My first experience from the fruit tree that is the ASUS Republic Of Gamers line of products, the GL552 gaming laptop, left a sour taste in my mouth. In my review, I brought up how it fared well as an everyday use kind-of laptop, but when it came to gaming I experienced—among other problems—several performance issues in games and a weak battery. When this beast was placed down in front of me, on the surface I was giddy (because who doesn’t like playing with different pieces of tech). Inside though, I was hesitant, as my time with the other laptop was still fresh in my mind and I was worried I’d be in for round two of laptop hell. The old idiom of “don’t judge a book by its cover” gets thrown around a lot, but it fits with this review.
As I stated above the G752 is a beast, both in physical appearance and regarding the hardware packed inside. Measuring in at over 17 inches and with an outer body composed of metal and hard plastic, you could practically start your own home gym with this laptop as the first weight. The world’s first backlit anti-ghosting keyboard, as the ASUS store states, and a unique cooling system help add their own style to the G752. On in the inside we are treated to some pretty high-end pieces of hardware. An Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6GHz processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M graphics card sporting 3 GB of VRAM, along with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, a 1 TB hard drive, and a 128 GB SSD round-off the internal components.
If you ever plan on purchasing the G752 through retail, you might want to bring a wagon or dolly to lug it to your vehicle. I live nearly two hours from our offices and, as such, rely on public transit for most of my journey. The laptop wouldn’t fit in my backpack, so I resorted to carrying it around in the box it came in. I had to switch hands more than a few times to let my arms get some rest, as I didn’t want to let this thing out of my grip. I believe this laptop is intended to function primarily as a stationary machine—something in place of a computer tower and monitor setup—and that would explain its heft. When I think of laptops though, I think of something that you take to use wherever you need it, and this machine would stick out in a big way.
After I finally returned home and got a chance to mess around with the laptop, there were a few things that initially caught my eye. The first is the strange looking vents on the back that give off an almost muscle car vibe. Turns out they’re for more than just for looks. According to the store site, the G752 features dedicated cooling modules for both the CPU and the GPU, which funnel the heat out through these back vents. This design also works to direct dust into the “anti-dust tunnel” (as they describe it), keeping it away from the hardware. Whoever the designer was on this ventilation system, have them work on every laptop now please. This was the least hot I’ve ever felt a laptop get. No, I didn’t let this thing rest on my legs while using it, but while I was gaming with it I would periodically check the bottom to see if anything had melted. Much to my surprise, the G752 never reached the incredibly hot temperature we can attribute to most other laptops. I spent three years in college using a Mac laptop. That thing could’ve probably fried an egg some days.
The anti-ghosting keyboard is also interesting to look at with its ergonomic layout and incredibly responsive key commands. Ghosting refers to a problem where some keyboard keys won’t work when multiple keys are pressed at the same time. ASUS states that this keyboard can understand commands as high as 30 keys hit at once, with 2.5mm of key travel. So for you octopi, squids, and multi-armed God gamers out there, I found the right laptop for you.
Being that this is a gaming laptop, what would this review be without some gaming experiences? There is some very impressive tech running within this machine aside from a graphics card that’s well over a year old at this point, so I decided to put it through the ringer. In the GL552 review, I stated I had multiple performance issues, particularly with newer games such as ADR1FT and Star Citizen. This time around, I had a much better experience. The ADR1FT problems were few and far between this time, and it was actually playable even on its highest graphical settings. I didn’t have access to Star Citizen this time, but I had an opportunity to review Total War: WARHAMMER, which was turning out to be pretty demanding game from what I’ve read. Colour me surprised once again when the game put the graphics pre-set to Ultra with barely any problems. The game was absolutely gorgeous and ran like a champ, with each individual army unit looking like a hand-painted miniature and the battlefield lush and alive with colours.
The G752 stands out to me as an incredible gaming laptop, and this is coming from someone who isn’t that fond of products like that. The price point of the laptop may seem high to some people, especially in a market where a better home computer can be built for half the price, but sometimes laptops are the only option. While the tech inside is a bit dated at this point, it’s still an incredible machine that I had an amazing time using and one that restored some of my trust back to the ASUS ROG lineup after my previous, negative experience. The G752 is an all-around great laptop that anyone looking for gaming laptop should definitely put on their list.
