Another Capable Gaming Laptop from the Republic of Gamers!
While people of the PC master race may prefer powerful desktop rigs to experience games the way they should be played, there are others who need something with a little bit of mobility if they find themselves out of the house for most of the day at the expense of some graphical fidelity; after all, you can’t really lug around your rig and the rest of your setup with you all the time. ASUS has been catering to gamers on-the-go with their gaming sub-brand, the Republic of Gamers or better known as ROG. With NVIDIA’s release of a budget oriented GPU in the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti it was only a matter of time before the Taiwanese brand would slap one of these GPUs into one of their notebooks. Today, we’re going to Unbox one these bad boys, the ASUS ROG Strix GL753VE, and give you our initial thoughts on this 17-inch gaming notebook.
ASUS ROG Strix GL753VE Specifications
- Intel Core i7-7700HQ 2.8GHz (3.5GHz Boost)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050Ti (4GB GDDR5)
- 8GB DDR4 2400MHz
- 17.3-inch Full HD IPS Panel, Anti-Glare, 1920×1080 resolution
- 128GB M.2 SSD, 1TB 5400 RPM 2.5-inch SATA HDD
- DL DVD±RW/CD-RW Optical Drive
- 1x Ethernet port, 1x HDMI port, 1x Mini Display port, 1x combo mircrophone/headphone jack, 3x USB 3.0 port, 1x USB 2.0 port, 1x USB Type-C
- 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1 (Dual band) 2*2
- 48WHrs, 4S1P, 4-cell Li-ion Battery Pack
What’s in the Box?
The ASUS ROG Strix GL753VD comes in a rather huge box, it is a 17.3-inch notebook after all, strewn with the Republic of Gamers Strix brand; no boastful display of specs on the box itself, but there is a tiny sticker for that if you want to know exactly what you’re getting. Once you’ve popped it open, you’ll be greeted by the GL753VD itself and a few cardboard partitions that hold the power brick, the power cable, a bit of documentation, and a separate box for the free ROG Sica mouse that comes with the unit.
Initial Impressions: Decent 1080p Gaming on Paper
ASUS has refreshed its ROG notebooks for a completely new look compared to last year iterations. Much like its higher spec’d sibling, the ASUS ROG Strix GL502VS, the lid is still made of a sturdy aluminum with a brushed finished, but they’ve done away with the red, silver, and black color scheme in favor of a simpler orange and black that still offers that flare to let everyone know that you have joined the republic. The bottom portion is made of plastic, but is of sturdy construction; no flex or play even now, when we are typing this article out on the gaming notebook itself.
There’s also hardly any flex with the 17.3-inch display, which sports an anti-glare matte finish. This is definitely a good thing, because the hinges require a tiny bit more force to get the notebook open. Now that we’ve touched on its build quality, let’s take a tour around the GL753VE to see its connectivity options.
On the left side of the device is the port for plugging in the GL753VD for power. You’ve also got the Ethernet port, HDMI port, mini display port, two USB 3.0 ports, a USB Type-C port, and a combo 3.5mm jack for a mic and headphones. The exhaust port is also on this side of the laptop, so we highly advise that you do not do as we did in the photo above and leave your smartphone or any other gadget there.
The right side houses the optical drive, plus one USB 3.0 port and a USB 2.0 port. There’s also the kensington security slot for those times that you find yourself alone at Starbucks and you need to use the restroom.
Up in front, you have the activity lights with a spring-loaded SD card reader below it, and that’s flanked by two speakers.
For typing and controlling your avatar though your game of choice, ASUS has kitted out the GL753VE with a full-sized RGB backlit keyboard — because nothing says: “I’m a gamer” more than an RGB backlit keyboard, right? There’s a bit of an adjustment from the keyboard on the usual laptop we’ve been using, but that’s too be expected in any laptop switch. Other than that, the travel between keys is good and there’s a bit of a satisfying springiness to them as well.
The trackpad has a matte finish, which is a bit of a fingerprint magnet, but it is responsive from top to bottom. You won’t be using this for gaming, however, which is why we’re glad that ASUS has thrown in their Sica mouse a freebie with the ROG Strix GL753VE.
The innards of the ASUS ROG Strix GL753VE include the latest Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor, which is paired of with 8GB of RAM, 128GB of M.2 SSD storage, an extra 1TB HDD, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050Ti. If you’re going to be doing a lot of video editing on this laptop, you can upgrade the RAM by up to 32GB and increase the storage as well. We’re not sure if ASUS Philippines will be able to customize the configuration for you, but we have reached out to them and will update this article once they’ve gotten back to us.
We’ve been going through a bit of rig envy recently and have been watching countless builds with the new crop of NVIDIA’s GPU’s and, despite the 1050 and 1050Ti being more on the budget side of things, we’ve been seeing good benchmark results with both of them. Given the GL753VE’s current configuration, it should be able to handle 1080p gaming at high settings with no trouble. We’re currently downloading a handful of games to really stretch out the gaming notebook’s legs and see how it does for ourselves.
The ASUS ROG Strix GL753VE is priced at Php 82,995. Stay tuned for its full review where we’ll be sure to include benchmark tests using 3D Mark and frame rates from the latest titles we have in our gaming library.