 40-45 FPS on medium settings.
I didn’t take notes about which features were turned on or off, so these are only approximations. Most games released before 2014 can be run on maxed out settings.
Overall rating:
As a gamer notebook: 4.5/5 ( considering other choices and price) .
As an overall/work notebook: 4/5
I would have given a 4.5 rating, but Amazon doesn’t allow that. I am reluctant to give a perfect 5.
My advice: Add an M.2 SSD as soon as you can, and clone the operating system to that disk. Prices start at about 3800 for 120 GB drives. Your laptop will thank you for this. My boot times went from 30 seconds to 12 seconds on an almost completely filled C drive. Apps are much more responsive.
If you can wait some more, 1050 TI laptops will hit the markets shortly. If you want a VR compatible card with some assurance for the future titles, don’t get a 960m or 970m laptop right now.
Find me on Quora or comment on this answer for any queries.