ASUS ROG G501JW Pro Reviews

Asus has assembled a fast and lightweight gaming laptop using the Retina MacBook Pro template, with good results. The 4K-UHD screen is perhaps more about pose than performance but at full-HD resolution this machine takes Windows games in its stride at high detail.

Overall, Asus has put together a well-built gaming laptop, but the ROG G501 makes so many careless mistakes that I can't recommend it. For affordability's sake, you would be much better served with a Gigabyte P35K v3 as it provides far better performance, thanks to sticking with a Full HD display. Almost all of the ROG G501's problems don't come from within (save for the easily smudging frame), but rather as a direct result of trying to drive a 3,840 x 2,160 display. Ultra HD resolution displays have yet to become practical on everything from Ultrabooks to desktop monitors. So, it comes as no surprise to see an excessively high-resolution display drag down this gaming laptop.

Overall, the Republic of Gamers G501JW-DS71 would be easier to recommend if it were advertised as a high-end multimedia laptop, akin to the Dell XPS 15 $2,549.99 at Dell, rather than as a gaming laptop. Its GeForce GTX 960M graphics card doesn't have the horsepower of competing notebooks in its price range, or even the substantially more affordable MSI GE62 Apache. Hardcore gamers looking to run everything on maximum settings will want a laptop with a more potent GPU. That said, raw power isn't the G501's goal—only so much can fit into a 4.5-pound chassis. It's certainly capable of playing the latest games at 1,920x1,080 resolution and does so while remaining quiet, a feat less commonly achieved in ultra-thin gaming notebooks. So if you're interested in doing some image or video editing at 4K and then switching to 1080p for a gaming session, Asus might have your number.