Asus recently updated its ROG (Republic Of Gamers) gaming Series in India. Among these new launches also featured Asus Rog G501VW. Is it worthy enough to shell out almost 1 lakh rupees on this laptop? The question that must have crossed the mind of every person who is looking to buy a gaming laptop or a powerful work machine. Is it the best gaming laptop one can buy under 1,00,000 INR? Let’s find out in our full review.
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Asus ROG G501VW Specifications And Features:
| Model | Asus ROG G501VW |
| Display | 15.6-Inch IPS 4K UHD Display |
| Processor | 2.6 Ghz Quad Core Intel Core i7 6700HQ Processor |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GTX 960M with 4GB GDDR5 VRAM |
| Internal Storage | 512 PCIEx4 SSD |
| RAM | 16GB DDR4 RAM (2133 MHz) |
| Primary Camera | HD Web Camera |
| Battery | 96 hours (non-removable) |
| Others | Microphone-in/Headphone-out jack,1-USB 3.1 TYPE C port, 3 – USB 3.0 ports, 1-HDMI port, 1-Thunderbolt port |
| Price | 95,190 INR |
Pros:
- Metalic built
- Portable
- Sharp display
- Excellent performance
Cons:
- Limited storage
- Poor audio quality
Sturdy Build and Effective Design
Asus made a genuine effort to ensure that the laptop justifies its price tag with every aspect including the design and build quality. The ROG G501VW gets an all metal anodized brushed aluminum body. The hinges are made of plastic and feel like a mismatch. On the outside, G501VW has a vertical brushed metal finish with simple black matte-ish paint job and a Republic of Gamers logo sitting at the center just below the Asus branding.
The sides of the laptop are studded with most of the common ports that a gamer would need. On the left side, there is a 3.1 USB Type-C port, an HDMI port, a USB 3.0 port lined together. The Power jack is also housed on the left. Two more USB 3.0 ports, a microSD card slot, and a 3.5 audio jack can be seen on the right side. There is no LAN port, but Asus does provide a USB to LAN connector in the box.
Asus has cleverly placed vents between display hinges which tactfully makes them inconspicuous. To keep a check on temperature, Asus has implemented its Hyper Cool Technology to keep the temperature of this monstrous machine at bay. Speakers on this ROG series laptop are placed at the bottom which certainly isn’t the best place for speakers. Another peeve point is that the battery isn’t user replaceable.
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Spectacular Display
The ROG G501VW comes with a 15.6-inch display with 4K resolution. Asus has sourced an IPS panel for this laptop which ensures everything on the display looks crisp and clear. What lets this stunning display down is Windows stiff attitude towards DPI scaling. Icon names and other text in the software is tiny and can thus strain your eyes. Asus does get a big thumbs up for the good brightness levels and color reproduction capability of the display.
It also comes pre-loaded with ROG gaming center apps, which let users adjust display’s settings as per their own preference. On the down side, black color on the display appears slightly faded which might affect creative professionals who spend lots of time using Adobe Creative Suite applications.
Overall, for us, the display was one of the strongest suites of this machine as consuming text and media both on this display was a treat.
Trackpad and Keyboard
The keyboard and Trackpad on this ROG machine are truly of premium quality. The Chiclet keyboard is smooth and the well-spaced keys are neither too rigid nor too soft. The red backlight certainly matches the ROG theme. The intensity of backlight can be adjusted between low, medium and high. A bit brighter backlight would have made it much more appealing to our eyes.
The tack pad, on the other hand, is large and maneuvering the cursor is a cakewalk. It has good gesture controls be it scroll or swipe. Overall, the gaming and typing experience on this keyboard have been good and track pad too hasn’t disappointed us.
Best Suited For Full HD Not 4K
Asus is banking on NVIDIA GTX960M for all the heavy lifting. The graphics card is certainly good enough to meet the needs of casual gamers. While playing less graphic intensive games it manages to move beyond 100 fame per second mark, but as we moved towards graphics intensive games frame rate started to drop gradually.
While testing heavy weight games like Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Rise Of The Tomb Raider, frames rate further slipped below 50fps (we were playing at 1080p resolution). Certainly, NVIDIA GTX960M is a mismatch with the 4K QHD display. It doesn’t have enough muscle to push all those pixels while rendering games at high frames rate.
Apart from gaming, it delivers top-notch performance for most day to day tasks – be it playing back to back 4K videos or navigating between 2 dozen open chrome tabs. Thanks to 16Gigs of RAM and Intex Core i7 6700HQ CPU, it is very efficient at editing video footage and later compiling them.
The 512GB NVME SSD which is an M.2 PCIe x4-based drive delivers blazing fast data read and write speed. However, 512GB storage space gets filled very easily, especially if you are into gaming. So we would suggest that you invest in an external hard drive.
Battery: Better than Competition
The Asus Rog G501VW battery backup turned out to be better than what we initially expected. Despite having a powerful CPU and GPU, the ROG G501VW lasted for good 5 hours and 10 minutes in our standard test. This is far better than what we have witnessed with other gaming laptops that generally last for a couple of hours. If you are a light user, you can easily stretch its battery life beyond 5 hours and 30 minutes.
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Bottomline
The Asus ROG 501VW ticks most of the right boxes from an average user’s point of view. It has a super sharp display, storage with excellent read & write speed, good battery backup, a sleek design and a lightweight body (which is still rare in gaming breed). Considering all these factors, if you are looking for a laptop which can handle most demanding everyday tasks apart from a bit of gaming, you can certainly consider ROG 501VW as one of the best portable gaming laptop currently available in India.
